Miscellany

Since I was never much of a sports fan, I'm taking this "precious" Super Bowl time to catch up on our week's blogging. It seems, strangely, that we have momentous things to report, and yet, not so much.

Our biggest news for the week is that on Monday Dan signed and sealed his life away. Er, I mean, he signed the contract to start teaching at SUU this fall. I know he's excited--he's been scouting out houses online--and I'm slowly warming to the idea of being homeowners. More than that, I'm starting to realize some of the benefits of not working--I'll be able to get back into some of those hobbies that I haven't had time for in the last seven or eight years of school (chief among them, painting and drawing). I'm sure Andrew would be more than happy to help me paint (!).

This past week, I also did something that I haven't done for an embarassingly long time (not since I found out I was expecting Evelyn): I went running. Twice. Not surprisingly, I was pretty out of shape. I did manage to run at least one mile consecutively both times (small change, for some of you, I know), but considering it's been at least a year and a half, I was pretty pleased with myself. Of course, now I'm sore in places that I'd forgotten existed. But I do think this is something I'd like to try again.

Saturday was, as usual, our busiest day. Andrew and Evelyn had swim lessons and then we headed up to Salt Lake to spend the afternoon with Sarah and gang (mostly as a sop to Andrew who had hoped all week to go visit his Bubby and Poppy--he was fully packed by Tuesday morning--and was crushed when he found out we weren't going). Our plan wasn't quite as carefully thought out as it could have been--after negotiating traffic to get to the Gateway mall in downtown SLC (and giving Sarah and Aaron false directions), we met up for lunch at the food court. Then, the plan was to go iceskating--the rink was only a few blocks away, but this meant once again negotiating downtown traffic and paying an even more exhorbitant rate for parking. Apparently, the iceskating was a good time for almost all--Sarah sat out because of recent injuries, and Dan retired early because of incipient blisters. I say "apparently," because I missed all the festivities. Evelyn had fallen asleep in the car and I opted to stay with her till she woke up (figuring it wouldn't be too long)--only to have Dan and Andrew return just as she woke up. We stopped at IKEA on the way home to get Andrew his own little duvet and cover, so he would stop pulling ours off the bed and pretending they were sleeping bags. We'll see if our plot works.

Other than that, this week was pretty quiet. It was too cold outside to do much by way of outdoor play, but we were also too poor (long story--suffice it to say getting paid Christmas Eve turned out to be not such a good thing) to go anywhere besides the grocery store lest we spend money. So we stayed home and drew pictures and read stories and watched Diego. It was actually pretty nice. I keep trying to interest Andrew in his letters, but aside from his initial enthusiasm for any new task, he tends to lose interest quickly. On occasion he can draw something resembling an "A," but I'm not quite sure whether that's by design or by luck.

Evelyn is making slow progress towards crawling. It seems that my assessment in last week's post may have been mistaken--sometimes, when she lunges far enough forward, she comes perilously close to rocking on her hands and knees, and we all know crawling comes after that. I suppose that means I really should clean and vacuum the floor again. It's not that I like having a messy, toy-strewn floor--it's just that Andrew makes it a mess so much faster than I can clean that sometimes it seems a waste to try.

We've started a new family tradition of Friday night movie nights before bed. Mostly Andrew picks and watches the movie, Dan and I sort of watch with him and talk to each other and watch Evelyn play on the floor. Here Andrew is thoroughly engrossed in Disney's animated "The Three Musketeers."


Andrew has also been sporting some interesting hairstyles this week--a sure sign that he needs another hair cut! Dan calls this a "Junior Flock of Seagulls." (Some of you may recognize the 80s hair band reference--I didn't.)


And this, my friends, is what happens when we let Andrew comb his own hair for church. I initially thought Dan had done it as a joke, but no, this was all Andrew.