Mitchell Family Camping Trip

The last few weeks have been quite exciting in our house!  On Monday, June 8, David got a call from a school in Mesquite, NV who wanted to have an interview with him for a music teacher position.  We were both very excited about it!  The interview was for the next day, on Tuesday morning.  So the next day, we got up and waited for the call.  And we waited some more.  And half an hour after the scheduled call, David tried calling them instead.  It was at this point that we realized that our phones weren't working!  My heart just sank.  Since we're in the middle of nowhere, sometimes our cell service just stops.  I told David to try emailing them, but their emails weren't listed on their website.  It wasn't until about 5:00 that night that we finally got service.  David frantically called them and explained what happened, and they agreed to have another interview the next day.  We had service, the interview went great, and 30 minutes after they hung up, they called back to say they wanted David to come to the school and meet with them!  We had very little time to figure things out.  What ended up happening is that we left Wednesday night with all 4 of us!  It was very squishy in that car.  We met with the principal and everything went great.  And shortly after we left the meeting, they offered David the job and David accepted!  We're moving to Mesquite!  We then drove around the town about 7 times looking for a place to live.  We didn't find any place that would let us keep Millie, but David's sister found one place for us later.  We haven't seen it in person, but the pictures look nice, it's in our price range, we get to keep Millie, and it has a pool and playground!  It will be a lot smaller than our place here, but we expected that.

We drove back to Kayenta Thursday night so David could meet with his principal here on Friday (which was the deadline for him to sign his contract here).  Unfortunately, the principal was out of the office so David couldn't meet with him until Monday.  He gave him his letter of resignation, and then David had to meet with HR, where they told him that we have to be out of our place by July 14 (because we live in teacher housing).  So we were feeling the pressure because right after David met with all these people, we left for Idaho for my family's annual camping trip!  I was a little stressed, but I think it will be a good move.  When we move to Nevada, it will be our 4th state we've lived in during the past year!  I'm very tired of moving and hope that we can make it for at least a full year.  We would like to end up in the Northwest area (Idaho, Wyoming, Washington, etc) but this new job will be a good step for us.  David will get paid more, have a job he likes - he'll be teaching 2 orchestra's (yay!), 2 guitar classes, and 2 choirs, and we'll be just a little bit closer to family.  I'm not looking forward to the heat, but I think it will be better than where we are currently at.

Our squishy car!  This is also how it was for the 10 hour drive to Rexburg.

Going to meet the principal!  Virgin Valley High School

Now for the camping trip!  It was very fun and we had fun being around family.  We both like to be with family and miss that close connection now that we live so far away.  My family has recently started a tradition of going camping all together once a year.  My older brother and I both had to travel about 10 hours to make it, but it's worth the travel to get everyone together!  I sure miss all these crazies!  The campsite we were at was right in the middle of a bunch of RV's, and I'm not sure how much they all appreciated the kids running around and being noisy and the babies waking up in the middle of the night!  But we had fun!  Here are some pictures:

Grandpa and Sorren, they are such good buddies!  No one does Paddy-Cake like him.  Right here he is doing his signature paddy-cake with the feet move.

  

All the grandkids!  Poor London is the only girl but I don't think she minds because she loves to watch those crazy boys running around!

Original Mitchell clan.

It's hard for us to have a normal picture taking session....

Family!

Asher had a hard time sleeping at camp.  He's never been a good sleeper, and traveling makes it that much harder!  So I got to have a lot of good cuddle sessions. ;)

I could kiss that face all day!

Me with the babies, Isaac and London!  It was a cold morning so I was glad to have 2 little lap warmers!

Hiking up Cress Creek Trail.  It's a pretty easy hike and lots of fun!

London had the most fun on the hike, she had her sunhat to block the sun, her juice to keep her hydrated, and her daddy to give her a nice ride the whole time!

This is the most smiley girl you ever met!

Isaac had a lot of fun in his own little play area!

London loves Asher!  And Asher loves bath time, even while camping!

Lisa brought this for Isaac, but all the toddlers loved playing in it too!

Dad was either reading or going on pop runs.  He enjoyed camping in his own way. :)

Grandma's tent was the coolest - it was big, has nice rugs, and movies!

These three clowns had a lot of fun together, and got into a lot of mischief!  Ledger (in red) is the oldest, Sorren (in gray) is 4 months younger than Ledger, and Asher is 6 months younger than Sorren.

Millie did this a lot.  Camping wore her out.

Asher was sleeping so sweetly, I had to take a picture!

After we got back to my parents house, everyone was so exhausted that the kids all watched a movie while the adults lounged around.

We stayed in Rexburg for a couple more days and then drove to Utah to spend some time with David's brother Brian and his wife Brittany.  They were so nice to let us stay in their new house!  I don't have any pictures of it, but it's very nice!  We had a lot of fun while we were there and were sad to leave!  Now we're back home and we have just a couple of weeks to pack our house, find a new apartment, get David's Nevada teaching license, and move!  Anyone that wants to help us move is more than welcome!  It will be a stressful few weeks and moving is always hard on Asher.  I feel so bad that we have to keep packing all his stuff up, but hopefully this move will last a little longer!  We miss all our family and can't wait until we get to see any and all of you again!  I'll leave you now with an adorable picture of my two munchkins cuddling.

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.

My Kids Quirks

Asher is a one of a kind child, as most kids are.  But I've come to realize that with this child, I may have gotten my fair share of things that every parent dreads.  Just to name a few:

• Colic.  I think everyone can agree this is one of the hardest to endure.  Asher cried straight through the first 3 months of his life.  I loved him so much, but I also wanted to bury my face in a pillow and scream a lot.  Nothing helped.  I tried Gripe Water, Essential Oils, holding him in all sorts of positions, acid-reflux medicine, etc.  I now know about every single remedy for colic known to man.
• I have many blow-out stories.  He had a lot of gas (the reason for the colic, I think) so when he had to go, he put all his might into getting it out!  For awhile we had about one blow-out per day.
• He was up every 2 hours at night till he was 4 months old.  I cannot tell you how exhausting that was, especially with me working and David going to school.  We were surviving on about 5 hours of sleep at night.
• We did a bad thing and got him used to being rocked to sleep.  And he wouldn't sleep unless he was held.  We both spent a lot of time sleeping on the couch with him on top of us.  This was our fault and something I have learned not to do for the next one!
• This kid is a professional tantrum thrower.  I'm talking screaming, kicking, running away, throwing himself on the floor, you wouldn't believe it!  He calms down pretty quickly, but he is usually so ridiculous in his tantrums that it makes me laugh instead of makes me annoyed.  I might have to try and get a video of it someday.
• A recent development is that he likes to take his pants off.  I'm really trying to stop this one because I have heard many stories of toddlers taking off their pants and running through the store/church/etc.  I know this is going to happen to us with Asher, but I'd like to try and keep it to a minimum!  And this development has led to....
• Taking his diaper off!  Twice now I have had to clean up poop from Asher digging around in his diaper after he wakes up from a nap.  He gets it all over himself, in his hair, on the blankets, on the crib.  It's quite the detox process to clean all that up.  David had to help me once and I thought he was going to throw up from the smell, it was pretty awful.  I've tried safety pinning his clothes together, but he's figured out how to get those off.  So when I put him down to sleep I just put on tighter pants he can't really get off.  I really hope this does not continue.

So all those things have made me really feel like a veteran parent!  I know different challenges come with having multiple kids, but I feel like I've been through a lot.  I told my sister that I'm not even scared to have another kid because I have been through so much that I feel like I can handle any challenge that comes my way!  And Asher really is a good little boy.  He's been so great through all the moves and us turning his whole world upside down every few months.  And since we have to take an hour and a half trip to Page every other week to do our shopping, he's gotten so good in the car on those long trips and hardly fusses at all.  Now I'd like to name all the fun things he's started doing!  And believe me, these totally outweigh the bad!

• He is getting so much more vocal.  He loves to walk up to you and start chattering away like he's telling you something so very important.  I can't wait till he learns to talk for real so I can really start participating in these conversations!  The best is when he's talking on the phone.  He loves to talk on the phone and has figured out how to dial on my cell.  He usually calls David or my mom (my mom loves these calls, even though she can't understand a word!), but sometimes he'll call the Primary President in our ward.  That's more awkward...Every time he starts talking it makes me so happy!  It's very adorable!
• A few times a day, he'll stop whatever he's doing and point at my hand.  Sometimes he'll be across from the room and run over to me pointing at my hand.  He'll keep doing it till I hold my hand out and he'll give me a very enthusiastic high-five and continue on playing with his toys.  It makes me laugh every time!
• He's figuring out this whole life thing pretty well.  Today when I asked him if he wanted lunch, he immediately stopped playing and went over to the counter where I had a bowl, picked it up and went and sat at the table.  At night when I ask him if he wants to have a bath, he runs upstairs (no other prompting needed), runs straight into the bathtub and starts climbing in, clothes and all!  He loves bath time.  When I ask him if he wants to take a nap or go to bed, he'll start grabbing for his sippy-cup and head towards his room.  He knows how things go!
• One thing that started pretty recently is if we're both on the couch, he'll try to get his face up towards mine, mouth wide open, and give me a very wet kiss on the lips!  It's very cute!  And I've gotten him to where I can ask for a kiss and he'll do it on demand.  Very wet and makes me very happy.
• The word he's probably best at using is "bye".  He'll get his chubby little hand up and wave goodbye to anyone that's leaving, or he'll do it if we're leaving.  And he does it to everyone!  He does it to our neighbors dog when we leave, to the lady at the post office after we've picked up our packages, the checker at the grocery store, and to David when he leaves for work.  Even if that person isn't especially happy when they're helping me, Asher can always get a smile out of them by doing that!
• He loves to read!  A few times a day he'll pick up a book and find a chair and sit down and start "reading" out loud.  I hope this continues for the rest of his life!  I love to read and read a book with him at least once a day.  His favorite reading spot is the rocker that's in his room. 

Asher makes me laugh all the time and he's such a fun person to be around.  I'm pretty lucky to have such an awesome side-kick!

This boy loves to brush his teeth.

For my birthday we went to the fanciest place in town - McDonald's!  Not even joking, it really is.  They have a bunch of touch screen monitors with kids games on them.

Reading in Mom and Dad's bed.

I look gross, but I love his smile!  His Mother's Day present to me was he took a nap with me after church!

Guitars Unplugged

David's students really like to watch him play his cello and have even requested that I come in and play a duet with him (I don't know if that's going to happen....)  So I was thinking that his students would really like to see a video of him doing Guitars Unplugged when he was in college, and I found the video someone took on our computer!  So I thought it would be fun to share!  Enjoy a little Apocalyptica!

Grand Canyon Adventure

Last weekend my mom, sister, and nephew all came to visit us!  It was such a great time and I wished they all lived closer so we could see them all the time!  They got here last Saturday evening and Asher was super happy to have Grandma here (that child sure does love having company here).  About 20 minutes after they got here, Asher made himself right at home in Isaac's bouncer.

 

Asher also loved having Isaac here, he loves to help with babies.  He kept trying to put the pacifier in Isaac's mouth and touch his face and just be around him.   I wish I had more pictures of Isaac, but I was really bad and didn't take hardly any pictures all weekend.  Millie also liked Isaac, but more to taste him and smell all the weird odors that come out of babies bodies.  

Sunday was probably my favorite day of the trip because I kind of got to experience church like a normal person!  I told my mom and Lisa that we don't have a nursery in our ward so David usually takes Asher home after Sacrament to take a nap and I stay and do the music in Primary.  But that Sunday they wanted to help us out.  Sacrament was amazing because they helped entertain Asher and David didn't have to take him out at all!  I have to play piano during Sacrament, so I don't really get to help.  But Asher was so good.  After Sacrament, my mom and Lisa took Asher to the Nursery room, our primary president got them a little lesson book with a coloring page, and they held nursery for Asher so I could go to Primary and David could (for the first time in a long time) actually go to Priesthood!  I about cried because it was so nice to not have to worry about Asher and to know that we could both attend our meetings.  It also made me sad because I know that's what other parents look forward to, when their child is finally old enough for nursery.  But our luck was holding when we moved here right when Asher turned old enough to go.  Oh well, I got a glimpse of what will be in our future hopefully very soon!  Sunday night we had a wonderful dinner grilled by David, it was nice enough to eat outside, and we also had a little birthday party for me (kind of the reason they came to visit, even though my birthday isn't for a couple more weeks).  We had cake and I got some wonderful crafting supplies (I'm so glad I have my sewing machine back!) and some Pampered Chef measuring stuff that I've wanted for a really long time!  It was a good day!

My mom said the one thing she wanted to do while she was here was to see the Grand Canyon.  It's supposed to be a 2 hour drive from here, so we thought we'd leave Monday morning and be back in the early afternoon.  I'm just going to say right now that we should've done a little more planning before we left.  David couldn't come because he had school, but we left around 9am.  Things were going pretty good for the first little while!  Both babies (yes, Asher is still my baby!) slept for the first hour and a half, but started waking up when we stopped for gas at Tuba City.  Just past Tuba City, we came to a fork in the road.  Our GPS said to turn left, but the sign said the place we wanted to go was to the right.  Since sometimes the GPS doesn't work very well in this area, and we thought the sign would be pointing us in the right direction, we turned right.  THAT WAS A HORRIBLE CHOICE!!!!!!  Just to give you a warning for the rest of the story.  

We drove for a long time.  I was thinking that it should've only taken 2 hours to drive there, but we were having a fun time and Asher was happy so I just went along with it.  We saw a couple more signs and the GPS was giving us directions that seemed right and we were heading towards some big mountains so everything seemed fine.  And we kept driving....and driving....and then Isaac started to wake up and get a little hungry.  And we started to drive away from the mountains.  And the GPS wanted us to turn into ditches.  So we decided it was time to stop and ask for directions!  We stopped at this jewelry stand where my mom got out to ask for directions, I got Asher out so he could walk around, and Lisa was digging through her bag to find the formula.  

I went over to my mom to see what she found out, and it was bad news.  At the turn, we should've turned left.  So we had a choice, go back the 2 hour drive to that turn or try to find something else.  I went back to Lisa to tell her the bad news, and I found her sitting in the car almost in tears.  She had forgotten the formula at our house and only had about an ounce of liquid formula left.  And it's not like we were in a big metropolis, this is the reservation where every town is about 2 hours away.  So we all got back in the car and tried to find gas stations that had any formula.  But no luck.  I knew Page had a Wal-Mart, so we drove about an hour away from the Grand Canyon to save little Isaac from being hungry!  Lisa was a little tender during that part of the drive...which I can understand!  I think every mother has done something like that.  I usually forget diapers so Asher has to sit in a wet diaper until I can track down a dry one.  

But we made it to Page and to Wal-Mart and everyone was ok!  We thought it would be a good time to get lunch and eat at the park so Asher could run around.  He was being so good and not even grumpy about how much time he had to spend in the car!  We went to the park and while my mom watched Asher, Lisa and I went to find directions to the Grand Canyon.  We were directed to the visitors center where they told us that we would still have to go back to that turn where we picked the wrong way.  To be honest, I kind of wanted to just go home, but I knew Lisa and my mom would be leaving the next day and might not get another chance to see the Grand Canyon, so we buckled everyone in again and headed off to see it!  I have to say, Lisa was a lot calmer at this point and Asher fell asleep pretty quickly.  But Isaac was sick of being in the carseat and he got the hiccups, and I was in back with both of them so I did everything I could to keep everyone happy!  

When we started off this adventure, I told my mom that that the speed limit says 65, but everyone goes about 80 because there are never any cops patrolling on the reservation.  My mom took that to heart and said that after we left Page, she did something she'd never done before and went over 90 mph!  Don't worry, it's pretty flat land and not too many cars drive on that road.  We made it back to the turn, and went the right way this time!  David was getting a little concerned because by now it was about 5pm and we'd been gone since 9am, but I told him we were almost there and would head home soon.  Finally, we made it to the entrance to the park!  We paid the $25 and all agreed that the first canyon-looking place we saw, we'd stop and then go home.  So we were happy when about 2 minutes into the park we found a lookout!  We all got out of the car and made our way down to the viewing area.

We stopped  here for a minute so Lisa could feed Isaac his bottle.  Asher was such a good boy all day!

At this point we were all getting silly (I'm blaming it on the loooong car ride).  My mom took a picture of me taking a picture of Lisa and Isaac.

One lady stopped us and pointed out an elk that was right next to the gift shop.  That's the bum.

Walking down.  It was actually a pretty long walk.  We did go up the tower, but I don't have any pictures of those.

We made it to the Grand Canyon!  What we thought was going to be a 2 hour drive turned out to be an 8 hour trip, just to get there!  It was another 2 hours to drive back home.  Lisa pointed out that they could've driven back to Rexburg for the amount of time it took us to drive there, and that they would get to be in the car just as long the next day when they did drive back!  My mom wasn't too happy about that.  I asked my mom if it was all worth it and it really made me laugh when she replied "I don't know....."  It probably would've been more rewarding if we hadn't have been in the car all day!  But I had a lot of fun with my family.  I love just hanging out and talking with them, so I really didn't feel like it was a wasted day.  And I can guarantee that we will always remember that trip!  It was an adventure I won't forget!

We made it!  My phone had died at this point, so all these pictures are ones my mom took.

Lisa feeding Isaac on the go.

Asher was being so good, but he had spent too much time in the car and was really tired.  He kept going up to these people really confused because he thought they were us.  He had tired-brain!

My buddy!  I didn't start out the day looking like I gave up, but we had been in the car 8 hours at this point.

Lisa got to spend a lot of time with Asher in the back seat!  She especially loved it when he would stick his toes right in her ribs.  I told her he's been doing that since I was pregnant with him!  She also kept feeding him M&M's on the way home.  I don't even blame her.  And it kept him happy!

While they were packing up the next day to go home, Asher kept climbing in Lisa's suitcase.  He wanted to go with them!  He really misses having people to play with!  And he was so sad when they left!  Come again soon!

 

Two days after my family left, Asher and I had to take the car to Page because we thought we were going to have to make a $300 repair.  Page is an hour and a half away, so I wasn't happy about having to pack Asher up in the car again and have to pay that much money.  We got to the mechanic and I was worried about how I was going to entertain Asher in this tiny, boring, cold waiting room while the car got fixed.  But one of the mechanic's 6 year old son came over and had Asher laughing and smiling as soon as he started playing with him!  Asher just loves other kids and it makes me so sad that there aren't many kids around here for him to play with and almost none that are his age.  So I was so happy to see them play together!  And after they had looked at our car for about 10 minutes, they handed me back my keys, told me a pipe was loose that they tightened, and they weren't going to charge me anything!  I was so happy!  We then went to Wal-Mart and then to McDonalds because Asher had been so good about all the long car rides that I had to take him out to eat.  

At McDonald's we saw a girl in a wedding dress!  It was a beautiful dress and she looked great, but it was super weird seeing her there at a fast food place.

My buddy.  I'm sure lucky to have him!

Just Asher

Well I realized I hadn't posted too many pictures of us just around the house and in our normal life.  That's probably because normal life around here is really boring.  We don't have a park or anything really for toddlers to enjoy so we spend A LOT of time just at the house.  But here are a lot of pictures of Asher because I like him and he actually lets me take pictures of him!

He still loves to help cook.  I hope it's a family tradition forever!

Asher loves it when I turn the camera backwards on my phone so he can see himself!  It's very entertaining!

I had a duck-call thing from a choir trip I took to Missouri in High School.  Asher finally figured out how to make it work!

Asher was brushing his hair during the talk.  He made it very hard to focus!

This is also what Asher was doing during Conference.

He's so pretty.

Ward Conference

Yesterday we had ward conference, which in our ward apparently means a 2 hour sacrament meeting and we still have the last hour to squeeze in whatever we can.  I have 2 callings that mean I am busy all during church!  I am the sacrament meeting pianist (3rd time having this calling...and I still don't like it...) and primary music leader.  Primary sounded intimidating because I'm used to wards having a junior and senior primary and each having about 40 kids.  But this ward combines junior and senior, and they still only have about 7 kids show up, and it's usually different kids each week because most people in our ward only attend about once a month.  But I like that it's not a lot of pressure and I can just get up and sing and have fun!

Well yesterday we had the stake presidency speak, and the 1st counselor had, I thought, some very interesting things to say!  He is a white man, but he opened up his talk by speaking Navajo very fluently.  I was surprised because usually you only hear the Natives speak the language.  But the mystery was quickly solved when he switched back to English and said that back in the 70's, he had gone on his mission to this area.  And what a different mission it must have been!

He said he spent a little time at a place called Navajo Mountain (pretty close to us).  He said that we may think it's isolated now, but back then was even worse.  It was all dirt roads and they didn't have any cars, so they had to hitchhike or walk wherever they needed to go.  They're "apartment" was really just a room at the back of the health clinic in the main part of town.  It was only them and they didn't have any phones at all to contact the outside world.  And going tracting sounded like quite an adventure!  He said that to go tracting, they would pack up their sleeping bags and backpacks, and hike out to wherever they needed to go and spend the night camping and then head off to the next place.  They would be gone from their apartment for days at a time.  After having lived here, I could see that!  You can see houses so far off the road and so spread apart, that if you didn't have a car you really would have to camp out to visit them.

Well he said one week they left their apartment to go visit some people.  They were gone for a few days and when they got back the Mission President's assistant was there waiting for them.  He said they couldn't get a hold of him (no phone) and they didn't know where he was (out camping) and that he had been transferred the previous week!  It really is a different place here.  I've learned a lot about this culture, but at the same time I feel like I still don't know much.  I can definitely say, though, that this will be a time that I won't ever forget!

Spring Break!

Coming from Rexburg where Spring Break is a Friday and Monday off, I was surprised when David had an entire week off!  I knew I wanted to travel to Utah/Idaho to see family, but I wasn't so sure David would want to.  When he has breaks from school he likes to relax and chill at home.  But we had been getting a little bit of cabin fever (not only from being in the house too much, but also from being in a town with very little to do), so we decided that after school on Friday, we would head up to Utah to spend a few days with Brian and Brittany!  The drive wasn't terrible, but Asher was awake the last 2 hours and very grumpy.  We didn't have a carrier for Millie (our pup) because they are pretty expensive and we're still pretty poor, so we put a blanket in a clothes hamper and just put her in that.

But we did make it to Utah!  It was fun seeing both of them and getting to show off how much Asher's grown and our new puppy.  We got a lot of exercise taking Millie up and down the 3 flights of stairs every hour or so and Asher loved getting out of our house!  We went and got our brakes fixed (not exciting and very expensive...) and we got to go to the playground and have dinner and watch movies and play games with each other!  We also went to church with them on Sunday and Asher got to go to Nursery!  We don't have a Nursery in our ward so I was super excited that Asher got to play with some kids his own age.  That doesn't happen very often and I feel bad that he doesn't have any kids around here that are his age.  But he had a lot of fun with all the other crazy toddlers!

Nursery!

You can thank Brittany for this picture!  She managed to get Brian to have a good smile!

Asher was breaking.

Asher sure loves his Daddy!

On Monday David had a job interview (which we still haven't heard back from) and after he got back to the apartment we drove up to Rexburg!  Asher was very excited to see Grandma Mitchell and Oscar and we were all glad we didn't have to go on any road trips for a few days!  I had noticed that Asher is way too big for his pack-n-play, but he's not ready for a regular bed, so my mom and I devised a plan that involved a twin sized bed on the floor surrounded by their gate for the fireplace.  It worked like a dream!  Asher wasn't all squished and cramped and actually slept really well.

Most of the week in Rexburg was filled with play dates with Asher's cousin Ledger, those two are thick as thieves!  Joni brought Ledger and London over to the house for them to play and we also went to story time at the library and the park!  Ledger did his best to teach Asher how to be naughty and run away and make lots of messes.  I wished we lived closer so they could play together more often!

This was our story time craft!  Joni and I made the hats while Asher and Ledger colored on the same picture, Asher tried to color on other people, and Ledger tried to get all the tape out of the dispenser!

Best friends!

One of the big reasons to go to Rexburg was for my sister, Lisa.  Lisa and Tyler have been trying to have children for a long time.  They found out they couldn't have kids, so they decided to try adoption.  It was a long process full of many ups and downs, but last week they flew to Arkansas to pick up their little boy, Isaac!  He is so little and adorable.  I only got to hold him once (they got back to Rexburg the night before we left), but I love him so much!  On Friday, March 13, they were sealed together in the Rexburg Temple!  I was so glad we were able to attend that and to help out a little bit with their baby shower.  I was so sad when we left that I will admit I cried a lot (mostly in the car where no one but David could see...)  but I want to make another trip up there when school gets out!  David doesn't have another break until Memorial Day Weekend, so it's going to be a long few months.  But we loved going to see family and get away for a week!  Thank you so much for everyone who looked after my child, let us stay at their house, and fed us wonderful food!  We can't wait to see you all again!

So glad we could be there to see your family joined for all eternity!

Update

I thought I'd just give a little update on Asher.  He is growing up so fast that I know I'm missing some things on here!  Here are a couple little quirks that he's developed:

• He has figured out that pointing will usually get him what he wants.  And sometimes he just points to see what he'll get, not that he really wants anything!  It's actually made him a lot happier because he can show me what he wants instead of me trying to guess.
• This child is going to be a headstrong person, I just know it!  He decides things for himself.  One day we were sitting on the couch and he gets up and starts heading for the stairs.  When I didn't follow him, he came back down and started pointing at his sippy cup (which means he wants to take a nap).  He looked at me like "Come on Mom, it's nap time!"
• He tries to be a big person as much as he can.  He won't eat something if I cut it up for him.  He wants a whole sandwich, a whole banana, etc.  And I thought kids weren't supposed to like the crust on bread!  Not that I'm complaining, but I think it's funny when he eats a sandwich because he eats the crust first.
• I can't give him too much at one time because he likes to stuff as many things into his mouth as possible.  It's not so bad if it's something like marshmallows or crackers, but when he stuffs 7 carrots into his mouth and tries to chew them, things get a little dicey!
• He loves to talk.  He doesn't say many words (right now it's basically "uh oh" and "dada") but he will jabber on for minutes at a time as long as he has your attention!  It's very cute.  Some other words he'll sometimes say are "hi" and "mama".  
• He is getting better at identifying things.  He can get his shoes, socks, and coat when we tell him to get them.  He'll even try to put them on himself sometimes.  I like that he is getting more independent but it also makes me sad that he's growing up!

So here are some pictures of my little one!

Lounging like this is his new favorite thing.  It looks more comfortable when he does it on a bed instead of our dirt backyard!

There are stray animals everywhere here.  But they are mostly very friendly!  I think this cat belongs to one of our neighbors and Asher loved trying to play with it!  He has the Mitchell blood in him-he loves animals!

Asher spent about 10 minutes watching tv like this.

I wanted just a picture of his cute little face!  I kiss those cheeks about 100 times a day.

He has the cheesiest grin!  It's hard to be mad at him when he pulls this face!

We may need to get some beach toys...then our backyard won't be so boring!

 

This is a dress I made all by myself!  I finally got my sewing machine back after having it in storage.  I'm going to try and rotate crafting projects between sewing, knitting, and crocheting.  I like to work on them after Asher goes to bed.  There's not much to do here so I have to find some way to entertain myself!