Random news from the past several weeks

Jori and I were walking home from TYB today and I was having her practice spelling some words. Out of nowhere she said “I wish my name could always be Jorin” (which is her given name). I asked her why and she said “Then people would know there is an ‘n’ at the end”, which didn’t totally make sense to me so I probed a bit more. She said “Some people spell my name right, J-O-R-I, but some people think my name is Jori-ya and they spell it J-O-R-Y.”. She sounded so sad and disgusted by this, that I had to hide my smile as I consoled her and told her my name is also often misspelled and mispronounced. 

Speaking of names, Jori went through a time where she was calling her brother “Ty”, which drives me nuts. I am all about Tyson and Tys, but he is not a Ty!! I had him start telling her “Why do you keep calling me that? It’s not my name.” : ) That must have worked as I have not heard her say that for several weeks!

Tyson likes mustard! I am so glad I have one child that likes condiments as it makes me feel less guilty about buying them for myself. 

Jori cut her bangs. Not all of them, but she took a chunk out right at her part, which was the best possible place for her to cut as it of blends in. Apparently there was a bug stuck in her hair and neither she nor her brother could get it out, so she thought cutting her hair was the only option. It happened on a Saturday morning when Darin and I were both still in bed and after the cut, they came and handed us a chunk of her hair. What a way to wake up.

Darin’s beloved Vikings are 0 and 4. He is still a diehard fan and will continue to watch the games, even though his wife thinks he is nuts. Every Sunday night, I have to start screening our emails to make sure no one has written anything about the game as he does NOT want to know the outcome until he has a chance to watch the whole thing. Due to our being in South Africa, he usually is still watching the game late on Monday or even into sometime on Tuesday. During this time, we also cannot check facebook because then he’d know how the game turned out and would ruin all the effort Darin has put into watching the game in the first place! 

I drove by myself for the first time last week. Some of you may have seen this information posted on facebook, but I thought I should post it here as well. I took a little trip to the post office to pick up a package and the peace and quiet in the car was almost as nice of a gift as the package itself! Not quite, but it really was so nice to be out on my own enjoying a bit of freedom. I hope Darin will start letting me go for longer drives in the near future. My parents arrive in 2 and a half weeks and I want to be able to take my mom out for coffee. 

Right now it is just before 6 on Monday night. We all just ate random bits and pieces for dinner and now the kids are taking showers and getting their pjs on. We met friends after church for lunch yesterday and then went to other friends so Darin could watch the Vikings game with a friend, so we ended up being gone from 7:30 in the morning until just after 11 at night. It was a very fun, but very long day and both kids have had their share of crying spells today, so bedtime is JUST around the corner!