Growing Up

Man it's painful to grow up. I always thought it was tough as a kid, but I am beginning to really understand how painful it must have been for my parents!

We're having yet another battle of the wills with Ethan, aka "Mr. Stubborn." I used to be able to buy all his clothes and stuff without him wanting to be involved. This was nice because I could shop the sales and pick out the greatest bargain.

No. more.

We've been searching for a new pair of shoes now for a week! The ones he got at the beginning of the school year, I noticed the other day, have soles that so thin that I can nearly poke my finger through the sole! How does he get around in these I wondered? We need shoes that he'll agree to wear (and here's the rub), that I'll agree to pay for. Not to mention his feet require a men's 7.5 these days...do you know how hard it is to find a decent pair of men's shoes on a good sale? If you know much about Ethan you know that this is just another day. I wondered how much money he has in his piggy bank?

On a side note, here he is at his Arrow of Light ceremony on April 1st. It was a lot of fun. The primary brought in a expert scouter from here in Bountiful who has been a Webelos leader for 30+ years to teach us of few things and to run the ceremony. He was very entertaining and I tried to get some great pics, but I had to give my camera to Shauna during the presentation of the awards and she thought she was taking pictures when she wasn't. You know that little focus feature? Sometimes that happens, oh well. Some of the tips he gave us were how you should really wear your uniform "to be a cub scout/boy scout and not a girl scout," how to run a flag ceremony properly, and how a pack meeting should operate. Congratulations Ethan!

And we get to do this three more times...Bears, and Wolves, and Webelos, oh my!

Friends!!

Since we've been back from NZ I've been worried about Masaru and how lonely he must be in comparrison to when he was there.
We were living with his cousins, Cora, Elise and Ava for 2 months and so he always had friends around!
So I thought I would start trying little play dates for him.
Since there is zero boys his age in the ward, there was really only a couple to choose from.
Fortunatley I happen to be friends with the mum of one of the boys in the ward called Mylo.
So they've spent a few dates together and love each other.
It's been really nice to have him around. They play really well together and Masaru talks about him all the time!!
Masaru also has two little girlfriends called Hannah and Emma, which he sees every now and then whom he loves playing with. But they live at least half an hour away!!
So I called my old visiting teaching buddy Sarah and decided to ask her if we could have Meg.
I don't know how people feel about little girls playing with boys so I felt Sarah was 'safe' to ask and if worked out well I thought I could branch out to other girls.
Dru had a little friend when he was Masaru's age called Sarah Ward. Dru used to call her
Sewa Wuud. I think that's soooooo cute. They were great mates.
Masaru has started talking about Meg now and when she's going to come around to play next. So I think that's a good sign. Although those two played completely different together than the two boys.
Meg was interested in 'fixing' the sink with Masaru's fake tools though. She was telling us how her father can fix these things and he taught her. It was pretty funny.
This last pic is of Masaru and Isacc hanging out.
Isacc is our good friends, Mandi and Travis' little boy and they had a 'blast' together.
Isacc asked if Masaru was going to sleep over for the night! I thought that was wonderful.
On a side tangent.
Travis asked Masaru "So do you like Jeeps?" Probably because Masaru got into ALL of Isacc's toys and found anything with 4 wheels and lined them up in a nice neat row and played with them one at a time.
Masaru said "Yep" Then Travis asked "Does your Dad like Jeeps" To which Masaru promptly stated "No my dad likes Land Cruisers"
We were busting up laughing for ages. Dru's still talks about it and is so proud of Masaru for saying that.
I know it's complete indoctrination from Dru's side!!
But at least Masaru can admit he likes jeeps and Dru doesn't get on his case about it.
I
guess the time will come where Dru will have the "Landcruisers and better than jeeps" talk.
We need to see Isacc again really soon.
And of course I posted a picture of little Yuki Mei because I think Masaru and her play really well together and out of all of his friends, she's his best friend.
They laugh and giggle and play so much together.
Masaru will play hide and seek with her and she doesn't even know she's playing. And Masaru will be hiding from her and peeking around the corner and cracking up laughing if Yuki sees him. It's the cutest thing man.
He can entertain and make her laugh a lot better than Dru and I can. It's great.
Look at those faces Mylo and Meg are pulling!!!

More Law Stuff

Well we heard from UNLV (University of Nevada Las Vegas), and they have put Dru on the wait list. So we're pretty excited about that. So we'll send in the 'yes we want to be put on the waitlist' letter and keep our fingers crossed.
The tuition is just the same as Idaho and Dru's sister, Kristin, who lived there for years said the rent in Henderson isn't too bad. Plus it's only 6/7 hours away from Bountiful.
So we're pretty excited and who knows what will happen.
All I know is that when Dru's in the middle of finals, Kristin, I"m coming to live with you for a week!!!

Law Business

Dru was accepted into Wyoming! We only heard from them a couple of days ago! So maybe a late reply doesn't neccessarily mean a no.
We've still to hear from BYU, UNLV and Willamate.
If BYU says yes we'll go their. If UNLV says yes we'd seriously consider going there.
If they all say no we're going to Idaho unless Wyoming can offer us a lot of money.
Dru's off up to Moscow this Sunday, till Tuesday, to met with all the important people and try and find us an apartment.
I said to him "Now listen Dru, find something you think I would want to live in day in and day out, you're hardly going to be there!"
He said "Come on Melissa, you don't think I've got high standards of living?"
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

And for my next trick.............

So you know how you come to a point when you think things SURELY can't get worse?
ie: My last blog 'Poop on your Finger'
Well turns out they can.
For Masaru's next trick we have the 'lets go hide in a corner and poop in our undies' trick.
He's been doing it the last 2 days.
His first attempt resulted in him falling asleep whilst practicing for the next 5 times he'd do it over the next 2 days!!
Breathe Melissa, just breathe, this too shall pass!!!!!