Good-Bye Saturn

Tonight we sold the first car I ever owned. We said good-bye to my little black Saturn that I bought when I graduated from BYU so I'd have a way to get to my teaching job. I didn't even realize until tonight that my dad's name was still on the title with mine since he cosigned to help me get a better rate. John claims my dad and I bought it, and he paid for it. That's not quite how I remember it.

We posted it today and were thrilled someone actually wanted to come and take it off our hands for a whopping 400 dollars. We really just wanted it out of our driveway. As the buyers drove it away I started reminiscing of all the memories in that little car and I was sad to see it go. So here's my trip down memory lane in tribute to my little black Saturn that was a part of our family for the last 10 years.

I remember....

Going with all my sisters to the Saturn lot in Orem to pick it out.

Cleaning and shining the car every Saturday morning in hopes that John would come out of his house and hang out with me while I cleaned it.

Running over the curb between The Annex and Pescado House and popping off the hubcab--it's still missing 10 years later.

Listening to the news of 9-11 on the radio as I pulled into the school parking lot.

Sitting in the backseat holding up my baby girl's head as John drove Kelsie and I home from the hospital. That memory was the one that really got to me. It was exactly eight years ago today, but the memory is clear as day of me squishing into the backseat to keep careful watch of our baby girl and holding up her head on every turn as John drove more slowly and more carefully than he ever had before. That was the day that the Saturn suddenly seemed too small and too bumpy to carry such precious cargo.

Good-bye to my Saturn. I never thought I'd say this, but I will miss you.

Our Graduate

Here is our little preschool graduate. Today she graduated from Children's University. She has loved preschool and adores her teacher. She is officially off to kindergarten.

One of the mom's had made these graduation hat cookies for the graduation. Emily was completely delighted when she saw them. They were super cute. They were a reeces peanut butter up with a graham cookie on top and frosting for the tassel.

A Teacher

Today at preschool I was asking all the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up--in preparation for our program next week. Emily said, "a teacher." That was the first time I'd ever heard her say that and I was so happy and proud. I would love to pass my love for teaching down to one of my girls and see them become a teacher too (and I would LOVE to get to help them in their class one day). I was enjoying this thought.

After preschool I asked her if she wanted to be a teacher just like mom when she grows up. She smiled at me like I was crazy and said, "actually Laura and Mary both want to be teachers when they grow up." And so the truth comes out. She doesn't really want to be like her mom. She wants to be like Laura and Mary Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie--her true idols. Oh well, I still enjoyed my little moment of pride.

Bus Station

At the last minute Carter and I decided to with Emily and her preschool class on a field trip to the bus station. We toured the station, saw the mechanics fixing the buses, took our first ride on the bus, and even took the bus through the car wash! Here's her class and her teacher, Ms. Stacie at the end of our tour.

I was so glad that we were able to go. Carter loved the trip more than the preschoolers. He thought it was so cool to go on "Kelsie's bus" (that's what he calls all school buses he sees). He is still talking about his trip. He tells us, "yeah I got to ride on a bus and the bus ride got me a sticker and my teacher came (referring to his nursery teacher) and Emily came on the bus."
Emily was so excited about her first ride on the real school bus. She came home and asked how many more days left of preschool before she could go to kindergarten? She seems to think as soon as she's graduates preschool she's off to kindergarten with the big kids. She can hardly wait. She is so excited and so ready, but I'm sad that she'll be gone. :(

Water

It takes emergencies for me to realize how unprepared I am in the case of a major emergency, and to prompt me to get a little more serious about being "ready". The sad part is that when we went into emergency water mode we really weren't ready, but we were a lot more ready than when our pipes froze....twice.

For almost a week we'd been hearing about this horrible flu that was striking many families in our neighborhood (like 1/2 our ward was missing last Sunday). We were trying to avoid this dreaded flu when John came down with it on Wed. night. The following evening we found out that the dreaded flu was much more. Our water supply was contaminated with bacteria that was causing severe illness and we were put on boil orders for 2 days.

So we began using the half case of bottled drinking water that we had at home. Really impressive, I know. Meanwhile John was deathly ill with a 104 degree fever, severe gastrointestinal illness, and was so weak he was unable to even lift his head for three full days. It was the sickest I'd ever seen anyone for that long of a period. Really horrible.

The kids and I made trips to the store for more water so we could drink, brush our teeth, wash our hands, etc.... I remembered again why I was born in this time and not the pioneer times because boiling water to drink and wash dishes in is really not my cup of tea (major understatement).

Today our emergency is over. We have usable water again (not that we intend do drink it for some time) and life feels a little more peaceful. John is doing a lot better today but is extremely tired and weak (which we've heard lasts many days.)

We are grateful that the kids and I somehow managed to escape the sickness from the bad water. We are grateful that we were more lucky than most in that we found out the reason for John's horrible sickness and we able to get antibiotics on day 3 of his sickness to help shorten it a bit (we think). And we had a bit of a wake up call to become better prepared while we still had options like running to grandma's for washing dishes and taking bathes, and running to the store for more drinking water.

We've learned a lot and are glad that little nightmare is mostly over. The only thing John had to say on the whole experience came yesterday on his deathbed. He said to tell his mom and then he said tell everyone that NO ONE should ever drink their city water. A few words for the wise.

Pirates and Jungle Animals

Here's my little pirate. Yesterday was pirate day at her preschool and she spent most of the day in character and had all sorts of pirate knowledge to share.

Kelsie finished her first report yesterday--on cheetahs. This is her display that went with her poster. She thinks doing a report is so fun that she wants to do one over the summer. Let's hope that enthusiasm continues!

Note to Uncle Brenton: Yesterday while we were talking about pirates and cheetahs I thought of you. Sounded similar to what a lot of your posts are about. :) Please bring us back real pictures of animals in Africa for our next round of reports.

Happy Birthday Baby Animals

We took the kids and their friend Brianna to the birthday party for the baby animals at Farm Country. Carter was so excited he could hardly contain himself and couldn't wait to tell all the animals Happy Birthday. He seriously loves birthdays more than any kid I've ever met. He gets so excited! We saw the new baby animals (and Carter personally wished each one Happy Birthday), ate birthday cake, rode a cow train, and played farm games. The girls won poppers from a game and were thrilled--they love those little plastic poppers and play with them forever.

Carter loved this feeding trough that was filled with sawdust. We couldn't even get him out of it to eat the cake...pretty shocking for Carter to turn down food.

Right as we were leaving we got to see this baby horse that had just been born. He was 10 minutes old and still all wet and matted down from birth. We got to stand right by him and pet him, but his mama was pretty protective and kept nudging herself between him and the eager kids who wanted to pet him. It was the highlight of the animal birthday party.

Here's a video of Carter wishing the animals Happy Birthday. Note to grandparents: the videos don't come through the email so you'll have to pull up the blog if you want to see a video that's posted. :)