once a month blogger

I have been a slacker on the blog lately.  I spend my online time looking at housing in houston and trying to figure out our life there.  It is kinda fun and kinda exhausting at the same time!

Also, I'm trying to write in my journal more....and I don't have time for both. Can't decide how to have the balance of the family journal and a personal journal.

Also, I spend the 2 weeks of the Olympics watching TV full time in the evenings! I am not at all a TV lover but the olympics really drew me in this year. I loved it. I watched as much as I possibly could with the lousy TV coverage they give us. 

Also, I loved Downton Abbey on Sunday nights for the last 7 weeks. The ending this year was so sweet. Downtown fans, raise your hand! :)  

I am also trying to clean for our move. Getting rid of lots of stuff. We will be moving into a house about 1/2 the size of our current house so we need to get rid of junk before we go. A lot of the junk is ours and some is leftover from when we moved in. Most will be donated or thrown away and a few items can be sold on craigslist. It feels good to be purging stuff we don't need and amazingly my house is much cleaner without so much stuff floating around. We have a big enough house that I often think I can have as much as I want/need to fit in here but really even if it all fits, it doesn't mean it's necessary in the house or makes my life better by being here!   

As fun as it is to get rid of stuff it has also been bittersweet to get rid of ALL baby things...toys, cribs, clothes, etc. I had always wanted one more baby boy and even though Calvin is 11 and Jo is 2 when it came to giving away the last few baby items it was the baby boy things that were left.  It is crazy to think we're done with the baby stage of life.  I never thought it'd come so quick.  boo.    I am lucky to have the little loves that I did get. They are wonderful.

Lexey drew this darling family picture one day. She loves to draw and write. It is a fun new skill she has. She also loves to read. Anyway, I got such a kick out of this drawing since Dan is in it. The kids totally think Dan is in our family. And he is, but not in the way they think. Also, it is funny how she calls Tressel "cressel". I guess we don't articulate his name correctly. And of course, I love how JoJo has backwards J's. I have decided that 5 year olds are the most precious creatures on the planet. They are so darling!

dear dan

Feb 11^th, 2014

Dear Elder Dahlquist,

Yesterday was Calvin's 11^th birthday!  For the celebrations he has had several fun activities. Saturday Dad and Kari took him to get his own present. He chose to get Healey's. He can't really use them which was very frustrating to him but he is still happy about them.  You know he likes name brand things…perhaps you trained him to like name brand things. You know Dave and I don't!  I will be interested to see if he learns to use the wheels or if he has given up on that and will just use them as regular shoes.

Sunday we had family dinner. Calvin chose to have chocolate trifle for dessert. Dave still doesn't eat trifle after an unfortunate incident with barfing lots of trifle last time he got a stomach virus.  We had Hawaiian haystacks for dinner. Calvin isn't very passionate about food (except for happy meals) so when I was planning dinner he just asked that I try to make something he likes because he didn't have anything in particular that he wanted me to make besides trifle.

Next Saturday we're having a bowling birthday party for him. We invited a few church friends and a few school friends. Should be fun.

I got an email from your friend Trevor Brown. He says you are the best friend he ever had and that he has never known anyone to treat women so well. How sweet! He said he just got back from his mission. Glad he was able to go back and finish. He has probably written to you also but still I thought I'd pass along what he said.

This Friday is Valentine's day and also Tressel's 5^th birthday! The kids are excited to have hot dogs and sing happy birthday to him. I love the tradition of celebrating Tressel's birthday on Valentine's Day. It takes away the stress of celebrating the (lame) commercial holiday that most people are stuck with!   Tressel is such a part of the family. I had a friend offer to keep him for a year while we go to Houston but I think the girls would be too homesick without him so I guess he's coming along.

Speaking of Houston, we're spending lots of time trying to get ready to go. Dave is spending HOURS of time  and THOUSANDS of dollars trying to get his medical license in TX. It is ridiculous! I am looking for school for Calvin and a home. I have a great home that we can rent for next year if I get schooling worked out for Calvin in the area I want will be perfect. It is about 15 min from the medical center which is nice. The commute/traffic in TX is terrible so it'll be good to be close. I love the mormon world.  I found the house through a Karen Davis's sister's friend  who put me in touch with a great contact in TX. He emailed the ward and we can take over the lease of another medical family graduating this june. So we know the ward is good,  the school is good and the neighborhood will have lots of mormon families. I'm excited.  I really hope the school situation for Calvin works out. It might fall into place just right and there are about a million ways it could not work out.  I have high hopes though.