boo hoo

I wish to give myself a pity party, so if you do not wish to join me, read no further. I am a dancer. I love it. I live it. My idea of a fantastic day would be to dance for hours on end. So it seems natural that I would love it if my children were interested in dance. Wouldn't it be amazing if they were able to get scholarships and opportunities dance their whole life through if they wish?

Really it isn't too far fetched. I can help with technique and flexibility at home, they could advance as quickly as can be in their classes. So why not? Then second guess myself about the psychology of children and teens. What if I push TOO hard. Will they end up hating it rather than loving it? Where is the line? Should I feign a lack of interest so they can choose this for themselves? Should I tell them stories about how much I love it and how much happiness it brings me? I don't know!

Obviously Sadie is still young and she is my first child. So naturally she is getting all my experimental parenting out of the way. When she was 3 I taught her and some other neighborhood girls. She liked it for social reasons, not necessarily for dancing itself. I worried she would stop listening to me as her teacher, so the next year I signed her up at a renowned ballet school nearby. Their technique is seriously amazing. After 4 months, Sadie was done. She hated it. I had to coerce her into going to class every week. It didn't feel that it was too strict or too structured for a 4 year old. So I am wondering, is this a 4 year old thing? Does she really not like dance or is it her teacher? Or ballet? I don't know.

She would tell me that she doesn't like stretching. So I tell her to do everything else the teacher says except stretching. Maybe she'll like it then. Nope. She doesn't like it. So do I tell her she needs to keep this commitment that I made for her until the end of the dance year? Should I let her quit? Again, where is the line? Does there even need to be a line for a 4 year old?

So I then suggest gymnastics. (Barf)...(no offense to gymnasts, but we all know gymnastics isn't dance...BUT it's as close as I am gonna get) She did gymnastics for a few months and excelled. So much so that her teachers bumped her up to a higher level. Boom. Sadie doesn't want to go anymore. What? Why? What is going on? Is she self conscious? Does she really not like it? Is it the teachers, friends, etc? I don't know.

So we take a break. Meanwhile I notice that this girl has some moves. She might not like ballet because she is naturally a hip hop kind of girl. We try some hip hop on our own. She doesn't like it. Then BOOM. I find the most amazing deal in the universe here for a summer dance camp (jazz, ballet, and tap included). She can go to as little as 1 hour a week up to 10 hours a week for 8 weeks for $200. THIS. IS. AMAZING. So I take her to a trial jazz class today. (I was hoping anything but ballet would do the trick.) She leaves the class after the first 10 minutes. Apparently a girl told her she had to leave the classroom. What? No. Go back in, listen to your teacher. Tears. But MOM! I don't know what to do! More tears. I never want to go to a jazz class ever again!

Sadie does not have to be a dancer. She is one amazing little kid regardless of my imposed wishes. She can be whomever she wishes to be. I get that.

But can I just let it be known that right now I am seriously bummed.

Luke Air Force Base

When we moved here, we regularly saw and heard a ton of airplanes and jets pass. It turns out that the Air Force base is only about 10 miles away. They have a big show once a year and so we decided to try it out. Circumstances forced us to go towards the end of the day and it turned out perfectly. The event is free, so there are thousands of people to wrestle when getting in the venue. We arrived when many people were leaving for the day, so we got a great parking spot. (About a mile walk away.) We still got to see the Thunderbirds do the last show of the day.

It was actually really thrilling to see all the crazy things they do in the T-Birds. Nosedives and close drive byes left me holding my breath.

They also had dozens of airplanes on the base for visitors to walk through.

People were able to talk to pilots and view vintage to modern airplanes. I thought Boston would love this event more than anyone else, but Ryan and I were even more excited than the kids. It was so cool!

After about an hour of walking around, the air show ended and the kids were ready to go. It was a little crazy leaving the venue, but it was worth every minute. We will definitely go again next year!

Our Fabulous Library

As I mentioned before, there are lots of activities for kids at our library. One weekend in March, we went to a library fair. There was no admission fee. Each child took home a goodie bag with an age appropriate book to keep as well as bookmarks, and other craft stuff. They had bouncy houses...

They also had a reptile show.

and a balloon artist.

They even had face painting. Of course, Boston would not participate in the face painting or the bouncy houses. But he did get to paint a wooden snake to take home. And of course, his balloon sword popped on a cactus within minutes of having it.

Another activity at the library during spring break. (Yes, Spring Break was March 10-14) We went to the library for a "Lady Bug Release". There was supposed to be a whole presentation about lady bugs, but it was too hot for the kids to be out in the sun so they shortened it to a Lady Bug story. Then each child got a small bug house and dozens of live lady bugs. You could release them at the library or at home. Then they got to do a lady bug craft. Boston had a great time. (Brooklyn was too hot to enjoy herself, so we had to cut it short.)

While we were doing the lady bug thing, Sadie was inside the library with a girl scout activity. She got to got for a few days and do all sorts of projects with girls her age during the break. That did have a small fee, but it was still uber cheap. We really scored on our library!

Zoo

February 12, 2014

My friend, Raeanna, invited us to go to the zoo. I have to be honest that I was really worried about driving there. Googlemaps is notorious for bad directions and even when it worked properly, I managed to get lost with it. I mean WAY lost. Like a 45 minute drive took me 90 minutes one time with no traffic. But I made it to the zoo all the way in Phoenix without having to turn around once!

Boston did not cry once during this outing. It was amazing. However, he did poop in his underpants. I was prepared with a change of clothes, so all-in-all I consider this outing a complete success. (Boston was fully potty trained about two weeks after this venture.)

Some ducks came padding by. It was a hit with all the kids.

Here the kids were looking at the tiger. He was roaring and roaring for about 20 minutes while we were walking around the zoo. You could hear him a long distance away. The kids loved it.

Hannah and Sadie are great buddies.

We had a great time in the great weather!

Arizona

Sadie with the mascot of her new school. She is liking it and has made some new friends.

We have attended story time at our library almost weekly. This library is 5 times the size of Pleasant Grove library, so I am in heaven. There is a LOT of programs going on regularly for children too.

You don't get the full tour of our new place, but here are a couple of pics. I love how open the kitchen feels.

So the square footage of our new place is only about 200 square feet bigger, but because of that and the garage, our place feels ginormous. All of these items (piano, desk, chair, bookshelf) used to be in the master bedroom. Now they have their own room! I'm so giddy. :)

About 2 weeks after we moved, Sadie woke up one morning feeling homesick. We had a wonderful cure for those blues later that day. Uncle Devin and Aunt Katie happened to be in AZ and were able to play for a while.

There are so many novelties about living here that I'm sure will become the norm. Rocks instead of grass, cacti everywhere etc. One novelty is that we see lizards in our backyard all the time. I'm too slow to catch them, so we had to wait for Dad to catch one.

We are renting our place, so we don't have a lot of options for our garden, so Ryan is trying a bucket garden. Apparently it uses a lot less water, so we will see how it goes.

They just opened a nearby park last fall. It is huge! I has a splash pad, playgrounds, a fishing pond, and several baseball fields. (Another novelty: many parks have the overhead shades because it gets so hot!)

A week after we moved, the weather was in the high 70s and I thought it was the perfect time to get Sadie to ride her bike without training wheels. It has been an arduous process. I'm guessing the problem is more me than Sadie. We practiced daily for 3 or 4 weeks with little progress. Ryan thought she might be less afraid on grass. That helped a lot and she is now riding pretty well.

It seems like I see these all the time here. I think it's just that I have a little more time to enjoy the beauty around me.

Initial feelings about moving to AZ in general as well as specifically to this new house are as follows:

Things that I LOVE: (In no particular order)

• I have a garage!
• I have an enclosed back yard of my very own!
• I have storage space!
• I have a bar in the kitchen so the kids don’t have to sit at the table.
• I don’t have to move the table to access the garbage can or other chairs. Or at all! Basically I don’t have to move the table 5 times a day!
• My food storage isn’t under the beds anymore!
• I don’t have to worry about the noise bothering the neighbors.
• It’s actually a really quiet neighborhood.
• I don’t have to carry my groceries up a flight of stairs anymore.
• Did I mention I have a garage and a back yard?

Things that I’m not so sure about:

• Ryan found 7 scorpions in our back yard in the first two days of being here. The house has been vacant for a few months, so I wasn’t surprised. He also had to really search for them underneath heavy rocks etc. They weren’t just wandering around. But it is winter and supposedly they come out more in the summer months. Zero in the house so far. So ultimately I’m not sure how I feel about it because I don’t know what to expect in the coming months.
• I am so paranoid that I will not walk around the house in the dark for fear of scorpions.
• I am aware that no one has died in the Phoenix area in over 20 years from a scorpion sting.

Miscellaneous things of note:

• I will not judge AZ by my initial horrible experiences of getting lost over and over the first week. Yes, I still got lost with gps enabled on my phone with the aid of google maps. I’m just that good.
• The first two outings (one to the post office and one to the library) I ran into someone in our new ward.
• Sadie’s school is in walking distance. It seems to be a lower income school, which doesn’t mean Sadie will suffer in school. I actually love that she is a minority in her class being Caucasian. I think it will be wonderful life lessons for her attending here. I am really sad to see her current class way behind her class at Odyssey. She was in an accelerated class there and we really loved her teachers. I think I will just supplement a lot of things to help her continue to progress.
• Sadie’s teacher happens to be LDS.

Saying Goodbye

Sorry this is going to be a crazy long post. We are going to miss so many wonderful people in Utah. We have lived in Pleasant Grove for the last 7 years. There are so many friendships we will treasure. It was really hard to say goodbye to my book clubs. I seriously look forward to these ladies every month.

Top Row: Jill, Debbie, Kristin, Meagan Bottom Row: Starr, Erin, and Merissa

Sadie's last day of school at Odyssey happened to be a party day with a Native American theme.

Her best little buddy Sawyer. They play together a couple times a week and then see each other at school too.

Watching Sadie say her goodbyes was harder to experience than the goodbyes to my own friends.

Her friend, Ollie, from church was crying on the way home because Sadie was moving. He asked his mom if he could write her a letter and give her a gift. It was so tender!

We had such short notice of our move, we couldn't possibly visit everyone we wanted to farewell, so we had everyone come to us. We felt loved having our friends and family come. Tara, James, Ava-Kate, and Liam Carpenter

Stephanie and Jameson

Chelsey and Andrew Jones family

Bethany and James Davis family

Kassie and Jesse Draper family

Andrea and Jeff Knapp family

Yes we are all crazy. :)

These girls love each other. They regularly ask if they can play together even though we live far away. Sadie, Amber, and Ashely

Alissa, Erin and Ashely

Logan and Zack

Oh Bishop Morgan! You will be missed. Ryan considers this man his "trainer" as a bishopric member.

The wonderful men Ryan has been working with the last couple years. Ryan, Bishop Rushton, and Jeff McNamara

Bobby Johnson, Ryan, Bishop, McNamara, Corbin Worthin, Kade Osborn

Grandma Kisses

Anderson side

My sis and her awesome new Fiance, Jason.

Alkekma side

My Grandma Nielson

Our silly goodbye note from the Browns! Hahahaha!

Goodbyes to Uncle Nate.

There are so many more not pictured, but we will seriously miss you all!!