New life in Tucson!

Life has been pretty good here in Tucson. Even though it’s not where I wanted to live, we have been happy. Our apartment is nice and large, and we have made lots of friends in our ward. It is much easier to make friends when you have kids! I was worried about that part, since our last move to Oregon was such a hard transition, even though I was excited about living there. It is wonderful being so close to Adam’s sister Amber and her family and having them in our ward. Lily loves her cousin Amelia, and they are so cute together. Josh likes running around outside, even though there are only sidewalks to play on and no grass. They don’t seem to mind much. And they sure love the swimming pool! I guess the Lord knew this is where we need to be.

Joshua is 18 months and officially in nursery. He is very sweet, but such a daredevil! He jumps off everything, runs away from me squealing and laughing, climbs everything, and laughs even when he gets hurt! I am a bit worried about what trouble he might get into when he gets older, but he is the most adorable thing in the world right now. He has a little friend named Norah whom I watch during the last two hours of church because her parents are busy with callings. He apparently likes her because whenever we go to her house, he grins and says “Nori! Nori!” In fact, when she went out of town, he missed her because every time we drove by her neighborhood, he would get excited and say “Nori!” and would be a little sad when we didn’t visit her.

He talks about spiders and volcanoes all the time, and has a serious sweet tooth. My favorite thing is that when he is in his crib, instead of sucking his thumb for comfort, he sticks his finger in his bellybutton and hums himself to sleep loudly with his pacifier in his mouth. It is just about the cutest thing I have ever seen! The only problem is that when I forget and put him in a onsie, he can't fall asleep for his nap. I can't we won't be doing footie pajamas with this guy!

   

Lily is growing up so much. She will be four soon, and she is learning her letters and numbers. Even though she can’t identify numbers larger than 4, she understands math really well. She can add, subtract, and even multiply small numbers fairly accurately. Reading is not coming so quickly, but she has almost two years until kindergarten, so I think it’s fine.

We are doing a preschool exchange with another family in our ward. Their 3-year-old Violet (Norah’s sister, incidentally), comes over every other Tuesday for 2 hours and we learn preschool things and do fun activities. So far we have learned about Noah’s ark, rainbows, colors, the number four, squares, and are planning to do the letter “G” with some Halloween activities this week. The odd weeks, Lily goes to Violet’s house. They are so cute! I love having a reason to plan a hands-on activity to do at home with Lily, because otherwise, I rarely do that.

Lily wanted to do characters from Frozen for Halloween. So she is Elsa, and we made her a French braided yarn wig to make it more authentic. It’s darling! Joshua is Olaf, and he loves his costume. “Olas! Olas!” he exclaims whenever we put it on him. I am going to dress up as Anna and Adam is going to be a half-baked version of Kristoff. I ran out of motivation for his costume, so it is not as authentic looking. He doesn’t care at all though.

Adam’s mom convinced us to go to Disneyland in January, and Lily is SOOO excited to see all the “real princesses, who live at Disneyland!!” I don’t even think she knows what a roller coaster is, she just knows that Disneyland has castles and princesses. That’s all she cares about.

Something very cool happened here recently: they began construction on the Tucson temple last week. It is a 13 minute drive from our house!  That is a huge improvement over the 1 ½ - 2 hour drive we currently have, which equates to an all-day trip with the kids, or a most-of-the-day trip without them. This is a huge blessing, and I honestly can hardly wait for it to open!

Adam likes his job. He is extremely busy this semester, but things should get better in January. He is teaching couple relationships, advanced family theories, and dynamics of family relationships. He rides the bus every day and is gone 11 hours each day. I thought that would be hard, since it’s more than I am used to. But it’s not so bad. It just means he gets less time with the kids in the evenings.

Adam and I went on an amazing date last week: we got to see the Broadway touring production of Phantom of the Opera. I have wanted to see this show for more than 20 years, since I was a little girl. My mom loved the music and we listened to it all the time. I know most of the words to every major song. Finally, after all that time, we got to go. It was fabulous! Truly, I was giddy with excitement probably the first half of the show. The set, music, costumes, and everything else were breathtaking! It was a really fun (and much needed!) night out. 

Even though there are still a number of pictures to put on our walls, we are feeling mostly settled and at home here. It's not as close as I would have hoped to our family, and the summer heat was really difficult for me to deal with. But I feel that it's the right place. We are very blessed! We do miss everyone in Corvallis, as well as all our friends spread all over the country! Good thing for social media, email and texting! :) Please keep in touch! 

My Burning Bush

I listened to a BYU devotional today given by a former professor of mine.

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=2221

In his address, he describes an experience in which the Lord confirmed a correct decision. He told his wife, "I know it. I couldn’t be any more sure than Moses and the burning bush.” This address was, in turn, a confirmation to me from the Lord. It affected me in such a personal way that I wrote to the professor and sent him the following email:

Dear Bro Parker, 

I am a former student of yours. I believe I took your Book of Mormon class in 2005, and it had a profound influence on my life. Because of this, when I was browsing the BYU devotionals today looking for something to listen to while cutting my husband's hair, I noticed that you gave a address recently and we decided to listen to it. 

I was particularly impressed by your story about looking for a house in Tucson. I have only been to Tucson once, and I thought it was the ugliest place I had ever seen. I felt like it was sucking the life out of me, and I swore I could never live there.   

Then last week, my husband was offered a faculty teaching position at the University of Arizona. It is his first job after he will (hopefully!) finish his doctoral dissertation. We are thrilled with the offer. However, I have struggled immensely at the thought of living in Tucson, especially after residing in lush Oregon for the past four years. I have wondered if the Lord would really provide a situation for me where I could feel at home. I have prayed continuously to see the good in this opportunity and to be happy about moving there.  

Tonight, as I listened to you describe your dismay at searching unsuccessfully for a place to live amid the unfamiliar territory of desert rocks and cacti, tears began to well up in my eyes. When you described reading in the scriptures the words "Thou hast prepared a house," and then finding that house, confirmed with signs from the Lord, I had to stop cutting my husband's hair because I couldn't see through the tears. Your devotional address was the sign to me that God has a place prepared for us in Tucson, and that this is where I am supposed to go.  

Coincidence? I think not. 

Thank you for sharing this story. I hope it had meaning for many in the audience, but it felt like you were giving it just for me. It was an answer to my prayers. I will go forward in faith, knowing that the Lord is mindful of me in this situation. Thank you for being the medium through which He could send this message.

So Many Good Things Happening!

So many good things have been happening lately! I feel so grateful.

First, I feel like I have finally been participating in music in some really fulfilling ways. Ever since I decided not to pursue a degree in music in college, I have felt like I missed my opportunity to develop my musical skills. But being here in Corvallis has been such a great blessing for me in that way. I was asked to be the ward choir director a couple years ago, which I had done before, and it was my favorite calling. Our choir is fairly small and requires a lot of PR work and practice, but it has been a lot of fun. And it has really grown and developed over the past couple years. I am finally able to give them challenging pieces and know that they can sound beautiful!

After leading the choir for about 6 months, I was asked to be the musical director for the stake play, which completely intimidated me. But I learned so much! Then recently, I was asked to conduct a combined choir to sing in stake conference. Wow - it was AMAZING to conduct a large choir that could really follow me. What an exhilarating experience! It was like playing a really large musical instrument in 4 parts at once, just by waving my hands around! I really enjoyed it.

And then they asked me to conduct the stake choir for the upcoming stake Easter program. We have only had once practice, but it was really fun to work with the cream of the crop in terms of musical ability. I am really excited! Conducting feels like it fits me so well. I have always wished I could play the piano better because I love the expression that can be conveyed through piano music. There are pieces I feel like I can play with all the expression I want to communication. But I don't sight read really well, and I will never be a great pianist. But when I lead a choir, I can help them sing with that much expression. I can use the dynamics, variations in tempo, fermatas, and other musical elements to bring real meaning and beauty to the music. I know I still have a lot to learn, but in the moment, I feel like I was meant to do this.

And also, as a result of my ward and stake choir opportunities, people keep asking me to teach voice lessons. I have refused for a while because I have no formal pedagogy training. But finally, it felt right and I conceded. So I have been teaching a 10-year-old girl voice lessons since October. And I LOVE IT! We are not doing anything advanced, and since she is so young, I have tried to be very careful with her voice. But it has been wonderful to help her discover her head voice and develop the talents she already has. We have also worked on sight reading, breath support, tone, pronunciation, interpretation, and various other elements of singing. She has already improved a lot! It has also forced me to begin singing myself. And surprisingly, I still can! I would like to really get my voice "back in shape", but I'm glad this has forced me to start.

All this music has kept me really busy though. In addition, someone from the stake asked Adam and I to conduct a youth ballroom dance activity, so we spent last Thursday night teaching night club two-step. That was fun. I am also watching a neighbor girl (Lily's best friend), almost every day. But it's all good things and it is nice to do a few things that feel self-actualizing.

And for the final bit of good news - Adam got a job! (You have probably already heard) He will be teaching family studies and human development at the University of Arizona. This means we will be moving to Tucson, Arizona in early August. I am very sad to leave Corvallis, which I have loved so much. I am also sad that we won't be moving any closer to my family - we'll be just as far in the other direction as we are now. But Adam's sister and her family, including Lily's only cousin, live there, and we are SO excited to be close to them!

I could write several more posts about how I feel about this, but I won't have time, so I'll sum up: super excited about being employed, hate the climate in Tucson, love lots of other things about the city like great food, ballroom dancing, lots of artistic stuff, temple announced there, will have to learn how to garden in the desert so my yard isn't just rocks and cactus, LOVE the housing prices, and my hair will actually be blonde again (not yucky brownish like it is now!). I hope it will be a good experience for all of us, but I know it will be a great opportunity for Adam. The job is perfect for him in every way! It is a huge answer to prayers, and we are so grateful! Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us to get a job! (Now pray that Adam can finish his dissertation in time to actually start working on August 17!)