Weekly Update!

This week we had a lot going on, and I hit a little bit of a wall and fizzled out on Friday. We still totaled 27 hours of school with almost 14 hours of instruction/activities so I am still calling this week a success!

Aside from the usual, the more happy events began on Tuesday with the return of Evelyn and I’s violin teacher. She had been on her honeymoon to Hawaii, followed by a working tour in Australia for a few weeks. Her name is Oksana , she was raised in Latvia, and grew up going to a music school under the communist regime. (We love her Russian accent and when she calls Evelyn "darling.") She moved to the US about ten years ago and received multiple music degrees at TCU. She plays with the Dallas Symphony, which is a huge accomplishment because she has to compete against violinists who are able to devote their entire days to practicing (and often have violins worth hundreds of thousands) while Oksana also teaches at TCU and maintains 40-50 students! She is married to a violinist who is professor at TCU and a soloist. We feel so blessed to have such an amazing instructor.

We were able to go to Marina and Abin’s house one night this week for dinner and so the kids could swim. Aslinn also came for another visit this week. It’s so good to be able to spend time with my sisters and it helps keep me sane! I am so grateful for my sisters! The kids also got to play with their cousins on Saturday, and thanks to Uncle Abin they all got to color big pictures and create sculptures of clay. Evelyn was especially ambitious, making about six different animals. Lily made a little black gecko which she is still hiding all around the house and carrying with her sometimes.

Lily had a very happy week because her close friend who she’s played with just about every week for years came home from a summer vacation in California, and they were able to have some fun playtime. Lily also had her audition for the Nutcracker ballet. It is a yearly performance put on by the Ballet Frontier of Texas, a professional ballet company. Every child gets at least one part and has to attend 10 weeks of rehearsals on Saturday until the performance on November 19th. If any of you are able to come I highly recommend it. It is a ballet performance put on by paid professional ballet dancers as well as some students.

On Friday night we got to socialize with some friends at a BBQ. It was still way too hot to be outdoors and we were laughing that this and Brian’s birthday BBQ have been our only BBQs this summer. Maybe I should also count one time Uncle Abin grilled for us!

Because we studied a little about the history of Australia and New Zealand this week, I decided to show the kids Whale Rider for family movie night. I had to preview the movie because it is PG13. I ended up having to skip only one small part, but I was still concerned that the movie would be too grown up for the kids. Riis ended up asking “Why is this movie so long?” but the girls loved it. I think Lily in particular was sympathetic towards the young girl who wasn’t accepted because she was a girl. Lily has begun asking me gender identity types of questions, such as why girls were restricted from doing certain things, etc. We’ve had some good talks about it and this movie was a good reinforcement for some of her ideas.

Casey was on call this week and also worked at his overnight jobs several nights. A couple of nights he was kept up by patients “in trouble.” This has left Casey terribly exhausted, but he still found the time to go buy new faucets and hoses and change them for us. We really tried to overwater our lawn this weekend before mandatory water restrictions begin tomorrow. We knew it would happen eventually due to the severe drought we are experiencing. Now we are only allowed to water 2 times a week during the morning and evening. I did hear that the dozens of wells digging for natural gas in the city will continue drilling. They use about 20,000 gallons of water a day!

Today we rested and tried to get rejuvenated for the upcoming week. Casey pulled out the paint supplies and he and the kids produced massive amounts of works of art, as well as a massive mess! It was all done for Grandma Judi’s birthday, so he could send pictures to her. Leonora topped everyone in productivity, of course, and I’m glad Judi gets most of them because we don’t have room for even a quarter of them! Happy Birthday Grandma Judi!

I hope this coming week is as great as the past several weeks have been. Sometimes the thought hits me that I really have to keep doing this week after week, and even year after year. I feel stretched so much, and when I think that I can't just quit and take a nice long break makes me feel like some kind of laborer or pioneer. Unlike laborers, my days are varied nicely so I can't really complain, but I feel like it's a life of endless toil in a way. Tomorrow there will still be laundry and meals to cook and all of the endless other hectic things. I suppose I should remember what the prophet Heber J. Grant liked to say, "That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased." If you want to know one of my main reasons for having a lot of kids and doing homeschool, that would be it: so that I am able to do more and love more. It's so I can change (and hopefully others in my family along with me!) and not in a selfish/self-absorbed way.