In the two weeks since I've posted, we've had a couple of big events:
Evelyn turned 9! Our kids get big birthdays on their even years, so Evelyn got to have some friends over for a low-key celebration instead. She kind of worked around the system by inviting triplets--they made jewelry, had lunch and ice cream, drew pictures, and generally enjoyed themselves like pre-teen girls do. I (of course) did not manage to get any good pictures of them, but we sure love our Ev and her joy.
I went to the Storymakers conference for the (5th?) year in a row--this year I was even on the conference committee, one of the people in charge of arranging for visiting agents and editors to come to the writing conference. I also taught two classes and the new attendee orientation, so I was pretty busy.
Not too busy to go shopping one night (something I usually do with my mom and which made me miss her terribly)--but I'd packed two maxi dresses without packing a shirt to wear underneath, so additional clothing was necessary. And then, of course, I fell in love with this dress:
Here's a shot of my class--they look enthralled, don't they? ;) (Actually, I think both classes went pretty well--the new conference chair has been threatening me with teaching a two-hour intensive in the next year or two.) I'm not always sure how competent I am at writing, but I do enjoy teaching and think I'm reasonably good at it.
I did get to hang out with Jeni a little bit at the conference, which was fun, and I got to drive her to Jared's house and hang out with Jared's family for a little while Saturday night. Joshua is basically as tall as I am now.
Both Evelyn and Andrew competed in the local Battle of the Books--for 3rd grade, this means reading books from a 15 book list as part of a team and being able to answer questions about each book (identifying the correct title and author name for each question). The 4th and 5th graders had 25 books on their list. As usual, Andrew insisted on getting all the books from the library (he didn't finish all of them, but he clearly read more than the rest of his team combined). Even Evelyn had us quiz her on the books. Both kids did pretty well--Evelyn's team came in 4th (though I was more pleased when one of the other parent volunteers told me about the "dark-haired girl with a tiara" who knew all the authors and titles on one of her teams. That would be Evelyn, who wanted to wear the tiara for her birthday).
Andrew's team came in first, which meant they got to take the morning off school last week to go to another elementary school for a final battle. They lost, but I was proud of him for working hard. (Though we might need to work on teamwork--it was clear that his team expected him to answer all the questions!)
Monday, we took the kids bowling, something we'd promised Andrew months ago for getting his arrow of light, but this was the first time we could make it work on a day that wouldn't cost us a small fortune. Evelyn, it turns out, is a spectacular bowler with bumpers. Andrew didn't like the bumpers (even though he used them 8/10 times), and Oliver tended to drop the ball onto the lane where it rolled so slowly that one of the workers had to come rescue it. (Check out my Instagram boomerang of Oliver at his finest: https://www.instagram.com/p/BUIRn8ulSSe/?taken-by=rosalyn.eves)
Andrew also did an excellent job at the 5th grade Important Americans Day, performing Andrew Johnson and talking about reconstruction. Actually, all the kids were well prepared and some of the costumes were really ingenious, though there were a few people on the list that I wasn't so sure about. Both Dan and I rolled our eyes a little at the Pocahontas who quoted her namesake Disney movie about "the colors of the wind". (Each kid wrote a script about their character and were supposed to include a quote--I guess she couldn't find anything from the actual Pocahontas?) Overall, though, it was well done.
Both Dan and Andrew were happy to have the scene over as it meant we could finally cut Andrew's hair (Andrew Johnson had chin-length hair, which we didn't quite achieve).
This weekend, we went down to St. George. I had a 3 hour book signing at Barnes & Noble, and Dan and the kids went to lunch and then to the All Abilities park. The book signing was definitely uncomfortable for my introvert self. I don't love selling my book to people who are only marginally interested, so I offered chocolate to people instead. I did have fun talking to some cute teenage sisters who both got a copy of the book, and a nice older gentleman came and talked to me about his interest in geology. The highlight was definitely seeing Aunt Nellie and Aunt Verona (and I have a selfie on my phone that I'll try to post later).
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