Student of the week!

This week has been a busy one. But first things first. My daughter, Jada, got student of the week. She was so proud because she was the first one chosen for her grade for the year. It was during the school assembly, so she was recognized in front of the whole school. When she sat back down with her class, one of her classmates was crying and when she asked him what's wrong he said "I hate you, I wanted to get that award", he then stuck out his tongue at her. Luckily, she thought this episode with her friend was rather funny, and so her feelings weren't hurt.
We also had a dinner reunion with some friends from Fiji. They all were couple missionaries in the Suva, Fiji Temple. It was so great to catch up with them and talk about the love we have for Fiji . One of the wives said, " I think we all agree that Fiji is the place that we have loved to serve the Lord the most" (Most of them have served several missions.) When I asked her, "Why?" Her response was that it had everything to do with the people. So loving, and willing to serve, and kind and generous. I am in total agreement, and am lucky that I got to marry one of these loving, kind, generous, people.
We also were responsible for making a Fijian feast for the opening Institute activity at UW. It took a lot of time and many people's combined cooking efforts, but the feast was a hit, and we were even given the compliment that it was one of the best dinners that they ever had.
All the other things that kept me busy aren't very exciting, so I'll skip the narrative on it. I am just happy that I have a couple of days to rest!

Mommy/daughter date

Jada wanted to go to the mall to day and have lunch, so after a few errands, Colata and Gabe dropped us off at Northgate Mall and we ate a late lunch at Azteca. (I had chicken mole, it wasn't as good as the time I had it at this family owned mexican restaraunt).
Anyway, after that we walked along and saw a store called "Lids" and Colata has been talking about wanting a LA Dodgers all white baseball cap so I went in there and bought it for him.
Then we were walking along and talking about Jada getting her ears pierced, and at first she didn't want to because she was afraid it was going to hurt. In the middle of all this I was accosted by an Israeli who was selling a hand buffing set with "minerals from the red sea". I am a sucker and ended up buying it. But, I thought because Jada loves to do manicures and pedicures it was something we could do together frequently (thus going along with today's theme of mommies and daughters). We finally made it to Claire's, and after walking around, Jada finally decided she would try to get her ears pierced. This only happened because she kept asking me to buy some freaky looking stuffed animal, and I kept refusing, and when she wouldn't stop, I said "The only thing I'll get for you in this store is your ear's pierced" She must have stewed on it a bit, but I was totally thinking she would not do it, when she started asking me "what does it feel like?" and so I would give her ear a little pinch, she then replied "That doesn't hurt very much" so then I said it would probably hurt more than that but not it wouldn't hurt for a long time, just a second.
She looked at the earrings and found some she liked, then she said she wanted to get them pierced. I didn't want to hesitate and make her change her mind, so we started the process, I signed papers and Jada was watching the assistant manager very closely as she was sterilizing the counter surface and pulling out the earring guns. She asked lots of questions such as "What does that do? and Why are you doing that?" When the asst. manager took the alcohol swab to her ear, her shoulders went up and she got really tight. I just said, "relax, it's just the swab cleaning your ear" Then the asst. manager took forever trying to get the pen dots on her ear to be symmetrical. Finally it was time for the piercing. The first one went through and Jada's eyes got really big and she said "That hurts a lot!" But she didn't cry, when the second one went in she was more tense because she knew what was going to happen and I think it hurt a little more for her because of that, but she never cried. She got to pick out two sets of earrings to wear when her 8 weeks is up, and she is really excited about it.
I just love my daughter, and she is so beautiful and fun and I am so happy when I get to spend some time with her just like this. Here are some photos of our day and the last one is a video.

A bully and some books

I am a member at the YMCA and use there facilities mainly to exercise and other times to swim with Jada and the family in the pool. I decided to join the Y because of the babysitting included in the membership cost, so I can exercise at my convenience and not have to worry about my exercise routine being dependent upon my husband's availability.
Within the past couple weeks, when I have picked Gabe up after exercising, the teacher's have mentioned that Gabe is taking other children's toys and not following the rules (i.e. climbing up the slide, instead of going down.) At first, I found it rather annoying, because he is a 21 month old boy and they don't know how to share and they need to be reminded often about rules of proper use of toys etc. Then I was a little concerned after a visit when they mentioned that my son laid on top of another child to get a toy they had, and how he was laughing because he thought his behaviour was funny, not naughty, when the teacher got after him. And finally, this morning, I was interrupted during my workout because Gabe was taking toys from kids, and when the teacher removed him from the situation and used a "stern" voice to tell him not to take the other child's toy, he took a swing at her. Then on top of that, he through himself down and had a tantrum, only they were concerned because he kept trying to bang his head on the floor.
I am a little flabbergasted and don't know quite how to correct the situation because normally if he starts to behave like that I am right there and intercede before anything really happens of that nature, but he has been more prone to tantrums etc, but I know that is just a part of his developmental stage at this age. Anyone have any advice or suggestions for me?
I finished reading the Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman. I started on the second novel, The Subtle Knife but haven't finished it. I thought The Golden Compass was a good book. It has strong themes that teach against the idea of religious authority etc, which makes sense, because if I remember correctly Mr. Pullman wrote these novels as his atheistic/agnostic version of C.S. Lewis' books The Chronicles of Narnia. The funny thing is, is that from reading Mr. Pullman's first book, even though it is strongly felt that he has no respect for religious organizations, the book strongly suggests a Higher Power of some sort, though by reading just a few chapters of Mr. Pullman's second book in the trilogy, it appears that one of the character's has taken it upon himself to find God and kill him. I find that thought very disturbing, and haven't been able to pick up the second book for a few days. Don't know if I'll finish it. I haven't decided yet.
I've been reading a lot of children's books lately too, as Jada's homework assignments is to get in 10 mins of reading everyday, whether it is me reading to her or vice versa. We read a book called "A mama for Owen". It was very sweet and is a true story. It takes about 5 minutes to read, and is about a hippo from Africa. Go to your local library and check it out when you get a chance.
And one last thing, I just wanna say how expensive it is to have to pay the dentist when you have no insurance! Yikes, I think I'll have to become the dentist's indentured servant for 5 years just to pay off the bill.

This summer...

Some of you may know that Colata was away for the summer doing an internship at Southwest Washington Medical Center in Vancouver, Wa. He has now returned, but I must say that it was one of the hardest experiences of my life playing the role of a single parent of two kids. I always knew it was a hard situation to be in, but until you experience it first hand, I don't think you ever truly know how difficult it really IS.
The summer started off with a near-drowning of Gabe in the pool/pond in our backyard. Luckily, Jada is really tuned in with the Holy Ghost and jumped into the pool to save him. That was the biggest and scariest mishap of the summer, and it almost broke me, but luckily nothing so big and terrifying happened for the rest of the summer.
Jada kept cool and busy by being on the Shoreline Gator's swim team. It was so exciting to see her swim and even win some of her heats. I enjoyed participating as a spectator and learning a wee bit more about a sport I had no idea about before. During the school year she'll be continuing swim lessons, and who knows, maybe she'll end up being the girl version of Michael Phelps (the eight Olympic gold medals, not the illegal drug mishap).
Gabe discovered and watched for the first time the movie Cars and a couple of weeks ago we introduced Finding Nemo. So instead of watching Cars twice a day, I get a daily dose of Nemo and Cars. At least there's a little variety. He cracks me up every time he watches Cars now, because he knows the movie so well that he mimics the facial expressions (since he can't really repeat lines as he's not speaking so clearly yet) I especially love the scene where mack is trying to keep himself awake and does a lot of shaking and rolling of his eyes to keep himself awake. Now picture GABE doing just that. Hilarious.
Colata is back home now, and he is busy working on letters and essays for applications to Fellowships at different hospitals all over the USA. School starts at the end of September, so he is focusing all his time on the Fellowship stuff. Hopefully all the effort will work well in his favor.
I have got to give a huge Thank you to Southwest Washington Medical Center in Vancouver. Colata learned so much from all the administrators there and he has come back with renewed confidence in his abilities and a knowledge that this definitely is the profession for him.
Here are some pics of some of our summer adventures.... Enjoy!
Gabe just got a very short haircut on Friday.....

On your mark, Get set...... BEEEEP!
Jada after she just swam her first heat.

Jada's first dance recital. She did so well.

Gabe enjoying Priest Lake.

New blogsite, new start...

So maybe most of you have noticed that I have not been the best blogger. I rarely update, and frankly, I bored myself with my own entries. But I hope all of that is behind me and that I will have more to contribute to put a little smile on the faces of my family and friends who might actually come to my site every once-in-a-while.
One of the main reasons for the new blogsite is because I can't remember the address and password to login to the old one. Believe me I tried, but apparently it's been so long since I've viewed the darn thing that it no longer even recognizes my email address. And, apparently (someone correct me if I'm wrong) I have to have a gmail account now to have a blog. So, I also have a new email address. Don't worry, I am still keeping my old one, but for any of you who are interested, the new one is loganimocek@gmail.com
I am looking forward to taking a nap this afternoon, if Gabe crashes before Jada gets home because I didn't get the quality beauty sleep I prefer last night. Colata had a horrible toothache last night and was just miserable, and I felt so bad because there was NOTHING I could do to make the pain go away. Usually with kids, there is something you can do, at least in the way of comfort and hugs and loves to help ease the pain and misery of a sick child, but a spouse is sometimes much harder to "make better". The only thing I ended up doing was to sleep in the kids room when Gabe woke up in the middle of night, instead of crowding my bed with a child who might possible kick you in the face as he tosses and turns to find a good sleeping position.
I sent Colata off to the dentist this morning and hope that when he returns, he will only be suffering from a numb mouth full of Novocaine and not a mouth full of sensitive teeth.
I also decided this will be the venue I use to discuss the books I am reading and to keep track of the books that I have read recently. I read so much that when I try to recall a title of author of a book, many times I get frustrated because I can't remember them all.
This last weekend (the first one of my husband returned from his internship) I took advantage of a two-parent household and spent the whole evening and the wee hours after midnight reading a book in one sitting. It was Chalice by Robin Mckinley. Most of her fiction is for Young Adults (YA) and is in the fantasy realm. I thought the concept and story had alot of potential and the characters made me want to keep reading, but it at times seemed a little convoluted and at times when you craved more attention to detail, I found that it lacked some depth. But overall it was a quick read, and it ended with the possibility for a sequel, though I haven't googled to see if that is something Robin Mckinley is pursuing. Anyway, the main character, Mirasol is a beekeeper who lives in a cottage in the woods. She has just become the demesne's Chalice, who, though not really explained exactly what role the "Chalice" plays, it is described that she is technically the second in command to the master and that her role is largely symbolic in meetings of politics, but also that she is revered for her abilities and ties to the earth and in protecting the delicate balance of the earth and the humans who live in her demesne. I love how the bees, a seemingly ordinary thing, take on this extraordinary position in the story and weave the theme of nature being so closely tied to the humans around them. I wanted to learn more about the priests of fire and other elements, but felt that was superficially dealt with, and was a little upset with the "cope-out" ending with the Master priest of fire being becoming wholly human again and getting his happy ending with Mirasol. It felt like to me that the ending was so quick and sudden that it left me a bit flabbergasted that Ms. Mckinley would end the book like that. Let me tell ya that I was a little disgruntled that I stayed up til 2am only to be disappointed and baffled by the poorly written ending. I thought the ending was a nice draft, but that's just it, it felt like a first draft... not that final draft.
Currently I just started the series "The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials". I will write more when I have actually finished the first book.