Home again Home again, jiggety jig

We flew back to Texas two days ago. It is nice to be home, with Ryan, in our apartment, and back to our routine. I was thinking how grateful I am that we can afford a nice apartment and to take care of our needs as a family. We're not where we want to be, but I need to be more grateful for where we are. I can stay home with Willa, we generally have life pretty nice.

Today at the park, Willa stepped in an ant pile. I had left her for a moment to go help another little girl who was crying. The girl had climbed to the top of a toy and couldn't get down. Her mother was across the park playing on her phone and smoking a cigarette, classy. I ran to help the little girl and when I came back to Willa there were ants all over both legs! I quickly grabbed her and started swatting them off. Fire ants usually swarm the victim and then start biting, so thankfully I got to her during the swarming part instead of the biting. She still has 8-10 bites on one leg and 1-2 on the other. She cried, but I think it was mainly from the shock of me grabbing her and swatting at her legs so abruptly. Chalk one more big minus for Texas.

Hogle Zoo with Ashley and baby Mason. This lion water fountain brings back so many memories!

Final concert at Suzuki Institute, aren't my students adorable?

Willa with her very favorite best buddy, Celeste.

A little bit of Utah so far

We went to my aunt and uncle's house to watch some nice tame fountain fireworks. Willa got to play with her second cousin Thomas (he was much nicer to her than she was to him).

We tried to get a picture of the three cousins together, these are our best shots.

All my siblings came over for a July 5th party. My mom set up this slip n slide down the hill in the backyard. Willa was so ready to try swimming and the slip n slide that she would let any cousin hold her if they would take her down. Look at that GLEE on her face! Also, look at that adorable patriotic swimsuit, I love TJMaxx!

The Utah Suzuki Harp Institute officially started today. I love love LOVE institute and have so many fun memories of going every single summer growing up. All three of my students from Houston flew into town and I am so excited for them to experience it too! This is just one of many rooms of harps. I think the latest harp count was 125.

Dessert for Breakfast

 My sister Carrie once told me that eating sugar cereal with whole milk was extremely delicious; she was telling the truth. Once Willa started drinking milk, we always had at least two gallons in the fridge. One gallon of whole milk for her, one of low-fat for Ryan and me. On the weekends, sometimes it would be three gallons because we'd have to buy an extra gallon on Saturday because we knew we would run out before Monday.

We got sick of it (and Ryan was relistening to "In Defense of Food") so we decided to just drink the whole milk. We actually only have milk with cereal, and sugar cereal on Sunday morning has become a little tradition.

Recently, Ryan went to the store to stock up on some sugar cereal options for Sunday. He tried a new bagged brand and it was a major disappointment. On closer inspection, the bag reveals that the cereal is "all natural".  Now, if I'm buying a gigantic bag of sugar cereal - do you think I'm the sort of person who cares if my cereal is "all natural" or not? NO! The people who care about that are eating All-Bran right now. Not that I have anything against eating naturally, I think it's a good plan. I just accept the fact that a giant sugar bomb is going to be bad for me whether it is natural or not.

Willa, unfortunately, has gotten a taste for the cereals as well. When she sees us pour a bowl she RUNS to our side for some scraps. Luckily, it's not too often that it happens. Today, however, she screamed for cereal, wouldn't eat Cheerios, wouldn't eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and finally ate Lucky Charms. She eventually gets her point across, but it will be easier and less wasteful when she can just say, "I want the cereal with the marshmallows."

Here is a picture of her scowling while eating a banana. I was going to post of photo of her begging for some of Ryan's cereal, but he was wearing his Mickey Mouse pajamas and said that that would be embarrassing.

Birthday!

Last night we had our good USC friend Steven over for dinner. He's from Houston, but lives far on the other side of town. He's recently been dating a young filly and we wanted to meet her. We told him that they should come to dinner sometime, so a few days ago he texted and asked if they could come Thursday night. I said yes, and then he told me that Thursday was actually his birthday. He also asked if he could bring some candy or a treat, to which I replied that I would make him a cake. I just want to record that he invited himself over to our home for his own birthday dinner. I also asked what kind of Blue Bell ice cream was his favorite and he replied, "Cookies n Cream with chocolate syrup. I'll bring the syrup."

He is such a fun guy and so down-to-earth that this request wasn't at all untoward. It did provide fodder for plenty of jokes, but they were all good-natured, of course. We had a great night and were very happy to meet his very nice lady friend. It was good to see him. He lived the bachelor's life about two blocks from us in Los Angeles so we used to have him over a lot. There is just something so fun about a student ward. Everyone is in a special stage of life and the future is open. Your dreams aren't crushed and you still have naive hope in the student world. Steven was doing his Masters in Music at USC and is a fabulous french horn player. He's still looking for a steady gig (though he has a ton of students) so we commiserated for a moment on unemployment.

On a less pleasant note, yesterday I came across a dead cockroach inside our apartment. We had never had one before and thought that being on the 3rd floor might be a bonus that way. It has been really hot and humid, though, and I wonder if that is driving them inside, or if they are flourishing more...

I wasn't too worried (I was plenty disgusted, but not worried) until this morning when we saw a giant, LIVE cockroach in the same vicinity. Luckily, Ryan was still home and he smashed it to smithereens and got cockroach juice on his fingers. Yuck. Everyone knows that one bug isn't a problem, it could have gotten lost or made a wrong turn. Two bugs means trouble, especially within such a short time span. I'm so disgusted! I pulled out the oven range and cleaned everything behind there. There was a 1/2 inch crack between the drywall and the flooring, so I suspect that is where they came from. I sprayed a bunch of roach spray. Our apartment has pest control but they just came Wednesday and they are skipping next week for the 4th of July. That means two whole weeks until they can come.  In the meantime, I'm counting down until we leave for Utah and even more determined to leave this locust-plagued land.

Girls Camp

The Young Women are at Girls Camp this week. Since the camp is run on a stake level, I just had to convince the Bishop to call a camp director and I was able to get out of attending!!! Actually, I wouldn't have minded going if I had someone (like a grandma) to watch Willa for four days. The girls slept in air conditioned cabins and had a cafeteria and swimming pool. We had a record number of girls attending this year: EIGHT!!! 

The camp is only 30 minutes away, so on the first night, they invited ward YW and RS leaders to meet up for dinner and some fun. It was good to go up and see what everyone was doing.           

Enjoying delicious dinner of cold cut sandwiches and cheetos.

Our ward name was the 'Dream Beams'. There was an Olympic theme and the name was sort of a combination of Sunbeams and Dream Team. Don't think too hard, just enjoy it, it's girls camp. They made me a camp shirt!

We really do have the most adorable first and second year girls. Who else will unashamedly tell you that they "absolutely, one hundred-percent LOVE Taylor Swift!!!!" (insert Justin Bieber, One Direction)

Big Helper

 I'm trying to take advantage of toddler "helpfulness" right now so that I can train it up for slave labor later. The extra effort now will pay off in a few years when I tell Willa to scrub the floor and make my bed while I watch my daytime television stories and eat grapes.

Here is a picture of cute Bridget, the frenemy, at our swimming pool. We have been enjoying swimming a lot lately. I tried to get a picture of the babies together, but you know, frenemies.

Summer seems to be in full swing and we are just trying to stay cool. Most mornings we try to get to a park around 8:30 or 9:00 before it gets too hot. I'm trying to squeeze in as many outside activities as possible while it's still possible. In a few weeks, I'm afraid it will be too hot to do even that. In the afternoons after naptime we go to the children's museum, run errands, swim, go to Lisa's big, toy-filled, air-conditioned house, and often buy snow cones. We're on a diligent search for more splash parks, but sadly there aren't too many close by - and nothing that has the nice padded ground.

I bought a little water table at Walmart for our balcony. It has been a GREAT distraction and Willa spends hours going in and out and playing around with it - with or without water.

I thought I'd do an update on Ryan and me - we're still the same! He has still been blessed to find temporary and contract positions most of the time. He commutes a lot and we miss him. The lack of long-term stability hangs over our heads, but we try to ignore it most of the time. Live in the moment, man! Most of the legal jobs are on the other side of town - over an hour or more of driving each way. We don't want to move down there for just a temporary job that could end anytime, so he commutes. The job search for something long-term with benefits continues. We have had a lot of family and friend support during it all, which has been very very nice.

Young Women is going so-so. I still want to be released about 90% of the time, but there are a few glimmer moments when I get to hang out with the brand new Beehives who are so excited and so fun - and that's when I think, "Oh, this is why people love working with the Young Women!" I wish I could spend all the time with them and send the problem girls to a dungeon or detention or to the principal's office - but sadly there is no principal's office at church! The problem girls are the ones who probably need the most help. I'm tryin', but the odds are looking very good that my stint as YW president will coincide with my admittance into a loony bin. We've gone from four girls to seven (and soon to be nine or ten!) so I need to start preparing a end-of-year speech to plead for a bigger slice of the budget. Any tips?

Pacifier?

Anyone need a pacifier?

'Cause I've got plenty!