So obviously its been awhile since I've written, and I must admit that I missed it to some degree. We've been very busy, but not with anything really very fun. Jeff's spring class schedule has been more demanding on the family as a whole in the last couple of months and there have been other things, including the blog, that have suffered the consequences.
In March Jeff spent his spring break working on our backyard project. We had established a budget for putting a three foot retaining wall around the perimeter of the back yard for a garden. Included in the plans was some new plants for the front yard and a trellis on the west side of the back porch to help cut down on the wind and the sun. We received our tax refund a little late, so the work didn't begin in earnest until mid March. The budget allowed for us to the lay the footing and build and fill three flower beds. One on each side of the back porch measuring 6' x 3' for flowers (because after all, I'm into flower gardens, I plant and grow veggies out of guilt). He also completed a bed 44' x 2' x 3' all along the east side of the yard. We put in some bougainvillea around the front entry way, planted a new tree in the back yard and put up a trellis on the west end of the porch where we planted blackberry bushes to climb the trellis and built a BBQ area for Arlo. So the back wall and the west wall of the yard will have to wait until next year's garden budget to see completion. We've learned a lot in the past couple of years about planning, budgeting, saving, and then sticking to the budget. The grass has come back and once again, I find myself spending more and more time in the garden. We planted flowers in the two beds on the sides of the porch. Hollyhocks, amaryllis bulbs, black eyed susan, four o'clocks, African daises, and a couple of packets of mystery seeds! We have lots of spouts in those two beds, although I've been battling mushrooms in one bed and I think we split the amaryllis bulbs too late in the season, because some of them didn't come back. We're enjoying a hanging basket of strawberries, which is great for getting one or two a day. My pride and joy has been the two blueberry bushes I have. They're up on the back porch where they are only exposed to a couple hours of early morning Arizona sun. I hope to get blueberries next year. I've adapted the square foot garden technique for a veggie garden which is located in 2/3 of the east bed. The first 15' is shaded pretty well so I put some of the more fragile veggies there, followed by 14' of flower garden, followed by 15' of veggies that do well in full Arizona sun. We planted peas, beans, beets, carrots, cucumbers, broccoli, tomatoes, bell peppers, green chilies, onions, corn, okra, watermelon, and pumpkin. We planted more of the sun-loving flowers in the flower area; sunflowers, hollyhocks, four o'clocks, marigolds, brown eyed susans, and African daises We've also got several containers of herbs, the chives and cilantro are doing the best right now, and lots of other things in pots around the yard. We were lucky enough to snag some cannas from the sister I visit teach and planted them all along the back wall, about 30'. I've got a garden journal going again this year and am documenting all my spouts. The kids helped all through the process and take great pride in the things they planted. We're out there as a family at least an hour a day.
The school year is starting to wind down for both Jeff and Felicity. Jeff is doing well in all his classes, by far his computer science class interests him the most. He's always eager to show off the newest program he wrote for his lab class. I'm glad he's enjoying it so much as he switched his major from electrical and computer engineering to computer science. He is just much more interested in software engineering than hardware. He has mapped out his educational course path and because he came into the university with so many credits from high school and a few from community college it looks as though he will graduate in May of 2013. He's made great personal strides as well and I'm very proud of him. He's not been working as much in the last month so that he has time to get adequate study time for projects and finals, but has been giving guitar lessons once a week to one of the kids in the ward. He is enjoying it and is really feeling the sense of satisfaction when she improves.
Felicity is nearing the end of preschool and is getting ready for the big jump to kindergarten in the fall, although for Felicity I don't think it will be a big jump as much as a pleasurable transition. The preschool has taken her on two field trips to the Sahuarita primary school. One to participate in a kindergarten classroom, and one to have lunch in the cafeteria and play on the playground. They sent home kindergarten readiness papers and she and I sat and went through them. She's well above the entry level requirements and we've started working on reading. I can't say I'm excited for her to go to kindergarten yet, it'll be hard to give her over to the world and the influences of others, but I also feel like we've prepared her well...I know she'll do well, choose the right, and make us proud.
Helen has dove headlong into the fun world of potty training. She initiated it of her own desire to be a big girl and is doing very well. It's certainly a different experience than it was with Felicity. She, however, doesn't alert anyone to when she has to go. We were sitting in the family room playing a game the other evening and hadn't heard her slip away, but had to wonder, “who just flushed the toilet” when it happened. This also means if we are somewhere that she is unfamiliar with and can't find the potty on her own, i.e. Wal-Mart, she just has an accident instead of telling us she needs to go. On the positive side, Helen has decided, non-surprisingly, that she would learn to go #2 on the potty first and then work on #1. I know with most kids they get peeing on the potty down quickly and then the other is a more laborious task. I, unfortunately, am really uptight when it comes to messes and that is something that makes potty training frustrating for me. The worse situation is when she's obviously peed and she can't seem to remember where it happened at, so in my minds eye all I can think about is urine soaking into the carpet somewhere. Sigh, we're so proud of her and it's hard to talk her into putting on a diaper for bed time.
I've been working as usual. I've taken on quite few more tasks at work which keeps me more busy than the amount of time I have, but I reassure myself that at least I know I'll have plenty to do if I'm hired permanently. That however, is a cause for much stress for us right now. My contract was renewed in January and will expire again in June. I'm still waiting to hear if I'll be hired permanently or if I will have to find a new job. I'm hoping the former is true and I can stay at Raytheon. I do have faith that whatever is best for our family will happen. I really can't wait until Jeff finishes up school and I can go back to being at home full time which is what I'm really good at. Being a stay-at-home mom has always brought me the greatest satisfaction and fulfillment and has always been well worth the sacrifices we've made so that I didn't have to work. I'll be happy to go back to that!
As I mentioned earlier, we received our tax return in mid March and along with setting aside money for our garden project we also budgeted it to pay down some debt, build a savings reserve, and replace the van. We finally, after much praying and agonizing over the decision, decided to buy a small used car outright to last us for the next few months until we have a more certain idea of what my job situation will look like. I was too frazzled by the whole thing after we looked at the perfect car. It was within our budget and only had 16k miles on it. We drove to Eloy to discover that it didn't have air conditioning...yeah, you're not going to be able to sell that in Arizona buddy! Anyway, I sent Jeff out on a Saturday morning and by noon he had bought a car. It's a 2003 Kia Rio with 60,000 miles on it. It's a nice little car and we're happy with it for now. The added bonus was selling the van. We had anticipated just giving it away to charity because it had so many problems, but I had a feeling it wouldn't hurt to put it on Craigslist.com. I put is up and basically said, it will be up for one week, if someone offers us $800 they can take it, otherwise we'll write down offers and the best offer at the end of the week gets the van. Within 20 minutes of posting Jeff had three calls and four text messages and someone promised to buy it sight-unseen for the $800. By Monday it was no longer the eye-soar of our driveway. So now we have the little Saturn and the little Kia. We hope to be able to buy a newer van/SUV in the coming year if my work situation works out, in which case we'll get rid of the Saturn as it is getting on in years and miles.
Jeff had his birthday on the 25th of last month. We celebrated by going to dinner and a movie, and then having cupcakes at our usual Friday game night. Felicity had her fifth birthday on the 14th of April. We've decided to do a party for the girls every other year so as to not feel pressured to make a big thing of it each and every year, especially as our family grows. She spent the night with Nana on the Wednesday before and they went shopping together on her birthday. We let her pick the dinner menu and she chose tacos, so daddy made her tacos. On Friday night we met my parents and grandparents at Peter Piper Pizza in Tucson to celebrate with pizza, cake and games. My dad gets a kick out of giving the kids $5 in tokens and letting them piss it away on stupid carnival-type games...but they love it, so what can I say. Felicity hit two jackpots on one of the games and earned 1,400 tickets in the evening and brought home some fun new prizes. The kids had a blast. I tried to make a cake with Pascal the chameleon from “Tangled” at Felicity's request, but it didn't turn out too well. I guess an epic cake failure keeps me humble every now and again. She got birthday money from several people and so she and I went to Wal-Mart together and did some school shopping. She picked out a lunch box and thermos and we got some great deals on uniforms; because Felicity is still so small she's in 4T and 5T clothing, so we got some good deals on khaki pants and dress shirts for school.
I will try to be more faithful in writing so that the next time I don't have to write three pages, if anyone ventured this far! We are happy and healthy and doing really well. We're still hoping on being able to go on vacation toward the end of the summer, but we'll have to see how things work out with me and my job. Lots of love to all.
Happy Easter everyone!! We had a marvelous week at Casa de Davidson filled with lots of good news. On Tuesday we went to kindergarten meet and greet and got some general information and a tour of the primary school. Felicity is very excited to start, she's also ecstatic about riding the bus. On Wednesday I went to register her and that was a relatively smooth process. She'll have quite a few kids from church starting school at the same time, although I don't know if she'll have anyone in her class seeing as there are 11 kindergarten classes at the primary school and that's not even taking into consideration that some of the kids her age at church will be going to Great Expectations or Anza Trail. 
It's been a little nerve wrecking knowing that the end of my work contract is looming, but some good progress was made in that arena this week. A long story could be told of all the politics there, but it not necessarily very appropriate for a public blog! Needless to say, they will be submitting a job opening for my job for two weeks in which I can apply and hopefully will be able to retain my job. We are so happy about this, I don't know I can express how grateful we are as a family for the blessing that have come to us through the people I work with and for. This permanent job would be a blessing beyond what I can comprehend right now, although I am prepared in the event that it doesn't work out. Right now we are praying for Heavenly Father to bless us with whatever will be best for our family. I have faith that whatever that will be, we will be taken care of. 
Jeff worked on Satday and the girls and I had a nice day. Felicity got up with me and we did yoga together. The girls and I then went out for breakfast and to the estate sale to visit Daddy and Nana. We got home and cleaned the house and by the afternoon I wasn't feeling well, so we missed the birthday party we had planned on attending. We were all happy to see Jeff when he got home. In the evening we went over to the Bryson's house for some games, which was fun.
Easter was a lovely relaxing holiday this year. We enjoyed our church meetings, especially recounting the story of our Savior's resurrection and the blessing that come to us through that amazing event. We would have liked to do our egg hunt, etc. on Saturday, but since Jeff and my mom had to work, Sunday was really the only day we could all be together. It was far to windy in Vail to hunt eggs outside so Nana and Papa hid them inside instead; upstairs for Helen, downstairs for Felicity. My grandparents joined us for lunch and we had a great visit. I'm so grateful for my family, which in reality is what Easter, the atonement, and the resurrection is all about, family. Our Savior made it possible for us, through his selfless acts,to also be able to one day conquer the grave and be with our families forever; for that, I'm eternally grateful.
