National Cathedral, Snow, Sleep

The weather on Martin Luther King Jr. Day was somewhat pleasant, so we decided to try and go on a family bike ride at Rock Creek Park. We'd never been there before, and we got a little lost, but our detour led us to this beautiful place:

It's the Washington National Cathedral. We decided to park and maybe walk around it a little.

It turned out they were having a service inside to honor Martin Luther King Jr. We were able to sit and watch part of it. Thankfully, we were also able to leave after 10 minutes. The kids were very well-behaved, but since sitting in a cathedral and being quiet wasn't in our original plans, they were anxious to get going.

We never ended up being able to find a good bike trail at Rock Creek Park, which was a bummer because Nate had worked really hard to get 5 bikes to fit in the back of our car. We settled for some frisbee tossing and playing at a park. 

Although Monday was a mild day, Tuesday we got hammered with snow. The kids had the day off because it was a professional day for teachers, and then they ended up cancelling school on Wednesday as well. 

Emmy has been sleeping AWFUL. She has been a pretty poor sleeper for awhile, but recently it has gotten really bad. She asks for bandaids in the night, wants water, says she doesn't want to sleep, etc. Thursday night was especially rough. The next day I thought she was sick because she asked me probably 10 times during the day to snuggle with her on the couch. She was SO whiny and difficult. One of the times we were on the couch she zonked out. I did not feel well that day either, simply from lack of sleep. So, we are in the process of fixing her sleep, which means some crying at night for her. It has to be done though...she and I are both really suffering with the ways things are right now.  

Friday Nate left with the AU men's basketball team to cover their game against Westpoint on Saturday. He got back around 2 am Sunday morning. My weekend with the kids went pretty well. On Saturday, Jansen had a basketball game, and he also had a great time at a birthday party for his friend Daniel. Emmy, Natalie, and I had "a girl party," (including baby girl in my tummy) while Jansen was gone. This included ice cream from McDonald's, some games of UNO, and some other things. 

Today has been a bit of a hard Sunday. Nate had a meeting at our house from about 10-12 and we served a little breakfast, we left for church about 12:30 (a little late as I had a 10 minute breakdown and needed to recover) and picked up some friends that don't have a car, church from 1-4, dropped our friends off, picked up the missionaries, Nate and the missionaries went to a meeting at 5, and then Nate home taught some families at 7 and 8 and is still not home at 9:30. I don't know how he has the energy to do it all. No time to even eat anything but a few carrots and almonds today from about 12:00pm-10pm. But he is committed to Christ and he shows it with his actions. It's hard having him gone so much. I do believe it blesses our lives in ways that are sometimes hard to understand and see. Men this faithful with this kind of work ethic are not easy to come by, and I'm so thankful for him.

***also today: Jansen had his white dress shirt buttoned all the way to the very top, but without a tie. Nate told him that most normal people (just meaning the usual way it's done) don't button the top button unless they are wearing a tie. Jansen said, "Dad, most normal people aren't Mormons."