The Good and the Bad

Life this week has had its mix of ups and downs.  But, since that is the very definition of life, I guess we'll take it and carry on.

The GOOD: Our pomegranate tree is producing fruit that is ready to be picked and eaten this week!  And this year's pomegranates are giant and abundant!

The GOOD: Our weather finally turned cooler, so we have loved pulling out the long-sleeved shirts and extra blankets.  It is just not fall when you're wearing a tank top and running the A/C

The GOOD: My first online class finished and I got an A, which I worked super hard to get and am very proud of.

The BAD: My next online class started and I am finding it far less interesting.  The text is difficult to read, the professor's expectations are different and the subject of family and community is kind of abstract.

The GOOD: Delia got to go on an all-kindergarten field trip to the pumpkin patch and had a great time.  Dave was able to go along as a chaperon.

The GOOD: We got glowing reviews for each girl at last night's parent-teacher conferences.  Ella's strength is being kind and helpful to every person in the class and seeking out people who seem to need a friend.  Delia's strength is her enthusiasm and "ball of fire" personality.

The BAD: After back to back stomach bugs, this week the nasty sore throat and fever hit our house.  Ella stayed home from school half the week, feverish and feeling totally miserable.  After a trip to the doctor we were at least relieved to have the strep test come back negative.

The GOOD: The SF Giants made it to the World Series!  We have really been enjoying watching each exciting game and joining local friends in cheering for our second favorite baseball team.

The GOOD: Our kids continue to constantly delight and make us proud.  They find creative ways to play each day and, though the schedule is busier, I don't feel that quality time with them is sacrificed.  (Above, Delia is reading her favorite book to "her students".)

The BAD: Because the schedule is busier, other things are getting sacrificed-- like a clean house, emails and phone calls that have actually been returned, blogs I have read and commented on, book club selections I have read and been able to discuss, even a pantry full of groceries.

The GOOD: We have understanding friends and family members, leftovers won't kill us, sicknesses heal, my class goes for only 5 more weeks until a nice long Christmas break and I'm gonna read for the entire month of December! :)

Ella's First Piano Recital!

Ella has been taking piano lessons for one year now.  Last night she played in her first recital-- an item on our calendar that she's been looking forward to for weeks!  Each of Miss Sara's 6 students performed a solo and a duet piece for an audience of family and friends.  Ella was excited and confident and played her songs perfectly.  It was really cool to listen to the other performers too.  Each is at such a different place.  Ella was encouraged to see what amazing skills can come from years of perseverance and discipline.  After the recital, she was inspired to voluntarily commit to taking lessons as long as she can and reaching the highest level of merit.

After the students played their pieces, Miss Sara handed out a few awards.  Ella worked hard this winter to join "The 300 Club", where she memorized and played 300 measures of music.  Her prize was a fancy certificate and a gift card to Cold Stone.  Because she just completed her first full year of lessons, Miss Sara had another gift for her too-- a black and gold piano bag to carry her music books.  Nailing her performance and being showered with gifts had Ella beaming most of the night.

We put that Cold Stone money right to use in a little after-recital celebratory treat.  It was a night to toast Ella.  She has loved taking lessons this year.  She seems to have a knack for playing the piano and never complains about practicing.  She had one particularly difficult song that had her discouraged for a few weeks, but do you know what she did?  She just kept pounding away at it until she mastered it and ended up playing it for everyone last night!  We couldn't be more proud.

Recital Videos

The following are videos of Ella's two songs.  The first is the solo "Our Team Will Play Tonight."  She actually has it memorized, but wanted to take the music along "just in case."  The second video shows her playing "The Library", which is the duet she played with her teacher.  I was having trouble getting Blogger to upload these videos, so I went to YouTube.  Though I clicked every privacy control I could find, I'm still paranoid about putting our family videos on YouTube for the whole world to see.  I'll probably only keep this post up a few weeks.  But I wanted you all to enjoy Ella's performance last night! :)

Delia's Version

Delia has been learning about the Patriarchs in school in Bible.  The story is told to the kids with such drama and excitement that Delia comes home bursting with the details of it.  During lunch she'll often retell us the story.  She gets most of the details right...

"Now Issac was blond, so he couldn't see..."
"And Jacob was so sneaky trying to steal that birthmark!"

Resilience

Yesterday...and today. After tending to her all weekend, camped on the couch with the puke bucket, we're praising God for her resilient little body today!

Beside Still Waters (or the Fumes and Drone of a Go-Kart)

I'm not gonna lie, much of life right now feels like just surviving a very busy season.  I start each day with a to-do list and a prayer that I'll find balance.  Today's to-do list includes: complete lessons and prepare to lead Bible Study, read chapter 2 in text, write essay response, revise paper, email this person, do laundry and make grocery list.  The girls have each taken their turn with a stomach bug in the past week and the calendar has something on it every day.  The past 2 weeks have been packed with mornings observing in preschool for research, helping in the girls' classrooms, dinner with church families, a piano recital, book club, hosting family visitors, football games, fall parties, etc.  I very easily feel overwhelmed and panicked if I do not stay right on top of these details and obsessively cross things off my to-do lists.  

Which is why last Tuesday was just the short breath for air that we all needed.  I just finished a Bible Study lesson about the rivers of refreshment that God delivers in our times of wilderness and I realized that our annual afternoon at Funworks for Pastor Appreciation Day was, for me, the still waters that David talks about in Psalm 23.  Kinda funny to think about go-karts and mini-golf as Biblical, but for me it provided just the rest, revival and refreshment needed to carry on.  Instead of swallowing a lump in my throat thinking about all the things that needed to be done, I drove that go-kart with my foot pressed hard on the gas pedal thinking about nothing other than "beating Daddy" and Delia's screams of pure joy beside me.

  

Wonderful Weekend (Part 2)

The last 2 days of our 4 days with Karen and Theoren were equally great!  On Sunday we just hung out at home.  Dave preached and the family reactions were varied: Karen got teary and Theoren told him, "Your church felt like just 10 minutes! So short and fast, Uncle Dave!"  Probably the best compliment he's ever gotten. :)

We filled every minute of Sunday with conversation and play.  We fiercely competed in Mall Madness and a few rounds of Trains.  The kids played long and hard outside on the swing set.  I think they also made a band and a car wash while Dave, Karen and I discussed everything from the silly to the serious.  Since Theoren has a trip to Disney World coming up, we also introduced him to our favorite Toy Story Mania Wii game, based on the ride there.  This too was great fun.  And, of course, we adults had to watch The Amazing Race together.

Dave and I thought long and hard and decided to go ahead and call school and take a family day on Monday, since Karen and Theoren didn't leave until late afternoon.  We left early enough to enjoy several hours in the city before the airport.  We started with our new favorite walk in San Francisco-- the unbeatable Golden Gate views from the Fort Point path.

Karen and I agreed that the best part of this day was watching Ella and Theoren take the entire hike with their arms around each other.  Their friendship seemed to really click on this day and they were just too cute! (And they only ended up in a heap on the ground once...or twice.)

We continued our "Favorites of SF Tour" with sourdough and soup for lunch at Boudin's.  If you know Delia and Theoren and their extra, um, propensity to crabbiness, you'll especially like the above picture!

After lunch on the wharf, we walked a few blocks to watch the cable car turn around on its cool turn table at the end of the Powell and Market Street line.  Theoren had all sorts of good questions about when the cable cars took their first rides.  1800 something, we learned when we asked the grip.

We got a real thrill out of the roller coaster hills as we drove to Alamo Square...

Where we viewed Ella's favorite thing in San Francisco-- the Painted Ladies, aka The Full House houses.  As we walked up, Karen found the opening from the show we grew up watching.  We decided not to recreate the running sequence, but the kids did take up a natural game of tag right on that lawn in front of Postcard Row.  As we walked back to the car, we passed a couple guys walking up singing the "Whatever Happened to Predictability?" theme song and had to laugh.  You're singing it now too, right? :)

We love having visitors and this was yet another great visit.  We did enough fun things, but what really made the time we spent together special was just the opportunity to reconnect face to face.  The girls have fresh new memories of playing with their cousin and auntie.  Though we're always sad to say goodbye (took Ella about half the drive home to stop sobbing), we play those new memories over and over in our minds and conversations and thank God for putting people like Karen and Theoren in our lives.

Wonderful Weekend (Part 1)

With a couple days off of school, we had the treat of hosting (Auntie) Karen and her youngest son, Theoren, over this long weekend.  Karen is great about taking her boys out to CA, one at a time and every other year.  This is such a special time where we get to know the nephew she brings so much better.  We were so happy to hear that, in order to prepare Theoren for his first trip to Uncle Dave and Auntie Jen's house, his older brothers told him ALL about their experiences from 2009 and 2010.  Though we always try to plan fun outings, Karen said the thing the boys were most excited to share was details about the little house Theoren would stay in!

This weekend's outings were big ones.  After picking up Karen and Theoren from the airport, we drove down the coast and had a sleepover together in a hotel.  This was a blast!  The next morning, we were not far from Monterey, which we couldn't wait to share with Auntie and Cousin!

Along the coast are some fantastic fields of produce-- some, like lettuces and artichokes, grow best with the help of that salty fog.  We pulled over to fill a box with fresh produce and Karen was pretty thrilled at the bounty we scored for just $9.  I love this picture and the excitement it depicts.  :)

Since we were less than an hour away from the aquarium (which, of course, was our Monterey destination) and since we were all up before 6:00 am raring to go, we had some time to explore the wharf before the aquarium opened.  We saw all the normal sea life in the wild--  starfish, pelicans, cranes, jellyfish and these super-up-close sea lions.  The kids fell in love with this little one and named her Lucille.  Then she opened her mouth all the way and let out a very loud and long bark about 2 feet away from us and we all screamed.

This was the last time we'll use the aquarium membership.  We have loved all the mileage we got out of this splurge.  We went, on average, every other month and lent it out to over a dozen friends.  We have had a great year getting to know the amazing creatures in the ocean better and couldn't have ended our year of aquarium visits on a better note than to share it one last time with Karen and Theoren.

A really special treat was randomly being asked by an aquarium worker if we'd like to go behind the scenes and see where their jellyfish are born.  He showed us the "nursery" tank full of baby jellies then explained in  a very cute and funny way to the kids how jellyfish reproduce.  This "Delia" polyp is sprouting and spawning tons of other "Delia" jellyfish.  The idea of a million Delia's swimming in the ocean gave everyone the giggles.

Things we've seen before, but always love experiencing with someone new: the life-sized giant clam shell (above) and the friendly penguins (below).

I think my favorite part of the day was Theoren's hesitation to pet the sea cucumber in the touch pools.  After working up enough bravery to give the squishy and slimy creatures a pat, he LOVED it!  His prayer at the end of the day thanked God for the "sea pickles"!

 The drama of the wave room.  Are these the faces of real terror or just good actors? I'll let you decide!

Auntie Karen totally spoiled the kids by treating them to a special stuffed animal from the gift shop.  Chompie the great white shark and Amanda and Jewels the penguins joined our group as we bid farewell to the aquarium for the last time and made our way home.

We couldn't leave Monterey without a stop at the beach, though.  Since Theoren has never seen the Pacific, he had to put his toes in the icy water and join the girls in their mission to disrupt the lives of every single hermit crab they could find by relocating them to a community "swimming pool".  

Karen and Theoren were only here for 4 days, so this outing took half our time with them.  It was wonderful and I'm excited to tell you about the other half of the visit...maybe tomorrow...or maybe after I've crossed the 11 things off my to-do list that I didn't get done in my 4 days of fun with the family! :)

Caramel Apples on a Hot Day

It's the same story every year.  Even though our thermometer looks like this...

We're still Feeling Fall when we flip that calendar page to October and start craving those autumn activities.

So, even though it was crazy to stand over a hot stove to melt caramel in triple digit heat, Delia and I couldn't resist turning some of our Apple Hill apples into homemade caramel apples yesterday afternoon.  

This is the perfect recipe to tackle with a kid-- it's very hands on and it makes a fantastic, sticky mess!  And the caramel apples you get as a result are some the best we've ever had (who cares if they don't look so pretty!).  I  definitely recommend the recipe (which we halved to make just 6), but I also recommend a cool fall day on which to make it! :)  

Scared but Assured

As I step waaaay out of my little introverted and controlled comfort zone and lead my first Women's Bible Study Small Group today, I claim this truth...

Also liking 2 Timothy 1:7 "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a SOUND MIND."