Summer Stuff

 Josh and I found this 8 man tent for 75% off at Dicks and decided that it would be his Father's Day/birthday present.  We put it to good use at Clinton Lake.  He couldn't wait for actual camping to set it up.  So this is the test run in our living room.

 We went to the Crown Center (Hallmark card's headquarters) several times this summer.  The kids love the Storyland (interactive books) and Kaleidoscope (crafts set up by Hallmark).

 Genevra is 2!  AH!  Her all time favorite food is french fries.  SO that's what we ate for her birthday.  French fries.

 Pulse paid for all of its employees to go to a Royals game.  I have never been a baseball fan.  But going to that game nearly had me converted.

 Genevra and Joshua both decided that the best part about the beach is being buried in the sand.  Genevra threw a fit when I tried to pull her out of it.

 First day of "school".  Genevra was so disappointed when she found out she would be taking a nap rather than going with Joshua.

 We had many panty/diapers only days this summer.  95 degrees is not unbearable until you add the humidity, and then it's like you are being baked til golden brown.

This picture needs no explanation.  Boy having fun.

My kiddos have picked up several new hobbies.  This is the new favorite.  It is called, "let's-empty-the-toy-chest-climb-inside".  This hobby is very family oriented.  They dump.  I try to get them to pick up.  Then I pick it up.  By myself.  Happy day.

Right now, I should probably be crying my eyes out.  Joshua went to his first day of pre-preschool at United Methodist Kids First.  When I said goodbye to him there was no clingy-ness, and he barely looked up from the chalkboard he was coloring on to say, "Bye".  That should have broken my heart, but honestly, it was a confirmation that he needs this almost as badly as I do.   Yes, he is only 3.  Yes, we are students who probably shouldn't be forking out any extra money for something that I could replicate at home.  But guess what?  It is quiet.  I am writing.  Genevra is sleeping.  Josh is at work. And it is quiet.
I like this.

So with that introduction, it is time for our semi-annual update.

The longer I have been a mother, the more I realize how easy it is to loose your identity and individuality with all of the monotony that is laundry, grocery shopping, housework, cooking, etc.  Once in a while, I like to take a moment to remember that I am a person too and my needs matter as much as my children's.  To avoid running on empty, I have been making a mad dash to the door the minute Josh gets home from work.  He is a rock star for being willing to put the kids to bed by himself (it's usually not a two way street here...he likes putting them to bed by himself...I don't).   These outings are me going to lift at the Rock Chalk Park, going window shopping, or to the library by myself, or meeting up with a friend.  At this point, I would normally apologize or make an excuse for needing this time to myself.  But I am not going to.  Not today, at least.

Josh started working at Pulse Design Group in Lenexa as soon as he was finished with his May-mester of sustainable design.  He has struggled going from the challenge and excitement of designing in a studio setting to being stuck in a cubicle doing intern stuff, but he likes the company and it has really been nice to have income that didn't come with interest (loans).   His church calling takes up quite a bit of time, but the more he hangs out with the missionaries, the more he likes them.  Josh is awesome to take me on weekly dates.  Most of the time they are simple things that happen after the kids are in bed, but that measly hour or two a week has helped our marriage weather some of the typhoon that has been Josh's schedule/program.

I am not sure where this summer went.  The kids and I spent a lot of time at the wading pool, library story time, toy store (they have some awesome play tables), park, lunch program, camping, the Crown Center in KC, Clinton Lake beach, free movie theatre, open gymnastics at the Rock Chalk Park, etc.   Summer time around here is great because Lawrence and the surrounding area offer a variety of activities for kids during the summer and most of them are free to super cheap.  With school starting up, a lot of these activities have ended and we are trying to find alternative ways to keep busy and avoid the cooped up claustrophobia that happens from being inside our apartment all day.

Joshua is doing 3 days a week  preschool for two hours (I don't count the 30 drive time) each time.  Josh and I feel very blessed that the United Methodist Church has a scholarship fund for students with children pre-school age.  Not only will this give Joshua the much needed time away from his grumpy mom and biting sister, but it will give him a chance to grow in ways that he can't here.

Genevra turned 2!  Her birthday came as a bit of a surprise.  Life has happened so fast, it's kind of surreal that she has been a part of our family for 2 whole years.  Genevra is my light and my bright ray of sunshine.  If I had to pick one word to describe her, it would be "happy".  She has a disposition that is very bubbly and fun loving.  It takes a lot to make her angry and not much to make her smile.  She is talking more with each passing day, but despite her cheerful little spirit, her favorite thing to say is "NO", while doing a very forced, very fake frown.      

We did have some visits this summer.  My brother, Dallin, and his lovely wife, Karlie, made the trek out here.  It was SO much fun.  The kids enjoyed it so much that Joshua's pretend friends are named "Karlie" and sometimes, "Dallin".  He tells me that he went swimming with Karlie and that Karlie was on the slide with him at the park.  The best I can figure his logic is a make believe friend.

My other brother, Nic, was married in Gilbert, AZ to Tiffany Coon.  And my sister, Anna, was married in Manti, UT to Kevin Clawson.  Although I doubt the timing of their weddings had anything to do with the time/money it took us to travel home, we were very grateful that they threw the two weddings together on short notice and we were able to be there for both, as they were only a week apart.  Yeah, my mom was amazing for pulling it off.  Coming home for a wedding is always a good thing (same thing happened last summer), because it gives us a chance to catch up with family that we would have missed, due to our never being home for reunions.

This blog post was scattered, but oh well.  Maybe if afternoons are for real going to be like this, I could write an update more often and include those fantastic details you are dying to read about (kidding).  I was actually able to write it within a very short time span, completely uninterrupted by whining.  Score!

Destination internship: Pulse Design.

Life is a strange and wonderful thing.   It seems like just a minute ago, Josh and I were wondering what the point of getting a Bachelor's was if the possibility of finding work was so slim.  I was scared out of my whits of our new baby boy.  Basically everything he did was advanced algebra and I had only begun long division (marriage).  My mom had a business trip to Lawrence, Kansas, and asked if we would like to come along for the drive.

When we came here, it was like stumbling upon a garden of all the foods we didn't know we were craving.  There were trees up the wahzoo, water in places that had nothing to do with irrigation, and a moistness in the air that quenched our Utahan-dry-skins.  We had "baby bear syndrome" as we drove around town.  Everything about it felt "just right"--not too big, and not too small.  Just right.

Josh was drawn to the grad program here mostly because of the Studio 804 3rd year option, which included students designing and then actually building what they designed.  Our plan was that he do that his last year.  But after serious thought and prayer, Josh decided to go with the Healthcare Internship Option instead, where he will learn how to design healthcare facilities in such a way that both the patients and the providers' have a better environment for healing and development.  After applying for several internships, Josh was offered as spot as a paid intern at Pulse Design Group in Lenexa (an outlying suburb of Kansas City, 40 minutes East of Lawrence).

Both Josh and I are conflicted about his interning here.  Don't get me wrong.  We are immensely blessed that he found an internship in the first place and with such a great company, but Kansas City is more than double the population of Salt Lake City, which means more than double the opportunities for work after school.  We had always planned to move back to the Salt Lake valley after school and have Josh become licensed in Utah.  But our feelings about this bit of the mid-West haven't changed.  It is still "just right".    

Plans are funny things.  They change on a moments notice.   And they are never solid.  For now, "the plan" is to take what work we find, including taking post internship offers (if they are given), even if it is 17 hours away from the people we love most in the world.  But then again, I think plans are our way of giving the Lord a good laugh.  So come what may, and love it.

(For those of you who have already heard me talk and talk and talk -way too much- running, you can skip this next part;).

On a very different note, I ran the Free State Trail 1/2 marathon last month.  It began when the clouds opened up an let out a tropical typhoon and ended about the same time it began to drizzle.  By the time I crossed the finish line, I found mud in crevices I didn't know I had and my knees felt like they were broken in ten places.  It was a BLAST.
After much mulling it over, I finally figured out why I like running.  Being a homemaker, my every day is filled a ton of things started, and only about one or two finished.  I will start a load of laundry only to hear Joshua crying that he can't get the peanut butter open, but has already smeared honey all over the counter.  Before I can clean up the honey, Genevra starts screaming because she can't get her shoes on.  You get the picture.  I only have two wonderful kids, but at times, they are like a small army programmed to make messes.  And there is SO much that does not get finished.  And there are nights interrupted by feet up my nose and pee in my bed where I wake up too tired to have motivation beyond running a couple miles.  If nothing else, at the end of the day, it's nice to say I accomplished those few miles.  It feels great to have set this half marathon goal and have met it head on.
My participating in other long distance events depends mostly on the verdict my physical therapist passes on my knees sometime in the next month.  In the mean time, I will enjoy running for the bit of accomplishment it adds to my day.

This is a classic Joshua reaction to snow:  let's see how many people I can destroy with this powdery goodness.

So I'm not sure we will buy Christmas gifts next year.  My babies spent more time in one of the packaging boxes than they did with the present that came in it.

We went tubing while visiting family.  This picture was taken while they were flying down a hill.  Kid you not when I say Genevra's expression never changed.  It was like, "Hey mom.  I feel like I'm flying down a slow covered hill everyday.  This is no big deal."

This is Olaf the 2nd.  He was created while visiting grandparents over Christmas break.  Olaf the 1st died in our backyard. 

I run slower than Internet Explorer on dial-up, but I do run;)

Our semi-annual family news blip goes something like this:

Around about the time Genevra was 16-months-old, she decided to abandon her primary mode of walking on all fours and evolve to two.  Joshua started walking around 11 months, and so I was a bit concerned that we would forever be tripping on Genevra, but I guess it had to be her choice in her own time.  She is picking up on many phrases from Joshua that leave me wondering if we are reaching the teenage phase 12 years early.  Most commonly used words in our household from both Joshua and Genevra at the moment are "NO!" and "that's MINE" and "go away" and "leave me alone"...punctuated with the occasional, "Oh my heck!".  Yes, my kids adorable.  No, really, they are.  It's just a matter of not laughing when I hear these phrases.  

In case you couldn't tell from Joshua's rhetoric, he turned 3 last month.  With this new found three-ness has come a wide range of surprising new discoveries, such as the ability to connect a facial expression with a mood.  His latest thing has been giving us mood updates like its a weather forecast.  "Today, Gennenna is cry-cry-crying.  She is sad.  Mama is mad.  Angry-face-mama.  And Jah-da is happy.  Smiling Jah-da."  Apparently, I need to work on smiling more to avoid having the Native American name of "angry-face-mama".  

We stay busy in the mornings going to story time at the library, the Prairie Park Nature Center, open gym at the Rec Center, the Toy Store on Mass, and our little music group on Fridays.  Although it still is like pulling teeth to get out the door (will I ever get used to two kids?!), these little activities are our sanity savers during the times when it is WAY too cold to get out.  Side note: It's snowed here about a total of 3 times, none of which has been enough to cover the grass.  BUT it is dang cold.  Like I think we could make a lot of money by renting out Josh's truck bed to people who want to be cryogenically frozen.  

November was a good month for me.  I met the Na(tional No(vel) Wr(iting) Mo(nth)--Nanowrimo-- challenge of writing 50,000 words, which felt great.  I may not be the most skilled at it, but I love writing.  And doing that was like meeting up with a very good friend for the first time since graduating college.  I also ran the Lawrence Thanksgiving 5K.  For most people, this is not a big deal.  But considering that only two years and a half years and one child ago, I was convinced the only reason to run was if you were being chased by the four horsemen of the apocalypse, a 5K is huge.  And now I am training for a 1/2 marathon (13 miles) in April.  The idea is comparable to walking on coals.  It will be painful and boarderline insane, but I'm hoping to come away feeling like a conqueror.  

Josh and I were both let go from the primary.  It was a bitter sweet release from this church assignment.  We both had become pretty attached to the kids we taught, but were ready for change.  Josh is now the ward mission leader.  It's like primary on steroids sometimes.  Josh gets to go out with the missionaries quite a bit, has weekly meetings with them and other ward leaders, and does what he can to help further the work.  We are officially more than halfway done with this circus called Master's school!  And I can't say enough how excited we both are.  Josh does a stellar job at balancing his studio (might as well call that class a full-time job), regular classes, callings, and helping out when he can, but I will be so ready to have my man home before 10 pm again.  I am convinced that after teaching while doing all the normal jazz last semester, he can't get much busier.  

Anyway, we like life.  It is crazy and exhausting.  But you know what?  It's a pretty good one.