Life Lessons

We got word this morning that Joseph made it safely to Guatemala.

I think that's how you say I arrived. There were a ton of missionaries on the plane from SLC to LAX and even more from there to GUA. I'll put in pictures later. They gave me a haircut too. A kid here has an alphabetizer 3000 thing, Elder Strong. There are quite a few kids going to the South mission here. I'm excited. I'm out of time now. Chao

Corey's reply -

   Great to hear from you! Love you, and excited for this journey with you. Excited to hear more.

   PS, It's "He llegado"

And now we just wait to hear from him week to week I guess. As for us, life the rest of these silly kids goes on. Hopefully one day they will be ready to leave and will hopefully make it out there on their own. Mel, Ethan, you're next.

So, in case you missed it in the long winded post yesterday, that first video there shares the moment when we told the kids that we're expecting. I told Joseph a few weeks earlier, so he knew, and we let him drop the hint and then verify the hint to his siblings. We just knew that we were gonna miss Joseph so much, we had to put in for a replacement. Baby #12 is due to arrive January 14th, which is appropriately 5 days after Joseph's birthday.

What else - after we came home yesterday, I kinda thought it should have been a spiritual and family bonding event. Instead, after pulling into the garage and as people were still walking in from the cars, so seriously within minutes, Ethan and Hyrum got in a fight and were punching each other and Hyrum got a bloody nose. So much for our spirituality. Should I share this stuff here? Trying to keep it real, but don't want to focus on the negative that happens, but I guess I will mention it here since I doubt I'll get around to writing in my journal. So, yesterday while we were at Chuck a Rama, Ethan was making comments to Hyrum about his food and his weight. Hyrum finished his food and then wanted me to take him home. No. So he went outside for the last half hour of our family meal, too mad at Ethan to let it go and be with us. After we dropped off Joseph at the airport and came back to get all the kids, we came home, Hyrum was inside first, when Ethan came in, I think all he said was "Hey Sparticus..." and Hyrum lost it and started swinging at him, Ethan swung back, and then when I walked I see Hyrum on the floor with a bloody nose and Ethan with a good pink cheek and rubbing his right shoulder. I just went into our room and rocked Daniel and fumed/pondered/shook my head, what are we gonna do with these boys? We never learned how to deal with this with Joseph, cause he was an ideal oldest child. Maybe he was gone so much that he didn't have time for these encounters, or he just never let his temper get there. These two (Hyrum and Ethan) have been going at each other for 7 years if the date on this blog post is correct. Another example from 2017, story right before the second photo. Gosh, come Tiff, you can do this, just 2 years for E, 4 for H, and then you can take a breathers while these boys get some life experience from somewhere else. We will try to have them prepared of course, and I think they are civil with each others at school/church and with strangers in public, but heaven help me know how to handle things here at home sometimes.

Here's another story, this one more funny than frustrating, that also shows the distance we have to go with some of these youngsters - so, several weeks ago I shared a little post of Ethan and a science experience he was doing. He saw a video on instagram (not this one, but showed a similar clip to 2:25 of how to easily plant your banana kiwi, followed by the person amazingly pulling the banana kiwi from the pot like a carrot (neither bananas nor kiwis are roots!) with some stupid fake ivy plant poking "growing" out of the banana, showing of course that it is a real plant. So dumb, but Ethan had to try it. He did, he didn't water it though, maybe that's where his plant failed, cause today it's been 3 weeks (like the video said was the amount of time needed to let it grow) and ... tada - the banana kiwi.

Ethan's pot of dirt with his triumphant creation.

Silly boy. See, I told you it wasn't real. I still remember the determination in his voice as he said "Get me a pot." Well, sometimes you just gotta learn these things on your own. 

 You can't believe every things you see on social media, who knew, right?