Gym meet to AZ

I've really noticed a dearth in the blogosphere this past year from friends and family who used to blog, and thought I would never have that problem because I am by nature a faithful journal-keeper. But I have had a hard time lately drumming up the motivation to blog! I don't know what it is, 2014 I can empathize with those who have dropped out of the blogs because I've been tempted to myself. Anyway, here I am again and here's whats new with us.
Weston and I had ourselves a mother-son date last weekend Feb 22, to sunny Arizona! Boys who work hard get plane rides. We took the flight out of Provo airport to Mesa, which was pretty slick! Friday afternoon we arrived and my good friend Emily Norton, who grew up with Jared in Montana and coincidentally roomed with me at BYU and became a fast friend before I ever met Jared, let us stay with her at her home in Mesa. I was able to meet up with my Aunt Jeanie and Uncle Rick and cousin BrieAnne for dinner that evening, they took us to a pizza place called Flancers, which had really yummy gormet sandwiches, and it was so fun to catch up with them. Saturday morning Weston and I got up early to ride the 30 minutes west to the ASU Sundevil Classic gym meet held at Wild Horse Pass outside Chandler that started at 8:00 AM. What beautiful weather!!! 75 degrees and sunny.  Of course I was inside the big warehouse gym most of the day watching the lengthy meet. Weston did pretty well, choked a little on Pbars but he got his best pommel horse score of the season. Floor 9.7, PH 9.4, Rings 8.7, Vault 9.3, Pbars 8.2, High bar 9.6. We heard that the coaches there were tougher than the Utah coaches we were used to, so I felt like Weston did a little better than usual getting about the same scores with tougher judges, but really we were just happy to be there!  I took him to lunch and then to see Lego Movie after the meet, and while we waited for the movie to start we strolled outside in the beautiful weather. Emily and Enoch took us to dinner that night with their two cute kids, and the next morning at 5:30 am we were up and headed back to the airport to catch our 7:00 am flight home, and I made it back home by 9:30 when choir practice started. I stood up and led my choir with no shower in a jeans and t-shirt, dedication for ya. 

 

 

In other news, Fiora's used to her night time hard contacts now and her eyesight is great. I booked a nice lodge in Heber for our fist ever Barrett Family Reunion we will be holding in August when Krystal gets back from her mission. The whole family has been pitching in $20 a month for about a year now so we can afford a nice place, I'm excited about it. We celebrated Kayden's birthday at Jump On It yesterday and came here for cake and ice cream, and celebrated my brother Justin's 26th birthday today at my parents home, so its fun to have some family time. The kids are plugging away at school, Fiora had a fun field trip to Salt Lake City and saw a planetarium and a symphony. Savanna made a strange and funny film with her friends for a Spanish class Jared is helping her edit, we'll post it when they finish. Savanna decided to bail on her idea to join the track team at school, and she quit her violin lessons this week cuz she didn't really like the teacher, which made me sad, but also less stress for me juggling it all in.  Jared surprised me this week and bought me a lap top for work because my old one bit the dust a while back and I've been using my iPad to do all my casework with.  I'm usually disappointed on holidays and anniversaries but I don't need to worry, Jared always takes care of me eventually-- no anniversary gift last October but a new car at the end of the month, no Christmas gifts but a new washer and dryer that month, no gifts on Valentines day but a lovely gift of a lap top "just because" on Febrary 27th. Ha ha. Jared's still putting in a lot of hours and is very busy, but this week he might be able to slow down a bit, but we did get a date night finally Friday evening dinner and a movie which was a fun time for me.  So besides the big gym meet nothing too exciting, but we are blessed and grateful and enjoying the "little moments" during this time of life.  

Fun February

 I accompanied my friend Allyson Omdahl's daughter while she performed a solo for her orchestra teacher, and we spent some time practicing for it, so Allyson tried to pay me which I refused to accept. So the afternoon after the performance Ella (the violinist) brought me this pretty bouquet of purple flowers. I thought that was nice!

Weston and Jared got tickets to a monster truck rally a couple Friday's ago and said they had a good time watching the motorbike stunts and stuff. I personally can think of 100 things I'd rather be doing. In any case it was a great father and son bonding outing quality time etc etc.

 

 

 We took off Friday last week and headed down to st george to attend weston's 3rd gym meet of the season. We didn't compile a video of his events this time because its starting to all look the same. But if he ever gets a 10.00 or higher score on something we will be sure to share it.  I thought he looked really good on high bar this time so I added some pictures of him doing that. He consistently got 3rd or 4th place on every event at this meet, and usually the 2nd and 1st placers were people on his own team, so he is doing great. We had a parent/coach conference last week and Weston is excelling or meeting standards in every area. Pommel horse continues to be his weakest event.

 We had all the Barretts over for dinner last Sunday and Heidi made everyone jam and chocolate strawberries as a valentine gift, which was very nice of her. As we speak Jared is helping my parents move Grandma Rappleye's furniture from her house to their house. Just in the nick of time too, last week Grandma's plumbing was affected by overgrown tree roots and decay and her basement flooded. They have made a nice new place for grandma at their home and she will have privacy when she needs it and company when she needs it and round the clock supervision, which will be good for her, and easier there for my parents to be her caretaker.

For the past 3 months Fiora's vision has been declining, just like the eye doctor told us last May would happen, she has been complaining that can't see far through her glasses since November so I told her to wait til her birthday and we would go back to the eye doctor. The doctor stated that she still has rapid declining vision, for whatever reason the back of her eye is elongating to try and compensate for the myopia, so he talked me into doing Corneal Refractive Therapy, gas permeable  hard lenses you only wear at night that reshapes the cornea so the back of her eye stops thinking it has to compensate and holds its shape. She wears those at night and nothing in the daytime, its kind of amazing to me, like LASIK for kids. I'm a little nervous about her losing one of those $200 contact lenses someday though. They last for 2 years, if you can keep track of them...

Its the darndest thing, my kids have discovered they can do anything they want by looking up a "how to" video on youtube. Instead of watching TV programs, I catch the kids watching "how to paint your nails for prom" or "how to draw Olaf from Frozen" or "how to make a iPod valentines box." Fiora found this iPod box idea and created it almost all by herself, and so Weston found a minion box online and followed suit. I thought they turned out really cute, and since I'm really not crafty its nice they had initiative to do it themselves.

Fiora turned 11 on February 13th. She wanted chicken alfredo for her birthday breakfast. We always make time for a family breakfast and presents on the morning of someone's birthday around here. That day I checked her out of school so she and I could go to Pizza Pie cafe for lunch.  She mostly got craft items for her birthday, she is super crafty!!! must have gotten it from Grandma Sandy, cuz Jared and I can't claim that status. Fiora often has problems procrastinating her homework because she is working on a yarn covered headband, or crocheting and bow, or working on her rubberband loom, or sewing a beanbag out of old shirts, or making a boondoggle, or making jewelry with beads.  I even had to tell her teacher at parent teacher conference that the crafts have been getting out of hand, her teacher Dr. Welte has this "Welteville" business operation going where people order goods from each other to earn "weltebucks".  Its great for teaching business principles, but not good for motivating Fiora to work on social studies and math homework!  Her birthday party included 2 craft activities, making owls out of felt and valentines doilies, and making earrings and necklaces from materials she pre-ordered on Amazon for her birthday. She and her 8 friends also played a few games, "name that pop-star" and "spoons" and "Baby do you love me?" with lots of giggles and squeals. And she had an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins per her request. (spoiled) What a fun party she had!

Whiney post

January pushed me over my sanity cliff. I often tell my friends to go ahead and vent, it makes you more real, welcome to the human condition, I have those days all the time... but then I don't write about my hard times on the blog myself! I just write the good times, knowing that time will pass and negative days will be forgotten. In the course of a lifetime what does one stressful month matter anyway?  We just keep going, there's no other option. Well its February now and I'm in a better place, so I feel lucid enough to write about January stresses. If you don't want to hear about it you can skip this post.

I set myself up for it, last year January was a very calm stress-free month after a very crazy December, so I kept telling myself, "One of these days I'll just get to kick back and recover because its January!" But that day never happened, so resentment started to build. I felt like a heart beat, only resting in between beats, aka at night while sleeping. FIRSTLY, I hate the cold. Going outside is painful for me and even in the house is uncomfortably cold, and not having much sunshine to fuel my body with vitamin D affects me negatively. Secondly, for whatever reason, (stress cold age?) my monthly cycle was particularly vicious on me, giving me lovely mood swings ranging from anxious, to enraged to depressed to happy throughout the month. Thirdly, my client load almost doubled from December, which I had to keep reminding myself that was a good thing, that I love my job, and I'm here to serve and help, but even if all that is true it is still a time sucker and can be mentally draining. Fourthly, my parents were trying like crazy to get their basement finished for my elderly grandma to move in with them, and so every spare time I could get I would go visit them and clean or work on the basement, which was only 3 half days mind you, but I wanted to contribute to that endeavor and felt like I wasn't able to do anything to help. Fifthly, my husband's brother Chad has been battling cancer and got severe pneumonia and complications to that for 3 weeks, so we were praying fasting stressing and worrying about Chad, and spent a few days helping there which you read about in the last post. Sixthly, gym meet season, Weston only had 2 gym meets but they take almost the entire day to get through and he has had extra classes/clinics this month to attend as well, so more time sucking. Seventhly, sickness. My kids have all had coughs runny noses headaches and congestion all month. Savanna got a cough on new years day and she is still coughing, she told me today that she thinks its even worse than ever. I can't seem to find a spare hour anywhere to take her to the doctor unless I check her out of school, and I've been praying like crazy her body will just fight it off, I'm certain its bronchitis, or was, and Jared and I are both sick and tired of hearing her cough all night. I came down with a sinus infection this past week myself and just kept going to work like nothing was wrong, I hate to take sick days and cancel appointments, but maybe it would have been better than trying to analyze with half functioning brain.  Eighthly, Jared has been abnormally busy at work for a January, this is supposed to be his slow month but he has been working 6 days a week ALL month. Again, that is a good thing, he is doing great business and I don't want to complain about that, but the poor guy only got to attempt ice fishing once the whole month and got skunked, and it was almost too cold to even enjoy the trip. Ninethly, the kids are struggling for some reason to keep up on homework and assignments, probably because helping them with that sort of thing has been the last thing on my priority list lately, so I keep getting little progress report alerts saying Savanna has a D in this class, Weston got a 30% on this assignment, Fiora is missing this, Savanna is missing that, and every time I say "Oh well! Guess they will learn if they fail!" because I have no space to fit in you-are-failing-as-a parent-supporting-your-kids-academics into my already overflowing psyche.  Tenthly, I was called as the ward choir director last week, a calling to which I have already served 4 years in a previous ward and which I have struggled to feel my efforts are really doing much for the greater good of building the kingdom.  I guess the Lord wants me to change that attitude by giving me another go at it. At least I have lots of good ideas from being int he Orem Chorale for 1 year and 1/2.

So I have been tempted to say GOOD RIDDANCE JANUARY, but then I remember that all my problems are "first world problems," are really no big deal, and I get a nice side order of guilt to go with my ungrateful attitude. So I will write a list of 10 things that January blessed us with.
1. No financial stress
2. Our children have no disabilities/chronic illnesses/trauma
3. A healthy marital relationship
4. No addictions to overcome
5. Warm house,
6. Running vehicles,
7. Good food clean water every day
8. A month break from church calling
9. Progress on my parent's basement
10. Chad's recovery from pneumonia

 

Opposition in all things

The greater the oppositon the greater the joy. January has been an opposition in all things month. Jared's brother Chad has been battling pneumonia at a time he is vulnerable due to a battle with cancer, and most of this month he has been in the hospital in montana, but was life flighted to the Huntsman center when things did not improve.  We have been so worried about Chad and sad that he and his family have had to face his life threatening circumstances, so Jared's siblings headed a project to help bring some love and encouragement to Chad and Robin and their 4 kids. We went to Jared and Justin's office building and recorded encouraging messages on a dvd, (which Jared spent quite a bit of time that night editing and putting together) tied and signed fleece blankets, donated money, and made cards to include in a large care package. They were so grateful, the Schauers know how to treat each other when there is a crisis!  We had a baptism planned for Chad's son Mitchell here in Utah but as Chad was still in the Huntsman during this time, he had the unique opportunity to baptize Mitchell at the Huntsman! As hard as it was to see Chad so sick, it was amazing to see him be able to baptize his youngest child and the Spirit was very strong there. We all had to wear masks over our noses and mouths so as to not spread germs, but there were lots of smiles under those masks!   Chad is home now (joy!) and we are hoping he has continued progress the rest of the winter.

 January we spend a fair amount of time in the hot tub. Jared and I have been trying to work out weights more and we like to end a workout in the hot tub if we have time. Opposition--hard work out and sore muscles but relaxing hot tub after. Weston is still in the middle of gym meet season, two down, four to go. He got another nasty rip on his hand from the parallel bars this last week, and he has had sore muscles from extra training and gym meets, its really not easy being a gymnast, sometime I wonder why we put him through it, opposition in all things!  When he does so well at a meet its very rewarding.  If you didn't see his last meet on 1/18/14 you can view it here

I had a rare opportunity to have a few friends from my masters of social work cohort come visit one evening (Ruth Tanya Adam Rachel Shannon Justin Sam Jenny). Its always good to see them when I do. We are all working hard to make the world a better place for people. Its tough work but worth the effort! Some of my valiant friends are dealing with very tough circumstances and I'm praying for them, these aren't the type of people that stand outside the fire.

Another struggle we Barretts are pushing through is getting my parent's basement finished so my 92 year old grandma can move in soon. I've been spending every spare day I can going to Eagle Mountain and cleaning and prepping and encouraging my parents to keep moving forward as it has been discouraging at times. Jared suggested they hire out the dry wall and mudding, they were really hung up at that point with my dad trying to do most of it himself. He has been working so hard! They did so and hooray some progress was made this month. We got the painting done yesterday and carpet is being installed Wednesday!  The end is in sight, which is very joyful. And to end I'll add some beautiful pictures from Karli Sue's wedding that Kelsy took that I absolutely loved. Kelsy and Jesse made us a salmon dinner last night and we watched a movie in their theater, we love hanging out with those guys and their beatiful Knightly! 

Gym meet season is upon us

Yesterday begun the series of gymnastics meets in various parts of the state and one out of state that Weston will be competing in as a level 5 junior division gymnast nearly every Saturday until March. This is his first year on team so we are new to this process, and I have had quite a frustrating experience trying to get accurate information out of the powers that be at AAG so I can prepare for this, but with lots of trust in the Lord and after having a successful experience at the Missy Marlowe gym meet yesterday, I'm feeling like we will make it. Once we finally got our hands on Weston's uniform we figured he must have grown two inches since they measured him for it back in September, or they measured him wrong, because the pants were way too small, but nothing we could do at this point, the meet was the next day! I was just grateful that after all the money we spent on it he would at least have it for competition. He was super excited to have his uniform so we took a picture.

We packed up at 6:50 am Saturday morning to travel to Salt Lake and be at the Salt Palace at the appointed time 7:45, which we learned was way too early as they didn't even begin warm ups until 8:25 am, and those lasted until 9:45, so the competition actually begun around 10:00!  I was so nervous for him, but didn't need to be, he did a fabulous job on all his events, and the main reason he got docked was because he forgot to look at the judge and salute after on 4 of the events. Learning experience! He still managed to get a 54.8 overall score which was 1.8 over the required by his coach, and he placed 4th all around out of all the gymnasts of incoming gyms in his division. Not bad for his first go at it, he has gymnastics in his blood, and has worked hard.

Jared came with me, thankfully, so I had someone with me as I patiently waited through this competition process for 5 hours, and 1 hour of awards after, and we realized when we came home and watched/compiled the video footage that the time spent watching our son actually compete was only a little over 5 minutes. Ha ha! So if you ever want to come watch him compete be warned, its a long wait for a short thrill. I still enjoyed watching all the gymnasts though, such strong boys out there!  If you want to watch Weston's events (again not much more than 5 min) you can view them by clicking here
Here are Westons scores:
Parallel bars 9.0 High Bar 9.6 Floor 9.2 Pommel horse 8.2 Suspended Rings 10.1 Vault 8.7 Total 54.8