Mission Call, Valentine's Day

The ole groundhog predicted 6 more weeks of winter…the memo skipped the west coast! I hear central and East coast are having quite a different winter than we are out here. Mrs Harp said the last time winter was like this year was over 30 years ago. It’s now in the 50s almost everyday, in February. Crazy. My daffodils, tulips, and other bulbs are all coming up. Guess we had an extra long autumn melding into spring. 

Evelyn had a rough guitar lesson. I had an “ah-hah” moment during the lesson which could explain her troubles in band. She struggles to find her place in band, keeps getting lost. At home she freaks out whenever I try to play along with chords, strum machine, or even the metronome. I think with her brain she cannot process more than 1-2 inputs at a time. If I play the exact same notes she can play along without barely a mistake, add chords to the melody and suddenly she becomes almost crippled. As I was sitting there watching her struggle, Emma pushing her (kindly), and Andrew strumming along, the problem she has became crystal clear. She literally cannot process something new until her brain has finished processing the old issues. She gets stuck in a loop, a literal loop. I’ve always wondered why she gets so riled up and will not drop something, even when the issue was resolved. She has difficulty when more than one input is given, she latches on to the one that makes the most sense, any other input is relegated to the noise category. Poor kid started crying because she worked so hard on her favorite song but could not get it to work in a different setting with different inputs. I hope knowing the problem can help me identify when to help her separate the “channels” into something she can handle. 

MCO started this week! Hooray! Phillip said even with 60% new participants in the older choirs they ran through The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere with flying colors, Brett gave them all a thumbs up. Josie is thrilled to have Melody Ipsen in choir with her this semester. We also invited Mikayla Grow for the first week to try it out, she is in love with MCO now. I hope her parents can find a way to let her join. Looks like the concert will include most of the same songs from the Boston Tour show. 

Amelia called me during kindergarten specials…on a Monday. I knew what that meant! Sure enough she got her mission call link! Clare volunteered to drive Amelia home even when that meant missing Super Bowl Sunday with her family. That’s love right there. It was so HARD to keep Amelia’s visit a secret from the kids. We talked about having a zoom and FB live event when Amelia opened her call, which was true. Amelia also had a concert to attend until late Friday night, true, but the concert was here in Nampa on Saturday morning. Mrs Sene invited Amelia to attend All-State as an educator this year. 

Friday was a very special day for Josie. She’s been on Earth for 10 birthdays already. Everett got up earlier than usual to make her bacon for breakfast, Evelyn made her some pancakes. Josie invited Kara and Lucy over for a long playdate from 1-7 pm. The girls had so much fun roaming the neighborhood with dinosaur wrist walkie-talkies. Seriously, Josie made me laugh with all her birthday requests: Dino wrist walkie-talkies, yarn, yarn bag, swing, Furby, grunting Minecraft cow, and hand warmers. I found a pair of edelweiss earrings! She really loved the earrings. She asked for chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches for her treat and burritos with red rice for dinner. What a funny character. She opened gifts off and on all day when she got really bored. I was gone half the day grocery shopping or shuttling kids here and there. 

I asked the kids to spend some time tidying up their chores. I walked in after grocery shopping to find Everett had cleaned up an item or two, the rest was the same. I lost my marbles (again). Lecture, lecture, lecture. Then I started throwing cushions off the couch. It was all over. The couch lost whatever battle it thought about waging. I think we removed about 2 pounds of dirt, sticks, household items, wrappers, and found several lost items. Hooray. Finding that much garbage inside the couch was quite revealing. Now the couch is all cleaned up and ready for another 2 pounds of dirt and lost stuff to gather. That felt like progress. Justin helped whip the kids into a cleaning fury. Yes! My mom dreams came true. 

Around 8:15 pm the doorbell rang, Josie found a box of Reese’s pieces. Phillip spotted Clare’s car. Amelia flounced in delivering a lovely surprise right as Josie was about to open her gifts. Best present ever, right? Evelyn was very sad about not having Amelia home when she read her call, now we could experience that together. Josie loves her new swing. For now, it is hanging in the loft until the weather turns warmer. I spotted her Sunday sitting in the swing, her cheese wheel of yarn on the floor, crochet work in her lap, and her echo dot reading a Wings of Fire book out loud. That is the life right there. 

Saturday we cleaned the house better than our usual sort of job. With Amelia home I could finally divulge why we needed to get the house clean. I was so happy to have a reason to mop the floors. I also reorganized the bathroom cabinet, throwing out all the hair bows the girls have outgrown. We let Josie choose a place to celebrate her birthday and Amelia’s mission call with lunch. She chose Golden Corral. That girl was happy as a lark with her huge pieces of fried chicken chased down with cotton candy and ice cream. Everett tried his best to break Uncle John’s 12 full plates record, he didn’t even come close the light-weight. I stopped at Ross on the way home to find shoes for Josie plus other fun stuff you had no idea you needed. Amelia found a darling dress to wear for the evening’s mission call event. I had two other errands to run before we got back home. I hoped some of Amelia’s friends and ward members would show up for her mission call reveal. We are grateful the Ostlers and Aunt Fawn showed up. Justin spent quite some time and money prepping for the video call. He got a gimbal for Christmas, added a microphone to the set up, and a tripod. He was set! We were all a bit nervous and excited about Amelia’s call. I honestly, was a bit “Martha” that day. By the time the moment came I was all twisted up and almost missed the spirit of her reading. Amelia is called to serve in the Baton Rouge Louisiana mission, Spanish-speaking. We guessed the Spanish speaking part! Very cool! I am relieved she is serving stateside, thrilled she will learn Spanish! She will go to the Mexico City MTC instead of Provo to learn Spanish. Guess we need a passport after all. Clare and Amelia left Sunday morning to make the drive back to Rexburg. It was a quick trip. Having her home to experience her mission call? Golden!