Back Home and Adjusting: My Life As Alicia

Whew! The rush of July is coming to a close, and it was definitely an eventful month. We got back from our North Carolina trip a week ago today, but it really does feel like we were there a month ago. I listed a lot of our plans in a previous post, but just for fun, I made a list of everything that happened in July:

• Week 1 - Went to Pinetop and Snowflake for 4th of July! Girls got to ride a horse for the first time. Bekah loved it!
  
• Week 2 - Visited with my parents who were renting a house in Gilbert - did Swim Class and Dance Class for Maija - my parents left town - I was called into the Primary Presidency as 2nd Counselor (basically, I'm working with the children at church and overseeing Cub Scouts)
  
• Week 3 - Flew to North Carolina to visit my parents - Kent golfed every day - I enjoyed my mother's help with the girls & got a shopping day with my mother and no children!
  
• Week 4 - Flew back to Phoenix on a 6am flight (we left my parents' house @ 3am...not fun!) - Maija & Bekah rode their 1st train at the Atlanta airport - I jumped right into Primary work - Maija finished Swim Class for the summer and started another session of dance classes - Kent took his final exam in his summer class - On the weekend, we rested & caught up on housework
  
• Week 5 - Celebrated Kent's mother's birthday with the inlaws - got my hair colored for the 1st time in years (that was today, so that's where I'll end.)
  

Click on this link to see pictures of our fun and crazy month - http://picasaweb.google.com/farnies4/July2008

My Life as Alicia - Episode 1

As a final note, I often find myself being assigned the part of Alicia, as in Diego's sister Alicia. Maija will tell me at the beginning of the day, "You are pretending to be Alicia, and I am pretending to be Diego. OK?" That "OK?" is not really to secure my approval because this is really more of an order than a negotiation. For the rest of the day she will refer to me as Alicia: "Alicia, I want juice!" "Alicia, I'm hungry." "I hurt myself, Alicia." And if I don't refer to her as Diego, she often will not respond. Today was one of my Alicia days, and at one point after I helped Diego, oh, I mean Maija, put on her pants, she hugged me and said, "That's my girl, Alicia!" So funny!

Our Crazy July

I haven't blogged in a few weeks. There's been a lot going on, mostly revolving around family events. My parents flew in in mid-June to stay in the area for nearly a month. This has meant that on top of living our normal lives, we've been doing a lot of visiting between their rental place and our house. Frankly, I'm exhausted. It's great to have them close by, but the running around is tiring. Although the girls are in seventh heaven having so much attention and a great pool to swim at whenever they want.

In the midst of all of this, we've also been trying to get to swim class and a summer dance class for Maija. Both classes are almost over, and I think I'll give a sigh of relief when we can just "be" again, whatever that means. We also drove up to Pinetop to be with some of Kent's family for the 4th of July. It was so much fun to be with everyone, and the girls played and played and played! After 3 days, we were all worn out by the time we got home. We have 1 week at home, and then next week we head to North Carolina to ... visit my parents. Originally, my parents were not going to be coming here to see us this summer, so we had booked airline tickets for the four of us to go see them. Then all the plans changed, but we were still locked into the airline tickets...so we'll be heading out that way for a week.

By the time we get back from our trip, it'll be nearly the end of July!!! Kent's night class (he's had a class until 10:30pm on Mondays and Wednesdays) will be over, Maija's classes will be over, the summer will be almost over. Then the next big event for our little family will be when Maija starts preschool in early August. Whew! It's like an endurance race sometimes.

I hope everyone else's summer is filled with fun, too.

Flew Past January, Sliding Through February, and Onto March...

Before I give my 4 big excuses for not having posted in ages, I have to thank those friends who actually check my blog often enough to notice that it is outdated. Seriously, I didn't realize anyone cared....shows ya how much I still have to learn about the blogosphere (yes, I had to look up how to spell that word.)

So here are the BIG 4 reasons why I've been too busy to blog...or too tired....or ....

BIG REASON #1 - Our Trip to Utah

We had been planning for a couple of months to take a trip up to Utah in early January. I had meticulously prepared every detail, Pricelining hotels, rental cars, and using airline miles for airline tickets etc. What do they say about the best laid plans? Well, two days before our flight was to leave, both Maija and Rebekah got fevers. We immediately got them to the doctor's office, so we could make sure they got healthy ASAP. Nice try!!! Rebekah had a double ear infection, and Maija had strep. Both girls went on antibiotics, and the doc suggested we get Rebekah rechecked the night before our flight.

Thursday evening we took Rebekah to the pediatrician, and she said her ears hadn't gotten any better and that she strongly recommended we not take her on an airplane!!! Sigh! She said that both girls were fine to travel, just not on an airplane. We called the airline, the car rental places, the hotels, and luckily, we got SOME of our money refunded. But the real question was whether to try to drive up to Utah or let it go. We finally opted to drive and faced another interesting challenge, snow, LOTS of it! After a grueling drive, we made it to Utah, and proceeded to visit as many people as possible. You can see pics here.

BIG REASON #2 - The Girls' Birthdays

Maija and Rebekah's birthdays are 6 days apart, so I decided to do one party for both girls and have it be a mostly family affair. With 12 cousins on their daddy's side of the family, seven of them under the age of 5, we figured that would be enough chaos and fun for all of us! Although it was Rebekah's first birthday, I knew that Maija would care a lot more about it, so I opted to go with a SuperWhy theme....her absolute FAVORITE cartoon in the whole world. The problem is that the cartoon is new enough that there are ZERO SuperWhy products out there: no dolls, no party items, no posters, nothing. Here's where I prove my dedication as a mother - I made SuperWhy balloons, plates, cups, and a tablecloth all by myself the night before the party....OK, not ALL by myself, Kent did help a lot. But, as he put it, I would never have done this for the girls, if you weren't doing it. That's why I'm the mommy. The party was great! You can see pics here.

BIG REASON #3 - Spain Trip

That's right! Kent and I went to Spain. It was an amazing trip. Not only were we on our own without the girls, but we had such a great time seeing beautiful Spain. I played tour guide, having lived in Madrid as a little girl and again in my early 20s as a missionary. We saw some of the most amazing castles, cities, cathedrals, and I had a lot of fun using my Spanish again. We rented a car right at the airport in Madrid on Friday morning (we arrived at 9am) and then drove straight to my old house in the town of Pozuelo, outside of Madrid. I had visited the house during my mission, and again right after my mission, but that was 14 years ago. Not much had changed in 14 years, but it felt like home being back in that neighborhood.

I've realized that my home is really a combinations of many places and houses, since I moved around so much growing up. To be able to go back and see the places where I lived, gives me a sense of being at home. I don't know if that's what people feel, who grew up in one house, when they visit home...maybe I'll never completely know that feeling, but to me home is more like a puzzle that is made up of many pieces. When it's all put together, I feel at home.

After our stop in Pozuelo, we drove down to the old city of Toledo. We spent the night there and had a great time seeing the city's cathedral and also being there during Spanish "carnaval". We had churros con chocolate (SO yummy) and strolled around like honeymooners, holding hands and reveling in our independence. The next day we drove to the east coast to the timeshare we had reserved, stopping at some amazing sites along the way.

Unfortunately, the timeshare was the biggest downer of our trip. It didn't have any heating, which made it VERY cold, since it is Winter there. There was also virtually no hot water to shower, so we suffered through one night and freezing cold showers, and then decided that even though it would be a lot more expensive, we had to get out of there. We took off within the first few hours, and drove up to Barcelona where we spent 2 days. I won't describe all of Barcelona because you can see the pics here.

After Barcelona, we drove back to central Spain to the city of Segovia. Again, see the pics to get an idea of what we saw in Segovia: the Roman aqueduct, the Alcazar castle, our amazing hotel, and the city itself. Our last night we spent in Madrid, where we enjoyed a Flamenco show. The next morning (1 week after arriving in Spain) we got on a plane and flew back to normal life. It was SO great to see the girls again; I had been missing them a lot. I think the saddest part of coming home was calculating exactly how much money we had spent there, but how often do you get to go to Spain? *grin* It was worth every dollar (or euro!)

BIG REASON #4 - Kent's Birthday

Because Kent is a Valentine baby, we always separate celebrating Valentine's Day from celebrating his birthday. This year Kent requested a karaoke birthday party, so we sang away the evening (see pics here --> ). We also bored everyone with our Spain slideshow, but we sure had fun!!!!

NOW YOU'RE UPDATED! There is, of course, more to tell, but that'll have to wait until another day...