Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week felt kind of short. At least to me it did, Susan said it felt long to her. Susan spent the first two days of this week in Chicago at a friends house canning. I was here by myself working and twiddling my thumbs. The middle of the week was mostly uneventful. Then yesterday my parents showed up. They are in the midst of traveling out to see my newest nephew and decided to stop here on the way.

Refreshment

Last night was a surprise. Bobby and I were supposed to drop off the kids at a friend's house and whisk ourselves away on a date night. It had been one of my worst mommying days in a long time. The kids took turns whining and/or crying. Neither child slept as long as he/she needed. Neither child felt happy about the food choices presented. Neither child could get a satisfactory amount of attention from me. Both struggled, fought, and collapsed in frustration on the floor throughout the day despite having friends over a while, a new craft to work on, and new toys rotated out of the garage. I didn't understand it, I just endured. I looked forward to that date night as a blessed escape, a refreshment, a restart button. Unfortunately, a catastrophically timed deluge of snot and coughing rendered our friends inoperable the whole day (So sorry for you guys. Get well soon.). My friend offered that afternoon to pay for a different babysitter and I declined for several reasons.

Here's one:

When I heard my friend couldn't watch our kids anymore, I felt relief and consternation. Consternation made sense, especially since I was feeling particularly drained that day. The relief surprised me, though. Apparently, date night stresses me out a little. Go figure. Adding the dynamic of a new babysitter to the mix was only stressing me out more, so I decided to call off the date. Suddenly, I felt a little better.

I finished our scheduled day and got home soon after Bobby did. We took the kids outside to ride bikes in the driveway while we figured out our options for the evening. Playing together helped a little more. I had a couple quick grocery errands to run and we decided to do them together as a family. That was the biggest surprise of the evening. Alice's mood improved, Robert lightened up (he's strangely insecure when either parent is away), and we had a jolly time chatting and looking around and helping each other. I could laugh again. I could be silly again. Alice even wanted to carry some of the groceries (she doesn't do that on our weekly shopping trips). Anyway, bedtime went smoothly and Bobby and I watched a movie together in the peaceful post-bedtime bliss. That was refreshment.

All day, I thought I had wanted an escape from the stress, but what I actually needed was a resolution of the stress. I needed to see my family happy again. I needed to feel better about my kids and myself as a mom. Escape wasn't the answer.

Don't get me wrong. A well-timed escape can be perfectly refreshing. I use breaks all the time (sweet, sweet quiet time *sigh*). Date nights and one-on-one time with Bobby are also important parts of my happiness balance. Last night, however, I needed something else. An eternal escape couldn't have refreshed me so much as 20 minutes of healing. That crazy day of insecurity and frustration just melted away. Refreshing.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

It has been a long time since I posted anything. That is because we have been on vacation, like Susan said. I was not a 3 week vacation, although it kind of felt that way. The last Sunday before we left I did not write for two reasons. First is that I was the only member of the Bishopric in town that day so I had to run a fair amount of church myself. That is not a big deal but it was time consuming. Second we left on our trip shortly after getting back from church. We had booked a cheap flight out of Indianapolis early Monday morning, but we forgot about the time change, and did not really factor everything in. There was just no way that we were going to wake up at 3 am to get to Indi on time so we stayed that night in a hotel. It was not ideal but it worked out.

We did a tone of things while we were out west. I cannot really tell you about all of them. But I will post the pictures and things that I can. I don't have a lot because I don't know where the camera is. We came home and there were a few people who wanted to look at the house, so we hurried and cleaned up. And I don't know where the camera got placed in all the cleaning. These pictures/videos are from my phone.

This is Alice sitting in a fake Chickens nest at a childrens part of the Idaho falls zoo.

This is Alice riding a horse for the first time ever. We have one of Robert too, but that is on the camera. She did this a Pioneer Village at This is the place monument in Salt Lake City.

Here is Alice and Robert Panning for "Gold." It really is fools gold so the banter that you hear in the video about how much per ounce is nothing. This is in the Pioneer Village at this is the place monument in Salt Lake City.

This out of this world looking video is actually Robert staring at a Monkey sunning itself (Again at the zoo in Idaho). This boy loves animals, this particular animal just looks like it is from another planet.



As for what happened this week. Well not a lot. It was a fairly normal week trying to recover from vacation. I read a lot of e-mail at work and everyone tried to catch up on their sleep.

Down Time

Just got back from a whirlwind vacation to Utah and Idaho. We got to reconnect with Poulson family at the first ever Poulson Clan reunion (descendants of Jerry and Jenene) and spend a couple quiet and restful days with Grandma and Grandpa Evans. I may or may not get around to processing the whole experience and recording those thoughts here. I do, however, want to remember a few highlights no matter what:

• Heidi finding Mary Adelaide's maiden name and family at the Family History Library. Then a group of us doing family sealings in the Mt. Timpanogos temple for our own family names, including dear Mary Adelaide.
• Sharing a Family Home Evening lesson with some friends we haven't seen in a long time. We became friends in Illinois and somehow managed to overlap in Utah for one evening.
• Alice being traumatized by a fake bank robbery at This is the Place park in Salt Lake City. I believe that's something I'll blog about later.
• Taking Alice and Robert to the Idaho Falls Zoo. Robert was the exact same age as Alice was her first time there. It's funny to ponder how our lives have changed in those 3 years.
• My brother Mike eating a moth on a challenge by my 6-year-old niece, then my nephew following suit. Ugh. That's a story for later, too. Alice cried about it, but only because I was laughing so hard that I couldn't stop long enough to tell her why.
• Alice going down the zip line ON HER OWN. Holy cow, cousins have a very special influence on each other. 
• Robert expanding his vocabulary to include "Aggy"(cousin Atty), "maw-maw" (grandma), "goggy" (dog), and day-doh (thank you)
• Receiving three very special birthday gifts: 2 darning eggs, a dragonfly creation (reverse applique, in very lovely blues and greens), and a Baptist Hymnal. It's funny when someone else remembers how much you want something even more than you do and then it's magically the perfect gift to give. Amazing.

We didn't take many pictures because our camera battery died and we forgot the charger. I will need photos from others at these events...please, please, pretty please!

Alice-eye view

Here are a few more pictures taken by Alice. No matter how many of these series she takes, I'm always surprised at her perspective:

Buddy pointing out one of Princess Annalise's eyes. Alice is smitten with princesses as of late. (Yes, it's a Barbie movie. No, I never thought I would allow my daughter to view Barbie movies. Yes, of course I sat down to watch it with her. Yes, I was surprised. Completely shocked. Everyone was modestly dressed, educated, clever, driven to succeed, brave, willing to try new things, generous, kind to strangers, and adventurous. The plotlines and characters weren't half bad and the music was pretty good (London Symphony Orchestra! Huh?!). I'm impressed. As far as princess movies go, I'd choose a "Barbie as..." version over Disney any day.)

 

Buddy is so TALL in Alice's photos. He comes up to her shoulders.

 

Does she see droopy eyes, overexposure, and a subject heavily out of focus? No, she sees her friend. She calls him her best friend. I get all teary just thinking about it. 

 

Tall, tall bookshelves. Waaaaaaaaaaaay old family photo. Robert is now older than Alice was at the time that picture was taken oh so long ago. Just. Can't. Get. Digital. To. Paper.