The other man in my life. . .my dad

We live in a house that we rent from my parents. The stereotype in that statement just about kills me. But, to be honest, in some ways, I love it. I can't express the joy I feel when my parents show up and my girls run and give them a bear hug, exclaiming, "Grandma!!! Grandpa!!!" The grins that grandma & grandpa exhibit in return lighten my soul.

My dad spends a good deal of his spare time taking care of us. My expressions of gratidue to him seem so inadequte. Frequently, during the summer I'll notice someone outside mowing their lawn, then I'll look out the window and discover that it's my dad. (We have almost a full acre lot and only a push mower). He does have his own lawn too, and arthritic knees. In the fall I find him raking and hauling off our several tons of leaves before I can get to them. In the winter, I find him shoveling snow.

Since living here, my dad has replaced all our windows, installed a garage door opener & given me space to park in the shop, allowed Rich to work out of the shop, helped Rich move his shop to a diffierent location and them move it back a year later (this involved a deal of electrical rewiring), replaced some of the lawn with sod, remodeled the kitchen, helped us refinish almost the entire house, torn out old overgrown shrubs, & funded the purchase of new plants, tilled a garden, installed a sprinkler system, shoveled snow & ice off the roof, replaced the dishwasher, and replaced the front steps and porch railing. I'm sure I'm forgetting several things. Why does he do this? He says he does it because he loves us.

Why am I crying? Gratitude. I'm so grateful for my dad. Last night he finished replacing our transmission. We only get to pay for the parts. Yesterday, as I was attempting to express adequate gratitude he told me about a girl he works with. For some reason they needed an engineer to expect their house. They estimated it would cost them about $1500. My dad offered to do it for $100. After the job was done she paid him the $100. He took the $100, went to the grocery store and bought a pack of neccos candy, returned to work and gave her the change.

Not only does he give us his labors of love, he my best supporter. Often, when I'm feeling weighed down by the cares and worries of life, I'll look out my kitchen window to see if the shop light is on. Often it is, and I'll go chat with my dad. Sometimes we talk about what's worrying me, but most often we don't. We always have a good visit and I go back inside full of hope and gratitude. Part of the reason I enjoy him so much, is that I'm a product of him. I relate with the way he sees and approaches life. I think he is simply wonderful. I am one of the world's luckiest daughters.

Daily successes

We had our fall piano recital tonight. I think I'm usually more excited to get them over with than most of my students are. It's a lot of work and even more stress to get everyone prepared. After almost 10 years of teaching, I feel like I've developed into a pretty respectable piano teacher. I've learned to have high expectations, but not expect perfection. I've learned that floundering in a music recital can be a valuable life lesson for kids, in preparation. Tonight I was finally able to relax and enjoy my students' recital. I've always felt that the quality of their performances relects on me. Tonight, a couple of pieces were performed perfectly, most were wonderful, and a few were a flop. I don't feel compelled to take blame for the inadequate preparation of some. I've never taught piano lessons for more than 3 years in any one location. I've taught 3 years in Rexburg now. It was really fun to recognize the progress my students have made in the last 3 years.

I came home to a cleared table and 3 children in bed. I love Rich. He's so good to me. I laid down with Kate for a few minutes as she listened to her Nursery CD. It's one of our favorites. We highly recommend it. It's full of pretend stories and movement to music activities. Kate danced around the room and gradually moved the dancing to a laying-in-bed version. Unlike most nights, tonight I enjoyed it.

Kate-isims

Kate has been sick this week. As she was starting to get sick she she told me, "Mom, my voice is dirty."

The transmission went out on our Ford Explorer. While draining the transmission oil, it spilled on the floor of the shop. Kate asked, "Mommy, did the car frow up?"

Sunny San Diego

Amber and Kate are spending the night at Grandma's and Grandpa's tonight, so I finally found a moment to look at the photos from our San Diego trip. It was so fun to relive our trip a little. I love photos!

Shortly after arriving, we went to Pacific Beach. Both of the girls became mermaids.

Amber and I wrote in the sand.


This might become one of my favorite pictures ever. It does my heart good to see Richard happy.

This picture should be treasured forever. I love the role Rich plays in the lives of his daughters. A wonderful sister in our ward approached him last sunday to tell him she adores the way he watches his daughters.

Here's proof that Kate had a happy childhood. The energy that this photo captures makes me smile.

Jessica has just begun to eat rice cereal this week, but I think her first solid was sand.

The waves have probably washed this writing away, but it's etched forever in my heart.

We spent Halloween day at the San Diego Zoo. Jessica was a kitten.

Kate was a pirate.

And Amber was a ballerina kitty.

I was fascinated by the koalas, pandas, elephants, & gorillas. Kate & Amber were fascinated with the sculptures they could climb on and the sky ride. Rich was unfascinated, but humored my interest in the zoo. Somehow we managed to walk the same pathway in the zoo 5-6 times, and miss about 1/2 of the trails. I never did massage his feet like I agreed to.

Amber was rather grumpy until she finally got to go back to ride the quarter rides at the end of the day. I think we could find quarter rides closer to home.

Saturday was spent at Sea World. It was so great! The shows were Rich's top priority, so we hit the 1st show of the day early. They picked Kate and Rich to be the audience participants. They got to feed and pet the dolphins. They gave Rich a new wife (a dolphin trainer/cast member) for the show. In the show she trips & falls into the water & then grabs onto the dolphin for a ride. I captured the show on the video camera. I tried to use the LCD at first, and have a great video of the palm trees, due to the glare. The next few minutes are bouncy, due to Jessica trying to help by tugging on the cord of the camera. Finally, the lady behind me offered to hold Jessica and we got some good footage (but no still photos). Amber & I were so excited for Rich & Kate, as well as a little envious. We chose not to buy a $35 photo they offered us.

Jessica was just amazing. She wore this smile most of the day every day. She slept intermittently. We should take this girl on more family vacations.

This is the "Lost Kid Feature" at Sea World. It's a parent's worst nightmare. This climbing, crawling, playing, sliding feature is enormous and has multiple exits!!! Whose stupid idea is that?!? I was a little nervous about letting the kids go, so I told them to stay together and tried to watch them. Both proved impossible. I found Kate after 15 mintues of searching, but after an hour of searching we still couldn't find Amber. We called out the employees to help us search. Amber eventually came sauntering out happily and didn't understand why dad said, "Okay, we're done. Let's go to the hotel." I didn't want to be punished, and it wasn't really her fault they built a stupid kid maze. (Though she really did linger too long). Rich had a terrible headache and wanted to go, but dug into his heart and found an amazing amount of charity and stayed at Sea World with us so we could do the things that were a priority to me.

I love amuzement park rides. It was so kind of Rich to let us stay. I hated the guilt I felt waiting in line for this rollercoaster with Amber, but I loved the 90 seconds on the ride. (I'm still not sure the 90 seconds of pleasure outweighed the 20 mintues of guilt, but Rich insisted. I chose to accept his kindness). The look on Amber's face shows how she really felt about the ride. Of course, as a memory, it was really fun.

We visited a light house Sunday morning before our flight left. I love the picture of the girls dancing on the ledge. They dance every possible moment.

So, if you're read to the end of this travel-log, here's a laugh for you. Be warned, you may not want to travel with me. We arrived at the Salt Lake airport an hour early (that's really two hours early, right?) for our departing flight, because we were going off of Kerri's memory instead of checking the itinerary. Ha ha. Wait, it gets better. We were really tight on time getting to the airport for our return flight. We just couldn't figure out why everyone was so calm. We got to our gate just minutes before it was suppost to depart and they hadn't even begun boarding, but they said the flight was on time. We were boggled. Then, the time on my watch and on my cell phone were different. I figured it out while sitting in an airport bathroom stall. . .daylight savings!

Compassion

We're back from our trip to San Diego. We had a great time. I'll post some pictures after I have a moment to sort through them all. Right now, I'm trying to sort through the life, laundry, mail, & schedules.

We arrived in San Diego before noon on Thursday. After finding our rental car, hotel, & lunch we headed to Pacific beach. It was cool & overcast. We played, laughed, jumped in the waves, buried Kate in the sand and turned her into a mermaid, hunted for sea shells, and loved it. There were only a few other people there. I glanced back occasionally at our stuff and noticed the lady sitting on her lawn chair talking on her cell phone; and on the other side, the lady relaxing on her lawn chair next to the stroller. Eventually I noticed that she didn't have a baby in that stroller. In fact, it was just remnants of a stroller. She began layering more clothing as the weather cooled. Eventually I became convinced that she was homeless. I don't usually hand over change to pan-handlers because I don't believe they're all genuine, and I guess it bugs me that they just want handouts. But my heart was moved with compassion for this young woman. I wanted to go over and ask her what she needed, how we could help her. I'm ashamed to admit I didn't. I don't know why; fear? awkwardness? It really made me wonder. Does she have family members who wonder where she is? Surely someone loves her. She's a real person. What is she going through? Why? I felt gratitude for my "perfect" life all the love that surrounds me. I made a mental video of my kids playing in the ocean with their dad. I realized that my kids are so lucky to have two parents who adore them. They have good lives. Some day they'll be teenagers telling me that "it's just not fair." Now I can't find word to express when I went through, but my heart was changed. No life is not fair. Why am I so blessed? As someone so blessed, how do I give back?