Tales of a Shoebox Princess

This morning we were up early. Jim wanted to leave the house by 7:15 a.m. because of rush hour traffic and because we wanted Paul to be at the airport 2 hours before his flight, which was scheduled to leave at 9:55 a.m. But leaving early didn't happen. Some people are slow to get going, and Elder Evans 2.0 is one of them (I hope the CCM--Spanish for MTC--in Lima whips him into shape). We made sure he had his passport (after the scare on Monday, I felt like I should carry it around with me at all times but I didn't. I put it in a file box where I keep valuables) and he made sure he looked and smelled good. My stomach was churning as the minutes ticked by. I resisted the urge to nag and yell. Instead I sat on the couch and stared at my plants on the piano bench. Matt and Hayley came with us, and finally we were all ready to go at 7:50 a.m. Much later than anticipated. My stomach knottified further. Traffic was bad, but Jim was driving so I just had to make sure I didn...

Tomorrow morning around 8 a.m. we take Paul to the airport. He has spent most of the day packing and sorting through things. We got the last few things on his list, one which was a certain kind of insect repellant that is available only at a few places. Last night we had a collective near-heart-attack moment when Paul couldn't find his passport. Katie had wanted to look at it before she left for the airport, but it wasn't in all the places we thought it could be. My stomach was churning as I helped Paul search. Jim said he hadn't even seen it since we got it in the mail with Paul's travel plans. But he thought he would check his truck anyway, even though he KNEW it wasn't going to be there. And yet it was, in a manila envelope under some other papers. It's a good thing Katie asked to see it, otherwise we all would have assumed it was where it needed to be, and then tomorrow morning would have been even more hectic, scary, and panicky, with possible tears. ...

I sang Happy Birthday to Paul to wake him up this morning. I don't know if it was appreciated or not. He's up though. We have some last minute shopping to do before Wednesday so that's how we'll spend his birthday. We've already taken care of our traditional take-the-birthday-kid-out-to-his-choice-of-restaurant, and we have sung to him in the presence of a cake. The last birthday tradition is the homemade dinner of the birthday boy's choice, which I believe I will save for tomorrow night since I will be out all day and won't have time to fix the requested enchilada dish (no macaroni this year). Granddaddy and Katie leave today. We've enjoyed having them both here. Katie has resumed her role as just another Evans kid while here, although I know she misses Christian. I wish he could have been here too. Maybe next time! Time for old-timey pictures of Paul in honor of his birthday and in honor of his mission. WHICH IS LIKE...IN TWO DAYS.' Li...

Jim and I were awoken early this morning to violent thunderstorms. It rained several inches. I wasn't worried about the rain interfering with Paul's farewell open house because thunderstorms usually don't last that long. They did last several hours in the wee hours, but that much energy wouldn't sustain itself into the afternoon. And I didn't mind the bog in the backyard either. At least the yard got watered. Oh yeah, yesterday? Matt was mowing the lawn and one of the back wheels broke. Like it broke OFF the lawn mower. But he persevered with the three-wheeled mower until the handle broke off. Really, mower? We were getting ready for a party! AND we're sending out a missionary! Hello, blessings? How is a broken mower a blessing? (I'm being overdramatic). After watching Matt struggle with trying to put the handle back on the mower for a minute, I turned to Jim and said, "Just go buy a new mower." So he did. Anyway, we worked hard getting ready f...

I keep thinking that I'm going to update Paul's countdown daily, but it hasn't happened that way. There is too much to do. Like right now, I'm making icing. Just a sec while I pour in another cup of powdered sugar. K I'm back. This is batch one of the icing. I still need 2 more batches. And I need 2 or 3 more batches of ground beef cooked. Maybe another block of cheese grated. All this for Paul's farewell. You're coming, I hope? Anyway, since I don't blog like I used to, I'm going to offer up some pictures. Just a few. And I'll probably blog even less when Paul leaves, mostly because I'll be keeping up two missionary blogs for a while. Here Paul eats a Juicy Lucy. It was his request to eat a Juicy Lucy. He got to go to the 5-8 Club again today for lunch with Jim, Granddaddy, and Matt. This picture is not associated with Paul in any way. It's just a picture of Lemmy. It looks like the crockpot is on, but it wasn't plu...

Here we are in the single digits, counting down the days until Paul heads to Peru. And we're pretty sure that it will be Peru where he is going. He called the missionary travel office, and the person he talked to said that as far as he could tell, he was scheduled for Peru. He said also that we should receive Paul's visa, passport, tickets, itinerary via FedEx sometime 3-10 days before the day he leaves. So we will be watching for the FedEx truck. Peru. Paul has some requests before he goes. Last night his request was that we play Killer Bunnies. Tomorrow night, we are going out for Juicy Lucys at the 5-8 Club (Dave and Marissa should know where this place is since they live pretty close to it. I pass it when I drive to their house). Another request is for his last dinner--he wants enchiladas. Homemade cheesy enchiladas with red sauce. I am glad that Katie is coming out for the weekend to say goodbye to Paul. It will be fun to have her around. And Granddaddy too! It's...

I added another blog to the Shoebox family of blogs: Elder Paul's New Groove. Guess what it's about? I've added it to my blogroll over there on the right. We'll start that blog up in earnest when we get our first email from Paul, probably late July. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. Paul will be leaving in less than 3 weeks. Any last words for him? Food to avoid in Peru? We actually heard some advice from someone we met last Friday at the temple: stay away from "cuy." And then the guy added, "although if you do try it, it's pretty good." Cuy is guinea pig. I wonder if Paul will be offered cuy? More likely he will be offered multitudinous seafood dishes, most likely cerviche. Switching topics: Sewing. I don't know why I don't sew more often. I really do enjoy it. And I get something usable out of it. I recently sewed a very easy skirt pattern with a stretchy knit fabric. I'm sewing a knit top currently, and also hel...

The power was out for 24 hours over the weekend. I counted us lucky though--if Jim hadn't been so obsessed with the sump pump, we probably would have flooded and not had a generator to keep us from losing the food in the fridge and freezer. Within seconds of the loss of power, Jim was downstairs hovering over the sump pump. Within a few minutes, he was bailing water out of it. We scrambled to help, but it ended up being mostly a Jim/Paul effort. After an hour, I was dispatched to the hardware store in search of a generator. But alas, I came away empty handed. We managed to find someone who had one and we borrowed it. Joe M came with two missionaries to help him lift it out of his van. They got it all hooked up and Paul could stop bailing (Jim had emerged from the sump pump to help Joe). The generator powered the fridge, the sump pump, a lamp, a fan, and any phone chargers we wanted to use. We're going to have to invest in one. They are totally rad. Saturday, the power was...

When asked if they would like to dye eggs this year, the three remaining at-home children all expressed very little enthusiasm. But I bought egg dye anyway. Good thing I did because at 10:30 p.m. Saturday night, all three kids wanted to dye eggs. See, this just adds to the hoarder impulses I have. "You need to buy that just in case," my brain tells me, because heaven forbid we disappoint the 18-, 16- and 14 year olds by not having colorful hard boiled eggs on Easter Sunday. For $2, I couldn't argue very much, although I don't mind disappointing the teenagers once in a while. Dyeing eggs with teenagers means that we aren't making them look pretty with cute little Easter bunnies or chicks. Hayley's theme this year was Pokemon creatures and a TARDIS . Paul chose his two eggs to be checkerboard, one of which involved several steps including tape, and Matt just did random scribbles, one that was nearly completely black (colored by crayon) and a Pokeball.  Jim...