First day of school

I took several photos of Josh and Caleb before school (shocking, I know) but this one is my favorite.

Happy Birthday Josh

My baby boy is 10. Double digits. How did this happen? I remember so clearly that blue little bundle being placed in my arms, and how he smelled soooo good. My Josh, my first child, the one who made me a mom. The one who has taught me so much about what that really means. We've had struggles and ups and downs, but I have always wanted YOU. My most fervent wish for your life is for you to see the magic, the wonder, the amazing gift that you are. I love that you get so excited about a book that you try to tell me, and skip from idea to idea until I'm totally lost. I love that you have a tender spot for little ones, especially your sister, and that you can make her laugh like no one else. I love that you get totally on a roll when cooking and go way overboard. I love your giggle when you are really happy. I even love your vulnerability, the way you question yourself, but I love it more when you trust in yourself to succeed. You are a light and a joy. My precious baby boy.

Twilight, and the new normal

Now that the kids are back in school, I thought (foolishly) that I could get caught up on laundry, dishes, the constant layer of crumbs on the kitchen floor, and my house would look like someone actually made an effort to keep it presentable. You can probably guess where I'm going with this. Aside from the master bedroom, which looks nice mainly because we've piled things in the closet, I can't really tell much difference from pre-return-to-school and now. Okay, I will admit that I read ALL FOUR of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series books between Thursday afternoon and Monday afternoon, so it wasn't like I was sitting on the couch watching soap operas (I was sitting on the couch reading a soap opera!). I resisted the siren call of those books for as long as I could, with perhaps a touch of pride that I was apparently the last warm blooded female to hold out, until my sister Jen made all four books available at once, and I just couldn't resist. I called her after finishing the first book and immediately starting the second, and could only squeak out, "CURSE YOU! I can't get a blasted thing done until I see how this series ends!" Yes, yes, Edward was perfection, and I've always had a soft spot for Native Americans (Jacob just sounds yummy) but I have to admit that I'll take my warm, real hubby over fictional characters any day. Snuggling up to Mike is still way better than reading about Bella snuggling up to vampires or werewolves, however divine they are. And now when the topic of conversation turns to the books, I can actually gush right along with the best of them.

Jason seems to be adjusting well, though I think he spends too much time in the bat cave that is his room on the lower floor. I don't get to hear much about his day, and I always feel like I'm bothering him when I go down there. He has admitted that, so far, Spanish is his hardest class (learning a foreign language through another foreign language sounds soooo easy) (Jason, if you read this, what I just said is considered SARCASM - you'll probably find a lot of that on this blog). He is enjoying his cooking class more than he expected, and he made a mean batch of cookies last week. Which were all eaten within 24 hours. No prizes guessing who ate the most (me). We all had a great time at Bear Lake last Saturday (forgot the camera, big surprise), and my two boys even admitted that it is still possible to have fun without jetskis or boats. Jason and I tossed the frisbee back and forth while Mike cooked kebabs on the grill, and Esther was just Esther. Happy, happy, happy.

Turns out it was English all along

Well, I totally missed an opportunity to preserve family vacation memories this last week when I neglected to even bring the camera with us to Bryce Canyon, where my parents and 3 of my 4 siblings met to camp. It wasn't much of a vacation anyway. I mean, it was lots of fun, there just wasn't enough days to really call it a vacation. If the days spent preparing and cleaning up after a vacation equal the days ON vacation, I don't think it really counts. So anyway, no photos, except this not very good one taken with Mike's cell phone. I may just get fired as this family's historian.

It WAS a lot of fun, especially hearing the wow's when the boys saw the canyon from the rim. And the switchbacks along Navajo Loop down into the canyon were tons of fun for Josh and Caleb, until it came time to hike back out. I was really proud of the boys, they and their cousins Jack and Connor totally whupped the adults on this hike. I tried to run on Monday morning, but it turned out to be a run/walk as I was gasping for oxygen, but I did find a system of x-country ski trails that were awesome, and the discovery of a prairie dog colony ranks in my top trail running moments. The first prairie dog started to chirp a warning as I came around a bend in the trail, and within moments the whole meadow was chirping. I know they were all warning each other about this strange human, but to me it sounded like applause, and I reveled in the moment. Plus, it was at the end of the run, and so I got to quit wheezing. I ran again the next morning, and that was even better because I felt more energetic and had my sister to talk to. We are both very excited to run our 20 and 22 mile training runs together to have some serious talk time. Wait. Did I just post excited and 22 miles in the same sentance?

We all mourned when we learned that Mike did not, in fact, have someone to work for him on Wednesday, and that we'd have to come home on Tuesday night (Josh, perhaps, mourned a little more vocally that the rest of us). And it was regrettable that we chose to spend our last few hours fruitlessly searching for a mythological slot canyon that stubbornly remained hidden, despite our searching for it for 3 hours! Everyone was very gracious, considering the wild goose chase nature of the search, but we all came perilously close to running out of water, food, and good humor with the Housleys. Ah well, my brother did say he was all for an adventure. AND we hiked a very out-of-the-way dry stream bed, full of... rocks and mud.

I think the most memorable part of the vacation for me was the pineapple can saga. See, I was in charge of the dutch oven dessert, and so I brought the ingredients for a pineapple upside-down cake. The DI can opener we had in the trailer broke with the first twist of the pineapple can, which I had pulled out of the cupboard upside down and figured opening either end would do. I briefly tried to fix it, but it was beyond my expertise. Most things are. I went to my SIL Tiff to borrow their can opener, and spent a good 10 minutes searching through bins only to find it on the table two feet from my head. It was a Pampered Chef opener, the kind that cuts the top part of the can, and so I had to receive instruction from Tiff, having never used one before. I went back to my trailer, performed the complex can opening maneuver, and rejoiced in my success! Finally! Eager for some praise, I took the second can (also upside-down) and the new-fangled opener out to Mike to show off, and while doing so, turned the second can over. Any guesses what I found? A PULL TAB. Yep, I just wasted 15 minutes opening the underside of a can that had a pull top.

So we came home Tuesday night instead of Wednesday afternoon, pulling in at about 1:30am and unloading only the most essential items (the children, for example). I spent most of the day Wednesday unloading the trailer and doing laundry, and trying to get the house in decent enough order before we left to pick up Jason, our Chinese exchange student, at the airport. At one point, I lamented to Mike on the phone that I was running behind: I still hadn't showered, or done the dishes, etc, etc. His reply was sort of comforting, "Well, I'm sure Jason has seen dirty dishes before, but you might want to get that shower in."

Jason's plane was a little late, so we sat in the waiting area on the one spare chair, watching passenger after passenger file through. Mike finally got up to buy something from the little convenience store a few steps away, and sure enough this tall, slender young Chinese fellow came rushing through at about 3 times the speed as any other traveler. I had to call out his name several times before he saw me (though how he could have missed the large welcome sign with his name on it and flanked by 6 helium balloons was a mystery) (and how come we were the only people there with balloons? I thought that was a traditional airport greeting! Are balloon bouquets going the way of all luxuries in this sad economic state?). He gave us each a hug, and Mike remarked as an aside that Jason may be 6 inches taller, but Mike (who is very trim and fit) has a good 30 pounds of lean muscle mass that are absent on this kid. Jason seemed very anxious about getting his luggage, so of course it wasn't there (got left in Chicago) and we had to have them deliver it tonight. Thank heavens we had some toothbrushes to spare. He was WIDE awake and raring to go; we got home at 2am and I stayed up with him until 3, helping him email his parents. He was up by 7am, and, thinking it was Caleb walking around in the kitchen, I ALMOST leaned around the railing and hissed, "Get back to bed!" So glad I didn't! He seems a very open and friendly kid, and things have gone well so far, but I can tell he's suffering from some culture shock. Nothing I can definately pinpoint, it is evident to me that he is wondering why on earth we Americans do the things we do. We took him to the high school to register, and only barely managed talking him out of 3 AP classes by promising him the Chem 1010 was still a college level class. So now it is just AP physics and AP calculus. He seems very concerned that the math would be too easy for him. Good grief. The counselor did talk him into some "fun" classes like woodworking and cooking, but I can tell he isn't nearly that excited about those classes. He flatly refused Social Dance. Pity. He did make a comment about men being better teachers for math and science than women are, and I'm already planning in my head the lecture to address this concern (of mine). I am grateful that his parents specifically instructed us to help him learn about independence and selflessness. I can see why they were worried about it. He spent most of the afternoon playing games with Josh and Caleb, and beat me at chess (but not without a fight!). I think we will settle into a comfortable relationship with him, once Mike and I get caught up on sleep. These 2 and 3am bedtimes (with 7am awakenings) are ROUGH.

He did help us decipher the song sung by the little pokemon toy that was given to Esther by the orphanage staff. We could never (nor could our Chinese guide) figure out what it was saying, but it turns out the song is in English: "Aiyiyi, I'm your little butterfly. Green black and blue make the colors of the sky." Who knew?

Introducing our family...plus one

This blog is intended for friends and family who already know us, but just in case you've stumbled across this and for some strange reason want to actually read it, this is who we are. Mike is Dad, Heather is Mom, and Josh, Caleb, and Esther are The Kids. Yep. That pretty much sums it up. You may note that Esther is more gorgeous than the rest of us, for the simple reason that she has good genes, and she comes from China. We adopted her into our family last year when she was 13 months old and she has been a joy and delight ever since. Josh always wants me to mention that he was adopted too (from Idaho!) and I am happy to oblige for as long as he wants to share that info (and I have to say, he has awesome genes too). Poor Caleb has only Mike and I to draw from.

We also made a rather spur of the moment decision to host an international exchange student from China for the school year. His name is Jiang Tao ("Jason"), he is 16 (and 6'2"!) and is from Shanghai. I will admit the thought of an exchange student didn't interest me much until we heard about him, and it has all just fallen into place and feels right. We were able to call him on skype this morning, and when he asked us to turn on our web camera, I had to sheepishly admit that we don't have one. But Best Buy is open in the morning... We did get to see him though, as well as his parents. It was really sweet to watch him with his mother as she would pose a question, then motion for him to translate it to us. I am in awe of parents who would entrust their only son to near-complete strangers, and I feel a lot of pressure to take good care of him while he is here. I think my biggest concern is that he will starve eating my cooking! Josh is especially excited to have an older brother and can hardly talk about anything else, and Caleb nearly bounced off the couch when Jason told him he was practicing a few magic tricks to show him. Esther will no doubt have him eating out of her palm shortly, just like every other male in this house! Jason is due to arrive on August 13, next Wednesday. I'll put a picture on this blog when he gets here. I am such a novice at parenting 16 year old boys; did I really think this through?!

Let's get this thing up and running!

Well, I've had this blog address for a while, but got stuck on the first step: putting in a family photo. How sad. I am hoping that this will be an easy way to keep family and friends updated on Housley Happenings, and can only hope it isn't dry-as-toast reading. I am not a natural writer - eloquent as heck in my head, but by the time it comes out my fingers, it seems to stutter and sound rather dull. My apologies. I will do my best to keep this light and entertaining, but I draw the line at hiring a ghost writer, so you are stuck with me!