Short letter so I can call it a night!

Happy Birthday to my dear mother today! We also celebrated Tom's birthday this past week.  It was a windy day at the cemetery.  Adrienne brought balloons for the boys to send to Tom.  The wind took them away VERY fast.  I hadn't gotten flowers, but the wind had blown all the other flowers in the cemetery, so we collected a small bouquet 😊

Family pics for the week:

Dojin is growing --but still not sleeping
very well :(

Greta.  You can see how healthy she looks now!

Max loves his face painted.  Elise rewards him with it
when he finishes his chores.

Mav, Elise, Max

On the train after Andy's first final for this year

Roy, serving at St. Vincent De Paul with his Young Single Adults

Grandpa and grandma came up with Nan and Evan for dinner
and to see our new house.  Grandpa with Doyeon and Hyeji, Ollie with Grandma and Gunnar, Yuna.

The pictures highlight our weekend pretty well.  Earlier in the week Roy and I were treated for our birthdays (by Dan and Jieun) to the Circue du Soleil "Ova."  It was a lot of fun.  I had a little one on one time with Ollie while Adrienne went to the doctor on Thursday.  He was happy to be able to hop back into his pajamas when he got to my house.  We read lots of Halloween books, and one Easter one.  I was able to go to a Stake Women's Conference yesterday and attend three different classes,  I enjoyed the spirit that I felt there.

Love to all !

Fun week with Family

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 Coeur 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)

Caitlyn

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.

Greta comes home

Greta was finally able to come  home from the hospital yesterday, after spending the week in the NICU.  We are so grateful for the Priesthood and for modern medicine (antibiotic).  It was a hard week for the Vance family.  Especially Crista.  You'd never know she had just had a baby.  She was running back and forth from the  hospital like a champ--but it was difficult having to leave Greta there after each feeding.  

When the nurses moved the IV from Greta's little hand to her head, it was almost more than Matt and Crista could handle.  The IV only lasts for about a day before they have to move it.  They start with the hands, then the head, and then go to the foot.

When she started scratching herself, they had Crista put her in an outfit.

 Ruby, loving the broccoli heads from our Chinese take out.

 At least Ruby and I had a good time when Matt and Crista were with baby Greta.

In this picture, it was Matt playing with Ruby--I'm not sure
I would have had enough energy for this game.

Ruby saw Greta on the day she was born, but after they took her to the NICU, Ruby was only able to see her through the glass.

Matt, Greta, Crista and Ruby

Finally, they were able to come home.
I stayed in Logan until Wednesday evening.  Roy and Caitlyn came up to see the baby, then I went home with Roy so we could close on our house on Thursday.  My stress level has been greatly reduced now that I only have one house to worry about.  We still have a few things left to be done to be able to call our new house finished, but in the meantime we are enjoying it as we continue unpacking.  Friday and Saturday we actually got a lot accomplished, hung several of our paintings, and continued putting stuff away (and giving stuff away).
I took Yuna out to lunch for her birthday and let her pick out a birthday outfit.  She picked a frilly dress with Dory on the front.  Apparently she's been wearing it ever since.  Doyeon came with us so that Jieun could rest.  She's had mastitis, and other infections going on this week.
Yuna was very happy about her birthday.  She turned 3.

Yuna turns 3

Doyeon and Yuna

We left Benedict Dojin home with mom.  He's about 11 lbs. now

We celebrated closing on our home by going to Market Street Grill (and because I had a birthday coupon).  

We enjoy so many blessings, and especially this week we're grateful that all of the new babies in our family (Effie, Dojin and Greta) are doing well.

 Some pictures of Elise's family in Texas:

Max and Mav

Waffle House

Mav

Mav

And she's here: Greta Bree Vance 9 lbs. 2 oz. (And Happy Birthday to Yuna on Friday!)

This week we are welcoming Greta Bree Vance into our family.  She was born Saturday, Feb. 4, around 3:00 in the afternoon.  She was 9 lbs. 2 oz.  We are glad Crista had her a week early or we're pretty sure she would have beat Ruby's birth weight of 9 lbs. 8 oz.  Greta is currently in NICU at the regional hospital in Logan because of a suspected infection, but she seems to be stable and recovering well.

Matt and Greta

Greta Bri Vance

Crista and Greta

Jennie and Greta

Greta

Ruby welcomes her new sister

I have been super stressed in the move with packing, unpacking, selling our old home...but for my birthday Roy whisked me away (even though I wondered if it was wise) to the homestead for a couple of nights.  We were able to completely relax and enjoyed some meals out, a couples massage, and a movie.

I was spoiled by everyone.  Thank you to all of you who remembered me.  

We've moved

As you all may have noticed, there has not been a weekly letter for the past couple of weeks.  My life has been a whirlwind of activity, which has left me too tired to think--and writing takes thought.  Don't worry--you haven't missed much.☺ By not writing, I have missed pointing out a couple of birthdays.  Happy Birthday Jieun, Maverick and Andy!  We are happy you are all in our family!!!

We have finally moved (and we picked the snowiest day possible to do it).

This picture was taken the 2nd day of moving--it snowed,
but not all day like it did the first day of moving.

You all know how I've worried about the house in Bountiful.  We had very little activity for the 7 months we had it on the market.  We took it off the market over Christmas and were going to wait a few weeks to put it back on the market, but someone saw it on Zillow (a website that is apparently slow to update) and wanted to see it.  We hurried and cleaned up from Christmas and put it immediately back on the market--never dreaming that we'd have much action in January.  `We had three families view the home, and all seemed quite interested.  We got an offer that we were disappointed in.  We countered, and they countered again--only $10,000 above their original offer.  Roy and I discussed it and decided "one in the hand is worth two in the bush" and we told our realtor to go ahead.  Their realtor told us that she would send the paperwork that evening.  It never appeared.  She texted about 9:00 and said she'd been out for the evening but would send the paperwork over when she arrived home. She didn't do it.  The next morning, around 10:30 or 11:00 we received a 2nd offer that was $30,000 better than the first offer.  It had slightly more risk (the wife hasn't yet seen the home and there are a couple of contingencies,--but for $30,000 we decided to go with it.  The first realtor was very angry.  She told our realtor that we had a verbal agreement... I think she even made our realtor cry.  However, it was her fault, because if she'd been timely with the paperwork, we would have signed and been tied in to it.  I think she was angry because she had to go back to her people and tell them she had messed up, although my bet is that she colored it differently.  I didn't feel that we owed the first couple anything because they had definitely played a game with us.  They gave us a very low offer--a little insulting actually, and then they didn't call us or communicate with us for over a week.  Our realtor eventually called them back and that's when they agreed to go up $10,000, but they wouldn't budge from that.
We have felt greatly blessed to get a contract on our home--the very same day we were scheduled to move out of it.
Life has not been perfectly rosy, however.  You expect to have problems in a home that's 35 years old, but you're hopeful in a brand new one that you won't have any.  HOWEVER... Wednesday morning, Caitlyn woke us up at 6:15 (the first morning in a long while that I was actually still asleep at that time and not awake with nervous energy).  She told us that the basement was flooding.  We hurried downstairs to find that the water softener had failed--one of the connections had blown and water was spurting out profusely. Our utility/furnace room is right next to our theater room.  Our beautiful brand new carpet was soaked; into the media closet and about 10 feet into the room itself.  I put an immediate call into our carpet guy.  He came out a few hours later, sucked up the water into a wet/dry vac, threw away the ruined section of padding, and put fans on the carpet.  I was so glad I was able to get a hold of him, because if the builder had sent someone to pull up carpet, he wouldn't have known how to cut it correctly (it had to be cut because I didn't know how to disconnect the media rack--and the carpet thankfully was dry underneath it).
We still have a few unfinished items in our home--we don't have a tub in our master bath, for example.  But so far we are enjoying living in it--though it sort of feels like a luxurious hotel.
I knew our home in Bountiful was large, but I thought I'd sorted through a lot of things and pared down reasonably well.  When we started unpacking, though, I realized I still had a lot to sort through and give away.  We had a lot more storage room in the Bountiful house (we had john cupboards in every bathroom, etc.)

Even though our routine has basically stopped while we have been moving, life has gone on, as it always does.

Benedict Dojin has been growing:

Benedict on the quilt grandma made for him

And he has met most of his cousins:

Benedict and Effie (5 months makes a big difference
at this age)

Finn with Benedict

Ori with Benedict

Max had a little too much fun in the hot tub.

Max and Maverick

Ori has been learning to ski.  Saturday she went with her mom while her dad took care of Effie.  She was especially excited because her favorite characters showed up at the lodge while she was there.

Ollie and grandma had fun together this past week as well.  We went to the homecoming for Emily Green (AJ's sister).  Ollie sat on my lap through all of Sacrament meeting.  It made my day.  I've had so much nervous energy and have been working so hard that I've forgotten how to relax.  Holding Ollie calmed me right down.  Granted, he wasn't feeling very well or he never would have been so still, but I'll take what I can get.

 Monday, Adrienne came over and helped me organize my pantry.  I'm pretty sure I couldn't have done it alone.  The boys played and had a good time.  Then they decided to be sick the rest of the week (all except Gunnar who stayed healthy).

Ollie can not look at a camera without making a face.

A week ago yesterday was the day of our move.  Roy managed to escape and go to a Pinewood Derby with the Elder's Quorum in his Singles ward.  Wednesday I was able to go to Book Club, but for the most part we've been packing and unpacking non-stop.