Heissatopia

Diabolical Diabetes

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 17 May 2012 04:06:00 +0000

This morning I woke up and headed straight to the doctor for the three-hour glucose tolerance challenge because I failed the one-hour glucose test...by one point. I figured that I would pass the three-hour test with flying colours since I had failed the one-hour test by one point. Before I went I jotted down the acceptable numbers so that I would know before being told whether I passed the test or not. I can be impatient like that sometimes.

I got in and they pricked my finger to get my fasting levels. Anything less than 95 mg/dl is acceptable. Mine was 72 mg/dl. I thought that was pretty good. And then they gave me the glucose drink, which I guzzled down. I thought that was pretty gross. 100 grams of dextrose? That's like how much sugar is in a liter of Coke. Who drinks that much sugar...ever? Not me.

An hour later they pricked my finger again. Anything less than 180 mg/dl is acceptable. Mine was 225 mg/dl. No good. But you only really fail if two of your numbers are high so I still had time to catch up.

Another hour passed and they pricked my finger again. Anything less than 155 mg/dl is acceptable. Mine was 185 mg/dl. I started to feel a little sad.

I never found out what my last reading was because a different nurse took it and instead of chatting to me and leaving the machine sitting in front of me she walked off into the hallway with the machine. I'm going to assume that it wasn't anything near the acceptable level of 140 mg/dl.

My doctor came in a few minutes later to tell me that I failed the test epically and it appears I have gestational diabetes, as I already knew he would tell me.

He thinks we can control it with diet and exercise. He recommended cutting carbs without cutting calories. And then he recommended going for a walk everyday. I just nodded obediently while I choked back tears, too emotional to explain to him that I already exercise and watch what I eat and I'm not exactly sure what to change or how.

And then the nurse came in to show me how to use a glucose monitor that she didn't know how to use and she poked me a billion times and I was feeling so emotional that I almost screamed at her to "just hand me the flippin' manual already!"

Instead I said, "I think you're putting the stick in backwards."

She was. There is a picture on the box...just saying.

Eventually she was satisfied that I knew how to use it and I left the office feeling like a miserable human pin cushion. Karen and the girls picked me up and took me home.

What did I do next?

Oh, right—I bawled my eyes out while wondering what in the world to eat while munching on almonds because I had been fasting, aside from the glucose drink, for 13 hours at this point and was ready to eat anything and everything.

When I stopped crying long enough to manage to make lunch, I did. And then I read the manual for the glucose monitor and it only took me two minutes to figure out how, though I wasn't exactly happy when I read that they included a little bottle of glucose solution with the kit so that you could practice using the monitor without stabbing yourself.

Instruction manuals are your friend.

Someone should tell that nurse that because she didn't even get the manual out of the box. She just fumbled through it. And stabbed me a million times until we figured out how to get the blasted thing to work.

I practiced using the glucose solution because I wasn't about to stab (or "lance" as the manual would say) myself one more time today. It was a painless way to practice.

I only have to measure my glucose levels twice a day for a week—once after "fasting" (ie. when I wake up in the morning) and again two hours after eating a meal (any meal of the day)—so I figure I can start tomorrow since they already have my glucose levels for today, don't they? My fingertips tell you that they do.

After the week is up I get to meet with my doctor again and discuss the results. Hopefully without crying.

Reading about diabetes is so depressing. According to Wikipedia, 40–60% of all gestational diabetes cases occur in women with no obvious risk factors (smoking, being overweight, and so forth). And because I have gestational diabetes I am at more of a risk for developing Type II diabetes (though the risk seems to be highest (at 50% of patients developing Type II diabetes within 5 years after having gestational diabetes) if insulin is required to treat the diabetes and at this point we're hoping it's not and it probably won't be because the last time I drank a liter of pop in one sitting was...never...so I don't usually deal with that amount of sugar).

The only risk factor I am guilty of is having a family history of diabetes. Stupid genetics.

(Don't tell my kids I said stupid, okay?)

My grandpa—tall, thin, active lifestyle—had diabetes. His only living sister currently has diabetes, too. Their mother had diabetes. All of them: tall, thin, physically active people.

My mom had gestational diabetes with my younger brother (and sister) and one of my early memories of her is watching her sit at the kitchen table with her big glucose monitor and watching her prick her finger and draw the blood out.

Now I get my own "lancing device" so that I can prick my fingers while my girls watch (so that twenty years or so down the road they can prick their own fingers and think, "Ah, I remember when my mother did this.").

When Andrew came home from work he took me to get more pokey-things and test strips from the pharmacy. While we were out we stopped to do some retail therapy, as Andrew calls it. I'm not usually one to seek out retail therapy but as Andrew put it, "If you can't find anything to eat you should at least be able to find something to wear."

So now I have a couple of pairs of shorts that fit nicely.

We also picked up some special food just for me, like whole grain pasta, because cutting out all carbs will be just about impossible and whole grains are better than not, from what I've read. They're more filling, too, so you have to eat less to be full longer. While I consider my diet fairly healthy (I've made dessert three times since falling pregnant since sweets just aren't my thing) whole grain pasta isn't something we normally buy.

After dinner and talking with my mom I think I'm finished crying about my lot in life. It's kind of something that I expected to happen eventually and I know that I really don't have it all that badly at all. I have a pregnant cousin right now, for example, who has to go into the doctor every day and gets two ultrasounds a week because her complications are a lot more complicated than the run-of-the-mill gestational diabetes that I have to suffer through.

Church and an Actual Day of Rest (April 29)

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sun, 13 May 2012 04:54:00 +0000

Since we arrived in Ghana we’ve had crazy fully scheduled days full of appointments, touristy things, and hours of driving in a bus. Today was a nice counterpoint to the busyness of this trip—we finally got an actual day of rest… on a Sunday even. Bonus!

Last year when we went to church in Accra the wards that met in the stake center combined to watch back-to-back sessions of General Conference. It was miserable and hot and long and I ended up sleeping through most of it. So spiritually fulfilling :)

Fortunately this year the Cantonments Ward actually had real church, which was quite enjoyable. The ward is overwhelmingly Ghanaian, with only a few white families—a few missionary couples, the temple president and his wife, two families that work with the Church’s IT department, and a Dutch banker. Two newly baptized members were confirmed during sacrament meeting, two of many hundreds that are baptized in Accra each year. The Church’s growth in West Africa is astounding.

After church we came back to the Alma House and had nothing scheduled for the rest of the day. I considered taking a nap or doing something productive, but I ended up passively watching a few English Premier League soccer games while voraciously reading the second book in the Hunger Games series, which I’ve totally fallen in love with. I also did some laundry, taking advantage of the Alma House’s fancy washer and dryer. We ended this totally relaxing, awesome sabbath with a fantastic group fireside by Aaron.

Wow. Boring blog post here. Woot. :)

More pool time

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sun, 13 May 2012 03:12:00 +0000

Like I said, the girls got double pool time today. Rachel was a little grumpier for this round—the water was never the right temperature and the pool wasn't big enough and so forth—but she eventually calmed down and had fun.

My girls also had a bath before bedtime. Talk about water-logged!

Fun and Games

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sun, 13 May 2012 01:37:00 +0000

On Thursday when Andrew came home it was much too windy to do much of anything outside and we spent most of yesterday running errands (and sending Rachel to school since she skipped school on Thursday to come to the airport) so today was our first day playing outside together.

Reid and Karen's BYU ward had a date ~~night~~ afternoon at Kiwanis park and we crashed it with the girls. The main activity was kickball, using baby pools as bases. While "the big kids" were eating lunch our girls had a heyday in the pools (even though the water was freezing cold, right out of the tap, and it wasn't altogether warm outside yet, either). Karen had said that we wouldn't be swimming so I didn't bring swimsuits for the girls. I also didn't bring extra clothes for them. Because I'm so smart.

Fortunately, my girls believe in dressing in layers and Rachel had a jumper on over top of her pants and shirt so we took off the jumper and let her soak her pants and shirt. Miriam was wearing an undershirt, a t-shirt, and a skirt (but I had extra underwear and a pair of pants for her in the diaper bag (because I'm so smart (and I'm not even being sarcastic this time))) so we stripped off her t-shirt and let her run around in her skirt and undershirt.

At first they were being relatively careful—stepping in and gently splashing—but they ended up getting drenched.

Rachel is much more hydrophilic than Miriam is.

Miriam tried to be brave...

And Rachel did her best to ~~terrorize~~ help Miriam get used to the pool...

By the end, Rachel was wet all over—after somersaulting into the pool and "diving" into the pool and jumping into the pool and laying down in the pool and...

Miriam was able to let her hair down a bit, though I do believe the top half of her stayed mostly dry.

When we were all finished playing, we sat shivering on towels, eating pizza. Then we got dressed in dry things and even though it was just starting to get warm enough that I wouldn't have minded wading in the pool, the girls opted to wear sweaters. They were covered in goosebumps!

We explored some of the playgrounds for a while before heading home.

The girls had lots of fun playing with their daddy.

And with each other a bit, too.

Daddy showed them how to hop-scotch.

There was this cool rope "spiderweb" that we had fun climbing on.

I was there, too. Mostly I took pictures of everybody else. But I did a little bit of playing as well. Rachel now thinks I'm the world's best climber. If only she had met me when I was six—I could climb anything then. Now that I'm thirty weeks pregnant my climbing has slowed down a bit.

Hopefully these kiddos sleep well tonight because guess what we did when we got home...put the pool back up and let the girls swim in the sunshine some more. With that much sun and water they should be exhausted!

Planetarium

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 12 May 2012 23:00:00 +0000

Last night we went to BYU's planetarium. Andrew first suggested that he take Rachel there on a daddy-daughter date but over lunch we decided to make it a family outing. For starters, Andrew just got home and Miriam and I were feeling a little left out—if he had been home a couple of days longer we might have been able to suck it up. More importantly, Andrew's parents hosted the ward empty-nester party last night and their nest isn't really empty if we're here, is it? We figured it was best to vacate for a while.

Rachel asked if we'd be going to a movie. Andrew told her that it was...but that it wasn't. It was something at BYU. Something exciting.

"Oh, is it a space show?" Rachel asked casually. "Because mom told me that there's a space show every Friday at BYU. And today is Friday, May 11th!"

"Wow. We looked that up like last week or the week before," I said. "She's not two-years-old anymore. There's no pulling the wool over her eyes!"

"Yeah! There's no pulling the woods over my head!" she laughed.

We were all laughing so hard over both comments (the date and the "woods over her head") that I excused myself from the table so that I could go jot it down.

"She's just going to the computer to write that down," Rachel told Andrew.

That made him laugh even harder. There really is no pulling the woods over her head, is there? Her little antics got 30 "likes" on facebook so apparently it was rather funny.

We decided to tack the planetarium onto the end of an afternoon of running errands. Andrew mentioned, while the kids were down the hall in the bedroom and the grown ups were in the kitchen, that maybe we'd stop at McDonald's for dinner or something (because that's our idea of being fancy). Rachel came streaking down the hallway.

"We're...we're...we're going to eat at McDonald's?!" she panted.

"We haven't decided. We'll see," we told her.

And then we had to deal with questions of whether we'd be going to McDonald's or not for the entire afternoon. We hit the bank, deposited a check, voted for the board of directors, collected our swag. Then we went to the library where we checked out so many books we could hardly carry them, including several on astronomy and North Carolina. We went to Target to buy a new pair of Sunday pants for Andrew since the last time he needed Sunday pants (two years ago) we got him a cheap-o pair of black pants that are now fraying at the heels, have a hole in one knee, and are faded beyond belief. They weren't even really dress slacks but we pretended that they were because the price tag for an actual pair of dress pants seemed too daunting at the time. This time we got an actual pair of dress pants...but didn't get a belt because we couldn't find his size for the price tag we wanted and his isn't too thrashed yet. We also had to buy new shovels and buckets for the girls because our last shovel broke at the park the day before Andrew got home and the girls have been stressing out about it ever since. Good thing you can get a shovel and bucket for a dollar...

All this time we avoided answering the question of McDonald's.

Miriam finally put her hands on her hips and said,

"So are we going to Old McDonald's or what?"

Andrew and I called a parental huddle and ended up deciding, for a variety of reasons, that we could go out for dinner. But we went to Wendy's instead of McDonald's. This decision—upon being reassured that Wendy's kid-meals also came with toys—delighted the girls.

We ordered our food and then I took the girls to the restroom.

"I ordered apple slices instead of French fries," Rachel proudly announced while she was washing her hands, "Because they are healthier. That means they're better for you."

When our food came, though, she said, "Can I have some of your fries?"

Apple slices might be better for you but I suppose there's no denying that the occasional French fry is delicious. We don't have French fries often enough to consider them a health issue, in my opinion. Though I suppose some people do...and can grown-ups substitute apple slices for French fries in their meals? If not, why not?

Anyway, dinner was good enough, I suppose. But the girls were certainly anxious to get to the planetarium. They were asking questions about it all the way to BYU.

"What's it about?" Rachel asked.

"The sky..." I said. "I think they're actually doing a lecture on the sun. I think I remember reading that..."

For some reason it was strange walking across campus today. The trees by the JFSB just looked so big compared to how I remember them looking when the JFSB first opened—my senior year—and I began attending classes inside of it. I mentioned this to Andrew. He said he hadn't noticed...but he has been walking across campus everyday for the past two years and I have not. Still, it wasn't like this was my first time walking across campus since we first "left" BYU four years ago.

What was stranger was going to the planetarium. I took an astronomy class at BYU and had lectures at the planetarium occasionally. Andrew said the last time he had studied anything about space had been in Physical Science 100 his freshman year, which was ten years ago.

"The last time I studied anything about space was when I took astronomy. And I took astronomy before graduating from high school...so that was ten years ago, too!"

Yikes.

It doesn't feel like it was ten years ago though.

We got into the Eyring Science Center and the girls went berserk, running amok to play with all the science experiments that are set up in the lobby. We pulled them up to the fourth floor so that we could buy tickets to see the show and then released them back into the lobby to play with experiments until it was time to start. On the way back to the lobby, though, we ran into a girl readying a big floor polisher.

It wasn't even turned on yet but Miriam melted into a pathetic mess on the floor, sobbing something about saving her from the big and terrible vacuum machine.

She hates vacuums. And lawn mowers. And anything that makes noise, really.

She gets that from me.

(Today, she was singing, "Planetarium, planetarium, planetarium!" and Andrew asked her what we saw at the planetarium. "A scary vacuum machine," she answered. Apparently the show had little impact on her memory. But that "vacuum machine" did.)

Rachel was fascinated by the whole show. Miriam, obviously, wasn't.

Andrew and I were fascinated as well. We learned a lot.

When the show started the lady giving the presentation said that this was their first run through their sun presentation so it might be a little choppy but they wanted to be sure and get at least one showing in before the eclipse next Sunday.

Andrew and I shot each other a look. Eclipse? Next Sunday? How did we not know about this?

She talked about how we'd need special glasses to watch the eclipse since it will be a annular solar eclipse so the photosphere will still be visible (with the shadow in the middle of the sun instead of covering the whole sun). But we'll be able to see it from here.

Yes, we've purchased some eclipse glasses, already. Rachel was squirming with excitement about this announcement and talked about it the whole way home.

And in 2017 there's going to be a total solar eclipse. Rexburg will be a good place to watch that. Unfortunately we won't be living anywhere near Rexburg when it happens. Bummer.

Anyway, the show was good. Rachel and Andrew will definitely be heading back there for a daddy-daughter date in the future. Miriam probably will be staying at home with me when that happens—she wasn't terrible but I'm just glad that when we were buying tickets and Andrew said we'd need four that the girl selling tickets said, "Oh, you only need to buy tickets for the number of seats you'll be using so if you hold her [pointing to Miriam] then you won't need to buy her a ticket. And if she happens to sit on a seat for a few minutes during the show I promise we won't hunt you down and make you pay."

She didn't watch enough of the show to warrant actually paying for a ticket, anyway. She danced in the aisle and bounced on my lap and jabbered but she didn't watch a whole lot. Her favourite parts (and Rachel's too) were when they moved the sky so that it felt like we were moving.

We're excited for next weekend!

Today Rachel asked if the woman giving the presentation was a scientist. We told her that she was. Then Rachel asked if she knew very much about dinosaurs. We told her that when you become a real scientist that you usually choose a specialty and that this woman chose astronomy, so she knows a ton about stars. A little about dinosaurs. But a ton about stars.

Then Miriam piped up and said, "Know what? Rachie is a scientist. To ants."

"I don't know, Meme. I only like black ants. I don't like red ants."

"Then you can just step on the red ants but you can be a scientist to the black ones," Miriam concluded.

Rachel's debating between astronaut, dolphin trainer/marine biologist, paleontologist and several other scientific careers right now. I told her there's no rush to find a specialty...she's only four.

Perfect timing

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:25:00 +0000

Before Andrew left Ghana he sent me a quick email saying that there was a chance he'd be able to skip the JFK leg of his flight and fly straight from Atlanta to SLC, which meant he would land at 10:30 AM instead of 2:00 PM (which sounded like a good deal to me). He said he'd either call or email once he knew, which likely wouldn't be until he landed in Atlanta...at 6:00 the following morning.

I didn't realize until a while later that 6 AM in Georgia is only 4 AM in Utah. And then I wasn't too keen about his idea of calling home.

But at 4:30 AM, when Andrew was still stuck in customs, Miriam woke up feeling sad—so sad that she was crying uncontrollably. She must have had one of those weird dreams that just makes you feel...sad...but she couldn't remember what she had dreamt about so we just cuddled in bed for a while. Since I was up, I sent Andrew a text saying that he could call without worrying about waking me up. He never called (though he did call his dad who was not expecting a call that early and was a little disoriented).

About an hour later I turned on my computer to check on his flights. His plane had landed and his next flight was boarding. So I assumed he was on it and sent him a text message saying that I'd see him at 2:00.

He was still stuck in customs, however, and ended up missing that flight, which meant that he was able to get onto the Atlanta–SLC flight. He and his travelling companions had tried to change to this flight when they first checked in at the airport but the airline said it would be a $200+ charge per passenger to change tickets. However, when they landed, Andrew's professor's iPhone alerted them that they wouldn't have time to make their connection to JFK (apparently there's an app for that) and asked if they'd like the SLC flight instead. With one click of a button they were rebooked onto the SLC flight...for free...because they'd missed the JFK flight.

About ten minutes after I'd gotten back into bed, Andrew texted to tell me he'd be landing at 10:28 AM.

I texted back and said, "Sweet!"

He didn't get my earlier texts because his phone was turned off so he was pretty shocked that I was awake.

Anyway, Andrew got on his plane. I went back to sleep and then woke up to get ready earlier than I'd expected to. I showered, got dressed, woke up the girls, got them moving, turned on my computer, checked on Andrew's flight and...saw that it was coming in at 9:42 AM instead of 10:28!

9:00 was already fast approaching but we weren't even planning on leaving the house until 9:30 so we were no where close to ready. I asked Rachel to get dressed as fast as she could and run downstairs to tell Grandma that Daddy's plane was landing at 9:42!

For once in her life she listened and instead of moving like a snail she got dressed as quick as a cheetah. She tore off her pyjamas, threw on a play dress, and ran downstairs.

"Grandma! Mom says Dad's coming at 9:42!"

I quickly dressed Miriam and then grabbed some crackers and apples to eat for "breakfast" in the car. Grandma finished getting ready quick as a flash. We bustled out to the van and took off.

Our freeway entrance is under construction so we had to take a detour to get onto the freeway. We didn't even get on the freeway until 9:24. Grandma said that when she checked online it said his plane was coming in at around 9:50, which gave us a few extra minutes to get there, but still—there was no way we were going to make it to the airport in a half hour!

The girls spent their time snacking on breakfast and spotting airplanes out the window, wondering if their daddy was on each one. When we were about 10 minutes away from the airport, Rachel said, "Are we there yet? Because I have been eating for a long time!"

I told her that we were almost there—and to look how big the airplanes were...because we were getting closer to the airport so the airplanes were dropping really low in order to land. We saw one come in and it was close enough that we could see the decals on it—it was a Delta flight and we wondered again if that would be our Daddy's plane.

It landed somewhat alongside of us and just as we were pulling into the parking garage I got a text from Andrew.

"Just landed!" it said.

"No way!" I texted back. "We can see your plane out of our window right now. We watched you land. We're parking now."

It was kind of crazy—perfect timing!

We parked and ran in and found him waiting by the luggage carousel—we knew exactly what he'd be wearing because one of his friends posted a "goodbye" picture of everyone in front of the Alma House before they got on the bus to drive to the airport. He was easy to spot.

The girls and I held up our signs and they ran into his arms, giggling all the way. I...waddled over. This baby is sitting so low he's been causing me a little bit of grief lately. Walking hasn't exactly been my thing the past couple of days. I took the girls to the park on Wednesday and while we were walking my back started aching and my legs went numb and I thought I was going to either start crying or fall over and was seriously debating calling off our outing and going home. But then the baby moved and I immediately felt better. I told him not to sit there ever again because if he settles in that position I don't know what I'll do. Good thing Daddy's home!

We've had fun with Daddy so far.

On the ride home when he was still kind of awake he consented to a popcorn party with Star Wars II that evening, which he came to regret when he crashed yesterday afternoon. We forced him awake and still had the popcorn/Star Wars party though because the girls have been talking about this party for three weeks now and they weren't about to wait another day.

After a good night's sleep he's feeling much better today. He went and got hired for one of his BYU jobs today and later we'll be running some errands and making our summer plans (mostly boring stuff like baby birthing and moving—things we've been somewhat ignoring while we waited for school to finish and for this Ghana trip to be over).

Mirror, Mirror

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 09 May 2012 05:28:00 +0000

We're on the final countdown over here! We had our last Skype conversation with Andrew this afternoon. We put the garbage at the curb for the final time (because when Andrew comes home that's going to be his job again). And I just put the kids to bed for the second to last time, which means that I only have to do it one more time before Andrew will be here to help!

I'm just a tad bit excited for him to come home—two more sleeps, two more sleeps, two more sleeps!

Yesterday was awful (with biting and scratching and fighting) but today was pretty good. My parents invited us out to see a movie so I had that to hold over my children's heads all day: be good, come to the movie or don't be good and don't come to the movie—it's your choice. They were good and any time they were on the verge of behaving poorly it only took one warning before they fixed their behavior.

For example, when I asked Rachel to put away the clean dishes she whined, "Why can't I do it after the movie?"

"Because you either do it before the movie or you don't go to the movie. That's why."

And the next thing I knew she was putting away the dishes with a smile on her face.

Perhaps I should use bribery more often.

Auntie Josie is in a film class and needed to go to the theater to watch a movie as part of an assignment—she couldn't watch the movie at home because she has to talk about the ambiance of the theater itself in the paper she has to write. We went to see Mirror, Mirror, which was really enjoyable. Rachel and Miriam were both really into it—laughing and dancing (because we had room to dance because there were only three families in the theater). Miriam actually put her booster seat on the floor and sat with her head poking between the armrests in front of us for half the movie...which was kind of strange, but she seemed to like her seat.

Rachel's favourite part was when one of the dwarves threw tomatoes at the black magic puppets, and having the tomatoes stick to make eyes on the head of one of the puppets.

Miriam's favourite part was the song at the end—"I believe in love." It had a really Bollywood feel to it, perhaps because the director, Tarsem Singh, was born and raised in India...? We're Bollywood fans, though (my mom, sister and I) so we loved it. As did Miriam. Lily Collin's did her own singing for the song, too (according to numerous sources, including Wikipedia and this interesting article in The Huffington Post about chasing down those who would be due royalties for using the song). My mom was, of course, wondering about this since her whole dissertation deals with dubbing artists in both Bollywood and Hollywood.

The song was lovely, though the choreography and Snow White's dress (which is also her wedding dress!?) left much to be desired. All through the movie the costumes are fantastic and then we get to the end—Snow White's wedding day, for crying out loud—and Snow White's dress is awful.

Overall, it was a good movie, though.

After the movie we had pizza at my parents' house and then they took the girls to the park while I went visiting teaching. It was nice and relaxing...for me. And bedtime wasn't all that bad, either.

MTC and Playground-filled River Islands (April 28)

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:02:00 +0000

As I’ve probably mentioned several times already, BYU’s MPA program has really close connections to Empower Playgrounds (EPI), the organization that gives rural village schools special merry-go-rounds that generate electricity to charge electric lamps that kids can use to do their homework at night. Like, really close connections. Their executive director, Chris Owen, is a 1st year MPA student and is one of the students on our Ghana trip.

This morning we left Ho early to visit a couple of EPI’s installations in the Volta river. Half of our group came to Ghana a few days early to live on a tiny, poor island with one of the first merry-go-rounds, and EPI has since installed another more modern one on a neighboring island.

The last member of our group, Dr. Facer, was supposed to land at 11:30 this morning, so we planned to meet up with him before going out to the islands. We made it back to the Greater Accra area fairly early, so we went and visited the Ghana Missionary Training Center (MTC). We met with the MTC president’s wife, Sister Graham, who showed us around the building and explained how the Church uses the building (which hasn’t changed since last year). LDS missionaries who are sent to West or Central African missions and who don’t need language training in English or French are sent to the Ghana MTC for 2.5 weeks where they learn how to teach the gospel and, um, be missionaries. They then go out to one of the dozens of LDS missions in Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, or DR Congo. We didn’t get to see any missionaries this year—they stayed in their classrooms—but it was still a fascinating visit.

We left the MTC and headed out to Big Ada, the mainland city/village closest to the Volta islands, hoping to meet up with Dr. Facer on the way. However, his plane was 45 minutes late, so after waiting on the bank of the river (in the hot sun) for our fancy chartered oversized canoe, we went without him to the first island.

As our boat was pushing off, a little 12-year-old kid jumped on, assuming the boat was going to take him home, since the boat we were using was owned by the main school on his island. Worst decision ever. We ended up spending almost 4 hours trawling the river and visiting islands, so he sat (and fell asleep) on the boat, probably bemoaning his great idea to hitch a ride. Silly kid.

The first island we visited was a lot smaller than Pediatorkope, the main island (and first of the Volta-area EPI installations). Because it was Saturday and some sort of extended school holiday, the school was completely empty, which meant we could play on the merry-go-round and make power. Woot.

Chris just needed to check something with the equipment, so we only spent 10 minutes at the school before we went back to the boat. We floated back to our initial launch point to pick up Dr. Facer, who had finally arrived, before heading upstream to Pediatorkope.

As terrifying as the idea of staying on the poverty-ridden island is for me, I enjoyed spending a few hours there. Our visit was a lot simpler than last year’s, where we got to go to an engagement party and visit the local medical clinic. This year we only visited one village family (the same people I visited last year) and had some fresh coconuts (they climbed up the trees and cut them down for us… so, yeah… fresh).

We also played on the playground equipment (after shooing a goat away; he was having fun, but not making enough electricity).

We finally left the island a few hours before sunset, which made for a beautiful and relaxing float back to the mainland. It was dark by the time we got back to the Alma House in Accra, our wonderful home-away-from-home in Ghana. I’m glad we get to spend a few days here before heading back out to visit Kumasi and Cape Coast. This place rocks.

Welcome, welcome Sabbath morning...now please go far, far away.

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 07 May 2012 04:52:00 +0000

On the way to church we talked about Nauvoo. For some reason (after Music and the Spoken Word) Rachel had asked Grandma where her parents served missions and the answer was South Carolina and Mississippi.

"Mississippi?!" Rachel yelped. "That's in Nauvoo!"

"Not quite," Grandma said. "The Mississippi River runs by Nauvoo but the state of Mississippi, which is where they served their mission, is not where Nauvoo is."

So we talked about Nauvoo on the way to church. Rachel still remembers quite a lot from that trip—her favourite part being Pioneer Pastimes.

"And, oh, the Mississippi River," Rachel reminisced. "Remember watching the sun set over the Mississippi? It's beautiful!"

"Know what?" Miriam chimed in. "I have a sippy cup at home. It's beautiful."

Sometimes Miriam likes to feel like she's part of the conversation even if she has no idea what's going on. And sometimes in doing so she derails what was once a perfectly logical conversation. Such was the case today.

After Rachel and I had finished laughing about Miriam's silly interjection, Rachel asked, "Can Mississippi be a boy's name, too?"

"What do you mean?" I asked. "I don't think I know anyone named Mississippi—boy or girl."

"Like...Mister Sippi!"Rachel said, roaring with laughter.

Sometimes my children are hilarious. No, really. They are.

Sacrament meeting started off well enough. We walked into the chapel about five minutes before the meeting was due to begin. We meant to be earlier but Miriam decided to change her clothes right before we left.

Seriously.

At 10:35 I said, "Okay, girls! Let's go!"

And then Miriam ran out of her bedroom...naked.

I was like, "Whaaaaaaaat?"

Apparently she decided she didn't like the dress she was wearing.

"Are you fifteen or something?" I asked.

And Rachel said, "She's not, Mom. She's only two."

Thanks.

At least we were on time, right? Not to brag or anything (because I think we were late just about every week last year) but we've been on time every week this year. Anyway, we walked into the chapel and Miriam and Rachel both started laughing.

"What?!" Miriam giggled. "There's a girl playing the plan-o!"

That's how she says piano. And what she actually meant was "organ."

Then she got all serious and worried. She looked around the room several times and then said, "Uh, where's Daddy?"

Since it's gotten warmer we've taken to walking to church after Andrew leaves to practice the organ so that we don't have to sit around in the chapel doing nothing. I suppose walking to church and hearing the strains of organ music made Miriam think that Daddy should be there.

"He's in Ghana," I reminded her.

Silly girl.

Where were we? Oh, right...

Sacrament meeting started out well enough. The bishop announced a few mission calls, one of which was for Brother and Sister Nelson (who my girls love). They'll be going to...Nauvoo! Rachel just about died of excitement right on the spot.

During the songs, my girls set up their hymn books against the back of the bench and knelt down facing the bench, pretending the bench was a keyboard. They like to play the organ along with their daddy (and apparently with that girl (can you believe it?) who played the organ today as well).

"I'm plan-o-ing," trilled Miriam, happily.

I bet you didn't know that piano could be a verb. Well, it can. If you're two.

We got through the actual sacrament without upsetting any trays or touching every piece of bread or spilling water all down our fronts or yelling out anything embarrassing. Not to shabby.

But do you want to know the truth? Church was awful today and I am so glad I only have to do that on my own for one week. Phew!

It really wasn't all bad (obviously) and in fact was pretty good...until Rachel decided that she wanted to colour. Sometimes colouring is therapeutic and calming for her. Other times it is not. Today was one of the less-therapeutic days; in fact, it was kind of an angry day.

Rachel tried to draw a pioneer—in the middle of testimony meeting—and messed up. On the verge of tears, she asked me if I could fix part of her picture for her so I tried...and apparently failed hardcore. She started a, thankfully, whispered temper tantrum involving many sour faces and poorly chosen words directed at me and punctuated by her stabbing her paper with crayons. I told her to quit it or I'd be taking away her paper and crayons. Instead of stopping, she escalated her bad behavior. So I took away her paper and crayons. And then she got really mad so I abandoned Miriam right in the middle of somebody's testimony and dragged Rachel into the hallway where she started a full-on hissy fit.

Our ward meets from 11–2 there was no good place to pull Rachel aside for a temper tantrum (since the classrooms were occupied by the 9–12 ward) so I did what any logical parent with a screaming banshee of a child would do and I escorted Rachel through the main doors of the church and into the great outdoors. She continued to scream, which was fine, but when she started kicking the door I went outside with her and reminded her to smarten up again.

She blamed all of the world's problems on me, screaming about how mean I was and how much she hated me.

So I grabbed her arm and started dragging her away from the church.

"Where are we going?" she screamed. "I want to colour! I just want to colour and you're not letting me!"

"I am taking you to Naanii and Bumpa's house," I explained. "So that you can sit with the cat [she hates their cat] because I certainly don't want you sitting with us! And as far as 'just wanting to colour?' I don't believe that for a second, otherwise you'd be colouring right now instead of screaming, right?"

Screaming, screaming, screaming, blah, blah, blah—bigger!

Then she kicked me so I just left her on the sidewalk and started walking back to the church.

"Don't leave me!" she wailed. "I don't want to be alone! What if I get lost? You would feel so bad! You're not a good mother!"

Just so you know, the distance between our church building and my parents' house is approximately four houses. You can see my parents' house from the church. We were halfway between the church and their house so to get to either destination she had to walk two houses. Oooooh! So scary! And so it is that I feel perfectly justified in saying that I continued walking while hollering back to her that she had better change her attitude and stop screaming already or there was no way I'd be sending her to primary.

So, it was a good day.

Meanwhile, back in the chapel, Miriam was sitting on our pew all by herself. The family behind us passed her a package of fruit snacks, which she happily consumed. And then she just played with the hymn books and basically was a little angel. That's the report I got, anyway.

Eventually Rachel and I were able to come back in and sit down. We missed about fifteen minutes of testimonies because screaming is so much fun that we just didn't want to quit. And then I got to go to primary where the kids were all bouncing off the walls. It was unusually insane and thus unusually tiring.

Rachel, however, was rather solemn and serious. She's typically well-behaved during primary, which I'm happy about because if she's not going to behave for me then at least she behaves for somebody (which is more than I can say for a few kids in our primary who, much to their parents' joy, don't behave for either their parents or their teachers. Oh, did I say joy? I meant hair-pulling frustration).

We had a lesson about repentance during sharing time—how when you do something wrong it feels like you have a rock in your shoe (the teacher brought in little pebbles for the kids to put in their shoes to try it out) but that we can take our shoes off and remove the pebble and it feels so much better (and that's repentance). She told a story about something she had done wrong as a child and explained what she had to do to repent and then asked the kids if they had ever needed to repent.

Rachel's hand shot up.

"Rachel, okay! What's your story?" the teacher asked.

"I threw a tantroom," Rachel said (because that's how she says tantrum).

"Oh, I've thrown a tantrum before," the teacher said. "You know, the funny thing about a tantrum is that you think it might make you feel better but it never does. How did your tantrum make you feel?"

"Really, really sad," Rachel said.

"And a little out of control?" her teacher asked. "And you know what, when I throw tantrums I get headaches."

"Me, too!" Rachel said.

"Well, what did you do to repent?" the teacher asked.

"I stopped my tantroom," Rachel said.

"And did you apologize to whoever had to listen to your tantrum?" the teacher asked.

"Well, no.... But I want to because it was my mom and she's so tired because my dad's not here and I shouldn't have screamed at her."

I turned around and smiled at her while my eyes welled up with tears. And then I sat and cried for a few minutes because I'm pregnant and I can do that. Sometimes it's hard for me to believe that someone so sweet can also be so...not sweet.

And then I taught Sunbeams by myself and...oh, boy...I survived. But just barely.

Rachel was super sweet after church. We walked home and she buckled Miriam into the stroller for me and while she was buckling her she said, "One snap, two snaps! Tickle you under there!" and gave her sister a little tickle. She was oozing kindness. I pointed this out to her and she said, "I just kinda want to make sure you have a better day."

And she did.

She watched Legacy while Miriam and I took a nap and then she played pioneers with Miriam after we woke up (while I just stayed in bed listening to them play because I was so worn out from teaching Sunbeams that I could hardly move). They made a covered wagon out of her bed...but I guess the mess was worth being able to lie in my bed for a while longer.

Then we made a pioneer dinner of cornbread and chili together and the girls hardly even fought about whose turn it was to stir (hardly) and we only dropped one measuring cup and one spoon into the batter.

We talked some more about behavior during dinner. Rachel's been put on the "three strikes, you're out" program for colouring at church.

She threw a tremendous fit last week during stake conference over colouring. Strike one.

She threw an even tremendous-er fit this week during sacrament meeting. Strike two.

I told her that if she throws a fit next week she will be grounded from colouring at church for an undetermined amount of time.

"If I throw a fit at home about colouring does that count against my three strikes?" she asked.

Clever, clever chid.

"No," I admitted. "It won't. But I actually don't want you to throw fits about colouring—or anything—at home, either. So don't plan on it."

Now the kids are in bed and I only have to survive Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and part of Thursday. Not that I'm counting down or anything (I'm really trying not to because sometimes keeping track of days just draws them out longer) but I'm tired of doing things on my own and I want my best friend back. *pout*

Baby Shower and more playground time

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sun, 06 May 2012 04:35:00 +0000

Our friends from Egypt—Josh and Carolee—were in town this week. They're due with their first baby just a week after we're due with Benjamin so Carolee's sister threw her a baby shower today. When I got invited I promptly put it on my calendar and then forgot about it...until this morning.

So I quickly made a little baby washcloth and made a "bunny roll" out of it. We wrapped up a package of wet wipes and used the cloth as the "bow." I'm a lame gift-giver, I know. It's even worse for boys than for girls because for girls you can always whip up a few flowers and hot glue them onto barrettes or something. But for boys...I got nothin'.

The shower was fun. It was nice to see Carolee and Josh again and the girls had fun eating and eating and eating. The theme for the shower was "Ships ahoy! It's a boy!" so they had buckets full of popcorn, Swedish fish, and goldfish crackers with shovels for servings spoons. They had decorated an angel food cake as a bouy (with while frosting and strawberry stripes) and had ship-shaped sandwiches. It was all very cute.

We also got to decorate some onesies with some iron-on decals. Miriam chose a fish and Rachel chose a circle. I even let them do the ironing, which they thought was cool. They started to get a little crazy wound-up toward the end so we left to go to the park, but not before snapping a few pictures of us with the Schillings:

Josh and Carolee used to spend a lot of time at our house (to do their laundry and use our internet...but also because they think we're cool...right, guys?) and even babysat for us a few times when we went out. One time when they were babysitting Josh was holding Rachel on his lap, reading a story to her, and she...wet her pants. Everyone thought it was pretty funny at the time, except for Josh. He thinks it's funny now though... Rachel thought it was hilarious.

And here's a picture of me and Carolee (that I don't really like because my shirt is hanging funny...) with our baby bumps (...and because it's hanging funny you can't even see my baby bump):

Carolee's sister doesn't live too far from our house so even though Grandma dropped us off and offered to pick us up, we decided to walk home. There's a park about halfway between our houses so we stopped there for a "rest." It was just as far as walking to the park and then home again so it didn't even feel like a long walk at all.

The girls had a ton of fun at the playground overall but poor Miriam had a hard time with a few things and came home with some battle wounds. First she wanted me to help her with the swings but was too impatient and tried to get on by herself (to swing on her stomach). She pitched too far forward, though, and landed right on her head. She cried for a while but got over it soon enough and asked if I'd help her sit on it properly so she could swing for a while (I didn't even notice until tonight when I was giving her a bath that she has a bit of a bruise/bump).

Later, when we were "playing basketball," she got knocked over when the basketball hit her while she was running full-speed ahead and she fell down and scraped her knees. She acted like that was the end of the world...probably because she could examine her wounds and remind herself that she got hurt. She was limping around for the rest of the day but didn't even complain about her head.

Rachel was determined to do the monkey bars by herself. She never quite succeeded in that goal but was pleased with her effort. She can make it to the second bar before she panics, can do the whole set of monkey bars when I hold onto her with one hand, and isn't afraid to drop down to the ground.

This set of monkey bars is a little high (and rather long) so she wants to try the monkey bars at "Naanii's Park," which are closer to the ground (and have fewer rungs).

Miriam decided to try the monkey bars, too, but got up to the top of the ladder and then decided that she was much too short (she couldn't even reach the bars until I lifted her onto my shoulders).

Rachel tried shooting hoops, too. Her method involved jumping and throwing at the same time (to make the ball go higher). She can actually get the ball pretty high up there...we're going to work on aim later.

Mostly she just tossed the ball into the sky and then dodged it as it came back down.

We were at the park a lot longer than I intended to stay and the only reason I was able to convince the girls to leave was because Miriam was screaming in the stroller about her knee. Miriam was actually quite easy to convince at this point; it was Rachel I had to urge on.

"Your sister wants a bandaid for knee. Let's go home. NOW!"

(I just caught Andrew online before he went to bed (at 6:00/midnight) and said, "I can never get these girls to leave the playground!" and he said, "It's okay; it's good for them." And I think he's probably right but sometimes I'm like, "Dudes—dinner is not going to make itself! Can we just go home already?!" You know, like...today? That's how I was today.)

Even when Rachel started walking with us she kept getting distracted by things—she had to stop to do a little globetrotting on the world map, but it was nice to fit a little geography into our day. "Where am I now, Mom? Where am I now? Where's Dad? Where's Uncle Jacob? Where's Uncle David? Where's Egypt? Where was I born? Where were you born? Where's India? Where..."

"Come on!"

When we got home and had Miriam's knee all fixed up (with a Zoe bandaid this time—remind me to buy some more Sesame Street bandaids sometime because we're running low...while Miriam seems to be having more and more bandaid-worthy accidents. Coincidence? I think not.) the girls decided to play pioneers. Rachel wants to be "one of those people who, like, acts out pioneers stories like at Nauvoo or in Legacy" when she grows up. And Miriam's skirt isn't really that short; she just insists on wearing it that way—she's one of those immodest pioneers:

The girls sat around the house "reading" from The Book of Mormon. Miriam told Grandma, "And it came to pass that the Brother of Jared moved into a castle!" And Rachel said, "Well, mine doesn't say that!"

It's possible that I gave the girls a bath at 7:30 after throwing a frozen pizza into the oven...so we didn't eat dinner until around 8:00. But that only might have happened.

Then we might have read stories, including one called The Middle Child Blues, which made me a little nervous to have this third child because I just realized for the first time that our family will be big enough to have a middle child and...I don't know...it worried me for some reason. Because what if this baby comes and we neglect the other two beyond repair? Or what if this baby comes and we just can't love it like we loved the other two?

They're ridiculous questions, really, but the book was kind of a downer. At the end Rachel said, "Well, when Benjamin comes, at least I'll still be the oldest! Miriam—you're going to be the middle child. I'm sorry."

Miriam's too cute to forget about so I think she'll do just fine as the middle child.

And Rachel will always be the oldest (energetic, spunky, sweet) child, so she'll be just fine, too.

And we'll of course have enough love for Benjamin because love cannot be divided; it always multiplies—so he'll be just fine, too.

We'll all be just fine.

Waterfalls, flying monkeys, and misguided development (April 27)

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Fri, 04 May 2012 23:36:00 +0000

Somewhere near the Togo–Ghana border, up near the bottom of Lake Volta, lies Wli Waterfall, the tallest waterfall in West Africa. Hiking up to it and is one of the perennial highlights of the MPA Ghana trip, and this year was no exception.
Last year, if you recall, the village at the base of the waterfall hike was full of goats, chickens, and a solitary ostrich—the only ostrich I’ve seen in Ghana. This year I discovered why. An overzealous Peace Corps volunteer a few years ago decided that ostrich farming in Ghana would be a fantastic idea for promoting local agriculture and economic development. They donated 30ish ostriches to this little village as a pilot program. Unfortunately, Ghanaians don’t really eat ostrich meat or eggs, and ostrich diets are considerably different from chickens, goats, turkeys, or the other animals villagers traditionally raise. The experimental ostriches slowly died off from neglect. Last year there was only one left; this year he/she was gone.

The hike up to the waterfall was uneventful and gorgeous. I love the strangely shaped Ghanaian hills covered in jungle green.

The waterfall, again, was beautiful.

This and all the rest of the photos in this post were taken by Chris Owen, who was far more diligent about taking pictures today than I was :)

We spent a couple hours chilling at the waterfall. We had it mostly to ourselves for the first 30–45 minutes, but then a swarm of three or four dozen college-age Ghanaians showed up. Most were harmless, wanting to take pictures with all the Obrunis (white people), but a few apparently snooped in Gillian’s backpack, stealing a few credit cards and her driver’s license. Lame.

During our hike back to the base village, I spend lots of time watching the ground, trying to avoid repeating the nail experience from last year. I’m happy to report that (1) I wore actual shoes on the hike, and (2) I did not step on any rusty nails. Progress!

While watching the ground, I saw two fuzzy little balls, which I assumed were some sort of fuzzy nuts. I stepped over them and kept walking, but Sam, the MBA/engineering student in our group, noticed that the little balls were moving. Breathing. It turned out that the two balls were the head and body of a newborn monkey. Like über newborn. Hours old.

Monkeys in the Volta jungles build nests up in the trees for their babies. This one had fallen from its nest and was alone on the path. Sam picked it up and we ran ahead to find our trail guide, who we assumed would know what to do with it. Once we caught up with him, he said that there was no hope for the monkey. It was too young to do anything but nurse, it was probably too injured from its fall from the nest, and we had inadvertently taken it far from its nest. He put it on a branch to die.

Sam felt bad for the baby monkey, so as soon as the guide moved on, he grabbed the baby and ran back along the trail to find its nest. He found the place where it had fallen but couldn’t see any nest in the trees, so he put the monkey off to the side of the trail in hopes that mother could find it. The baby probably died, but we tried. And ironically, it was the money-grubbing capitalist MBA that helped it, not one of us noble MPAs. :)

After we got back to the base village, we headed off to the Tafi Atome monkey sanctuary to feed monkeys. In all previous years, MPA students have been able to feed the monkeys by holding bananas up in the air and waiting for monkeys to drop down from the trees to grab them. This was the case last year too.

This year, however, the monkeys were insane. None were in the trees—they were all in the village waiting for us. And they were most definitely not shy. They climbed and jumped all over us. All we had to do was hold a banana and wait to be attacked.

I grabbed a banana from the plastic bag and lifted up my arm for 2–3 seconds before a furry blur crashed into my chest. A monkey climbing on Aaron (the faculty director), who was standing on the other side of our group, decided that he wanted my banana right then. It leapt from Aaron’s shoulder, bounced off someone else’s back, and crashed into me, apparently miscalculating its jump. Right after his jump, another monkey jumped on my arm and started going to town on the banana. The flying monkey then climbed up my front, and eventually both monkeys were on my arm, pigging out on a banana.

The monkeys were far more adorable when they weren’t attacking me.

Once we were done playing with the crazy monkeys, we drove down the road to a kente weaving village. Last year, the village we visited was awesome; extraordinarily friendly people showed us their outdoor weaving machines and enthusiastically demonstrated how it all worked. The kids in the village swarmed us and danced and played with the students in the group.

This year we went to a different village that had been helped and consulted by another Peace Corps volunteer. The village had received funding for an enclosed shelter for their looms (since it rains a lot in the Volta Region), but apparently in exchange for getting the shelter, the weavers had to change their business model. Instead of letting random tour busses come through and visit, this village charges a fairly steep entrance fee for looking at the looms. The loom manager told us that he could waive the entrance fee for our whole group if a few of the people in our group bought kente fabric. Even though that kind of deal made no sense, we decided to do it.

The loom tour was kind of lame and was focused entirely on getting us to buy their stuff. Out of a duty to waive entrance fees, lots of the students bought stuff from the swarms of high-pressure salesmen/weavers. I didn’t take any pictures since I mostly tried to avoid the salesmen.

As we loaded the bus, the manager came and stopped us. He had changed his mind about the waived entrance fees. Even though we had bought stuff, he wanted us to pay up. Fred, our bus driver, got irate and chewed him out, threatening to call up the tourist police and report the village to all his tour bus driver friends, but the manager was unmoved. Aaron and I walked over to the hut acting as the loom office and paid up. The manager then asked for tips. Seriously? After all their smarminess and backtracking they still wanted tips?

On our drive out, we learned that the Peace Corps volunteer had envisioned a commercial tourist kente village that charged entrance fees, feeling that the traditional “come and see what we’re doing and buy stuff if you want to” model was inefficient. His vision unfortunately resulted in the smarmiest kente village in the region. Grr.

Like the ostriches at Wli, the commercialized kente village idea was a misguided attempt to help alleviate poverty without fully understanding other underlying dynamics, which kind of ruins everything.

Despite the misguided efforts of the Peace Corps, our touristy day in the Volta Region was fantastic. Now I just need to hope I don’t get monkey rabies :)

Star Wars Day

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 04 May 2012 23:14:00 +0000

The girls started asking if we could go to the park when they woke up this morning (around 8:30). Somehow, though, we weren't ready to leave the house until around 2:00 when we had finally all gotten out of our pyjamas and brushed our hair. We had a few upsets—for example, Rachel dumped out the crayons and spent the better part of three hours picking them up (she picked them up while playing some sort of a game where her origami birds would pick up one crayon at a time and then deposit it in the box...it took forever) and then we had to vacuum because even after she'd finally finished picking them up there were bits of paper and junk all over the floor so we figured we'd just clean up all the floor space so that we could vacuum the whole upstairs.

And then we had to eat lunch and that always takes forever. And then we still had to do hair.

But we finally made it out the door and to the playground.

I had left facebook open earlier in the day and Miriam noticed a picture of Yoda and then the girls wanted to know why someone had posted a picture of Yoda so I explained that today was Star Wars Day—"May the fourth be with you" was the caption on the picture. So our theme at the park today was Star Wars and the girls were climbing machines—they were much braver than they've ever been before.

Cries of "Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi! You're my only hope!" echoed across the playground while the girls pretended to be trapped in various locations (or "stwapped," as Miriam would say).

Mostly they did a lot of climbing.

Sometimes they made me nervous—like when Miriam first started climbing higher than the bottom rung (she's never been able to before but she's actually pretty good about it)—but mostly they made themselves nervous. Rachel had to talk herself through a lot of this since she's afraid of heights (or claims to be).

"Don't be nervous, girl!" she'd say. "You can do this! Just relax...relax..."

Here are a few "nervous" shots:

And a billion "just having fun" shots—mostly to show Daddy how brave the girls were at the park today:

We took a few pictures of us playing in the grass before coming home so that Miriam could nap. Every time I left to set the timer the girls would end up wrestling (the unhappy kind) in the grass. Miriam was very ready for a nap.

She buckled herself into her stroller and demanded to go home while I took a few more pictures of Rachel, who for some reason was determined to get a picture of her thumb with a dandelion hat:

It was only around 70 degrees today (according to Wunderground) but by the time I had pushed the stroller up the hill to our house I was a sweaty, exhausted mess. Wunderground at least told me that while it was only 70 degrees it felt like 75 degrees; still, 75 degrees isn't very hot...I blame pregnancy.

Scissors and Corduroy

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 04 May 2012 05:49:00 +0000

Yesterday Miriam had a bit of an accident. She had found a piece of string and came up to me, asking if I would help her cut it. I told her that I wasn't ready to cut string right then and that she'd have to wait. Rachel, however, was working on some sort of craft and said that she was ready to cut things. So Rachel grabbed the scissors and cut the string in half while Miriam held it taut. Then she left to go cut some papers.

"Rachel, be sure to put those scissors back when you're finished," I cautioned. "I don't want your sister to find them on the floor and think she needs to play with them."

"Don't worry, I will!" Rachel said, with a sigh and an eye-roll.

A few minutes later Miriam ran up to me looking very concerned.

"Mom!" she panicked, "There's dirty stuff on my hands! And there just keeps getting more and more!"

"Let me see," I said and grabbed her hands to look at them. "Oh! That's not dirty stuff—that's blood!"

I could see a definite cut in her thumb, which was obviously the source for the steady trickle of blood.

(You can have a steady trickle, right? Because it's not like this was a gushing wound—blood wasn't pouring out or spraying out or anything like that. This was just a little cut that kept steadily bleeding—like how the tortoise ran the race in The Tortoise and the Hare.)

I rushed her off to the bathroom where we washed and dried off her thumb (and her hands, which were covered in blood). We had to keep blotting her cut off while we found an appropriate bandaid. Those cute cartoon-covered bandaids are nice because my kids, who have had phobias of bandaids, will actually wear them when the need arises. But, honestly, they are a pain in the royal hiney!

"Do you want this one with flowers on it?"

"No! I want Elmo!"

"I don't know if I have Elmo. Oh, look at that—here's a box of Sesame Street bandaids. Let's see... I have Ernie and I have Bert—which one do you want?"

"Elmo!"

"Right..." I sifted quickly through the bandaids until I saw a red blob, which I assumed was Elmo. It's difficult to tell through the paper covers on the bandaids. "Here's Elmo!"

We finally got her all bandaged up and then went hunting through the house for evidence.

(Scissors on the floor) + (A string cut into many small pieces) = (Someone left the scissors out after they were finished with them and someone else found them and decided to play with them)

See how good at math I've gotten?

Rachel felt awful. We had a good discussion about responsible scissor use.

"And why do we have to be sure to put the scissors away when we're finished with them?" was my concluding question.

"So that Miriam won't find them and try to use them and accidentally cut herself."

"That's right. When you were Miriam's age I was the only one who used the scissors and I was always sure to put them away so that you wouldn't get hurt. We taught you to use scissors when you were older than Miriam is now. She's too young for scissors. You're not too young for scissors but that means you have to help me keep the scissors out of Miriam's reach because she is too young for scissors."

"Yeah. Rachie, see my thumb? It very hurts," Miriam chimed in.

"Want me to kiss it?" Rachel asked.

"No!" Miriam scoffed. "'Cuz there's a bandaid and we don't kiss bandaids!"

It was Miriam's turn for a lecture now—she knows the rules about scissors, too, and she broke them so she can't really claim to be "the victim" of this incident.

"Do we play with scissors?" I asked Miriam. "Even if they are conveniently left lying around?" I added, casting a meaningful look at sheepish Rachel.

"No," Miriam answered, gravely shaking her head.

"Why not?" I asked.

"'Cuz—we can broke our thumbs. And our hands, too," she said solemnly.

Rachel's punishment was to feel horrible for "causing" Miriam's injury. Miriam's punishment was that she wasn't able to suck on her favourite sucking-thumb the whole night long ('cuz there's a bandaid and we don't suck bandaids). Natural consequences are fabulous.

Here are my two girls this morning, cuddling in my bed before getting ready for the day.

Later in the day Miriam's bandaid fell off and she came to show me.

"Look, Mom! My bandaid did fall off and my thumb—it is all better! It did heal! So...I can suck on it?"

Now that her cut isn't bleeding anymore I can see it's just a superficial cut, about a centimeter wide. Unfortunately her thumb is so chapped (from sucking on it so much) that her skin is rather delicate and so when she cut it, even though it wasn't a bad cut, it bled a lot. That's my theory, anyway.

I was amazed there were no tears through any of this. It helps, I think, that she hasn't ever bled before and thought her blood was dirt. She'll probably cry the next time she's cut simply because there will be blood (and that's supposed to be on the inside of us; having it come out is just freaky (whether or not it actually hurts)).

In happier news, Rachel wore pants to school today—actual, factual pants with a zipper, a button, and pockets and everything. Black cords, to be exact.

That might not sound momentous to you but for Rachel it's a huge deal. My girls are big on stretchy-waisted pants made out of jersey-type material. Basically, leggings...but not necessarily tight. I remember having that same preference as a child. Still, it's nice to see Rachel breaking into the world of jeans. We have a whole pile of nearly-new pants that Rachel refuses to wear. Instead she keeps dressing in the same leggings over and over again. Except for today for some reason.

I now have half a hope that she'll go to at least the first day of kindergarten looking decently dressed...

Skyping and samaras

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 04 May 2012 05:01:00 +0000

Today was a wonderfully relaxing day for me. Miriam and I walked Rachel to school in the morning and then came home to write a quick message to Andrew. Just when I sent the message he came online, which was rather surprising considering it was only around 9:30 in the morning (which would be about 3:30 PM in Ghana). They had just arrived at their hotel and he was setting up his room and decided to hop on the computer to see if we were on. And we were.

Right now he's at the Cape Coast...and loving it...of course.

He took us on a little walk from his bed, out the door, to the beach. His room seriously opens up right onto the beach, complete with palm trees and breaking waves. It's beautiful.

We spent some time chatting and making silly faces (because it's impossible to have a Skype call without at least one silly face when you're Skyping with children):

We let him go after a while so that he could go enjoy the beach with his co-travelers and so that we could get ready to go to playgroup. Grandma, though, suggested to Miriam that she go on a shopping trip with Grandma and that sounded like more fun to Miriam than playgroup today so off she went.

I spent the morning working on my mom's dissertation and neglecting the basket of clean laundry that needs to be folded and put away. I can't believe I'm saying this but after just two weeks after Andrew's finished his degree I'm already excited to have another project to work on. Maybe it's because I really just want an excuse to ignore the laundry but I enjoy having papers to edit. I'm just glad my mom waited until after he'd graduated to send me her dissertation because those last couple of weeks he was in school were kind of crazy.

When it was time to pick up Rachel I walked over to the school to get her but then Grandma surprised us by showing up at the exact same time. She gave us a ride home, we unloaded the groceries, had lunch, and then I put Miriam down for a nap and Rachel went to Salt Lake with Grandma to pick up some files for Grandma's job.

I spent some more time working on my mom's dissertation and then tried to take a nap but couldn't fall asleep (weird, I know). Miriam was ready to get up by the time I was ready to quit trying to fall asleep, anyway, so we both got up and found that Andrew was chatting to us to tell us that he was back from dinner and that we could Skype him at any time (since Rachel has been so desperate to Skype him and she was absent for this morning's call).

She walked in the door just as I was typing to tell him that Rachel wasn't home. So then we chatted with Andrew again. Rachel was a little sad that it was dark outside because she wanted to see the beach, too, but she had a fun time chatting with her daddy (making all sorts of plans for when he gets home).

I'm sure he'll be very happy that we learned how to take screenshots today. I'm glad he'll be at this hotel for a while because they have the best internet connection in the world. Or at least in Ghana. Our call didn't drop once! It was amazing, especially considering that the idea of getting on Skype where Andrew was yesterday was a joke; we didn't even try.

After chatting with Daddy we got dinner into the oven and then played outside while it baked. Our neighbours have a maple tree of sorts and so our yard is covered with maple keys, which my children call helicopters but which are actually called samaras (who knew? ...not me). According to Wikipedia, "one tree can release hundreds of thousands of seeds at a time." Our yard is certainly evidence of that.

The girls each had a bucket that they filled with samaras—at first we had one bucket and we counted all the way to 100 before we gave up counting (but continued collecting). Eventually we had to get another bucket to fill as well. We must have picked up hundreds and there were still uncountable numbers of samaras nestling in the grass and resting on the deck.

When our buckets were all the way full we dumped them out from as high as we could get before racing around to collect them again. It was fairly entertaining.

Long distance relationship at 6961 miles

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 03 May 2012 05:49:00 +0000

Sometimes Andrew stays in places (like the Technological College, which is where they're at now) where the internet is so painfully slow (...because it makes sense that the Technological College would have subpar internet...) that we can't do anything fun (like use Skype) so instead we just chat to each other online and I like that almost as much. In fact, it might even be better than Skyping because then the kids don't get so wild and crazy showing off for the camera. Instead they talk and I type and then Andrew types and I talk and so forth and we only occasionally end up wild and crazy.

Today we had kind of a wild and crazy day, anyway, so I was happy to have the girls sit calmly beside me while we chatted with daddy. We started chatting around 5:00 PM our time, which is 11:00 PM his time. My friend Cristina had come over to help me not go crazy by providing me with grown-up talk and my children another body to jump on. It was most helpful.

She was still here when I noticed Andrew was online and I had just sent Rachel's little friend home. So I took the opportunity to let him know we were around. What follows is a truncated version of our conversation—I omitted several links to pictures of ladies carrying things on their heads, termite mounds, and mud huts (you can look those things up yourself).

Nancy 4:50 She's gone now and I am going to make dinner while Cristina plays with the girls. But WHAT to make for dinner. That is the question...

Andrew 4:50 Something delicious and non-Ghanaian.

Nancy 4:57 I'm thinking hummus.

Andrew 4:57 Ooh.

Nancy 4:58 Yeah. We have those little dipper cup things.

[I think by this point Cristina had left to go home to her husband so I gave up on dinner and just called the girls into the office so we could chat with Daddy for a while. Rachel will talk to me in normal tones but just about shouts anything she wants me to type to Andrew—she kind of cranes her neck toward the monitor and speaks loudly while over-enunciating, as if he might be able to hear her. It's funny. She has much more endurance for chatting with Daddy than Miriam does, as you'll probably see.]

Nancy 4:58 M—Yat's Daddy! [sic—because Miriam always says "yat" instead of "that."]

Andrew 4:58 Yep. 'Tis Daddy. How's Miriam feeling?

Nancy 4:58 Miriam's better today—isn't that weird? She's like, not sneezy.

Andrew 4:58 Tooty.

Nancy 4:58 And I've only had to wipe her nose a handful of times.

Andrew 4:59 But the bless-you kind.

Nancy 4:59 R — Dada, I'm excited to watch Star Wars 2 when you get home.

M — And Star Wars 4 and Star Wars 5 and Star Wars 2!

Andrew 5:00 :)

[We spent the next several lines sending different emoticons back and forth because the girls think it's hilarious—two minutes worth of emoticons. Aren't you glad I spared you?]

Nancy 5:02

R — A different day we were playing together without even fighting.

M — And I…I don't know. I just asked mom to just put some water in this cup.

R — In the tigger cup.

R — I can balance water in a cup on my head like the girl on Jungle Book.

R — I did it outside.

Andrew 5:03 Like all the ladies here

Nancy 5:04

R — Why did you say that?

Andrew 5:04 All the ladies here carry stuff on their heads—heavy stuff: boxes of water, food, groceries...

Nancy 5:05

R — But why? Why do they carry water on their heads, Dad?

R — We carry things with our hands.

R — Do they type with their heads?

R — Did you see any people carrying things on their head?

Andrew 5:09 All the time. Every time the bus stops they come. They sell stuff at every stoplight.

Nancy 5:10

R — I wonder what they make their houses with.

R — Where did you go today?

Andrew 5:10 They make their houses out of termite clay. Termites are like ants. They build big hills of mud for their houses.

Nancy 5:12

R — Mud? Ummm…were you funny today? Hucky ducky wucky ducky. That's funny.

[Every time we talk to him she asks if he was funny that day. I don't know why.]

Andrew 5:12 And people use that and mix it with regular mud and make their houses.

Nancy 5:12

R — What happens when it rains? Because, like, clay is like mud and it can't get wet!

Andrew 5:12 They paint all the mud houses so the mud stays dry,

Nancy 5:13

R — Oooooh! What colour do they paint it?

Andrew 5:13 Lots of colors: red, green, blue. Actually, the main cell phone companies (Vodafone, et al) offer to paint poor people's houses for free in exchange for free advertising so there are villages full of red Vodafone huts.

Nancy 5:15 I read an article in LDS living about the church in Papua New Guinea…and they showed pictures of a baptism in a river with people with HUGE sticks to bat away crocodiles. Freaky. That's all I have to say about that.

Andrew 5:15 Yikes.

Nancy 5:15 Not that that has anything to do with houses...

Nancy 5:16

R — Like Jabba the Hut.

Me — Not like Jabba the Hut.

R — Why do they call Jabba the Hut a hut if he's not a hut. If a hut is a house...

Andrew 5:16 Like, um, crocodiles? Oh—huts.

Nancy 5:16 Yeah.

Andrew 5:16 Because Huts in Star Wars are a species of big slug things/people. Two Ts: Hutt.

Nancy 5:17 Ah, that's my ignorance right there.

R — Does Yoda live in a hut?

Andrew 5:17 Be enlightened: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hutt

Yoda lives in a hut, one t. Though if Jabba ate him, he'd live inside a two-t hutt. And if Jabba then moved to a hut, Yoda would live in a Hutt inside a Hut...until he was digested. Anyway...

Nancy 5:18 Wow.

Nancy 5:19

R — THAT'S REALLY FUNNY DAD!
Me — I think I'm going to go deaf.

R — There were TWO hutts in Star Wars 1

Me — All she wants to talk about it star wars.

Andrew 5:21 What a nerd.

Nancy 5:21

R — I made a card for you at school yesterday because it's almost Mother's Day. Get it? Hahahaha

R — When are you going to be on skype?

Andrew 5:22

Maybe tomorrow, depending on if the hotel has internet. If not, then Monday.

Nancy 5:22

R — Do you live in a mud hotel?

R — They make their houses out of that so I think they make their hotels out of that.

Andrew 5:23 Nope. This one is made of cement, like in Egypt. Poor people use mud. Bigger buildings are made of cement, like Egypt.

Nancy 5:23

R — Because big buildings are not poor people.

Me — True enough; but neither are buildings rich people. Buildings simply are not people.

Andrew 5:24 Corporations are though.

Nancy 5:24 Totally.

Nancy 5:25

R — Is it almost midnight at your cement hotel?

jiu9o;['[-[ojhg3ekjjt3ukpoi8ih'./,kgxc

[Rachel has just about taken over the keyboard by this time.]

Andrew 5:25 It is almost midnight.

Nancy 5:25 jhiujt6dfjkhge

Andrew 5:25 I'm just finishing one last (picture-less) blog post.

Nancy 5:26 Alright; we love you! *I* love you.

Andrew 5:26 I love you guys!

Nancy 5:26 cat 1234567890

Andrew 5:27 Especially *you.*

[By *you* he means *me.* We ended by exchanging a million emoticons once again, much to the delight of the children.]

Sometimes it's interesting for me to hear the questions that Rachel comes up with. She asks questions I would never think to ask. For example, when Andrew said that they paint the huts I thought, "Ah, that makes sense—so it kind of seals out the moisture." But Rachel wanted to know what colour they painted their huts so we got to learn that phone companies sometimes sponsor the paint, which is interesting, I think. We could do a photo essay on "The Vodafone Village," or something like that...

She's always coming up with questions and just gets curiouser and curiouser with each answer. I probably had that same curiosity at one point in my life and while I still consider myself curious I also ponder things a lot longer before I ask any questions about it—I like to look things up before I ask questions. She just asks away. I'm not sure that's a bad thing (although sometimes I have to tell her to just think about her questions in her mind because I run out of energy to field her questions).

Anyway, it's almost midnight here now in my wooden-framed, brick-covered house, which has a nicely shingled roof to keep all the rain out...and glass in the windows...and doors with locks...and carpet on the floors...and a big cozy bed with lots of pillows.

How lucky am I that my door isn't painted Vodafone red?

[Andrew is in Kumasi right now, which is apparently approximately 6961 miles away from Orem, as the crow flies...not that a crow would fly that far.]

Embassies, paranoid surreptitious religious discussions, and beads (April 26)

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:37:00 +0000

Our first stop this morning was the Dutch embassy, since the Netherlands have recently pledged substantial money for sanitation issues in Ghana. We met with the main sanitation officer for the embassy (a Ghanaian lady) and the students did a fantastic job presenting Kweku’s Biofill and getting great feedback and research.

The lady we talked with was extremely enthusiastic and excited about the Biofill. When we asked her what she would do with one if we could give her one now, without any hesitation she said that she’d install it at her house. Even though she lives a comfortable upper middle class life, her septic system (like everyone else’s) sucks and backs up all the time. This is what Kweku is trying to fix—replace broken septic tanks with magical odorless poop-eating bugs.

The Dutch embassy was actually really cool. The inside was quite IKEA-esque, with fancy bright plastic furniture, colorful canvas paintings, and airy, open staircases, while the exterior was fancy and modern. Like this (only during the day). Apparently it’s famous in architecture circles.

While talking with the sanitation official, she offered us coffee and tea, which inevitably led to the revelation that we were Mormons and don’t drink that stuff. She then told us that her neighbor, an American lady from North Carolina, had recently given her a Book of Mormon but that she hadn’t read it. Because the Church is in a strange legal position in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East, I’ve become accustomed to deftly avoiding any conversations about the Church or our doctrine. Since Egypt has been the bulk of my third-world experience, I keep thinking that we’re not allowed to talk about the Church here. I cringed when students started talking about the Church and asking her about the Book of Mormon—I subconsciously started looking for eavesdropping mukhabarat. Then I remembered that it’s totally legal to talk about the Church. There are six stakes in Accra alone, half a dozen missions in the country, and a temple just around the corner from the Dutch embassy. Oops :)

After we finished at the embassy, we started the long drive up north to the Volta Region, making a quick stop at the Cedi Bead Factory, just like last year (go there for pictures… I was too lazy to take any new ones this year :) ). We arrived at Chance’s Hotel in Ho late, spent a couple hours doing dinner (I think they go find eggs, raise them to chickens, slaughter them, and cook them once you order a chicken kebab, it takes that long!), and went to bed.

Except me. I stayed up super late once again to read more Hunger Games. I can’t get enough of that series :).

Toilets and the temple (April 25)

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:00:00 +0000

BYU’s MPA study abroad to Ghana has three main purposes: (1) complete a consulting project for a nonprofit involved in some aspect of international development, (2) visit NGOs already working on various social issues, and (3) have fun doing touristy things. Last year we had two projects: research in price trends for vegetables sold in the open air markets, and research in the vocational and technical sectors of tertiary education for the Church’s PEF program (I worked on that one).

This year, since we have a much smaller group, we only have one project (that I get to sit back and watch—as TA I don’t have to do any of the research or writing, which is a nice break). A Ghanaian engineer and member of the Church named Kweku Ano developed an incredible toilet system named the Biofill. Ghana has a serious sanitation crisis, with only a small percentage of the population having access to any sort of improved toilet facility (i.e. something that flushes). Wealthier people have septic tanks that clog and have to be emptied on a monthly basis; people in the middle class share community pit latrines; poor people practice open defecation (the official euphemism for pooping wherever they want to). There isn’t really any sort of public plumbing system, since 97% of the public treatment plants in the country are nonoperational.

Kweku’s Biofill is an incredible solution to this sanitation crisis though. It consists of a 3’x2’x2’concrete box with two layers of porous concrete and a bunch of bugs and microorganisms. Regular toilets flush into the box (thus replacing a septic tank) and liquid waste (i.e. #1) is filtered through the layers of concrete, purified, and left to seep out into the ground, where it can water surrounding plants. Solid waste (i.e #2) gathers on top of the first layer of concrete and gets digested by a mini ecosystem of worms, beetles, centipedes, and special poop-eating bacteria. The little poopy world can handle 10–15 people almost indefinitely. Kweku’s has used a Biofill at his office for 5 years and hasn’t had to empty it once. And there’s no smell whatsoever. It’s so cool.

Kweku’s already installed 2,000 of these Biofill systems across Ghana and is looking to expand somehow. He has partnered with an American organization named [Sainterre][sainterre] created by a BYU student a few years ago to help with development and distribution (Sainterre changed the digester’s name to “Soilet”). Our project this year is to do some market research into NGO and governmental demand and interest in the Biofill, which means that all our visits will deal with discussions on human waste. Fun times :)

This morning we went Kweku’s workshop in the neighborhood of Dzorwulu, which he shares with Empower Playgrounds. We arrived early, so we walked down the street to another fascinating organization named Trashy Bags, which collects, cleans, and sews plastic water bags and billboards into usable items like reusable grocery bags. I bought a cheap toiletry bag, replacing my collection of like 6 ziploc bags.

After Trashy Bags, we finally got to meet with Kweku, who showed off his Biofill and his other crazy inventions. He has a system of tilapia ponds that irrigate his garden, kill mosquitos, and water his plants. He has several different versions of the Biofill in production, including one where the water from the sink runs off into the toilet and flushes it into the magical digester (perfect for places without running water; just bring a little bottle or bag of drinking water to wash your hands). He is also (presumably) the only person in Ghana that grows grapes—he has a series of refrigerated irrigation tubes that grapevines grow around for temperature control. He’s a fascinating person!

Once we had looked at all of Kweku’s incredible inventions, we headed off to the Accra Mall for lunch. It hasn’t changed much since last year. It’s still a haven for expats and rich Ghanaians, and was a reminder that we still need to become official expats. We definitely need to line up some sort of awesome international job after I finish at Duke.

After lunch we went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead, which is always an awesome experience. I didn’t have my camera with me (I actually didn’t use it at all today… too much rain), so here’s a picture from last year:

Unlike last year, where we had to be the temple workers for all aspects of the baptisms, this year they had Ghanaian witnesses for us, which meant that we could all get baptized, which was fun. I hadn’t been baptized since probably before my mission (9ish years…). Other than a newly baptized Ghanaian member named Andrew (who has two daughters, aged 4 and 2), we had the place to ourselves.

We ended the day back at the Alma House, with time to relax, watch football, and read (with me staying up until 2 AM finishing one of the Hunger Games books). Tomorrow we leave this wonderful guest house and head up to the Volta Region for some touristy things. Woot!

Jetlag, tour guides, and luggage (April 24)

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:32:00 +0000

We arrived in Accra without any problems (and without our luggage) and met up with the island goers at the incredible Alma House in Accra. This year, like last year, a group of students arrived in Ghana a few days before the rest of the group to live with village families on the island of Pediatorkope. It’s like camping, only with typhoid infested water, raw oysters and fish, malaria-bearing mosquitos, and extreme tropical heat. While it’s a great experience for them, I’m quite content with never, ever doing it. Six of the eight students on the trip went to the island this year (we actually have a relatively small group this year: 8 students, Aaron Miller (the faculty director), Dr. Rex Facer (a faculty member who’s coming later this week), and me).

The Alma House is a unique hotel-ish place. Bob and Lynnette Gay (of Mitt Romney-esque Bain Capital fame) were called as mission presidents in the Accra, Ghana mission in the early 2000s. Their call actually came as a total surprise—they had initially been told by Church leaders that they’d likely be going somewhere Spanish-speaking, like Barcelona or Madrid, but their call was changed to West Africa after a few months. Their über rich business friends were really excited to visit the Gays in Europe; their excitement to visit diminished significantly after the call change :)

After their mission, they bought a (really fancy) house in Accra so they could maintain substantial connections with the region. As Ghana has improved in its development and become more friendly to international investment, lots of the Gays business friends (and personal friends) decided that visiting Accra would actually be quite interesting. In order to accommodate these visitors (and make it so the Gays wouldn’t have to host them at their own home), the Gays bought a guest house near the Accra Temple that could (1) comfortably host American and foreign visitors, and (2) provide employment to Ghanaian and Nigerian returned missionaries.

The Alma House totally lives up to the Gays’ vision. It’s the nicest place I’ve stayed in Ghana and has an incredibly homey feel to it. There are only a few bedrooms—our group of 10 (soon to be 11 when Dr. Facer arrives later this week) fills the guest house comfortably. There’s one big table for meals, a nice lounge area with leather furniture, relatively fast and reliable wi-fi, and incredibly high security. It’s in a walled compound with electrified barbed wire coiled around the top of the walls, and a few of the bedrooms have doors that have five deadbolts and are apparently filled with acid (I guess in case someone tries to take down the door with an ax or something…). Bob Gay was recently called to the 1st Quorum of the Seventy, so they probably won’t be back to Ghana too often in the coming years, but the Alma House remains and is an incredible place to stay.

Because Dr. Facer isn’t here yet, I get a single bedroom all to myself (complete with acid-filled front door), which has an awesome bathroom and double king size bed. It’s huge!

After we dropped off our stuff at the guest house and picked up the island-goers, we headed out for lunch and a short tour of Accra. As you all probably remember, last year our tour was cut short because our bus was robbed, which meant that we had to spend time hunting down police stations and filing reports. This year, happily, the bus was not robbed during our first lunch, and it will (hopefully) not be robbed during the rest of the trip. :)

After lunch, we drove around to see some of the highlights of Accra. Unfortunately, the awesome Delta in-seat movie console kept me awake all night and I crashed with jet lag during the tour. This wouldn’t have been a problem ordinarily, but I sat up on the front row of the bus, right in front of the tour guide. Hooray for tour etiquette.

I did manage to wake up at the two touristy places we visited. The first was the Kwame Nkrumah national memorial, built on the site of the old British polo grounds were Pres. Dr. Nkrumah declared Ghanaian independence 55 years ago.

The main memorial was designed to look like the trunk of a tree and is apparently symbolic of Nkrumah’s vision of a sort of Pan-African United State of Africa type of entity. He set the foundation—it’s up to the rest of Africa’s leaders to build their branches on that trunk. Or something like that.

After the memorial we drove down the street to one of the main Accra art markets where we were overwhelmed by hawkers trying to sell their touristy wares. I ended up playing (and losing) a game of mancala to one of the shopkeepers, who then sold me the game at a (supposed) big discount. Fun times.
We headed back to the Alma House for dinner and a football match (Chelsea vs. Real Madrid), and then fortunately heard from the airport that our luggage had arrived. Delta had rerouted it from New York to Amsterdam to Accra on a KLM flight—all we had to do was go pick it up and pass through customs, a seemingly simple task.

Lawrence, one of the Alma House employees, drove us out the the airport and waited in the parking lot while we ran in to pick everything up. We went into the back room and started a semi-absurd bureaucratic ritual to get our stuff. Ordinarily clearing customs is extremely simple—customs officers only look through the luggage of a few people on each flight, since there are normally hundreds of bags to potentially go through. However, with only three of us, with two bags each, the customs officials decided to look through every little thing in our suitcases. Highlight of their evening, I’m sure.

We ran into problems with each of our second bags. One of the students on the trip is the executive director for Empower Playgrounds, and to save on shipping costs, he gave each of us a suitcase full of solar panels, battery chargers, tools, and food (since Delta still gives two free bags on flights to Africa). Once our customs lady saw that we had small solar panels, she decided that they were a taxable good (they’re not) and that we had to pay a hefty duty (we technically didn’t). Since everything in our extra bags was theoretically duty free, we fought her and made her call her supervisor, who happened to be busy. After 20 minutes of hanging out in the lost and found room, he final called and told her to just let us go—it wasn’t worth the effort to try to eke out customs duties on exempt items. We finally signed a bunch of different papers and notebooks and left with our stuff.

Even with all the flight rerouting and luggage loss and customs battles, I was able to get all of my luggage in Ghana on the first night, which is pretty incredible. Hopefully it’s a sign that the rest of this trip will go as well.

An ordinary day

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 02 May 2012 04:30:00 +0000

We walked to school in the rain this morning but it was cheerful and sunny the rest of the day. Unfortunately Miriam has a cold and I insisted that she take a nap so we didn't get to enjoy the sunny afternoon, though Rachel did go to a friend's house so I suppose she had fun.

Miriam wanted to join Rachel at her friend's house, but I kept saying no. Because Miriam is sick. She kept insisting that she was feeling fine but I saw right through her sugar-coated tones to the snotty, sneezy, head-colded baby that she really is.

She sneezed.

"What was that?" I asked.

"That wasn't anything, Momma. That was just a toot in my mouth. I'm not sick!" She put the back of her hand to her forehead to check her temperature. "I don't even have a fever, so...I'm not sick. I am happy. I just need to put on my running shoes and go to Emily's house. That's all. ACHOO!"

"What was that?"

"That was a tootie again. That was just a bless-you tootie, not a 'scuse-you tootie."

I could look past the occasional sneeze. I could look past the occasional sniffle. I could look past the occasional cough. It's the occasionally sneezing + sniffling + coughing that I can't ignore. That and the zoned look she keeps getting on her face.

So I said no and broke her heart into a thousand million pieces. But she got over it. And I let her walk with me to pick Rachel up for dinner, which made her feel happy.

After dinner we did some jobs (garbage, recycling, dishes) and then made pineapple-strawberry-banana milkshakes. The girls thought that was a pretty neat treat.

Then the girls wanted to go on a walk before bedtime, so we did. We walked until Miriam got bored of exploring and stuck her thumb in her mouth and started rubbing her ear. Then we turned around to come home, but not before finding (and playing with) a roly poly.

Rachel carried that bug the whole way home (and dropped it at least a thousand times; I'm still in shock that it survived the whole walk) and then put it to bed in the bug house we made last week. She's practicing being a scientist, but she only wants to study butterflies, bunnies, roly polies, robins, and rocket ships.

Miriam turned into a little cuddle bug. She walked along for a while with her arm around Rachel before she asked to be picked up because she was just too tired to walk anymore (not that we'd gone far at all, but it was bedtime and she's sick).

Bedtime was still an ordeal but both the girls were asleep before 10:00, so that's something!

I just checked on the extended weather forecast and it made me smile, not because our weather's anything special but because it shows me exactly how many more times I have to put the kids to bed on my own.

Keep on survivin'

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 01 May 2012 05:00:00 +0000

I can't tell who is up—either Miriam is talking to herself, which is a possibility, or she's talking to Rachel, which means they're both up, which means getting up for school tomorrow is going to be a bear. Also, someone is kicking the wall. Whatever...

So far we've survived a week and a day sans Andrew.

The general consensus is that we're doing pretty okay. My mom told me yesterday that, in spite of being pregnant, I seem to be handling this year's Ghana trip better than I did last year. And just this evening Reid asked if I noticed that the girls seemed to be handling Andrew's absence better than they did last year.

I have a few theories regarding this:

1) We must not have handled last year's trip very well.
2) We are handling this year's trip much better than last year's.
3) This year my children are 2 and 4 instead of 1 and 3, which is better...somehow.
4) Andrew must have been busier than we thought this past semester since the difference between having him "home" and him being on the other side of the world is negligible.

I'm not sure how well we handled last year's ~~abandonment~~ trip. In my memory it wasn't that horrible. However, the only memory of that time that's been surfacing this week is his homecoming—we went to the park minutes after he came home and had a glorious afternoon, all four of us. Last year he missed Easter and Stake Conference and Mother's Day—boom, boom, boom, right in a row! It was also the longest we'd ever been apart since getting married.

This year I went into the trip knowing that I was capable of handling him being gone this long. Also, he was here for Easter and he'll be back in time for Mother's Day so all he missed was Stake Conference.

Rachel has matured and is much more stable than she was last year. She still has a bit of a short fuse but she's able to monitor and control her emotions much better than she could last year. Miriam is a little more defiant this year than she was last year but a defiant Miriam is no where near as difficult to manage as a defiant Rachel is/was.

Besides, we're used to having Andrew away. This past year his schedule has been so awful that we hardly ever saw him, anyway. Having him be halfway around the world hasn't been that much of an adjustment (no offense, Andrew). You mean I don't have my husband around to help put the kids to bed or make dinner or do the dishes or anything. Big deal. The only chore I've picked up is taking the trash out to the curb. (Suddenly I'm remembering why I was so excited for the end of this semester...because it was awful, that's why.)

I'm not sure which factor is contributing the most to our superior coping skills (as compared to last year's) and it might be too early to really judge if we've handled this trip better or not (since it isn't even halfway over yet) but knowing that we are coping helps me believe I can keep coping for the rest of the time Andrew's gone.

Besides, if everyday goes like today we should at least survive. We had several trying moments but a few really beautiful ones helped balance things out perfectly, like when Grandpa asked Miriam what her bib said and she answered, "It says, 'Mom is the best!'" even though it really said 'Mommy's sweetie.' Or when I checked on the girls in the living room and Rachel put her arm around Miriam and said, "You don't have to worry about us, Mom. We are not only sisters; we're best friends."

Of course, minutes after this picture was taken Miriam kicked Rachel in the face and everyone ended up in tears.

Oh, I'm sorry. Did that ruin the cute factor for you?

Well, it ruined it for me too. But it was beautiful at the time.

That's kind of how motherhood goes. It's great, then it's not. Then it's great. Then it's not.

For Family Home Evening we baked Pineapple-Banana bread (I was praying for patience the whole time, believe me) and then took a loaf to one of the women I visit teach because...it's the last day of the month, didn't you know? She's been harder to get in touch with since she's started her new job because she used to be home during the day and now she's not...so she totally threw off our groove. Anyway...

We read from The Friend while we waited for it to bake and called that our lesson and when the bread was finished we walked it over to my visiting teachee's house with me holding the loaf in a hot pad (because it was seriously straight out of the oven) in one hand while dragging Miriam along with my other hand. Rachel skipped along beside us and then (since we were moving so slowly) in front of us until she was out of sight and around the corner.

I heard her scream and then saw her come tearing back around the corner with two little shih tzus right at her heels barking up a storm.

Miriam scrambled up onto my hip and Rachel clambered up the other side.

Picture me 29 weeks pregnant, holding a two-year-old and a four-year-old and a now-squished loaf of pineapple-banana bread, while two little shih tzus bounce around my ankles wanting to play. I'm sure we looked ridiculous. And we didn't move one step forward until our neighbour came out to herd her dogs back inside. Mostly because we couldn't. At least, not without dropping children or stepping on puppies.

We made it to my visiting teachee's house and even though it was almost 8:00 PM and she has a three-year-old I rang her doorbell. She answered and her kitten streaked out the door. Miriam jumped into my arms again but Rachel, who wasn't quite up the stairs when the door opened, simply bolted. We had a nice impromptu visit, anyway, even though I had to cut our conversation short.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'd love to chat longer but I really have no idea where Rachel went and I should probably go find her..."

So we set up an appointment for next week (which is not the last week of the month; it's the second...go my team) and then Miriam and I struck out to find Rachel, yelling her name and scanning the sidewalks.

She came running down one of the more familiar-to-her cul-de-sacs in our neighbourhood—where her school is and where two of her good friends live.

"Rachel, where'd you go?" I asked.

"Oh, I just went for a walk," she said.

"Well, I don't really like you just going for a walk without telling me where you're going. It worries me. You're a little young to just disappear like that."

But only a little young. She's growing up and soon she will be old enough to "just go for a walk" if she wants to, though I am not sure I'll think she'll ever be grown up enough to "just go for a walk" without first telling me where she's going...

Smartest thing I did all day was have the girls change into their pyjamas before we went on our walk, though. That way when we got home all we had to do was have a piece of bread, brush our teeth, read scriptures, say prayers, sing songs, and go to bed. If we didn't have our pyjamas on already it would have been a lot more difficult to get the ball rolling.

I'm figuring things out. I'm a survivor.

Flying All Around the World (April 23-24)

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 23:56:00 +0000

This year, we totally lucked out on plane tickets to Ghana. In the past few years, they have typically cost $1,500–1,700. However, due to some crazy fire sale Delta was having, BYU was able to book my flight for an incredible $1,200 (which I didn’t have to pay, since I’m the TA… ). If only the price from last year’s trip could have been switched with this year!

This crazy cheap airfare only had one catch—all our flights had to somehow go through JFK in New York. This made for some crazy itinerary wrangling. Salt Lake City to Minneapolis to New York to Atlanta to Accra (and the same in reverse in a few weeks). It’s like a grand tour of the northern border and east coast. Woot.

Our flight from SLC left at the ungodly hour of 6:00 AM, and as a sign of the ungodliness of the hour, we (Aaron, the trip director; Sam, an MBA/engineering student; and me) stood in a completely empty airport from 3:30 until the first Delta employees started to trickle in at 4:45ish. So much for that whole “be at the airport 3 hours before your international flight” thing.

When we got to Minneapolis we rushed to our next gate for our one-hour layover, which turned into a 1.5 hour layover, which turned into 2 hours, which turned into an unknown amount of time. The plane was at the gate, but the crew never showed up. How does that even happen?

Because of our tight layover schedule at JFK and Atlanta, Delta decided to reroute us on a new flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta, completely skipping the extraneous JFK connection (and 4 hours of flying time!). We headed off to another gate to wait for a few more hours, fully assured that our luggage was rerouted with us.

Upon arrival in Atlanta, we discovered that the missing Minneapolis crew decided to show up and take our luggage to New York. It was never rerouted, and because the plane left so late, it wouldn’t make it to Atlanta to get on the trans-Atlantic flight with us. As big of a pain as it is to lose your luggage, it’s kind of nice to be pre warned that your luggage is lost. It wasn’t a surprise to not find it in Accra—we knew that we had to go make a lost luggage claim as soon as we landed (and they actually had started the paperwork and had rerouted our luggage on a KLM flight through Amsterdam, oddly enough).

The flight across the Atlantic rocked. Mostly because Delta had this in every seat:

Yep. A USB plug for iPads/Phones/Pods. Not that I used it much—the plane’s selection of movies was incredible (I finally got to watch Inception and The Dark Knight). Still, go Delta.

The flight was incredibly long and uneventful. Like this post. (Totally recycling the joke I used for last year’s Ghana flight blog post) :)

Things that are good to have and days that are good to spend

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:31:00 +0000

A wise old hobbit once said “Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.”[1] When things go well and fun, telling about them is boring; things that don’t go well or aren’t pleasant are what we like to hear.

And there’s my excuse for not posting any blog posts for the past week while I’ve been in Ghana. Everything has gone exceptionally well so far and has been incredibly fun. Nothing uncomfortable, palpitating, or even gruesome to report here.

Despite this apparent lack of excitement, I really will start posting pictures and stories in the coming hours. We’re heading off to an expat American family’s house for family home evening later, I’ll be writing like crazy once I get back. Then you can all bore yourselves with my “things that are good to have” and “days that are good to spend.” :)

Update: Apparently some have taken this quote to mean that it's been boring in Ghana. Not at all, my friends. :) It's just that everything has been normal, good, fun, and exciting, but not palpitating or gruesome (nobody's gotten incredibly sick, we haven't been robbed (knock on wood), etc.). All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth…

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Ray, 1937), 51. ↩

Family Funnies, issue 1

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:06:00 +0000

It's 9:45 AM and my children are still sleeping. Must be some sort of modern day miracle. And you'd better believe I'm going to let them wake up on their own (probably) because they were both a little grumpy yesterday and didn't go to bed until late.

I've decided to start a little facebook status round-up of what my children say because, frankly, my kids say the darndest things and I don't always write them down on the blog but I need to because that's where we're creating & hoarding our family history (we've yet to actually print it out but definitely need to get on it).

Without further ado, here's April's (and beyond's) edition of our Family Funnies:

April 29:

Rachel: You put milk in her oatmeal and now it's...
Miriam: Yogurt. Now it is yogurt.
Me: No. Not like yogurt... Now it's not too hot.

April 28:

Me: Hmmmm...I think the mayo must be in the outside fridge.
Rachel: I'll get it!
Me: Thanks.

2 minutes later...

Rachel: It's not.
Me: What?
Rachel: There's no mail in the mailbox.
Me: Mayo. In the fridge. In the garage.
Rachel: Oh! I wondered why I needed mail for my sandwich.

************

Miriam: Mom! We did find a solution! We just did find our own solution!

...after ripping out a page in a colouring book so that she and Rachel could each colour the page they wanted. Hooray for finding our own solutions! :)

April 27:

Miriam: I need more popcorn!
Me: No you don't.
Miriam: Oh. I has plenty?
Me: ...Yes.

************

Rachel watched the space shuttle being delivered to NYC. All she can talk about now is space. She wants to be an astronaut (this is not a new thing).

Rachel: Is there a space shuttle store? Like where you can just go buy your own space shuttle?
Me: No. There isn't. Each space shuttle is specially made.
Rachel: Well, how do you make one?
Me: It takes a lot of people to make a space shuttle.
Rachel: Maybe we should get all our neighbours together who know how and then maybe we can make one!
Me: No...we probably can't make one. But if you work for NASA one day then maybe you can help make one.
Rachel: What's NASA?
Me: It's the government agency for studying space.
Rachel: Wow!
Me: Yeah—did you know that you know someone who worked for NASA? Our friend Matthew used to work there. Of course he had the most boring job on the whole planet. BUT he worked there.
Rachel: NASA's a *planet?*
Me: No. NASA's not a planet.
Rachel: Aw, man!

April 26:

Bunny Keg = Guinea Pig
Pater-gator = Catepillar

Playing Littlest Pet Shop with Miriam is confusing. "Uh-oh! Where is my bunny keg?" Your...bunny keg?

April 24:

Me: We need to go put some sunscreen on.
Miriam: On my thumb.
Me: On your thumb?
Miriam: Yeah. Because it is chap-ty.
Me: Sunscreen doesn't really help with "chap-ti-ness."
Miriam: But sunscreen helps with wet-i-ness and when I suck my thumb then it does get wet!

April 22:

Miriam was knocking on her door after nap time today saying, "Can I come out? I has my clothes on. And...the tag IS on the back. So...can I come out now?"

I woke up and let her out, which was the first glimpse of her outfit—a t-shirt under a long-sleeved dress with tights and...underwear.

"Are you wearing underwear under your tights, too? Or just over?"

"Just over. Can I do that?"

"Well, I'm not going to lie: it's kind of weird."

"I am not a weird girl."

************

Grandma: I distinctly heard your mother say to brush your hair.
Rachel: But that means that something doesn't exist anymore—like dinosaurs—so does that mean I don't have to do my hair?
Me: She said "distinctly," not "extinctly."
Rachel: Oh. But how did the dinosaurs get extinct, anyway?
Grandma: Well, we're not really sure but some people think that a giant meteor hit the earth and destroyed everything on it.
Rachel: Wow! What kind of giant meat-eater? Because, like, some dinosaurs already were meat-eaters. Like t-rex? He was a meat-eater. But this must've been a really giant meat-eater to eat a t-rex!
Me: Meteor. Not meat-eater.
Rachel: Oh. What's a meteor.
Me: It's like a falling star...
Miriam: What kind of monster?!

April 18:

Rachel: How do you get rid of slivers, again?

Me: You can either pull them out or just wait for them to fall out. Why? Do you have a sliver?

Rachel: Uh...yeah. Remember?

She showed me her finger.

Me: That's a blister, not a sliver.

Rachel: Oh. How do you get rid of blisters then?

"

April 9:

Rachel was throwing a huge fit while Miriam was wandering around the house singing to herself. Grandpa Reid caught me in the kitchen feeling quite frustrated.

Grandpa: Hey, at least she has pants on!
Me: I would rather have happy naked children than well-dressed grumpy ones!

April 5:

I asked Miriam to find a sweater and put it on. She came back to find me with one half of her sweater on correctly. It was twisted in the back and she somehow turned the sleeve inside out so the other half was on as wrong as could be (upside down and inside out).

"I'm not having very good luck," she sobbed.

************

Grandma set some Easter decorations out yesterday evening after the girls were in bed.

Miriam just walked into the kitchen and she stopped dead in her tracks—her eyes popping and her jaw dropping.

"Mom! It's Easter!" she squealed. "Whoa.

April 4:

‎"Where's the wicked witch from? I can't remember, like, which direction she comes from. I just know she's from the mall," said Rachel.

"The mall?" I asked.

"Yeah. You know—she's the wickedest witch of the mall."

"She's the wickedest witch OF THEM ALL."

"Oooooooooh!"

April 4:

Miriam, seeing a picture of George Romney (the namesake of Andrew's MPA program) asks, "Who is that?"

"That's George Romney," I told her.

"Is he part of your friends? What means this—George Romney?"

April 2:

Me: Nom, nom, nom. I'm going to eat your hand!
Miriam: No! Don't eat my hand!
Me: Why not?
Miriam: Cuz...it is made out of...people. We don't eat some people!

April 1:

Last night at 1:00 AM we had a very in depth conversation about ant-cats or aunt-cats (not sure which). They're grey and scary and are as tall as people. They steal people. And they bite. And they aren't scared of ephalents or lions.

We eventually decided that they're afraid of baby drool. And since Miriam is always sucking her thumb she always has plenty of drool to fling about so she should be *completely* safe.

Phew. Back to bed.

Nightmares can be very entertaining.

March 31:

Andrew: Can I borrow your Kindle?
Me: Does this mean you're giving the girls a bath?
Andrew: That's exactly what it means.
Me: Then certainly you may. Use it for as. long. as. you. want.

************

Miriam: When is Naanii going to sit-baby us again?

March 29:

Miriam: I'm the sister.
Rachel: No, I'm the sister.
Miriam: No, I'm the sister.
Rachel: No, I'm the sister.
Me: Girls! Cut it out—you're both sisters!
Girls: Yeah! *tongues stick out*

************

Miriam: Not you did go to Idaho yet?
Grandma: No. I just went to the store.
Miriam: Oh...then...I can come with you!
Grandma: To Idaho?!
Miriam: Yeah!
Grandma: No. I am going to take just Grandpa to Idaho.
Miriam: Darn.

March 24:

After staying up until 10:30 PM, both of my girls got up in the middle of the night, crying. Multiple times. Then they expected me to bound out of bed at 8:30 this morning with a huge smile on my face to make them...s'mores!?

What the s'mores?

March 23:

Rachel: Can we have dessert?
Me: I have nothing planned for dessert.
Rachel: Can you just look up a recipe and make it?
Me: I'm not doing anything until you do the dishes.
Rachel: *sigh* I wish magic was really real.

************

Miriam: I'm a bonny princess. I'm a bonny princess. I'm a bonny princess!

At first I thought her vocabulary had blossomed. Then I realized she was also hopping...like a bunny. Oh...a bunny princess. Gotcha.

************

Rachel: B-I-N-G-O! B-I-N-G-O! B-I-N-G-O! Hey...what's an NGO?
Me: Well, it's a non-governmental organization but I think the real answer to your question is that it's part of B-I-N-G-O, which spells Bingo, which is the name of the dog.

March 21:

Miriam is using a pair of binoculars. Inside the house.

Me: Ooh! What do you see?
Miriam: *Hmph.* I don't see an eagle.
Me: You don't? What a surprise!
Miriam: No. I don't. Know what? I guess these 'noculars don't work.

************

Rachel is eating lunch (still...) and singing, "Gritherin. Slythendor. Ravenpuff. Huffleclaw." And so forth ad infinitum.

March 20:

Rachel is definitely my daughter. She had a chocolate chip cookie with lunch today—and left a pile of chocolate chips on her plate.

"Ugh—I thought these were raisins," she said. "But they were chocolate chips so I just picked them out and ate the cookie."

Chocolate upsets her stomach.

March 19:

Huge fight over block towers. Ended with Miriam being kicked out of the bedroom. I told her she needed to apologize because she'd been the one to knock over Rachel's tower.

Miriam: *knock, knock* Can I 'pologize to you, Rachie?
Rachel: *opens door*
Miriam: *hangs head* I'm sorry I did knocked over your tower.
Rachel: Miriam, how does it feel to you when I knock over your towers? Bad. That's how it feels when you knock over my towers, too!
Miriam: I'm sorry.
Rachel: You can't just knock over people's towers and expect everything to be okay!
Miriam: I'm sorry—I'm just a little girl!

Somehow this conversation ended the same way it started—with a door being slammed in Miriam's face and tears all around. Maybe Rachel needs more time to heal...block tower wounds run deep.

March 18:

I had Rachel peel a cucumber for dinner—her first time. It took her the whole time I was making dinner to do it, but she did it.

"I can't believe I'm opening a cucumber," she said. "Dad will never believe it! When he gets home I will show him that I can shred a cucumber and he'll be so embarrassed that he'll fall over."

I'm just excited she's happy to be helping.

March 15:

We're doing our civic duty by having Andrew babysit my friend's kids so she and her husband can attend the Republican caucus ('cuz we're certainly not going to that one). I stayed home to get our kids ready for bed (my friend's kids were already in bed—amazing I tell you) and the girls wanted to walk down to say goodnight to Daddy before going to bed themselves, so we did. On the way home we admired the stars and I pointed out The Dippers, The North Star, Orion, and Venus (the planet) to the girls...not that they actually understood where I was pointing but they were certainly impressed.

"How do you know all of this?" Rachel asked.

"When I was in college I took an astronomy class," I told her.

"What?! You took a *star* class?! I want to be a space ranger when I grow up so I'm going to take star classes, too, just like you! I didn't know that you learned all that stuff! I just thought you were a mom!"

Somehow she's always shocked when she finds out that life existed before she did.

March 13:

There was a crash in the bedroom and then I heard Miriam's voice whining: "My body! My body! Ouch! I hurt my body!"

Couldn't be any more specific? Meh—no tears, no blood...she's good.

************

Me: What are you doing, Rachel?
Rachel: Oh, just so...you know how Hermione made the potion on the toilet seat? That's just what I'm doing, too.

Strike one against Harry Potter. Do you know how much I hate toilets? Do you know how much more I hate children playing with toilets? Ew. Just EW!

************

Miriam: The tag goes in the back. Hey! Here is a tag. This is a back!
Me: That's right—but you're still putting your pants on backwards.
Miriam: Whhhhhy?
Me: You need to turn them around so the tag is in the back.
Miriam: Turn, turn, turn. Not can I not do it! Can we just move the tag to the one'an [other] side?

March 12:

"I'm a doctor, a nurse, a zookeeper, and I have two babies. And I'm a witch. And I build beds."

Thank you, Rachel, for making me feel like a slacker.

March 9:

Miriam: Can I just use this box of crayons?
Me: Sure.
Miriam: Just that—it's Rachie's and she's not here so then I can use it!
Me: No. I didn't know it was Rachel's. If it's Rachel's we should put it away.
Miriam: Why? Not she is here to take it away from me. So...we can share!
Me: Well, sharing is nice but it's not very good...
Miriam: Sharing IS good. Sharing is so, so, so good!
Me: Yes. Sharing is nice and sharing is good. BUT it's not very good to use other people's things without permission.
Miriam: Oh.

************

Miriam threw a temper tantrum before her nap. Her temper tantrums consist of crying a little (like for 5 seconds, if that) and then laying down on the floor to suck her thumb. Be jealous. (Or don't because my other temper tantrum thrower is Rachel and her tantrums...well...)

Anyway, I said, "Yes, Miriam—that'll show me."

Rachel rushed into the room.

"What? What? What is Miriam showing you? Show me!"

It's a figure of speech, child. That's all.

March 8:

Miriam came across me eating an apple—a sliced apple. She asked if she could have a snack, too.

"Sure, have a piece of my apple," I told her.

"No! Just that...not do I want to share germs with you! I need my own apple!"

"Taking a piece of apple that I haven't bitten doesn't share germs."

"Not does it share germs?"

"No."

"Okay!"

March 5:

"Me: Hmmm...do these shoes still fit your feet?
Miriam: Yes! Those are does!"

March 1:

I called the doctor to cancel Miriam's follow-up appointment since all her symptoms have finally cleared up.

Me: Heiss. H-E-I-S-S. Miriam. M-I-R-I-A-M.
Miriam: AND I'M TWO!
Receptionist: And what's her birthdate?
Me: October 25, 2009.
Miriam: AND I'M TWO!
Receptionist: And when was that appointment?
Me: Tomorrow at around 10 o'clock.
Miriam: AND I'M TWO!
Receptionist: So, she's two, huh?
Me: How'd you know?

************

Miriam: That medicine is yucky! I want my pink medicine. It's yummy!
Me: You don't need your pink medicine anymore but after you take this you can have a candy.
Miriam: I want lots of them!
Me: You can have one.
Miriam: Can I has two candies. 'Cuz...am I two!
Me: Alright. You can have two candies.
Miriam: Five candies?
Me: Two. That's all.

You drive a hard bargain, baby—but for *you* I make good price.

February 24:

"Miriam climbed up to the kitchen sink to wash off after lunch. She can turn the tap on all by herself, which she thinks is pretty awesome. Today, though, her head was right under the faucet by the time she managed to turn on the tap.

"Ahhh!" she squealed. "I did give myself a sink bath!""

February 23:

Rachel dropped some spaghetti in her lap.

Rachel: Oh, man...I'm going to kill myself.
Me: That's not a nice thing to say! Where did you hear that?
Rachel: Mmmm...I don't know.
Miriam: I am going to kill myself.
Me: I just said that's not a nice thing to say!
Miriam: Oh...I am going to baptize me.

************

Me: I'm hungry. I'm gonna eat your toes!
Miriam: No! Don't eat my toes! Not they are food—just are they pretties! Got it? GOT IT?

There was much finger wagging in my face. Got it.

Her toes are "pretties," by the way, because I had just painted them sparkly pink this morning.

February 21:

I'm not feeling great this morning so instead of walking Rachel to school I sent her through the backyard of one neighbour into the backyard of another neighbour so she could walk to school with their son. I left Miriam alone while I handled the transaction—which took all of two minutes (if that; and Grandma and Grandpa were in the house with her).

I came back inside the house and Miriam was sitting at the table with a large pile of conversation hearts in front of her.

"Don't be mad, Mommy, but I got myself some candy," she told me, flashing a huge smile.

Good thing she already ate breakfast. :)

February 19:

I just snapped a picture of my girls and Andrew doing this freaky thing that no one should be able to physically accomplish but they all can. Rachel asked to look at the picture.

"Oh. I have red eyes—can you take care of that after you upload it?" she asked.

The other day she said to me, "I have a question for you that you'll probably just have to look up the answer for on Google."

"What's your question?" I asked.

"What colour is Luke's light saber?"

"Yeah, let's go Google that."

Her childhood is a *little* bit different than mine was!

************

"MOM!"

*sigh* "What?"

"Miriam says she was born in Cupcake Land."

"So?"

"Well, she's NOT!"

"So?"

Let's all cry about it. For sure.

February 18:

‎"You're my bestest mommy in the worlorld." -Miriam

February 16:

Miriam: Is it bedtime?
Me: Not yet.
Miriam: Is it bedtime?
Me: Not yet. We're going to Relief Society tonight, remember?
Miriam: But...is it bedtime?
Me: No. It's. not.
Miriam: Ooooh. But...not is it sunshine outside anymore. Is it so, so dark!
Me: Fine, but it's not bedtime.
Miriam: Oh, not yet?
Me: Not yet.
Miriam: YAY! Not is it bedtime yet!

Glad we established that...

Miriam: Is Relief Society at the church?
Me: Yes.
Miriam: Then...yes, I can wear my pretty Sunday shoes?

February 15:

This morning we went to a bilingual story time at the library. At dinner Rachel asked me what a nacho was.

"You know," I said. "It's when you melt cheese on a tortilla chip."

"I know," she said. "But I mean the Spanish meaning of nacho, not the English meaning."

"Ummmm...isn't that the same thing?" I guessed.

"But it's not! We learned it today and I can't remember what it means...buenos nachos."

"Buenas noches?"

"Yeah! Buenos nachos!"

"It means good night."

"Oh. Buenos nachos, Mom!"

"Buenas noches, Rachel."

************

The doorbell rang...

Rachel, racing to the door: Yay! Emily's here!
Miriam, following behind: I'm a rotten egg! I'm a rotten egg!

She's always the last one there, poor thing.

February 14:

While playing with the dollhouse, Miriam kept trying to cram an entire family into one bed (Mommy, Daddy, baby, and sister). It wasn't working—dolls kept falling out. So Miriam came up with a brilliant solution. She ran over to the toy box, grabbed a couch and said, "It's okay! Just can the daddy rest on the couch!"

And then the family all slept comfortably. It's like she was reenacting last night or something (though Andrew didn't end up on the couch, he *did* end up in Rachel's bed for a while).

February 8:

Miriam just handed me her baby doll:

"Here, Mom—will you just sit my little baby? Cuz me going on a date! Help me put on my princess dress. I'm going to the castle. Bye, bye."

************

Rachel walked in on me folding laundry.

"When you're done with that can you help us make a tent in the living room?" she asked.

"Sure," I said.

"And when you're all finished I'll give you a 'good-job thumb,' deal?"

Deal—because I live for a thumb's up. What bribery!

February 6:

Rachel was racing down the hallway and bumped into the wall three times while recovering from rounding the corner.

"I just wish walls weren't ever made!" she wailed.

February 1:

Miriam drew something that looks like a heart. I commented on it.

"What?" said Rachel, "I have GOT to see this. WOW, Miriam. Wait until Mommy tells Dad! That's...STUPENDOUS!"

************

‎"Wow! My cow is a muppet!" —Miriam, upon discovering the cow she was playing with was a puppet.

************

This morning instead of dragging me out of bed the girls just hung out with me. Miriam gave me a back rub or, as she calls it, a rubber. Rachel tried to give her one.

"Don't rubber my back, Rachie! I'm busy rubbering Mom's back. If you rubber my back again I'll spank you in the face!"

Rachel told her that she could go ahead and spank her in the face because that's an impossible thing to do—because you can only spank bums!

Later they brought out the magna-doodles and drew pictures. Rachel wrote "KO."

"What does this spell?" she asked me.

"KO," I answered.

"No!" she said, "It spells OK! That's what Grandma gets on the Wii Fit!"

January 30:

From the storage room I brought up some tomato soup for the tomato soup lover and a package of oriental noodles...or Ramen...or Ichiban...or whatever (we call it "Tangled Hair Soup") for the non-tomato soup lover.

"What?!" said Miriam when she saw the tomato soup. "Not do I like tomato soup!"

"I know," I said, "I brought some Tangled Hair up, too. I'll make them separately."

"What's separate?"

"It means not together."

"Oh! Rachel—we're going to have separate soup. Mommy's making them separate!"

January 28:

Instead of "what the heck," Miriam just said, "What the hiccup?!"

I'm not sure how I feel about her use of "what the heck" but "what the hiccup" is pretty much hilarious.

January 26:

"And it came to pass that the Nephites spread their scriptures as pastly as past. And Jesus appeared and he said unto them..."

—Rachel, reading to Miriam

************

Eating tuna fish sandwiches for lunch...

Me: You should put a chip in your sandwich. It's really good.
Rachel: Alright; I'll try it just this once.
Miriam: You should put a graham cracker in your sandwich. It's really good.
Rachel: Nobody's going to try that, Meme.

Also, we'd just come inside from building a snowman so Rachel asked for hot chocolate with lunch. I told her that she was out of luck because hot chocolate is a Daddy-thing.

"I wish I could have lunch with Daddy always. That way we could always have hot chocolate. *sigh* Even on summer days," she said.

"

************

"Once upon a time a creature did bite my toe and I got stuck in its nose but you did pulled me out of the creature's nose and did saved me but me still scared of the creature." —Miriam

January 24:

Me: Are you ready to put some boots on?
Miriam: No. Me want Sunday shoes.
Me: But it's snowy outside—you need to wear boots.
Miriam: No. Not is it snowy! Me saw daddy shobeling. He did shobel the whole street and the whole ground. There not is snow on the sidewalk!

January 23:

I left a pitcher of water on the counter—the one we use to fill up the humidifier in the girls' bedroom on a nightly basis.

"What's that for?" asked Grandpa.

"The 'fier in my bedroom," Miriam told him.

Somehow shortening humidifier to "fire" sounds a little dangerous.

January 20:

"Did you know I saw a robin on my walk home today? But then I hit that jingly music thing [chime] in Grandma's tree to make if fly away so it wouldn't distract me anymore because it was singing and stuff and I was like 'Ah! I can't remember to walk home when you're singing at me!'" —Rachel"

January 19:

"I have a scratchy nose. Can you just put a bandaid on it or something 'cuz it hurts!" —Miriam

It's cold and flu season. Obviously.

************

A nursery was provided for the Relief Society activity tonight. When I picked my kids up I said, "Did you have a good time?"

Miriam said, "Yeah. And I peed my pants!"

And indeed she had. There is a bathroom RIGHT there, which she used once, but apparently wetting her pants was also part of the experience. She sounded so excited about it, too.

************

"I drew a number one and then I drew Hermione just to help me remember what one looks like because there's only one Hermione." —Rachel

January 18:

Playing with playdoh...

Miriam shows me a marble-sized ball: "This is a ball."

She then shows me a ball about half the size of the first: "And this is a giant, giant, giant, giant booger!"

Creativity abounds.

January 17:

Me: I'm going to start making dinner.
Andrew: Do you guys want to help?
Rachel: What are we having?
Andrew: Pizza Monkey Bread!
Rachel: Ew. Does it have monkeys *in* it?

************

Andrew stopped by the store on his way home from school today. Miriam unpacked for him. Toothpaste for the girls, razors for me, shaving cream for Andrew.

"Is it like Christmas!" Miriam exclaimed, passing out toiletries and hugs.

January 13:

Throw up day = I don't care how much TV the kids watch

I just put on a movie (LeapFrog: Numbers Ahoy) for the girls and Rachel asked who the bad guys were.

"I don't know," I said.

"Why not?" she asked.

"I've never seen this movie before," I admitted.

"Not even when you were a little girl?" she asked.

"This movie didn't exist when I was a little girl," I said.

"WHAT?!" she gasped. "Movies didn't exist when you were little?!"

"Not all movies; just *this* movie."

"Oooooh. Okay."

January 12:

Miriam's looking for a wand—my girls usually use unsharpened pencils for that purpose. Miriam, however, found a sharpened one. She brought it to me and told me in a very disappointed manner, "Not this is a wand! This is...just a pencil."

January 11:

Rachel: Hey, Mom! Good news—we don't have to fight over Pinkie Pie ( a "My Little Pony") because she's lost. Neither of us can find her. Isn't that great?

January 10:

Rachel: Mom, go ahead and open the dishwasher.

Me: Aw. Did you and Daddy do the dishes this morning before school?

Rachel: MOM! You're not supposed to guess you're supposed to look!

January 9:

"Hey! You're supposed to be the dead man! You can't move or talk! You're not following the rules!"

"Rachel! Leave your sister alone! You're being too bossy—how can she play if she can't move or talk?"

"Not me wanna be a dead man."

"Well, Meme, you can be a dead girl..."

Right. This sounds like a wonderful game. Not.

************

"Harry Potter snake—he's gross, and mean, and slimier than a king!" sings Rachel to a made-up tune. She hasn't seen the 2nd movie, no...and won't for some time. Somehow she still knows about the snake.

And last night the girls had the following fight:

Miriam: Voldemort! Voldemort! Voldemort!
Rachel: Don't say that!
Miriam: Voldemort! Voldemort! Voldemort!
Rachel: Please, stop saying that!
Miriam: Voldemort! Voldemort! Voldemort!
Rachel: Stop saying his name!
Miriam: Voldemort!
Rachel: Why can't you just say You-Know-Who?

"

January 8:

Andrew: And then it's time to get ready for bed.
Rachel: Again?

Everyday.

************

For your pleasure, Miriam said an unending sentence today.

And I quote, "We didn't walk to church today 'cuz when we walk to church it makes Rachel sad and sad and sad and sad and sad and sad and sad and sad and..."

January 6:

I asked Miriam if we could change her pants because they *really* don't match her shirt (and she wore them yesterday).

"Know what, Mom?" she said, "They're pretty pants! And know what—I'm wearing them. I'm not changing mine clothes!"

So that about settles it.

And thus my two-year-old will take on the world today in the most clashing-ist outfit ever.

************

Rachel's flipping through the Harry Potter series, looking at the little picture at the top of each chapter. She finished #1 and grabbed the next one, which happened to be #3 because #2 was misplaced.

"Mom!" she shrieked, "This isn't book 2! This is book 3! Where's book two?!"

I found it on a different shelf and handed it to her.

"I guess I'll just have to read them out of order," she sighed, "Since I'm already halfway through #3."

January 3:

Rachel: I want to watch a movie.
Me: Sorry; not today. You have dishes to do, you just threw a big fit, and I don't know that we have time for that today. Come on, Miriam. It's nap time.
Miriam: I want to watch a movie.
Me: I already said no to that request.
Miriam: Ummm...I want to watch *two* movies...
Me: Nice try. Still nap time.

I hereby promise that I'll do this once a month instead of once every four months...but I can't promise that I'll keep that promise (not to get all soap-opera-y or anything). I still have multiple funny stories to share that I haven't written down. But my kids have been up for a while now and I'm in the middle of making tomato sauce, doing laundry, supervising play-doh time...so later...

Tree Huggers

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 05:33:00 +0000

Last night we went to a wedding reception and danced the night away. Needless to say, the girls did not want to wake up this morning to get ready for church. I knew it would be a tough day for Rachel since she had had a very restless sleep (she growls in her sleep sometimes and it's a bad omen for the following morning) and had to let her lie in bed moaning for a good fifteen minutes before she finally got out of bed. Miriam woke up grinning, as per her usual, but acted very sleepy the entire day.

We had stake conference today, which was nice because it meant that I didn't have to teach Sunbeams by myself (that will be next week) but it was also not nice because it meant two hours of making my children sit still and listen to adults speak instead of the one hour we have on a regular Sunday.

Aside from multiple trips to the bathroom and drinking fountain and spreading their stuff all over the aisle and one terrific Rachel-meltdown, the girls did fairly well. And I even got to listen to what some of the speakers said. It helped that we sat beside my parents...

After church my mom and dad came over to our house for lunch; we ate party leftovers. Then Rachel went to watch Matilda at my parents' house while I put Miriam down for a nap. I took a nap, too, since Rachel was gone and Miriam was sleeping and when I woke up I thought, "That's weird. I woke up before Miriam. Why can't I fall back asleep?" Usually I wake up to her knocking on her bedroom door.

Then I looked at the clock and...two-and-a-half-hours!?

I woke Miriam up and she did not greet me with a smile. She usually wakes up from nap time less happy than she wakes up in the morning but she was quite upset about being woken up today. I picked her up to carry her to the rocking chair (our post-nap ritual) and she asked to be put down, so I did...and she ran back to bed.

"Why are you so sleepy?" I asked.

"'Cuz I didn't have a long, long nap!" she said.

"You did have a long, long nap," I assured her.

"Didn't!"

She decided that she could stay awake, though, when I told her we were going on a walk to Naanii and Bumpa's house and got herself all prettied up—in pants and a skirt and a shirt and a dress. I had asked her to put a pair of pants on (she had taken hers off before falling asleep) because it was a little chilly today and she said, "'Ow 'bout a skirt? Know what? Skirts are pants, Mom! They are because they are in my pants drawer."

Whatever. So she wore her self-selected outfit and we went to my parents' house and then to the park where Miriam out-swung every child who passed through. I should probably check the Guinness World Record for the amount of time a two-year-old has willingly swung (without fussing or getting bored or asking to get down) because I'm pretty sure Miriam could give that record a go.

At one point, before my mom had joined us, both girls were swinging. Miriam was on one of the baby swings and Rachel had chosen the swing on the farthest end of the swingset. Then they were both yelling at me to push them higher. I was like, "Really? You couldn't have chosen the swing next to the baby swings? You had to choose the swing at the very end?" Apparently she had to choose the swing at the very end. Rachel's getting better at pumping but isn't quite self-sufficient yet.

Near the end of our time at the park Rachel asked me to help her climb into a tree, so I did. So Miriam had to climb a tree, too. And then I had to take pictures. And therefore you get to see the outfit she cobbled together:

That would be pink halloween pants with black bats and orange blobs, a white skirt with blue flowers and green foliage, a long-sleeved ladybug shirt, and a pink dress with blue and purple flowers.

I will admit that I kind of fought her on the dress and told her that she didn't need to put on any other clothes, but she tearfully insisted that she needed to wear that dress. My mom pointed out that it does kind of tie the whole outfit together. Without it her outfit might have looked really ridiculous.

Rachel wanted to show me how jaguars sleep in trees. We read a couple of books about the rain forest a few nights ago...

Apparently jaguars don't hug trees, though. They just let their arms and legs dangle. I had to take another picture.

And here she is being just plain ol' Rachel...in a tree. She could probably sit up there all day. Maybe I should check the Guinness record on that, too.

And here's a few more pictures of Miriam up a tree:

We went back to my parents' house for dinner and dessert (leftover cake from Sarah's party) and by the time we'd finished eating it was nearing bedtime (remember all the time we spent swinging and sitting in trees—we were there for a while). My dad said he was going to go on a walk to check to make sure that the church was locked. Rachel jumped up and volunteered to go, too. And then Miriam jumped up and announced that she'd do whatever Rachel was doing. So we made it a family affair.

Unfortunately, when we got to the church we couldn't check it because there was an Eagle Court of Honour going on (we're assuming...from all the scout uniforms and pictures of eagles all over the cultural hall). This crushed Rachel because she wanted to help check her classroom (even though her classroom doesn't have a window to potentially be left unlocked) so we went into the church, anyway, and checked on the nursery for Miriam, as well as mine and Rachel's classrooms.

Rachel impressed Naanii and Bumpa by telling them what numbers the classrooms were. She knows that Miriam is in room 5 and that her classroom is room 10. She also knows that my classroom is room 11 but always says that I'm in room 7 for some reason (because they rhyme?).

On our way home we ran into my parents' neighbours who were out walking their little Pomeranian. We had to stop to pet it—Miriam was only brave enough to touch it a few times but Rachel warmed up to it enough to give it a hug goodbye. It was a fun little walk. But by then it was definitely time to go home for bed. So we did.

And then instead of brushing our teeth we got out bowls of water and drank from them like dogs.

Brush. Your. Teeth!

And then instead of picking up the paper and crayons we drew pictures of Pomeranians and then begged to have Mommy help us spell Pomeranian and then put our pictures under our pillows to help us have good dreams about Pomeranians.

Clean. Up. Your. Room!

And then instead of getting into our pyjamas we got in a big fight and had to be sent to time-out for pulling hair and scratching.

Just put on your pyjamas! And don't touch each other!

But we finally made it into bed and I successfully ignored the pitiful pleas at the door (at 10:15 PM) reminding me that I forgot to give them their vitamins.

Here's the funny thing about me: I care about passing out vitamins at 7:00 PM; I care about passing out vitamins at 8:00 PM; I might even care about passing out vitamins at 9:00 PM. Maybe. But by 10:00 PM? I really just want my kids in bed and I don't care about passing out vitamins.

That's why Andrew initiated the "once you're in bed, you're in bed" rule. And I love him for it. Because apparently I'm not strict enough to initiate a rule like that but I have no problem enforcing it because I can say, "Remember...Daddy said."

Frankly, if you remember at 10:00 at night that you didn't get your daily vitamin...I don't care anymore.

That's how cruel of a mother I am.

It's also why I keep my prenatal vitamins right by my bed (but, yes, out of reach of my children...unless they climb...which, let's be honest, they can do...so why I try to keep things out of their reach, I don't know...that's what those pesky child-proof lids are for, I guess)—so that if I remember that I forgot to take my vitamin at some ungodly hour while I'm trying to fall asleep I can take it without even (really) getting out of bed.

Because once you're in bed, you're in bed.

Auntie Sarah's UVU graduation

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:05:00 +0000

Auntie Sarah graduated from Utah Valley University yesterday with a BS in History. She's hoping to be a schoolteacher and just finished up her student teaching a couple of weeks ago. Does it date me that when I graduated from UVU it was UVSC?

We didn't go to the actual graduation (I tortured my children with that kind of thing last week) but Grandma hosted a party at our house for her afterwards. Rachel and Miriam were excited to help set up and decorate—Rachel made a couple of signs to post around the house showing off UVU's colours and logo. She was proud that she figured out how to spell UVU all by herself. I'm not sure exactly how much merit I see in spelling an acronym where you pronounce each letter...but it's a start.

The girls were excited to see Sarah in her robes, of course. They both just love graduation regalia (due to their undying love for all things Harry Potter) and although Sarah's stole was in Slytherin's colours instead of Gryffindor's they were enamoured with her outfit anyway.

Both Miriam and Rachel were dressed up as ballerinas (they had been dancing in the living room, practicing arabesques and so forth before everyone arrived for the party). It almost looks like these three were getting ready to head out trick-or-treating. My girls are the only pretenders in the picture though; Sarah is the real deal.

The party was a grand affair with sandwiches, fruit, vegetables, and cake.

We had about sixty people stop by to wish Sarah well (a goodly crowd). My parents forgot...but they came by at like 8:30 for cake (they say congratulations, Sarah).

It was kind of crazy with all the little ones running around—Rachel's room was decimated. I had sought solace in the office (chatting online with Andrew who was just getting ready for bed (and who hasn't found time to blog about Ghana yet because he made the mistake of taking The Hunger Games series with him—guess what he's been doing every spare minute he gets...)) and eventually the kids wandered into the office to play with the office toys. They opened the drawer of Barbies and I said, "Oh, no you don't! If you need a clean place to play, let's clean up your bedroom and then you can mess it up again. I don't want a huge mess in here."

The office still got torn apart a bit, anyway. There are still dress ups (and normal clothes) and blocks and random toys and crayons scattered all over the floor. It's hard to believe that it was clean yesterday.

I don't know what it is about kids but they like to play in clean places yet leave a wake of disastrous messes behind them. I saw something online that said a child is like a blender without a lid. Mess. Everywhere. All the time. I think that's somewhat true. But the kids had fun and, frankly, cleaning up toys doesn't take very long. Chuck the stuffed animals here, throw the blocks there, put the books on the shelf...done.

We took a few pictures of Sarah in her robes since she didn't get many after the ceremony—which is par for the course since things always seem a little rushed on these big days. We're all very proud of her!

And the individual pictures that I put in the collage...just in case you want to see them bigger...

Doesn't she look happy/relieved to be finished? She's worked hard.

Here she is with her husband, Cory. He's happy she's finished, too, because he'll be starting at the Police Academy this summer. He supported her while she was in school and now the tables are turning and she'll be supporting him.

Here's Reid and Karen with their first daughter to graduate from college:

And, lastly, a quick snapshot of Auntie Sarah with Rachel, Miriam, and Kayl. We didn't get a picture of her with her nephews on Cory's side so hopefully someone did...

We went inside and, since all the company was gone, decided Sarah should open her cards and gifts. Miriam wasn't sure where to sit so Sarah suggested that she hop up beside Uncle Cory and, much to everyone's surprise, she did—though she was careful to maintain her distance (she can be pretty shy around people, specifically her uncles and grandpas and...lots of other people).

She got a card that was absolutely hilarious, so I'm going to share it (for Andrew's sake, because I know he'll appreciate it). The front says, "Congratulations, Graduate. Here's a little something to help you get started on your own," so of course everyone is expecting money to be inside. Instead when she opened it up it was empty except for the words, "WILL WORK FOR FOOD" spelled out in big, bold letters across both sides of the card—so that she could sit downtown and hold it up to ask for donations.

It gave everyone a good laugh.

In all seriousness, though, graduating (with honours, no less) is a great achievement! We're proud of you, Sarah!