May 2008

We have been busy this month. We have all but two of our sprinkler heads in now, as well as most of our flower beds laid out and some brick work is starting to become more official. Most of our topsoil is spread as well. All of it will be done by the time you get this newsletter. We would have been done this week but we took off the Memorial Day weekend for a trip to Lon and Gaylynn's house and Grandma and Grandpa's house. While in Perry, Reena played with her cousins, jumped on their trampoline and rode their bikes. We also got to bring some raspberry shoots with us from their garden. While in Soda Springs we got to see Colter's seminary graduation and Reena played with her 1^st cousins once removed. They were a big help. We were going to see the Joseph Smith movie at Temple Square that weekend but ended up seeing it on the last day of the month (another reason why we aren't done with the yard yet).

Reena gave her mother the best Mother's Day present; she woke up saying “Mom.” She only said it a few times before then, but she woke up that morning and that was all she wanted to say all day long. Her vocabulary is getting bigger now, though she doesn't always know what she means to say. She likes to say “up,” whether she means up or down, and she'll say “no” to us even when it is most obvious she means “yes.” For instance, we asked her if she wanted to go outside (which she loves to do) and she said “No,” then put on her shoes and stood by the door waiting for us to open it. “Do you want ice cream?” “No,” and then she'll try to open the freezer while making the sign for ice cream. She does it so much, we've decided that she really means yes when she says no, and when she means no she ignores the question or fusses. She and Thuan went to the library and read a book about potty training. When they got back Reena tipped her step stool over and sat in it like it was a toilet, but she hasn't started potty training yet. However, she has learned to take off her clothes and her diaper. Several times we have caught her lying on the couch buck naked. Thankfully she hasn't gone to the bathroom anywhere as we catch her pretty fast. She likes to give kisses and hugs to everyone. Sometimes she'll grab you and push her face into you while she kisses you so that it's a pressurized kiss. We've found that we need to be careful of what we do around her as she has become a real imitator. Thuan was sneezing for a little while and now Reena loves to fake sneeze. In fact, almost the entire trip up to Temple Square she sat in her chair going “aah...aah...choo,” and then giggling to herself. And when we do the fake sneezes, she would laugh and imitate as well. Her other favorite word is “what”. She would run far away from you, most of the time to another room and then call out “what?” even if you didn't call her. She is such a pretty girl with her big round eyes and pretty smile. Thuan is enjoying her longer hair in little pig tails on each side. She looks a lot more grown up with her long hair.

Thuan is enjoying the warmer air. It gives her an opportunity to take Reena outside of the house more and she has been working in her garden even more. She ripped out half of her garden (that is to say half of her cilantros) so she could grow strawberries, cabbage, tomatoes, blackberries, the above-mentioned raspberries, and marigolds to keep the garden bed bugs from biting. She also cleaned out our garage on a whim and now we're back to parking our car in the garage since her sisters moved in. She was hoping they would be able to baby sit more but they took off for Vietnam not long after she put them to work in the yard. All of Thuan's exercise nowadays comes from Reena. Reena loves to dance so much that Thuan just turns on music and dances with her until she (Thuan) gets tired, while Reena just keeps going.

Dan is happy that our yard is coming close to being done. He has had plenty of setbacks and worries. Apparently our back yard is 10 feet longer than he originally measured it so where we had good sprinkler coverage we now had a large gap where there would be no water at all. Thankfully that turned out to be an easy fix that required only two more sprinklers to be added and two to be moved. We had to have the trencher guy come back out since our mattock only got down about one inch along 10 feet of the 40 foot trench we had to add. (Thanks for buying it for us Dad, but with all the rocks we have, the end is now bent). We also had a leak in the sprinkler's water main, but it turned out to be just a valve that hadn't been closed tight. Irony of ironies, it turned out to be the valve that we added the two new sprinklers to, so that when we tested those sprinklers we closed it tight and haven't had a leak since. So it was a good thing we had 10 extra feet (not to mention the extra 650 sq. ft. of yard it gives us).

small plates: As mentioned previously, we got to see the Joseph Smith movie this month. While there was nothing in it that we didn't already know, and there were lots that we know were left out, it is still amazing to think of all the things he and the early saints went through to give the restored church its start. Grandma and Grandpa also spoke about our religious forbears on the Sunday we were up in Soda Springs and reminded us that we should also memorialize our religious forbears on Memorial Day.