Our Fall Break 2014: The Highlights

 Our Fall Break this year was a little bit of this and a little bit of that...nothing super new or revelatory (with one exception that I'll get to shortly). We managed to stay busy, and I managed to keep the kids mostly amused throughout their break from school. Here are some of the highlights.

This year, General Conference weekend kicked off our Fall Break. For my non-Mormon friends, General Conference is the twice-yearly broadcast from Salt Lake City, in which the leaders of our church deliver several talks on a variety of spiritual topics. In years past, we would have friends over to watch some of the conference sessions on our television. We'd cook a big breakfast for everyone, we'd have activities for the kids...a good time would be had by all. As our kids are growing older, we are more often watching General Conference with only our family, so as to minimize distractions and increase reverence. Hopefully, our girls will gradually come to understand that each General Conference is not a chore to be endured, but an opportunity to hear the words of living prophets and receive inspired counsel for our own lives.

We often have a hard time catching all the Saturday sessions, since other activities are happening at the same time...like our twice-yearly community-wide yard sale! Before the General Conference session started, I was able to sneak out and buy a few early Christmas presents for the girls (including clothes, toys, a few old Wii games, and even a nice kids' bike for Aurora!). After that, I returned home for the remainder of the broadcasts...and for a yummy breakfast casserole Nathan had made.

It was my turn to cook on Sunday morning, when Nathan took Lorelai to our meetinghouse. We've decided that as each of our daughters turns eight years old, they will go to the church building with Nathan to watch the Sunday morning broadcast, dressed in their Sunday best. Hopefully that will be a good reminder for them that General Conference is still a "church" meeting, even if it is broadcast from far away. Having two fewer people in the house makes for a slightly more mellow viewing experience; I was able to make cinnamon rolls for everyone...

...and practice my "girl" skills by braiding Celeste & Aurora's hair.

 

The braiding forced Celeste & Aurora to hold still and listen while the president of the church, Thomas S. Monson, was speaking. Hmmm...perhaps this will be a tactic I always use in the future! The braids turned out okay, too.

All in all, it was a wonderful General Conference weekend. Maybe it's because my kids are getting more manageable, but I was able to listen to and appreciate way more of the talks than usual. It gave me a much-needed spiritual boost.

Much of the rest of our week involved shopping for one thing or another. This year, I'd sworn I wouldn't buy the girl's Halloween costumes; instead, I'd make them myself. So of course, all of them decided they wanted to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle characters. Yeesh. This meant a lot of running from store to store, buying up little bits & pieces of what would eventually become their homemade ninja costumes. On one hand, I got to visit Hobby Lobby for the first time...yay! On the other, I probably ended up spending about as much money on costume-making supplies as I did on buying pre-made costumes last year. Sigh. Oh well; at least I'd have a fun project for the next few weeks! I'll talk more about the costumes in a later post.

The girls and I also had a few more mundane errands; we bought some new clothes and shoes; we took a trip to CostCo, the bank and the tire store, and other such exciting stuff. We fed the missionaries dinner one night, and we took Lorelai for her yearly physical. Oh, what fun! I did manage to take the girls to Pump It Up, the inflatable jumping castle party place, but it wasn't the best experience. The kids all tired out quickly, and a couple of their friends who'd come along got hurt bumping into some other kids. Sadly, it seemed the kids were the most excited about staying home and watching television. I hope I am not raising a bunch of TV addicts!

Oh yeah, I also taught a few piano lessons throughout the week, and I finally got my salsa canned for the year!

This year, we didn't have time to go to Apple Annie's to get fresh-picked tomatoes & peppers; I had to buy them from the grocery store. The salsa turned out fine, but I suspect it won't have the strong, distinctive flavor that my salsa has when we use the fresh-picked ingredients. Hopefully next year we can make it a priority to go to Apple Annie's; it was a trip we all missed taking this year! But at least now I have something to put on top of my tortilla chips & burritos for the next several months. If anyone is interested in trying out my salsa recipe, you can find it here.

Despite its modest beginning, Fall Break ended with a bang on Friday October 10th! To start things off, we met up with Nathan downtown, where he got off early from work. Then we all went together to get lunch at Tucson Meet Yourself, the cultural festival that takes place downtown every fall.

We have been to Tucson Meet Yourself for three years running now, and it is always lots of fun! We love to try out the obscure cuisine that is scattered throughout the festival. This year, we tried some Iranian chicken skewers & rice as a warm-up dish.

 

We did have a few "repeat purchases" of last year; the girls were obsessed with the steamed Chinese buns stuffed with barbecue pork, so they each had two of those...

Nathan and I tried to get a little more adventurous with our meals; I had a Bosnian gyro-style sausage sandwich...

 

...while Nathan went to the Filipino booth and got a huge (and cheap!) plate of rice & meat; it was seriously delicious!

Then, since the day was hot, we decided to buy a couple of aguas frescas on the way back to the car, to wash it all down.

We bought a watermelon drink and a mango drink. Both were incredibly fresh-tasting and delicious. It was the perfect way to cap off our meal!

After this came the most exciting, daring (for us) part of our Fall Break; we were going camping! By ourselves! We'd already been camping once this year (at Lake Patagonia); we'd also gone up to socialize during the ward camp-out, but chickened out and went home early. At that time, we'd promised the girls that yes, we would do one more overnight camp-out sometime this year. Now it was time to make good on that promise, in whatever way we could.

Before going to Tucson Meet Yourself, I'd spent the whole morning (and much of the evening before) packing up our stuff and getting the car loaded. Nathan had bought a bunch of yummy meat from a local Hispanic food store, and some nice friends lent us a camp stove. Our initial plan was to drive up Madera Canyon and get into one of the limited campsites there. No such luck! Every site was filled once we reached the campground. The girls (and myself) were discouraged, but Nathan had an idea; we would go find a campsite somewhere else nearby.

Several years ago, Nathan had camped with a friend in Gardner Canyon, a location on the east side of the Santa Rita Mountains. Getting there required another hour of driving, much of it on an unpaved dirt road. It was very loud, dusty and bumpy, and at one point, I ran over a six-foot rattlesnake that was stretched clear across the road. It was quite the adventure. The kids were skeptical, but Nathan appeared to know where we were going.

In the end, we didn't drive too far up the canyon. We found an empty campground and gratefully nabbed it. However, this was the most primitive campsite our family had ever used before! There was no water (thankfully we brought a lot of water with us), no picnic table, and no restrooms! Nathan was okay with this (of course), but the girls were mortified. They would have to pee where?!?!

Behold! The pee tree

It was pretty difficult to convince all the girls to use the "pee tree" at first, but eventually they all managed it. It is probably the thing they will remember the most about camping here. They didn't enjoy it much, but I suspect it will make a good story to tell their friends about in the future.

Despite the lack of amenities, it was a quiet, peaceful campground. We got the tent up without too much trouble, and the girls and I took a short walk along the dry riverbed located a short distance from our campsite.

One minus to finding a campsite "on the fly" the way we did is that we didn't have time to investigate for any nearby hiking trails. We were only able to do this short walk, and that was pretty much it! Hopefully next time we go as a family, we'll be a little better prepared for what awaits us. But the girls and I did get to see a deer dart along our path (it ran away quickly, because we were being too noisy, of course). And I found this random knife that some hunter probably left behind long ago:

At least our dinner was fantastic! Nathan grilled the marinated carne asada, and we ate it with tortillas, pico de gallo, and homemade spiced refried beans. So delicious! We all ate until we were filled.

 

 

 

And I even managed to cook some apple crisp in our campfire; it also turned out very nicely!

After putting the kids to bed, Nathan and I sat by our fire's dying embers and talked with each other for a while, admiring the stars. Unfortunately, much of our conversation turned towards both of us feeling lonely and isolated these days. Some of those feelings come from friends moving away, or from us drifting apart from our other friends for one reason or another. The huge influx of new members of our LDS ward has left us feeling a little out of touch and "old." Another cause for our feelings of isolation is likely our growing family; raising our kids has sucked away much of our free time and we don't socialize as much as we used to. Both Nathan and I are in a "transitional" phase of our lives, when we are re-orienting ourselves and filling new roles we don't always feel comfortable with yet.

Our feelings that night were probably exacerbated by our quiet, isolated location (even though another family eventually set up camp at the adjoining campground). There's nothing like sitting out under a deep, black, starry sky to make one feel somewhat insignificant. However, despite our somewhat downer conversation, I found it a peaceful, spiritually calming experience. I love looking at the stars, and I realized that before that trip, I hadn't done it for quite a while! In retrospect, it was probably nice for our family to have a little "alone time," since Nathan's dad would pass away in less than a week's time and our family's schedule would be turned upside down for the rest of the month.

After crawling into the tent, we had a (mostly) warm night of sleep. For some reason, Lorelai had to get up and "visit the pee tree" several times, poor thing...she is usually very good at sleeping through the night! However, we all survived and made it to the morning, where another warm fire and delicious meal awaited us!

 

Nathan was really great at doing all the cooking on this camping trip. He is not often an enthusiastic camper, but he was a great help this time around and he seemed to really enjoy his role as cook and tent-pitcher.

We didn't stay too long the following morning, since there wasn't a whole lot to do at the campsite, but the girls and I did go take a short walk along the nearby road:

Our clean-up didn't take too long, and before long we were on our way home. Even though we got home by mid-morning, we crashed hard and stayedat home for the majority of that Saturday. Yes, we are wimps when it comes to camping! However, we still felt pretty proud of ourselves. This was the first time our family had camped completely on our own, without another family to "bail us out" when we encountered a setback. We survived, ate well, and had a pretty good time together. Even though it wasn't the longest camping trip, I still call it a win! It was a satisfying way to end our Fall Break.

Wrapping Up September: Fiesta Sahuarita and Women's Broadcast 2014

Well, time to crank out a bunch of blog posts, seeing as how I'm about a month behind! This month has been nuts and it's not over yet (Halloween is this week...eek!), but I'll try to spend the next few weeks putting out a blog post here and there. Including this super short one!

As is always the case, the last Saturday of September was the date for our town's big annual anniversary celebration. Our kids really enjoy going to Fiesta Sahuarita every year, especially because the event now includes an outdoor inflatable water park. There are so many other things to do at this party (food, shows, rides, booths, presentations), but it seems like more and more often, we just end up staying at the water park for the majority of the afternoon.

Nathan brought a book, sat down in a corner, and read for a while as the girls ran around at the water park having their fun. I went down the super-huge slide with the two older girls, but mostly I just supervised as they had their fun.

We did manage to fit in a quick ride for Celeste & Aurora on the Ferris wheel on our way out of the fiesta a couple of hours later...

That same night (as is also always the case), the LDS Church's General Women's Meeting was being broadcast in our local meetinghouse. Lorelai and I had to hurry home, throw on dresses, and zip over to the church. We missed the first talk, but managed to catch the rest. It has been a nice experience having my oldest daughter along for these broadcasts. Although she is still a little young to understand everything she's hearing, I hope she will eventually come to anticipate these meetings for the spiritual feeding we receive from them.

That about did it for our September! As you will soon see, our October was nuts.

Vigil For Glenn Barrett

I haven't blogged as much as I'd like this year, for a number of reasons. One of the biggest reasons is my father-in-law's failing health, and now his imminent passing.

I'm still awake, very late on a Wednesday night; the kids are asleep upstairs. Nathan isn't home with me; he's at his parent's house in Green Valley, keeping vigil with his mother as Glenn Barrett, his father (my father-in-law) slowly passes from our world into the next. We have known this moment was coming for more than three years now, but still it has caught Nathan and I off-guard this week. We are still coming to grips with what is happening.

At this writing (to the best of my knowledge), Glenn is resting comfortably, though he is not very lucid; the morphine and the respiratory problems keep him in a fog. Sitting here in front of the computer, far from the "action," I feel lonely, soul-sick, and terribly worried about my family. Nathan has been very strong and positive over the last several months, but his father's quick decline in the last month has hit him hard, and he is struggling to keep it together. My heart aches even more for my amazing mother-in-law, Sandra; she and Glenn have been inseparable for their 42 years of marriage, and this impending separation could be very difficult for her.

We are all sorrowful tonight; it was very hard to take the girls to Grandma & Grandpa's house to say goodbye. Lorelai in particular has been crying most of the night, and was very shaken to see Grandpa in a bedridden state. All the girls were a little afraid of him. Aurora didn't fully understand what was happening, which was particularly sad in its own way. Each of them got a chance to give Grandpa a goodbye kiss. At one point, after Celeste leaned in for a hug, Glenn roused himself briefly, and his eyes lit up with joy and recognition to see his beloved granddaughters. It was a very sweet moment, and I'm so grateful he was able to see them there. I hope that is a memory that will bring him some comfort in the time to come.

At times like this, I wish I could be more than just the one who "takes care of the kids." I wish I could provide meals, transportation, even a shoulder to cry on...anything. Perhaps in the near future, I will have that opportunity. At this point, all I can do is wait for that phone call I know will soon come...the call that will announce the next stage of the Barrett family's existence. Until then, our focus just gets narrower and narrower, counting each ragged breath, wondering how many are left.

Ironically, I am not sure if I've ever mentioned Glenn's health issues before on the family blog...and tonight, I'm too tired & strung out to bother checking. So I'll try to make a long story short...especially because Nathan will want to write about this in greater detail later, when he has time:

Glenn & Sandra planned to move down to Green Valley, AZ, as early as 2007, when they bought their first vacation home here. They would eventually buy three more homes, most of which they rented out for snowbirds. When Glenn finally retired for good in October of 2009, they moved to Arizona and became year-round residents. It was a nice change to have family close by; we hadn't lived this close to family members since 2002, when we still lived in Utah.

Besides the free babysitting (which was always nice!), Glenn & Sandra were always quick to offer good advice or help whenever it was needed. Without them, we wouldn't have been able to purchase the wonderful home in which we live. I will always be grateful for the many, many ways in which they have helped Nathan and myself. Plus, it has been wonderful to get to know them as people and grow closer to them.

In April of 2011, Glenn noticed some blood in his urine. He didn't worry too much about it because he otherwise felt quite healthy. However, he did go in for an appointment with a urologist just to be safe. His world (and ours) was turned upside down when the doctor diagnosed him with stage IV renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer, in layman's terms). He was initially given months to live. We were all stunned and saddened. Glenn, however, stayed mostly positive; he showed great perspective by focusing on all the wonderful blessings and opportunities he'd had throughout his life. His attitude is one I hope to have myself should I ever face similar bleak news.

Fortunately, Glenn has been blessed with more time than we originally thought he'd have. He was put on some newer drugs, in the hope of arresting the cancer's growth without resorting to chemotherapy. The drug, named Sutent, worked better than anyone had expected. The cancer shrunk significantly, to the point where Glenn was able to have the infected kidney removed. He remained on the drug for two more years, and remained in pretty good health the whole time. He and Sandy were able to travel out of state for a few short vacations, and keep up their usual golf & recreation regimen.

This spring, X-rays found new cancerous growths developing in Glenn's body, this time near his lungs and spine. Although the Sutent had worked well for a time, the cancer had unfortunately found a way to "work around" it. A few more medications were tried this summer, most of which left Glenn feeling very ill and dejected. Last week, he went in for what was his final MRI, to determine if any of the medications had been effective in stopping the cancer. Sadly, they hadn't. He was put on hospice care and will hopefully end his life peacefully, surrounded by his loving wife, son and friends. A few more of Nathan's siblings are on their way; I hope they make it down here in time.

I am going to let Nathan fill you in on the details of my father-in-law's life; suffice it to say, I have grown to love and respect him very much. When Nathan and I were first engaged, I was pretty intimidated by him; he seemed very gruff and sarcastic, and even a little profane (of course, I was living in Utah when I first got acquainted with him, so any swearing felt a bit extreme). With time, however, I came to see how wise, humorous, and compassionate he was. As our family grew, I loved seeing Glenn's eyes light up with bemusement whenever he'd spend time with our energetic little girls. He is a great man, and I am lucky to have known him and to have married one of his children. Nathan owes so much of who he is to his father, and I won't ever forget that.

At times like this, I am so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't pretend to understand all of God's will, or the workings of the universe. However, my testimony of the plan of salvation is firm. I know that we existed as spirit beings before coming to this earth, and I know that our spirits live on after our physical bodies die. Best of all, I know we will one day be resurrected into a perfected, healthy physical body again. Thanks to Jesus Christ and his resurrection, our opportunity for immortality has been secured. We will live again, and we will be reunited with loved ones someday. This perspective helps me see our mortal lives as one small step in an eternal journey. At times it may seem painful, but I know these sufferings are small compared to the joy that awaits us. I will miss Glenn very much, but I know we will meet again.

Extracurriculars; An Update!

We took a quick trip to the Mini Time Machine Museum in September; here are the girls, admiring the "winter wonderland" of miniature houses & dioramas laid out beneath their feet

The first quarter of school is already over for my girls! Fall Break begins this Friday! It went by so fast I barely had time to acknowledge its existence. I might as well take the opportunity to do so here, and to share some of the highlights of each girl's school year so far.

Lorelai:

Lorelai has been keeping busy and having fun at school and in her extracurricular activities. She goes to Beginning Band twice a week after school, on Mondays & Wednesdays. So far, she is having a lot of fun learning how to play the trombone. It has been fascinating for me to watch her learn to play an instrument with which I have no experience. All the sliding & blowing into the mouthpiece...it might as well be alien technology as far as I'm concerned. However, she can now play "Lightly Row" and "Hot Cross Buns," and I can distinguish between notes. It doesn't just sound like random noise any more! So obviously, she's making progress.

She's also started going to play rehearsals every other week or so. As I mentioned last month, our charter school will be performing Beauty And The Beast next spring. Auditions were held over the last few weeks of August, and in early September, Lorelai found out that her part is *drumroll* the Milkmaid!

 *she's the sassy one who says, "Bonjour, monsieur, how is your wife?" I think that could be fun to perform!*

Lorelai was a little underwhelmed when she got the news, but she's warmed up to the idea. The part is about as large altogether as the several small parts she had in Cinderella last year; this time, she even has a few solo singing lines in the opening song! Her rehearsals don't really pick up steam until later this fall, so we'll see how it goes. So far, she is having fun and enjoying spending time with the returning cast members from last year.
 
Sadly, I don't have a lot of great photos of Lorelai that will be pertinent to this blog post. So I may as well share this image of her beating up an elephant's behind:

It's not a real elephant, of course...it's just part of an exhibit at the Reid Park Zoo's elephant pavilion. However, these elephants are real...

...including the tiny adorable one!

The baby elephant (a female, who was given the name "Nandi") was born on August 20th, and is the first elephant born in the state of Arizona! As you can imagine, the zoo is pretty proud of that fact, and it's been big news in town. Nandi wasn't put out on display for a few weeks, even though we tried catching a glimpse of her a few times. Finally, on September 20th, the zoo had an official "welcoming party" event for the baby, and tons of people (including us) turned out to see her.

My pictures aren't the greatest, but it was really exciting to see this tiny elephant running all over the enclosure. She never liked to be too far from her mama, but she was still eager to explore all her new surroundings. The girls all loved her, especially Aurora, who'd been waiting to see her ever since she first heard about her.

Okay, baby elephant derail over! Now, back to my girls:

Celeste:

Like the middle child she is, Celeste's extracurriculars have been a little overlooked in my frazzled mind this year. She's not able to do dance (her first choice) for budget reasons, and I'm not teaching her piano lessons yet (even though she's asked) because I'm too busy with all my other students this year. Boo! Luckily, she's met with her new Girl Scout troop twice now, and that has been making her happy. I hope it's something she will enjoy throughout the year.

At their first meeting, the girls assembled care packages for a local homeless shelter. Hooray for service projects! They also brought home a homemade "chia pet"...

So far, it's grown a lovely head of hair/grass, and got so shaggy that Celeste actually gave it a "haircut" at one point (with scissors, of course).

For their second meeting of September, all the girls got fancy hats, wore fancy dresses, and had a fancy "tea party," in which they learned about manners & etiquette...

They all looked incredibly adorable! Ironic that my "fancy" daughter, Celeste, forgot to wear a dress to the event! But as you can see, she was beaming and loving it all the same. She has another Girl Scout troop activity coming up this weekend, so we'll see what she thinks of that one. So far, I am not sure how much of a role I am supposed to play in Celeste's Girl Scouting...I've mostly been dropping her off or picking her up. Perhaps I should get more involved, I'm just not sure of the best way to do that. Hopefully with time, that will become more clear.

Aurora:

Aurora's "extracurricular" this year is school...preschool, that is. She's been attending Smart Scholars Preschool for more than a month now and she absolutely loves it. She hero-worships her teacher Ms. Nichole, just as Celeste did before her. And she's obviously learning a lot, too. Aurora's now able to spot letters (and even some words) in books, on TV, and on signs. She is always asking me how words are spelled, and she's usually able to guess correctly about what letters begin words (example: "Gorilla begins with 'G,' Mom!"). Over the last few weeks, she's even been able to pick up a pen or pencil and write her name, along with a few simple words. Best of all...she's left-handed! Two of my three girls are lefties; I wonder what the odds are on that?

Besides getting smarter, Aurora is busy doing a lot of other things at her preschool. She talks to me all the time about all their different crafts and activities, not to mention the "wiggle time" they have in Ms. Nichole's backyard. She's even had a "homework project," which involved bringing home the class mascot, Bearly Bear, for the weekend.

Bearly Bear came with his own carrying case and journal. The kids, with their parent's help, were supposed to share their everyday experiences with Bearly Bear, then write about those experiences in the journal and share the journal with the class. We didn't have any major things planned for that weekend, but Aurora did take Bearly Bear with her to the library:

She also gave Bearly Bear her "place of honor" that weekend: on her pillow, as one of her bedtime cuddle buddies. It was fun to see her introduce Bearly Bear to all her other stuffed animals and help them all make friends with one another. We ended up with plenty of experiences to share in the class journal.

First trip out with the brand-new preschool shirt!

Aurora also had her first field trip with her preschool class just this last weekend. There's a youth gym in Tucson called Tumbleweeds, and they have an "open-play" day every Friday morning. Aurora's preschool class, along with several other Sahuarita preschools, all converged on Tumbleweeds for some rambunctious fun.

I was surprised how little supervision there was at this gym. There were maybe two employees wandering around, trying to keep an eye on maybe fifty kids. Thankfully, most parents were close on hand as well to keep anyone from getting hurt.

Aurora had to try everything: the balance beam...

...the high bar (with foam pit beneath)...

...the rope swing...

 

...and the vaults (also with foam pit beneath).

I spent extra time gossiping with some of the other moms, but I did supervise Aurora...at least a little. I may or may not have been around when she knocked over a smaller child while jumping around on the trampoline. Luckily, nobody was seriously hurt, and a good time was had by all.

She got to play with her friend Taylor, too!

Aurora was so proud that she finally had a field trip under her belt...just like her older sisters! She has another one coming up later this month...to Buckelew Farms in late October, home of the giant pumpkin patch. I hope I'll be able to accompany her on that trip as well. It has been a happy surprise watching her grow and learn so much this year. She may be my "baby," but she is rapidly getting ready to enter the world of the "big kids."