A Week At Grandma's

We've spent the past week in Taylorsville, playing with Grandma and Grandpa Manwill, and Grandma's dogs, and Grandma's toys, and everything else here the kids could get their hands on. It's been really fun! Sorry, no pictures for this post. David has our digital camera in Africa, and Grandma couldn't find her camera for a few days.
David has been gone for a week now. He spent a few days in Barcelona, Spain, with Estanislao Boren and his wife, Maria Clara. Estanislao is a cousin of his Grandpa Boren's that David's family has recently discovered and made contact with. David was hoping to learn more about his family history while in Spain. He is now in Uganda, working on research with some professors and graduate students from BYU. He will be interviewing principals, teachers, and students about school trust.
I'm going to start posting highlights from David's emails, since he's having some interesting adventures. Here are his first two emails:

I´m at Estanislao´s and Maria Clara´s house right now (10:20 p.m. Sunday night). Saturday afternoon we went all over Barcelona seeing different churches, buildings, parks, etc. Maria Clara and Estanislao speak Catalan to each other most of the time and Spanish to me. Their Spanish is definitely different from what I´m used to and it´s hard to understand everything. I have learned a few quirky words that they use a lot. Overall we communicate just fine, but there have been a few times that I was not sure what was said.

Barcelona is a beautiful city. In the evening we went home and went through some family history. I am learning some good stuff, but this one trip isn´t going to do it. Estanislao and Maria Clara live right in the middle of downtown, so there´s a lot going on right outside their apartment. We walked around town last night seeing all sorts of neat things and had dinner at a little restaurant close to their house. The food was very different, but very good. It reminds me a lot of my Grandma Boren´s food: spicy, oily, and very tasty. I would gain a lot of weight if I were here for an extended amount of time.

Today (Sunday) we went to a Catholic mass in a beautiful cathedral just a block away from their house. After breakfast (melon, bananas, milk, bread) we went around town again. We saw some beautiful cathedrals and other amazing buildings. It really is a beautiful city with amazing architecture. In the afternoon we went up to a beautiful hotel up on the hill and they bought me lunch (It was pretty uppity). The view was incredible from up there. This evening we spent here at the house going over family history and then eating some more. I´m going to explode. Tomorrow we´ll head up to Laguarres. We probably won´t get too much information because tomorrow is a holiday and everything will be closed (impeccable timing). It will be fun anyway.

(Second email. I don't know why it's gray. It copied from the email that way. FYI: Laguarres is the village in Spain that the Borens come from. It is near the Spanish/French border, next to the Pyrennes.)

Yesterday we drove up to Laguarres and wow was it beautiful! It was a lot different than I had expected. I thought it would be dry, flat, grassland. Rather, it was a small little town tucked in a beautiful mountain valley. I knew from the maps that is was small, but it was even smaller than I had anticipated. The Spanish countryside is remarkably beautiful. I now know where my dad gets his yearning to be in the mountains. It´s in his blood. Don Mariano grew up in a quaint mountain valley. I got to see the homes where a lot of the relatives lived, and I saw the home where Mariano and all of his brothers and sisters were born and raised (casa Betis is what everyone in town calls it). It´s really interesting how all of the houses are two or three stories and share at least one wall with another house. The houses are all connected. There´s all this room (it´s out in the country) and the houses are smack dab next to each other. It was beautiful. The church is very close, but is not longer in use. Back in the mid 1800´s there were more than 500 people in Laguarres, but now there are fewer than 100. A lot of the young people have left because there really aren´t any job opportunities in Laguarres unless you are a farmer. Several of the houses are abandoned, or are vacation homes. The drive through the countryside was remarkable. I was surprised at the number of churches. Every small little village has an enormous church. They are everywhere.

I was not able to make any progress further back than Gregorio because it was a holiday and everything in Capella (the town with all the records) was closed. Estanislao said that he would have to make a trip up there to see what he could find. I´ll see if I can convince him to do it fairly soon. I have learned some great things and there are some names we can submit for temple work when I get back. We´re going to go see some more things around Barcelona today and then I´m off to Paris, Amsterdam, and Uganda.

Blackmail pictures

We're spending the week with my parents in Taylorsville while David is in Spain and Africa. I was going through some old pictures and couldn't resist sharing them. The first picture is of my family as we were going to a ward "Tacky Party." I'm the one in the middle. I'd like to say that we usually looked much better than this, but I'm afraid we probably looked tacky all the time. I still do. I believe the second picture was taken at BYU shortly after my dad returned from his mission in the mid '70s. My dad is the second from the left. I sometimes wonder which of my pictures my children will laugh at someday. David thinks my poofy bangs in Junior High were pretty funny, but I'm not ready to laugh about that era of my past yet.

David was craving the high country all week. We hiked and I waddled (verrrrrryyyyyyy slowwwwwwlllllllyyyyyyy) up to the first waterfall on the Timpanogos trail. Nathan ran back and forth, looking for squirrels and tent caterpillars to point out to us. Clara rode in the baby backpack and sang all the way up. She slept all the way back.
The kids graduated from their toddler beds into bunkbeds. They were BIG helpers while David assembled the bunkbeds. Nathan was handy with his toolbox. (It's funny how David's toolbox gets increasingly empty as Nathan's gets increasingly full.) He allowed David to borrow many of his tools to complete the job, and even helped tighten bolts with a socket wrench. He was in little boy heaven.
We finally said goodbye to "Little Red," the 1993 Toyota Tercel that has been David's set of wheels for the past nine years. It has served us valiantly, running on 3 cylinders for the past three years. David had to open the driver's side door from the passenger side. The trunk often refused to close. It did not have air conditioning or power steering. The car left huge oil spots on our driveway and shrouded the street in smoke every morning when David left for work. It would not go over 45 miles per hour. During the final weeks of its life, it could barely go over 20 mph. We figured it would cost more than the car was worth to get it fixed, and then who knows what would break next. Still, it was a little sad to say goodbye. Its replacement is a 2005 Ford Focus (which incidentally does not have A/C either, but we got it for cheap so we can't complain.)
I was in charge of a ward Primary activity last week. I am not a "big group activity" kind of person, so this was a stretch for me. Interesting how there's a ward activities committee and a Relief Society enrichment committee, but the Primary is supposed to have 4 activities each year put on by: the Primary presidency. Luckily I have an awesome presidency that helped immensely with the whole thing. This picture is of some of the little kids playing games at the activity. Clara, who is 2 1/2 and still in Nursery, slipped in to this room and joined Nathan as he played "Simon Says," "Pin the Tail on the Donkey," and danced "The Hokey Pokey."
Nathan discovered the joy of power tools. He taught himself how to use David's screw gun (now Nathan's screw gun), and found himself some screws and some boards that really needed screwing together. He had the time of his life. When the battery died, he got out the charger and recharged the thing. He reminds me a lot of my brother, Dan, who developed an early love of tools and tinkering.

Spring Break in Idaho & Africa

We enjoyed a very nice week up in Sandpoint with Grandma and Grandpa Boren, as well as Uncle Michael. David got to give a talk on baptism on Saturday night (in Spanish). It had been a few years since he had given a talk in Spanish and it was a lot of fun. On Sunday, Nathan and Clara painted Easter Eggs with Grandma. They were lucky enough to decorate eggs twice this year. They got to decorate eggs earlier this month with Grandma Manwill. Monday morning the Easter Bunny came and left eggs on the jungle mountain. Nathan and Clara found a lot of eggs, but a few were not found until a few days later. Nathan and Clara were great helpers on the farm all week. Nathan was especially helpful on the tractor and in digging. Both kids really enjoyed having a little more space to move around. We floated sticks down the creek and looked at huge ant hills back in the forest. One of the ant hills was as tall as Nathan! We went fishing and Nathan caught four fish and Clara caught three. It was Clara's first time catching fish. Grandpa Boren and David hiked Schweitzer on Wednesday (There are still several feet of snow up there!). Sherrie enjoyed fantastic thrift store shopping. The thrift stores up in Sandpoint have not been totally picked over like they are here in Utah. Sherrie bought six bags of kids' clothing! Dad and David biked most of the way of the road to Schweitzer, but had to turn around when it started raining. Maybe they'll get all the way up the next time David's in Sandpoint. The kids went swimming in the hot tub nearly every day and never wanted to get out. Grandma made yummy food and we all enjoyed the updates on Uncle Michael and his girlfriend Chelsea (We're excited to see what happens there!). We had a nice trip home and were grateful to stop at Grandma and Grandpa Manwill's for dinner and to get a key to our house (We locked ourselves out when we left Orem.).

We're looking forward to the next several weeks. David has finished his coursework for his PhD and is working on a qualifying paper, afterwhich he can start on his dissertation. We should find out in the next few weeks what David will be doing for employment next year (principal, assistant principal, or teacher--he's happy with any of the three options). Sherrie is getting primary in order and doing post-trip organizing. She is grateful that morning sickness has basically ended. We still don't have a name for #3 and are still open for suggestions.

The last big news is that David is going to Uganda, Africa for 2 1/2 weeks this summer to do research in the schools around Kampala (the capital city)! On his way to Africa, he'll stop off in Barcelona for three days to do some family history. He'll meet up with some of the extended family that lives there and go up to a little town called Laguarres, where the Borens are from. It should be an adventure.

In the hot tub with Grandpa!

Uncle Michael built this fun go cart that gets pulled behind the car. The kids loved it!

Clara's first fish

That's our boy!

That's our girl!

Gotta love those kids!

Nathan drew a picture of our family for General Conference (It's taped to the entertainment center)! Conference was awesome!

Digging for worms with cousins! Uncle Brian is so much fun!

Fashion Show (Clara is wearing a maternity shirt!)

March

Once a year we make sugar cookies. We only do it once a year because it takes forever, but it is a ton of fun. We usually do it in three phases.
Phase 1: Make the dough, cut out the cookies, cook the cookies, and snitch along the way.
Phase 2: Make the frosting and mix in the food coloring, and snitch along the way.
Phase 3: Frost the cookies and snitch along the way.
The following picture is at the tail end of phase 3. Nathan and Clara had a blast.

Daddy and the kids love playing pirates. We turn on pirate music and fight pirates, or are pirates ourselves. Those hats serve as both pirate hats and good sailor hats. Captain Nathan does a fine job leading our voyages.

Grandma Boren has gotten our kids hooked on the Mercy Watson books by Kate DiCamillo. Mercy Watson is a "porcine wonder" pig that lives with Mr. and Mrs. Watson. Mercy Watson loves toast with a great deal of butter. Consequently, our kids now love toast with a great deal of butter (Actually we use margarine because it's a lot cheaper.).

This picture is from about a month and a half ago when the cousins were up for Aunt Mel's play. The Chase girls had to make sure to train Nathan in the finer ways of domesticity.

Ultrasound

We went to an ultrasound for bambino #3 today and the little one looks healthy! We are really excited to be having another little boy! If you have any ideas for names, let us know. Since Sherrie does all of the work, she gets the ultimate say on names, which is too bad, because she has vetoed some of David's favorites (Ralphus, Bifford, Fred, Ralph, and several other wonderful names). When the technician told us that it would be a boy, we told Nathan and Clara that they would be having a brother (they were in the room with us). Clara said, "It's not a little boy, it's a little girl!" The technician was able to demonstrate very clearly that it was a boy, but Clara would have none of it. So much for anatomy. Anyway, we're really excited and feel very blessed.

Our Sweet Kids

Nathan and Clara are like an old couple that has been married for 50 years. They know each others' buttons and push them often, but they also love each other a lot. Mommy and daddy love them a lot too and have to remind themselves of that fact often. They are both excited for the new baby coming in July.