Letter to Elder Robison 3/2/14

Hey Elder Brother!

We sure enjoyed your last email. We have been making a  point to always read your emails together as a family on Monday evenings as part of our family home evening. It has been such a blessing to read your experiences, insight and thoughts. It is such a boosts to our spirits, and of course the boys always enjoy your funny stories. Especially when you taught Elder Masui poopy phrases a few weeks back. We love you Sam! We love reading your letters! We love how much you write to us! It makes it feel like we are almost on this journey with you, which is such a special thing for us. So THANK YOU!

I am not sure if I, or Bryan, mentioned how he crashed on his bike about a month ago? Well, he did and he got beat up and his left wrist has been hurting him ever since then. FINALLY, after a bunch of back and forth talk, he decided to go get some xrays to see if it was broken. And It is. So for now he has a splint cast, and then next week he goes into a hand specialist to get a full cast. For the most part he if managing one handed okay, but i can tell he is super bummed that he can no longer help with the dishes or shower everyday...ahem...yeah right.

Last week Oscar was running outside with his class during the second hour of church (they usually let them go out before sharing time to blow off steam)and got nudged by a classmate a little too hard, which sent him face first into the concrete sidewalk. He cried loud and he cried hard, and Oscar is not a hard or a loud crier. I was right there and saw it happen. He blacked out for a couple seconds, got scraped up, and got a giant goose egg. It protruded from him forehead about the size of half a chicken egg...if that makes sense. Anyway, I took him home immediately and he iced his head the rest of the afternoon, and next day. Actually he used the same ice carrier-ma-jigger that you used for your wisdom teeth. He seems to be better now, just a few large scabs and surprisingly minor bruising. 

We went to the river yesterday morning as a family and explored the uncovered river bed. It was gray and drizzly, and it smelled like mossy earth, but we all had a really pleasant time throwing rocks into the dark green river. We found lots of goose poop, and miniature waterfalls.  At the bottom of a tame and murky part of the river we saw the bones of half a fish, and a dead frog with his white belly exposed upwards to the sky. As we left we tromped through an area covered in poison ivy, but we did not realize it until we climbed back to the greenbelt and walked past the "Caution; Poison Ivy" sign. Thankfully none of us are itchy, although I am still finding sand in Ulysses clothes and crib from the bank of the river. 

Have a great week Sam. You are a constant in our thoughts, a constant in our prayers, and a constant source of inspiration and encouragement. 

Thank you.

Phone Picture Purge.

Ulysses smiles and scowls, but always has fun, in the sandbox

Happy Ulysses, and I spy Angus practicing soccer behind him in a red shirt.

 This baby loves books!

Special ghost socks from the dentist

Fake snaggle toothed grin

 Ulysses reading books and playing at soccer practice.

 Ulysses turned one year old!

 Angus and I playing soccer with our shadows during one of Oscar's games.

To Elder Robison

Hey Sam!

How are your new companions? How are you doing? I hope you are well, as I always do.

We have been having AWESOME weather this October. Not to be trite and talk about the weather, but seriously it has been sunny and mid to high 60's everyday. So heavenly. I am sure that is what you experience everyday.

This past Wednesday Bryan skipped a couple of hours of work, and I took Oscar out of school for a half day, and we all joined Angus and his preschool out at the pumpkin patch. On the way there I noticed that a cop was following me for quite a ways, he kept switching lanes when I would and everything. Suck. I was not even doing anything wrong. So he finally pulled me over for driving on a dealer plate. BLAST! I know better than that gosh darnit. I must take care of that. At least he pulled us over in the middle of nowhere (almost Kuna). So our reputations were spared, plus he let us go without issuing a ticket thankfully. But when we got to the pumpkin patch, Katie Davis was there working the field trips for them! It was fun to see her and she asked about you (as does everyone!) and she said to tell you hi from her and Royce. Also, I was wondering if you would be okay if I forwarded them some of your emails, she said Royce would love to know how you are doing and keep in touch. 

Angus has been on cowboy boot kick for the last month. It is so cool. Usually he wears shorts, high knee socks and his boots. Today for example he had a tie die shirt on, bright orange and purple basketball shorts, and his black cowboy boots with no socks. I love, love, love it. It is goofy, but I love that he feels so confident and proud and happy to be wearing what he picks out! I hope that continues! Thursday morning he had a Doctors appointment, and he wore his Mario shirt, soccer shorts, high knee socks and boots. When the Doctor came in she chuckled a bit, and told Angus how much she loved his outfit. Then she told me that when they read that the patient's name was Angus, she and the nurses had a bet going that he would be wearing shorts, knee socks, and boots just like the lead singer of ACDC would wear whose name is also Angus. It was pretty funny, and cool.

Oscar lost his fifth tooth today while eating breakfast. He was chewing his cereal when he yelled for me. He met me in the hallway with a handful of his chewed up and then spat out cereal. He looked up at me and said, " I lost my tooth, and it is somewhere in here." So I he dumped is chewed up bite on a plate and we searched through it for his rogue tooth. Luckily we found it and it is now tucked safely under his pillow. 

Ulysses is taking more and more steps and is really becoming more toddler like everyday. He loves to bock like a chicken anytime he sees any animal in a book or real life, play in sand and dirt, feed himself, and look through books!

Today I set up an appointment with the trio of missionaries in our ward. One is from Buena Park California. Anyway, they are coming over for dinner next Saturday and then they are staying to teach us the first discussion. I plan on have them over every couple of weeks or so and teach us all of the discussions. I have never heard them so it will be good for me, and I especially want the boys to hear them since Oscar will be turning 8 this summer. WHAT!? 8!? C r a z y t a l k. And I think it will be good for them to get an idea of what  you are doing. In primary today Angus told everyone that, "my mom's brother Sam is on a mission and it is in California." And tonight at dinner he said that when he grows up he is going to go on his mission to California too. What you are doing is important Sam! My boys know it too. Thank you.

Make it a good week! I know we are going to try to do so also.

Love you Brother.

Helen and Family.

Angus and his boots and knee socks. Bad quality pic, sorry.

Oscar's first grade pic in Tie die, Kindergarten pic on right.

Ulysses. Reading.

Letters to Elder Robison

Hi Sam!

Hope you are doing well!

Our week has been pretty good. Bryan was working like a crazy psycho this last month, and this week was the first one were he actually was able to come home and see us during daylight hours. We missed him, and it is nice to be back to somewhat normal family routine. I probably rely to heavily on routine...oh well...working on my ability to be more flexible. 

Oscar and Angus had more soccer games yesterday, and they were super fun to watch. They were more aggressive with the ball and Oscar's team passed and played like team. Oscar scored three goals, and was all around playing much improved. Angus also scored a goal and was fun to watch, he almost dances down the field. He kept trying to give a high five to a team mate and it took them about 10 tries to get it right. It was funny to watch them miss high fiving that many times...

We finally poured out the remains of our tadpole kiddie pool-turned-pond today. It was sorta sad, but surprisingly cool. Aside from one late blooming tad pole, which we saved in a smaller container, and several snails, we were certain everything was dead. Before we poured it out we found a fish skeleton, and several (like 12) different sizes of skin shedding from some mysterious water spider/beetle. From what we could tell from the skin, it has like 6 legs, a giant beetle butt, and eyes that protrude from the top sides of it's head. Anyhoo, we poured the pool into the flowerbed and as the water sunk down into the dirt we all of the sudden could see several of the mysterious water spider/beetle bugs crawling all around. IT WAS NUTS! Luckily I had my gardening gloves on and an extra container nearby, I grabbed up all of them that we could find. There were all sorts of sized, just like the skin shedding's. They were well camouflaged in the bottom of the pool during the summer, and we hardly knew they were there. Sorry if that was boring...I will send a pic of them. I have never seen a water bug like that.

A co worker of Bryan's offered us her old trampoline on Friday. FOR FREE! So we have a trampoline now, and the boys have been loving it. It is not as big as Mom and Dad's but it was free and in decent shape...so it is all good. 

This morning while playing trains and watching conference, Angus ran into the bathroom to grab some monster from the tub toys when all of the sudden we heard a crash and some giant Angus screams. I rushed in to see what all the commotion was about (if you have not noticed yet, Angus is a bit on the clumsy side...). He had blood dripping from his mouth. He tripped on basket (that he left on the floor earlier) and fell mouth first into the side of the tub. At first I thought it was just his lip that he bit/hit on the tub. As I looked closer inside his mouth I realized that he totally chipped off the back third of his right canine fang, and his middle right front tooth was now pointing crookedly inward. So, yeah. We will be taking him to the dentist tomorrow. Bryan and Oscar found his chipped tooth parts and we put them in a special little box. Does the tooth fairy visit for chipped teeth? I say yes.

We have been eating by candlelight and Jackolantern light at dinner these past few nights. The boys love getting the table all creepified for dinner. It is fun having boys who love creepy gross things. I picked up a science experiment book full of gross stuff, like fake poop making, fake vomit making, mold growing etc. A couple night ago we did the belching experiment and I got three ginormous belches, it freaked them all out. I thought of you and what a wonderful belcher you have become. I am so thrilled that I was able to pass that bit of dignified wisdom on to you. I sure as heck hope you are impressing your companions with it, and that you give credit were credit is due and tell them that I taught you...Ha!

Love you Sam. This turned into a jumbled novel. Hope that is okay. Thinking of you. You are always in our prayers. Every night. Honest. We love you and miss you.

Helen and boys.

PS. Can you believe that Ulysses turns ONE this coming Friday. WOAH.

Letters to Elder Robison

SAM!

Thank you so much for your awesome letter and fun gifts for the boys! We have been playing hide and seek with the dinosaur erasers this evening, and the boys were pretty excited when they realized that the erasers actually erased! Who knew? Erasers erasing? Crazy talk. They loved the bone too, what is the story with that? 

OH! I am not sure if I told you that Angus took that Australian Lizard roadkill as his first day of Preschool show and tell! IT was awesome. I think the teacher and some of the kids were grossed out, which was fantastic. Grossing people out is surprisingly fun to do, for the most part.

I know this may sound cheesy, but I really really want you to know how much I am impressed by your decision to go on this mission and to stay on your mission.  Sometimes I look back at occasions in my life when I quit too early, or took the easier way out with things (i.e.,college, piano, soccer, applying myself to numerous things), and I can see now that what I missed out on by not finishing those activities to the best of my ability, was not in the activity itself, but rather the principle of sticking to a decision and seeing it through. "Stick-to-itive-ness", if you will. I gypped myself of gaining a deeply rooted ability to stick with something even when it gets tough, and even when I really don't want too. My tendency to quit, complain, and take the easy way is a stronger option for me, than the willingness to continue on with something because I said I would. I do not like that about myself, and am working now to make up for what I did not learn then. It is not easy, and I wish I started learning it years ago. 

Sorry for my soapbox. I just wanted to tell you that by sticking with what you are doing, even though I imagine it is difficult and not always do you want to be doing it, you will be a happier and stronger person 10 years from now than if you were to not stick with it. I know that, and am trying to take the stronger road now. Sorry for the rambles.

I love you, you are super awesome, and funny, and handsome, and kind, and genuine. All of those qualities will serve you well.

Hope your spirits are up and that your companions are not annoying you too much, but just enough to keep life interesting.

Angus is a Preschooler.

Angus started preschool...over a month ago. But I am finally posting about it! I was able to volunteer on his first day of school, and was able to see him make his first new preschool friend too. Angus was so excited to go to the same preschool that Oscar went to, or as Angus dubbed it "the one with the big blue rug." When I asked him what he wants to be when he grows up, his reply was a "Book Writer" or a "Bionicle Builder." Angus is so loving, funny, kind, sensitive, loud, and emotional! We love him just the way he is. 

First preschool artwork, monster face out of wooden pieces.

One morning he insisted that he eat his cereal out of
his pink pumpkin bucket. It was difficult, but he did it anyway.
When it proved to be too difficult to eat his food before it went soggy,
he switched it for a bowl.

Letter To Elder Robison

Hey Sam!

We all sure loved your last couple emails/letters. Your one funny dude, and it is super cool to hear about all your adventures.

Oscar and Angus had their first soccer games yesterday. They were fun to watch. Angus scored a goal, and was always so animated out on the field. Whenever something good or bad would happen for his team he would either jump, wiggle and smile happily, or slump, droop and frown sadly. Oscar played goalie for the last have of his game and not a single goal was scored on him. That is saying a lot too, since the opposing team scored several goals during the first half. Unfortunately the last goal he blocked was with his face, and it was a doozy. That soccer ball smacked HARD right between his eyes. The crowd gasped, the game stopped, and he held it together as best he could but the tears flowed. After that, and with only a minute left in the whole game, his goalie services were complete for the day. Fortunately he has recovered and is now re-telling of his goalie heroics proudly.

On the way home from the games we spotted a old car show in the parking lot of Shopko. So, in your very greasy handed honor, we stopped and strolled through the rows of classic cars. We even spotted some Chevelle's and I totally had to snap you some pics.

Also, last night Mom and Dad stayed to help put the boys down for bed. Instead of reading books, the boys begged for Nana and Papa to tell them stories (they have been requesting stories constantly, and I try to dish them out as fast as I can remember them). Of the many stories that they told, one of the favorites was of you doing the "donut dance." Oscar then requested that each one of us get up and do the donut dance in front of everyone else. So there we each were in the basement doing our own versions of Uncle Sam's Donut Dance. It was awesome.

Anyway. I can no longer ignore the screaming of Ulysses. He. Must. Eat!

Love you. Miss you. Proud of you. Keep on keeping on Bro.