Heissatopia

Miriam's Organ Recital

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 20:49:57 +0000

Our stake (largely through the efforts of Sister Hammond) arranged a farewell organ recital for Miriam this past Sunday. Miriam has played for stake conferences, our ward, the Magnolia (Spanish) ward, stake Easter events, stake Christmas events, and so forth. She has loved getting to use her talents in this way. Sister Hammond keeps a little sign with (a paraphrase) 1 Corinthians 10:31 on the organ, "Do everything for the glory of God" to help remind her while she plays the organ that...that's why she's sitting there.

Miriam also feels that music contributes to worship, with variations and flourishes helping people listening to the same old song feel something new and different and—God willing—divine. She has, at times, received pushback for playing classical music during postlude, which she thinks is rather funny because much classical music was written for worship. Our current bishop more or less gives her free reign but that doesn't mean everyone in the congregation approved of her choices (and, boy, did she hear about it...but she's pretty good at ignoring superfluous advice).

One of Miriam's favourite composers is Bach (despite her program last night being full of French composers). He began most compositions with the inscription J.J. (for Jesu, Juva, meaning Jesus, help) and ended them with S.D.G. (for soli Deo gloria meaning glory to God alone), indicating that his music was his worship. It sounds like he was a fan of 1 Corinthians 10:31!

Here is Miriam's bio from the program:

Miriam Heiss first started learning piano at 5, and only 3 years later her grandmother signed her up for an experimental children’s organ course at Brigham Young University. In 2019 she and her family moved to Georgia, and she continued her organ lessons. She has earned various awards from the National Federation of Music Clubs, in both Organ Hymns and Repertoire. In 2024 she earned the Young Bach plaque from the Piano Guild. Over the past 8 years she has played many notable instruments, including the Atlanta Fox Theatre’s “Mighty Mo,” the 1979 Rieger at Christchurch Cathedral in Oxford, the Tabernacle Organ in Salt Lake City, and most recently the Létourneau Organ at Brigham Young University. She will begin her senior year in September, after she and her family move to Doha, Qatar, and plans on applying to Brigham Young University as an Organ Performance major.

Here's a shot of her playing the organ:

Her performance pieces were interspersed with congregational hymn sing-alongs (and the program lasted about 1 hour and 20 minutes with Miriam popping up from the organ to explain her pieces and then performing and then playing hymns—she was quite worn out by the end).

About 50 people showed up to watch her (with several others tuning in online, including her grandparents, some aunts and uncles, some old ward members like the Wasdens):

We were so happy her organ teacher showed up to watch!

She's been so wonderful to work with the last few years, so encouraging to Miriam as a musician (and as a person).

Miriam began her program with Carillon de Westminster by Louis Vierne. She shared the story about how he wrote it as an "exit piece," fully expecting the audience to leave the cathedral while he played it. Instead, the audience (worshippers at Notre Dame) sat, enraptured, and then offered a standing ovation, much to Vierne's surprise. She then invited her audience to stay and listen. It was a cute introduction (that unfortunately didn't make it onto the recording).

The recording can be viewed here, by the way:

The rest of her program included:

Glory to God on High (hymn #67)
For the Beauty of the Earth (hymn #92)
Chant de Paix by Jean Langlais
Where Can I Turn for Peace? (hymn #129)
It is Well With my Soul (hymn #1003)
"Little" Fugue in G Minor by J.S. Bach
Toccata and Fugue in F Major by Dietrich Buxtehude
Israel, Israel, God is Calling (hymn #7)
Hark, All Ye Nations (hymn #264)
Prélude from Op. 18 by César Franck
Priere à Notre Dame from Op. 25 by Léon Boëllmann
I Stand All Amazed (hymn #193)
The Lord's My Shepherd (hymn #1038)
Finale from Symphony No. 1 by Louis Vierne

It was a very enjoyable evening! Sister Hammond prepared some light refreshments to have after—little sandwiches, fruit, and cookies—and then sent the leftovers home with us so that we could have some easy meals the next little while. This was very thoughtful because our house is rather echoey, our cupboards rather bare, and preparing meals is getting increasingly challenging (we kept a smattering of pots and pans but sent most everything else overseas).

We're sure going to miss having so many organs available for Miriam to play—and I can hardly believe that I only have a year left to listen to her practice all the time! How sad (and happy)!

Procrastination

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 18:38:22 +0000

"I need to call the doctor to make an appointment for you girls," I said to Phoebe and Miriam while we were playing with play dough in our rather empty basement.

"Oh, for what?" Phoebe asked. "Please not for shots."

"For shots, actually," I said. "I don't remember which ones. I just have a note in my calendar that says to call the doctor to schedule a couple of shots for you. I remember that when you had your check ups you both had the first shot in a two-shot series, so now it's time for the second shot."

"Aw, man!" Phoebe said. Then she asked brightly, "Can you make the appointment for Sunday?"

"Why Sunday?" I asked (not even bothering to tell her that the doctor's office is closed on Sunday).

"Because I don't like shots," she explained.

"How would making an appointment on Sunday help that?" I asked.

"Because I know I'm only four and I don't have a good sense of time, but I do know that yesterday was Sunday so that means I have a bit of time to go before it's Sunday again."

"I see," I said. "You'd like to put this off for as long as possible."

"Yeah."

"I'll see what I can do."

Their appointment is for Thursday, which is still a good ways off!

Is that the Chattanooga Choo-Choo?

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 14:58:32 +0000

We left to pick Zoë up from spending a week at Rosie and Austin's house right after church on Sunday last week. She had a good and busy time at Rosie's house—they went to a stake primary activity, a water park, a fun farewell party at a playground for one of Rosie's friends, and did a lot of other fun things!

Rosie and Austin were kind enough to drive down and meet us in Chattanooga (we took a 5-seater car and left Miriam and Benjamin at home because our van is...the way it is) so it wasn't too far of a drive.

We met at a park by the zoo and the kids enjoyed playing with each other for a couple of hours (even though it was hot) while the grown ups visited.

Zoë loved being a baby whisperer and entertaining her little cousins, but I think she found that it was exhausting work (and...she got bit a couple of times by an angry toddler). On the way to meet us at the park she told Rosie that she's glad she's not a permanent member of Rosie's family (because at least after all that work she gets to go home).

Turns out it's exhausting to have three kids five and under!

I have lived through those odds myself and can confirm that it is, indeed, exhausting.

But it does get better!

Or at least...different.

It can still be exhausting (see my post about June) but just in different ways...that somehow don't feel as desperate. I think having everyone be able to feed, toilet, and clean (up after) themselves helps a lot. It is stressful to have multiple people dependent on you for everything. Hurrah for independence!

My mom texted to ask when Zoë was coming home soon after we arrived, so I snapped this picture to show that we were in the process of bringing her home right then:

Here are a few more pictures of the cousins enjoying each other (and the playground):

Here's Andrew taking a turn with Dean (before I stole him, meaning Dean, back):

And here's a picture of our group together before parting ways:

It was a fun little afternoon, but a little sad knowing it was the last time we'll see Rosie and her family for a while. We'll have to organize some video calls with her kids so these little girls keep remembering each other!

Oh, and the kids were excited that our route out of the city took us through the long tunnel! Sometimes we go through this tunnel when we drive through Chattanooga and sometimes...we don't...and we haven't ever quite figured out when or why we'll be routed this way, so it's always exciting when we get to drive through!

Because it's June (June, June, June)!

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 14:36:33 +0000

Last night when we went to bed we didn't have to set an alarm for the morning and this somehow felt significant. Not in an "Oh, boy! Now we'll really get to sleep in!" way (because Phoebe exists), but in a "When was the last time we didn't have to set an alarm because we had somewhere to be the next morning?" kind of way and after reviewing our calendar, it turns out that the last time we didn't have to set an alarm was, in fact, in May. So perhaps it is significant that we didn't have to set an alarm last night (even though Phoebe diligently woke us up in the morning).

Here's a little smattering of what went down this month:

two birthdays (mine and Ben's)
Andrew taught a four-day, full-day workshop
Andrew taught a 6 am and 10 am R-Studio seminar T/Th all month
Young Men's camp
Young Women's camp
FSY
Rosie and Austin visited with their kids
Zoë went to Tennessee for a week
picked Zoë up from Tennessee
Rachel had to leave to go back to Provo
two dentist appointments
one orthodontist appointment
four swim meets
stake conference
sold a car
organized our overseas shipment
organized our Utah shipment
found and rented a storage unit in Utah
managed 30 listings on the Buy Nothing Group (with multiple items in each listing)
four bee/wasp stings (between Phoebe, Zoë, and Alex)
one black eye (Benjamin)
one common cold (me)
met with various relators

And then some other things happened, like a birthday party for a friend, a tent sleepover on the back deck, various mutual activities, church every Sunday (planning singing time, etc)., some game nights, still working our "actual" jobs, and all the tasks of everyday living.

Oh, and I finally got word that my paper (that was accepted in December) was finally published!

And Miriam has an organ recital tomorrow evening!

And all that is to say that there is, perhaps, a reason we feel...triumphant...to have come through this month sane/alive and relatively unscathed (you know, aside from the black eye that's still pretty colourful).

Last Fun Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 18:55:09 +0000

Phoebe was as pleased as punch to get her ribbons from last night's swim meet—especially her speed breaker ribbon (because it's rainbow coloured). She did not want to "spend" her ribbon to pie a coach in the face (even though I explained that she would still get to keep her ribbon).

But Zoë got to participate in throwing pie at a coach (it's really just whipping cream on a paper plate—pie is too expensive to waste like this). She's somewhere in the melee below, I think...

I can definitely spot her in this picture:

The boys didn't get any speed breaker ribbons this time around, but that's okay—we had a long discussion about how constant growth can't really be expected (and isn't even necessarily good...like, for example, why should a company be expected to grow each quarter...why can't a company simply do well enough and leave it at that...but instead they grow bigger and bigger and swallow other companies and...is that always best?) and that it's okay to maintain a high average without seeming to improve for a while. Sometimes the best kinds of growth need more than a stopwatch to measure...or perhaps your growth is unrecognizable until suddenly it becomes visible because changes in technique haven't translated to speed yet. And sometimes you swim your absolute best....but you can't always swim your best because stuff happens (like wasp stings or simply having an off day)...so then maybe it was your absolute best for that set of circumstances and we can celebrate those slightly-higher times, too, then, because it's a brave thing to swim in a competition at all. It isn't all about winning or getting better...it's also about friendship and hard work and fun and dedication and...

My kids love my lectures (I'm pretty sure...yup).

Benjamin was a little upset that he wasn't ever chosen as swimmer of the week this year (or last year), but as I told him last year when he was a little upset (and holding a fistful of blue first place ribbons), the swimmer of the week thing can be pretty random. It's an honour...but...there are just so many kids! This year I comforted Benjamin by pointing out his fistful of red (second place) ribbons. He moved up an age range this year so is at the bottom of the pecking order (competing against bigger boys), so I think getting that many second place ribbons is pretty awesome.

He also won the joke of the week and got a gift card, so that's fun!

Question: What do you call a 7 with pneumonia?

Answer: Sick Seven!

This joke is very funny for our particular time in the world (6-7 is huge right now—though it's losing some traction it's still fairly rampant) but may not be terribly funny in the future.

Ms. Julie (thankfully) told the kids not to play sharks and minnows in the diving tank. They just get so crazy, diving all over each other! But the kids swam some mixed relays (putting little kids and big kids on the same team, and so forth) and some other fun things.

We ended up staying at the pool as guests of team members at that pool, rather than going to our pool to hang out (our swim team is split between two neighbourhood pools). Unfortunately, this pool's shallow end is still pretty deep, so I had to have my attention trained on Phoebe quite a bit...which means it wasn't trained on the deep end so much.

My kids know how I feel about sharks and minnows (I do not like that game—at least as they play it here with kids diving all over each other!) but they decided to play anyway. Fortunately, there were no diving incidents, but Benjamin did come up from the bottom of the pool and crack his face into the ledge of the pool (that juts out over the pool a few inches). He said his goggles flooded with water so his depth perception was off and he just—BOOM—ran into the wall.

I didn't see what happened and he didn't really stop playing then either. I only noticed after Phoebe and I got out to get our little picnic lunch out. I set out a big container of watermelon and Benjamin came over to get some and I was like, "Whoa! What happened to your face?!"

And he was like, "What do you mean?"

He says it doesn't hurt, but I'm skeptical. Either way he's 100% getting a black eye. So his morning was full of ups and downs.

And, finally, here's Alexander, who was chosen as Swimmer of the Week. Coach Jeremy said he was proud of Alexander for swimming at the meet and not letting his friends in his relay down, even though he got stung multiple times just before the meet.

Way to go, kids! No more early morning swim practice!

...until Monday...because it looks like we'll have multiple kids swimming at county...

Last day of swim team!

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 04:57:22 +0000

The moment Phoebe's been waiting for all summer finally arrived! She is the proud new owner of—not one but—two shiny new ribbons (with more coming tomorrow)!

It was the last day of "futures" so they had a mini meet, where each child got to swim backstroke and freestyle. Phoebe's backstroke is fairly non-existent and she struggled immensely. Her coach (Tenley) was a timer so wasn't in the water and the coach who was in her lane was—for reasons no one can figure out—trained on the other little girl swimming in that lane who is really quite confident in her backstroke. So while the coach was walking by this sweet little gal swimming along, Phoebe was back at the diving block nearly drowning.

Now, could Phoebe have turned over at any point and started swimming on her stomach? Sure.

Did Phoebe do that? Uhhh...no. She just flailed around on her back.

Tenley's mom threw an absolute fit from where she was standing. "Someone get Phoebe right now!" she screamed until that poor little coach realized she was focused on the wrong swimmer. Phoebe got towed the rest of the way across the pool.

But full points for being so dedicated to the backstroke that she was willing to drown for it...I guess.

Her freestyle event would have been a smashing success, except that the little coach was now so nervous about Phoebe in the water that she towed her across the pool for that event as well.

Poor Tenley apologized, telling me that she told the other coach to help with backstroke and not freestyle but...somehow the message didn't get across. But that's okay. Phoebe was perfectly happy about the mini meet (including the part where she was floundering in the deep end).

Here are the futures with their coaches:

Benjamin is smack dab in the middle with his star student. Tenley is fourth from the right (blue shirt) with Phoebe in front of her. And Bethany is just to Tenley's right (Bethany helped a lot with Phoebe as well). As kids graduated from futures we ended up with more coaches than futures, so the last few weeks Phoebe usually had two coaches to herself!

Here's a series of silly pictures:

The prizes this year came in brown paper bags—bubbles, sunglasses, and a beach ball. Phoebe was very excited about it, but such a prize can hardly compete with The Bucket of 2024.

Which apparently I didn't even get a picture of.

We just made Alexander get rid of it, actually, but it had had a place of honour in his bedroom since the day he brought it home. It was even too sacred to actually come to the beach with us. It just sat on his dresser or dangled from his curtain rod...always full of treasures. The handle broke off a while ago and he had just tied a piece of string in its place and kept on using it...but we finally convinced him it was time.

I was standing next to my friend Angela, whose son was in the futures program with Alexander in the great year of The Bucket and he said, "Oooh! Is it time for the kids to get their buckets?"

"Shhh!" Angela warned through clenched teeth (trying to protect the small ears around from disappointment). "I don't know if they are doing buckets this year so just...shhhh..."

"Oh, he's still obsessed with his bucket, too?" I asked.

"Oh, man!" Angela said. "That bucket! He was obsessed with it!"

Unfortunately, there were no buckets this year. But the kids didn't really know any better and were happy with what they got. Here's Phoebe happily popping some bubbles while we waited for Benjamin's swim practice to get over (we all had to stay for everyone's practice this morning because Andrew had to teach and Miriam had an orthodontist appointment).

Here's Phoebe blowing some bubbles herself:

And about thirty seconds later she tipped over her bubble solution and that was the sad end of that (luckily we had more at home that we could refill her precious purple bottle with).

With our last practice of the year out of the way, we set about preparing for the afternoon swim meet (and getting a few wasp stings and things like that—important stuff) and soon found ourselves at the pool again (not our pool, but a pool).

Alexander went from not wanting to swim anything....to agreeing to swim his relays...to swimming everything but backstroke...to swimming everything including backstroke. So he really rallied.

Between the sting relief, the ice packs, the Benadryl, and the ibuprofen he seemed to manage his pain just fine. Here he is crawling out of the pool after one of his events:

This particular pool has such a small deck that it was hard to keep track of things. Our "bull pen" was out on the parking lot, so we couldn't see what was happening at the pool. From the bull pen.

I sat out in the parking lot with Phoebe (and helped keep track of kids—and even caught a ginormous spider that was scrambling around on the kids' stuff and making them all scream...and then I went and got one of the assistant coaches to come take care of it because catching it was as far as I could go).

One of the assistant coaches was drawing hearts and stars on kids' cheeks. Phoebe asked for a heart and it turned out beautifully (Alexander, as you can see from the pictures below, was mostly content to lounge in his chair).

Phoebe also found a couple of flowers:

Here's Phoebe killing time by balancing on some wheel stops...carting around her drink and snacks:

And here she is finishing up her 25 yard freestyle—she took 13 seconds off her time from Monday (and still came in last place to a round of applause from the entire pool deck)!

Here's Zoë with her medley team:

Who even knows what Benjamin was up to! He couldn't be found for one of his relays and I was sent to chase him down, but he had just been helping with the younger relays before hopping into his own line (so that was good). Honestly, most of my time the first part of swim meets has been spent making sure Phoebe and Alexander are where they should be...and then I've worked the second half (which is when I can really watch Benjamin and Zoë...except that I can't take pictures because I'm working the meet).

They all swam well, though! Late, late into the night. The team we went up against only has a five-lane pool and they are a huge team so everything had several heats and we still had poor little six- and seven-year-olds up on the diving blocks at 10:00 at night! It was long night!

Here's a picture of Zoë swimming, though—I did catch a few of the big kids' earlier events!

And here's Benjamin about to dive in:

It was a good swim season!

Tomorrow's our last "Fun Friday" and then we...wait to see if any of the kids make it to the county team!

Summer of Stings

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 19:56:12 +0000

After Phoebe got stung (which was shortly after Zoë got stung) this summer, I ordered a big pack of sting relief pads. It's really just gauze soaked in lidocaine or something, but at least that's something.

Andrew thought it (re: the box size) was overkill because the kids don't get stung that often, but I was like, "At the rate we're going this summer we're definitely going to need these!"

Cut to today...

I had just finished feeding the kids an early (3:00) dinner so they could be ready for their swim meet later this afternoon (when they prefer to subsist on junk food) and they went outside to let out some energy.

The peace and quiet of the house was interrupted by some other-worldly screaming. Andrew and I made some mad-dashes from various corners of the house to get to the front door to see what could possibly be happening out there and met Phoebe leading a weeping and wailing Alexander to the front door.

A bug landed on the back of his head and he had the audacity/instinct to reach back and scratch where it landed. Ba-da-bing-ba-da-boom...ba-da-BOOM! That nasty creature administered a double dose—one for his head and one for his finger.

He's still going to try to at least swim his relay events tonight (so that his friends don't have to scratch) but he's still considering his individual events (and is feeling especially leery about backstroke at the moment, since that's the event where you're most likely to bonk your head or run into the lane lines and so forth).

Wish us (him) luck!

The Utah Shipment

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 04:04:58 +0000

On Tuesday morning three wonderful young people (from Miriam's seminary class...not from our ward) showed up to help us haul our Utah-bound stuff up to our U-haul moving pods. Our driveway is steep so this was rather a herculean task, but we managed to have the job done in a little under an hour (which felt pretty incredible).

Here's Benjamin walking down the driveway with the two young men who showed up (we also had a wonderful young woman show up):

And here's Benjamin placing a box inside of the cube:

We only had the youth lug things up into the cul-de-sac for us before (attempting) to ply them with doughnuts and chocolate milk (which they refused, stating that they were "good").

We had mapped out the dimensions of the moving cube on our floor and practiced how we might pack things before we even ordered the containers. I honestly think—mathematically/practically—that we could have gotten everything into a single pod...if it weren't for that pesky weight limit!

Several bins are full of family history stuff—photo albums and things of that nature—and those are surprisingly heavy, so we decided that we'd have to split our shipment into two containers, unfortunately. So then we just...started thinking of what else we might send to Utah. What might our kids want for whatever college apartment they eventually set up? What might we still want access to but didn't want to ship to Qatar?

We came up with quite a few things, so even though we ended up winging a bit of the packing at the end, our pre-packing planning helped us load these cubes quite efficiently, I think.

Here's Phoebe and Alexander posing by a rather full crate. Phoebe is saying, "Go away!" to our stuff instead of the traditional "Cheeeeeeese!"

Lucky for us we got to cool off at a little pool party after we finished packing things up all by ourselves. Our youth group decided they wanted to throw a "farewell party" for our family (and finally remembered to invite us at like 4:30 that afternoon...forgetting entirely to come help us move...which is fine...I'm not bitter...it just paints a very accurate picture of our experience in this ward...ahem...anyways...).

We often feel like our ward is small, but this looks like a pretty big group of kids!

Seventeen kids all together! Plus two aged-out teens (sitting on the stairs). Of course, their numbers were bolstered by the younger siblings present. If we take those away, there were twelve youth present (which, I believe, is 100% attendance).

It was a great way to cool off and we didn't have to make dinner because they had pizza! So, two good things!

This morning we did a "final sweep" of the house and found a few items that we had talked about sending but hadn't gotten ready to ship. So we packed those things and then strapped down our load (best of luck to those unloading on the other end—Grandpa, Darla, Rachel, etc.—who have to figure out how to unstrap that spiderweb of rope we put up).

A word of caution: These pods were not very hot inside when they first arrived and either I simply didn't have the pleasure of running into the roof/ceiling on the first day or they had been kept in a more sheltered/shady area prior to their delivery BUT by the second afternoon we were working in them, they were plenty hot inside and the sun had been beating down on their metal roofs for a long time. The roof/ceiling was scorching hot. I accidentally touched the ceiling with my forearm while I was tying a knot or working on ratcheting something and...I swear it scorched my arm hair off.

It was sizzling hot.

The rest of the crate wasn't so terrible—being inside was tolerable, if sweaty, work.

Touching the roof, though? Agony.

So best to avoid that if you can.

Anyway...

We locked things up at around 2:30 this afternoon and these containers are ready to be picked up and shipped off! Fingers crossed they're happy with our weight distribution and don't have any trouble lifting the boxes (a lot of the limits/guidelines are in place for forklift reasons, which makes sense)...

The house feels pretty empty now, though...to be fair...there's also a surprising amount of stuff left inside. We've got about 6 weeks to get everything else ready to go—suitcases packed and the house vacant.

A birthday and a swim meet

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 06:17:22 +0000

This morning Andrew took the first set of kids (A and Z) to swimming and then came home so he could be here when our moving pods were delivered. I was getting the second set of kids (B and P) ready for swimming when Andrew came home—and it was a good thing he came home when he did because the pods were delivered half an hour earlier than what they stated our expected delivery window to be!

Phoebe was very excited to get to watch the fork lift at work while I braided her hair.

I took the second set of kids (B and P) to swimming and brought home our two middle swimmers (A and P). Then I went to the dentist and Miriam went back to the pool to pick up the remaining children (Z and B).

So it was a bit of a swimming circus in the morning.

And I had to get some metal "buttons" for my particularly stubborn teeth...and having braces makes me feel a little bit grumpy. Honestly, we joke about Miriam sometimes because whenever she comes home from getting her braces tightened she needs, like, a three-hour nap to kind of reboot because it just makes her so grumpy. And I...kind of understand that...because...same.

And there are always so many surprises. Like, you might just think you're going in for an ordinary check up and they're like, "Oh, while we have you, we're just going to put a power chain on..." (or whatever).

And, like, sometimes I'm not emotionally prepared for a power chain (or whatever), okay?

So today I was grumpy that I had to get metal attachments (so much for the invisi- part of Invisalign) and elastics. Especially because my Original Plan was to work through twenty sets of trays over the course of forty weeks. That still sounded long to me, but I was like, "Fine. This will be worth it."

Folks, it has been 585 days since I had my braces put on!

There are only 280 days in 40 weeks. I have been in braces for more than 83 weeks now. I'm so over this whole process.

I readily admit that I really do have a very stubborn tooth that still needs some fixing, so it's not like it's the dentist's fault. But I still feel a little grumpy about it.

Couple with that has just been some stress of trying to figure out what to do about my job now that we're moving overseas...and whether and how to continue working...and how to figure out my course schedule and what kind of tuition I will be paying (which depends a bit on what I figure out about my job). And then some things are happening that make me wonder if I even want to continue in that position and what certain things like "free speech" even mean these days when everything feels so stifling.

Lucky for me there was cake and ice cream when I got home from the dentist. And then I got to have a nap (to try to get over my grumpiness and my cold and have enough energy to make it through the evening's swim meet), which was lovely.

Here I think I'm laughing because Andrew felt we were singing too slow and began conducting to make us sing faster...but he was holding a big ol' knife so that's what he began using as a baton! So I was like, "How about we put the knife down to conduct..." because sometimes he forgets that he's holding things.

Later the kids said something about my next birthday "in Doha" and Andrew said somewhat vaguely (and still waving that knife around), "Oh, I don't think she'll be celebrating too many birthdays in Doha..."

We all stared at him and blinked (to...I dunno...communicate that he should explain his thinking).

Andrew looked at me in confusion.

I raised my eyebrows at him as if to say, "Go on..."

"Because...she has a summer birthday...? So we'll most likely be traveling over her birthday?" he finished. "Is that better?"

"It actually is," I said. "Generally we don't threaten people with not celebrating 'too many' more birthdays whilst twirling a kitchen knife..."

"Oh," he said, putting the knife down again. "Yup. I can see how those actions and those words were...yup. Just traveling. That's all. Many more birthdays. Just not in Doha. Elsewhere. That's all."

Here are the kids all ready to go for a walk with me in the afternoon, but being stopped by some rain (they were concerned about whether or not the swim meet would happen):

But happen it did!

Phoebe was so excited to swim her first event! She wore her "team suit" (which is really just a "regular" swim suit, compared to her long-sleeved swim suits) and was so excited to write her head sheet on her arm. Zoë even gave her a little "speed button" on her hand, which Phoebe then rubbed all over her face.

There was blue marker everywhere. I haven't quite figured out the magic of applying both sunscreen and permanent marker to my kids in an un-messy way.

Phoebe was also excited to sit in the "bull pen" and eat the snacks she packed (she ate them like it was her full time job).

As you can see, Phoebe had to wait until even #23 to swim. That's a long wait!

I left her in the bull pen sometimes, but also sat with her sometimes because she felt a little bit lonely and scared (even with all her siblings checking on her—they had to sit in different areas so couldn't stay with her the whole time either). I fortunately decided to check on her right before the storm clouds burst open above us, so I got to stand under the big umbrella with her while I poured (they ran a few events in the rain but eventually had to take a break because it was simply raining too hard to see the strobe or the bottom of the pool...or to hear anything really).

Here's Zoë all lined up for her relay race—she's the one holding her hands out from under the roof to catch the rain drops:

Kids were frolicking all over the deck, splashing in big puddles and so forth, but those kids were already lined up for their relays so they had to huddle in formation while the storm ran its course, which it eventually did (and without any thunder).

Phoebe was glad that I was with her for that part because it was windy and scary and even under the awnings we all got awfully wet.

Let's see...here's Benjamin diving into the pool:

When he was finished with his relay he sat with Phoebe on the benches as she moved up with her heat through the staging area. And then Zoë stood by the block while Phoebe got ready to dive (Zoë was an "exhibition" swimmer today, meaning that her times could count toward qualifying for county, but she couldn't score any points for our team...because she wasn't a declared swimmer...since this meet was supposed to have been swum last week when she was in Tennessee...anywho...Zoë was there swimming tonight and she helped coach Phoebe before her race):

And then she walked over to the end of the pool to cheer her on. And, boy, did Phoebe need that cheering! She's swum across the pool before, but also with a parent or coach a few feet in front of her, encouraging her to keep going. Tonight was her first time going across the pool unattended.

I was so nervous about it I was just about shaking. I don't know how she managed to do it. But she did!

Here's a video of the race that Andrew took from the sidelines (in case you're interested in watching Phoebe spend 2 minutes to travel 25 yards):

Our coach invited Zoë to come into the restricted section to cheer/coach Phoebe from the side of the pool—she knows how shy Phoebe can be and thought that seeing her sister at the end of the pool would help her to keep swimming.

I'll admit there were times when I was holding my breath along with Phoebe (while she fumbled to get a good grip on the lane line so she could take a few deep breaths before continuing) and I don't think I was alone. Several of the spectators were rather invested in her journey across the pool—would she make it across without a coach having to jump in to rescue her?

She ended her race to the whole poolside applauding her and she was so proud of herself!

She came in absolute last, but she came in alive! It was a hard thing and she did it—so we're proud of her, too! She gets to do it two more times this week (at the mini-meet for the Futures and at the last swim meet of the year).

After her race we cleaned up her spot in the bull pen and brought her over to sit with us.

Here she is giving Daddy some snuggles:

And here she is having a few short snuggles on my lap before I had to leave to work the second half of the meet (and she had to leave to go home and get ready for bed).

Lucky for us, the pool we competed at this week has eight lanes so the meet really went quite fast. Even with the break we took for the rain, we were finished with everything around 9:30 (which is about an earlier than we usually finish).

Here's a cute picture my friend sent of our boys (the A boys!) getting ready to swim their relay race:

Her poor little boy just realized that our family was moving. He had overheard some conversation his mom was having with someone else and said, "Wait a minute...the Heisses are moving? Like Alex Heiss? Alexander Heiss? That Heiss family? They're moving?!"

Poor little guy. Change is hard.

Last couple of notes...

First, here's Miriam, a champion cheerleader! She got sunburned within the first ten minutes and then ended up wrapping up in my poncho (while I was under the awning with Phoebe).

Last night she was (jokingly)* trying to get out of doing something...or ask for a privilege or something...I can't remember what...but we were giving her a (jokingly)* hard time...and she said, "Hey—who has stayed the whole time at every swim meet this season?"

"Not you!" I scoffed.

"Have so!" she objected.

"You haven't even been to every meet this season!" I pointed out. "You missed the week when you were at girl's camp and..."

"Oh, yeah..." Miriam said, recalculating her statement. "Well...I've...stayed the whole time at every meet that I've been to...so...there's that..."

And last note:

The Bull Pen Dad came up to me around halftime just to tell me that "my son" (Benjamin) was so helpful in the bull pen this evening. He was helping to find and line up the little swimmers, he hunted down missing swimmers, he organized relays, he walked swimmers to the staging area, he did whatever needed to be done and then returned to ask what else he could do.

To be fair, he's probably supposed to help do those things anyway because he's a junior coach...but even the junior coaches sometimes forget/neglect what they're supposed to and start goofing off with all the other swimmers, which can make the Bull Pen Parent job quite a bit more difficult.

It was so lovely to get a glowing report about one of my kids—Benjamin is a pretty awesome junior coach, that's for sure!

* I think we were just trying to work out the whole swimming circus of the morning. Who needed to be up to take the kids to the pool when, and so on...and she didn't want to have to be an early morning shift.

A tribute to me because it's almost my birthday!

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 13:39:39 +0000

I rather enjoy when things come full circle.

My niece Rosie was born on a chilly January morning when I was 11 years old. That summer, soon after I turned 12, our family took a trip down to Utah (from Alberta, where we were currently living) and left me with my sister Kelli to be a mother's helper for a week or two.

This past January, just a couple of days after her birthday, my niece Rosie's sweet baby Dean was born on a chilly morning when Zoë was 10 years old. And soon after Zoë turned 11 we sent her on a trip up to Tennessee to stay with Rosie and Austin and be a mother's helper for a week.

Andrew and I decided to repack all our "archive" boxes before shipping them off to Utah, so I came across the picture of me with Rosie and sent it in a text message to Zoë and Rosie.

Rosie reported that Zoë exclaimed: “What?! How does she look the same but just without glasses?? She doesn’t age!”

(They had been watching Chuck together, which is apparently a show that we need to watch—it's Austin's favourite and is similar to Psych. Good reviews from the whole family...but somehow Andrew and I just missed getting into it—"somehow" meaning a new baby Rachel plus a move to Cairo).

Later when Zoë checked her own device she texted back, "Mom! How do you look the same age you do now?"

I told her that it all boils down to good genes (and that she's very welcome should she happened to have inherited those genes).

It was certainly sweet of her to think that I look the same as 12-year-old me nearly thirty years later (especially because I've already started giving myself jump scares in the mirror—like, "Who are you, Old Lady?!").

A bit later in the evening we were going through some of Andrew's school papers, trying to decide what to keep and what to toss, and we found a personal history he wrote for Mrs. Eisenhart's US History Honours class (we both took that class the same year but were in different sections—I have no idea where my personal history is from that class). Anyway, near the end he was describing his future and, having only recently returned from a summer trip to Washington state to visit Aunt Linda and Uncle Trevor (as well as his cousin Richard, who also lived in the Seattle area, and his best friend Ross who had recently moved out there) he foretold of attending BYU for a year, going on a two-year mission, coming home to finish his degree, and then going to law school.

After that he was going to move his family (he'd get married while he was in college and would have a "nice wife" and "nice kids") to either Seattle, Washington or Orem, Utah to practice law.

(This was apparently before he went to Europe and decided that he'd much rather live abroad).

"Aw, look!" I said, laughing. "I check all your boxes."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Says here you wanted to find a 'nice' wife. You really won the lottery!"

"All I said was 'nice'?" he asked, laughing as well.

We laughed about that because in Young Women lessons at church when I was growing up, it was not uncommon for us to be prompted to write lengthy lists of attributes we wanted in a husband (I do not think this is as common of an encouraged rumination these days as it was in my day). The Young Men were not encouraged to do the same thing very often, though Andrew recalls one activity where they did consider their future wives.

"I think my full list was...nice, pretty, and smart," he said. "But asking for a pretty wife in a school assignment felt a little scandalous. Still, you do check all those boxes."

Even of his extended list!

How lucky is he?!

Now with fireworks

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 22:20:47 +0000

Yesterday we worked right up to (and probably a little past) dinner time and then—covered in spider webs and at least one actual spider (found on my shoulder whilst at the restaurant) from clearing things out of the garage and basement—we took the kids to Waffle House for, well, waffles.

They thought it was a huge treat!

We don't often go out to eat (six children = $$$), so these two little ones have never been to a Waffle House since moving here (we did take Alexander to a Waffle House when we were house hunting before actually moving here but haven't taken him since).

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States, Waffle House is offering a "firework" upgrade to waffle orders for a nominal fee, so the kids both ordered a waffle...with fireworks.

I was just as surprised as the kids to find out that these "fireworks" were Pop Rocks! Their pancakes arrived piping hot, with the Pop Rocks popping and sizzling on their plates (one even flew up in the air from the force of its little explosion).

Phoebe put a bite into her mouth and after feeling the sensation of the Pop Rocks popping in her mouth exclaimed, "What?! I didn't expect them to put actual fireworks on my waffle!"

It was a bit of a silly dinner, but I didn't have to make it and the kids thought it was the best!

Packing and Swimming News II

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 21:54:39 +0000

I've already made the comparison between packing up for this move and packing up a prairie schooner (though honestly I'm sure that packing up my home has involved a lot more luxuries than the pioneers ever had). Today, however, I couldn't help but feel a little bit like Noah, trying to pack up before the big rain!

Naturally, our shipment day was scheduled for the one week of the summer when we'd farmed out all our able-bodied children (Alexander and Phoebe have done a great job of entertaining each other and keeping out from underfoot...but as far as helping with things like packing and carrying heavy stuff...they are...simply less helpful than our bigger kids are). Equally naturally, it was scheduled for the day a tropical storm rolled in off the coast of...Texas...and then grew in strength over land instead of diminishing...and has landed on us with quite a frenzy, really.

We're under a tornado watch until midnight or so and it is raining like the dickens!

But because we did so much work leading up to this date (emphasis on so much work), our professional packers (see: ways in which our move has involved some luxury, above) were in and out before the storm hit! They arrived at 8:30 in the morning (just as we were leaving for swim practice...making us a teensy bit late to our 8:45 start time) and they left right at 2:00 (just as Andrew was leaving to pick Benjamin up from FSY so he could attend this evening's swim meet and, coincidentally, just as it started to rain here).

Here are Phoebe and Alexander in front of our house with the moving truck (which I guess came today after all—we have hardly understood any of the emails from our contact with the moving company):

Please observe and admire Phoebe's swim bag. She was so happy when I found a little bag like this for her to put her things in this morning. All the kids have a swim bag like this and since she's on the team now she felt like she needed one. I had already sent several off to goodwill and was worried I wouldn't be able to find one but...I found this one. She put her things inside and Andrew helped her write her name on it and now she's ready to participate as a Swim Team Member (instead of a Future Barracuda Baby). She can carry her own things, thank you very much (no need for Mom to cart around her towel and goggles anymore).

She felt the need to whip it out from behind her back so it could be involved in the photo ("People will love it!" she assured me when I asked her why she'd put her bag out in front of her). You can see the strings are alive with momentum as I snapped this picture.

And here's what the inside looked like when we were walking by to get to the house:

I sent Andrew to take a nap right away—as soon as he got out of his lecture, that is. We've been up working until around 2:00 every night this week, which is...okay...on the days Andrew hasn't had to be up to start teaching at 6:00 am, but certainly less good on the days that he has had to start working then.

He's been teaching a seminar on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 6:00 to 7:00 and from 10:00 to 11:00 the entire swim season. It's been a little crazy.

And then the kids usually have swim practice from 8:00 to 11:00, but with Zoë and Benjamin gone this week, we've only had swim practice from 8:45 to 10:00 (which has felt like a vacation).

Anyway, I knew Andrew didn't get very much sleep last night, so I sent him to take a nap. The kids happily retreated to the basement to play Stardew Valley (they have had a ridiculous amount of screen time this week; see also: luxuries) and I read a book while the packers worked (see once again: luxuries).

I had talked with the team manager this morning (my friend Julie) about the meet and when they might make a call about the weather. Benjamin has missed practice all week because he's been at FSY, but I explained that we were planning on picking him up around 2:30 to bring him home for the meet before returning him to FSY (since he already missed one swim meet—of five—for scout camp he didn't want to meet a second meet for FSY because that severely curtails his chances of making it to the county event).

She told me they would make a call around 2:00 in the afternoon about their decision.

I hadn't heard from her about that, so after signing all the paperwork for the shipment (right at 2:00), Andrew went to pick Benjamin up from FSY (which is just at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, so pretty close).

At 2:29 Julie texted me: We are postponing until Monday

So I quickly texted Andrew, who found a place to turn around and start coming home, and then I called up FSY (for the third time today) to tell them that the swim meet had been cancelled after all so Benjamin could go back to his regularly scheduled activities and personally rejoiced that I didn't have to work the swim meet in the pouring rain.

About fifteen minutes later everyone got a message from Julie explaining the whole situation (they weren't sure it was going to be raining at 6:00, but given the forecast they didn't feel they'd be able to get through a whole swim meet anyway—it's supposed to get really nasty in the early evening—so we'd have to meet on Monday to make up the rest of the events anyway...so both teams decided that they'd rather just not have a wet and miserable meet on Thursday and still have to make up events on Monday when they could simply do the entire meet on Monday and not get wet and miserable on Thursday).

It was so nice of Julie to give me a quick head's up so I could cancel Benjamin's pick up!

And Andrew and I are both quite happy to not have to work a swim meet tonight, given how tired we both are (and I have a little cold that I picked up somewhere, unfortunately).

Anyway, we are just happy we had our "ark" loaded up and get to rest a bit before the next phase of this move!

Here's Phoebe and Alexander enjoying our big empty "Boat Room" (which used to be the "Music Room"):

Phoebe immediately yelled, "Let's ice skate!!" and started slipping around in her sock feet. Alexander has been yelling "Echo!" every time he walks by the doorway.

Packing and swimming news

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 05:27:31 +0000

Thank goodness today is today because I'm not sure I can keep going at the pace at which we've been going for very much longer. In the morning the packers are coming.

I...don't really know what they're going to do. I thought we had to be ready to pack and load all in one fell swoop, but I was wrong.

The packers are coming tomorrow and they're going to...pack...stuff.

What stuff? I don't know because we actually did a whole lot of the packing ourselves (leaving all the boxes untaped for inspection by the packers) and have everything that might need to go on the boat in The Boat Room.

And I'm just overwhelmed from making decisions.

Like, I can't just go into the garage to decide what might need to come on the boat, you know? I have to pull out all the scrap wood and give that away. And then I have to unearth the bocci balls and decide we'll probably play that a time or two. And what about croquet? Well, the croquet set has seen better days so we won't take that. So we start a trash pile (because there's no sense in putting it back "away," having already determined that it's lived its best life...

In short: every project has been much longer than we originally intended it to be.

I still have piles of stuff behind me that I simply...cannot...deal with right now. So I guess none of that stuff is making it on the boat. My brain is just broken from trying to figure out how to live here for the next 50 days with limited stuff and then how to live there for however long with limited stuff and...I just cannot really think about what we will need.

But I think we'll be fine.

In other news, Phoebe is going to compete in the swim meet tomorrow—her very first time. She can barely make it across the pool but she is so excited to try for a ribbon.

Here she is before her practice, rocking Alexander's old swim hoodie:

We have a big storm system rolling in right now so the weather's been kind of wonky. This morning, for example, it was cold (though not as cold as yesterday—perhaps because we brought sweaters this morning in response to how cold we were yesterday). At 9:00 this morning it was only 70°F (21°C), which was lovely weather for cleaning out the garage but not quite as nice for swimming... By 6:00 this evening it was nearly 90°F (around 30°C) and so very humid.

With so many thunderstorms in the forecast, who knows if we'll even have our swim meet tomorrow? Perhaps she'll have to swim a make-up meet instead. Whatever the case, she's very excited to be on the team (she wanted a team suit right away but, uh, I didn't ever buy her one so...I guess she'll be racing in her "rufflebutt" suit). She is excited to write a heat sheet on her arm ("or leg!" she reminded us) and sit in the "bull pen" with the swim team kids and have everybody cheer for her.

So, pretty big stuff over here!

A visit with Rosie and Austin!

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 02:13:05 +0000

I can't believe how fast the summer is flying. That feels strange to say, considering it's only the middle of June...but it is going fast. We fly out in 51 days (Miriam leaves for Utah in 31) and we have quite a lot left to do!

Rosie wanted to be sure to get one more visit with us, but her calendar is also rather packed with various grandparents coming out for visits (sometimes back-to-back). Our van is on its last legs and we're planning on selling it (for parts, mostly) so don't really want to fix its issues if we can manage. It's okay for getting around town but we really don't know that it has another long-distance trip left in it, especially through those mountains in Tennessee.

So Rosie came to us! It was a quick overnight visit, but it was so fun to get to see Rosie and Austin and their kiddos! Here's Phoebe and Zoë saying hello to Dean (who was quite relieved to be allowed out of his car seat):

The little kids had started some art projects right as we were getting them ready for bed, so I told them that I would leave the supplies out for them to use in the morning. That way they could tip toe away from their parents and let them keep resting while they crafted—and that's more or less what they did.

At any rate, these four little ones (Phoebe, Oaklyn, Ireland, and Alex) were all in the dining room making letters for everyone they could think of, while everyone else was still in bed (and resting, if not sleeping). It was a bit of a rough night, with Dean waking everyone up all the time.

We wanted to get to the pool relatively early in the day so that it wasn't too hot and because our house is quickly running out of toys (at least in the quantity enough to keep three little girls of the same age sharing nicely). Rosie's kids like swimming about as much as mine do (which is quite a lot) so it worked out well.

I didn't take many pictures because I had to do my part to keep the adult-to-kid ratio even for our littlest quasi-swimmers, but here's a picture right before we left to come home:

And this time with Miriam:

When we got home the kids built a fort out of cushions (both ones Oaklyn and Ireland brought with them to sleep on as well as cushions from our couch).

I fully admit that rocked Dean to sleep...and then sat and held him for nearly two hours. But, listen...he...prefers contact napping...and I know that holding babies for hours on end (while lovely) can be exhausting. So I thought I'd give his parents' arms a rest...while soaking in all the baby snuggles I could possibly manage to get.

Was it difficult to not pass out on the couch along with him? Absolutely! But I muscled through it!

When he woke up, he looked up at me with a, "Huh?!" look on his face. Evidently my face was not the first face he wanted to see.

After dinner we had to say our goodbyes. Here are the little ones one the stairs (Alexander, Ireland, Zoë, and Phoebe, with Oaklyn in front):

They all look like they got quite a bit of sunshine at the pool...

And here they are with Dean added in. He did just fine until Ireland poked his cheek (which happened almost immediately upon being set in Zoë's lap...so he wasn't "just fine" for very long).

And then things kind of fell apart:

Here's Miriam giving these three girls a squeeze:

Guys—I was so enjoying and looking forward to having Phoebe grow up alongside these little cousins for, like, more than one measly little year. I'm very excited about this opportunity, but I'm kind of bummed to be moving so far away from cousins after finally getting some nearby enough to visit!

Here's Miriam with Oaklyn:

And here's a selfie that Phoebe took of herself and Ireland, yanking my camera out of my hands, proclaiming, "Let's take a selfie together!" and very fluently switching the camera direction and snapping this photo:

Kids these days! So technologically savvy!

Here's Phoebe crying a little while saying goodbye to Zoë, who went to Tennessee to be mother's helper for a week. She's having a blast at Rosie's house, chasing around little girls all day, and calling us every evening to check in.

Q&A: Moving Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 05:06:57 +0000

Question: "I don't even know how to conceptualize 5700 lb. Like how much stuff is that? I just can't even fathom it... Is it like one elephant? Two elephants? How do I even know what will fit in my shipment?"

Sara Lewis: "More than you think."

So far this seems to be true (so glad to have military friends who have done this over and over and over again so I can turn to them for advice). We've been collecting things in The Boat Room (a little tip from our friend Amanda) for quite some time now and we spent the last couple of days packing and weighing everything—we are sitting pretty at 56% of our weight limit with everything we have packed so far (and we're packing out in just two days so there's not too much left for us to think about). So that means we can fit in quite a few things from our "maybe" list...

Question: "Why am I so tired?"

Andrew: "Exhaustion."

Me: "Mmmmhmmm... No kidding."

Andrew: "I just mean—we've been doing a lot lately."

My mom said we were being like the pioneers, getting rid of so much in order to seize and opportunity. I've certainly thought of that myself—and it hasn't been easy to part with everything (we haven't even nearly parted with everything)—but I've also been asking myself, "What am I willing to give up for this opportunity? Am I willing to give up my couch? My table? My piano?"

The list goes on and on.

And the answer is usually that...I am...because I know we'll find new stuff.

Stuff is just stuff.

Those are big words coming from me, since I tend to wax a little sentimental. Phoebe does as well. She has been asking to save things for her future babies, making sure her favourite things that she's outgrown make it into the Utah shipment, for example.

Here we are having a snuggle while she processes the fact that she cannot take every single stuffed animal she owns on the plane—some will have to follow on the boat:

"I want to keep them right away," she kept explaining.

She got to choose a few to take on the plane and the rest were put into The Boat Room (and stuffed into nooks and crannies of our many book boxes to prevent the books from shifting).

So, yes, I feel a little bit like a pioneer.

But also, Encyclopedia Brittanica tells us that "A typical prairie schooner weighed about 1,300 pounds (590 kg) when empty, and the general goal was to keep the weight of the added cargo to no more than 2,000 pounds (900 kg)," so we are packing much, much more than the typical pioneer family would have packed (considering we can also pack 1260 lb. in suitcase/plane stuff and have an extra baggage allowance as well).

And, like, no one is chasing us with pitchforks and hot tar or anything...so...

Broken toad

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 13:55:42 +0000

While Andrew and I were moving a (big, heavy) bookcase, he...pulled it into his (bare) foot and smashed his toe. This was on...Saturday...last week. I remember because soon after we got it outside (for someone else to pick up) Andrew had to leave for the adult session of stake conference (stuffing his poor, throbbing toe into his dress shoes).

It wasn't so painful that he thought it was broken. In fact, he was upset about it because online it said a hematoma of this nature was caused by trauma to the digit.

"It wasn't trauma!" he fake-raged. "It was a light tap! I'm fine!"

His toe felt differently and remained painful throughout the week. The discolouration of his toenail was quite severe.

I believe he will lose that toenail.

He insists he won't.

But he was in quite a bit of pain all week. I told him that if the pressure kept building we'd have to go to the doctor for a nail trephination to allow the blood stuck under the toenail to come out of his body.

He felt that drilling a hole into his toenail was a terrible idea.

"It'll just heal on its own!" he insisted.

"It'll fall off..." I warned.

"It'll be fine."

And then we went swimming as a family on Saturday. The kids love when Andrew comes to the pool because he'll roughhouse with them a bit more than I ever will. So he was in the deep end with them—not even in the pool with them yet (thank goodness), just on the deck, picking them up and chucking them into the water.

Benjamin decided to try to challenge Andrew on one of these tosses and ended up...stomping on Andrew's bad toe...which the toe understood as a nail trephination.

Blood. Was. Everywhere.

Gushing out of his toe.

Everywhere.

Andrew hobbled over to a chair. I brought him some paper towels. And...that toe just bled and bled and bled.

"I'll bet that feels good," I said, just as he was sitting down in the chair. "Does your toe feel better?"

"No!" he said. "My toes does not feel better!"

And then about ten minutes later he said, "Actually, my toe does feel better now. It's no longer throbbing. There's no pressure...it feels pretty good."

He had a whole pile of nasty paper towels, but his toe had mostly stopped bleeding.

Remembering my own broken-toad regimen, I've been making him soak it in epsom salts.

Soon he'll be a fixed-up froggy!

(For years we've been saying "purple frog email" instead of "blue toadflax" so one day this week when I was asking Andrew how his poor "broken-toed" self was, I heard "broken toad" and now can't get it out of my head).

For the record, my toenail is still wonky from its trauma all those years ago. It simply does not connect to my nail bed until about halfway down the toe...but only on the outside of the toe. The inside of my toe connects all the way. So I can see this weird 90° angle jag in my nail line, where it's pink (connected) and then white (not connected). And overall that toenail remains super gross (but I think I've lost that particular toenail on three separate occasions, so...that's on me for being clumsy)*.

* Once a dance partner (not Andrew) romped on it during the Lindy Hop. And then I lost it after running a half-marathon in what were evidently not the right shoes. And then I fell off a a stool and ended up kicking through the wall on my way down in an effort to keep my pregnant-self from landing flat on my back. Can confirm that such injuries are 10/10 not a good time.

Two times I cried yesterday

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 13:31:46 +0000

I'm sitting alone in what has been dubbed The Boat Room with 51.86666667% of our allotted shipment. I know this because we have been weighing each box and recording its weight in a spreadsheet because we don't know how else we're supposed to know what 5700 lbs of stuff looks like. I'm alone because Rachel is now in Utah, Miriam and Benjamin have left for FSY, Zoë is in Tennessee, and Andrew took Alexander and Phoebe to swim practice.

I haven't been alone in the house in ages.

I may have never been alone in this particular house.

It's quiet and I could be getting stuff done, but instead I'm blogging (which one could argue is getting stuff done). We do need to decide what else needs to come into The Boat Room, but really our rooms are starting to look rather bare.

Last night I was working in Miriam and Zoë's room, which was very nearly finished (but not quite) and I came across a handful of paper-and-ribbon Olympic medals the kids made for their Kids' Olympics a few summers ago and it made me feel so happy-sad.

Our cul-de-sac has been an oasis for my little kids—they have made such good friends with our neighbourhood kids! I'm so grateful for our wonderful neighbours, who have truly been a village. It's been such a privilege to raise my children alongside these families. Thinking about that made me tear up a bit (and I think that's why packing takes me so much longer than Andrew, who is much more pragmatic about things).

And then last night I also got to "attend" my cousin's son's baptism (between packing boxes), which was a wonderful surprise!

Melinda (LDS) and Jimbo (Catholic, I believe) are an interfaith couple and decided to raise their children with faith in God but more or less without religion. But I guess Jacob (who now goes by Jaybo) got involved with the YSA (Young Single Adult) ward and while playing Fortnite (with the missionaries somehow—are missionaries on Fortnite now?! I was so confused by that part of the story) decided it was time for him to get baptized. And yesterday ended up being the day!

And it was beautiful!

He asked Melinda to be one of the witnesses for his baptism, which she proudly did, and which I'm sure made her parents proud as well. And then between the baptism and the confirmation they held a little testimony meeting which was, on the one hand, so wonderful, and on the other hand so unfortunate because Jaybo missed most of it because he was getting dry and dressed!

Jimbo got up first when it came time to bear testimonies and he made me tear up for the second time of the evening as he expressed his appreciation for the church and all they've done for their family over the years. "I've had thousands of missionaries in my home," he said, "I like to think of our home as a bit of a refuge for them." A place where they can stop by for a meal and a friendly conversation when they're so far from their own families. And I was so grateful to Jimbo for being that refuge.

And I was grateful to the missionaries for continuing their visits regularly (for about twenty-five years) even though their family never really agreed to even attend church. In some missions, missionaries are encouraged to "drop" people if they aren't making "progress" toward baptism, but I think missionary work is so much more than baptisms. The last twenty-five (or so) years of visits from the missionaries made this family feel important (to God) and I think that is more important than baptism.

I mean, I think ordinances are important as well but sometimes I think the ordinances are for us so that we have something to do to mark moments (of change) in our lives, to help us remember our commitments to God, and so forth.

I think God keeps track of things...differently...than we do...in ways that we probably will never understand. And that's okay.

Again, that's not to say that I don't think ordinances are important—even helping with ordinance work for people who have already died (proxy baptism for the dead, temple ordinances for the dead, etc)—but it's just to say that all our record-keeping and check boxes and so forth are probably secondary (and are certainly much more flawed compared) to heavenly records. That's all.

But Jaybo didn't get to hear Jimbo speak, which I think is unfortunate. Melinda went (nearly) last though, so he at least got to hear his mom speak. It was wonderful to hear her testimony as well. I remember years ago how distraught my Aunt Judy was when Melinda was distancing herself from the church. I don't know how much Melinda goes to church these days (but, again, God gets to keep track of what's in her heart, not me—and Melinda is so kind and wonderful) but she did express how proud she was of Jaybo for making this choice on his own (without any influence from her) and she proudly counted herself among believers.

Again, I'm sure this made her parents feel very happy.

Here's Jaybo himself saying a few words:

Like I said, it was a wonderful service. I did miss a few things because I was also reading a bedtime story to Phoebe during the first little bit (and then she wanted to stay up and watch the baptism part, which she did, and then declared the testimonies were making her tired and went to lie down in bed...requesting that I finish watching the service from the hallway, which I did), but it was lovely to get to be virtually a part of this special day for Jaybo.

Now to get packing...

Decision fatigue and things like that

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 05:07:27 +0000

The human heart contains four valves that act as one-
way doors, each opening and closing forcing steady

onward flow. Hello, goodbye,
hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye, hello...

This summer it feels as if my heart has shattered one-
hundred times, then pulled itself together again and

again and perhaps that's just life pushing me forward
and closing the door, ensuring I take the next step

without looking back, without turning
into a pillar of salt. Hello, goodbye,

hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye,

hello.

"It is estimated that an American adult makes 35,000 decisions a day," so say Pignatiello et al (2020), all of whom hold a lot of letters after their names (BSN, RN, PhD, DNP, MBA, RN, CFP, ACNP-BC, FNAP, FAAN, Associate Prof.) and yet still somehow thought that hinging the basis of their scientific article on a claim made by the "creative director at an ad agency" (Sollisch, 2016) was a good idea.

Don't get me wrong!

I use non-academic sources in my scholarly writing all the time. And there's nothing wrong with being the creative director at an ad agency (in fact, I think that's great). Sollisch's article isn't bad, either! In fact, I quite appreciate the ending where he says:

People think they hate boxes, but it’s in boxes that the creative process thrives. In a tight box, the will is not drained by too much decision-making. You are free to find the unexpected, to focus on what matters.
Having data feels like power. Having choices feels like freedom. Sometimes having both is having neither.

Sometimes when I have severe writer's block I will sit down to write a sonnet or something else with a very prescribed form because having to fit whatever I'm trying to say into established parameters somehow unlocks creativity that I couldn't access without those constraints in place. (This also reminded me of the talk I gave in church last year about how God's commandments are intended to help, not hinder, us).

So I get that.

But, like, where'd that 35,000 number come from?

It's intriguing!

An impressive number, to be sure, but "by some estimates" isn't exactly citing your sources. I want to know who is doing the estimating (and I would hope that someone writing a scientific article about decision fatigue would also have done a little more legwork to discover where that 35,000 number came from...because it kinda seems to come from nowhere, which is fine for an essay by a creative director but a little less fine for an academic paper by specialists-in-their-field).

But I digress.

I think, actually, that I'm suffering from decision fatigue. And, like, I don't know how many decisions we're making a day right now...but it is a lot more than usual.

Do we keep this? Do we keep that?

Do we take this on the plane? Do we send it on the boat?

If we send this on the boat, what will we do in the meantime?

Do they sell this in Qatar? Should I throw it away? Give it away?

Do I find someone to take it on the Buy Nothing Group? Do I just take it to Goodwill?

If I throw this away will the children resent me? Will they even find out? Do they even care?

It's a lot. Today we got rid of a lot of craft stuff, stuff that we took from Karen's collection when she passed away. Sure, we used some of the stuff we took, but we had a lot, and today we had to admit that we weren't going to use the bulk of that stuff in Qatar (or that they would have such supplies available for purchase should we need, like, popsicle sticks or glue guns or whatever).

And that was a little bit hard. I felt those little pinches in my heart, like maybe it was breaking. Or maybe it was just the pressure changing in my heart chambers, encouraging me to move forward, to go with the flow.

The other night Rachel and I were supposed to be staying up late organizing the stuff we're sending out to Utah (we're sending stuff out to Utah as well). We don't want to send too much stuff. We want to send the right stuff, the useful stuff, the meaningful stuff. And I wanted it to be all organized and ready to go by the time Rachel left...but that didn't happen.

Andrew went to bed because he's been teaching an online seminar thing (at 6:00 am) the past several weeks. Rachel and I stayed up to work on the Utah stuff but instead we got sucked into a bin full of Karen's journals.

We read the letters Grandpa left on her desk at work that were "strictly business" but were really him trying to get out the words, "I love you." We read about their engagement, her hopes for the future, that she wanted her words down on paper so that her children could one day understand her.

We picked the lock on a journal she bequeathed to her friend Terri (who would understand, should she die before she finished writing it), in which she gushed about being gifted her first pair of pantyhose (and noted the day her younger sister Susan was given the same honour a few years later), bemoaned her unrequited love(s), chronicled family vacations, and tallied up how many hours she slept and worked and studied.

We didn't get to any other boxes that night. But we decided that, yes, that box should be kept. It will be moving forward. Perhaps Rachel will pull it out when she's working on a family history class one day (I have a hunch she won't stop taking those) and she'll be able to digitize it for us (if not, perhaps a summer project one of these years). So we packed that box back up and then said goodnight for the very last time in this house.

Hello, goodbye. My heart, my heart.

(Here are some pictures of the kids saying their last "good night" to Rachel; they weren't very sad yet because...she was still around most of the day the next day...just gone before bedtime):

In the few hours in which I had all my children under the same roof, we took one last family walk around the block. We took pictures by our neighbourhood sign (which I will post later) and some just on our street so we can remember the trees and how green things can be before we move to the desert:

Here's a second picture that I...just liked...because of the sunbeams by the clouds (and the kids on the ground, too, I suppose):

And here are our very last goodbyes before Rachel left for Utah (shortly after she picked up Miriam from YW camp for us because we were doing swim practice duty and/or teaching that seminar I was talking about):

Miriam was acting annoyed because they often do that in pictures (and she'll see Rachel in Utah next month).

For example, see this picture of those two at a wedding in 2010:

At Mount Rushmore in 2011 and 2023:

It's just a bit that they do...they really do love each other...I promise...

On this trip, people kept commenting on how much Zoë and Rachel look alike, with Zoë being just a blonde version of Rachel, so we had to get a picture of their faces side by side. We'll see if they keep looking alike through the years:

And here's me with Rachel:

And Andrew with Rachel:

We'll miss her, but she's already doing so many fun things. For example, she held a chicken today.

I didn't get to hold a chicken today, but I did get to hold a baby (Rosie's baby—but that's a story for another blogpost)!

That may seem off topic, but the baby is one of the many hello, goodbye moments that is hurting my heart so this summer, so he's really right on point!

I was actually holding him while saying goodbye to everyone (including Zoë, who is going up to Tennessee to be a mother's helper for the week) and simply...forgot...that I was holding him, so at the door Austin was like, "Uhhhh..." and held out his arms and it actually took me a second to realize what it was that Austin was after.

"Oh—you want the baby!"

"It...would be nice...yeah..." Austin said.

Well, excuse me! I was in my happy place.

But I let them take their baby home with them (aren't I generous?).

They tell me Rachel didn't get to keep the chicken, either.

Rachel says, she's "working on my fear of roosters pecking my head into a nub" (a fear etched deeply on her soul from reading Junie B. Jones Has a Peep in Her Pocket back in the day).

We're all making great strides forwards, it seems, one decision at a time...

Healthy (like a horse)

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:56:21 +0000

Miriam is going to two separate organ camps/workshops out in Utah later this summer. So she'll actually be flying out to Utah by herself and then flying to Doha by herself (which is incredibly brave for a 16-year-old, I think). She's excited though!

One of these events is a Pipe Organ Encounter, which is hosted at Timp Lodge up in the mountains, with trips to BYU and SLC to play on organs. She's very excited for this camp because they have at least one hike planned for the kids (which is one more hike than she got to go on at YW camp...not even joking).

We had to turn in some permission forms for her (since it's several days of overnight stay and so forth). Andrew helped her fill out the forms on InDesign (so we could type on the forms) and under "current health conditions" he jokingly wrote "healthy (like a horse)":

Miriam reacted so strongly to that that he went ahead and submitted it in that way!

Miriam was aghast.

"What? Dad! You did not!"

"I did."

"No! Dad! No! Everyone's going to see that!"

"Everyone? Miriam, no one is going to read this..."

"All the directors are going to see it! That's like..."

"Five people total. It's fine."

"It's more than five people! It says the director, two chaperones, the driver, and the faculty! I don't know how many faculty there are!"

"They'll think it's funny," I offered. "It will bring them joy."

"It will bring me agony!" Miriam objected.

"For that you would rob all those people of joy? This is like the trolley problem..."

"This is like my worst nightmare!" Miriam shrieked melodramatically. Then she paused, made some little finger guns and jogged them up and down while waggling her eyebrows and saying, "Night...mare..."

So she's pretty much over it at this point—a good pun will have that effect on people.

Pool day

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 03:28:27 +0000

Today was Rachel's last full day at home, and it was finally sunny again (her time here has been so, so rainy), so we made her come swimming with us. We won't have time to go swimming (for fun) tomorrow between swim practice and picking Miriam up from YW camp and taking Rachel to the airport and going to our swim meet...so this was also Rachel's last visit to our pool.

Phoebe happily showed Rachel all her swimming skills and even agreed to go into the deep(er) end to work on her diving (though she is still refusing to enter the deep end, I think she'll be there in no time).

Zoë had a bit of a tiff with Benjamin in the deep end and decided that she was ready to go home, so she started walking around the pool wrapped up in her towel with her backpack on, urging everyone to please get out so we could go home (to be fair she'd been at the pool since 8:00 in the morning).

Then a horsefly flew by and that girl took off her towel and backpack so fast and bolted across the deck and into the pool—with her flip flops still on her feet. There was no way she was going to risk getting bitten!

Once she was back in she was good to play for a little bit longer. We played a fun game of keep away.

And then just as we were getting ready to go for real, Zoë's triplet friends showed up to play so...we stayed for a few more minutes so she could play with them. Benjamin had a friend that had stayed after swim practice as well, so he was also entertained. But in the end the children's empty stomachs were what called them home (empty in spite of eating an entire box of graham crackers, an entire bag of mini-bagels, a handful of string cheese, and a very large Tupperware container of apple slices while we were at the pool).

It's wild to think that this year's last-pool-picture will truly be the last pool picture (at this pool). Not that this is our last pool picture (we will be back at the pool tomorrow), but it is Rachel's last pool picture.

End of a era, truly.

Benjamin is 14!

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 02:36:35 +0000

Benjamin turned 14 at Young Men's camp this year, so I sent him to camp with some hastily-made (at midnight), unfrosted (at his request) cupcakes to share with his friends (as you can see his friends were super pumped about this).

Once home, Benjamin requested that Rachel make him one last birthday cake—he requested a "nature" theme with rocks and vines. This is what Rachel came up with:

We've all been very busy around here so we were happy with anything! We had cake with/for lunch after stake conference on Sunday.

Poor Benjamin asked if he could request his birthday dinner for Sunday evening.

"You could," I said, "But we haven't gone shopping and we have no food in the house."

"Oh, well, I was going to request Panda Express."

"It's Sunday," I pointed out (we don't do restaurants on Sundays).

"Aw, man!"

My poor kids have been lamenting the lack of food in our house. It's not that we have no food. It's just that we're running out of things that we ordinarily have, which we're then not replenishing our supply of, and have been cobbling together very random meals from the freezer and pantry.

"We live in an ingredient house and we don't even have ingredients!" Rachel moaned the other day.

She's not wrong. Lucky for the kids, Sara Lewis brought us dinner on Monday and Andrew went shopping after dropping the kids off at swimming to grab a few staples, so we're all stocked up again.

And we did order Panda Express for dinner last night (the last time we had ordered Panda Express was 364 days ago, so I'm assuming it was once again for Benjamin's (slightly delayed) birthday dinner).

Anyway, Benjamin's favourite part of his cake was lighting the candles.

He blew them all out in a single breath (which he was pretty proud of):

Here's everyone anxiously awaiting a slice of cake (they were all pretty hungry/hangry by the time we got home from stake conference):

Poor Benjamin also forgot that he requested no birthday presents in the United States (because whatever he got would likely end up in our shipment...which is happening in eight days...and so he wouldn't see it again for several months). Instead he asked that we do presents for him after we move, which sounded fair.

Lucky for him, Auntie K sent him a cool fidget pen, which he opened when he came home from camp.

And then he said, "After cake are we going to do real presents?" (meaning family presents).

And I had to be like, "Oh, buddy...remember you said that...uh...you wanted to do presents in Qatar..."

"Oh, yeah!" he said.

"Yeah...so there are no presents...uh...so..."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot," he said.

I think he was a little disappointed, but it really does make good sense. Plus, he asked for Andrew to purchase some movie soundtrack (I think the Project Hail Mary one), which Andrew did (so that's like a gift) and since it's apparently The Year of the Pen, his friend Reed also gifted him a space pen (that can write in zero gravity, upside down, even under water). So he's feeling pretty okay about things.

I think the very best present of all, however, was that in the wee hours of the morning on his birthday (before leaving for camp the next morning) Miriam finally consented to stand back-to-back with him while we measured to see who was taller and...Benjamin was the clear winner.

Andrew even broke out the level for irrefutable proof.

Miriam has been avoiding this since she began to be suspicious about him overtaking her, but we were up far too late playing Hand and Foot and somehow managed to convince her to just do it and get it over with (it would soon be blatantly obvious that he had grown taller than her so denying it now wouldn't do her very much good anyway).

Speaking of Hand and Foot, we often abbreviate it to "H and F" or, more recently, simply to "limbs." I don't know why because the younger kids don't know how to play yet, anyway. We just abbreviate a lot of things—show titles, game names, and so forth—so that it's kind of like a code. We were talking about not needing to abbreviate this, however, because it's not something that the little kids know how to play, anyway.

"I do so know how to play Hand and Foot!" Phoebe said indignantly.

"Oh, do you?" I asked. "How do you play?"

"Well, isn't Hand and Foot that game we play where you get the mat out with the different coloured circles and we spin the spinner and put our hands and feet on the circles?"

She was definitely describing Twister, which we only play at Halloween (and which, yes, was put in a box to come to Qatar with us so that we can continue the tradition).

So she'll have to learn Hand and Foot later...

Happiest of birthdays to this 14-year-old boy, who has already outgrown his 16-year-old sister (and is growing in so many other wonderful ways)!

Rachel's mission pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 01:26:48 +0000

This morning was so terribly rainy that swim practice was cancelled for both Alexander and Phoebe—if you can't see the bottom of the pool, that's cause to shut down the pool, and it was just that rainy.

Rachel and I had planned to go take her mission photos today as well, but that had to wait until after the rain had stopped because we wanted to take them at the temple. I'm not an exceptional photographer, but I have found that if I take several hundred photographs there are usually a handful of keepers...

We wanted to take a picture with a Vietnamese Book of Mormon, but they don't sell those at our distribution center and we forgot to order one early enough to take photos with it. She'll have plenty of opportunity for such photos in the future, I suppose.

For now we were just happy we got a good window of sunshine to take some pictures in this afternoon:

If you're interested in seeing more mission pictures, Andrew made a little website for them here.

Visit with Cairo friends

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:55:30 +0000

Last night we finally had Kevan and Sara Lewis over for dinner (and by that I mean that Sara offered to bring dinner to us)! They moved to the Atlanta area at the end of last summer but our plans kept falling through so we only managed to connect yesterday.

They are good, good friends from our time in Cairo. Somehow they trusted us to watch their five children while they were off traveling around the region for Kevan's work (it was during one such trip that "No Fair Day" was instituted). It is wild to me that those kids are mostly all in their 20s now!

Kevan and Sara are about a decade older than us, so they've always seemed like this little mirror into the future. I remember once Sara telling me that things (parenthood) gets so much better with older kids because they can do magical things like chores and dressing themselves—and she was right! That part of parenting has gotten easier.

When it's time to go to the pool, I just tell the kids that we're going. I don't have to wrangle them into swimsuits and then then wrestle them until they're covered in sunscreen because they mostly all know how to do that kind of thing for themselves so they just magically appear ready to go. It's pretty great!

Not that small kids aren't fun (they totally are)...they're just more hands-on work than big kids.

Last night Sara raved about how great being a grandma is, about how wonderful being an empty-nester is.

In ten years our first five kids will all be adults (we'll just be waiting on Phoebe), so it was good to see Kevan and Sara enjoying that phase of life, too! I'm sure that in ten years when all our kids are (mostly) grown, we'll also be fine.

Also! Keven and Sara just moved here from Abu Dhabi, where Kevan was the stake executive secretary (I think), so they travelled around the area quite a bit. Sara raved about the ward in Qatar, Kevan told us we need to drive through Saudi Arabia. We talked about old times, got all caught up on what all the kids (and grandkids!) are doing, told very many, very lame jokes, and somehow took zero pictures.

Our next (and last) visit before we move should be Sam's homecoming next month!

Bunk Bed Signatures

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 05:37:49 +0000

Approximately thirteen years ago, Miriam carved her name into the frame of the bunk bed.

Miriam on the fateful bed-carving day, 2013

She got a little bit of a lecture and hasn't carved her name into any bunk beds since (that I know of).

Miriam pointing at her carving, 2026

This bunk bed has been in our home since 2012—and it was a rather expensive housewarming gift from Grandma—so it felt like rather a big deal when Miriam carved her name into it after just one year of use! Now all of the kids have slept in it for multiple years and we're getting ready to say goodbye.

Over the years various children have taken the liberty to illicitly carve their name into the bed, first Benjamin...who who took advantage of the stair rails that so conveniently come in sets of three (almost asking for a three-letter word to be carved into them, right?)...

Zoë was next...and with a three-letter name her name, of course, ended up on those rails as well.

At some point Alexander wrote his name on the rail of the top bunk (which he took the opportunity to spruce up a bit today, scarring the wood a little deeper)...

When Rachel heard that Alexander had surreptitiously carved his name into the bed, too, she got a little bit jealous. She asked (typical first child behaviour) if she could also carve her name into the bed when she visited at Christmas...but we forgot to have her do it. So tonight was the night!

Rachel finally carved her name into the bed:

And then, of course, we had to let Phoebe carve her name into the bed, which she gleefully did.

She wanted to write her whole name in the bed (but we stopped her after Phoebe H.)

We did discuss with her that this was a "special occasion" carving opportunity and that we don't ordinarily carve our name into furniture.

But isn't it wild how much parenting techniques change over the course of raising children?

Sorry, wee Miriam, for getting after you so about carving your name into the bed.

I think everyone else just got an eye roll...and yet they all have learned not to carve their name into furniture.

(Except, perhaps, for Phoebe, who may have learned the opposite lesson...but we've been doing a lot of unconventional things with furniture here lately, like throwing couches off decks and smashing organs to smithereens...so Phoebe will just have to file this away in the "exception to the rule" part of her brain).

Family pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 05:08:28 +0000

Andrew's still "processing" the other pictures we took this afternoon, so I'm sure I'll share more later.

I'm still "processing" the fact that tonight may very well be the last night I'll ever have all my kids—as kids–under the same roof.

Taking a family picture was high on my list of priorities while Rachel was here, but not so high that we did it right away or anything...clearly. We basically left it until the last possible moment. This summer has been so busy!

Besides swim team, packing to move, and so many other things, it's been hard to squeeze in a moment.

We only just realized that Benjamin was at YM camp this week (he got home on Saturday) and then Miriam leaves for YW camp on Monday and doesn't get back until Rachel has left for the airport...so if we were going to take a family picture, it had to be this weekend.

We also happened to have stake conference this weekend, which meant we had a few extra meetings. But stake conference was lovely and we decided that since we were all dressed up already we'd just take our family pictures right there at the stake center.

This particular picture was the very first one we snapped.

Notice how everyone is looking at the camera and smiling?

Pretty impressive, if you ask me.

I don't think we've achieved that in all our years of taking our own family pictures (not on the first try, not ever).

Here's a picture of Rachel holding the flag of Vietnam while the rest of us cluster behind the flag of Qatar and wave goodbye to her. Times they are a-changin'!