5/23/10-5/29/10

Sunday, May 23, 2010

The choir festival is finally over. YEAH!!! I am so happy!! I was a nervous wreck but it went very well and I was so relieved that I didn't totally screw up the song! It was raining like crazy afterwards, so I took home half of the choir! The van bottomed out a couple of times!

Monday, May 24, 2010

VERY BLAH DAY!! Do you ever have those days where you just can't figure out what is wrong with you? Today was one of those!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Today was a little better. I did piano lessons, as well as the piano class. The youngest of the Orellana boys has become friends with the gardeners in our community. Whenever he isn't having his piano lesson, he helps them. Today they brought him his own uniform to wear!! It used to belong to another worker that they had who was only 11 years old!! It is so sad that little kids have to go out and work to survive!

(Sebastian in the truck of the owner of the development. He loves helping the gardeners!)

We are doing our piano recital in a few weeks so I thought I'd take the class in to use the piano, rather than the keyboards. It was hilarious watching them play their songs on the piano. They were a little overwhelmed by how many keys there were. They all had problems with the change in the volume. On the keyboard it doesn't matter how hard or soft you push the keys, it produces the same volume. On the piano if you play hard, the sound is loud. If you play soft, the sound is quieter. It was very evident which fingers were stronger for the students. They would have to replay the same note several times just so that they would hit the key hard enough to make sound!! There is one student that when he played, I had to refrain from laughing out loud. He is probably the best student in the class and he works really hard on his counting. When he played on the piano though, he counted out loud with his entire body doing the beats. It wasn't just a little head bop, it was full on body convulsions!!

An English class has started at the church at the same time as my piano class, so everybody assumes that I am teaching the English class and comes to the wrong one!

The rain doesn't want to stop. I had to drop people off half way to their houses because the roads were flooded with mud from the farms.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

There is nothing better than waking up to go out on a walk in your pajamas with all the workers staring at you. The kids have continued with the exercising challenge. Morgan and Cole have started getting up early and going out to do their laps before Chris leaves for work. I decided to join them today. I had to keep telling Cole to just smile and wave and the workers will be nice.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Yes, it is still raining. When I took the girls to Teacher Lily's house, I had to park a ways away and had to carry Alysa and Laina through the mud to the car. I had to make a couple detours just to get to the house because roads were flooded out still. Two roads even had bulldozers working to get the mud out of the way. There were people on both sides of the street with shovels trying to clear the mud away from their homes.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Rain, rain, take a break for at least half a day....please?? Usually it is beautiful in the morning and then rains for a little bit in the afternoon for rainy season. This year has started off with a week of nonstop rain! I hope that all of the rain isn't used up early in the season and then all the crops die!!

To do something different, after Morgan finished babysitting at the church, we met Chris for dinner at Giuseppies. (Cole, Alysa, and my favorite place to get pizza!!) We got there before Chris and everybody was so hungry, so I ordered all by myself without any hesitation!! Dang, I'm good!

Saturday, May 29, 2010

We were up the majority of the night listening to the nonstop pounding of rain on the skylights!

It's not just sprinkling here, it is full on raining nonstop. Chris got overly stir crazy being in the house so we tried to venture into town. We got to the round about that leads into town and all of the traffic was stopped. We received a call from a person that told us that all of zone 1 and 2 were pretty much underwater and that most roads were shut down. The roads that aren't shut down are taking a huge toll from the rain. The dirt is eroding away very quickly!! Forecasts are predicting the rain to continue for another 48-72 hours!!

There is a Burger King at that initial round about, so we stopped for lunch and let the kids play for about 2 hours before heading back home.

Before going to bed we received another phone call notifying us that the electricity is probably going to be out for most of tomorrow and that church has also been cancelled!!

Even with the dreary nonstop rain, everybody is excited because we got our plane tickets to go to Alaska!! 3 1/2 more weeks!!

5/16/10-5/22/10

Sunday, May 16, 2010

The kids are all still fighting this bug that is traveling around the family so they all stayed home from church today. It was really weird to go to church with just Chris. We haven't done that in about.....10 1/2 years! The choir was singing the song that I have been totally struggling with and I managed to completely screwed it up!! How embarassing!! I did manage to redeem myself at the stake choir practice though. I didn't mess it up as much, but I was shaking like crazy and thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest. I can not wait until the choir festival is over next week and I don't have to play this song anymore!!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Today was the first day of Calvert homeschooling for Alysa and Laina. They are so excited to do the work! It is funny how much they imitate Morgan and Cole! Alysa is doing so much better with her reading and writing! She has already read through most of her reading textbooks!! Laina is probably going to be a little bored with her stuff. I got her the preschool packet (She's still got another year before kindergarten even though she's done preschool forever and has attended full day school!! I wasn't even going to get her a homeschooling packet but I knew she would have felt so left out!!)

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Last night, Chris challenged all the kids to run 10 laps, do 10 push ups, and do 10 sit ups everyday. He said that if they do it, he'll take them out to lunch on Saturday. Cole took the challenge and he talked his friends into doing it with him today. They went a little overbored and were doing every possible exercise they could think of. They had a great time!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Cole can't move today! He keeps complaining that everything hurts. He won't even walk up the stairs!

All the Jacobsen and church bosses are here from Utah for a couple of days. They invited the wives to go to dinner with them tonight. I left the kids to watch a new movie (Thank you Duncan!!) and met everyone for dinner. The only other time that the "big" bosses came down, I was in the hospital and didn't get to meet them so this was my first time.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Another boring day! Wish the kids would get better!

Friday, May 21, 2010

The kids spent a huge chunk of the day doing their exercises. They got a little behind this week since they haven't been feeling very well. Morgan (who is the sickest of the bunch....at the moment) insisted on going out to run laps even though it was raining. She was not happy with me when I told her she needed to come inside and wait until the rain stopped!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

The duldrums have set in. Everybody is just in some sort of a funk that we can't seem to get out of. Maybe we'll get a little more excited when we have our plane tickets for Alaska!! It doesn't help that the flies are out of control! It has become a sport to kill the flies. We use the fly swatter, towels, books, and even our bare hands. They are driving us crazy!!

5/9/10-5/15/10

Sunday, May 9, 2010

My Mother's Day began with a big scare by Laina in the middle of the night. She woke up in the middle of the night wheezing and unable to catch her breath. She'd start coughing/barking and then threw up. I had all of the worst case scenarios going through my head. How do I take her to the hospital when I can't communicate? Who can I call? Who will take care of the other kids? etc.

After a while I got her to calm down enough to fall back asleep in my bed. Of course I didn't sleep at all since I was listening every time that she breathed to make sure she was o.k. It was a very emotionally draining night!!

She was doing better in the morning so we all went to church. I had to play the piano so the kids sat by themselves. They did remarkably well!! All 4 of the kids had talks to give in primary also. Alysa and Laina refused to do it but Morgan and Cole both did an excellent job. I have to say that the primary here is so out of control that I can't stand to go in there, but the second that Morgan and Cole started talking (yes, in Spanish!!), you could hear a pin drop on the floor!! I have never seen such attention given to anybody! When Cole sat down, his friend leaned over and said that his face was red when he was up there. I am so proud of them. They definitely have more courage than I ever did as a child......or an adult for that matter!

We got to talk to Chris tonight. It was so nice to hear his voice and for the kids to tell him what has been going on.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Hoy es la Dia de Madres. (My sorry attempt to say that today is the Mother's Day in Spanish) I was blessed with breakfast in bed (burnt toast, 1/2 dozen eggs, and juice!), flowers (a bouquet of wildflowers that the kids had gone out and picked for me), cards (the kids had a blast with all the scrapbooking supplies that Brittany brought down), and a toilet paper head (Morgan and Alysa got quite creative and made a "mom" out of scrap fabric and a roll of toilet paper)!

Cole started reading 'The Lightning Thief' series today. (I finished the first one and told him he had to start it!) It is a series of books about Greek mythology. There is a boy that is half human and half god. He goes on all these crazy adventures and meets tons of mythological creatures. Cole has been studying Greek mythology this year so it has helped us both with our understanding and brings it to life a little more for Cole. It is so fun to have something special just for him and I to share. I told him that we'll go on a special trip to Greece someday.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Happy birthday dad!

The kids helped me make sugar cookies today for choir. I finally found out where to get shortening so we made sour cream sugar cookies. I was so mad because I couldn't find the cream cheese that I swear I bought for frosting. I couldn't find it anywhere so we went ahead and made a different frosting. As soon as I finished making the frosting, we found the cream cheese!! Oh, well. The cookies were still a huge hit, as well as the fruit slush.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

So, somebody decided to send us a picture to rub it in that he is eating at all the fun restaurants!!

This is a family favorite in Salt Lake City. Every time we are there we have to go to Cinegrill for pastrami sandwiches and their special salad. YUM!!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

The kids are just taking turns being sick. Today it is Alysa. She stayed in bed most of the day and ate hardly anything!

Friday, May 14, 2010

Today was even worse for Alysa. She wouldn't eat anything, wouldn't go to the bathroom, wouldn't get out of bed, and was just outright miserable. She'd only stop crying when I'd rub her back. She didn't even get up when Daddy came home! Instead, she decided that it was time to start throwing up. Luckily I had been able to get her to at least drink some water during the day!! The only thing that came close to getting her to smile was getting to see her new homeschooling kit that Chris brought back with him.

Even though the kids aren't doing too great, it is great to have Chris back home. It is not fun be separated!!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

We made a little improvement today with Alysa. We finally got her to eat a little soup for dinner. She also got out of bed to take a bath!! She laid in the tub with only her little face showing through the bubbles.

Now that Alysa is starting to get better, it's Morgan's turn to get sick! UGH!! Some days I think we'd be so much healthier if we didn't have so many people to share our germs and pass the sickness around! That would be boring though, right?

5/2/10-5/8/10

Sunday, May 2, 2010

It's been a while since I have felt pretty frustrated with my communication skills. However, it hit today. I get so disappointed when I can't figure out what people are saying to me. I don't know if it is embarrassment, fear, or what. Someday I will get over it though!

Sully told me about an institute class that read the entire Book of Mormon in 18 hours yesterday. They started at 4:00 a.m. and went until 10:00 p.m.. Sully teaches one of the institute classes and does a lot of catering so they asked her if she would bring in the breakfast, lunch, and dinner for them!

In May, there is a stake choir festival. I'm not exactly sure what is involved in that but I went to the practice today anyway. After having a frustrating day at church, not having Lily in town, and Paula not being there, I was a little worried about going. I bit the bullet and went anyway and had a great time. I am not what anybody would call a talented singer by any means. For the songs that the stake was practicing, there is another pianist so I got to sing. To make it even better, they were splitting up different parts and the altos were having a hard time figuring out their counting so the chorister had me and one other lady sing the soprano parts all by ourselves while the altos tried to sing their part. How embarrassing!! The chorister was standing up on the stand and we were down on the pews and some people were complaining that they couldn't see her. She got a chair and was standing on a chair in heels and a tight skirt. I thought for sure she was going to fall over! At one point they had me and the other lady stand up at the front to sing with the men's part. I was as tall as the chorister when I was down on the main floor and she was on the stand!!

Monday, May 3, 2010

So, I started another book that Brittany brought. I stayed up reading until midnight! I keep telling myself that I need to save the books for while Chris is gone to Utah, but I just can't stop myself!!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

There is a big festival going on all week for the town that we live in. Apparently everybody was gone to the festival instead of coming to the church tonight. The piano class was only the teenage kids! I'm not used to being around just teenagers, but we had fun. I told them that we are going to have a recital in June. Some seemed excited but others, not so much!! After class, we waited for half an hour. Only one other adult showed up, so we opted to cancel choir. The other adult was Emiliana. She asked me if I wanted to go across the street to see the choir director that just had her baby. The baby was so tiny. He was about 4 #'s when he was born. He is now 12 days old and weight 8#'s. Most of my kids were that big when they came out!!

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Today I am feeling very jealous and envious!! Chris left for Utah for 10 days. He gets to see some of my family, drive our van, eat at fun restaurants, go to normal stores, etc. His brother is also going to meet him there so they can go golfing! He's going to have a great time! Now, what am I going to do with the kids while he is gone to keep us all sane?

Thursday, May 6, 2010

UGH!! No slingbox!! What do to? The slingbox is our connection to t.v. here. Without it, there is no television. I had recorded a bunch of movies to watch while Chris was gone, and now we can't access anything. Guess we're going to have to be a little more creative.

Laina's not feeling well today. She laid in bed the whole day and didn't go to school. She's is as happy as can be but just won't get out of bed, and is really hot.

Friday, May 7, 2010

We finished a lot of school work today. The kids have tests next week. We went to the church in the afternoon so that Morgan could do her babysitting class. She loves feeling responsible. Alysa and Laina like to help out a little also. Cole is usually bored though.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Wow, I actually slept in. It helped since I got woken up at 3:00 and couldn't go back to sleep for hours!! I was downloading movies and one started to play in the middle of the night when it finished downloading. It was playing music so I thought Morgan's alarm clock was going off. Luckily for her it wasn't!!

The day was full of movies, quilting, reading, playing, etc. Morgan started sewing her blocks together for a new quilt.

All things considered (being in a foreign country with 4 kids and no husband!!), I think we are all handling it very well and doing a great job of keeping busy and upbeat!!