10-13-13

Here are some of the Elgan happenings:

We are doing great.  Steve is still enjoying his teaching.  He is working on a patent for an iPhone case idea that he has and hopes to market and make his millions on :-)  Then he has also started ILE (or whatever it's called now... the training for Majors) and that is extremely time-consuming and just tons of busy-work.  So he's pretty swamped with everything.  It's still ultimate-Frisbee season, so we go to all his games still.  They've lost only 2 games, and the last game was when Steve couldn't show up because he was sick (he's a pretty important part of that team). 

Steve and I went up to Boston a couple weeks ago to see a Michael Buble concert.  It was such a fun trip with just the two of us.  And the concert was amazing.  I am a huge fan of live music, so I was as happy as can be.  

Things are just the usual crazy busy for me.  We went with the Hohoshes and picked apples last Saturday, so I processed a ton of apples to make applesauce.  It smelled great in my house all week long.  I’m also working on Halloween costumes for the girls.  Ellie has decided she wants to be Hermione (she’s fully immersed in Harry Potter right now).  Her costume was just ordered.  But Katie wants to be Rapunzel and Sarah wants to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast.  I’m working on sewing their costumes now.  Ryan has decided to be Captain America and Tommy is going to be Spider-Man.  Anna will get some sort of hand-me-down from the costume bin. :)  This is actually the first year I have let them just pick their costumes.  In the past I always did a theme and everyone was part of it.  Ellie is getting a bit too old for my ideas, I suppose.  It actually makes me a bit sad.  

Ellie and Katie are really enjoying gymnastics.  I can see significant improvement each week, which is neat to watch.  They're still working on the basics like headstands, handstands and cartwheels, but they're getting more balanced on the balance beam and learning new tricks on the bars.   

Sarah and Katie started tap class this week and so far are very excited about it.  There is a new dance teacher and I am thinking she will do a great job with the girls.  The last dance teacher loved the kids, but there wasn’t a whole lot of actual dancing happening.  

Now, since everyone needs a Ryan, here are a couple more stories from him...

He was doing something rather naughty and said, "I couldn't help it.  Satan was talking to me too loud and I had to listen to him."

 He really, really wanted Steve to play video games with him, but Steve had to go to work.  Ryan was not going to be deterred.  He said, "Are you going to play with me?  Yes, or yes?"

We were driving home from a baptism tonight and Tommy asked if we were going to “Dick Donald’s?”  Steve and I got a chuckle out of that one- it was a McD’s…

So Anna has become quite the stinker lately.  She can climb on anything and everything and so she does.  For example, right now she is sitting on the dining room table playing with crayons because she pulled out the dining room chair, climbed on that, then climbed onto the table.  That's actually her favorite place to play, much to my chagrin.  Not exactly the safest place to be!  She is still as opinionated about life as ever.  And we hear about it.  She has a very tenacious personality and can be frustrating, but also extremely adorable and fun to be around as well.  We love that little girl. 

Things are a bit nutty politically here.  I don't know if you heard that there's a government shutdown right now?  We haven't been very affected, besides the commissary being closed for a week, but there are others that haven't been paid and sometimes it's just frustrating to watch the country act so wickedly.  If only everyone understood the Gospel and gospel living, we would all be a much happier people!

I've been reading about Moses and how the Lord blessed them over and over and still they just whined and complained when things weren't handed to them right when they wanted them.  Makes me think about how the world is these days.  We want to be blessed and we want it in our own time!  We all fall into that trap, that's for sure.  

This year we just have two new cadets that we sponsor.  There weren't any LDS ones left, so we have 2 non-LDS that we sponsor.  We've had them over only a couple times, but they're nice kids and we enjoy them.  We also have one return missionary that we have over as well.  Otherwise all the cadets in the branch are really well taken care of.  We can never find anyone last-minute to have over on Sundays like we could last year.  That's a good thing- having them all so well taken care of, but it makes it hard for us to have people over.