Feeding the horses

Jack got to feed horses today! Actually, he was a little too freaked out by the big teeth, and I made the mistake of giving our whole carrot to the first horse we met. But I did get this cute picture of Jack with his friend Genavieve.

Good-bye to daycare

Day of fasting

Today I am fasting. From midnight to midnight, I am not taking a single bite of food. Drinking water helps temporarily, but every time I dish Jack up some food, or see a commercial for something yummy, I think, it would be so easy to just take a bite... I'm doing this in support of Compassion's Day of Prayer and Fasting. We have supported Jose, a little boy from Bolivia, through Compassion for the past four years.

Read for more info:
Food prices for popular menu items like rice, wheat and beans have doubled in the last year. Though increases in food prices have hit all budgets, it's the poor who bear the brunt of price inflation. The higher prices are forcing people who survive on just $1 a day to spend upwards of 80 percent of their budgets just on food. As a result, many people, including millions of children, are going hungry. The longer food prices rise, the more people will be plunged into hunger and poverty.
Why is the global food crisis happening? Food shortages have affected developing countries for generations. It's a cyclical problem. But this global food crisis is more rapid, urgent and devastating. Since 2005, food prices have risen a whopping 80 percent. Why?
1. rising fuel costs
2. rising food demand from populous nations like India and China
3. natural disasters destroying crop yields all over the world, including the United States
4. growth of biofuels
http://www.compassion.com/sponsordonor/global-food-crisis/default

Trivia time

Fun facts about Lee Vining:

1. Its population is 488, and its elevation is 6781. (Have YOU ever lived in a town where the elevation was more than ten times a bigger number than the population? I certainly have not...)

2. The town was originally called Lakeview, but then they found that there was already a Lakeview, CA, so they named it after Leroy Vining instead. He founded the town in 1852.

3. There is nearby ice climbing! (Which does not sound fun at all to me!)

4. Lee Vining lies close to Mono Lake, which is three times as salty as the ocean.

5. If you sat in Mono Lake long enough, you would become permanently encrusted in tufa, which is limestone that builds on the lake floor. Nowadays, many tufa towers rise from the lake because the water level is lower than it used to be. (Count me out on this one, too... the "sitting in Mono Lake until I become tufa" part, that is.)

The boonies, the sticks... whatever you wanna call it

It's only through my many recent online searches that I've realized that the area we're moving to has NOTHING. There are no Targets, WalMarts, Costcos, or large chain grocery stores nearby. I don't know about any doctors, vets, or hair salons. It's looking like we'll have to drive to Carson City or Reno (a couple hours north) once a month to fill up the minivan with all our supplies. It's almost like we'll be permanently camping! The thought was making me hyperventilate a little bit, but then I heard a story on NPR about an expeditionary crew trying to make contact with tribes living in isolation in the rainforests of Brazil and Peru. On one trip, the explorers spent three weeks hacking their way through dense jungle before they made it to the tribe. OK, I thought, it won't be that bad for us. There is civilization where we'll be living. And, actually, I am kind of looking forward to living there. It will be an adventure.

Fathers' Day

Happy Fathers' Day to my wonderful husband...

...and my own dad...

...and my father-in-law, Rick.

It's official

We're moving! Brian's accepted the job with Eastern Sierra Unified School District, and will begin the middle of August. We've both resigned from our jobs and have started planning the move. Crazy! Tomorrow we'll drive over to spend the night and take a look around, see where we'd actually like to live.

Mama, Dada, and A-ba-ba

I finally feel like Jack is talking. It's mostly babbling, but he's saying "mama" and "dada" now when we ask him to, and yesterday, as we were snacking, I pulled out a banana, and he said "a-ba-ba." You've never seen a prouder mom! Here is a picture of him stuffing his face. He can fit almost a half "a-ba-ba" in that mouth of his.

Lee Vining

Brian interviewed for an assistant principal job in Lee Vining, California, on Thursday. He's applied for more than twenty jobs and interviewed for half a dozen, none of which panned out. We've gotten our hopes up more than once. We'd finally reached the point where we wouldn't grow emotionally attached to a place, because we knew that would just lead to disappointment. But yesterday we got a phone call from the Lee Vining superintendent, saying they wanted to offer him the job! I started bawling as soon as I heard the message on the answering machine. We are pretty sure that we want him to take it, but it will definitely be tough leaving our current jobs, friends, and church. One negative is that we will be moving, but we'll be nowhere closer to family. On the plus side: Lee Vining is the eastern gateway to Yosemite, so it is beautiful. The town itself has only 500 or so people, and we've dreamed for six years about living in a small town.

Of mice and men... and a mommy and daddy who just want to get out!

Well, we tried. It’s been almost a year since we’ve seen the insides of an actual honest-to-goodness movie theater. These days, we can’t often afford a babysitter, but it being our anniversary weekend, we thought we’d splurge. I made tentative plans with one of Brian’s eighth-grade students, and we thought we’d catch one of the many “Indiana Jones” showings at a Stockton theater yesterday. The babysitter had some other gig, though, and so our grandiose plans of going somewhere sans Jack ultimately failed. We went to Old Spaghetti Factory instead, with Jack, who enjoyed sitting under some kind of ficus and eating lasagna with a spoon. Maybe we’ll try again on our seventh anniversary...