Here we go again....I hope.

Recently I decided to look at my good friend Katie's blog.  I saw that she was writing what she called “weeklys”.  I read for a while and enjoyed what she had written.  And them I had the thought, “What a great record of her family! I used to have a great record of my family.  Wait, I can still have a record of my family!”

So thanks to Katie’s inspiration, I’m going to attempt to write some weeklys. There may not be pictures.  And I might miss weeks.  But I’d love for my children to have a record of their childhood.

And now to begin with I’ll give a quick update on each of us...

Emmie:

Emmie is currently loving life.  She started the 3rd grade this year and has several friends in her class. I think she is going to have a great year. She has a great group of friends. She is lucky because we have about 8 girls her age in our ward and neighborhood.  For her, life is a constant play date. And if it were up to Emmie she would spend every waking minute of her life with her best friend Elsie. Those two are thick as thieves.  I hope that they always remain so close.  I love that they have each other.

Emmie has developed a deep love of soccer.  My sweet little girl is somehow fierce on the field.  It’s fun watching her play because she is so determined, tough, and fearless.  She actually amazes me. She's joined a competitive soccer league this year.  They have only played one game so far and she scored 3 goals during the game.  I don't think that this will be the norm, but it gave her a great start to the season.

We took Emmie up Skiing last winter and by the end of her second day she was going down blue runs with ease.  I think it helped that Elsie was there with her and due to her competitive nature she had to keep up with her friend.  But she seemed to like it and we have plans to get up on the mountain as a family again this year.

Emmie was also baptized last fall.  We had a great day as a family.  I love that we have family close by to support my kids.

Owen:

Since I last wrote Owen had a bit of a traumatic experience.  Over Memorial Day weekend at the end of his 4th grade year Owen’s appendix ruptured.  We spent 2 days thinking he had the stomach flu.  But when John googled his symptoms we determined it might be time to have him checked at the doctor.  By that night (Friday) we learned that he would need to have his appendix out.  This led to a 10 day stay in the hospital for Owen.  I was not pleased with the on-call doctor that performed Owens surgery.  Especially when Owen wasn’t getting better 4 days after surgery and they eventually realized that there was still infection inside his intestine.  He had another surgery (right after Emmie’s kindergarten graduation) where two surgeons spent 4 hours cleaning out Owen’s infected intestines inch by inch.  It was a hard and trying 10 days.  Owen was miserable.  He wasn’t able to talk much because of the tubes in his nose and throat that were draining the infection from his stomach.  He was sad about missing all of his end of school year parties and he was in incredible pain.  But he survived it. Despite all of this he never complained.  He was incredibly tough.  I was a complete wreck a lot of the time and I was very proud of him.

Owen turned 12 last month.  He was ordained a deacon, has started passing the sacrament, and is really liking Young Men's.  Right now John is his YM leader.  I think it's great for both of them to be able to have some quality time with each other every week.

Owen is now in the 7th grade. He joined the ski team last year and really enjoyed it.  We spent a lot of Saturday’s up at Bogus Basin last winter and most likely will this year as well.  Owen has no fear and will go down any run. Literally.  But his technique isn’t great so I’m making him work on that this year, which he won’t be thrilled about. Owen plays the trumpet in the band and he made the A team for tennis last spring.  Not too shabby considering the only tennis he had played prior to that was a few kiddie summer camps I signed him up for when he was little.. He qualified for honors math and is doing well in school.  Which he needs to do if really wants to become an anesthesiologist like he says he does.

Owen loves to make money.  Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  He was a lunchroom helper last year and this year.  He earns something like 40 cents a day for the 15 minutes he serves lunch.  And them he gets a free lunch.  So I pay him what I would have had to spend on his lunches for the month.  Really it saves me money as well so I love the arrangement!   Owen will jump at any opportunity to make money. Recently he weeded for neighbors to make money, he made gourmet cookies and sold them on a street corner during the neighborhood garage sale and made $20 in an hour, and currently he is sanding down my kitchen barstools because I really didn’t want to do it myself! He is definitely a hard worker.

Ainsley:
Ainsley is a Miamaid and just started her freshman year of high school!  I can’t believe I have a kid in high school.  And what makes it even stranger is that they recently redrew the high school boundary lines and Ainsley is going to my old high school.  I never in a million years thought my kids would go to the same high school as me.  It’s so strange.  Ainsley is thriving academically.  She is taking all honors classes this year.  I’m sure she’ll do well.  Her mind is incredible.  She has been playing the violin, the piano, and even picked up the ukulele.  She’s very musically talented.  She also got a taste of student council and loved it.  She was VP her 7th and 8th grade year.  To me this was a testament of how well liked Ainsley is.  She isn’t popular by the worlds standard…but she is kind and her peers like her for that.

Ainsley also joined the high school’s swim team this year. She isn’t the fastest at all.  But she is a good swimmer and is loving the workouts and I’m enjoying that she is meeting more people.

Ainsley has been a little lost ever since her best friend Elisabeth moved away before her 7th grade year.  Ainsley is an introvert by every definition of the word and suffers from social anxiety.  She went into high school this year with no friends.  Only a few acquaintances.  I’ve been so proud of her for putting herself out there and being willing to talk to and meet new people. She still hasn’t found a new “Elisabeth” but I’m praying that Ainsley finds a close friend or two this year.  Maybe someone that will pull her out of her comfort zone just a little and get her to go to a couple of stake dances or football games!

Ainsley has entered the working world recently as well.  She cleans my parents music store for them one day a week and tutors a girl in our ward one day a week.  And this past summer she interviewed with a lady in our stake who teaches swimming lessons for a job teaching for her next summer.  We’ll find out in March if she got that or not.  But our fingers are crossed!

John:

John has been busy working and supporting our family.  He’s been at Ada county for 12 years now. He is currently a team leader and works on a task force for internet crimes against children.  And as of yesterday will also be working on a murder that has been reopened after being a cold case for 25 years.

John also continues his love of church history.  He had published articles, and presented at the Mormon History association meetings for the last few years.  Currently he has been commissioned to write a biography on the life and works of Dieter F. Uchtdorf.  Although he says his heart isn’t in it and he’s just doing it for the money.  He wants to take another trip to Disney Land and sees this as the perfect opportunity to get the money to take the family there.

John had also been helping coach Emmie’s soccer team.  He is super competitive.  It’s funny/embarrassing to watch him at Emmie’s games.  It’s pretty nerve wracking for him.  This year he’ll be less involved though because Emmie moved to a competitive league and there were already 3 coaches so John is off the hook.

Jessica:

I’ve been busy with life.  I had a bit of a mid-life crisis when Emmie went to first grade.  I didn’t know what to do with myself.  And somehow that led to me getting a million jobs.  I worked as a Lunch lady at centennial High for a few months.  Then I worked as a Lunch Lady Sub.  I learned to repair violins and do repair work at my parents music store.  I clean my mom's house.  I coached Volleyball at the middle school. And most recently I’ve landed my dream job working at Lowell Scott Middle School. Unfortunately my kids don’t go there.  But it’s close to home and I work the perfect schedule.  9:45-12:45 everyday.  With all of the days my kids are out of school off. I love it! This year I’ve cut back and I'm just working at the library, doing violin repair, and cleaning for my mom.

I also trained for and ran a half marathon.  So that makes a grand total of two for me! My good friend Mandy trained with me.  I came to enjoy the hours we spent running together every week.  Mandy is also my favorite ski partner.  We are at exactly the same level and are learning together.  We’re learning as adults and try to make sure we go up skiing together at least once a year.  She’s the best.

And at church I’m serving as the primary president now.  I love it and hate it all at the same time.  I hate being I’m charge and I hate meetings.  But I really like teaching and being with the kids.  We’re fast approaching the primary program and then hopefully my primary stress will decrease just a bit.

Family Happenings:

Over the past couple of years we’ve had some family happenings as well.  We (I) got rid of the dog.  Yes, I know this makes me the worst mother in the world.  But last spring we got a hamster, so I’ve redeemed myself a bit.

We took a family vacation to Disney Land.  And as awesome and memorable as the trip was it will forever be known as the trip where we hit a deer, it totaled our van, and my parents drove to us and let us take their car to California thereby saving our vacation.  And then we came home and had to buy a car in just a couple of days.  Completely stressful and out of character for us.  We like time to shop for our cars.  We ended up with another grey Honda van.  We’re very adventurous!

We also went to Denver to visit my Kortney’s family who moved there recently.  I took a trip with Ainsley to New England while Sydney was living there.  We had a great time driving around and seeing all the sites of New England.  I love New England.  I wish I could live there. We also visited the Oregon coast this summer.  The beauty there was amazing.  I loved it and hope to be able to go back soon.  We’ve also taken several camping trips with our little tent trailer. One day maybe John will learn to love camping.  But at this point I’m not holding my breath.

And I think that will conclude my very brief and vague recap of the last 2+ years.  Now onto more consistent family updates!