Though still heavily involved in trying to organize our new home, I was able to spend some time with grandchildren this week. Dave has said in most of his letters that his granddaughters "own" him. I can certainly understand. I was up in Logan this past week, holding the baby and playing with Ruby (and visiting with Crista). I took Ruby on a walk so Crista could rest for a little bit. We took the long route to the playground. The playground in her Logan neighborhood was still pretty snow covered, interspersed with mud.. Ruby insisted I follow her to the slides. I had watched her with Matt the previous week. That time she went down the slide by herself. It was a S L O W slide. This time, though, she insisted I go down the slide with her. It was not exactly made for a woman with my hips. It was slow going and not very comfortable. Luckily for me, she chose the smaller, side by side, short slides for the rest of the adventure. I could go down by myself. On one occasion, however, I watched her go down. She got off the slide, looked up at me with a smile, and while motioning for me to join her, kept saying, "come on guys." She also liked the swing quite a bit, which was all right, except that every time I took her out of it, her shoes would catch and come off, and I had to haul her to the bench and put them back on.
This week Adrienne went on a once in a lifetime adventure (which she's now done twice)--skiing with her in-laws. she asked me to help out because all day is a long time to leave her boys with someone other than grandma. She had someone else tend the boys in the morning while I went ice skating. I drove up around lunch and spent a couple of hours playing stickers with Ollie and Gunnar while Finn napped. Because I had promised--I took them down to my house so Gunnar could play a video game with Jennie. Ollie wanted me to make cookies for him. He didn't stick around to help, though, but Finn did. He loved dumping the ingredients into the bowl. Later Ollie said to Adrienne, "I want to move to a big house like grandma's." Gunnar insisted that he didn't want to move, because he didn't want to leave his friends. Ollie: "You can drive to your friends houses." Gunnar "No, I want to ride my bike and I can't ride it on the freeway."
Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the boys while we were playing.
Ori came over one evening for a hot tub with her dad. I joined them. Speaking of Hot Tub soaks--please rinse your swimsuits in a rinse and spin cycle and dry them before getting in the hot tub. It doesn't like the leftover detergents. If you wash them without soap in future, there won't be any problem. I didn't take a picture of Ori, either, but Sara had sent a cute one of Effie. We thought she might be more petite because she was so little when she was born, but she's grown out of her infant car seat already. She still has to be rear-facing for quite a while, though.
Part of the reason that I had so much available "grandchild time" this week was that Roy was gone for two days up to Ceour d'alene, Idaho, it was a 10 hour drive. He and two co-workers went up Wednesday morning and came home Thursday afternoon. His co-worker, Jeremiah drove all the way to avoid car-sickness.
Roy and I had a busy Friday. We had had workers at the house all day. I met Stephen Hunsaker and his wife Jan, and Christine for lunch. We had a nice visit and learned a lot more about him and his family. Christine had to get home to get ready for the shower for Sierra, and I had to get back to meet Caitlyn shopping. She was going to wear Crista's dress to the dance, but we decided we could find her something she was a little more comfortable in. Crista's dress looked nice but was slightly large in the neckline. We found her a fun dress for her dance that she can also wear to church and any other dress-up activity. I hurried home after that to help Roy with house stuff, and make dinner. Later we met Dan and Jieun at a ballet recital for Doyeon. She was only on stage for a few minutes, but the entire recital was very well done and enjoyable. We had to sneak out early in order to get to Jennie's "gig." She played three numbers with her band at a Young Single Adults dance. I thought she did a really good job (she's the singer).
 |
| Doyeon with her dance teacher |
 |
| Jennie's Band |
Caitlyn spiffed up and ready for the Sweethearts Dance (Saturday night)
 |
| Max |
I didn't see Mav and Max this week, except in pictures.
I have to admit, my ego has taken a little hit in this new ward. I still don't have a calling (no problem, I'm enjoying the time off). The bishop had called to ask Roy if he was too busy in his stake calling to have a ward calling (A BIG YES) He said, "Oh, I was going to ask you to be a gospel doctrine instructor. Roy replied, "My wife would be good at that." I think the bishop just kind of laughed that off. Then I told the choir leader that I played the violin. She said, "The ward puts on a talent show every summer...you should work up a number for that." I may be reading into it but what I heard was, "Well, I'll probably never use you for choir, but..."
For the most part, though, people have been friendly and welcoming. It's kind of fun getting to know new people.
