Darr Family Blog

Weekly Happenings: This past week was yet another laid back week. While it doesn’t make for a very interesting blog post, it does make for a pretty relaxed momma. 🙂 One crazy thing happened last Sunday evening: I was cleaning the kitchen after dinner and noticed water all over the counter, close to the watermelon that was nonchalantly sitting there. Thinking that I may have cracked it while moving it, I picked it up to investigate. It was then that I heard a hissing sound and fermented watermelon juice started spraying everywhere out of a pin-sized hole. I’m guessing that it was a bit overripe when the guy at Paul’s work gave it to us and that as it sat on our counter, it built up too much pressure to be contained, lol. I set it in the sink (leak-side down) and cleaned up the mess. After it stopped spraying, Paul disposed of it. As for the other part of my title, Paul ordered some new hair clippers (a much quieter set, since the noise from his really old set seriously upset Joseph) and gave Joseph a haircut on our back porch. Other than wiggling because it tickled, Joseph did really great (no screeching or crying). As a reward, the next day he got to pick out a new action figure. Other fun things that happened were a trip to the zoo for me and Joseph and a fun birthday party that Joseph and I got to go to for one of his friends. More about that later…

The Weekly Weather: A mix of thunderstorms, warm weather, and humidity…so basically a typical South Texas summer. 🙂

What Paul’s Been Up To: He has registered for his first semester at BYU-I which will start in September. He’s also keeping more than busy with yard work, regular work, and finishing up his last Pathway courses.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’m mainly working on finding music for my choir to sing, but I did spend some time this past week typing up information that Paul could put on my other website that he’s creating for my piano teaching. I had a new student who started this past week and may have another one starting soon (I just talked to her mother at church today).

What Joseph’s Been Up To: The highlights of Joseph’s week were definitely going to the zoo, getting his new action figure, and going to his friend’s birthday party. His friend had a “Ninjago” party (LEGO ninjas, essentially). Each of the boys got a headband and a foam sword, had to complete a ninja obstacle course out in the backyard, and had ninja-themed snacks. All yesterday evening Joseph cycled back and forth being a ninja and playing with his action figures while watching the original GI JOE series. He tried to convince us to let him sleep with his sword and we had convinced him not to…but then fireworks started going off (thanks to some neighbors who are starting to celebrate the 4th of July sort of early). I got him to go back to sleep but when Paul went to get him this morning to get ready for church, he discovered that he was sleeping with the sword after all. I guess it’s a good thing that it’s foam, lol.

This Week in Pictures:

Weekly Happenings: This past week followed the previous one’s example of being pretty low-key. The main thing that Joseph and I did was to go to one of the free movies that our local theatre offers during the summer. Joseph actually made it through the entire movie (having popcorn and a drink helped a bit with that) and the movie was pretty cute (Penguins of Madagascar). Paul took Friday off of work, in the hopes to go shooting and maybe get some stuff done, but the weather foiled his plans. We still managed to have some fun since we had friends over later that evening for a BBQ and board game playing. Then, since we had so much food left over, we had our next door neighbors over yesterday to help eat the leftovers. As we were coming home from church today, Joseph asked who we were having over tonight, hahaha…nobody tonight, buddy. Speaking of today, since today was Father’s Day, we celebrated having a great Daddy in our family. Joseph sang some songs with the Primary at church, Paul got some presents (some of which came earlier this week and one that we gave him today), and he’s getting one of his favorite meals (meatloaf) for dinner tonight.

The Weekly Weather: It has been all over the place. We’ve had more rain (which pretty much drowned our pumpkin plant) and several “big-boom” thunderstorms. Because of that, we’ve had really humid days and my allergies have been going a bit crazy. The other thing that has happened because of all of the rain is that we have had a kind of invasion of tiny toads and green tree frogs. They are all over the place! On Friday, as I was closing our back screen door, a tiny green tree frog jumped onto my shoulder and then onto the dining room floor. Luckily, Paul was able to shoo him back out. A few minutes later, as we were saying goodbye to our friends who were leaving, we had to get two more green tree frogs to hop off of our storm door. Crazy!

What Paul’s Been Up To: The main thing that has happened with Paul this past week is that we found out that he was formally accepted to BYU-I. He’s finishing up the Pathway program and will be transitioning to finish his degree online.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve had a bit of a break with choir since last week it was a bit too dangerous to drive in the rain and this week was Father’s Day. I taught Relief Society today (the lesson was on the Book of Mormon) and will be preparing for a new piano student who is starting this week. Oh, and I had a terrifying bug experience this past week. I was in the downstairs bathroom when I heard scratching above my head. I looked up in time to see legs sticking out of the exhaust vent. I sent Paul a “what am I supposed to do?!” text with the information that they were skinny legs (not thick enough to be a scorpion). He advised that I spray it with bug spray. I grabbed the ant spray (because it was closest) and did so. That made the bug mad because it started buzzing angrily. At that point, I figured it was probably a wasp, so I grabbed the wasp spray and sprayed it with that. I didn’t hear any further noises, so I ran the fan for a while to get rid of the smell and left it until Paul got home so that he could take the vent cover off. When he did, a dead black mud dauber wasp fell out. I’m desperately hoping that he just got really, really lost and that we don’t have a wasp nest in our attic!

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been really good about independent play this past week. I was needing a bit of solo time to get things ready for my lesson (amongst other things) and Joseph has handled it really well. He wants to spend a lot of time watching videos and playing games on Paul’s Nook, but I try to limit his time simply so that he gets more imaginative play into his schedule. He’s developing quite the imagination and I want to encourage that as much as I can. 🙂 Oh, a funny story: I was unpacking my church bag and pulled out his Book of Mormon (it’s actually the one that Paul took on deployments, but Joseph has claimed it) which I had used as part of my lesson. Apparently this irritated him because he said, “You need to take my Book of Mormon back upstairs right now!” I guess he’s more possesive about it than I realized, hahaha!

This Week in Pictures:

 

Weekly Happenings: This past week was pretty chill. Since summer has pretty much set in, we try to do things early in the day or later in the evening since it is rather warm out during the middle of the day (truth be told, it’s warm in the evening as well, but that’s because it doesn’t cool down at night out here like I’m used to, growing up in California). One morning I stepped out the front door, barefoot, to hang our flag up. As I turned to go back in, I saw a pretty substantially-sized scorpion just chilling on the stoop…which means that I had literally stepped over it as I had walked out, BAREFOOT. I hadn’t seen it because it was on the part of the doorstep that isn’t flat. I didn’t dare walk back over it to get into the garage for the shovel. Luckily, we have some large rocks sitting on the front porch. I was able to use one of those to…dispose of the scorpion. I’m so grateful that Joseph hadn’t followed me out like he normally does and that I did not get stung. I KNOW that my Heavenly Father protected me in that instance! As for the rest of the week, several of my students are taking the summer off from piano, so I have a bit more time to do one-on-one stuff with Joseph. We got to go to the zoo twice this week, which was really fun. 🙂 The other bit of exciting news is that we are officially done with water restrictions. The water in the Edwards Aquifer has been above 660 feet for more than 10 days. That means that while we are still being encouraged to conserve water, there are no restrictions as to how often we can water (we were previously only allowed to water during a certain day and time). They are still asking us to water either before 11 AM or after 7 PM, but that is common sense to us. This is a big deal because San Antonio has been under some form of water restrictions since 2011. We’re so grateful for all the rain we have received (and continue to receive). Here’s a news article about the end of the restrictions.

The Weekly Weather: During the past week, it was warm and sunny. Yesterday was a bit more overcast (with a smattering of rain) and today has been quite the change weather-wise. While we were at church it started pouring and continued to pour. People’s phones started going off in Relief Society, notifying them of flash flood warnings (even if their phones are on silent, some people have settings that will still make them go off if there is a severe-weather warning). We made it home (which was kind of nerve-wracking because I don’t think I could see more than 10 feet in front of me because the rain was coming down so hard. It’s let up a bit, but we’re supposed to have thunderstorms all this week.

What Paul’s Been Up To: He continues to plug away at school, work hard at work, and work hard to keep our yards looking great. He was mowing the lawn the other evening and I kept hearing the mower shut off. As I went out to take some trash to the curb, I noticed him chasing down a huge frog who had jumped into our garage. As he caught it and was in the process of relocating it, he told me that he kept having to stop the lawnmower because the thing kept jumping right in front of the mower, freaking him out each time because he was trying desperately not to hit it (he has unfortunately gotten a few smaller frogs with the weedeater because he wasn’t able to stop in time).

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Same-old, same-old for me. I’m continuing to teach my students, I have almost all my visiting teaching assignments handed out (I think I’m going to mail the rest), and choir is singing some really things. I cancelled choir practice today because of the crazy weather. My major plans for this week are to gear up for Father’s Day and prepare a lesson for Relief Society next week (the regular teacher is out of town).

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been rather…strong-willed at times this week (luckily his easy-going moments still outnumber the strong-willed ones). He really loved going to the zoo (I’m really grateful for zoo passes). He also enjoyed snuggling with me on the couch while we caught one of his shows. Paul has put some fun stuff for him to do (like preschool games) and watch (the kids’ YouTube channel) on the Nook, so as a treat (or, truthfully, if I need to keep him busy while I’m doing something), he gets to have some “tablet time”. He has some special earphones that only let the volume go up to a certain level so that he can’t hurt his ears, which is great!

This Week in Pictures: