Hail March!

Well, March is upon us. Aside from a confusing snow storm Friday night (all traces of which are now gone), the weather has been glorious. Julia could not be happier about the conclusion of winter and, with it, her weather-enforced hibernation. And now for the week in review:

Monday: Happy Birthday to Nin! After several takes, we succeeded in creating an adorable little video of Julia supplying the word "Nin" in a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday to Nin!" (We've been assured that Trevor can teach us how to create herein a link to said video; for now readers will have to take our word with regard to its cuteness). Our Family Home Evening lesson focused on cultivating a celestial spirit, taking as its text D&C 88:29 - "Ye who are quickened by a portion of the celestial glory shall then receive of the same, even a fulness."

Tuesday: Lia and Julia were visited by our old friends and neighbors Josh, Jenn, Parker (22 mos.), and Tyson (9-10 mos.) Randall. The Randalls are a big family: Josh is about 6'6"; Jenn around 5'11"; and the two boys well on their way to 7'. Parker pushed Julia around a little bit in the early going; but Julia is scrappy, and in the end she had won Parker's respect and lasting friendship. Justin spent much of the day scrambling to complete his quixotic foray after the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship. After polishing the prose of his essays and slicing his way through the wild underbrush of BYU bureaucracy in order to secure the necessary forms, he dashed to the Maesar building and delivered his complete application to the office of prestigious scholarships. After breathing a sigh of relief, he walked out under the open skies of Utah Valley and was summarily doused by an inauspicious downpour. An unqualifiedly ill omen, alas.

Wednesday: Sent in our housing application to Harvard! Not nearly as exciting an adventure as Lia had theretofore supposed (it took about thirty seconds), a disappointment further compounded by the unwelcome intelligence that 12 Mellen Street is already occupied. Lia and Julia cheered themselves up, though, by going grocery shopping; Lia's draconian enforcement of our monthly budget has her waiting breathlessly (and hungrily) for the arrival of the first of each month, which brings with it the happy liberty of once again spending money. Also this day our gallant sister, Jini, came running when Lia called for reinforcements in helping Julia deal with - er, a "medical problem." The fates intervened, however, and Jini's duties were limited to giving Julia a warm bath. Jini is, all the same, to be thanked and praised for her willing and ready response to a call for help.

Thursday: We were all much relieved to learn that medical testing revealed that Julia's friend, Jacob Jeffrey, does NOT have cystic fibrosis. Doctors aren't yet sure exactly what he does have, but worst fears have been allayed. Lia and Julia took advantage of the best weather of the young year by spending much of the day in the great outdoors (they hope, in vain, to get a headstart in the race-to-be-tan over their still library-bound husband and father; a German, they should know, can never outtan an Indian - just ask Nin).
In the evening Lia and her friend, Kate Ballard, attended a lecture on Jane Austen, presented in the Maeser Building by the English department's resident Romantic era scholar, Dr. Nick Mason. They loved it; but, of course, all things Austen-related are unreservedly to be loved.

Friday: Quite a day for Julia, who in the course of just a few hours saw both her grandfathers. Late in the morning, Lia and Julia trekked down to campus where they saw Justin before his 11 o'clock class began. They then ran an errand to the Tanner Building (that grey and spacious monument to the divine dollar). Julia charmed the whole of the Dean's office staff, after which she and Lia ambled about waiting for Justin's class to end. In the midst of their ambling, to Julia's great excitement, they ran into Grandpa, with whom Julia sat on the grass and played until Grandpa had to go teach a 12 o'clock class. Justin arrived just before Grandpa left, and Julia generously allowed him to eat whatever of his own lunch she did not eat herself. After lunch, Justin went off to work while Lia and Julia began their long hegira homeward. Mercifully, Lia was soon relieved of her stroller-pushing burden by none other than Opa! Julia was ebullient to see both her grandfathers in such a short time, although it should be added that in each instance her initial enthusiasm was immediately followed by an anxious inquiry after the whereabouts, respectively, of Grandma and Nin. Either she loves her grandmothers best, or she is endowed with a congenital moral sense allowing her to perceive the immutable truth that families, especially married couples, belong together. Opa accompanied Lia and Julia home, where Opa was in a kind of paradise as he concomitantly clogged his arteries with cookies and whole milk and regaled his daughter and granddaughter with an oration of an hour's length. ("But it was a short hour," Lia says.)
For date night, we hopped in the big blue bull and rolled down to the Provo Public Library where we checked out a documentary on the life of Leonardo Da Vinci. It was dreadfully saccharine stuff, exceeded in the depth of its dreadfulness only by the force of our fatigue. Lia hadn't a prayer of staying awake for more than half an hour. Thankfully, Justin was summoned by a worried home-teachee whose daughter needed a blessing. Lia went to bed muttering wry protestations about what a pity it was we'd have to miss the rest of the documentary.

Saturday: Lia spent the morning frantically preparing for and presiding over our ward's Enrichment extravaganza in commemoration of the organization of the Relief Society 164 years ago. Everything went wonderfully, including the Enrichment committee's successful efforts to surprise every sister in the ward with a letter from her husband; for getting the elders quorum to do anything at all the committee is to be commended and admired. Mysteriously, Lia managed to lose the letter from her own husband. The upshot of the meeting was a characteristic overestimation of how much food was needed, and Lia came home with an abundance of chocolate cake and chicken salad. The salad, surprisingly, has outlived the cake. The early afternoon witnessed the efforts of Justin and the BYU 34th ward basketball team to redeem themselves from the debacle chronicled in a recent blog. They did so, and how. Bouncing back from the mildly-exaggerated "0 for 25" shooting performance of the previous game, Justin, as point guard, pulled up from 25 feet out on one of the first plays of the game and drained a three-pointer that sent Julia reeling into a frenzied eruption of wild applause. ("Um, that was actually because she thought she saw Elmo," Lia says.) No question about who her daddy was this time! Justin only heated up from there, and in the second half the other team dropped in desperation into a box-and-one defense, with their best defender shadowing this superstar whom the Duke recruiters had somehow overlooked during his high school days. When the dust settled, the 34th ward had scored a statement-making victory by the margin of 69-38. When the gun sounded, Julia stormed the court and threw her arms around her hero-dad.
In the evening, we all went to the Ballard's place to watch J.J. Reddick and the mighty Duke Blue Devils take on the hated tarheels of North Carolina. Reddick had his worst game of the season, hitting just one of his last sixteen shots and leaving the Cameron crazies, who had just received a cable wiring the results of the day's BYU intramural action, wondering, "Where is Collings when we need him?" Carolina won 83-76, perhaps leaving the gullible with the false impression that someone other than Duke may win the national championship this year. The wise among us know better.
Earlier in the day, Justin and Julia went to visit Grandma Patti, who rewarded her beautiful granddaughter for being beautiful by giving her a gorgeous evening gown - emblazoned, of course, with an iconic representation of Zoe - and a radiant Easter dress.