July in a nutshell

Dear Everyone,

This is coming a week late because last Sunday (July 28th) we were driving through Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois.

Family

In my last update I mentioned being in Utah the last week of June to see Danielle's extended family and many of you. Upon returning Victoria loved telling us about Leslie, Julia, and Emma. In addition to hearing about these three she can name most of my siblings and their kids from pictures now. She even said Uncle Marshall once when I was video chatting with him and she walked by. She has also started using her whole first name, Vici-toria. Once she losses the extra syllable in the middle she will be ready for the next step.

Tucson

We finished our time in Tucson with some great rain. Victoria loved joining in puddles. While in Tucson we got to attend 5 baptisms, one of which I got to do the baptizing. Danielle tried her hardest to get anyone we knew to show up to any church thing. She was able to have two families over for dinner and family home evening. We also spoke in church our last week. I was able to finish everything at work except the project I started the last week. I had the opportunity to present my work to the management three levels up. It was well received and Micheal Bardach (my supervisor) has been ask by his boss when I am coming back.

Villagers

Our drive back went very well. Victoria was very good, but whenever we were getting back in the car she would tell us "don't want go home". She deserve a reward for her cooperation. We managed to avoid bad weather like the record rain fall in Albuquerque that closed the highway hours after we drove through. We also got to speak at the little Hiawatha branch in Kansas that we stopped at.

Within 15 hours of getting to Champaign we turned around and moved to the village of Savoy. So we are now villagers. We are enjoying our new townhouse and the idea of not moving again until I graduate or two more kids come along.

Odds and Ends

In the last week and a half Victoria has started parroting everything and using sentences by default. Though she struggles use pronouns correctly and often drops little words such as to, am, and is.

We learned this summer that Victoria likes food pure and unadulterated. This start when we tried to introduce her to s'mores and culminated with her getting mad at me for putting cookie dough on my marshmallow: "Noooo, daddy get off." As I type this she is carefully eating around the strawberries in the strawberry jello. Once the jello is gone she will eat the strawberries.

We hope everyone is well and miss those we did not get to see this summer.

Greg

Here is a link to some of our pictures from the month. I will get Danielle to upload the rest this week.

The Not-so-full-time Missionaries (Danielle's version of June)

I started this on time but had to rescue a toddler with a head injury before I could finish and hit send.

Greg continues to enjoy himself at Raytheon but actually took a real break when he went on the family vacation. He is truly a physicist at heart--always problem solving and wanting to learn more.  Victoria also enjoys learning and even lets Mom (me) work regularly on calculus homework or French online.  Hopefully she'll learn quickly about baking too since she's going to help me make two or three cakes in the next two weeks or so for church stuff.  Luckily, only one of them has to be fancy schmancy.

MISSIONARY MOMENTS AND SHOUT-OUTS

Our mail is finally being forwarded properly, so thanks for the letters Lizzy and Elder Hubbard! I now have two cousins who have received mission calls but not yet entered the MTC. I currently have 3 more cousins serving full-time in addition to my two sisters and now my parents (and sort of Jonathan.) Whew!

Watching my Dad be bolder than ever in declaring the gospel the last couple days of vacation was inspiring. It was a treat to have a father's blessing too as he and we enter new phases in life. Thanks Dad!

I don't know if any of you remember our friend Mikai from AK. We've been meeting with him and the missionaries for lessons, FHE, and rides to church. This week he attended the singles ward, and I think decided he prefers the family ward.  He just called Greg tonight and asked that Greg be the one to baptize him this Saturday night! I'm so excited for him. I'm also excited for Marisale Soto who was baptized while we were out of town; her sons were baptized two weekends ago. I think it's great to have whole families be baptized, because it makes it easier to live the gospel and come unto Christ.

We also have befriended a Christian family (our nearby neighbors a couple buildings over). They are quite generous and have a two year old daughter named Faith.  They attended a two-hour weekly church meeting on Sundays and have family Bible study every night.  We've had one BBQ potluck together already and hope to have our second Mommy-daughter play date tomorrow. Elder Williamson made a great suggestion at dinner tonight about starting a mother-toddler playgroup with a scripture moment each time. "If you start now you could meet twice before you move and then invite her to give the scriptural moment so you can be like, 'Oh you don't have one?' and give her a Book of Mormon." We're also inviting them to the ward breakfast on Independence Day.

SHE TALKS MORE

Since Friday afternoon (about 24 hours after saying goodbye to her Oma and Opa), Miss Toria has been saying Opa, Oma, & Jonny or something like Jonathan. In asking Victoria to identify the prophet's picture at the beginning of the First Presidency message she proudly declared, "Opa!" At first she wouldn't take a closer look. She misses Dewey (Julia Hart) and Emma Hansen and still talks to us about her recent memories with them.  She also tells us what she learns in nursery, like that Jesus and God love her. And she can also tell you about the sacrament and Jesus' broken body. Today  her new word is elbow, I think because of the nursery lesson yesterday about bodies.

VACATION HIGHLIGHTS

• going on a date to the Work of Salvation broadcast while the Blacks babysat Victoria; spotting my sister Lizzy in the missionary choir (couldn't find Mom or Dad.)
• yummy food and lots of it
• *seeing family and friends from far and wide
• dinner at the Lion House
• seeing a mother perigrine falcon and her baby
• Victoria's first time on temple square
• finally taking family pictures (thanks Aunt Katrina and Summer Harper)
• **a family sealing session with my grandfather as the sealer and almost all of his endowed descendants including spouses in attendance! (4 had to work and 2 were in the mission field already) We even got to do some sealings I found on my Dad's line! It was just great.

HOW TO CELEBRATE PIONEER DAY

Greg pointed out that within days of Pioneer Day we'll be driving across the country back to Illinois to move to our little village of Savoy. We're hoping to stop at Tucanos in Albuquerque and should easily be back to attend our beloved Urbana ward Sunday afternoon.

Attached are a few photos for those who cannot view the full album via google +

Greg's Version of Another Busy Month: June

Hello everyone,

Despite the heat we are enjoying Tucson and where we are living. Victoria loves swimming and going on walks. She enjoyed spending last Saturday with her Mhart cousins and we are sad that we won't get to meet up with them again before we leave.

We recently met another family in our complex in our family with a girl just older than Victoria. We had seen each other before and both families spent the last month trying to find the other. Which finally happened. Ken Oliver works on the nearby air force base and his wife Janice and daughter Faith are home all day. They moved to Tucson about the same time we did and are really happy have some friends. They are super nice and we feel bad we will be leaving in a month. We are hoping to introduce them to another family in the ward that live in the same complex (though we haven't met them yet) so they will know some else with kids when we leave. Also we hope to prolong their contact with the church. 

Things are going well at work. I met with my supervisor (on the management side), [Mike] for my 30-day evaluation and he is happy. He told me I can come back when ever I want for however long I want. I also think the guy in charge of the project (the one who actually gives me work to do) [Ed] is happy with me. I am enjoying doing a variety of things and feel I am making larger contributions than last time I was here. I haven't been making as much progress on my research as I hoped to; though mostly I am waiting for jobs to run, so there isn't much more that I can do.

My research adviser and my project lead at Raytheon just got married (not to each other). Which coincidences nicely the celebration of Danielle's grandparents 50th anniversary.  We are in Utah for the week trying to see as much family as we can. We are already into the week and already having a blast. So far we have seen the Blacks, Phillips, Dolls, Spencer, mom, and dad.

I am sure I had more to say, but I am going to go play with my nephews. Danielle has pictures up on Google +. I will have her send the link out to everyone.

What thinks Greg of May?

May has been a diverse month.  I finished by second semester of graduate school. As soon as time was up on my last final we were on our way to Tucson for the summer. Victoria was did much better on the drive than I anticipated. However once we were here she was hestitate  to get back in the car for several days. In our first week of being here we lived in three different places. The first was great, but Danielle's allergies vetoed it. After spending several days in an extended stay hotel we found a two bedroom condo that is working out very well, thanks to Marshall and Jani lending us some furniture..  We attended our new ward for the first time today. Last week Victoria woke up with pox on her face and chest (she was immunized just before we left illinois). Our first week was interesting. We met a couple who lived in Champaign-Urbana (he use to be our stake presidents home teacher), a man who was good friends with another member our illinois stake presidency while they were in graduate school, and one of the sister missionaries in our Tucson ward is Kristie Allred from Acher. I am very good friends with her brother Jason.

At Raytheon I am working on ESSM (Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile). The guy teaching/tasking me is friends with Marshall and quite a charactor. For example he stopped by my cube the other day and said: "With Raytheon matching you could tithe 5% to BYU, then would Raytheon matched it you would have a the whole 10%, but you only had to give half of it." At this point I think I have learned as much about him as the missile. I am looking forward to getting payed to not work tomorrow.

Danielle and Victoria are enjoy having a lot of room to play in and having a pool to use. Danielle has a new speaking partner she is working with and is about ready to take her final in French. Victoria has been enjoying reading and is working on colors and numbers.  Yesterday she flipped through a deck cards and told me what each number was. She is particularly good at 2,6,9,10. Is also really likes to say yellow and is glad her new shoes have yellow on them.

Here are some pictures from May. If these links don't work you will have to get the correct ones from Danielle. (They appear invisible on the blog because the links have been viewed once already to see if they work; sorry. Just hover your mouse over the seemingly blank part at the end of this post. ~ Danielle)

May

Tucson Condo Adventures

Here comes May!

Here in Arizona!

So far I've learned several valuable lessons: 1) When oil gets hot enough it can set off smoke alarms. 2) Our hotel has really loud smoke alarms though Greg has proven that our condo's alarm system is just as deafening. 3) Broken ceramics are dangerous but don't guarantee cuts...at least not ones that need stitches. 4) Victoria doesn't seem to mind staying inside all day after a few days. 5) I'm not as adventurous as I used to be.

We're going to get settled soon. I'm allergic to the backyard in which the guesthouse resides so we've moved out of it and into an extended stay hotel. I bet we could do much good in the ward here in Tucson (more so than Sahuarita where the demographics would suggest less temporal needs.) Greg is looking forward to studying during the bus ride to work, which he wouldn't have if we were further south in the suburb of Sahuarita. But I would like a bigger freezer/fridge and an oven; I've already decided I can live without a pool if I have to. Marshall and Jani have some more friend's with a rental property Vicky and I visited. While it's in the district of the clubhouse, we won't have access to it (pools, fitness center, etc.) because we're renting for less than 4 months. But it would have an oven and full-sized fridge/freezer...We've been living off fast food for a few days and Greg especially hates it. Vicky doesn't seem to mind a daily ice cream or dose of french fries.

Wednesday night to celebrate Greg's completion of "jumping through the hoops" at work, we went to a local grocery store and bought ourselves a family meal in addition to some basic necessities. It was a wonderful idea of Greg's and now we have leftovers. Unfortunately the Fry's in Tucson is not too nice so if we do stay we'll have to find a better grocery store arrangement (and remember to go before Victoria's bedtime so she's happier.) We're mostly adjusted to the time zone change; because Arizona doesn't observe day light savings we are in the Pacific time zone & currently two hours ahead of IL! Victoria has been taking regular naps at the prescribed time and I'm praying it continues, because we both need a daily break from waiting to settle in.

Speaking of Victoria...

I must tell you about Victoria's newest word—it seems like there's a least one everyday now—little. initially I thought she was saying yellow ("yeh-oh") yesterday in the parking lot but she corrected me by repeating herself while pointing and then "tar (for car)." Last night it became as elaborate as "I little...car... something about see it." I've been telling her that she has to stay with Mom or Dad in parking lots because she is too little for the cars to see her, so she shouldn't run all over the place. She's also started learning that she has to sit in her car seat "because she is little." Who knew that size could be such a motivating factor?

Here's the month of May so far

In addition to house hunting we're wrapping up the details of our UT vacation at the end of June. Details are forthcoming.

Less than a week later...

In the spirit of Master Oogway: "There is only news." 1) Victoria seems cured of the chicken pox. 2) We've gotten to use the washer and dryer in our new condo twice thanks to her throwing up two to three times every twelve hours, and they work great. 3) I am done being sick and can eat more than crackers and water today: yea! 4) God created amazing bodies for each of His spirit children, and even at less than full strength, we can still do awesome things. 5) Jani Hart was inspired to lend us a waterproof mattress pad for the queen-sized bed we're borrowing from her and Marshall.

Last night Vicky said hungry and hot dog! The hot dog was not a good idea, but we all enjoyed watching "Wreck-it Ralph!" and eating pancakes made by Greg. It was a low-key family night and surprisingly rejuvenating. Vicky even tried to read about Alma and Ammon from the Book of Mormon. As much as she loves to read, she is excited to have ridiculously fast internet (25 megabits and at an affordable price, which makes Mom and Dad happy) so she can watch he beloved "Baby Newton: Discovering Shapes" and "Baby Einstein Numbers Nursery."

April in a Nutshell

My husband commented that he'd seen a long blog post recently and I realized it would've been more manageable if we did separate posts for his monthly update and mine. Normally his are shorter so I hadn't thought much of combining them. So sorry and thanks to any dedicated family and friends who persevered and read  about our lives last month.

This months highlights include culinary adventures, a trip to the arboretum to see the cherry blossoms, lots of babysitting for friends, plus an awesome date and a trip to the temple to seal some Eaton ancestors. 

  
                  April album
Victoria keeps growing. She has 11 teeth now and is working on her third molar! These new teeth seem to break through slower than her first few. She's got hair long enough for a real ponytail but may decide halfway through the day to pull it out.  She loves to jump in puddles with or without proper footwear. Her new words are purple, pink, potty, oval, ready (always said as a statement rather than question) and money. She needs help sometimes with purple but uses the other words correctly. She tries to say triangle but has to make it a two syllable word. She enjoyed trying cajun-style crawfish last night with some friends from church. Mom even got in on the fun, sucking out the head from one, and learning to shell them.

Thanks to our new pasta machine from last month we've had a great last minute dinner option. We also scored 40 pounds of farm-fresh chicken for a mere $1.79/pound so we've been regularly enjoying that.  More culinary adventures ensued with regular food yesterday when we babysat the Wagstaff twins and their little sister. At ages 4 and 3 they have a hard time eating neatly still so rice probably wasn't the best lunch option, but at least they helped clean up (Mary was more willing than her brothers.) The funniest part though was Moroni's brain freeze: I wish I could explain it. They kept asking for frozen peas anyway.

We also got to babysit for friends to have date nights, go to the temple, and recover from delivery a second baby. Victoria loves to help and Greg is excellent with the kids too, so it's great when such things happen on the weekend so we can make it a family affair.

                                       

March Madness

Stake Conference

The month started with stake conference. It was a regional broadcast so it should not have been much work for Danielle, but no one told her it was coming up. Luckily they announced it priesthood a month early.  Danielle was going to use the institute choir for the adult session, but since no one has ever showed up for it. So Danielle scrambled to get a choir together in time.  All seven people that showed up did a good job.

Visiting Weekend and the Engineering Open House

The four days after stake conference I worked hard to get as much homework done as I could because the following weekend was Visiting Weekend for perspective graduate students and the Engineering Open House.  Danielle humored me and let me drag her and Victoria around all weekend. There were two prospective students from BYU and one from Utah State. We got to send some time with them and answer questions that others could not. The open house was a lot of fun. We toured Bluewaters, the nations largest supercomputer. There were lots of demos that I thought Victoria would like.  She refused to try most of them, but we found a couple she really enjoyed (simple machines and hydrology). My week was further complicated by Raytheon inviting me back for the summer. Danielle and I planned on going back one of these summers but had not even thought about doing it this summer. It was a very full, but fun week. 

Danielle's Birthday

The following week was also full. We had a family over for dinner who are only in Illinois for two months. On another night we had the missionaries over for dinner. I was also trying to caught up for visiting weekend and get ahead so I could help Danielle with her birthday celebration. I think she enjoyed her birthday. I tried to keep the house clean for a couple of days. I also made Danielle two round cakes and decorated them to look likes quarters. On the Monday after her birthday we had a party for Danielle.  The only people to show up were my classmate Angela and her son Sebastian. Which was okay. Danielle biggest hope is to be able to share the gospel with them. So having them over was a good start.

Spring Break

For the first time in my life I got a spring break (I think in high school we had a three day weekend they called spring break). Today is the last day of break.  I shoveled 2-3 inches of snow after we got home from church.  I think we now have 6 inches and it is still coming down.  It was warm on Friday so we got to Victoria out to a playground. Over all it has been a nice break. I mostly worked on low priority things that I don't other wise get to.

Victoria

Victoria has been doing some fun things.  When ever I am wearing a tie and she sees me put on my suit coat or coat she runs into our room grabs my scriptures and then goes to the door. She is saying more things that are recognizable and in the last few days has started trying hard to parrot us. We have upload lots of pictures. I think one of the two links should work.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/105174545430750143885/albums/5853880919960244193

https://plus.google.com/photos/105174545430750143885/albums/5853880919960244193?gpinv=AMIXal8t7LoTxlH2LkY0HWpVRCnKb7AdxUZV4w9jHi0FawLCNztdyYoRqZpZ14AdPsnR5VYq6TN44Hbg494XSCZNunj_aq4tx0al54SK341Z_wyWTcX2sM8&cfem=1

The seven people from stake conference were all from my ward and I'm not sure that some of them ever got to rehearse with us (but we have some really talented musicians so I wasn't worried about the performance once I saw who actually showed up.)

We're still anxiously waiting on details about our likely move to AZ.

When Greg says he kept the house clean he means it was as clean if not cleaner than I like to keep it for a good three days, especially the kitchen. I felt so lazy for the first part of spring break with most of the housework being done for me!

When Greg says it was warm on Friday he means like sunny and 50 degrees Farenheit with a slight breeze!

Yesterday was plain...busy?

Well I've gone and almost completely lost my voice. At least it took three days but only started hurting last night.  With this dry and raspy throat I may sing in a 9 voice choir today and then play the organ for the rest of the hymns but without singing along.  The past couple days have been...interesting...for me. 

7:00 AM       Greg helps the Elders quorum cook breakfast at the church 

8:00 AM       Pick up Heather. Ward Easter egg hunt/breakfast. Our other friends we invited didn't make it but we had a great time. 

10:00 AM     Take Heather to the library. Back to the church to get Greg from cleaning up.

10:30 AM     Finish crocheting a baby bunny beanie. 

2:00 PM       45 minutes of being lost... I made it to the shower and had a great time, not to mention a delicious free lunch.   

5:00 PM        I hurried back to the church for a stake meeting 

6:00 PM       Home to pick up Greg and Victoria so we could help clean up at the church from the YW broadcast and dinner. 

                      Thanks to the stake president for having consecrated oil and helping give me a blessing!

9:00 PM       Finally home and to bed

CALLINGS

I love being a musician and getting to substitute in Relief Society and Primary somewhat regularly, but sometimes I just want to be selfish and say no so I can sit back and just listen to others play and sing and teach.  So God has both lightened my load and called me to repentance:

+ The Institute choir has been cancelled until fall semester. 

+  I'm mostly done with my stake music coordinator responsibilities until late August. 

-  The one calling I've ever had and hated: stake ticket chair for the Mormon tabernacle choir tour. So at Institute I got a private chastening from the Spirit and some ideas as to how to improve my attitude. 

- A sister got sick during the Relief Society activity and I helped clean it up but missed most of the speakers. At least I was living what they were teaching and now I know which cleaning supplies the building still needs.

+  I still mostly step around the excess bureaucracy but am learning to tolerate these temporary responsibilities. 

+ And I don't mind playing the organ twice a month at all. 

OH ARIZONA

I feel like a little girl picking petals of a daisy: stay or go? There are great things about each option and significantly less great things about each as well. So we'll be happy just knowing which leases we need to sign and when. It is likely we'll leave IL for AZ for nearly 3 months; it's the key details that we're anxiously waiting to straighten out. We may also move complexes once we return from AZ! At least moving would mean easier access to a pool and fitness center for my sudden surge in fitness training...see later section.

MISSIONARY GAL

I go through spurts of praying for and actively creating gospel-sharing opportunities. I've been planning to use my birthday party as a missionary told for months and it turned out better than I thought though not at all as I'd originally intended. I guess it was just one of those instances where you do all you can and God just rewrites your plans with the same goals in mind. Angela noticed our painting of the Rexburg temple and asked about it. We talked about temples, baptisms for the dead, how we pray, what we believe about Mother Mary and prophets, and even a bit about the First Vision and Restoration. For not being more than an hour discussion she had some great questions; even if she was just being curious, I'm excited for her to find out more and to hopefully be a part of it. Especially since our full-time missionaries could really use some referrals.

Angela and Sebastian are also awesomely generous because they brought gifts for us all and also a large homemade chocolate cake (who cares that I have a wheat allergy? I ate a piece every day for a week!) The new blue dress Victoria modeled in many of our recent photos was a gift, I got three bottles of perfume, and we got three nesting bowls too.

Rachel, our physic grad friend and neighbor, came over for a late dinner last night and the tail end of our FHE lesson. I hope to have her join us for Easter Sunday services and dinner. Please pray for us to make the most of these opportunities! Update: Rahcel is swamped this weekend but perhpas some other time.

3 DINNER PARTIES? All in one week!

1. Dinner with the Bares (a young family out here as part of an agricultural internship program with BYU-Idaho),
2. A vegan dinner to the Pecks (I didn't know how creative I'd but it wasn't too hard and sure was tasty), 
3. Pie Day dinner at the Deckers with tons of miniature fruit pies, chicken pot pies, and a regular sized ice cream pie with birthday candles (complete with surprise gift of a pasta machine!), 
4. The all-you-can-eat fish fry buffet at the Masonic lodge next to the stake center. 

So maybe the second one doesn't count as a dinner party but rather a significant dining adventure. We've been trying some good soups too despite being way behind on Cynthia's new soup a week challenge.

FITNESS GOALS

I am going to do the Champaign pie run if we're here in June and not in AZ. Otherwise if I can I'll try the mini tri in the beginning of August (400 yd swim, 6 mile bike and 2 mile run for twice as much money as the pie run.) My main goal would just be to finish if I did the triathlon. Suggestions for how to start training, especially since it is winter? I did just win a free 26" mountain bike so that should help tremendously. Greg has ridden it to the church and back already but with the seat all the way down I'll be able to ride it someday soon too. We'll also need to get helmets ASAP.

PHOTOS

The March album is up on google plus and a few pieces have been added to my facebook as well. If you're having trouble accessing them then please let me know. Thanks!

I do not know that we can still say it is winter.  Last week's snow is gone, even some of the piles from the plow have melt.

We are going to Arizona. They have found something for me to work on.  We are just waiting for House Resources to call to discuss things like when I start and how much I get payed.