Weekly letter

Here's my weekly letter to my family chronicling the week.
Happy Mother's Day to Mama and Rosalynde and Naomi and Christine and Rachel!  I hope you all had wonderful days.
First of all, I'm sorry for dropping out of the phone call without any warning last night.  Ben's phone ran out of power.  My phone beeps when it's getting low, so I know to recharge it, but Ben's does not, and also does not work after you plug it in until it has recharged for a while.  So I'm sorry!  Christian, I didn't get to say good bye or I love you.  Just know that I love you!! 
My Mother's Day was great.  Last night Ben took the boys to HEB and they all chose some beautiful flowers to give me which are now sitting happily on our kitchen table.  Ben got up with the boys this morning and I slept in.  Then I had to go pick up my phone which I had left at the violin teacher's house, so Ben got the boys bathed and dressed and to church on time!  Our Sacrament Meeting was wonderful.  The first talk was by one of our graduating senior boys, and he started it off with a really funny fake "scripture" about mothers-- all written in King James English, but full of funny real-life things about mothers.  I tried to find it online, but no luck.  Our second speaker was a woman who has not been able to have children, despite trying everything over the past 6 years.  I thought our Bishop was brave and awesome for choosing her to speak.  She talked a lot about her heartbreak, and how everything she has gone through has changed her view of motherhood and how sacred a calling it is.  It brought back so many memories and feelings from those sad Mother's Days when I was wishing so much that I could be a mother.   The primary children went up to sing, as usual, and all three of my boys went up willingly and SANG (or at least moved their mouths).  I looked at Ben with my mouth open when they all just went up there with no fuss.  The past few years have seen Joseph refuse utterly to go up at all, Joseph going up there, but hiding behind all the kids and refusing to sing, Mosey refusing to go up, and then under dire threat, going up there and hiding behind the Sacrament table.  So it was a very sweet Sunday for me to sit there and watch my boys singing for me.  Joseph still complained mightily about it at home, but I'm happy for these baby steps!  Ben got called during Sunday School by someone who had almost run over Mister who apparently escaped while we were at church.  Aarrghh.  So he left to get the dog.  As a result, he had dinner cooking when we got home, and I was able to relax and hang out and help Brigham make a cake, and steam some artichokes I bought at Joseph's request.  After dinner we went on a family walk, and then came home and ate Brigham's cake.  Then the boys cleared off the table, and went to bed!  The perfect day. 
The rest of the week was pretty good, too. 
We had a freak cold-front come through on Sunday afternoon and Monday.  It was downright cold on Monday, and drizzled off and on all day.  Not enough rain to make much of a difference in our drought, but surely a welcome change from our 90+ weather recently.  Monday afternoon Joseph had flute lessons.  We got to his teacher's apartment early (it was at his apartment instead of at UT this week), but then couldn't get into the building, because I forgot my cell phone at home, and all the doors are card-access only.  So we had to wait until someone finally came by and let Joseph in.  He ended up being 15 minutes late!  Ugh.  But he had a good lesson.  And he's been telling me this week that he wants to play a third instrument!  I'm not up for that, yet, but wow, what a change from a boy who has shed many tears practicing at the piano.  He's come a long way.
On Tuesday Mosey helped me take Mister to the vet while Joseph and Brigham were at Scouts.  Mister's lost a lot of weight recently and has had some digestive issues and generally not been acting himself.  He's 12 years old, so it might just be old age.  Mosey was so cute in explaining to the vet exactly what was wrong with Mister, including a very accurate description of some of the bodily functions Mister has been experiencing.  :-)  Mosey is so self-confident.  The vet ended up taking blood from him and giving him an antibiotic to help with the digestive stuff.  His blood work came back mostly normal, so the next step is an ultrasound to see if there is anything going on internally.  He has a slightly enlarged liver which could indicate cancer.  We won't be able to schedule that until next week, so we'll see.  We won't pursue any aggressive treatment if there is anything seriously wrong with him-- he is an old dog-- but it would be good to know what is wrong so we know what to expect.
Wednesday.  We had our homeschool group here in the afternoon to go swimming, but it was a little cold for them.  The high was only 83 (residual coolness from the cold front), so they mostly ran around in the backyard, fighting with swords and light-sabers and guns, all while dressed up in old Halloween costumes.  They were cute.  After that we hopped in the car and went down to our favorite sheet music store, only to be so sad when we found out it had closed, and was now one of those tax-preparation places!  It was such a great sheet-music store, and there's no where else even close to as good anywhere in Austin.  I talked to the boys' piano teacher about it the next day, and she said it was because the rent on the building had gone up, and the city taxes had increased a whole bunch, and the guy just couldn't stay open, after being in business for 30 years!  So sad.  Go taxes.  We then stopped by the violin shop to get something for Mosey's violin.  I didn't notice until we walked in that Mosey was still dressed up as a pirate.  :-)
Thursday.  Thursday was Ben's big day!  He took another actuary exam, the first in several years.  He only has 2 more in order to get his Fellowship in the Casualty Actuarial Society.  He currently has his Associates, which is adequate for everything he needs to do as Chief Actuary, and the Fellowship is really just to be an extra-special, over-achieving actuary.  :-)  He's been studying really, really, really hard.  He thinks it went pretty well, but he's not sure he passed.  He knew how to do every problem, but didn't have time to fully complete all of them, which is very typical of actuary exams.  Frustrating, but typical.  So, we'll see.  In the afternoon we had piano lessons, in which both boys were disappointed to learn that they could NOT learn Fur Elise yet.  They heard that piece during the recital and both of them really want to learn it.  But their teacher has the ridiculous notion that they should wait until their hands have grown enough to actually be able to reach all the chords, or some other such nonsense.  :-)  (I don't think it's ridiculous, by the way, I'm just teasing.)  They are pretty philosophical about it, though, and have chosen some different summer pieces to work on.  Joseph's going to learn Clementi's Sonatina, a piece I remember playing as a kid, so that will be fun.  After piano we went home to drop Joseph off, and for Brigham to do a quick practice session before violin lessons.  We drove all the way to violin (25 minutes in the late-afternoon traffic), and when we got there I told the boys to get their violins and get out of the car.  Mosey didn't move.  I turned around and said, "Mosey, did you bring your violin?"  Silence.  Then, "Oh, I must have forgotten it at home."  Oh, really??  Mosey's forgotten his violin before, so Brigham starts chastising him as well.  I say, "Well, Brigham will just have to have an extra-long lesson today."  We got out of the car and start heading for the violin teacher's apartment.  I notice Brigham is not carrying his violin.  I say, "Brigham, go get your violin!"  "Oh, yeah," he replies, and runs back to the car.  I keep heading to the teacher's apartment.  Brigham comes back, walking behind me for a while.  I look behind, and see he is still empty-handed.  "Brigham, where is your violin?"  "Ummm..."  "Oh, no, you didn't forget your violin too, did you??"  Sure enough, BOTH my boys forgot their violins.  So, we got back in the car and went home.  :-)  We rescheduled for Saturday morning, and I think both boys were adequately humbled.  Since we had time, we stopped by Rudy's for barbecue on the way home, as a celebration dinner for Ben finishing his exam.  I had a Relief Society presidency meeting that night. 
Friday.  We had a nice relaxing morning with only a few lessons since the boys have been so good about finishing their lessons during the week.  In the afternoon we went back to the violin store to bring Mosey's violin in for repairs.  It's a cheap violin, and wasn't made particularly well, but it's not worth buying a new one since Mosey will be growing out of it soon anyway.  But the repairs aren't too expensive and it will make a huge difference in the quality of his playing.  He has struggled with really bad squeaking-- the most painful part of beginning violin.  But when I went in to the shop on Wednesday and looked at the rentals (we thought we'd try a rental to see if it had the same problem), I noticed that the bridge on Mosey's violin is badly carved, and in totally the wrong place.  So that's what we're getting fixed, and it will make a big difference.  We borrowed a violin while Mosey's is in the shop and already he sounds like a different player.  After that we went to horseback riding.  Mosey was not cooperative, and didn't want to do his part in getting the horse ready to ride, and so lost the privilege of riding.  And earned the privilege of sitting next to his mom for an hour while she lectured him.  He doesn't really like riding, and I really don't have a problem with him quitting-- I don't care a bit if he rides or not.  But I do care that he shows respect to his teacher, and he hasn't really learned that well, yet.  I told him if he was a nice, polite, respectful boy to his teacher, and then told me he didn't want to ride anymore, that would be totally fine.  But when he's disrespectful and acts like a brat and *then* wants to quit, I don't want to let him!  Because that means he has something even more important than horseback riding to learn-- and that is respect.  And I don't want to let him quit until he learns that.  So, I'm not sure what to do.  Mosey did very nicely approach his teacher, look her in the eye, and said, "I'm sorry for being disrespectful."  We won't be going next week, of course, since we'll be in Seattle, so I'll have a couple of weeks to think about what to do.  Ben and I went to a fireside that evening at the church on strengthening relationships. 
Saturday was pretty busy.  Brigham and Mosey and I went to our rescheduled violin lesson in the morning, then to HEB, then to get donuts at Crown Donuts.  The afternoon was taken up with laundry, and trying to get the boys to do some chores.  They ended up cleaning out and washing both cars, which was good, but they did NOT get to cleaning up the backyard which I was really hoping they would do...  The night ended up great, though, getting to talk to Christian on the phone.  It was so great hearing his voice, but boy did it make me miss him.  Christmas seems like a long time away.

And that brings me current again.  Thanks for putting up with my long, long emails.  I keep thinking I should get back to writing my daily write-ups like I used to do a few years ago, but I just don't seem to be able to find the time every night.
I love all of you and can't wait to see you in a few days!!

Love,
Gabrielle

P.S. Here are the pictures for the week