A Piglet in the Kitchen and Two Kids in Their Twenties

All winter long the hens have been mucking up our tiny back patio. (And, lest you be tempted to romanticize "muck from chickens on the back patio" with visions of dust and feathers, I must tell you that their muck is not nearly so charming. ...)

Also, there's a baby piglet in a crate full of straw in my kitchen. He's making small, exploratory grunting noises; and his crate doesn't smell particularly good. But it's cold outside. And he's little. So there he is.

(Nice hair my little Starling.)

Of course the fact that it's cold and he's little doesn't actually do much towards explaining why he is here at all. (Or the chickens either for that matter! We live in a small cul-de-sac in the suburbs after all.) 

But! There are many things that don't make a bit of sense in life right now. And that piglet in my kitchen is among the least of those things. (In fact, if you have followed this blog long enough to know anything about my husband, that piglet is probably the most unsurprising thing you've ever seen here.)

Perhaps far more boggling is this:

I now have two children in their twenties! (Daisy turned 20 just last week.)

Sometimes, when I'm driving and the car is quiet, or when my mind is loosening itself towards sleep at night, my thoughts wander backwards towards all my earliest establishing of connection with Mike--replaying those beginning interactions that belong so exclusively to just the two of us; all of the innocent and hopeful moments of enormous excitement that allowed us to take the plunge towards all of this. 

And it is just outside of possible to me that Abe and Daisy are already entering the same stage of life that we were at when we began such an enormous thing!

But, somehow, here they are.

Along with their host of younger siblings, their chickens and kitchen piglets, and all of this hodgepodge of things recorded via photo below:

We went to the cabin in early April where we, along with about a billion boxelder and lady bugs, watched General Conference. (I'm sure Mike's eyes were only closed during a song. ... :))

Abe didn't join us because he had two mission reunions that weekend. 

Here he is headed to the Las Vegas Mission reunion with two other Elders from his mission:

And here he is the following day at his El Salvador reunion:

But there were still reminders of him at the cabin. These shampoo and conditioner bottles for example. ...

And there was also this (wholly unrelated to Abe) that I discovered one morning after not being able to find any of the cups I'd been sure we had plenty of:

On our way home from the cabin the Monday after conference, we stopped again at Willow Park (now Zootah). The chilly weather must have meant that most animals were kept inside and inaccessible because more than ever it was ... primarily a zoo full of ducks. Ha. But at least there were these things:

(Notice Star angrily trying to push Summer out of the way.)

We stopped quickly by the farm afterwards to give some food to the fish in the trough. We got back in the van just as an enormous rainstorm began.

Easter came a few weeks later. The kids wanted to try going to the city egg hunt. We gave them a stern talking to beforehand about how there would be lots of kids, and they might only get a few pieces of candy, and they absolutely could not complain or cry afterwards. 

Turns out our talking to was rather unnecessary. (As were the treats I'd purchased for our own small hunt to be held the next day. Which we did anyway. But goodness!):

Easter Day itself was very happy with all of our kids home, Mette and Summer getting to sing Gethsemane with a small group from the primary during Sacrament Meeting, Goldie and Penny singing in the ward choir, teaching the Easter lesson to my Sunday School class (with both Daisy and Goldie attending), my mom coming for a turkey dinner, and ... these attempts at an after-church snapshot:

In other news, Abe took a jiu-jitsu class at BYU. At the end of the semester they had a competition between all the BYU and Utah Valley classes. To our surprise, Abe called to tell us he got first in his weight class! I'd been praying he could win at least one of his five exhausting matches. But opponents were tapping out left and right! It was fun to watch the videos of his matches afterwards. Especially since, during the tense parts, I already knew the outcome. :) 

(He isn't a foot taller than the second and third place winners. They are standing on a staggered podium.)

And here he is repelling down after a big rock climb recently:

There was much discussion over the merit of this "Gallon Man" memorizing tool that Anders showed us one day. People seemed to take the most issue with the two hands on each arm and two feet on each leg (and only two fingers per hand); but, despite several attempts to produce a better depiction of the relationship between cups, pints, quarts and gallons, this remains the only one I remember (and there was even quite a fascinating ... "Gallon Submarine" thrown into the mix of potential tools by Daisy).

Another Hans drawing. Some of you may quickly recognize that you are looking at Pingu. The "nuk nuk" gives it away.

And here is Hans himself--asking me to take a picture of him with his dragon, and ... doing his very darndest to smile for the camera. (He finds this practice incredibly difficult and, in the two pictures I took before this one, actually appeared to be in horrible pain.)

And Shasta with Little Gray Cat. Mike texted me this photo one morning and told me that, characteristically for both of them, when he opened the door, Shasta bolted into the house and Little Gray Cat bolted away from the house.

While Mike was observing this, I was here. Doing work for one Lucy Holland who I do not know and do not think I am remotely related to, but hope to know someday all the same.

And that's all for now!