February

February continued our cold trend. "They" (whoever they are) say that this winter was the coldest on record for the state of Michigan. Last year, we had so much snow. It started and didn't stop for most of the winter. It was also very, very cold. But this year, even though we had a bit less snow, the temperatures were constantly below zero. We had lots of "snow" days from school but snow had nothing to do with it. It was just too cold. And instead of years past where we'd have a below zero day or two and then it would warm up at least for a day or two, this year it was just below zero every day for weeks on end. It was pretty rough. Especially because the rest of the country seemed to be having early spring--even in Cache Valley, which I always thought was the coldest place on earth with its canyon winds and zero winter sunshine. But even they were having winter days in the 50's and 60's and even a few in the 70's! Everyone kept posting pictures of themselves in shorts and tee shirts doing fun outdoor things like breathing without icicles forming around their mouths and opening their car doors without an ice pick. We were a bit jealous. But we made it through and took advantage of every "warm" day to play outside. "Guys, it's 15 degrees out! What are you doing in the house on such a beautiful day?" 

We had a crazy adventure with a rodent trying to keep warm in our house this winter! One day Kalen asked me about the nibbles in one of the apples in our fruit basket in the kitchen. I told him I thought it was the little girl I babysit who can be sneaky with food sometimes. But there was one week where she was sick and didn't come where we noticed that nibble spots were continuing to happen. We starting paying closer attention and realized that nearly every morning, we'd find just one section of one apple in the basket chewed on. And then one day we found that a bag of popcorn in the pantry had been chewed through and there were a bunch of empty husks that were left over. Another day, the bag of rice had a little hole in it. So it was apparent that something was in our house and eating our food. Whatever it was, seemed to be very careful to make as little mess as possible. We wondered if maybe it was a mouse but we've had mice before and they left their little droppings everywhere. So far, we hadn't found anything. Then one day, we did find some droppings in the pantry. And they were most definitely not the mouse variety. They were quite a bit larger than that. So we wondered if maybe it was a squirrel or a rat. Kalen tried an experiment where he sprinkled powder all over the top of the microwave where we keep the fruit bowl so he could see if it would leave some paw prints. One morning, we found some marks where the visitor had tried to climb up behind the microwave but the powder must have made it too slippery to pull itself up because what we found were two streaks of claw marks where something had tried to climb up but had fallen back. It was pretty freaky! So when my dad was here for Taylor's farewell in January, he bought us a live animal trap to see if we could catch it. We would put an apple in it and set it every night and every morning it would be empty. But after a couple of weeks, one morning Kalen got up early to take Kendall to Seminary and he heard a commotion in the kitchen and went in to find a very angry and frantic rodent trapped in the cage! He woke me up and told me to come and look at it to see if I could tell what it was. It wasn't a squirrel but it also didn't look like a typical rat with the pointy nose and teeth and a bare tail. This actually was kind of pretty and had a furry tail--it looked like a large gerbil. Kalen and Kendall took it with them and dropped it off on their way to Seminary and I did some research online. I think what we had was a wood rat (or pack rat) since it definitely looked like the pictures I was finding. However, they are quite rare in our neck of the woods, so I wasn't positive. But I couldn't find anything else that it could be, so I really think that must have been what it was.  I felt terrible that we didn't think to take it to the Nature Center. I bet they would have loved to have a look a it. Oh well. I hope it found a warm place and made it through the winter!

The kids had fun one day making a little snow family. Spencer even made them a little puppy. 

We had a nice Valentine's Day with our candlelight dinner and decorating sugar cookies!

We also spent a lot of the month packing up Taylor's room and getting Kendall moved in. He and Spencer are loving having their own rooms so much that it makes me feel a little better about not getting Taylor's room as a craft room. They still do sleepovers on the weekends with each other where one camps out on the floor of another so that is fun too.

We heard often from Taylor and he was doing great. He was sent to the Mt. Pleasant area a few hours north of St. George close to Manti. His companion was an elder from Alabama who was at the tail end of his mission. They wound up making things work despite some personality differences and they kept very busy teaching a few investigators and working with some inactive members. Their area covers 15 wards and 2 stakes! We are so happy that he adjusted so well and in spite of extreme fatigue is loving his experience as a missionary.

January: Happy Birthday Lynnsey, We Have a Missionary, Frigid Winter, and A Big Day for Lynnsey

Now that April is here, let's talk about January! One of these days I really want to catch up on these posts. And then stay caught up. Anyway, here we go:

We started off the year well with Kaya healing nicely so far from surgery and the kids resumed their usual school schedule without incident. Lynnsey celebrated her 12th birthday! It will never cease to amaze me how fast my children are growing up. This birthday marks the end of her time in the Primary organization at church and she enters the Young Women program. She is ready. She has been ready for awhile now and so far she absolutely loves her leaders and all the girls in there with her.

Since it is an even numbered year, she was able to have a friend party. It just so happened that there was a kid friendly movie playing at the Bohm Theater so she decided to invite a few friends to do that. Then everyone came back to our house for gifts at cake. Kendall stayed home from the movie to work on her cake with some of his new cake decorating tools that he got for Christmas. It was his first experiment with them and we thought he did a great job on both the cake (red velvet) and the decorating.

After all the girls left to go home, we had another little mini family party so she could open up her family gifts before Taylor had to leave for work.

As January went on, it started sinking in that Taylor was actually going to be leaving us! He worked right up until just a few days before he had to leave so he wound up getting behind on some of his preparations. We did make a few shopping trips to get the items he needed but he hadn't packed up anything for his mission or anything in his room which Kendall was anxiously waiting to take over. We wound up having a bunch of the Duchesne relatives come out for the weekend before Taylor had to leave so they could be here for his farewell talk at church. It was wonderful that they could come and it gave Taylor the chance to visit with Timothy and play his new Doctor Who Risk game. We also were able to make one last trip to the temple with him. But it sure didn't help the packing up process happen. His farewell talk was great--he went over his time by A LOT but it was a great talk. The men (and one young woman) in the branch paid a fun tribute to Taylor by all wearing bow ties that day. My camera was dead so I need to see if I can get a picture from someone  who took one of the whole group, but it was such a sweet gesture and I know it meant a lot to Taylor to be surprised that way.

The day before Taylor was set to leave, he still hadn't packed a single thing. So it was a day of meltdowns as he realized he was just out of time and everything was hitting him that he was actually leaving. He was so emotional all day and when he wasn't crying, he was panicking. Finally, late into the night he got everything packed to go. His room just had to be left with promises that we would box everything up and not get rid of anything because he wants to go through it when he comes home.

After only a few hours sleep we got everyone up and headed for the airport. (Except Kendall who didn't think he could afford to miss school so we dropped him off at my mom's so she could get him there.) It was a hard ride as we contemplated that this was actually happening. How was this actually happening? How did this happen so fast? How do I have a son old enough to even go on a mission? We arrived at the airport and got Taylor all checked in and then we had a few minutes to say goodbye before he had to go through security. It was emotional but amazing to think about the experience that he is embarking upon and about all of his life of good choices leading up to this moment. We are so proud of him and we know that this experience will help him grow and mature like nothing else will.

                                       

After one last wave before he disappeared through security, we headed back home to embark upon our new experience of having only four kids at home. Taylor's flight went well and he was able to spend some time with the Oswald side of the family for the rest of Tuesday before they took him to the MTC on Wednesday. He had a great time and I think that helped calm some of his nerves about the mission just to spend time with them. He and Todd spent a lot of time in Logan Canyon on Tuesday and I think that was his favorite part of the visit.

The next day they all journeyed to Provo and spent some time on the temple grounds and going to eat lunch before it was time to send him off. I wish we had been able to do it ourselves, but we are so thankful that in our absence, we had such a great group of family who could be there for him. 

                                     
While Taylor was having the time of his life at the MTC (he LOVED it there!) life here continued as usual. We got to have another trip to the temple, this time for a youth temple trip. My mom watched the younger kids so I could go along too since this was Lynnsey's first time ever being able to go and perform baptisms. It was a wonderful day and I think she really enjoyed the experience.

These kids of mine just keep on growing up, but I am so happy when I see the way they are turning out to be such wonderful people who make good choices that will bless them for the rest of their lives if they continue along the path they are headed.

December

After a slightly longer wait than we anticipated (probably due to the Thanksgiving weekend), I finally opened the mailbox one day to find a big fat letter addressed to Elder Taylor Leon Oswald!

And of course it was on the day that Taylor ended up working an all afternoon/evening shift at work. So we had to wait and wait and it was about 10 pm before he finally got home for the big moment. We took a video but didn't manage to snap even a single picture of him opening the envelope! I think we were all completely stunned when he read that he had been called to serve in the Utah St. George Mission! In fact, Kalen thought he must be kidding and kept saying, "Seriously???" We had joked about Taylor being called to Utah, but never in a million years did we actually think he would. We have family all over the state! Taylor just laughed and said, "All right!" It was funny when he pulled out the map and showed us the mission boundaries. It is a large mission that covers from the middle of the state all the way south and we laughed because it cuts off at Price which is very close to my family in Duchesne and it cuts a corner off in the south just after Moab which is very near Blanding where some of Kalen's family is! So even though we have so many family members there, not one of them is within the mission boundaries! Taylor is SO excited. It was also interesting because the mission covers several parks like Zion and Bryce and Canyonlands and Arches. My brother in law Mike joked that it was like Taylor was being called to serve in his version of Disneyland! The other crazy thing about the call was that the date that Taylor was supposed to report to the MTC was January 20th! We were totally thinking he'd probably take off in February or March. He had only about 6 weeks to get all his stuff together and be ready to report! Needless to say it was a very chaotic and crazy 6 weeks.

On December 7th, we celebrated Kendall's 15th birthday. Before we know it we'll be saying goodbye to another missionary! We are so happy to have the privilege of raising such a remarkable and wonderful person. Seriously, I think this kid has to be one of the best kids in the entire universe.

And one of the amazing things about Kendall is that he is becoming quite a cook/baker. He loves to be in the kitchen creating something and one of his specialties is becoming this chocolate marble cheesecake. It is seriously special.  He's made a few of them now and they are so unbelievably delicious.

Because his departure date was so soon, and because we wanted Taylor to have at least a few opportunities to go to the temple after his own endowment session, we got him scheduled before Christmas. I can't really even express how awesome it is to be in the temple when your own child goes through for the first time. Just so amazing. We are so proud of the decisions that Taylor has made in his life to get to this point. He was able to go back again with the his old YM leader/scoutmaster and his wife, and again with another ward member (they did two sessions) and then we were able to go with him again with my parents.

And of course, it isn't December without Christmas! It was a little bittersweet knowing that this was the last Christmas we'll have with Taylor for at least a couple of years. But it's always an exciting time and one of my favorite times of the year.

Kaya and her latestAG doll Julie.

Spencer loved his giant collection of Kinetic Sand.

And Lynnsey got what she says is her last AG doll, Samantha. We'll see if she sticks with that!

Kendall got a bunch of decorating tools to assist with all of his baked creations.

Lucky Taylor got CD's of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and a luggage set. 

This year the kids got one extra handmade gift from me. I decided that I'm constantly making things for the Etsy shop but not ever doing much for my kids. So Taylor got a Doctor Who bookmark that looks like the 4th Doctor scarf, Kendall got a fox hat (he totally asked for one!), Lynnsey got a hat with a flower to match the cowl I had already given her, Spencer got a little basket to put whatever he wants to in it (he's got a lot of DS games in it right now), and Kaya got the owl hat she was admiring without realizing it was for her.

We had a great Christmas full of our usual traditions of homemade chicken noodle soup on Christmas Eve and omelets for breakfast on Christmas day plus a delicious ham dinner later in the day, countless Christmas CD's and at least one or two viewings of A Christmas Story. Also, apparently another tradition that is becoming a yearly occurrence is me catching a nasty cold! That part is not so fun but I guess I'll take that over the stomach bugs of Christmases past.


We ended up our 2014 with a second ear surgery for Kaya. Her surgeon has been monitoring the situation and prolonging the repeat surgery to fix the hole in her ear drum that never closed after her last surgery. Finally last summer he decided it was getting worse and he felt like we needed to get it done within a few months. So they scheduled her for December 29th which was nice so she would not have a lengthy school absence.

It was a so crazy because the whole situation was so similar to the last time! The surgery took a bit longer this time though and about the time I was actually starting to worry, the surgeon came out and told us she was done. Unfortunately the damage was far more extensive than he'd been able to see in his office and he actually had to remove her entire ear drum! The good news though, was that since her hearing bones were still intact, he was able to take a graft of skin from behind her ear and craft a brand new ear drum! The recovery from this surgery is a lot longer than the other one and there is a chance that scar tissue can form and she could lose some hearing. The doctor was optimistic though that any hearing loss still wouldn't be bad enough to require a hearing aid so that's good. We have to go in fairly frequently, every couple of weeks or so, to check things out and make sure it's healing up well. So far so good!

After surgery and feeling a bit better with some pain medication and the effects of anesthesia wearing off.

The "giant tray of food" that makes surgery so exciting!

Next morning IV free and ready to go home!

With surgery behind us, we ended the year with our New Year's Eve game night and pig out party and rang in 2015!

November

One new thing for us as the parent's of a child at Marshall High School is that band is a huge commitment! If you are in band that means that you are automatically in Marching Band and Marching Band means that every Monday from the end of Aug - Nov you have a mandatory three hour rehearsal in the evening (even if you try to use Family Home Evening as an excuse) and you have to play during all the home football games and do a halftime show. We decided since we weren't getting to ever see Kendall anymore that we would go where he was and we managed to catch a couple of the games this year. It actually was a lot of fun even though it was chilly and rainy. They do a really good half time performance and it was fun to get caught up in the excitement of high school football (even though many parents got WAY too involved and took it WAY too seriously!).

Also in November, it finally happened. A few months later than he had planned, but it finally happened. Taylor submitted his mission papers and began the anxious wait to see where he would be assigned to labor as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

While we waited and speculated about various exotic and not so exotic locations that he may be sent to, we also celebrated Thanksgiving. Jonathan came out again this year for his usual vacation time so that was great to see him again. And he also installed a new bumper on our van to replace the one that was a casualty of last winter when Kalen scraped it on the giant pile of snow in our driveway as he was backing out and the whole side cracked and broke off! He also fixed our windshield wiper. So yeah, like I said, it was great to see him again. (It was also fun to visit with him!!!) Mom and I did our annual Black Friday shopping excursion and it took the entire day but I managed to knock out nearly all of my Christmas shopping this time, so it was totally worth the exhaustion and sore feet.

October

One really great thing happened this year with my babysitting schedule and that is that I have a day off every week! At least for now I don't have anyone coming on Wednesdays (unless there is a half day or a snow day). I was so excited for all the things I would be able to do with that one day but that one day FLY'S by so fast with appointments and errands that I don't usually get much else accomplished. However, I was so excited when Spencer's field trip which was scheduled for a Friday was rescheduled for a Wednesday and that meant I could come along as a chaperone. That day Kaya also wound up with a field trip (what are the odds???) so I had to choose between them, but since there wasn't room on Spencer's bus and chaperones had to drive, and there was room on Kaya's bus, Taylor (who still doesn't drive) wound up going with her on her trip and I went with Spencer. Both kids had tons of fun. Kaya went to a pumpkin patch/apple orchard and Spencer went to a farm day exhibition at the fairgrounds. 

They fed the kids lunch first.

Spencer and his best buddy.

Then they had us split into smaller groups to visit different areas all around the grounds. It was so funny to see how excited the kids got over all the farm animals. I sometimes forget how different it is for kids who don't grow up around that. They were totally fascinated.

Equally fascinating were the enormous pieces of machinery!

At one station the kids got to practice "milking" a cow and they each got a "milk mustache" sticker to put above their lips. Possibly the only "milk mustache" our allergic Spencer will ever have!

The kids had a fun time with Spirit Week at school. There was pajama day, Wildcat shirt day, etc. but I think our kids favorite was Nerd Day.

It took about a year longer than he had planned, but at long last Taylor finally, officially became an Eagle Scout! We are so proud of him and all his hard work. He had a great Court of Honor and we were really happy that we had some family in town for it (my dad, Timothy, and Susannah and her kids all came to visit for about ten days before taking my mom back to Utah with them).

We are so proud of his accomplishment!

Another exciting thing to happen in October was the re-opening of the Bohm Theater. It closed suddenly in 2008 and it seemed like just another blow for our already struggling town. But one thing that we have learned about Albion is that it doesn't go down without a fight. A group of citizens formed to figure out how to go about renovating it and bringing it back. It took a lot of years and a lot of fundraising and grant proposals, but it was worth the wait. Because of the historical preservation grant that they received, they had very strict guidelines requiring them to restore it to it's original historical grandeur.The completed project is absolutely stunning! Years ago when we first moved here and would go to the movies, we would look around and think how cool it would be if we had a bunch of money to fix the place up. We could always tell that it had once been an amazing place but time had definitely taken it's toll.

The night it reopened, we got to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony and watch as they lit up the new marquee and then we got to go in and enjoy and old Laurel and Hardy movie (which was the first movie ever shown in the Bohm when it first opened in 1929). It was just really amazing to sit in those plush reclining chairs and look around at the packed audience of community members and see something so fantastic happen. This, along with a new college president who is working hard to form a connection to the community and schools, as well as some new businesses opening or planning to open (like the proposed downtown hotel with boutique shops and ballroom and restaurant) seems to have brought an air of excitement and hope to this little place and it will be really fun to see how things unfold.

The marquee all lit up!

The ribbon cutting ceremony.

Another cool thing about that opening night was that it was also Taylor's first night at his new job! Finally, after months of looking hard (and sometimes not looking very hard), he finally found a way to earn some funds for his mission. I'm the one who found the job listing and made him call about it, so I pretty much take most of the credit for him getting the job, although his interview was pretty great from what I hear and the thank you note (which I made him write and deliver the next day) pretty much sealed the deal. It is a great job for him and he loves the people he works with.

And of course, it isn't October without Halloween. This year we decided to save some money and re-do one of our themes-- Harry Potter. Last time we did it, only the kids dressed up and Kaya wasn't even born yet, so it was almost like a brand new idea this time.

Last time Taylor dressed as Harry. This time Spencer (who was a dragon the first time) went as Harry. It was fitting since he has become a huge Harry Potter fan and has read the entire series just recently.

Last time Lynnsey went as Hermione and this time the costume was just the right size for Kaya to have a turn.

We added a new character this time--Luna Lovegood. The Bramhall's did this theme last year and were so generous to let us borrow their costumes. They sent the robe, wig and glasses and I hit the jackpot at Goodwill when I found a sweater and skirt to match.

Another new character this time was Severus Snape. Last time Kendall went as Dumbledore but the wig and beard had seen better days and the robes no longer fit, so we had fun putting this one together with the help of eBay and Goodwill.

Kalen and I got to dress up this time around as Hagrid and Professor McGonogall thanks to the Bramhall's costumes.

Taylor was a party pooper and wouldn't join in the theme this year. Instead he went with his old favorite, Indiana Jones.

We found another Harry at our branch trunk or treat!

Our monster car won 2nd place in the trunk decorating contest!

For the second year in a row now, our school has allowed the kids to wear costumes on Halloween. Since Kaya is going to outgrow this dress pretty soon, and I wanted someone to use it again, she decided to dress as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz for school before transforming into Hermione that night.