Abundant Recompense Copy

Earlier this month my work sent me to a workshop on digital scholarship called the Digital Humanities Summer Institute. It's something I've wanted to go to for a few years now, not least because it's in Victoria, British Columbia, a place I've always wanted to visit. Note to future travelers: Do not accidentally book your flight to Vancouver instead of Victoria. It's deceptive: Victoria is on Vancouver Island, Vancouver is not. I'm not saying I  made that mistake and had to change my ticket at the last minute or anything. There's a line from a book called Cadillac Desert  that has always stuck with me: "Anyone who flies in an airplane and doesn't spend most of his time looking out the window wastes his money." And so on a plane ride when everyone is trying to look cool and nonchalant, as though sitting in a pressurized tube 35,000 feet in the air is no big deal, I'm the goober with his nose pressed against the glass, taking a bazillion pict...

Check out this cute kid! He broke his arm last night! It had been a particularly chaotic evening. We had four people over helping to hang the sheetrock in our kitchen, dinnertime had come and gone (at 7:00) while Nate and the guys were in there working. The kids were tired and in desperate need of baths. We were all sweating our faces off because the doors had been open all day to cut down on dust inhalation. The house looked like an explosion or two had gone off, you know, that sort of a day. My friend Melissa had come over earlier to bring some tools to her hubby, and seeing the amazing state of things (and, I'm sure, of me), she stopped by again later with some toys and cookies for the kids. Seriously, I've said it before and I'll say it again, we have the best ward and friends on the planet. We were outside and the kids were playing on the swingset. I was in the process of thanking her profusely and reassuring her (okay, mainly myself) that we'd be just fine. And th...

It all started first thing on June 10th. Nate was on his 6th day in Canada for a conference, and was returning home the following afternoon. I woke up, stretched, and read my scriptures in bed with Addison there chattering in one ear all the while. Then Leah started calling her good mornings from the other room, so I headed downstairs to get her a bottle. As I got closer to the bottom of the stairs, I noticed a strange sound. It sounded like the sink was on full blast. Confused and still half asleep I decided that couldn't be it because the kids can't reach the kitchen sink to turn it on. So I decided the sprinklers were on outside and one had gotten turned around and was pounding the side of the house (which, frankly, needs a good pressure washing anyway.) To my astonishment, I turned the corner to discover that the sprinkler was actually in the house. There was a pressurized spray shooting from the wall across the kitchen and everything was soaked. There were also several in...

This Father's Day I'm thankful for a dad who was kind and gentle and funny, a master in the art of storytelling, and showed me the kind of person I wanted to pick to be a dad to my kids. And I'm thankful for another dad that has been game for an adventure from the beginning, tells jokes that are, in fact, funny even though half of them are about Pooh/poo, and showed Nate how this fathering thing is done. Happy Father's Day to our sweet, sweet Dads.

Leah is growing up like crazy on us. She's thirteen months now, and officially not breastfeeding anymore. She's doing very well with her bottles and solids. And her personality, which is delightful, is beginning to show more and more. Lately she's taken to Bryn's purse. She loves putting it on and crawling around with it. She loves the piano in a major way. She would sit on my lap for hours playing it while we turn pages in the Primary songbook. This picture is from yesterday when she managed to get on the bench unassisted, by pushing a little tupperware container (you can see it in the bottom left of the picture) over by it and using it as a step. To say she was pleased would be an understatement. She had peanut butter and jelly for lunch for the first time yesterday and loved it. And the piece de resistance:

My ten-year high school reunion is this month. It's thousands of miles away, so I have a great excuse not to go. There are a few people I might've liked to say hi to, but that's about it. It seems to me that class reunions are an opportunity to judge, at a glance, what people have made of themselves. Are they 300 pounds fatter? Are they rich and successful? What are they wearing? Not really my scene in the first place, but as I've thought about it here and there, what would I have to say for myself? I got a bachelor's degree, got married, followed him to a job, and now stay at home with my three, count 'em, three (!) children. That's it in a nutshell. Let the Mormon jokes ensue and the silent dismissal begin. The life of a stay-at-home mother is observed by many as bland, demeaning, a waste. But as such, I'm here to say that yeah, things are hard sometimes and not very glamorous, but I find motherhood, at least my particular brand of it, to be deep, sati...

We are definitely entering the dog days of summer. Temps are rising and so is boredom. Here's how we got through yesterday afternoon. One of Leah's favorite pastimes is to go pull all the dish towels down from the fridge and crawl around with them and put them on her head. Our new swimming pool. Enjoying a poolside graham cracker. Addison "blasting into space" with his graham cracker. Running through the sprinkler. All fun and games until Addison stepped on it. And then we took Leah's big-girl car seat on its maiden voyage to hit the library. And with a new car seat comes a really big box. The kids have loved decorating it, filling it with toys and then dumping them out, and climbing inside.

Here are a bunch of gooduns from the last couple of months that haven't made it up yet. Enjoy! Bryn's "nest" made of bricks. The giant rock decorated with chalk in the middle of it is an egg. The pose of choice for the photo is a bonus. Over the course of one day, between blowouts and spills, this became Leah's actual outfit. Workin' it. A giant dandelion Daddy's girls delighted to see him at the end of the day. We've seen Megan and Sam a few times here and there over the past couple months. Over the weekend of general conference we went on a walk on a trail near our house. Feeding the goats. Leah managed to remove her shirt during the walk. You can see Megan in the background chillin' with the goat. Addison finished soccer! Stretching with his team before the game. Sissies. We've have lots of quality time with the cousins over the past little while. Occasionally resulting in something like this. Squeaky clean! Addison took this picture of some...