snow. Snow. SNOW!

I am home with a sick Jane today. Unfortunately staying home from church is never that great. I am particularly sad, however, because Josh is speaking in sacrament meeting. I told Kate to listen carefully and tell me about it. I’ll let you know how that turns out. ☺

The adventures of this week all centered around SNOW! We had a series of storms, including one big dump. Initially snow is really fun here. Everyone comes out of hibernation. No cars move and you can just play with your family and your neighbors in the snow covered streets. We built a snow man with our girls that the locals could not get over. Everyone who passed commented on it and the majority of people pulled out their phones or cameras to take pictures. Our neighbors even asked Josh if he was really doing post-graduate work in snow sculpture. Obviously, the art of snow man making has been lost in the city. Once “our Frosty” was completed and the girls were inside drinking hot chocolate the reality of snow in a city set in. The rest of the day was spent shoveling uneven sidewalks and digging out the car. Plowing narrow Philadelphia streets seems to involve driving a tractor down the street leaving a couple inches of ice to coat the road and huge piles of heavy, dirty snow stacked up against the cars on the side of the street. As the lucky owner of a car, you then get to spend an hour or two shoveling that heavy snow out of the way so you can move your car. Not only that, but because there is no place to put the snow, you have to fill your shovel and then walk around until you find some place at the end of the street to pile it. Super fun. The worst of it, however, is driving out of that nicely cleared parking spot and knowing that when you return it will be taken and you will have to park by driving over huge snow banks, sliding your car into place, and then digging that spot out as well. I love the snow storms. I love playing in the snow. But, then I wish all the snow would just magically disappear!

Last week was the interview period for summer internships for the first years. I couldn’t believe how all the memories of that high pressure time came flooding back. On Friday evening when companies could call and extend offers I was so nervous for all of our friends. Of course, things are coming together for all of them as they did for us. What a blessing it is to have a God who directs your path and opens the way before you.

I have really been struggling lately with a tension between wanting to shift my focus toward planning our move to Dallas and starting our life there and feeling like I can’t because we are financially bound by the land we own in Salt Lake. Around Christmas it looked like the sell of our land was going to go through, but now we are back in the bog of waiting and waiting and waiting. Part of me wants to plan a trip to Dallas to look for houses, learn about the neighborhoods, and investigate schools. The other part of me just wants to get so busy with the routine of our life here in Philadelphia that I don’t have time to think about or worry about that next step until our land issue resolves. But what if it doesn’t? I’m so sick of the whole situation I could scream! “Patience Iago, Patience.” Maybe I should read the previous paragraph a few more times. I know that the Lord has guided us and directed us to where we are, in spite of ourselves. He has given us the opportunity of an education and employment beyond what we dared to dream. I just have to trust that He will continue to guide us and bless us. Somehow that land bit just doesn’t seem to fit, or even work out well, no matter how I resolve our situation in my mind. Trust in the Lord. Keep on moving forward. Get distracted by Ground Hog Day and snow storms. If the land was going to be such a thorn in our side why didn’t we feel a warning when we were thinking about buying it? We have learned a hard lesson. How far will the consequences go? We lost all our savings. We loose more every day. Now is it going to take the hope of finally having a home as well? Trust in God. It will all work out. Right? As you can see, the demons in my head are fighting. I think I needed church this week.

Don’t let my rant scare you. We are doing well. The girls are cute. Josh is doing well in school and continues to be everyone’s hero for helping them with interview prep. We have been very blessed. I found a kindred spirit, which I had been longing for. We are having fun and trying to make the most of our time here in Philly. Hey, we even got a beautiful snow storm!

In the Groove

When I came to the computer to write my letter today the word processor was already open and I found the following message:

dir mom i love you

The other day I found iChat open with messages sent to aunts and uncles:

dir alsin i wod lik to tok with you on ichat

dir grasy i wod lik to tok to you

dir cherl i wod lik to tok to you

I also found a note Kate wrote to her friend Makenna:

dir makenna mae you ask yor mom to mov to texis.

Watching your child’s world open up as she learns to read is incredible. I had no intention of teaching Kate to read before school, but I can’t stop her. She started by asking me what signs in store windows said. Then she became interested in letters and sounds. Now she reads Cowboy Sam books, Dick and Jane, or Little Monster to me or Jane or Dad or a stuffed animal, whoever is available to listen. Today during the sacrament meeting she was reading a book about Daniel in the Lions’ Den. I sat there in amazement as she sounded out words she has never seen before like law and worship. As you see from the examples above, she is also now into writing notes. I have a pile of notes she wants me to mail to various people. I am going to have to buy bulk stamps.

Jane is 100% into her polly pockets. She would play with them all day every day. It is fun to see her take ownership of something. She plays with them carefully, cleans them up, and locks them in their case all by herself. Her favorite thing in the world is playing “pollys with Dad.” Kate had a birthday party this week. I was worried about Jane feeling left out, but then she informed me she was “playing pollys with Dad” as if nothing in the world could possibly take precedent over that.

Josh is back in the school routine and I am back in the home routine. We were hoping to start running again, but it is so cold here your eyeballs freeze when you go outside. Yesterday the high was 19 degrees and the “feels like” temperature was 8! Somehow my motivation to run disappears the second I open the door. If it is this cold you should be in a winter wonderland like Island Park. There are a couple cool cold weather things here in Philadelphia: the partially frozen over Schuylkill River is very pretty, and the highway is lined with enormous icicles cascading down the rocks. Lovely (especially from the inside of a warm car)!

In closing I’d like to put a couple of the mysteries of parenthood out there for discussion. Why do kids randomly fall of their chairs in the middle of dinner? And, why do kids only sleep in on days when you have to wake them up to be somewhere?

Encounter

You know you have been away from your schedule too long, when your four-year-old announces, “I’m going to stay up late tonight!” and your two-year-old immediately pipes in, “me too!” This week was our transition from vacation to reality. The first half of the week was all play: sleeping in, fancy breakfasts, children’s museum, zoo, aquarium, movie parties, snow days and pizza dinners. The second half was back to reality: early mornings, cleaning day, schedules, shoveling, play dates, missing dad, church callings, and gymnastics. It’s not all bad to be back to business, but it is undoubtedly an adjustment.

Kate made a new friend this week.

Great picture, eh? Our last day of play with Joshua before he started back into class we ventured to the aquarium. Fortunately no one else got the memo. It was not crowded at all, atypical for any place in Philadelphia, and the animals gave us quite the show. Kate and Jane both got to interact with the seals at the seal show (because they were 2 out of the 3 children there). We all got to feed African birds out of our hands and touch star fish, sea anemones, and jelly fish. The highlight, however, was the hippo! As you can see, it was not your typical hippo viewing experience. We had a super fun day.

Josh is assuring me this semester is not going to be bad. As the wife and mother, I exercising the right to reserve judgement for a few weeks. I’m trying to manage my expectations and rid that idea from my head for now. The good news is Josh is excited about the classes he is taking. The even better news is that he got an A+ in his negotiations class last semester. Even I never received an A+ in college. He walked in and said, “Guess what grade I got in negotiations.” Being a smart alec I came back with, “an A plus plus plus.” He said, “yep” and walked out of the room, smiling over his shoulder.

The girls and I had our friends the Mortensens over to play this week. Lucy is Kate’s age. Sarah is Jane’s age. And Lori is a kindred spirit. They were here for almost four hours. Kate and Lucy were playing pirate ship on the bunk beds upstairs. Jane and Sarah were playing grocery store and polly pockets downstairs. Lori and I were talking about sewing and cooking and “horse and toad” movies(Jane Austin type). There wasn’t a glitch, an argument, or a catastrophe the whole day. We named ourselves the Ladybug Club and we are looking forward to many adventures, projects, and play sessions throughout the semester.

We will survive!

And It Came to Pass

In spite of fog in Salt Lake, snow in Philadelphia, ruined suit cases, canceled flights, and a sick little Jane we made it back home after a WONDERFUL Christmas in Utah. Actually, things worked out remarkable well considering all the complications. Josh ended up arriving in Philly before we did so he was able to turn up the heat in our house and pick us up at the airport. Hopefully the memories of Christmas feasts, sledding, late night games, family parties, and cousin fest should be enough to get us through our LAST semester at Wharton.

Did you catch that? OUR LAST SEMESTER! It is now statistically impossible for Josh to fail out of school. Not that that was ever a threat, but it’s nice to know that it can’t happen anyway. We love Philadelphia and Josh has really enjoyed his MBA program, but it is comforting to know that we won’t have to live on student loans forever.

Josh went to San Francisco last week to take a class. It was a workshop style course on developing web based business ideas. Josh’s idea made it all the way through the final round so he ended up managing a team of eight to develop his own idea. The schedule was intense, but he was pretty excited about the experience.

Thank you to all of you who fed us, hosted us, played with us, put up with us, entertained us, and laughed with us. I can’t tell you what a blessing it was to be home for the Holidays. We love you all!

Quote time!

As we were driving to the airport for the second attempt at flying home Kate said, “I wish we were going to Roosevelt. I NEED some Gracey time!” (Grace is Kate’s closest cousin in age.)

Jane came wandering through the house one day in her Cinderella dress with a lost look on her face. When I asked her if she wanted anything she said, “I need a prince.” I directed her to her dad and they spent the next several minutes dancing together in the living room.

As the youngest child many of my fine works of art from elementary school have been preserved. One of the finest is a reindeer piñata which I made in 4^th grade. I still remember making it with the help of my mom, glueing brown grocery bags on either side of poster board, drawing antlers and cutting them out. I was very proud of my reindeer piñata. Twenty-one years later, it is still a prominent Christmas decoration at my parents house. My jealous, fine art illiterate siblings named him the Christmas Moose because they say he looks more like a moose than a reindeer, or did when he looked like much at all. They threaten each year to trash my beloved piñata, but my Mom stands up for him and so he survives. This year, Sadie, my three-year-old niece, came wandering into the kitchen and said, “When do we get to break the piñata?” The horror! Then when my bratty older brother, attempting to prove the irrelevance of my art, asked, “Sadie, what is it?,” she immediately responded, a reindeer! Vindicated by a three-year-old art enthusiast. The Christmas Moose survived another year.

Finally, a conversation Kate and Jane had in the car the other day:

Jane: I’m going to be Cinderella when I grow up.

Kate: What?!

And wear a dress all the time!

Ridiclious! (I love the way she says that.)

slight pause, thinking, then speaking with authority

Jane, you would have to be Belle because you have brown hair.

Jane: No! I’m going to be Cinderella.

Kate: What if I make you a pouffy yellow dress?

Jane: Oh, thank you.

getting excited

And a yellow head band and yellow shoes?

Kate: And some yellow gloves!

We arrive home so the conversation ends.

A few minutes later the topic is carried on in a conversation between Jane and myself.

Jane: I’m going to be Belle when I grow up.

Mom, do you want to be Cinderella?

Me: Sure.

Jane: Okay, when we grow up we’ll be princesses.

pause, while she turns to look me up and down

You are growed up!

You can be a princess now! . . . .

if you wear a dress.

I love the princess phase!

Here is to a very successful Christmas vacation!