Ups and Downs

Monday night is our Family Night, sometimes called Family Home Evening. Our church encourages every family to keep Monday evening free from any outside activities, and make it a special time for parents to teach children the gospel and for family members to spend time learning, worshiping and playing together. We were all feeling tired last night and didn't do anything very formal, but I really enjoyed watching Nathan playing with the kids. They put on some swing music and danced, and he made them a forklift (yes, that's what the chairs represent; Luke is into trucks, tractors and other machines--typical boy stuff!)

I was so happy having my family gathered together having fun. Honestly, I think taking the kids to Disneyland would be a lot more stressful and not as much fun. Exciting, yes; but not this kind of simple, happy-we're-together kind of fun.

Today was a bit rough. Nathan missed his bus in the morning, he overslept. I don't really blame him--we've all been feeling a bit under the weather, and the kids have not been sleeping well; we've both been getting up with them during the night. Anyway, by the time he came back from the bus stop all the kids were awake so we piled into the car and drove him the 20 miles to work. After dropping Dad off the kids and I stopped to visit Grandma and Grandpa Williams, not our real grandparents but some dear friends who have subsituted for us out here with no family near by. We used to live just a couple of blocks away, and miss them since moving. We had a fun visit and Grandpa noticed that our front driver's side tire was nearly flat. I felt that was a real blessing--I don't think I would have ever looked at it and we would have had a flat tire somewhere on the freeway. We drove very carefully the 4 miles to Costco; our tires are under warranty there, so they did the repair for free. The kids and I wandered around while waiting for the repair, tasting samples (the entire purpose for a Costco visit, in the kid's opinion) and testing out the Christmas toys on display. By the time we got home I was feeling really ill, so I was just glad to sit on the sand at the playground while the kids played. Esther demonstrated her adventurous spirit by climbing up the twisty slide--it's taller than my head at the top, so it was a pretty good climb for her. I had to follow her up so she didn't fall off somewhere at the top, and found it quite a challenge myself.

After we came in I read a few chapters of "Thimble Summer" to the kids, while we waited for Daddy to come home. It's been a pretty quiet evening, and I'm ready to go off to bed. I hope we all feel better tomorrow!