Darr Family Blog

Weekly Happenings: Due to the weather (more about that later), we spent a lot of time indoors. There was one day (Monday) where I took Joseph to the park in the morning, but other than that, we didn’t do much outside other than the times when we’d go from the AC of the house to the AC of the car to the AC of wherever it was that we were going. 🙂 Paul took Thursday off to finish up his final work for his semester, and Friday we had friends over for dinner and board games. The majority of Saturday was spent at Lowe’s getting supplies to build a bench top for my music storage and then Paul put it all together. It looks fantastic (pictures to follow)!

The Weekly Weather: It has finally turned into July (though we have yet to officially break 100* temperatures). The hardest thing about it is (and yes, I know I say this every time) that it DOESN’T COOL DOWN AT NIGHT. The other night it was still 91 degrees at 9:00. I delt with THAT madness by going out to get shakes for Paul and myself (Joseph was already in bed). Yet, I realize that we are lucky that it has waited this long to do this. It is almost the end of July, after all.

What Paul’s Been Up To: He finished up his last semester of the Pathway program and is on break for about a month before his first semester of online classes start for BYU-I. He celebrated his first Saturday free of homework by building me a bench top for my music storage bench. 😉 He also has been taking care of a lot of Sunday School things because he is currently the only member of the Sunday School presidency that is still in town.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I am plugging away with my students (one student played a piano piece as a special musical number today during Sacrament meeting…I am super proud of her). I’m also working away at choir stuff (and trying to improve my conducting skills) as well as getting ready to get visiting teaching stuff done since the end of the month is swiftly approaching.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: His obsession with Legend of Zelda continues. Much of each day is spent pretending that he is Link (equipped with his Ninja sword; now a Link sword, a shield I made him out of cardboard, and an bow/suction cup arrow set that was given to us by a fellow Pathway student who had heard how much Joseph liked Link). This, of course, means that I am Zelda and must be rescued multiple times a day. There was once he insisted that one of the bad guys was in the middle of the road and that we needed to hit him with the car, hahaha. He really enjoyed himself yesterday while we were at Lowe’s getting supplies for the bench top because the employee that was working the wood cutter let Joseph wear protective goggles and hearing protection and even made sure Joseph got to help load the wood back into the cart. I’m not sure if he realized it at all, but that guy seriously made Joseph’s day, if not week.

This Week in Pictures:

Weekly Happenings: We had a rather fun week. On Monday night, we went over to one of the nearby neighborhoods because my friend who lives there let me know that they had seen fireflies while taking a walk along their nature path. We headed out right before dusk, feeling hopeful. Luckily, we were not disappointed. We walked around for a bit, saw a bunch of little frogs and toads (not to mention hearing a ton of cicadas in the trees), and then right before we were going to head back to the car, Paul noticed the first flash. All of a sudden, there were flashes everywhere. It really was magical. Seeing fireflies has always been a “bucket-list” item for me, so I was beyond happy. Joseph even had one fly right up to him, flashing its light. It seemed kind of curious about us and wanted to get a closer look, I think. Tuesday, I took Joseph to see if we could find some cowboy boots for him in the next size up, since his black ones were getting to be a bit snug. I was a bit concerned, since we didn’t see any black ones (I was afraid he’d be disappointed), but luckily, he really liked the pair that we found (they are brown on the bottom and then the sides look a bit like the Texas flag, but aged a bit). He calls them his Texas boots. 🙂 He wants to wear them everywhere, which can be an interesting wardrobe choice, but luckily, since he’s a little boy and it’s Texas, nobody seems to bat an eye. 🙂 Wednesday, he and I went to go see the free kids’ movie that was playing (Paddington). We were able to meet up with friends beforehand, so Joseph was pretty happy. Thursday, Paul took the day off of work (in order to work on some big final projects for school) so we devoted part of the day to going to the zoo. It was a fun family morning. Friday evening, we went out to Bass Pro Shops so that Paul could get some more ammunition and also so that Joseph could see the “stuffed” animals and the live fish. Yesterday, we did our monthly park clean up, went out for lunch, and then spent a lazy afternoon at home, followed by an evening of playing in the wading pool with squirt guns. 🙂

The Weekly Weather: It’s been a bit warmer and will be even more so as this week progresses. We have been really lucky so far, insomuch that I can’t really complain about the fact that we’re supposed to hit 100 degrees this week. We’ll see if I feel the same way next week. 😉

What Paul’s Been Up To: Mainly wrapping up all the loose ends with his end of semester work for school. Plus there is always work and home life stuff as usual. The Sunday School president is on vacation right now, which means he’s in charge of making sure that everything for Sunday School is running smoothly on Sundays. Luckily, today was great, so next week should be as well.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I had my first session with my newest student. She seems really excited and ready to learn, so it should be really good! Once school starts up again, I should be back up to eight (maybe nine) students, which will be great!

What Joseph’s Been Up To: Other than the fun things that I have already mentioned, Joseph has been his usual awesome self. He’s been wrapped up in the Legend of Zelda world this past week, pretending to be Link and coming to my rescue. Oh, and today at church, he was playing with some toys when I told him it was time to stop playing for a moment because someone was going to say the opening prayer. He said, “Okay, I’ll pause it…BEEP! It’s paused!” He then folded his arms for the prayer. Once the prayer was over, he said, “BEEP! Un-paused!” Luckily, since there are so many kids in our ward, nobody seemed to notice a bit of extra noise with the pausing and unpausing of the game (and Joseph was using his “whisper-voice” which he’s supposed to use while we’re in church). 😉

This Week in Pictures:

Bonus Video: Fireflies!

Weekly Happenings: After the craziness of the Fourth of July weekend, it was nice to kind of just hang around the house this past week. Consequently, there isn’t much to write about. We mainly did our normal stuff: grocery shopping, house tidying, playing, piano lessons, school, work, more playing, etc.

The Weekly Weather: It’s been really nice as of late. We haven’t had any rain, but it hasn’t been insufferably hot, either. It’s been cooler (as far as July is concerned; so that means low- to mid-90s which is much better than triple digits) and the humidity hasn’t even been that bad, either (or maybe I’m just finally acclimating, hahaha). I don’t think we’ve been warmer than 95 degrees so far this summer. There’s still August, though. 😉

What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s finishing up his last little bit of the Pathway program and has already registered for his first semester on online classes for BYU-I. I believe that his semester starts in September. In addition, his church calling, work, being an awesome daddy and husband, and maintaining the yards keeps him pretty busy as well.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: My usual stuff as usual. 🙂 I have a new student starting this week and her mom says that she’s pretty excited, which will be good. 🙂 Other things that are keeping me busy are my church callings and a very busy little boy. 🙂

What Joseph’s Been Up To: The main fun thing that happened for Joseph this past week was actually today. He gave his first talk in Primary today. He was not the least bit nervous (we had practiced throughout the week) and even read most of the talk on his own (I had him help me come up with what to say, so I tried to use small words that he could understand and know how to pronounce). The really funny/cute thing that happened with the writing of his talk was that as we were talking about it, he got super excited and told me that he was going to talk into the microphone in front of all his fans (hence the title of the blog post this week). 🙂 Friends, son…they’re your friends. 😉 The microphone wasn’t working, so I just made sure that he spoke loudly and clearly (which he accomplished without incident). In a way, it was nice that the mic wasn’t working because the kids kind of naturally quieted down in order to hear what he was saying. 🙂

This Week in Pictures: