Sometimes They Make You Very Proud

The kids, that is. Last week the missionaries ate with us and invited us to continue thinking about someone with whom we can share the gospel. (This has been an on-going project for a while. We were going to focus on a part-member family we home taught...until they moved.) This time the approach involved asking us to give a pass-along card to someone.

We accepted the invitation, but the question of "who" was at the fore of my mind. We run with a lot of fellow Mormons, and the people we encounter the most outside of the church are often in situations that are a bit off-limits--I oughtn't give pass-along cards to students who visit during my office hours, for example.

Today's FHE lesson came from Preach My Gospel (a great resource for FHE, by the way), and focused on finding people to teach. In beginning the lesson, I referred to the missionaries' visit and the pass-along card. Rather nonchalantly, Ryan said, "I gave it away today." Huh?! Ryan?! Huh?!

It turns out that Ryan and Isaac took some time yesterday making an invitation to Ryan's baptism for his friend, Michael, from school, and today Ryan gave hime that and the pass-along card (as Ryan put it, "since Michael's in a lower reading group, I helped him read it"). And he didn't make a big deal about it. Here's a thing he knew he wanted to do and a chance to do it, and he did it.

That, more than anything else, is really what I want for my children, that they will recognize the chance to do something good, something selfless and caring, and that they will do it, without worrying about it, without the hesitation that often marks my decision-making, without fanfare or expectation of acknowledgement. They'll just do something good for someone. It's very touching and, for me at least, inspiring.

On the Town

The school year is drawing to a close, as is my break before the summer term begins, and the weather in ABQ has turned beautiful. Today the kids had their carnival day at school, so we decided to play hooky and spend the day as a family. It turned out to be the best idea we've had in a while.

Our first stop was the Sandia foothills, where we did a quick hike to an overlook with a breathtaking vista of the Rio Grande valley. At the overlook we got a few nice shots, first of Summer and the older kids:And then of Evan, looking just a bit scared to be this high up:
We then went downtown to see the new Earth movie, which was quite enjoyable, if a bit overambitious in scope. But the kids were really well-behaved, earning them a trip to a new local dining find, the New York Pizza Department, a fun place on Central with great thin-crust pizza. And finding fun stuff downtown is always great.

Our final stop before heading home was the National Hispanic Cultural Center, located in the historic Barelas area of town. The complex houses a performing arts center, a museum, and educational resources. It's a very impressive facility, and we're thinking of having family photos taken there, so we did some reconnaissance. Here are some of the results.

First, from the promenade to the facility itself, Ryan and Evan in the shade of some maple trees:
And here the three oldest kids pose near the fountain:
We then made our way home for a nap time. A well-deserved nap time.

Coronado State Monument

On Friday we accompanied Allyson's class on a field trip to Coronado State Monument in Bernalillo. The monument is located at the edge of the Santa Anna pueblo (from whence comes Allyson's teacher, so it was fun to talk with him about his hometown) on the bank of the Rio Grande at the site of the ancient Kuaua (pronounced like “koala” with a lisp) pueblo. Here Coronado and his party encamped during their first winter in what is now New Mexico, so the monument—in a somewhat split-personality style—celebrates both the pre-contact society of the Tewa people who lived along the Rio grande and the arrival of the Conquistadors in 1540.

We were part of a party of 60 or so kids and a dozen or so adults, representing the whole of the 4^th grade of Griegos Elementary School (a far cry from the 10 or so classes in each grade at the kids' previos and overcrowded school). The three classes split up and went with separate guides to different parts of the monument.

We followed the path along the ruins of the pueblo, stopped every 100' or so for a tidbit of history. Among these pieces of trivia were the following:

• In the Tewa pueblos, women owned dwelling places, and, at the time of marriage, the husband had to trek 40 miles or so to the mountains to get the wood for the roof of the home the wife built in his absence
• The original building style prior to the arrival of the Spaniards was called ball and paddle—pizza dough-sized spheres of mud that were stacked and then coated with more mud to form the walls of the structure
• The ladders you see in these pueblo sites havea symbolic nature—the different lengths of vertical posts represent the man and the woman, of different heights but held together and reaching upward
• “Kuaua” means “evergreen” in the Tewa language, which is odd since the trees nearby are all Cottonwoods—a deciduous tree

During the hike we saw some fun stuff. First, the reconstructed walls of the pueblo rooms (note the rectabgular shape, indicating the post-contact style introduced by the Spanish):

Next, a yucca plant ready to flower, which made us wonder if yuccas are related to asparagus:

A reconstructed room from the pueblo (the structure itself was three stories high and was entered only via ladders like the one seen here—the ceiling inside is only 5' high, meaning the Tewa were a short people):

After walking around we visited the museum, a small structure that houses a set of mural paintings from one of the original kivas at the pueblo. In the 1930s, anthropologists from UNM removed the murals and found layer on layer of these fresco-type paintings. The museum displays a dozen or so of these, the only of their kind in existence.

We then ate lunch and hiked to the banks of the Rio Grande before departing. On the way home, the little boys both fell asleep, which is always good for a picture or two:

We've Become That Family

You know, the one that wears matching clothes for pictures. These are the t-shirts Mom sent from her recent trip to visit Dad in Florida.

First, we have Evan, who wouldn't pose with the rest of the crew (thanks to Allyson for taking the picture):
And then the rest of the kids:

"Two Trucks"

Ever since Evan was a newborn, I've counted while getting him dressed. I'll button his onsie and count each snap--"One, two, three." (I figure all the other numbers are unnecessary and confusing.)

As a quick aside, I think Allyson and Ryan are good at math because when they were little we lived in apartment complexes with stairs, and we would count as we went up and down. By 20 months Allyson could count to 11 (the number of stairs to the ground floor). Isaac and Evan are cursed to live in a one-story and therefore not have the same educational opportunities as their older siblings. End of digression...

Evan quickly learned then that "one" follows "two," although his interest in "three" has been nonexistent. But he has a solid grasp, at least, on the concept of more than one.

This has recently become very amusing. When I hold the little guy, he will point to my hair and say "hair," my nose and say "nose," and my ear and say "ear." But on Friday he did the latter, followed by, "two ears." He now points out anything that he sees more than one of--two balls on his pajama shirt, two trucks in the parking lot, two books, etc.

So on Sunday I was in the kitchen eating a few cookies that I had made the day before. Evan bummed a few bites off me and then fussed when I cut him off. I asked if he wanted another cookie, and he looked up expectantly and said, "two cookie." Summer and I burst into laughter as his chutzpah.

What A Great Day!

Not because it's tax day (but seriously, who doesn't file until 4/15?), but because it's that special day, better than Christmas, my birthday, and Opening Day all rolled into one. It's that spring day when I walk outside to get the paper and realize it's not cold anymore and I can go to work without a jacket. No more chilly mornings and afternoons that are too warm to wear the jacket and I have to just carry it around. No, today begins the warm season in ABQ. And the best part is that there's no way to expect it; it just sneaks up on you. Awesome!

Are You Ready For Some Ruckus?

In our family we like order. We put the dishes away after we unload the dishwasher, we keep the kids' toys in specific bins, and the bookcases in the living room are arranged by genre. (When I was about 8, I grew weary of my parents and sisters not keeping the encyclopedias in order, so I created a check-out system to encourage responsible reading. I was an early-blooming dork.) But from a dark recess in the id comes the human desire for chaos. Thus, we decided to have children.

This is meant as a preface for what we took on this past Thursday, but the story begins about a year ago. Pat started giving the kids these fun card games for their birthdays—Moose in the House, Frog Juice, and Duck Duck Bruce. Then, a few weeks ago, Summer took Allyson to our favorite local toy store (Out of the Blue) to buy a birthday present for a friend. There they also bought a new card game for our family—Ruckus. It's a horribly fun game, and it lives up to its name quite well.

But, since we have a toddler in the house, we can't play this (or any other game, really) unless he's napping or otherwise occupied (that is, eating). However, at times, we give in and let the little guy get his hands on the cards. Thus, we get a scene such as this:That's right, he's making a ruckus with the Ruckus cards.

That was Wednesday. On Thursday Summer decided to move the baby from the crib to the toddler bed. I came home that afternoon to find her cleaning the bed in the living room. Soon afterwards, we were engaged in moving it to the boys' bedroom. In doing so, we had to rearrange the room because...well, that's what we do. So we moved the beds around and did the following:
Not quite a ruckus, but it certainly disrupts our little world...