The biggest thing that happened in February was Abe leaving for his mission to Texas! I told everyone that we were taking a family picture the day before he started Home Missionary Training Center and everyone should stay in their church clothes after church. Sam set the tripod up on the hill and…[certain details edited out] voila. I only had to switch two heads out in photoshop. (Abe must have an extremely sensitive eye-closing reflex.)
The pictures turned out pretty well, considering! It didn't seem worth making Gus take off his bunny hat. It's surprising Ziggy didn't have a hat on too, honestly.
That last week, we went to Nielsen's one more time so Abe could cook for us on his last day of work. It's sad we won't have someone there to make us perfect fries and sandwiches anymore! No one else could ever do it quite like Abe.
I also took a "before" picture of Abe before his missionary haircut. He got it cut at a real barber instead of me doing it inexpertly for him with the clippers. He said it was the best haircut he'd ever had. Hey…!
Home MTC was interesting. I thought we'd see more of Abe than we did—he really was pretty busy almost all day long, even having firesides or devotionals in the evenings several times. But we did get to do a few more things with him when he wasn't in class. That was nice.
I had a good birthday on the Friday. The girls and Teddy made a delicious breakfast for me.
With bunny-shaped toast and eggs, hot chocolate, and lots of nice cards. :)
They wore yellow for me, as is their custom. (Teddy wore his bunny shirt—an acceptable substitute.)
Ziggy drew me this great bunny
Junie made me a yellow pom-pom and this darling card
Goldie made me this amazing bunny jar. Its head tilts back, and it came with a bunch of paper food so I could feed it.
Daisy gave me the sweetest present—forty-two nice things during my birthday week. It stretched out to more like two weeks, actually. I loved it!
And here is my present from Sam…a new piano! Well, it isn't a real piano. It's a keyboard—and the key feature is…it has a headphone jack! So people can practice quietly. There are always more people here needing to practice than we have pianos for them to practice on. And there are often babies sleeping during prime practicing times. A quiet piano is going to be (has already been!) such a blessing. This one is really cool because it has actual hammers and action connected to the keys, so when you push them, it feels like playing an actual piano! Much more so than the so-called "weighted" keys of other keyboards I've played.
You can get a glimpse of the key action through the lid
And we're putting it down in our school room, which will be nice for when we want to sing or play something during school! The kids love that the piano "plays" a library of classical music. There is even sheet music that came with it to play along, if you fancy performing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto or the Rachmaninoff 3rd with an orchestra…ha! I'll have to try it sometime.
I always wish for (but do not EXPECT) a nice enough day to have a picnic on my birthday. It wasn't quite warm enough this year, but by gritting our teeth and braving a bit of chilliness, we managed one the day afterwards. It wasn't bad. As I told Abe in a letter, nothing says "spring" like a bunch of kids outside shivering while they eat a picnic lunch!
Teddy's birthday was next. At the last minute I got him a bear balloon because I had a feeling he'd like it. He thought it was the greatest and most exciting thing ever! His own balloon. Sweet boy.
We had homemade pizza and lemon poppyseed cake for his birthday dinner.
I was feeling quite nostalgic every time we sat together at the table, knowing time was so short. This is our penultimate dinner all together!
And our last one. *Sniff*
For our last Family Home Evening we had a make-your-own milkshake bar. Do you see the pre-scooped ice cream on that cookie sheet? Millions of scoops of vanilla? That was the greatest idea (not my own; I saw it somewhere.) It meant that all you had to do was grab two scoops of ice cream and drop them in the blender with whatever else you wanted in your milkshake. It went really fast, even with so many of us, and we let the kids make multiple milkshakes if they wanted. Everyone thought it was the best activity ever! While we drank our milkshakes, we watched old family videos from when the big boys were little, and then I was awake till 3 a.m. crying and feeling so sad and wistful and nostalgic about the past and worried about the future. But that's neither here nor there.
After 10 days of Home MTC, we headed down to Provo to eat at Brick Oven with my mom and then drop Abe off. This picture makes him look uneasy but I think he's just squinting into the sun. He didn't seem a bit nervous! And he certainly was able to eat plenty of pasta at the Brick Oven pasta bar…
Bonus family picture! My mom took this of us on her front steps right before going to the MTC.
If Abe had had his way, we would have just slowed the car down slightly at the curb for him to hop out and go. But we did insist on parking and giving him some hugs!
Abe reluctantly half-hugging Clementine
Abe reluctantly sort-of-hugging his mother
Off on his grand adventure at last!
At least someone likes hugging Clementine! :)
We all felt pretty forlorn after Abe was gone, but we got this picture of him with his new companion that very same day, and he looked happy! It was great to see his smile.
Abe loved his MTC district and teachers. It was fun to get his letters from the MTC, and we got to talk to video chat with him a few times too. It was fun to all gather around and take turns asking him questions. I'm so glad we get to be part of the generation of missionaries that gets to call home every week!
The MTC drop-off day was on Sam's birthday, which was too bad because he got a bit forgotten in all the fuss over Abe, plus I kept being sad all day. But! I made him a quite delicious bread pudding with caramel sauce and creme anglaise for dessert that night to make up for it.
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