Kayenta

Well we made it through our first full week and are on to the second!  Life here is definitely different from anywhere else we've lived.  Some good, some bad.  But we are just grateful to have somewhere to start out real life!  I'll separate my list of things into things we have experienced and things that people have told us about living here.

What we've noticed:

• Everyone here drives really nice cars!  Our car (which is 10 years old) is one of the older ones in town.  Housing is super cheap here so people can afford nice cars.  The bishopric came over last night and we were asking them about buying a house here and they said a mortgage would be $300-400 a month.  Right now we pay $195 for a 3 bed, 2 bath townhome.  Housing is ridiculous!
• Our shopping options here are limited.  There is one grocery store (just a local place), an Ace Hardware, a Napa Auto Parts, and actually quite a few fast food places (McDonald's, Burger King, Sonic-David's favorite, Subway, and a local pizza and Chinese food place).  Because things are so limited, we have to drive 1.5 hours to Page to go to Wal-Mart.  Most people here get the little stuff during the week and then once or twice a month drive down to Page to do the big shopping.
• The McDonald's and Burger King are super nice!  Way nicer than the ones in Rexburg and Orem.  They both have a huge playground and McDonald's had a bunch of touchscreen tv's by the playground where you could play games.  I was super surprised about that.  But because it was so nice there they also had a security guard.
• Children here kind of just go wherever they want.  At the grocery store, McDonald's, church, you see a lot of kids and not too many parents.   I get the feeling the motto "it takes a village to raise a child" is very much emphasized here.
• People here are very nice, and also very poor.  David says he can tell that a lot of the kids here live in poverty because their clothes are worn out and don't fit right and they're a little dirty from living out on the plains.  The Navajo people are kind of funny.  To look at them, you would think they were angry all the time because they just have an angry resting face, but once you start talking to them they are all smiles and friendly and helpful!  They are very open and accept people just as they are.  I was worried they wouldn't be open to us because we're white, but that fear was quickly taken away.  We have been welcomed here very warmly.  
• We have learned that rules here are generally more like guidelines.  As long as you aren't stupid and make other people mad, you can pretty much do whatever you want.  
• The nicest buildings here are definitely the government buildings.  The schools, Correctional Facility, Post Office, etc.  
• The ward is very nice!  And very small.  More of a branch than a ward.  And I get the feeling they have a lot of less active members.  And I already have a calling!  When we walked in, about the 2nd thing the Bishop asked us was if either of us played piano.  I said I did and so he had me play piano in Sacrament.  So I'm now the pianist in sacrament and Relief Society.  Before this they had a teenage girl who was trying very hard to play out of the simplified hymn book, but she didn't have a lot of experience with piano.  Everyone was very excited to hear my very imperfect playing!  It's kind of a confidence booster knowing that even though I mess up a lot, they like hearing me play.  
• There are dogs everywhere!  Some are strays, some have collars, but almost all of them are super friendly.  Asher loves this aspect of living here because he just loves animals!  
• It's actually really nice living so close to the schools.  Almost every day Asher and I go over to the elementary school playground after school and play there for a little while and then walk over to David's school and hang out in his classroom for a little bit until he's ready to come home.

What we're heard from other people:

• Unfortunately, drinking and drugs are very prevalent here.  They don't sell alcohol on the Reservation, but there are a lot of bootleggers that bring it in.  One of the speakers in church yesterday said he knew of 3 just right around his house.  And we've heard of a lot of people say people in their family are alcoholics.  It's very sad.
• Someone in our ward had us over for dinner last week and David asked them if there was anything that he should avoid saying so that he wouldn't get in trouble.  He told us that some topics to avoid were bears, snakes, and most importantly death.  He told us a teacher had a student who was sick for 2 weeks, and when the student came back, he very jokingly said "look who's back from the dead!"  This was such a big deal that the school board ended up hearing about it.  So although most things are pretty normal, you do have to be aware that the Navajo culture is still very alive here.
• We have had many people tell us to make sure we lock everything up.  And I have decided not to keep anything of value in our car.  Almost everyone we've talked to has said they've had their car broken into at least once and the principal of David's school said he had a bike stolen from his front yard.
• If we needed to go to the doctor, we would have to go back over the Utah border to Monument Valley.  They have a clinic here, but it's only for the Native's unless it's an emergency.  I have read on a newsletter and have seen that they are building a new hospital here, though.  It's a pretty big one, about the size of the one in Rexburg.  It will have all the regular hospital wings including Labor and Delivery, which right now the nearest place to have a baby is about 1.5 hours away.  So if we do decide to stay here for awhile, that will be nice to have it so close!  And I'm pretty sure this hospital would be open to everyone.

I can't really think of much else at the moment.  I'm sure I'll add more later.  But here is a video of our place so you can see that as well as some other random pictures.  Now that we have a lot of room, we would love to have visitors!  But be warned, there isn't a whole lot to do right in town.  You have to travel about 2 hours in any direction to find big attractions (Grand Canyon, Arches Nat'l Park)....but we would love to be a home base if you did want to do that! 

Asher refuses to eat unless he's sitting at the table with us, and since we don't have a booster seat, I had to use our waffle maker!

This is part of the elementary school playground.  There's another big playset behind me.  They have the best playground I've ever seen!  It's actually a lot better than any in Rexburg or the ones we went to in Orem.

My boys. :)

And here's a bonus video of Asher and David!

January

Before I do my post about our awesome new place, I thought I'd recap real fast the beginning of January!  We stayed with my parents in between student teaching and moving to Arizona and we really appreciate them letting us stay there!  I had a really hard time leaving because I love being close to family and now we're not really close to either family.  But we made it here and just barely got internet, which is why I'm not doing the post till now.  I basically just have a bunch of pictures I've taken the last few weeks.  Enjoy!

Asher loves to help me cook!  He's always getting big spoons out of the drawer and trying to help me stir whatever is on the stove.  It's not real safe so I usually end up putting him on the counter with a bowl to stir.

I was at my sister's house when Asher found her baby swing!  It's the same one she let us borrow for Asher when he was little.  He didn't like it then, but he sure does now!  He climbed up there and put the tray down all by himself.

Asher and Kitty playing with yarn.  Asher sure loved playing with my mom's pets!

Suspenders!  Because he has no butt.

Another favorite thing was pushing the vacuum around.

And playing in Grandma's room!

Whenever he saw the bumbo he would pull it out and sit in it.

While we were there David painted my parents bathroom.

Driving to Kayenta!  The last 45 minutes were like this. Super foggy.  Apparently it's pretty common for this town.

Asher's favorite part of unpacking was finding all his toys again!  So he had to get them all out and make a huge mess.  But he had fun and that's all the mattered!

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I hate moving...and unpacking....

David's classroom!  Asher and I walk over after school so we can go home with David.

In my next post I'll put a video of our place and hopefully a description of what it's like to live here!

Our Super Relaxing Vacation Part 2

So I believe I left off right after we got back from Arizona.  And we moved into the hoarders house.  And to make life better, both Asher and David got sick.  Like, really really sick.  We found out later that at least Asher probably had bronchitis, and probably David a little bit too.  They were both coughing and congested and feverish.  So you can imagine how much fun I had trying to take care of both of them!  I know they both were trying to be in a good mood, but honestly they were both cranky and I was trying really hard not to be grumpy about taking care of them.

Also, David and I were trying to decide if we should take the job in Arizona.  The good things were: we could make a lot of money because rent is sooooo cheap and we could start paying off David's student loans, our house would be way bigger than anywhere else we've lived and also pretty nice, and it would be a good starter job for David to get all his first year mess-ups over with.  The down side would be: the music program is tiny and mostly choir and guitar (no orchestra), it's on an Indian Reservation so there are a lot of families living in poverty (one website I looked at said that many people didn't even have running water), the town is very small and kind of in the middle of nowhere so there aren't a lot of options for shopping or eating out or entertainment, if we would need to see a doctor for a non-emergency visit, we couldn't go to the clinic in town because that is only for the Natives (we would have to drive 20 miles to the next town), and it's very far away from both of our families (and we like being close to family).  It was a very hard decision and even my dad said we were right on the fence, the good equaled out the bad and we could go either way.  After A LOT of deliberation we decided to take the job.  So sometime in January we're moving to Arizona!

It was nice to get the decision made so we didn't have to worry about it over Christmas.  So I thought Christmas would be really relaxing!  WRONG!  The night before Christmas it snowed.  A lot.  I think about 10 inches of snow with a lot of wind.  And since we were staying in a house that was on a private road, the county wouldn't plow our roads for us!  We were told that someone with a tractor usually plowed the roads, but I wasn't holding my breath about them doing it Christmas morning.  I thought that maybe would could get out so David and I packed Asher up in the car and we tried pushing the car out.  And got stuck.  So David (still very sick, mind you) got a shovel and tried digging the car out.  I took Asher out of the car because he doesn't like being in his carseat too long.  David did get the car out, only to drive another 3 feet and have it get stuck again.  We spent about 2 hours trying to get the stupid car out of the driveway!  And I kept putting Asher in and out of his carseat and that really made him mad.  Finally, I called my family and my sister and her husband came and rescued us!  My sister asked what we would've done if we couldn't get out and I said we'd just hang out at the house...with no presents (they were all at my mom's)....and our Christmas dinner would have been eggs and cereal.  So I'm very glad they came!

When we got to my mom's house we found out a lot of Rexburg had been snowed in because of the storm.  So we hung around until everyone made it out so we could open some presents!  We had to wait a long time because my dad was using his snow-blower to dig out about half of Rexburg.  I think it was about 1pm when we finally started Christmas.  Asher wasn't in a great mood because of being sick so he didn't really enjoy the holiday too much.  But I had fun eating good food and being with family!

The day after Christmas we kind of schlumped because the holiday was over, we were stuck in a depressing house that was soooo cold, and Asher was getting more and more grumpy.  Over the next few days he started just being impossible to be around.  He would cry all the time and had a really hard time sleeping.  He started getting into the habit of only sleeping if someone (mostly me) was holding him. Even during the night.  I was not impressed with this new development because I had to hold him all the time and try to keep him happy.  And because he was waking up so much at night, I wasn't getting nearly enough sleep.  That next Sunday we got snowed in again so we couldn't go to church, although we probably wouldn't have gone anyways because of the 2 sick boys at our house.

Also that weekend, my brother and his family came from Wyoming!  It was a lot of fun having them come.  They have a little boy about Asher's age and it was so cute seeing them toddle around together!

Asher and Sorren, best of buds!

On monday we went bowling and played basketball at my dad's school.  David stayed home for that and I had Asher.  Who was so tender that the slightest little thing would make him cry.  I really was trying to be positive, but it got very exhausting and frustrating.  I usually would take Asher to my parents house to give him a bath (the house we were staying at didn't really have hot water...and the bathroom was really dirty), but I decided to skip that and just went home so I could get some help from David to save my sanity.

This was a big hit at the bowling alley, my Dad kept track of the little ones while we bowled.  He would put one in the seat and one on the back and let them ride like that!  He probably spent $20 on this one ride!

On tuesday, my Dad was telling me that there was going to be a big drop in temperature that night.  And I saw people on facebook saying to leave some water running to help keep your pipes from freezing.  I didn't think it would get quite that cold, but I left some water running anyways.  That night it got down to -20.  I haven't seen it get that cold in a long time!  And guess what, the pipes in the house froze.  We had no water.  So I called my mom to see if it was a big deal (and the answer is yes it is!) and then contacted the owner.  He didn't seem too concerned about it and said he'd try to get someone over to look at things.  I didn't really want to wait around all day just to go to the bathroom, so we went over to my mom's house.  Asher was trying to be in a good mood, but it just wasn't happening.  He was so tired and grumpy and not very fun to be around.  I put him down for a nap and he slept for 2 hours.  I forgot to mention that the whole break he had hardly been eating.  I know he lost a lot of weight because almost no calories were making it into his system.  It didn't matter what I tried  to feed him, it just wasn't happening.

So that night, he was so miserable and awful that I decided to take him to the doctor.  Since it was New Years Eve I was worried the Community Care place wouldn't be open.  And it wasn't.  My mom asked if maybe it was his teeth, so I checked his mouth and sure enough, 2 teeth were coming in!  I thought that was the problem so I took him home, gave him some pain medicine and some Ora-gel to numb his mouth.  Didn't help at all.  He was still very cranky.  So David and I took him to the hospital, the only place open at 8pm on New Years Eve.  We got there and Asher was ok, but still grumpy.  But what really set him over the edge was the wristband they put on him, he HATED it!  He cried harder at that then anything.  He was crying so hard in the waiting room that a nurse came by and gave him a stuffed animal to make him feel better.  It didn't help, but it was so nice of her to do.  Anyways, after it was all said and done, we found out Asher had a really bad ear infection, slight case of bronchitis, and 2 teeth coming in.  Happy new year to us!  I felt like a horrible mother, but I was more relieved than anything because after he got ear drops and antibiotics, he was back to his old, lovable self!  It was amazing the difference it made.  I'm just glad he's feeling better!  After the hospital we got some McDonald's and fries for Asher (he loves fries) and went back to the house with no water.  David and I started watching a movie but fell asleep about 30 minutes in.  That was our awesome party!

The next day I thought things were going to be so much better, but not so much.  When David went to let the chickens out the next morning, he saw tons of water in their backyard, coming from under the house.  The pipes that had frozen the previous night had burst and when a neighbor came over to try to warm the pipes up to get some running water in the house, it got the water dumping out of the burst pipe.  It was like a huge torrent of water filling up their backyard.  I immediately called the owner and told him what happened and he walked me through turning the water pump off.  I feel really bad for them, but there wasn't anything else I could've done to prevent it!  So we decided to move back to my parents house that day so we could have some running water.  So we moved back.  And I was reminded that I still hate moving.  But I was trying to be optimistic because Asher was in a better mood, David was feeling better, and it was the last day my brother and his family were here so I wanted to enjoy it!  That night we had everyone in the family at my parents house and got a great picture of all the cousins.  I love family get-togethers!

All the cousins!  My brother David's 3 boys on the left, Joni's 2 in the middle (she has the only girl!),
and my little one on the right.

I was still taking care of the chickens for the other house until they got back.  I had to bring water over from my parents house for them and 3 days before they got back, their chicken food ran out and I had to borrow some food from my mom.  They got home late last night and so when I went to put the chickens away it was the last time!  But while I was checking the house for anything we might've left behind, I found out their fridge had stopped working.  Of course.  But I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news (again) and knew they'd be home soon anyways.  I feel really bad that they had to come home from their vacation to such a broken house, but I'm also very very glad that I get to walk away from that situation!

So that's our vacation.  I am so tired and really wishing this "vacation" would be over so I can recuperate.  But David still has to finish getting certified to teach in Arizona before we can move and finally get a place of our own back.  It's been difficult getting that done with all the holidays.  I'm very thankful that we have such wonderful families that would help get us through this very rough time and am very excited that sometime soon we can have a home of our own again!

We got Asher a train track for Christmas.  I couldn't tell who was more excited about setting it up, him or David!

I really love granny crafts!  I learned how to knit this past summer, and have made 2 dish cloths, a scarf, and now a sock!  I had my mom there the entire time telling me how to do it.  It was a lot of fun!

Our Super Relaxing Vacation, Part 1

When you think of the Christmas holiday, usually you think of pretty lights, homemade cookies, and fun holiday traditions.  You don't usually think of random 20 hour car trips, hospital visits, and burst water pipes.  Unfortunately, this is exactly how our "vacation" has gone.  Here's a little breakdown of the last few weeks for us:

We knew we would be coming back to Rexburg for the Christmas season after we left Utah when David finished his student teaching.  We also knew it would probably be a little crowded at my parents house because of all the family coming to town.  But we didn't really have another option unless by some miracle David got a job.  He had turned in a lot of applications, but hadn't got any calls.  So we resigned ourselves to the fact the we probably would just have to squish into my parents house.   Until my sister saw on Facebook that someone living near my parents was looking for a house sitter for the Christmas break!  It looked like such a good thing!  They lived near my parents and all we would have to do is some minimal work to take care of their chickens.  So I contacted the guy and he said they already had someone lined up, but if that didn't work out they would let me know.  A few days later he called me saying the people he had lined up found out they wouldn't be there the whole break and couldn't do it, so if we still wanted to we could stay there!  Looking back, I really wish I would've gone with my gut feeling and said no.  But I kept thinking about how nice it would be to have some extra space and I said we could meet with them when we got back to Rexburg.

We moved back to Rexburg a few days later (I can't tell you how much I hate moving....) and the next day we met with the people.  They have a modest, double wide trailer that has the potential to be a cozy, cute home.  That's what I thought when we drove up.  But walking up the steps of their porch, I changed my mind.  It looked like some of the wood had rotted and they took those pieces out and just laid (not nailed down or anything) a piece of plywood across the giant hole.  Every time I walk across it I feel like I'm going to fall through.  Then we walk in the house.  It smells funny.  Like stale, old, dirty house.  But I shove that thought aside.  We meet the couple and they are very nice.  They are both about 30, he has a few of his own start-up companies, and they have 5 children under the age of 6.  I feel like the house is very messy, but I chalk that up to the fact that they're preparing for a 3 week vacation with so many kids.  I want to say no to house sitting, but they're about to leave on this big trip and I don't want to dump that stress on them.

Before we move in, David gets a call from a school!  They want to interview him the next day over the phone!  He has the interview and it goes great!  The only problem is David isn't technically certified.  He has done everything, he just doesn't have the paperwork.  So he spends 2 days constantly on the phone trying to fast-track his certification.  He calls BYU-Idaho, the Idaho State Department of Education, his student teaching supervisor, everyone.  Meanwhile, he also has an interview to substitute teach in Rexburg in case he doesn't get this job.  Very, very busy.

He finally gets things moving and calls the potential employer back to tell them he's almost certified, and they offer him the job!  Yay!  But we both wanted to check the place out before we committed.  I wanted David to go because I really didn't want to leave Asher.  I've never left him overnight before.  But I was convinced into it and we decided to drive down to Arizona to take a look.  Meanwhile, we have to go out to the other house morning and night to let their chickens out and put them back in their coop.  We decided to stay at my parents till after the trip because we didn't want to keep moving Asher back and forth because he would be staying with them while we were gone.  Also, the day before we left, I picked up a shift at my old job to help them out for their busy season.  The Sunday before Christmas, we left on the most thrown together trip ever!

It's a 10 hour drive to Kayenta, AZ so we knew it would be a long 2 days.  We would drive there, stay the night, meet with 2 people, and then drive back to Rexburg.  The first 4 hours passed smoothly, but as soon as we started going up the mountain pass just after Spanish Fork, traffic slowed way way down.  There was an accident because of the wind and snow and it stopped traffic.  Just at that moment, our gas light came on.  We had a few minutes of debate about whether we should keep going in stand-still traffic and hope a gas station was at the top of the mountain (which there was...we later found out) or go back down the mountain.  So we went down.  It was the most stressful drive ever because if we ran out of gas, one of us would have to walk down the mountain in a blizzard for who knew how many miles to get us some gas.  But we made it!  And had to drive all the way back up the mountain again.

We finally made it to Kayenta after a long drive and after I got so carsick I almost made David pull over about 30 times so I could puke.  But we found our hotel and got to sleep.  The next morning we met with the principal and went through the school and job expectations.  I'll go over all those later because this post is already getting too long.  Then we went and looked at some housing.  I was blown away!  Kayenta is on an Indian Reservation and they have teacher subsidized housing.  Those 2 things make it so a 3 bedroom townhouse has a monthly rent of $195!  That really the big draw for us.  You can save a lot of money by living there.

We ended up meeting with a lot of other people and finally got on the road again.  There is some beautiful scenery around there so it was a nice drive that we didn't get to see when we pulled in at 11pm.  We made it back to Rexburg with no other big things going wrong.  I asked my mom how Asher was and she said he didn't cry at all!  He was perfectly happy the whole time!  I was glad she didn't have to deal with grumpy baby....but I kind of wished he was a little fussy to show that he missed me...

When we got back to Rexburg, we packed all our stuff up and moved to the house (yay for moving.....)  When we got to the house and I really started looking around, I got a little depressed.  I legitimately believe that they are hoarders.  They have so much crap there.  Almost every corner of the house has piles of boxes and papers and junk.  They have things there that they don't need and aren't used based on the layers of dust.  It makes me sad that they live like that.  And the floors were so disgusting.  The first thing I did when I got there was start to clean.  I swept and mopped the floors, cleaned up their kitchen, and kind of made the beds in their kids room.  And the house gets so cold.  They have almost no insulation so even when I turned the heat up to 74, it felt like the house was only mildly warm.  I borrowed a heater from my mom for Asher's room and put blankets up in his window to keep the cold out and also borrowed a down-filled blanket for us because it got very cold in our room!  And the master bathroom I don't think got above 50 degrees.  For some reason, that is the coldest room in the house.  They also had a lot of random stuff in their tub in the master bath and their shower and other bathroom looked like they hadn't been cleaned in a long time.  And we found out their water didn't get any hotter than lukewarm.  So we never showered there and usually took Asher to my parents house for his nightly bath.  If we didn't, we had to heat water on their stove to make the water warm enough.  I really did not like staying in that house, but I feel even worse that they have to live like that!  David and I both wished we were in a situation to help them.

So that brings us to the week of Christmas!  The next week got even better.  But since this post is already long, I'll stop it here and share those stories tomorrow!