Before Christmas break my parents came to the school to deliver Christmas presents from their church as well as another church. We also had stockings donated by a church I spoke at this summer. I think it's fair to say the majority of this year's Christmas gifts were sponsored by California churches. Looking around 3 of the 5 gifts each child received came from California... and California I know personally. It's a good feeling to know that I'm contributing more than just being "mom" to a few girls.
When talking about the travel plans over Christmas break my mom offered her car to drive in California. My car has some issues that have not been able to be fixed. The major issue is after a day of not driving my car will need to be jumpstarted before working again. I've replaced the battery twice in the past year and the alternator was checked and reported good. The multiple mechanic guys I've had look at it haven't been able to figure out what's going on except that there is something that is draining the battery and they aren't sure what it could be. Long story short my mom suggested I drive her car because for one of the two weeks I was in California she was going on a trip with my sister. So, my car stayed in Arizona and I went to California.
When I returned after break my car was dead, as expected, but when we jump started it and drove to the nearest Wal-Mart (45 minutes away) I was disappointed that after an hour of shopping I had to have my car jumped just to get home. This was the first time I had to do this. Normally (although it really shouldn't be the norm...), when my car was jumped and I drove it to Wal-Mart it would be good for a day. It's discouraging to be unsure of knowing if driving my car to charge it will actually charge it enough to get me back home.
The other discouraging thing is the jump start block my dad bought me for Christmas wasn't starting my car either. I was hoping having a jump start block would help me not be dependent on another car when I wanted to go somewhere. I was very disappointed to find out it wasn't going to work.
Before my parents went back to California after bringing me back to Arizona went grocery shopping and I had planned on going to Flagstaff so my car could be driven a long distance in the hope that getting a good charge will help my battery last longer than a 45 minute trip. It was kind of nice to ignore my car for the week and only once did I feel like it would be nice to go off campus, but I did think of the trip to Flagstaff and how the other dorm moms and I were going to make a day of going to Flagstaff with shopping and watching a movie. The good news is when we finally were able to take the trip to Flagstaff my car only needed to be jump started in the morning! When I went to church the next morning it started without being jump started. It's nice not having to drive my car everyday to go to work, but it's hard to remember to have to drive my car every day or every other day just to keep it running. It's one thing if I had places to go, but to drive just to drive is frustrating and time consuming when I have so many other things that I could do with my time.
In other news, upon returning from Christmas break I found out two of my girls weren't returning. This is something we know happens at the school. Sometimes we know the reasons, sometimes we don't know why the kids don't return. All I know is last semester I had a few wildfire personalities that took everything inside of me to keep contained, but never put out completely. I also had a child who was like gasoline who could be very helpful in the right circumstances, but poured on the wildfire personality caused complete and utter chaos. Looking back and realizing exactly what was happening I now understand why I've gained weight. I was extremely stressed and after the kids went to bed the only thing I could do was quietly watch a movie and eat. It wasn't until the end of the semester I realized I was doing this and have since decided to limit my snacking. This isn't to say the girls who left were wildfire or gasoline children, but having 6 instead of 8 girls helps me to have a better control over the situation. Not that I have everything worked out and life is a bed of roses, but things are better in the 2 weeks after Christmas break.
With so few girls (I realize so few girls refers to 6 girls and most parents would still shriek at the thought of 6 kids, but coming from 8 to 6 girls makes a world of difference) we've been able to do things we were just unable to do last semester. The girls have been asking to fly kites and play outside and with so many girls and wildfires and gasoline wildfires it was practically impossible. We finally had a day where we could go fly a kite and play with the bubble gun one of the girls got for Christmas (at first I wasn't sure about the bubble gun, but after playing with it for a while and refilling it twice I think if we had more bubble guns in the dorm it wouldn't be a bad idea).
Flying a kite on a not particularly windy day, but I was able to get it up and keep it up for the girls to play with for an hour or so.
The bubble gun and the girls chasing to pop the bubbles.
The girls and their snowmen.
The girl in the tiger jacket's snowmen has "one leg... and he fell over."
Our snowmen family who lived on my porch for a few days.
Periodically I'll have bursts of organization brilliance and this time it was the organization of my movies. Living in a place where I don't have cable, but a lot of quiet time I've collected a lot of movies and (partial) TV series. I had these red and brown boxes from when I thought I was moving to Japan and would have limited space... but I moved to Arizona and have limited space. I ditched the cases and put the movies in my red box in alphabetical order. The only thing is when the girls would want to watch a movie they'd skim my collection and would find movies that weren't approved for them to watch (not that I have anything bad, but they'd watch Hitch with their family and want to watch it here, but not only is Hitch not a kid's movie, but it's not on the approved list). So, I decided I'd move the kid's movies to the brown box and the other movies to the red box. I put the TV series in the white basket (with a red gingham liner) in their original boxes. I whited out the old alphabetical system and moved the Shirley Temple movies that were in order with the brown box sleeves back to the brown box from the red box. I also made a spreadsheet of every movie, rating, genera and new location with the sleeve number. I printed a master copy, a red box list and a brown box list. At this point I'm thinking I'm brilliant. The down side is I can't peruse a particular box when looking for a movie, but I do have the list to look over before making my decision AND when I make that decision I know exactly where to go to find the movie. I also like that when I get a new movie I can add it to the box by shifting the movies to keep them in alphabetical order and update the spreadsheet. (Is it kind of sad I'm really excited right now explaining all this? It's one of my nerdy qualities to get excited about a great organization system.)
In other news... I think this year's Christmas was brought to you by pajamas and fuzzy blankets. I LOVE my footsie pajamas. How can one not relax wearing footsie pajamas? I had one fuzzy blanket before Christmas and I now have 5! I know my girls love them because they'd fight over the one fuzzy blanket, but now they pile them up and snuggle under the warmth of the fuzzy blankets.
A HUGE thank you to my mom who was able to gift me a trip to Disneyland over Christmas break. I love Disneyland as much as the next person, but I know the cost of Disneyland and don't expect to go to Disneyland every trip to California. However, between the semester of wildfires and gasoline I was particularly homesick and not just any kind of homesick - Disney homesick. I had watched the episode of Modern Family where they go to Disneyland and found myself more homesick than I had been in the year and a half I've been here. When I told my mom she made it possible for me to go. Below is a picture of the girls I stayed with in California on the front of the train in the special seat. It was their first time to have this special treat and very worth the wait.
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