Sunday, August 5, 2012

Busy/heavy weeks

We're always busy, that's for sure. One child only, two full-time jobs, plus all the things this one child is involved in, make for one very busy mom and family.

Aside from the routine busyness, I have been concerned with some family health problems for which things are starting to look up thankfully, and fighting my bad sinus cold. These have been making days a little heavier than usual. I know judging by my Facebook activity (lol), and my active life in general, one wouldn't think that. But life goes on and sometimes being busy helps deal with the good and the bad. Although fear and concern almost overwhelmed me at times, I felt the calming and comforting influence of the Spirit talking to me, putting the right thoughts and feelings into my heart. I am extremely grateful for that. And I am also extremely grateful for my wonderful husband who believes in the power of prayer and fasting and fasted when I could not, darn strong antibiotics that I was taking for my sinuses.

I have a few things to post from a few weeks ago when we had Hrishi's uncle, aunt, and their younger son visiting from Malaysia. We had a couple of wonderful days together and felt really sad when they had to leave. It's sure nice to have family visiting.


We took them around and showed them some of our stomping grounds: Sienna Stables, Brazos Bend aligator park where they also got to fish, we grilled, and had a great time catching up. Ella received a lot of beautiful gifts from both them and her cousins and grandma' from India.

We've had some nice family home evenings, with dwelveing deeper into the scriptures and having Ella start reading from the "big" regular scriptures. She does really well with that. I was impressed.
For one of the lessons we did Pres. Hinckley's B's and it was a lot of fun doing a mini scripture marathon matching the "Be's" with the scriptures and adding the "Bee's" to the beehive, as we found the right match.



Watching the Olympics on most nights has been a treat. This time around, it meant more to me as I now have a truly deep appreciation and some insight into what makes an athlete. It's also been a good motivator for me, helping me to continue with my workouts even through the tougher days. Our most favorite events to watch were swimming (we are big big fans of Michael Phelps, Missy Franklin, and Dana Voller, as well as the rest of the amazing U.S. swimmers), gymnastics (wow for the U.S. golden team and my home country Romanian team who got the bronze), equestrian, and track and field, of course. In fact, yesterday while I was running my 10K, I got to watch the 10,000 meters race where Galen Rupp, my favorite runner competed. It was amazing to watch.  In fact, all athletes from all countries were truly inspiring. Every single one has a touching story with a lot to learn from (see Dana Voller's and Oscar Pistorius!!!)

Ella is continuing to do a great job with swimming. She's now learned the breaststroke pretty well, along with freestyle and backstroke. She was beyond herself last week when she earned her yellow bracelet which means she can be in the water by herself and go down the big slide. Wohooo!!!
She'll be taking a break from swiming though once school starts. She knows she has only three more classes left and she's determined to make the most of them. :)




Horsebacking riding lessons have been going very well too. She is a delight to watch, her willpower, her stamina, everything. Her trainer is impressed with her and keeps telling us that she hasn't trained a 6 1/2 year-old as strong as her before and that she's very advanced for the short time she's been riding. Ella is actually getting some extra 15-20 mins extra lesson time, for free thanks to Ms. Jackie's passion and dedication.

Here she is with Lexus, the princess of the barn, a beautiful but finicky horse. :-)


On Thursday she "earned" the "magic wand", the prop.


Taking a break and talking to her biggest cheerleaders, mom and dad. I think we are quite funny to watch, as we "post" in our chairs and lean back with the "ho's."


And I went from this:


To this:

 

I think I just found the perfect haircut. I am very happy with the new look. I love change and I was ready for a new hairdo. Easy and fun!! Hrishi loves it but Ella sometimes wishes I still had my locks so she can "do" my hair. Short hair doesn't stop her though. :)



2 comments:

  1. LOVE your new look and your always positive outlook on life. You are for sure a blessed woman with a great husband and that amazing child of yours. Hope your sinus infection is gone and all things are looking up. Te pup dulce. :)

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  2. LOVE the haircut!!!! I hope you feel better soon! And congrats to Ella for all the wonderful achievments! She's awesome! Pupici!

    ReplyDelete

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