Investing

Before I launch into my daily not-so-deep thoughts, I have to share something from last night that I thought was really funny.  I told Doug that Keilana had gotten lots of compliments on her pictures, to which he responded (quite seriously), "Yeah, but that isn't her best stuff."  I immediately started laughing and pointed out that she's 4, but I had to also acknowledge that he's right.  She takes pretty good photos these days and these aren't an example of her "finest work", composition-wise, but most of the other pictures she takes are of the birds, the cat or McDermont.  I thought pictures of her family were a bit more interesting:)

The other night Doug said something that got me thinking.  After our drive on Sunday, we stopped up at Paul and Christa's, since we hadn't seen their new house yet.

(Side note: Their new house is very cute!  It is indeed new, part of a relatively recent development up in Fresno.  Its a nice house and I am rather jealous of their giant bathtub--I could so use a soak in a big comfy tub right now.  It looks great and I'm sure will look even better once they get a chance to get their blinds up and their grass growing!:) )

We were all talking about places we would/could/may go in life and Christa said she could never live in a big city, with which I heartily agreed.  Doug said, "You say that, but if that's where you felt like you were supposed to be. . ."  I said that was true, that I could do it if I had to, but I wouldn't be thrilled about it.

On the car ride home, he brought it up again.  "You say that," he said, "but 'if I have to' has never been your reaction when it comes right down to it."  He's right.  I haven't usually gone with my first choice on a lot of major decisions in life, but rather with the choice I felt was the right choice, and I've always been happy about it.

BYU-Hawaii was a perfect example.  I always said if I got in there, that's where I'd go because it felt like the right thing to do.  But in some ways, I wanted very much to go to a school in Wisconsin instead.  There would be plenty of snow, the school's strengths were in the exact programs I wanted, it would be easy to hop on a train or a bus if I needed/wanted to go home and they had offered me $24,000 in scholarships and a job on campus.  But Hawaii was where I supposed to be.  And, though not without its challenges, it was an incredible experience.

The same was true of moving to San Luis.  At the point we made that decision, we were considering several other options and Cal Poly was at the bottom of my list--it would take the longest, cost the most, and be farthest from the things I knew.  And certainly there were parts of the experience I wouldn't want to do again, but I loved it and was happy to go.

Its not in my nature to see things as the burden I have to bare right now or just what I have to get through to get to the next step of my life.  When it comes right down to it, whether I'm headed where I think I'd prefer to be or not, I usually see changes as an adventure.

One of the things that make Doug and I well suited to each other is a shared strong curiosity--about life, the world, ourselves.  Each new challenge or move gives us an opportunity to indulge that curiosity.  We are both regrettably stubborn individuals, and yet each of us is surprisingly willing to be molded for the sake of our adventures.

We've been talking lately about dreams.  So many people never go after what they really want because they have 1,000 reasons why their dream isn't possible.  What they really mean is that is isn't possible without significant sacrifices.  Well, if there's one thing our experiences with McDermont has taught us, its that if the dream is a good one, the sacrifices and risks--the long days, the frustrating setbacks, the fiscal, emotional and physical toll--are all well worth it to see that dream come to fruition.

President Hinkley once said that you can never think of something as a sacrifice when in the long run what you get back is far greater than what you give up--that's an investment.  But you don't have to be just biding your time until that payday comes.  Even in the midst of the "giving up" part, where things are challenging, you can be happy and having a lot of fun.

Photographer Keilana

Keilana loves to take pictures.  We are considering getting her her own camera for either Christmas or her birthday.  Yesterday, we went for a drive up through the mountains and ended up at Grant's Grove Village.  These are the pictures Keilana snapped while we were playing in the nice cool air and evening sunshine.  I did no editing/cropping/enhancing or anything like that.  But she's always so proud of the pictures she takes, I thought I'd share.  

Woohoo!!!

Ok, so today I work from 5:30 to 9:30, tomorrow I work from 9 to 5:30 and next weekend I work Friday night and all day on Saturday, too.  I am not looking forward to going.  I love McDermont and for the most part I enjoy working.  But rarely having any time to spend with Doug on the weekend (or, worse, having to find a babysitter because we're both occupied) is wearing on me.  So is being on my feet for 4 to 9 hours at a time.  So is one particular coworker that I can't stand and Doug can't stand and both of us have to work with.  Etc., etc., etc.

Anyway, so last night I was saying something about work this weekend and Doug said, "Have you given them your two week notice yet?"  And I replied that I hadn't, that I was gonna work through the end of October so I still had a few weeks to get it in.  He said, "Why?  You're the one that decided to keep working that long.  Why don't you just give them your notice now?  Its getting to be more of a burden than a benefit at this point."  For some reason (I blame ditzy pregnancy brain) it never occurred to me that I could quit in the middle of the month.  So I am handing in my 2 week notice today, and the last day I'll be working is October 11th (and I've already got my schedule through that week, so no waiting around to see what happens/how much will be on my paycheck).  I'm glad to be finishing.  Two more weeks and I'm outta there (though I imagine I'll still end up over there a lot, just not working).

And even more exciting news. . . .(drum roll, please). . . .Mom and Christa are coming to see me!  Last night I called my mom to discuss some rather huge life course changes we may make in the next year (more on that as it develops. . .) and she told me that she and Christa are coming down to Vegas for a conference and decided to rent a car on Friday and drive over to see us.  So they'll be here on October 17 & 18.  Its a quick trip (and mom will be back in December to meet Kylie), but I'm so excited.  I told her that we'd have to take Christa out for a birthday taco (her birthday is the week before that).  I saw them both when we went home in June, so it's only been about 3 months, but I usually don't get to see family that frequently.  Its a nice pre-Halloween treat!

Reading Readiness!

The kids have been horribly under-stimulated for most of the last several months due to my fatigue (and my horrid mood swings).  But we've been trying to get back on track lately and it seems to be paying off.  Keilana is enjoying school and learning lots of new things there, but she is also doing very well at home.

Writing her name (which, believe it or not,  just 3 or 4 months ago, even at 4, was still almost impossible for her), is old news now.  She writes both "Keilana" and "Clark" quite easily and legibly, and is always very proud of herself.  She is getting pretty good at the rest of the letters, too, though some of them are still hard for her (she loves "x", but still seems to have a lot of trouble with "s" without tracing it).  She is reading!  Well, kind of.  We bought her the first set of BOB books.  If you're not familiar, they're a popular early reading set.  Things like "Mat and Pat Sat." and "Pat and Cat."  Anyway, she's sounding out the words and reading me the books.  Its still slow, and every now and then she gets a little hung up on pictures instead of paying attention to the words, but she is reading.  Very exciting!! She's very proud of herself and is making progress pretty quickly now.  Its fun to see her learn.  Everyday while we're walking home from preschool she tells me all about her day, her new friends, what they had for lunch, what her job was that day, the butterfly she saw on the playground, the bunnies in the classroom, and anything else she can think of.  The girl loves to talk!  Doug's office is between here and the school (everything is close--its only about 1/3 mile to the school), and she loves the days when he's actually there (rather than at McDermont or one of the other projects) and she's able to stop and tell him about her day.  I'm afraid she has betrayed me.  Always my little ally, she has switched over to her dad's side.  She has become most definitely daddy's little girl in most every way, and he has become her partner in crime!

And Dylan. . .Oh, Dylan, my delightful little weirdo.  He just hit 2 1/2 last month.  He's still behind on his verbal skills (though finally progressing nicely) but he's whizzing ahead on a few other things.  He only knows about three colors (blue, red, and yellow) and will usually only count to 3 before he loses interest, but he's got the alphabet down.  He recognizes pretty much all 26 letters now and knows the name and sound of each one.  He understands concepts very well, frequently being able to put pictures in an ordered sequence without help.  His social skills are very good.  I've mentioned before his uncanny confidence, but he is also very good at sharing and taking turns for a 2 year old.  He does it without protest or problem with most kids besides his big sister (what are younger brothers for, if not to agitate?) He'll start to yell at his sister or cry to get her in trouble if she's got a toy he wants or is doing something he wants to do, but as soon as I say, "Dylan, you have to take turns," he says "OK" and patiently waits.   We'll see how he grows up.  But I'm thinking that either the charm or the good looks has to wear off by the time he hits high school, because if he still has both when he becomes a teenager, we're gonna have a lot of trouble on our hands.

I've been whining so much about myself lately, its been a while since I updated on my most adorable and brilliant children (hey, don't judge me--you know you think your own kids are, too).  They are thriving and happy and riding through mostly unaware of the stresses of the grown-ups in their life, and we love them for it.  They're a joy.

Week 29

Neither of my first two pregnancies created the kind of demands for my expanding belly as this one has.  Did none of you care how fat I was 2 or 4 years ago? Anyway, in an effort to hush the whining, here is another picture of my belly.  I promise that I do have other maternity clothes.  I actually don't even wear this shirt all that often, but it seems to be the one I always have on when the annoying requests for pictures get the best of me.  I am starting to feel quite elephantine.  I have a posteriorly tipped uterus and the baby is sitting a bit sideways--I hate to think what I would look like if that weren't the case. . . .So, just a sliver under 3 months til I deliver (and just in case you are as rude as my coworkers, yes I do still have that long to go!)

Lifting thoughts from OSC

For Valentine's Day last year (for full disclosure, given the subject of this post, I should probably state that I don't generally celebrate that holiday), one of the things I gave Doug was a bumper sticker that read, "My reality is better than your fairy tale".  It was a joke (though a rather serious one) that sprang from a conversation we'd had a few weeks early.  Both of us love fairy tales--we're both big fans of Disney movies, Disneyland, classic tales and the like.  But both of us have very little patience with the common habit of being overly focused on all the wrong parts of those things:  the terrible light mindedness, the tendency toward self-focus, the fanciful parts that are there for window dressing.

I had a few friends ask me about the sticker and my own somewhat blase attitude toward romance in general.  I found myself at a rare loss for words as I tried to explain it.  Or rather, the right words--I had plenty of words, but the order they were coming out in really wasn't explaining anything very well at all.  A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a post by Orson Scott Card in which he was actually talking about romantic comedy movies but got off on a bit of a side-note about romance that captured what I had been trying to say.  He wrote:  "Its simply a fact of life: No matter how much you think you're 'in love' when you get married, you just don't know what love even is until you've created a life and a family with somebody, with total commitment, year after year.  The madness of longing that we call 'romance' is only an emotional blip compared to a true, deep human connection."

I really appreciated this remark, because I have had people look at me in such a way or say something to me that made me feel like they thought my lack of obsession with romance was somehow an indictment of my femininity or my understanding of or ability to love.  Contrary to popular belief, I am not anti-romance.  I love it.  I think its charming and delightsome and fun.  I also feel that it is, in the grand scheme of things, hugely superficial.  I have long contended to these purveyors of romantic fantasy that the reason I don't focus on anniversaries and flowers and kisses in the rain is that what I have on a day to day basis is so much bigger and better than that, I have no great need for such momentary displays.

Don't get me wrong--I love unexpected flowers and intimate dates and kisses under the stars, but I have no need for them, or even really any great desire.  The moments where I find my husband irresistable, where I fall more in love with him and can't stand the thought of being separated from him, are so much more magnificent and simple than all that.  Its when he scoops up our daughter onto his lap and showers her with kisses; its when he's going full force, stomping and growling, playing "monster" with our son;  its when we're sitting together silently in the Celestial Room;  its talking til 2am again because the conversation just carried us away; its when the car breaks down 200 miles from home on Saturday night and he stays in good humor.

Mostly, though, its something I can't find adequate words for.  Its a trust, an understanding, a completeness in each other.  I've only been married for 5 years--I know a lot of people who have a lot more of it and understand it a lot better than I do.  But I do understand that its something that isn't and can't be found in rose petals scattered across the bed or well-choreographed dates, no matter how much fun those things may be.

LA Trip

Doug and I headed down to LA on Saturday morning.  I thought we were going to pick some stuff up for the Flowrider.  Turns out that, unbeknownst to me, we were going down to see some old friends of ours from BYUH, Josh and Lindsi.  

We haven't seen them in four years, since just after Keilana was born.  Which is really kind of silly when I think about it, since we've lived in Lindsay for the last 2 1/2 years, and they've lived in LA for 2 years, and its only about a 3 hour drive between our houses.  

Anyway, it was a kick to see them again.  They live just a couple of miles from the Santa Monica Pier, so we headed down there with the kids and enjoyed the sunshine and the sea breeze.  Its been so hot for so long, the moderate temperatures and little breeze felt fantastic!  Keilana, normally my shy one, must've felt that she had a kindred spirit in fellow strawberry blonde-haired Lindsi, because after getting over that initial few minutes of quiet and shy, she became quite talkative.  She told Lindsi about her little sister, about how she was going to be Ariel for Halloween, and about going to Disneyland.  I got in trouble a few times for interrupting:)  

The kids (small and grown alike) enjoyed the Santa Monica pier carousel.  Dylan loves horses, be they real or carved, so his first protest of the day came in having to leave when the ride was over.  He soon consoled himself in trying to climb over the edge of the fence on the pier and wildly chasing the poor frightened pigeons that were everywhere.  

That evening we tried to find the Rockler store in Torrance so Doug could pick a few things up, and he learned the joys of trying to navigate LA when you are being served by a horrendously bad navigator (that would be me--I do not exaggerate, I am SO bad).  Anyway, we did eventually make our way there, and fortunately there were several car dealerships across the street, so Josh was able to go car shopping while Doug looked at wood and tools.  We made it back to the apartment in time for Doug to watch and become rather depressed by the Fresno St/Wisconsin game.  Three points.  So sad.

Sunday morning after Josh and Lindsi left for church, we got in the car to go exploring.  We drove by the LA temple (so huge!) and through Beverly Hills, which was weird.  Its always strange to me to realize that that many people live that extravagantly.  Stranger still to realize that I don't envy them.  There were some beautiful houses and some beautiful views (and Obama yard signs everywhere--further proving, of course, that Republicans are the party of the rich.  Ha ha.)  Once we found our way down out of the hills and back onto major roads, we headed up the Pacific Coast highway.  Malibu was not nearly as exciting as I was expecting ('course, I'm not sure what it is I was expecting), but the beaches all the way up were beautiful.

We drove up 101 clear back into San Luis Obispo and then headed up to Morro Bay.  Keilana had been all set to "see the fishies" when we went to Santa Monica, but the aquarium ended up being closed, so we stopped at Morro Bay so that she could feed the seals and sea lions and walk through the small aquarium there.  For some reason she's been a little obsessed with octopus and jelly fish lately, and seeing a couple of those and some star fish seemed to satisfy her.  We enjoyed a walk out on the pier in Cayucos (where we saw some dolphins! I've never seen live dolphins before) and some time on the beach.  There was kelp just covering the beach, so Keilana stayed up on the dry sand, but Dylan and I headed down to the water.  Every time I thought we were far enough out to satisfy him, he'd point to the ocean and say, "Ww rr!  ww rr!"  He loves the water--creek, lake, pool or ocean, it doesn't matter.  The kid's a fish.

It was a great weekend--good friends, good weather, good times--and couldn't have come at a better time.  We both needed to be farther than an hour from Lindsay for more than a couple of hours.  It was rejuvenating and I was so grateful for the mini vacation!  But, obviously it didn't restore my brain power completely, as I seem to have loaded the pics from our trip in nearly exact backwards order.  Oh well, you get the idea.

Dylan doing a little light reading on the way home.  We bought this at Target to keep him occupied while Josh and Doug watched football.
Keilana reacts to watching the sea lion perform for some fishie parts.  He was a pretty big show off.
Despite knowing and being able to pronounce the word "seals" and "sea lions", Keilana still insists on calling them both "Arr Arrs"--which isn't helped by the fact that that is what Dylan now calls them.
Dylan tosses the sea lion a fish head.
Keilana preparing to build a sandcastle (which is lot harder to do when the sand is that dry!)
Dylan explains a few things to one of the seagulls on the Cayucos pier.
Doug and the kids heading down the pier--and into the wind.
The view looking northwest off the Cayucos pier Sunday evening.
Lindsi's hat was the hit of the weekend.  Dylan kept putting it on and saying "Yee haw!"
Annoyed that the pigeon wouldn't come to them, Dylan and Keilana decide to go to the pigeon.
Most people try to get pigeons and seagulls to go away.  My kids try to get them to come.
Keilana cheesin' out on the Santa Monica Pier.
Dylan pats his horse as he goes round and round on the carousel.
Keilana is such a ham.  As soon as she sees the camera come out, she starts posing.
Lindsi tries to decide whether or not to dunk Dylan in a fountain at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.
Doesn't Keilana kinda look like she could be Lindsi's kid?  Which is funny, because since Josh is Pakistani, Lindsi's own kids probably won't look this much like her.
The fountain was actually a spitting tricerotops, which Keilana and Dylan both loved.
Dylan is happily dunked feet first into the fountain by Josh.
Doug thought this was a good way to go in.  Dylan disagreed quite heartily.
But he was very happy to have his legs submerged over and over and over and over and. . . .