Elf Antics

According to Malia, our elf is the best elf. She loves that Jingle Jangle is funny, but not naughty. So many families have elves that make a mess and leave havoc in their wake. Ours is mischievous from time to time, but never in a mean or destructive way. He tends towards humor and creativity rather than leaning towards felony. This year he arrived by air, flying in by paper airplane the first week of December. He spent his time with us fishing, doing some sledding, and giving us all a glimpse of how we would look if we decided to sport a mustache. He even gave Nathan a big Texas mustache so Nathan could decide if that is a look he would consider post mission. 😉 

Malia gets so excited for Jingle Jangle’s arrival each year. She gets so excited by all his antics. And every morning she gets so excited to pop out of bed and search for him.  (I wish she would be so eager to get up for the other eleven months of the year!) She is sad today because she knows that tonight Jingle Jangle will return to the North Pole, although that sadness is greatly tempered by the fact that tomorrow is Christmas. She is the last of my kids and I know that as she gets older her excitement for our elf will wane, but hopefully her affection for him will remain. He has been an important part of our Christmas celebrations for many years, and I hope that as all my kids grow up, they will remember the years he has spent with us with fondness. 

In other news, Nathan won the roommate lottery this year. They all got along really well, enjoyed each other’s company, and had a fantastic semester. They became such good friends that they sent a Christmas card together. Talk about an amazing blessing for Nathan in this first semester of college. I’m so grateful for these young men and the joy that they helped Nathan find in his first semester in college. Hopefully at least some of them will still be around when Nathan goes back to USU after his mission.

For the Love of Learning

Although I’ve taken first day of school pictures of my kids during their preschool and elementary school years, I never felt a great need to do so after that. In addition to that, the boys were all way too cool for first day of school pics once they hit middle school. And they left so much earlier than they had in the past that I was usually still asleep. So for a variety of reasons, first day of school pics were not a thing as my kids headed into their teen years. But I love my enthusiastic newest college freshman because he sent me a “first day of college” picture to add to the collection. He is obviously extremely excited. I pulled out his first day of kindergarten picture and discovered that they are actually pretty similar: he’s sporting a windbreaker, a backpack and a giant grin in both. Of course, he’s twice as tall now, but other than that, he’s the same excited kid off to his first day of school. 😉

Nathan moved into his dorm just over a week ago and although he was definitely nervous, he settled in much faster than any of us anticipated. Within a day or two, he already felt like the dorm was home. He likes his roommates and they are all getting along really well so far. They are hanging out together, shopping together, attending social events together, basically taking advantage of the many opportunities that college life is presenting them. Nathan is happy and he feels like he lucked out in the roommate area. All his roommates are active church members. Four are recently returned missionaries and the other is the same age as Nathan and is planning for a mission at the end of his freshman year. They are already becoming the core of their student ward and Nathan jokes about them running the ward which is actually not a far stretch as most of them already have callings. In fact, Nathan has two. He is a Sunday school teacher and a ward organist. Nathan has taken advantage of the piano in the common room of the dorm and has met a variety of people who are drawn by the music and poke their heads in to see who is playing. He has learned that setting up a new living space can be expensive and has made going to the store with his roomies to get things like basic food stuffs and cleaning supplies a social activity. In fact, I think he’s been to the store nearly every day over the past week. He didn’t always need to buy stuff but accompanied the others just for fun. Kev and I counseled Nathan to jump into college life with both feet and thus far, he has done just that.

It is a bit bittersweet to see him adjusting to life away from home so quickly. From here on out, his time spent at home will be as a visitor rather than a long-term resident. But I feel like we have been incredibly blessed that his transition to college has been so smooth and that he is surrounded by people that he is learning to trust. Going to classes almost feels like an afterthought to his successful endeavor to move out and live on his own. But as is clear from his first day of college pic, he is overwhelmingly excited about that as well.