Darr Family Blog

Weekly Happenings: The beginning of the week was pretty average. Paul got off of work early on Friday because it was a holiday in San Antonio (The Battle of Flowers parade which was started a long time ago to recognize the heroes of the Alamo, along with Fiesta, which is a 10-day celebration that was started to coincide with The Battle of Flowers parade), so we went out to eat after he got home. Saturday we ran some errands and then went to lunch and the zoo. At lunch, Joseph had gotten a toy in his kids’ meal (a little plastic X-Men figure) which he wanted to carry with him everywhere afterwards. When we got to the zoo, the parking was all full, so we got adventurous and tried some roads that we hadn’t been down before to see if we could find some more free parking. We ended up fording the San Antonio river (no, i’m not joking, and yes, it was legal) and found parking in a secluded part of Brackenridge Park, which is a huge park that is right next to the zoo. It was only about a 10 minute walk to the zoo, through a really pretty and scenic part of the park. There are nature trails all over. We will definitely need to go back and explore it another day. We were wandering through the zoo when a mini-disaster struck: Joseph dropped his beloved new toy over the wall, into the Addax (a type of African deer) enclosure (I didn’t realize that it was still in his hand). He started flipping out and Paul and I were worried about a foreign object being dropped in there (we weren’t sure if they would try to eat it). While I got Joseph under control (and myself, too…I was pretty embarrassed that I had let something like that happen), Paul notified an employee of what happened. They sent some of the workers in to retrieve it, who reassured me that stuff like that happened all the time, so not to worry. Well, needless to say, this is the end of letting Joseph bring toys with him! After we got home from the zoo, we got ready to have friends over for dinner. They are the family that lives next door, and they have little boy who is a little bit older than Joseph, and I think they are going to be really good friends. The boys liked playing and the adults had a good time talking. They even asked us about the church and said they might like to check it out some time soon.

The Weekly Weather: It has been rather hot and humid. Methinks that spring is already behind us and summer is in full-swing.

What Paul’s Up To: His weight restrictions from his surgery are no longer in effect, so he can pick up Joseph again, which made both of them really happy. When he picked Joseph up the first time, Joseph just snuggled into him (practically melting into his shoulder), wrapped his arms around him, and didn’t want to be put down. It made my heart just about melt. Paul’s also done quite a few jobs around the house/yard. He dug up a chunk of sod so that we can eventually transplant the tomato plants (he wants to mix some healthier soil/fertilizer in with the top soil before we transplant them, though), he replanted some cilantro (the last storm wiped out half our seedlings, but new ones are already popping up), he changed light bulbs and batteries in smoke detectors which had been chirping and scaring Joseph (they were pretty loud), and he’s done a bunch of other stuff which I’m sure I missed. 🙂 He’s also getting involved in scouting again since he finally has another 11YO scout (he’s the scoutmaster for the 11YO scouts, but there haven’t been any for quite a few months).

What Sarah’s Up To: I had two more piano students start this past week. They are the only ones whose mom didn’t start out as a friend of mine first. They live next door to some of my students, so my students’ mom referred me. That’s kind of flattering. I have nine students and it’s been really great. It’s kind of challenging, because they are all on different levels, so I’m constantly having to rethink my teaching strategy with each student, but it’s rather fun. The other thing that I did this past week was practice my flute like crazy because I was playing it for part of the musical number that the ward choir did for ward conference today. 🙂

What Joseph’s Up To: He’s let out some pretty cute phrases this week. Here’s just a few: “Cookie! Om nom nom nom!”, “Ummmmmm”, “Hey, I know! Let’s go for a walk!”, and “Mom! I missed you!” (this was after I had been gone to the bathroom, so all of 3 minutes?). 🙂 He is also surprising us with new vocabulary. The other day he was holding the thick dowel that we keep in the track of our sliding glass door. I walked up to him and he said, “Look, a cylinder!” (Paul has mentioned cylinders to him, as well as some of the shows he sees on PBS). Another word he whipped out was “crescendo”. He was walking up the stairs with me, and was patting his belly and saying, “Crescendo!” This is from Little Einsteins. To get their rocket to go faster, they have to start patting louder and louder (the show is really music-based), so they talk about crescendos. Pretty great!

This Week in Pictures:

Bonus Video: Joseph “exercising”

Weekly Happenings: This past week was pretty regular. We were mainly gearing up for the big Easter celebrations over the weekend. There was an egg hunt at church (I love that the sports field is completely fenced, by the way) which Joseph kept calling an egg search, and then family and friend time today (we had a family from the ward over for dinner tonight). One out of the ordinary thing that happened was that we ended up having to call the AC company (our house AC just wasn’t working correctly…not broken, but not up to snuff). Since we have a warranty, we thought we should call them to see if the problem was covered. This was Friday evening. We thought for sure that because of the holiday weekend, we wouldn’t get anyone out here until Monday at the earliest. Nope. They sent someone out Friday night! He noticed a valve was leaking coolant, so he tightened the valve and added quite a bit more coolant. He’s going to do a follow-up visit this weekend to make sure the coolant amount is what it’s supposed to be (and make sure that there aren’t any underlying problems). Now that’s customer service!

The Weekly Weather: We seem to have settled into our normal spring pattern of a few cooler days followed by a few warmer days, rinse and repeat. We got a good rainstorm that hopefully helped the aquifer out a bit. If it keeps dropping, we’re going to have to go into even more strict water restrictions.

What Paul’s Up To: Paul is continuing to do well at work. He deals with people from a lot of different countries. He says that it’s interesting trying to understand what some of them are saying because not only are their accents really thick, but they don’t quite have all the vocabulary needed to communicate totally clearly. One example: a student will come in and ask for a blue book; no other information. Paul has to try to explain to him that he needs to know more, because, well, there are a lot of blue books! Health-wise, he is continuing to heal from his hernia-repair surgery and is happy that the weight restrictions will be ending this week so that he can do more with Joseph (though he is going to still take it slowly to make sure he doesn’t re-injure himself). Oh, and we just discovered (while talking to another person at the egg hunt) that there is a man in our ward who was in the same ward as Paul when he lived in Temecula. Crazy small world!

What Sarah’s Up To: I am still taking care of Joseph full time which has its highs and lows. He’s starting to realize that he has an opinion and that on occasion, his opinion will influence some decisions we make with him. As a consequence, he has started to voice his opinion more and it’s not always at the most proper time or decibel. He also gets frustrated easily, which is understandable. His mind thinks he can do something, but his body hasn’t learned it yet. In spite of all this, for the most part he is loving, happy, cheerful, and entertaining. I have also started teaching piano in the afternoons. I currently have nine students who keep me on my toes. 🙂

What Joseph’s Up To: Saying funny things, such as, “What was that?!” when he hears something he can’t identify, or random words/phrases (such as “gelatin mold” which he heard from a Veggie Tales Silly Songs song). Oh, and the other day, he walked into the kitchen and said, “Hey, Mom? I need a Coke!” (for the record, we have never given him soda, let alone Coke, so I’m not sure where THAT came from). He’s also really developing his imagination as well. The other day, we were at the store and I had gotten him some new shoes (which he insisted on holding while we got the rest of the things we needed…and hey, I pick my battles). He was holding up the plastic hook part and saying (to anyone who would listen), “Arrrrrr! I’m Captain Hook!” Another instance occurred when I was letting him play with an old wire whisk that I don’t use anymore. He was “chasing” me around and saying that he was either a skeleton or an egg beater monster. 🙂 Another thing he’s started doing is singing along with things. When we’re singing at church, he’s singing right along with us, even if he can’t get in any of the right words. He also sings along when I come to get him in the morning and sing my “wake-up” song (my mom sung it to me growing up: “Good morning, good morning! You slept the whole night through. Good morning, good morning to you!”). Finally, he really wants to be independent. This includes having to be encouraged to try new foods (I finally got him to try my home made pizza, which he loves, by the way), wanting to talk to whoever I’m on the phone with (regardless of if they would be interested in hearing his chatter or not), coming up with his own way of describing things (we were driving past the base where Paul works and Joseph noticed that one of the planes they have on display there is an old Red Cross plane. He said, “Look, Momma, a doctor jet!”), and running to open the door when the doorbell rings (especially since he’s learned how to unlock the deadbolt). Luckily we have a glass storm door that has another deadbolt which keeps him in, because we have had several discussions about how Momma or Daddy need to be the ones to open the door.

This Week in Pictures: *WARNING* Since this is a post including a holiday, there are A LOT of pictures!

 

This past week was pretty average: piano students (I’m getting two more starting this week…yay!), grocery shopping, house-cleaning, etc. We are getting to know our new neighbors (they finally built a house next to us where there was the empty field, so that will hopefully mean fewer bugs since there won’t be a bunch of digging right next to us). We were pretty excited to find out they have a little boy who is only 5 months older than Joseph. Also, their family story is kind of similar to ours. The wife (Erica) had their son (Hayden) right before her husband (Gene) was deployed to Afghanistan with the Army. Considering that’s the same thing that happened to us, we find that rather cool. They are really nice, too. They invited me and Joseph to Hayden’s birthday party this past week at Chuck E Cheese. I must admit, even though I really like them, I was a little wary about Chuck E Cheese. I remember it as being a loud, LOUD place with crowds of kids and a lot of flashing lights. Those are things that Joseph is not a fan of. It turned out really great, though, because they had it on a week day before school was out for the day. It was quiet, not crowded, and not as many flashing lights as I remember. Erica and Gene had gotten tokens for all the kids, so Joseph got to play some games and get some tickets. There was also pizza (which he refused to eat, but he doesn’t eat pizza at home, either, so who knows?) and a guest appearance from Chuck E Cheese himself. It was really fun for him. A couple of days later, we invited Erica and Hayden over to our house to play. Those two little boys get along so well. It’s really great!

The Weekly Weather: last week was pretty normal, except for Monday. Monday started out fine (sunny, breezy, warm) but then black clouds rolled in and it started raining, HARD. Then it started hailing. At that point, I remembered my cilantro out on the front porch. I ran out into the hail (not too bad since the porch is covered, but it was still hitting the cilantro) with boards to throw over the planter so that the cilantro seedlings would not be totally destroyed. After it finished hailing, it settled into a steady rain, which cleared up into the sunny, warm, and breezy conditions that it started out as. This was all within a space of two hours. Crazy!

Cute/Funny Stories for the Week: Joseph decided to put all his weight onto the top of my foot, which seriously did not feel good. I told him that it gave me an “owie”. He looked really concerned, asked where the “owie” was, and then kissed my foot “all better”.

He is still really into pretending to be a doctor. This time, he wanted to look in our mouths, so he would come up to us and say, “Ahhhh” so that we would open our mouths and say “ah” for him.

Paul wasn’t feeling very good today, so he was resting on the couch. Joseph went over to him, noticed his eyes were closed, came over to me and said (in a whisper), “Shhhhh! Daddy’s sleeping.

Our “no-sweets” boy has deemed a couple of different sweets as being acceptable: peanut butter cookies, root beer cookies, and Reese’s peanut butter cups. Neither of the cookies are overly sweet, and the Reese’s are mostly peanut butter, so we can kind of see why he likes them.

This Week in Pictures: