Changes

I'm 27 now, as of Friday, and I am also no longer the Primary president. Yes, our tour of the Cheltenham Ward auxiliaries continues. Jeff was called today to serve as the Gospel Doctrine teacher (he will continue to serve in the presidency of the five-member Elder's Quorum), and I've been called to be the Young Women's president. (Relief Society also reorganized, and now the former RS president has taken my place in Primary.) Jeff came home last Sunday with knowledge that changes were afoot—I just wanted to be anything but Relief Society president or a Ward Missionary. (Not that I feel qualified for RS at all, but in a ward this small, scary things can happen!) So I am very pleased to be in Young Women. We have four active girls and another four that have never come or who attend sporadically. We will acquire one of my Primary girls next February and then we'll have five regular YW. It will be the same sort of challenge as Primary—both easier and harder to have such a small group. I do have a full presidency. I've also got to start attending Mutual on Friday nights. I'm really not a fan of having Mutual on Friday night, but I think it will easier if I'm the one going, rather than Jeff. On the bright side, enough activities like dances happen on the weekend anyway that now I know—it's Friday night or nothing!

(On a sneaky note: I knew this baby was inspired! I'm delivering about three weeks before Girls Camp, so I really cannot go. I'm very happy to head up for a day and visit, but no sleeping in a cabin or tent for me!)

I had my birthday on Friday. As happens when you get older, birthdays become more and more unimportant. Still, I have that element of a six-year-old girl within me and I wanted the whole world to stop and say, Wow! Today is Joni's special day! Jeff made efforts to do sweet, unexpected things for me all weekend, like doing all the kitchen cleanup by himself or folding all of my clothes that had been strewn across the bed. I met my friend Liz at the pub on Friday morning to have a snack and let the kids play on the indoor equipment. She brought chocolate cupcakes. Jeff and I then ordered Indian food for dinner that night so I wouldn't have to cook, and that truly is a gift. I love Indian food and I made sure to splurge and buy two Bombay Aloos (spicy potatoes). My See's chocolates arrived several weeks ago and I have diligently let them be. I got to open them up after our Indian dinner and soak in the deep pleasure of gazing upon an entire box of perfectly chosen, nut-free assorted creams. I have really enjoyed eating my chocolates all weekend and now I've only got a few left.

We had beautiful weather yesterday and we went out to buy our Christmas tree in the morning. First we had to stop at B&Q for a tree stand (all of our Christmas supplies are in storage) and then we went to a local farm shop to pick out a tree. The shop is near our house and I'd never been inside before. It was full of specialty food, fruits and veg, free-range eggs, and flowers. Once we found the trees, we noticed that the goats in the adjacent field were coming over to snack on the branches. We told the shop owners and they were busy putting up a fence as we headed home. We're calling this tree “the Christmas bush” because it is pretty short and squat, but it has a wonderful pine smell and the branches are filling out as it spends more time upright. We trimmed the tree that evening, but already our lights have blown out and Caleb has pulled all the ornaments off. Hmmm. I'm going to buy more stuff tomorrow and try to find something—maybe tinsel?—that will be festive and also safer from Caleb's reach.

I went to a baby shower Saturday afternoon and Jeff had a loud, rambunctious time with the kids. They smeared Oreo cookie into the carpet and would not let him work on his Gospel Doctrine lesson. When I got home, we set to work on decorating the tree (as you've read, it wasn't a great success) and then we loaded everyone up into the car to go see the lights at Westonbirt Arboretum. I saw an advertisement on Friday for the arboretum's Christmas festival, which is when they have all the trees lit up with spotlights. We ended up going through some very weird, windy, steep two-lane roads. The kids were fighting in the backseat (Caleb kept grabbing Leah's blanket) and we were wondering if this was the right route to Westonbirt. After a lot of worry and stress, we finally arrived. But the arboretum stopped allowing new visitors at 7, and we arrived at 7:10. It was actually pretty crushing, at least for me. It didn't help that the car park attendant who had told us we couldn't go in was also very odd. At one point he glanced into the backseat and told the kids, “I'm sorry you can't see Father Christmas, you'll have to blame your parents for that.” Thanks a lot! I cried while driving home for the next ten minutes and Jeff offered all sorts of apologies (for getting us lost, which he didn't really, or for having wanted to decorate the tree first). Because he threw himself upon my mercy, I got over the disappointment much faster and in the end we drove home laughing about how “England stinks!” because everything closes so darn early. We tried to stop at Dobbie's Christmas World on the way home, but surprise! It was deserted at 7:30. We went to McDonald's to drown our sorrows in lots of hot, salty french fries and caramel sundaes. This being England, of course they didn't have sundaes, but we were able to pick up some milkshakes and three large fries. We came home having had an odd, unexpected two-hour round trip that only produced a bag of fast food, but we were still happy.

We woke up at 5 am Sunday morning with our house alarm blaring. That was particularly unexpected since we have never activated the alarm. We had the window open all night to hear the wind blowing and it sounded like waves crashing. Sometimes the wind is really strong here. Something must have blown into the alarm system and set it off—I really don't understand how that can happen when it isn't activated. Anyway, picture five in the morning with Leah crying, we're disoriented, and we have no clue what the default code is for the system. The alarm inside the coat closet was going full blast, and the unit outside the house was wailing away as well. (Caleb never woke up during the entire disturbance.) Finally I remembered that Jeff had once said it was “1 2 3 4” when we moved in back in February. Jeff punched it in and it worked. Thank heaven. But the outside alarm was still going and apparently it will not stop, even with the code, if it thinks the system has been tampered with. After another ten minutes, it finally just quit. We went to bed but felt very tense that it would start up again. When we got up at 7:45, we could hear another neighbor's alarm also going off. (They are all the same system in Grace Gardens.) The wind was doing funny things to everybody.

We had a normal day at church other than all the callings and releases. Everyone was released in YW, Primary, and Relief Society, although all of the counselors were called back in the end. For those reading who know Cheltenham Ward, Avril Rayton is Primary president and Ros Betteridge is RS president. In the evening we attended the Stake Music Festival to celebrate the Christmas season. Caleb has become a real handful lately and we had a hard time keeping him in the pew. We luckily had a great spot in the chapel in order to slip in and out unobtrusively. There were mince pies afterwards (yuck! raisin pie, basically) and I spoke to three investigators that the missionaries have found. It's nice to feel that maybe the ward will be growing. Two of them sang with the Stake Choir, and that is great.

Caleb has really changed lately. He has gotten taller and his face has thinned out. He has developed a strong will. He has thrown a few tantrums, complete with fists and feet flailing, and he is very specific about what he wants for meals. If he doesn't like it, he tries to throw it, and so we have learned to keep close by. Most nights he does not want go to bed and he will arch his back in total protest while I carry him into his room. Thankfully, he always gives up once he's lying on his warm blankie. Caleb is still a sweetheart, he likes to give little kisses and be helpful by finding his shoes, but he always wants his way and has no problem being violent if he feels frustrated. It's so interesting to see this kind of developmental characteristic appear, practically overnight.