i spent the whole day today in the sun. going along on mic's field trip was...interesting. i got to see how mic interacts with the other kids and saw that basically, she doesn't. she does her own thing. it is not a matter of the other kids don't like her or exclude her. they invited her to play with them and she said no. i guess that means she's not a follower. she did let others join her though. it was kind of weird to see her so disconnected from all the other kids. it was also a little different for me. i like to go to the beach with my friends so i have somthing to do while the kids play. a lot of the parents that were there i didn't even know, and for some reason some of them seem so hard to talk with. it's weird. i don't have any issue like that with the ballet moms.
from the beach we went mini golfing. it was kind of funny to golf with little kids like this. one little girl in particular lied every time about how many times she hit the ball. none of them got the bit about letting the ball stop rolling before you hit it again. it was cute and they had fun. nat was quite intense as she struggled to sink the ball.
i was exhausted from a day in the sun, but then it was time for fhe at pipers. i really did not want to go, but we were supposed to bring our bbq. (probably why we always get invited when dough wants to bbq.) it was beautiful at pipers. it was windy but the wind was warm. how often does that happen? i could not resist the waters. there was no one else to swim with and i am a social swimmer. i just don't like doing it alone. but the waters beckoned me. it felt so refreshing. i find swimming in the ocean always reminds me of how small i am--just one little speck floating around on endless water. i was rejuvenated.

a little of this and that

it finally feels like summer is here. it is so hot today and (yay!) only 3 days of school left. i am so ready for school to be done. tomorrow mic has a field trip to parksville. they are picnicking at the park and then going mini golfing. i am a driver so my day tomorrow is pretty well taken up. it was a good day in church today. it was high counsel sunday, but surprisingly the talks were really good. brent was very amused by his imaginings that bethany was enraptured with the companion speaker. he was very cute. (i have to admit i am a little partial to redheads) he was very earnest and a little nervous. (brent accredited that to bethany staring up at him.) i think that he would be a good match for bethany. more her type than chip. in sunday school we had a new teacher and she was a nice change. i had even done all my reading. it was a sad topic though--david giving into temptation. that always seems to be such a deep tragedy.
mic gave a talk in primary and she read from her journal what she wrote about her baptism. it was very cute. she got the giggles when she got to the part about carmen dancing while she was singing. (a part not so amusing to me). because she got the giggles mic hid her face a little and then couldn't stop grinning when her talk was over. why is it that when we are in a serious situation and something strikes us as funny our mirth can be very hard to contain? like when i was a yw and it was yw sacrament sunday and i was sitting on the stand and the bishop was getting all emotional and something made me laugh (i don't remember what) and then i couldn't contain it. or even worse when i was yw president and we were having new beginnings and someone was doning a musical number and screwed up--what an inappropiate time to get the giggles!maybe that is why i was released.
in relief society i was asked to tell what i do to nurture my marriage and i mentioned how brent and i talk about the day or our plans or whatever. ironically now he doesn't want talk. my trying to strike up a conversation or do anything with him is annoying to him. he isn't even doing anything else. he is just sitting there. i suggested we go sit outside on our patio where it is cooler...not interested. i suggested doing something on the laptop...not interested. what is he doing now? sitting outside on the patio with the laptop. what is up with that?
so thus i am here giving escape to all my thoughts. the twins recital was....entertaining, but very very very very long. we're talking 3 hours long. trent arnott was at the door handing out programs and very reluctant about having to play the piano. amy and bethany both did a really good job--especially considering that they didn't have much time to prepare. there was one family that was particularly endearing. they could all play quite well for their ages--a girl about 8/9, boy 10/11 and the oldest boy 14ish. the middle boy gave his sister high fives everytime she performed. it was sweet. and then when the oldest was playing and had trouble with his music sister arnott went up to help him. all of a sudden the younger brother jumped up to assist. it amused me. he was so serious about it. i didn't even know the little kids that were playing yet i felt emotional at their accomplishments. what can i say...it was that time of month. the twins were funny with their vying for compliments. one must not say too much about one twin's playing without saying enough praise for the other twin as well. hehe
well this has become rather long and rambling, so i will end. IS SARAH EVER GOING TO HAVE HER BABY?!!

I can't sleep

it is 4:30 am. i have been awake for over an hour. mic woke me up. she wanted to get in our bed. brent told her to go back to her bed. she cried the heartbroken cry. she said we always let nat get in bed with us. this is entirely untrue. we always send her back. mic needs some one on one time. yesterday we had mic's birthday party. i am so glad it is done. finally, next weekend i have nothing looming up ahead of me. we had the party at roman's pizza (the pizza place that deb took over). she came in early just to do the party. brent did this game with the kids where they roll a giant die to decide what toppings go on the pizza. this meant that every pizza ended up having italian sausage on it. we got way too much pizza. on the bright side i don't have to cook this weekend. i just never feel like cooking on a saturday. i hate it when i can't sleep. why can't i? i just lie there thinking about visiting teaching. who knew there was so many people with such strong feelings about it? and i tried not to ruffle any feathers--just change what wasn't working. i've had people calling me and telling me i made a mistake and to change it back. problem is, that it is a process getting any changes made. it means at least 1 meeting and 2 appointments to get it done. and then there is the domino effect to deal with as well. and that is the part that is playing in my mind when all i want to do is sleep--how to adjust things. well, i know that is not that interesting to read about, but maybe if i write it out, it will stay out of my head long enough for me to sleep. i have to be at the church at 10:20 today. this means that i have to have the girls semi presentable before i leave. brent is just not reliable at this. which means that i really have little sleep in time. i'm a little nervous about my meetings today. last time i felt singled out and put on the spot. geri is coming with me to stand up for me though. haha. she won't let the bishop do that to me again. ok. this is boring and disjointed as all the thoughts whirling around in my head. i'm going to see if i can sleep now.

update

we find out today how brent's assessment went. he has been able to think of little else. i am not worried. he feels good about how things went. he found out that the saanich police paid a thousand dollars for his seat there that day, so they want him to succeed and they don't send someone there lightly.
on monday we were rejected for the 4 bedroom. they said we didn't have enough kids. no surprise there, except we lost the 3 bedroom that they'd offered to us. i don't really mind. i like where i live. i just don't like the feeling that our house is bursting at the seams with stuff. that part really bugs me.
thanks for all your supportive comments in regards to relief society. i've had a bit of a reprieve this week and it has been nice. sarah and i even got to have sister movie night and i also got in a bit of gilmore girls. sister jones called me this week to tell me she'd be away and give me some info and then said all these nice things about what it means to her and the other older ladies to have a young relief society president and also how much she enjoyed the lesson on sunday. funny, i've really come to appreciate her in relief society. i didn't know how much she did.

yesterday while on my run i was attacked by a crow. it was the scariest thing. i was just running along one of my usual routes and then a crow swooped down on me. it freaked me out. and then it did it again and again. i ran faster and tried zigzagging. it didn't help. i didn't know what to do so i ran into some trees where it couldn't swoop down on me like that. but the mean crow waited for me and when i emerged it swooped again. this time i screamed to see if that would help. it didn't seem to. it swooped 2 more times after that. i was so scared that i could hardly run after that. it took a lot for me to just slowly jog the rest of the way home. now i'm a little nervous to run down that road again. i guess its baby was out of the nest and it felt threatened.

so much has happened that i just don't know where to begin. my life is just picking up more and more speed. i feel like i'm running to do everything and can't get it all done and very little is done like i feel it should be done. first of all for the exciting news: brent was called by the saanich police force this week. he is gone tonight because he is having his day of assessment at the justice institute in new westminster tomorrow. this is the next step in the hiring process and is huge. it has been over a year since we've heard anything from them and we had pretty much given up on that ever happening. each police force gets a limited amount of seats for this day of assessment. (last year saanich only got 12 for the year and they were hiring 17) so it means that they are really interested in brent. the day of assessment is a full day where they put you in different situations to see how you respond. i'm pretty confident brent will have no problem. after this the only steps left are voice analysis (basically a polygraph test) and then a panel interview. i was the one who got the call from them and i wasn't sure how brent would respond. he had convinced me that he didn't really want to be a police officer. i had pushed for him to do more when he first started granite and then when he stopped but he gave me all these reasons...and i bought them and gave up on that dream. now i find out that brent was just convincing himself because he didn't think it would ever happen. problem is, i don't know how i feel about it all. i'm excited for brent. but i really don't want to move right now. i have never lived this long in one place and now i just don't want to move. and i can see a lot of the reasons why it wouldn't be so good for brent now. (thanks to his telling me) i'm finding it hard to keep changing my perspective and backing all the different dreams.

then the same day pacifica called and offered us a 3 bedroom in the same complex. once again i felt resistent to change. the 3 bedrooms don't border the park and i don't want the ugly flooring they are putting in all units after someone moves out. plus my garden. i have come to see that i have the best spot in the complex. (also the prettiest with the most flowers). then the next day they offered us the four bedroom. that was huge. there is only one in the whole complex. and only one family has lived there since layne and karen left. just think about all the room i would have. but i still have my reservations...one being why move to a spacious place if we are going to be moving to the victoria area where everything is as expensive as vancouver and where we will have to live in a small place? and there is the higher rent, fence in the back blocking my view of the park, ugly flooring and smaller garden issue still. we'll see. i have my walk through tomorrow morning.

friday was patrick and catherine's reception. i met a ghost from my edmonton days: sly. he married one of the hunter girls. at first i couldn't be sure it was him because for one thing he was much chubbier and also i never thought he would get married. for those of you that don't know, he was this extremely socially inept guy who had a big crush on me. (that was always the kind of guy i attracted) he was one of the guys that asked me the sweetheart dance. we were friends, but as always seems to be the case in such situations, if i was nice to him he got the wrong idea and then i would be mean and then i would feel bad and try to be nice...vicious circle. i wasn't sure if he remembered me or recognized me because he never said anything except for a barely audible howdy when i passed him in the hall. but when i approached him he remembered. even my name. i say the even my name part because when i first moved to edmonton he was the first person to ask me out. we went to a u of a basketball game where there were lots of other ysa. when he went to introduce me he couldn't remember my name. i was famous for that for a long time. everybody would pretend they couldn't remember my name. i was very embarassed. so when i saw him he acted a little awkward and that was it. it was kind of weird. the elder who baptized pat came too. he is from st. george. he said he was in the ward when i came home and then served in burnaby with a japanese elder and so i did some work with them. anyways, he said he would be insulted if we went to st george and didn't stay with them. that was nice, but we'll see if i even make it to st george this year.

yesterday was the girls' ballet recital. it was a pretty busy day. mic was in 2 dances. she did a good job. she is really starting to look like a ballerina. her teachers say that she will be ready to take her first exam in the fall which is a surprise because originally the plan was for the spring. the minimum age is 8 but they prefer 9. nat's dance was just plain cute. they messed up a couple times but it was so cute. nat hardly looked like she was dancing--she hardly lifted her knees when she was skipping and walked instead of marched, but in spite of this, she was the cutest...ok, i know i'm a little biassed, but she was really adorable.

then today was relief society...let's just say i'm beginning to dread sundays...everything gets thrown at me in this huge whirlwind of information, instruction, and today there were complaints too. i know i shouldn't let it get to me but i just feel so deflated. i had to teach today. i didn't do a very good job. i was too nervous. i just feel a sort of ache and have a lump in the back of my throat. most people are so nice and supportive, and others are just crabby and scary. i feel like i just made a fool out of myself and i don't want to go back. it is all so overwhelming. i don't how anybody does it. i have been pulled and stretched in so many directions, but i've only been doing this for about 3 weeks. it seems that all i ever write about is relief society. it is consuming my life. well, i've written a lot--hope it isn't too boring.