First Day of School

She's off to kindergarten!





I can't believe she's this big. I did make it through the drop-off without crying, though. She was so excited she hardly noticed that I'd left.

Humor at our house

Kezie: why did the chicken cross the road?
me: I don't know. Why?
Kezie: to get to the other side!

Kezie: why did the chicken cross the playground?
me: why?
Kezie: to get to the other side!
me: do you mean 'slide'?
Kezie: yes. To get to the other slide.

Ivy: Why did the chicken cross the road?
me: why?
Ivy: to get to the other monkey bars!

What's going on now. Alternate title: Minutiae.

This happened months ago, but I have to write it down in case we forget. I was at school, and Shawn was home with the kids, so it must have been in March. Ivy and Kezie were downstairs playing, when Shawn heard the sounds of a very upset two-year-old coming up the stairs and toward him. She was crying, "Daddy, help! Help, Daddy!"
Shawn rushed to help her, and couldn't see anything wrong. She tearfully held up her hand, where two of her fingers were crossed. She couldn't uncross them. He took care of it for her, and she bounced off happily to play with a, "Thank you, Daddy!"

We were supposed to go camping with the Averetts this weekend, an annual event. The campsite they chose is a great site and we had a blast there last year. On a good day, the road is rather difficult to traverse in our little sedan. We set off at eight thirty on Friday to meet the rest of the family near ice cave peak. An hour into the trip, Ivy started throwing up. We pulled over and I spent twenty minutes trying to clean up the kiddo, the car seat, and the car. She seemed fine then, so we decided to keep on. We hit construction, stopped again to let Ivy breathe because she said she felt sick, and then hit more construction. By the time we reached the Uintah Basin, patience was a little thin, but we hoped the weekend would be worth it.
Getting to this campsite requires a windy trip up a mountain, on roads both improved unimproved. I do not mean "unimproved" in the "this road is packed gravel" sense, but in the "this road is dirt and has big chunks of rock in it, and rains have been washing it away for years, and there are huge puddles"--and that's the good part. The rain pouring down and destroying the road in front of our eyes did not help. We came to a point where there was no going further. We tried other routes, and at one point I got out and walked through the rain to see if I could figure out where we were and how close we were to the campsite. Answers: I have no idea, and definitely not.
We finally gave up, and headed home wet, tired, and in a car which smelled terrible. Sigh. No camping trip this year.

On a related note: a twinkie not roasted over a campfire is a twinkie not worth eating.

The house is still for sale. It is getting almost no interest. It's frustrating; it's such a nice little house, in a great neighborhood, and I loved it. Someone else needs to love it, too.

I'm a CNA now, so I should probably go get a job. I don't mind working jobs, it's finding jobs that bothers me. It's the filling out the application, getting references, going for the interview part that I hate. Plus, there are some terrible nursing homes in existence, and I'm afraid I'm going to end up working in one. Fingers crossed.

Homemade buttermilk scones might be my new addiction. These things are good
Buttermilk scone recipe

I'm missing my friends and neighbors in Ogden like crazy. Also: my gas stove. And Szechuan chicken from Maple Express, and not getting lost, and working in my yard, and having a play room for the kids, and large windows that look outside rather than into window wells, and being closer to my family. There are a lot of good things about Orem, but nothing replaces those things.

Riverwoods

We discovered an outdoor mall in Provo today when I took the girls to a local toy store that I'd heard about. There is a fun little toy store--which imports candy from Europe. I bought a Mars bar, currently chilling in the fridge and waiting to make me very, very happy. There are two little fountains for the kids to play in, half a dozen restaurants, indoor surfing, a carousel, indoor croquet (!) and an assortment of stores including Borders and Bath and Body Works. It's a fun little place where you can choose to go broke or spend nothing, and we had a lot of fun.The only camera I had with me was my phone, so the pictures aren't great. The girls loved playing in the fountains. They were moving so fast that I couldn't get a good picture of them.
There was a raised platform with a pretty roof where the girls liked to play. Ivy said, while spinning, "Mommy, I a princess!" Cute girls

An apology to the parents of my childhood friends

To those whose homes I ran amok through, whose kitchens I helped wreck while experimenting with new recipes, who listened to giggles until three a.m. when I slept over, and who sometimes wanted to scream "GET OUT!" but didn't, and fed me a snack instead:

Thank you.

Thank you for speaking to me when we run into each other at wedding receptions and the like, and for friending me on Facebook, and for not referring to me as "that weird Ashauer girl" (at least not when I could hear you).

Why the sudden gratitude? (I include my own parents in this, btw)

We have moved to this nice, quiet neighborhood in Orem, and there are a lot of kids Kezie's age. This means that suddenly, we have have as many as half a dozen four and five and six year olds in the house at any given moment, some of which I can't name. They're playing hide and seek. They're arguing. They're eating snacks. They're throwing Legos at each other. They're staring at me while I make dinner (why is that kid still staring at me?) They're telling me my house smells funny (I'm sure yours smells better, kid. Why don't you go back there?)

I haven't yelled at anyone. I haven't screamed into a pillow or anything, but it's a little jarring to go from a quiet place where we made playdates or took walks with my kids' friends, to this much less formal system. It reminds me of my childhood, and now I feel for the parents of the (wonderful) neighborhood where I grew up.

The thing is, they aren't bad kids. They're actually pretty good kids, and I like them. They aren't too rowdy most of the time, they haven't broken anything yet. The kid with the good nose and big mouth aside, they are mostly polite to me, and they include Ivy when they play. I want them here, because if they're here then Kezie isn't asking to go play at their houses, something she is not, for the most part, allowed to do. I don't even know the parents of most of these kids yet, and until I do I'm not sending my four year old to a stranger's house. So, I let them in, and give them snacks, and let them watch a movie if they want. But there are moments when I feel as though my house has become a zoo, and I'm trying to catch the elephants with the butterfly net, and I really, really appreciate all the parents who were parents to me.

I'm it

My sister tagged me, so here goes:

4 shows I watch:

1)Eureka
2) Community
3) The West Wing (thanks to the wonder that is Netflix)
4) The Big Bang Theory


4 things I'm passionate about:

1) getting an education
2) finding a good deal
3) kids getting a good education and having a safe place to live
4) women are not inferior

4 phrases I say a lot:

1) It drives me crazy
2) don't hit your sister
3) I don't think so
4) not cool

4 things I have learned from the past:

1) Life just doesn't turn out the way you plan it
2) When life doesn't turn out the way you planned, it's o.k.
3) chocolate and peanut butter are always a good combination
4) people listen much better when you pretend you know what you're doing

4 things I did yesterday:

1) went to school
2) passed my initial CNA test (one more to go)
3) dishes
4) ran through the rain

4 places I would love to visit:

1) Manhattan (specifically the theaters on Broadway)
2) London
3) Austria
4) Washington DC

4 things I'm looking forward to:

1) passing my state CNA test
2) finding and learning a new job
3) throwing Kezie a party this summer
4) Les Miserables in May

4 things I love about spring:

1. flowers
2. it stays light later
3. I can work in my yard again
4. the heat bill is lower

Life at the moment

Life at the moment:

We have chosen a school! Shawn starts at BYU in the fall. He'll study physical chemistry. I didn't know what that meant, either. As I understand it, it's the intersection of physics and chemisty, blah blah blah....lasers. Lots of lasers, that they use to find out really useful stuff. It's chemistry without the chemicals and the beakers, and he's really excited about it. Even I think it sounds pretty cool.

We are mentally preparing for the move to Utah County, return to full time student life and budget, and the move back to an apartment. This means we are selling the house this summer, and I'm trying to tackle one project at a time, rather than thinking about the sheer amount of work there is to do before we put it on the market. I am sad to be leaving; this is a great house in a great neighborhood, and I'll miss it and the people here.

I am finishing up my CNA class, and will take the state tests soon. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I'm enjoying the training. I don't love the bedpans and the catheters and the denture care, but I do like working with the elderly, and I am finding myself fascinated by the little bits of medical science that I'm picking up. It makes me wonder what, when I get a chance to seek more education in a few years, I'll decide to do. For now, the plan is to find a job a couple of nights a week as a CNA, so Shawn can be home with the kids while I'm at work.

Kezie knows that she is going to have to move away from her friends soon, and she is sad. She is excited to be starting school in the fall, though. She has her first dance recital soon, and she's enjoying the fun of having an allowance, and not enjoying the responsibility of having regular chores. Growing up is hard, she tells me. She's doing a good job of it, though.

Ivy is having a hard time because I've been gone so much lately. When I'm home, she doesn't like me to be out of sight. She's growing like a weed, and she picks up new words every day. She is refusing to potty-train, which is driving me a little bit crazy. She still uses her cute to her own advantage, and I find myself letting her charm me into things without even realizing that she's done it.

So, life for the Averett's at the moments is not settled of calm, but at lease we know in what direction it is heading.