Kenna school

Kennadee started school at Basin City Elementary this past week.  A few days before we went to meet her teacher, Ms. Beseda.  She seems great and I feel positive about our interactions with her.  She gave a us a tour of the school and we met many people.  Everyone wanted to know who we were and if we had any relations up here.  Obviously we do and mentioned names.  By the time we got to the P.E. teacher Garrett was doing the introductions.  He walked straight up to the teacher, "Hi! I'm Garrett.  My dad is Mike Nielson!"  I think this visit really put Kenna's mind at ease and made it so her first day wasn't quite so scary.  Poor girl has been to 3 different schools in her 4 years of schooling.  She is so great and rolls with the punches.

We've already run into a few differences here.  Not necessarily bad, just different. 

First, the bus ride.  It is about an hour long.  I don't love this.  It's just more time away from home and family.  The first day I had a heart attack thinking of all the worst case scenarios.  I was so worked up over it I decided I needed to prepare Kate a little better and started quizzing her on every type of safety under the sun.  When Kenna got home that day I asked her how things went and if anyone bothered her or if she had any trouble.  No.  She was fine.  Kate chimed in, "Kenna, did anyone touch your butt?!"  Haha!  Kate has no filter.  Don't know why I beat around the bush when I could have asked out right.

The other difference is Kenna is one of about 4-6 white kids in her class.(I'm not sure as she keeps changing her mind.)  She said everyone has brown skin, black hair and speaks spanish.  The first day there were only two other white kids besides her.  She didn't seem upset, just noticed the difference.  We have never been a minority.  The numbers weren't quite as drastic when Mike attended.  I really wish they had a Spanish program here.  I was really bummed to find out that there is only one little girl from our ward in her class.  She is making lots of friends any way.  I love that about her. 

From the few times I've visited I have gotten a home town feel.  I think it's a great school and very friendly.  I'm hoping to make it into the classroom once a week.  We'll see how that goes.  I can say the first week was a success.  Especially cause no butts were touched! Ha!   

Live Life

"Go Confidently in the Direction of your Dreams, Live the Life you have Imagined". This quote spoke to my soul today. It was a beautiful reminder of why I sacrificed to come to Basin City.

 I know I've done my fair share of complaining. And enough for 3 other people. The journey to be up here hasn't been seamless and I miss my Vernal house and family so much sometimes my heart physically aches. But, this is a dream Mike has had from childhood. 

Not very long after we were married, it became mine too. I couldn't wait for the day Washington would become a reality.  We hoped and planned and put life off waiting for that day to come. It didn't come.  So, I lost sight of that along the way as I became comfortable and loved what I had. I am so grateful I did.  That's what makes the journey in life worth it. 

The day that I heard about Jim and Sheryl going on a mission, Mike's dream, our dream, flashed in my mind. Without a second thought or even a call to Mike, I was on the phone in seconds calling Sheryl to let her know we would come to the farm. I saw the beautiful opportunity it held for us as a family. I saw how happy Mike would be and I knew I had to do it. If I didn't, I'd hate myself forever. It may not work out. But we'll never know if we don't try. I freak out over something I just can't stand, every single day right now.  I like some things about living here, but mostly right now it is hard. 

Mike loves Basin City. Mostly, Mike loves farming, he bleeds farming. It's as much a part of him as breathing. I see that even more now than I thought I knew before. 

I guess in a way, I fell a little bit in love with farming and Basin City when I fell in love with Mike. I hope someday this will turn out to be as beautiful of an opportunity as Vernal was for us.  That I'll become comfortable and fall more in love with this place, like I did  for my farm boy.   Right now I love him and that is enough. 

The beginning of farm life

I thought it would be fun to chronicle life here on the farm for us.  It will most likely only be interesting to my mom and dad and us in 20 years, but I’m still going to do it. This one will be long to catch up on the last few months.  Skip to the pics if you don’t care.  Here you have it, The Farm Chronicles.

We’ve been here a month and half now and I’m finally almost to the end of my boxes.  It has been ridiculous. We look and feel like an episode of hoarders. 

2 ½ family’s worth of belongings wasn’t meant to be in this house.  I’ve been picking and choosing what to leave in boxes.  Hopefully this will convince me to live an even simpler life when we get into our own place again.

For the first 3 weeks Jim and Sheryl were still here and I spent my time helping them get packed and ready to go.  It was a big job.  And throwing party after party. 

Since then I have been packing up more, but not all, of their stuff, cleaning, and then putting away our stuff.  To say it has been slow is an understatement.  And to say I’ve been frustrated is also an understatement. Ha! I’ve thrown a few tantrums and I’m not apologizing!  If my family didn’t have to eat everyday or wear clothes I would probably be a lot more productive.  Our next move will be to Ethiopia.  I’m kidding.  I’m grateful for what we have. 

Farm life…is different.  During the summer it is SUPER LONG hours.  During cutting, it’s pretty much from sun up to sun down and even into the night with breaks in between for the food I mentioned above.  Poor Mike is exhausted.  I’ve been told, and I hope it’s true, that the winter months more than make up for it. We just finished 3^rd cutting on the alfalfa hay.  They water the hay, cut the hay, swathe the hay, rake the hay, bail the hay, haul and stack the hay. Hay, hay, hay, all day, everyday.  We also have some wheat and potatoes on the field for rotation crops but someone else harvests those.  The next cutting, which starts in a week, I’d like to document in pictures.  This may sound obvious, but hard work is a way of life around here.  All of our “neighbors” are doing the same thing.  I use the term “neighbor” loosely as usually your nearest neighbor is five miles away.  I guess you could say we are pretty lucky, or unlucky, as we have some a little closer.  I’ve been so busy with moving in I haven’t had time to feel lonely.  I’m sure that will come in the winter months. 

Sheryl’s yard is amazing.  And now that I’m in charge, amazingly overgrown.  I just don’t have the time to devote to it right now.  She’d have a fit if she saw her garden.  Weeds everywhere.  Despite the weeds we have enough produce for about 5 families.  I am not joking.  Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash, etc.  So much produce. 

This is so different than Vernal where it’s hard to get things to grow.  It’s a good problem to have tho, and I’ve been bribing people to be my friend with produce.  Win, win.  I really love going to field and getting loads of sweet corn.  It is so good!  We made 30 bags of freezer corn the other day.  Mike took a half day off to help me with that. 

They’ve got quite the set up to do that that makes it a breeze.  Kenna said, “That was so fun! I loved that we got to spend the day with Dad.”  That was the first time in the months we’ve spent more than 30 minutes with him.  We just aren’t used to that.  It was really nice to get evenings and weekends off, with every other weekend  being a 4 day weekend, and great holiday and PTO.  We didn’t even realize how spoiled we were.   

The kids are loving it.  LOVING IT! 

Kenna gets a little wistful for her friends every now and again, which is expected.  They all miss Brian and Candace’s family and our close friends.  That’s the crappy part of moving. We are making new friends tho. 

Kenna was baptized on the 12^th of July.  It was so awesome. 

Definitely a sweet moment as a parent and one for her as well.  She has already had the chance to see how the Holy Ghost works in her life and that has been neat to watch.  She’s so grown up and thinks she is even bigger than she is.;)  She knows what everyone needs to be doing including me. I think she is excited for school to start to get a bit of a social life.  She really loves that.  I'm trying to decide on piano lessons.  Do I teach her myself the first year and save money, or just hire it out.  The sane part of me says hire it out.  The crazy parts thinks I can do anything.   

Kenna and Kate will start school in a week at Basin City Elementary.  We’ve had fun shopping for school clothes and supplies. 

There is only one English speaking Kindergarten class.  I think they have two Spanish, where they work to teach them English, one Spanish/English where they kind of know English, and the full English speaking class.  Completely different world than we are used to. 

Kate actually starts a week later and it’s full day kinder here.  I’m a little worried about her.  She’s got terrible separation anxiety, caused by the move.  It’s bad.  Really bad.  I can’t go to the bathroom unless I announce it and she knows where I am.  Poor girl.  There are a lot of kids from church that will be in her class and I think that will help.

Garrett feels a little gypped about being left home.  I told him he would be going to Mommy School. “Yuck!  That’s gross! I don’t want to be a mom!!” Ha! I explained it’s home school.  He doesn’t freak out about it anymore, but I think he’s still gonna be mad staying home.  Luckily for him and me I able to send him with his dad all the time.  I LOVE IT! He LOVES it! If there was any bit of him that preferred me before it is completely gone.  He is a farm boy and loves all the equipment and knows all the names. 

Most mornings he is up and out in a dirt pile before breakfast.  I thought the dirt at the old house was bad.  Nope.  I now have to have play clothes and nice clothes. 

But he’s never been happier. 

It’s totally his element.  His temperament and day are determined by whether or not it's his turn to ride with Dad.  I'd say he gets 3 to 1 in turns but when that one come around..."I've never riden a tractor before!!!!  It's not fair! I hate this!!!!"  

     

Brennan is a sweet baby and has made the move a little easier on us all. 

He has turned into such a happy guy.  

Thank goodness.  He is crawling everywhere and getting into things.  3 years was a nice gap but it has gotten me a little out of practice with things.  Time to baby proof again.  We’ve finally started sleep training him.  He has done great and only cried a bit the first night.  It breaks my heart to let them cry it out but I’m enjoying it now that that is over.  He smiles all the time and at anyone.  He is trying to get teeth and they still haven't popped through.  Looks like he'll be late like Kate.  My favorite thing about him is that I'm his favorite.  Hands. down. every. time.  I'm not gloating or anything.

Miracles have happened for me in the health department.  I haven’t had to take my blood pressure meds since I’ve been here.  In fact my BP is actually getting really low now.  I don’t  know what has happened, time, different elevation, environmental factors, hormones balanced, who knows.  I haven’t had a bad headache in awhile either.  Whatever it is I’m grateful.  So, so grateful.  Prayers have finally been answered in the affirmative and it’s a miracle to me that I don’t take for granted.  There is absolutely no way I’d be able to do what I have the last few months if it hadn’t.  Other than that all I do is clean and unpack.  

We fed the Sister missionaries last night, Sister Jet(New Jersey, out a year) and Sister Olguin(Arizona, out a month). I went on splits with them after and that was a great experience for me.  We didn’t have any appts to begin with so we had to find someone to talk to.  I got us lost for about an hour when they decided we better go somewhere they know.  I felt like an idiot.  When we did make a visit it was with the Diaz family.  They were set for baptism and then backed out so the Sisters are starting over on the lessons.  I had the opportunity to bare testimony of Joseph Smith and the Restoration and pray. I really felt the spirit and was pumped.   The next place we went was an eye opener for me.  Husband is a non active member.  The Sisters knocked his door and he agreed to let them come back when his wife was there.  He neglected to tell her.  She had just gotten home from town and was less than thrilled but let us in.  We tried to give a message about “The Family: A Proclamation”.  Her husband was asleep and didn’t come out.  Her brother and his friend were there and loudly made fun of us and cussed from the back room and when they finally did surface had a cigarette dangling between their teeth.  I knew they were putting on a show for the Sisters.  If their goal was to make someone feel uncomfortable I think they succeeded as Maddy was clearly irritated.  I admit it was a first for me as well.  I’ve lived a sheltered life and have never really been openly mocked for my beliefs.  We shared our message.  Maddy was cordial. Then bless their heart, the Sisters sat around trying to make small talk. Which might have worked another time but it was already 8:45 pm and Maddy has two young kids that were in town with her all day.  That’s where I really felt awkward.  Probably because I’ve been there as a mom and really all you want to do it put the kids to bed and stare at the wall.  Like I said tho, it was a great experience overall and I’m already planning to sign up again.  I’ve never been stretched this way.

Mike works.  That is all. Ha! But he is in heaven.  Even with the hours he doesn’t hate to wake up in the morning and do it all again.  He loves farming.  He LIVES farming.  It runs through his veins. 

I think he’s pretty good at it and I think his tractor’s sexy.;) When it’s parked in the yard. And he’s not in it, but inside. 

 

Despite the challenges of the last month I really believe this is a good move for us right now.  We are happy and healthy.