Dear Richard
Look at what Josh typed all
on his own:
123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313234353637383940414243444546474849666666666666666666666666666666666888888888888888888888888888888855555555555555555555555555555555511111111111111111111111111111111112222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555556666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666777777777777777777777777777777777777777777
This is one of his favourite
things to do right now, asking to do numbers on the computer. Sometimes he
still skips the 33 and 44 etc, and when he did this one he got bored after a
while. But to get all the way to 49 is pretty impressive!
The kids are just growing so
fast in general! And there is so much to be enjoying every day. I don’t manage to
be in a positive frame of mind every single day to enjoy them, but there is
still lots of joy to be found J
I’ve been very busy at work,
although the semester ends this week, so I am looking forward to a slowing
down. I did some Excel training for our admin staff on Thursday, so I had to
prepare that all, and then present it. And there was so much to cover that we’re
going to be doing some more this week. But I got very positive feedback, and I
enjoyed it. I also finished and sent off the paper I wrote to present at a
conference in June.
On Friday morning I went to a
Mothers Day tea at the school. Each class had a chance to sing a song for the
moms. Hannah was a bit sick, so she was doing a whole shy thing, but I was so
proud of Josh – he came out with his class and sang the whole song! He is
making such progress! And I know that Hannah is usually much more confident, so
we don’t need to worry about a day like that.
I took the kids to the park
on Thursday afternoon, and Caleb just wanted to go on every single apparatus!
He went from the swings, to the slide, to the seesaw, and wanted to be busy all
the time! On Friday I let them play on the school playground before we left,
because all the other kids were inside. And again, he was busy, busy, busy! But
all 3 kids played together really nicely J
On Friday evening we went to
the Spur for supper. It’s the first time we’ve been as a family since Caleb was
born, and it was quite an experience… He is such a busy child that to contain
him was a HUGE challenge. But Josh is now at a stage where he wants to go and
play in the play area on the play stations… But I think we’re going to wait a
while before we try that again!
On Saturday morning Tracey
and Elton B arrived and offered to take the kids for a while and look
after them for us. So sweet! Only Hannah was willing to go with them, but I
took Josh and Caleb with to fetch her, and they all had a nice time playing on
the jungle gym at their complex. Tracey is really amazing with how much she
does to help other people all the time. I don’t know how she has the energy,
but what an example!
We had Hannah’s party for the
family on Saturday afternoon, and that seemed to go really well. The nice thing
with the family is that we can be particularly relaxed, which is just great! I
decorated a Hello Kitty cake for her, which I was really proud of J I’ll
send pictures…
And then yesterday was Mother’s
Day. Andrew got me flowers, and made me a really nice fruit salad for
breakfast. I got woken up at 6:00 to feed Caleb (which is a bit later than
usual), and then before the other kids came into the room Caleb first snuggled
with me for a bit, and then played a bit as well, which is really special time
I have with him each day. Then Josh and Hannah came in with presents (nice
snacks) and pictures they had coloured in for me. Andrew cancelled the meetings
before church, and then Primary sang during sacrament, so I had a bit of a
break from the normal routine.
And then we got to speak to
you in the afternoon! I think we definitely want to plan that we know the phone
number in advance for Christmas, in case there is a connection problem… But at
least we got to see you, and hopefully you got to see us all? But it was nice!
And it was so nice to have mom at home for the afternoon as well. There is
definite improvement this week, which is a huge relief J
We had a farewell for the
Cedras family last night, ahead of their move to Joburg, where Bro Cedras is
going to be working for the Church. We just had a pudding evening and
socialised together, and it was so nice! It would be nice if we could have more
ward activities. Everyone just always seems so busy though!
We had dad and Cindy over for
supper this evening, which is always exciting for the kids. Otherwise the day
was pretty unremarkable. I’m lecturing revision to my third year class this
week, and then the semester ends on Thursday. Finally! This has been a really
long semester!!!
I went visiting teaching this
afternoon, and had a really nice visit. I shared Elder Holland’s talk from the
last conference “Lord, I believe” as my message, which is SO powerful!
I realised that I had a
really good week last week with missionary experiences. One of the academic
trainees asked about me not drinking coffee, so I was able to talk about the
word of wisdom, and also the fact that we are so strict about living the commandments
because we can’t expect to go and live with a perfect God if we know about
something and don’t do it… I was also able to talk a bit more about temples to
a few people because we’re starting to plan our temple trip for this year. So
in total I spoke to 5 different people about church related stuff. For me, that’s
amazing! J
Thanks for the birthday
wishes, better late than never J
By the time you get this we’ll
know if you reached your target of baptisms for May. It will be exciting to
see!
You’re in our prayers!
Shelly
