Easter

We had a very fun easter weekend collecting eggs, eating lots of candy, and spending time with family.

Caleb did a very good job catching on to the easter egg hunt concept. He ran around picking them up and throwing them in the basket I was holding. He kept calling them balls though. Here he is dumping out his easter egg basket only to put them back in again. He did that several times once we had finished finding all the eggs.


Before the hunt with the Mills cousins.


We also decided it was time for Caleb to wear a white shirt and tie to church. We got him a whole easter suit, but it is a little too big still so we just put the white shirt and really long tie on for now. He did quite well with it. Unfortunately, at this age, the white shirt won't ever stay tucked in, but we did our best throughout the day. Caleb also got some snazzy black sunday shoes to go with the outfit. I thought he looked great! Here he is trying to comb his own hair while holding Dori (his favorite movie is "Finding Nemo" and he asks for it multiple times a day).



We hope you had a wonderful holiday!

Current Communism and Book Reviews

I don't blog often, but when I get something to say it usually comes all at once. Thus, I post two times in a row and then leave it alone for a few weeks. This one might be a bit boring but you can skip it if you want.

Anyway, I recently begged my mother to suggest some good books to read. It has been so long since I was engrossed in a good book that I felt the strong need for escape. Luckily, my mother is in a very involved book group that has been meeting for years and is so elite that it is not accepting any more members. Between them, they can come up with some good reads most of the time.

I found two of the books to be quite compelling because they both relate to current events dealing with communism today. The first one I read is called "Bittersweet" by Leslie Li.


The author is the granddaughter of the only Vice President of China before communism took over. She writes a fictional story of her grandmother, the wife of the vice president. Of course, the women in the story are in general oppressed or victims of some kind, as is the case with the large feminist genre very popular today. In spite of this, I found the heroine to be very inspirational. I also learned a lot about the history and culture of China in the early 20th century that helps explain quite a bit about how the current China came to be. Seeing as America is so tightly connected with China, especially in international worry and job outsourcing, I felt more informed after reading this book. It was also very entertaining. I kept thinking about the millions of people there, making things work in their own current conditions and how the gospel can and will eventually be preached there. Quite a few Chinese citizens were baptized in my mission and then returned to China where they do have freedom to worship, missionaries just can't proselyte under their laws. I'm interested to see how the opening of China to missionary work with come about.


The second book is "Cuba Diaries" by Isadora Tattlin. The author uses a pen name because I don't think she wants Cuba officials nor her husbands superior's to know who wrote the book. She is an American housewife, married to a European (she never specifies his nationality, again I think for anonymity). Her husband works with a company that helps countries become more energy efficient. She and her family have lived all over the world and eventually get transfered to Cuba for four years in the mid '90's. It is written as a diary from her point of view. She details the struggles that even rich foreigners have of surviving in a somewhat backwards paradise. I never imagined Cuba as a paradise, but her descriptions of the countryside and even of the nature growing up around their large but very old home are amazing. Because I lived in a former communist country for quite a while, I imagined the structures, survival techniques of the locals, and other communist details from Ukraine to be mixed in with tropical beaches and gorgeous scenery. The author meets Fidel Castro (recently in the news for finally stepping down from his dictatorship) and is able to be quite current on the details of the Cuban government. She also tries to go to as many cultural sites and events as she can and describes them in detail. Anyway, I really enjoyed seeing Cuba in a different light from Fidel with his beard and army fatigues and the Cuban missile crises that my parents lived through.

So there you go. If you get a second and want a good read, both of these are excellent choices.

Piano!

Wow! I really can't believe I actually bought a piano. I mean, I knew I would eventually buy a piano just because I believe that is a staple to any well rounded home where anyone can even remotely play the piano. But, I mean, I figured I would buy one ten years down the road when we were out of school and had a stable income and whatnot.

But I did. Just this week. The reasons we did buy a real piano were many, although in reality we didn't absolutely NEED a real piano. I had a digital piano that my parents gave me as a very generous birthday/Christmas present just over a year ago. It was a very nice digital piano with weighted keys and the three normal pedals and everything.



However, just about the time I started teaching music lessons from my home, the piano started to have a few problems. It kept randomly turning off in the middle of playing (which can be quite embarrassing while trying to teach). Also, there was one chord below middle C that, when played, would all of a sudden produce a very loud fog horn type of sound. It was very bizarre. I was told that it was probably a problem with the mother board.




So, as I was working with the music store to fix these two problems, I was told that the real professional fix-it guys were backed up for months and that all digital piano companies produce great products but are brutal to work with when trying to order parts and get things fixed. So, I asked about trading it in, and they said we could trade it in for the same price that it was bought for just over a year ago. I must say, this piano store really does good business.

Now, a real piano costs MUCH more than a digital one, and we didn't have much more to add on top of it. However, I figured if I'm teaching for a while longer, I'm going to need something that won't break like the digital one broke. I nicely asked Adam if I could use some of our tax return to put towards maybe buying a real piano and because we is so wonderful and loves me, he said I could. There were only a few used pianos in the store that were even close to our meager price range, but we found one that had a good enough tone made by a company I've never heard of, Hallet Davis and CO. Just my luck, it is REALLY pretty on the outside. The pedals are a little funny in that the una corda pedal is in the middle instead of on the left and the left pedal doesn't do anything. But, I rarely use those two anyways. The right pedal works just fine. It was priced for actually $1,000 outside our price range but the dealer said we could get it for what we were offering. After the whole transaction, he said that we caught him at a good time because they were having a terrible month selling pianos, probably because everyone is scared about the economy right now. So, if you are thinking about buying a piano, now is a good time when the dealers are desperate to make some sales.

I am in. I have joined the club of real piano owners. I still feel a little guilty for spending so much, but I figure I can earn the money back with lessons in the next two years. (: Also, now the next time we move, we have to hire some piano movers because those things are killer to get up and down stairs.

P.S. Three more weeks till our baby comes!

Only 5 more weeks....

... but lets be honest. I was 10 days late with Caleb and had to be induced. I had not even had one contraction before they hooked me up to the I.V. Then, when he was born the doctor said he looked early. I guess I just cook them long. So, although my due date is in 5 weeks, I probably have more like 6.5 weeks to go. Still not bad.

A few weeks ago, my doctor was worried that I was too small, so he ordered an ultrasound to make sure the baby was still growing. I was really small with Caleb so I wasn't worried. Everything turned out to be fine. The ultrasound technician gave me some profile pictures and one of them I think is funny. One is just a normal baby profile but the other looks like she's laughing with a big open mouth smile.




This baby also moves around a TON. She is constantly stretching, flipping around, or kicking. I hope she doesn't give me a run for my money. Caleb overall has been a pretty easy baby. I don't know if I can handle a high maintenance girl along with a 17 month old boy who does lots of boy things like get into the garbage or call Japan on my cell phone.

High maintenance or easy going, I will be happy to have this baby here and not be pregnant anymore. This sunshine makes me want to go out for a big run and really get my heart going. I'm also excited to see what she'll look like. Babies are so wonderful!