Darr Family Blog

Weekly Happenings: It’s crazy to think that there are only four more days until Christmas! It has definitely been fun watching Joseph enjoy the holiday season. He loves turning the Christmas tree lights on each morning, switching the day on the Santa countdown, and taking a link off of the “countdown to Grandma and Grandpa” chain. He gets excited about presents, even if they aren’t for him (he loves watching people open presents) and asks on a regular basis if it’s time to see Grandma and Grandpa (almost, kiddo, almost). We had another pretty low-key week, mainly because I’m getting everything ready for seeing family. We did finally get to go the the In N Out that was recently built out here. Paul took this past Thursday off (he needed to get fingerprinted for his CHL) and we were in the area during an off-time (though the drive-thru was still crazy). We found a seat almost right away and only had to wait about 5-10 minutes for our food. It was so yummy! Oh, and Friday was a fun day. We had friends over to play games and our group of friends surprised us with presents that were very meaningful to us (and had to do with the game that we play, so that was even better). The gifts were a mixture of stuff for us and stuff for Joseph. Joseph got some plastic frogs (Paul kept the spooky skull cup they came in), a Barrel of Monkeys game, a big fuzzy plush spider, and a copy of the book Dragonology. Other gifts were a flashlight, some gummy bugs in a mixture of Oreo “dirt”,  and a couple of gift cards to Home Depot and HEB. We were not expecting anything like that (they said they wanted to thank us for hosting game night for the past couple of years) and were overwhelmed with their generosity.

The Weekly Weather: Kind of a rinse and repeat of last week: sunny and cool with a few cold and rainy days mixed in. I guess that is one of the reasons I have a hard time remembering that we are still technically having a drought because it rains frequently (just not very much at a time for most of the storms…a couple of times it’s a really big storm, but we didn’t have any of those this past week).

What Paul’s Been Up To: This past week was his last week of classes for the semester, so he was busy taking tests and finals. He also ended up spending some unwanted quality time with our server yesterday since the software update that was supposed to go routinely…didn’t. The server flipped out and he had to spend a lot of time recovering, restoring, and backing stuff up. I’m so grateful that he is so knowledgeable in that area!!

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I finished up my last week of students (we’re taking two weeks off because of the holidays) and I have been kind of enjoying not having to think about anything choir or visiting teaching related (choir is taking a break until at least after the holidays and I don’t have to make any changes to visiting teaching until then as well). I’ve been getting ready for our family visit in stages so that I don’t get too stressed out. One of my awesome friends is going to take Joseph for a couple of hours tomorrow so that I can get some stuff done while being kidless. I see some cookies or something in her future!

What Joseph’s Been Up To: The highlights of his week were our trip to In N Out (where we discovered that his love of onions extends to grilled; we knew he liked raw and sauteed onions, but he hadn’t tried grilled yet…he loves grilled onions), getting to play with the new toys our friends got for him, and going to a friend’s birthday party (I neglected to get any pictures from the party…I didn’t even think about it) yesterday.

This Week in Pictures:

 

Weekly Happenings: We’re getting ready (and very excited) to see family soon. It’s hard to believe that Christmas is just over a week away! Because of knowing that we are going to be extremely busy during the time between Christmas and New Years’, I’ve been trying to keep everything pretty low-key right now. Consequently, not much happened this past week. We did have the ward Christmas party last night which proved to be a good time. 🙂

The Weekly Weather: Cool, but warmer than before. Our tomato plants really like this weather. I don’t know if we’ll be able to eat all that we have…I may need to start sharing with friends and neighbors.

What Paul’s Been Up To: Besides school and work, he just finished the class he needs in order to get his concealed handgun license. It’s something he’s wanted since moving to Texas, so I’m glad we were able to work it out for him to get it!

What Sarah’s Been Up To: The main thing that I accomplished was doing the ward choir program today. We sang three different Christmas numbers which turned out beautifully! I got so many compliments in behalf of the choir today that it really boosted my confidence in this new calling.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: Showing his street smarts (we were at Kohl’s and he said that he wanted a stuffed animal. Paul said that he would need to use his own money, and asked if he had any. He replied that he had some in his pocket. When Paul asked him to get it out, he said, “No, Daddy, you have money in YOUR pocket.”), working on his bedside manner (a few days ago I was taking a rest on the couch. He came up and asked me if I was resting. I answered in the affirmative, so he promptly switched off the lights, covered me in his blanket that he had brought down earlier, patted my cheek, and told me to have sweet dreams. This evening, Paul was resting on the couch and Joseph came up, peeled Paul’s eyelids back and announced that he was awake. I suppose it’s a little hit and miss.), and building his imagination (Paul had gotten him a small set of farm animals to use with his train table and the next morning he told me that he needed his “farmer shirt”, aka one of his plaid shirts, so that he could play with his farm animals.).

This Week in Pictures:

Weekly Happenings: I tweaked my back picking Joseph up last Sunday, so our week was pretty laid back. We more than made up for it yesterday, though. We went out to the BX so that Paul could get a new wallet (his first new one in about 10 years), then we went to the zoo, then to Bass Pro Shops to do some of the fun Christmas things they do there (and to get a ticket to come back and get a ticket to see Santa and get a free picture), then home to take pictures for our Christmas cards, then out to eat dinner at Bobby J’s, then to Wal Mart for a few things (windshield wiper blades and wiper fluid for the Honda), and then back out to Bass Pro Shops for the Santa experience. It was quite the day!

The Weekly Weather: It’s been up and down this week. We’ve had cooler days and warmer days, and some days that started out cold and ended up warm (not to mention the day that started out warm and then dropped more than ten degrees in less than an hour). Gotta love Texas weather!

What Paul’s Been Up To: Work and school as usual. Not too much out of the ordinary this week.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Other than upping my time on the elliptical from 20 minutes a day to 30 minutes a day, not too much new stuff to report here, either.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: A couple of funny Joseph stories/facts: We were eating popcorn the other day and Joseph said, “Hey, just like on the tree!” There’s a song he sings in nursery that talks about apricot blossoms looking like popcorn popping…so we had a brief discussion about where popcorn really comes from. Also, he has displayed that he can use the voice search option to find what he wants to look at (mainly videos of Super Mario Brothers) on Google, either on our computers or on our phones.

This Week in Pictures:

Bonus Video for the Week: Joseph singing the ABCs: