Ready for Retirement

This month has been so wonderful having Michael home with us for his vacation month. Not only has he been super helpful with the kids and allowed me to get a little more rest most mornings, it has been great for the boys and for me to just be able to spend time with him. I told him that I am feeling ready for him to retire so that we can continue having all this great time together as a family forever (I wish!). We have gotten all the planning done for the move and have started packing some things for Rochester this week. Planning for this move has been a little harder than past moves because we are sending half of our things and storing them in Rochester for a year and taking the other things that we will need with us to Salt Lake, so as we pack we can’t just throw everything into boxes, but need to decide which things we can get by without for a year and which things we have to have with us. But we are making progress – we sorted through our basement storage unit and our storage in the apartment, we have assembled a pretty good collection of boxes, we took many of the pictures and decorations down, packed the china, packed all the things we could from Kolby and Eli’s room, we went through all of our food storage and removed the items that would expire before we get settled in in Salt Lake so we can start using them, and we have packed what we could from the bathroom and linen closet, and a little from Camden’s closet, and I have started to post a few things for sale on craigslist.com. I think the next step will be to pack the odds and ends that have started to pile up in our bedroom since we started packing, then on to finishing Camden’s room. I feel like we’re not too far from getting the majority of the Rochester stuff packed, and then we can relax a bit more until we need to get everything packed after Michael’s graduation.

So, a lot of days this week were taken up by several hours of packing in the morning/afternoon with interspersed feeding, changing, and disciplining of children, and usually a fun family activity like some time spent outside (the weather has been nice) or games with friends. On Monday for family home evening we went over to Jacobus Park and took a little nature walk with the boys around a pond and through a wooded area to the playground and then back to the car, which was really nice. And when we got home Michael gave the boys a great lesson on the creation, after pointing out all the beautiful things on our nature walk that Heavenly Father and Jesus created for us.

On Tuesday I was able to go to the family history center in the morning for the German translation service that they provide a couple of days a week there. I took the scanned documents that I got from my grandparents’ house and the lady there was able to translate a letter and start into another document for me. So far most of the letters just list names that we know are family members from the last names, but the first names are mostly unfamiliar, but I am hoping that if we get all the letters translated that we will be able to figure out who some of the people were and how they were related to us. When my parents come for Michael’s graduation next month they are going to bring the pictures that they took of the headstones and the pages of the parish birth record book they found one afternoon at an archive while on their trip to the Czech Republic, and I can barely wait to see what those records show and am very hopeful that we will be able to find the names of some more ancestors when we look at those together.

Tuesday night was Eli’s night out with Daddy, and Michael had a meeting about student loans, so he took Eli with him. Eli colored during the meeting, then they both went to the library to read stories afterwards. After they got home, the Kearls came over and we had a fun night of games. Then on Wednesday evening Michael took Kolby, Eli, and Camden to the YMCA and I took Isaac with me. Michael swam with Camden while Kolby and Eli had their swim lessons, and then they all swam together. I went to an enrichment meeting at Sarah Lythgoe’s house about cooking with food storage, and I’m still trying to motivate myself to experiment with using some of the wheat and other food storage items in our everyday cooking. For now I feel like I want to keep trying to perfect my whole wheat bread first before adding something else to my ‘to do’ list.

Thursday night was a really nice break for us. After packing in the daytime, we got ready and dropped off our boys at the McMullin’s house and then went and picked up the Kearls. We drove downtown to the Marcus Theater and arrived just at the same time as the Hedgecocks. We all enjoyed a night out at the Orchestra listening to Holst’s “The Planets.” The music was very good. Afterwards we headed over to the hotel across the street for free desserts, which gave us a nice chance to talk to each other. After picking the kids up from the McMullins’, we ended up playing a few games over at the Kearls’ house before heading home late that night.

On Friday we continued to pack and we babysat for the McMullin’s to go out for a date that night. I think Michael enjoyed having an older kid around (their son, Tyler, is 10), because he pulled out his old Nintendo and they played an old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game. After the other kids were all in bed we watched Jumanji – probably one of my favorite big kid movies – and it was fun to see Tyler’s reactions as he got excited and jumped up and down during the more intense parts of the movie.

On Saturday we had plans to go to the Hedgecock’s and the Kearls were coming too, and we were all going to enjoy pizza for dinner and play some games together. So, Michael was working on getting some laundry done and I was helping the boys when the Kearls called in the morning, and Faith and I ended up going shopping while Tyce and Michael took the kids to the playground. It was fun – I haven’t gone shopping with a friend (other than my mom) for about 2 years now, I think. After the Kearls headed home, we ate lunch and then Kolby and Eli played some Sesame Street games on the computer until it was time to go over to the Hedgecock’s house. We had pizza and played a few different games, in between playing with and taking care of the kids. It was pretty impressive – by the end of the night we had all the kids asleep at the same time in their two-bedroom apartment: Carter fell asleep in his crib in Peter and Cynthia’s room, and Camden fell asleep in our playpen that we set up next to Carter’s crib, and Nathan slept in Peter and Cynthia’s bed. And Jordan slept in his bed, and we set up blankets on the floor in Jordan’s walk-in closet and Kolby and Eli camped out in there. After Isaac fell asleep we moved him in his car seat into Jordan’s room too. Then, after Camden was asleep we moved him to a blanket on the floor and put Katie to sleep in the playpen. I think we’ve gotten pretty good at getting a bunch of toddlers and babies sleep all at the same time in a small space – we probably wouldn’t know what to do if we ever had a big house with lots of bedrooms and beds for all of us and our friends to use.

And today church went pretty well. The boys did very well in Sacrament meeting and we didn’t even have to leave the meeting except for one diaper change. Then, after dropping the older three boys off at their classes, we substituted for Amanda Hansen as teachers for her 5-year-old primary class. We had five kids in the class, and they made our job easy by all being very good for us. We taught them a lesson about the Holy Ghost and I think it went well. Teaching the children’s class sure seemed to make church go by a lot quicker too. Then, after we got home I stayed home with Camden because he fell asleep on the drive home and Michael took the other boys for a walk around the neighborhood (and gave me a chance to write this). And, just as I was finishing writing, Isaac just rolled over from his back to his tummy for the first time (he rolled the other way a while ago, but hasn’t rolled this direction before). Well, better go get dinner ready. Hope you are all having a wonderful Sunday!