Post-Christmas rambling

Well...

It's been awhile and since I sent out this blog address on our Christmas letter, it seems like a good idea to update it and perhaps even consider keeping it current. Ahem.

I am very glad Christmas is over. It is my favorite holiday, but it kinda reminds me of college: a whole bunch of good times and interesting stuff all squished together so there's not really enough time to savor anything and it's exhausting experiencing everything.

Cliff's still happy cuz he's not going back to work until January 7th. Yahoo! This morning he and Dad actually planted stuff in the dirt in the front yard!!! We are all so tired of all the dirt everywhere. The kids love the mud and this makes me love the mud even less since I am cleaning it off of clothes, off of shoes, off of the floor, off of furniture, etc etc. Sigh. So Cliff and Dad planted mock oranges and lavender in the front yard. Oh, and one Indian Hawthorne. So we'll see if they live. I hope so. Our water is so unfriendly.

We're getting ready to take Rayne back to school. The weather looks good, so it won't be nasty like it was last year--rain and snow all the way. She's SO ready to be done working full time and she's done being subject to the rule of Mom. Not like I'm a heavy handed ruler, but it seems that any authority is unwelcome. I understand but I'd love the refrigerator cleaned by her just once! Just once in 5 1/2 months, that's all I ask! Anyway, her boss at Nordstrom loves her and says she'll hire her back again when she comes home in the summer. Yay! She's made lots of lovely money there these last months and she's showered gifts on us all. And I love all the clothes she's purchased for herself.

So I'm looking forward to the drive with Cliff. We haven't spent time away together for many months and I miss it! So, it's only a bunch of driving, but I'm still looking forward to it.

Chase and Cliff are working on Chase's car. The junkyard has 50% off all parts on the 31st and they've found what they want there... now they are just waiting for the sale. It looks like they'll have the car back on the road and mostly intact in a few weeks. Then he'll just have a bit of body work left and probably a paint job in the future too. Our neighbor lent us some cool tools for them to use. Chase is actually feeling pretty good about the whole thing. After the despair he felt at the beginning, his enjoyment of the fixing-up process is a very happy thing. FYI, he was sideswiped on the way to seminary at the beginning of December. Augh!

So my house is messy and I am tired, but we still have another week of vacation and it's all okay. Allegra and Isaiah are spending the night tonight at their cousins' and then they all come here tomorrow night (and they were here last night and a few nights last week too). Vacations are so great! The 4 of them: Scott and James Galbraith (Reed's 2 eldest) and Ally and Zay have created some sort of hideout down at the base of the property among the blackberry bushes. So when they are all together here they spend a lot of time down there. And playing games in the house too, of course. On Christmas Eve, after dinner, I came down the stairs to find the children all on the front room couches squished together playing DS's and Gameboys. Wrong in a way, but cool too cuz they were all together.

Kay. I'm done for tonight. More later.

Summer is Over!

So.... I notice none of my other siblings have a blog yet. Are we going to do this or what?

We are all well...

CLIFF starts teaching again next week. This week he has a couple of teacher workdays but otherwise he's just enjoying his last few days of complete freedom. He's spending a lot of time working in the yard....he's cooking a lot.....he's taking naps every day.......he's dreading going back to work. He's still looking in other career directions.

AUDREY: I am back from Colorado. Isaiah and I flew to Seattle to drive with Jessica and her 3 kids to Colorado. We had a lot of fun driving, actually, and the kids were very good. I talked almost non-stop the whole time and Jessica was good at giving me thoughtful feedback. I really enjoyed spending so much undiluted time with her. How long has it been since we have done that? Have we EVER done that? We took an unplanned detour to Cour d'alene (I think that's how it's spelled) Idaho and even up to Missoula Montana, but they were beautiful places to visit and I was glad to have seen them. I found Grandma K better than I imagined, and I so much enjoyed being around her. I left feeling very hopeful for her recovery--at least her recovery of general mobility, if not total recovery of everything she's lost. Mom keeps her head up and is very consistent with her kindness, her kisses, Grandma's exercises, and plenty of optimism too. I hope to get back there at least once in the next month or so if I can.

Other than that, I am eagerly engaged in trying to make our family run on an insufficient budget, I am trying hard to discover in myself the ability to seek and accept the will of god. I am trying to be faithful. I am reading a ton, as usual. I am enjoying all my time with Cliff. He is such a fun husband. I am loving time with Rayne. I am looking forward to/dreading starting school again. I love getting back to the good routine but I miss the total indulgent freedom of summer. Fall is my favorite season, though, so I almost always love this time of year. I am absolutely LOVING my piano. I play it for at least an hour almost every day. It strikes a chord (ha ha) in my heart and I find so much joy and satisfaction in playing.

RAYNE is back home and getting bored fast. Her best friend (Caitlin Powell) has already left for college, her closest male friends are all on missions, her roommates are all far away.... But she and I are good friends and we hang out and we go shopping and we talk a lot and we go to yogurt. She is such an inspiring person. I always feel good when I am with her. She recently got a full time job at Nordstrom in Pleasanton and she is really really enjoying it. They pay on commission there (although the hourly rate is a bit above $10/hr) and on her first day she earned over $20/hour in commission. They set the goal high for each employee, but most employees reach it regularly. She is happy to have such a good job. Plus, working at Nordstrom has a certain cache, you know. I'm looking forward to telling all my Pleasanton book club girlfriends that my daughter now works at Nordstrom. The discounts!!!

CHASE is still looking for a job. He actually specifically wants to work at a video game store like Babbiges (I don't know how you really spell that, but I know I've got it wrong here) or Game Stop. He's applied, he's called and he'll go on checking back in. They say they hire in October and he's staying on top of it. He starts his last year of seminary tomorrow! They are studying New Testament. Chase was set apart on Sunday as first assistant to the Bishop in his Priest's quorum. He is a very good boy. Adults love him. He continues to hang out with the other Priests in our ward. They are such a very nice group of young men. They just got back from an adventure camp out where they went hiking and caving and rapelling. They had personal and companion scripture study every day. They had testimony meetings and firesides. They cooked for themselves. Cliff went too and they both came back really happy. Cliff was particularly impressed with how committed the bishop and the YM presidency are to the young men. It was a lot of fun and a good experience for both of them. Chase said the rapelling scared him to death. They rapelled about 180 feet into a dark cavern--so he couldn't see where he was going. Near the end they were supposed to slow down so they could be snagged and pulled to a ledge that was the landing place. Yikes. Well, it was supposed to be adventurous and it was adventurous.

ALLEGRA is preparing for a YM/YW talent night. She and the other Beehives are practicing a dance (there is a former Laker girl in our ward who is very generous with her time and teaches them all sort of dance routines and helps them practice). Ally is also planning to sing. She has a very nice singing voice. I sometimes wonder what Ally really thinks about things. Isaiah has always been her closest friend here in the family (and her cousin Scott too), but she's a girl, stepping into young womanhood and so these best boys are not her most sympathetic friends, if you know what I mean. Rayne is good at helping her with hair and loaning her clothes, but Rayne has her own friends.... and Ally is #3 in the pecking order here, so sometimes I worry that she isn't getting as much positive interaction from the family as would be best for her. Anyway, there's always a child that I'm worrying about a little more than the others and this month it's Ally. I adore her and I see her changing and growing and I don't want her to feel alone or sad. She still firmly believes that she is a genius (and she is) and she is starting to get the connection between working hard and scholastic progression. She is an adorable, sincere, thoughtful, affectionate daughter.

ISAIAH went camping with his friend Sam Bennett and Sam's family. They went to Pinecrest and stayed in a cabin on the lake for 8 days. He went swimming, canoeing, fishing, hiking, etc. He caught and gut his first fish and he loved it. He called me nearly every night to tell me what he did that night and I could tell he was missing me a lot towards the end, but he was still very upbeat and enjoying every day. And he didn't come home hating his friend Sam, which is something--after over a week together. Anyway, that was his first major trip away from home--and with non-family, too. He did great. His being gone was one of the reasons I wanted to bring him with me to Colorado. I felt he'd had enough time away from Mom (me, that is). Plus, he was very helpful with Jessica's younger kids and he kept me company AND since he's the youngest, he's the one that would be most work-intensive if left behind when Mom is out of town for 10 days. Anyway, he's had a good summer. He's the kid who most often pushes me to get socially out there. He wants play dates, he wants activities, etc. He knows what activities are out there--church, homeschooling, friend, etc and he nags me out the door. I have a few unsocial tendencies and he does his best to combat them in every way. He is good for us. And it will be good for him to get back into schoolwork, too, because he has spent many summer afternoons staring at the TV or playing electronic games. He was within the summer limits of those things, but the summer limits are MUCH more generous than the school limits and it's time to get the balance back in order, I think.

So that's us, for those of you who are reading. I love you all!
Audrey

General Updates, for a start

Hey family,

I think Mom's idea is great, so I will start. I have my other blog, but it's not really for family stuff--it's just for thinking things out--so this one can be for family news.

So here's the basic outlines of our lives:

CLIFF has sold his practice (in March). He's been teaching full-time in the medical academy at the Fremont ROP for the last few years. He's doing well there but is ready to move out of the classroom. There is also the little detail that after living off of both sources of income for so many years we need to replace the practice income. So, he's working on that. He's very happy to be out of practice. He really didn't like running his own business. He's a ward missionary right now which I don't know if he likes or dislikes. But anyway, he gives it his full effort just like he always does.

AUDREY is doing the same things as always. I am currently the singing time leader in primary, which is a much more challenging calling than I ever knew. I am settling in, though, and am enjoying it. It is a privilege to be known by the primary children and I love that part of it especially. I am also finally going to get the grand piano that I have wanted for so long. If you've talked to me at all lately (since December), I must have mentioned this to you. I prayed for this piano and the means with which to buy it and both have found me. It will be in my house in the next few weeks, I hope. Tomorrow I will find a piano mover and schedule the move. I CAN'T WAIT.

RAYNE is loving BYUI. She loves class and is getting very good grades. She was very blessed with roommates that she really liked in January. They were all on different tracks, though, so 2 went home and one stayed when one of the tracks ended in April. They all plan to live together next year for the months they will be at school at the same time. Rayne does not like me to talk about her EVER, to which I mentally say "get over it!" but to which I verbally acquiesce. I would like to publicly state, though, that I wish I wasn't always being told what I am and am not allowed to say. Sigh! I am allowed to say that Rayne is dating. That is all. Anyway, she's happy and she's coming home in July to stay and work until school begins in January.

CHASE will be 17 in a few weeks--on July 11. He is looking for a job because he's tired of never having the money to do what he wants. Oh! And he wants to save for a mission and college too, of course. He'll be starting his senior year next year and he thinks school is just a speed bump on the road of his life. He does well on all his assignments and I am sure he could do well on anything he tried. He has a great group of friends, male and female, with whom he regularly does stuff. This ward is great with youth and I am very grateful for that. Chase has a very good sense of humor which makes living with him easy. He also never shuts up and has an answer for everything, which makes me a little crazy. Where does he get that from, I wonder? He is into video games, of course, and airsoft. We have a great yard for airsoft battles.

ALLEGRA turns 13 this week. So I now have 3 teenagers. Amazing. And they are all pretty nice, too, how lucky is that? Anyway, she is busy making friends with the girls in our ward. It's a challenge cuz they are all very different from her. So it's fun, but it's work too, if you get my meaning. She will be in 8th grade next year and she has a very strong interest in all things about the human body. She loves science. She is still reading like crazy. She is starting to get interested in clothing too, which I think is a good thing. She has her own little sense of style, which is quite unique. She is a very loving girl still and she likes to talk. I really like her. She is in her Beehive class presidency and she takes her responsibilities very seriously. Everyone loves Allegra.

ISAIAH is 10. He loves to eat. He also loves to ride his bike, he loves to swim, he loves to run around and he loves to read. And of course he loves video games. And airsoft. And his mom. He is always taking care of me and looking out for me. He is good at math, even though he complains when he has to do it. I'm a mean mother and I'm making both Allegra and Isaiah do math this summer. He is very good at being friends and he can make friends with anyone. He and I have occasional power struggles, but we work it out. He's a Webelo in scouts, which he also really likes. Cub scout day camp just finished and on the last day all the scouts did a little triathalon (which they do every year). He improved his time by over a minute this year and he was proud.

So that's the family update. We are all healthy. We love Sunol and we love our new ward. Cliff spends a lot of time in the yard with dad working on projects. Chase comes out when pressed. He doesn't really enjoy it but he wants to help out, so... The little kids work out there when they are given jobs. It's fun to be there.

After this updates will be less Christmas-letterish. I hope all of you will add your blogs too. I'd love to be in better touch.