School is out!

Well, David is out of school and summer is here!  I'll give a short recap of the last few weeks.  For me, the biggest trial in my life right now is church.  It's been interesting going from wards in Idaho and Utah to the ward (really it's more of a branch) here.  About 5 minutes after we got to church that first time, I was given my first calling as Sacrament Meeting Pianist.  The girl who was playing for them at the time was doing her best, but I think she was completely self taught and could only play out of the really simplified hymn book.  And she was a senior in high school and just barely graduated, so I think they were worried about what they were going to do after she went to college.  It didn't take long for me to get my other calling, Primary Music Leader.  I'm still not very good at it, but I think I'm doing ok since we basically get a new group of kids every month or so and there's only about 7 kids that show up.  Most people around here only come to church about once every couple of months.  

But this month my church service shifted into high gear.  Our primary president was due to have her baby about 2 weeks ago.  Since we don't have a hospital within 2 hours of us (they're building one, but it isn't finished yet), they left at the beginning of May to live with his parents so they could be close to a hospital.  She was not only the primary president, she was also the pianist for music time.  After she left, I had to figure out how to have music time with no pianist.  The other ward that meets in our building doesn't use the piano at all and just sings everything a cappella.  But it's really hard for the kids to sing that way, especially if they don't know the tune because they only come to church once a month.  So I had that dilemma, and also I was worried about Asher.  What we had been doing is have David take him home after Sacrament meeting because our ward had no nursery.  The primary president didn't really think it was worth it to have someone called to nursery for just one kid.  But I really wanted Asher to stay at church all 3 hours so he could get in the schedule and so he could get used to going to nursery.  So I've been doing nursery along with my other callings the last month, and it has been so difficult and exhausting that I think I want David to get another job more than he does so we can move away and I don't have to do this anymore.  

I really want to help build the church up here, but I feel so guilty because I'm really starting to begrudge my callings.  One of the worst things is the primary president is now 42 weeks along and still no baby!  She texted me tonight to see how things were going and told me they were going to try to induce her tonight.  I guess if she hasn't had the baby by thursday she's considered medically urgent.  So I would guess she won't be back here until the end of June at the earliest, maybe not even then.  She said they might stay with her in-laws for awhile after the baby is born.  Pray for me on Sundays that I'll be able to make it through!

Nursery is my favorite part of church.  It's a time when Asher and I just get to play for an hour!

So that's my big worry, but David is a lot happier now that school's out!  School was originally supposed to be out May 22 (I think), but since they got out of school so often for rain and mud, they had to add on a few extra days.  A weird thing that the school did was they had all the grades and everything due from the teachers on May 20, even though school didn't get out till May 28.  I asked David what they were going to do for that extra week and he had no idea.  I asked David what they would do if a kid just stopped coming that last week, and he said he had no idea since it wouldn't affect their grades at all.  And David had a student suspended 2 days before school got out and I just thought "So he gets punished by having an early summer vacation?"  I don't know what the thinking was.  But I know a lot of teachers were watching movies and taking their kids outside to play.  David had his kids help him clean up his room and inventory everything.  But the last full day he had a movie party.  And I got charged with making lots of treats for his students with no oven! (it had broken the week before)  I ended up making 6 batches of no-bake cookies and 4 batches of fudge.  And I did a lot of driving back and forth!  Asher was a really good sport about it all even though I had to wake him up from his nap and kept getting him in and out of the car.

Goodies!

We had to buy a bunch more pop even after all that.

But we survived school getting out, and now David has to do his curriculum for next year, even though he might not be here.  I guess he gets a little extra money for doing it, which means we might be able to buy a dryer to replace the one that broke!  But it will be a ton of work for David.  Other teachers have state standards that basically give them their curriculum.  Music kind of has state standards, but they don't help at all with him setting up his. 

Sorry this post was so long, but here are some pictures of Asher!

Our neighbor gave Asher this little tricycle.  He loves it!  He doesn't use the pedals, but he loves to push it around or sit on it and scoot with his feet.

Asher is the most annoying nap-taker.  He's never been very good at sleeping (even when he was a newborn) and that trend continues!  He always talks a lot when he refuses to take a nap.  I usually listen to this for about half an hour before I give up and get him out.

After Asher goes to bed, Millie knows I take her on a walk.  She will follow me around and pester me until I take her.

Playground time!  He loves playgrounds, especially if there's other kids there!

I get bored a lot here.  I've made a lot of things I intend to sell, but I decided to get a jump start on our winter hats!
(that's hoping we move somewhere winter hats will be needed...)

Sunday walk with Mom, Asher, and Millie.  It was almost 90 degrees and I think it melted Millie, but Asher liked it!  He loves walks and just sitting in the stroller watching everything.