Some Stuff

Firstly

Brenden leaves for Austria TOMORROW! Sorry we didn't keep you guys updated on that gig. Anyway, exciting stuff. His competition is on Sunday and he'll be in Austria for the duration of the entire conference. I'm kind of a little bit really jealous since Austria is kind of a little bit the main country I wanted to study abroad in and never got the opportunity to. I made Brenden promise to take lots of pictures. And buy me socks. (I really like socks so whenever someone offers to buy me a souvenir, I request socks.)

Secondly

A little update on my illness since people have been asking. I'm doing a million times better. I can actually wake up in the morning and stay up all day. No fevers since April. My finger joints, wrists, and elbows are still achy every now and then but I can actually use them. A new and interesting symptom is that my hair is falling out. It started shortly before I came back to Georgia and I originally attributed it to stress but it hasn't stopped since then and my hair is now visibly thinner (at least to me.) It's made me think a lot about my physical appearance and what it means to me in regards to my personal identity. Like, if I lose all my hair will I still be okay with who I am? It seems silly but it's never been something I've had to worry about before. Anyway, I decided that if this hair loss keeps up, I'm going to shave my head before it gets gross looking and cross my fingers that my shaved head isn't too gross looking. Head scarves and wigs FTW.

And Lastly,

Monday night Brenden and I babysat for a couple who is soon leaving our ward. He passed his dissertation defense that morning and they wanted to go out to celebrate. While they were out celebrating, we made cards with the girls for their dad. I brought over some colored paper, glitter stickers, and fancy markers. When you're a kid, other people's stuff is always exciting and fun to play with. This proved true with these kiddos. They were coloring for about three and a half hours and refused to sleep.

Anyway, the oldest daughter is about seven years old and she was determined to write her dad a letter on the back of the picture she drew him.

The letter went something like this:
"Congrats on the test Dad. I love you so much. I hope your students like you. Did you like the test? I am very proud of you. I think you did very good on the test. I think you worked very hard on the test. You are very smart. I think you will make a good doctor."

And she drew a picture underneath with big balloons and two students sitting at desks while her dad wrote 2+2=4 on a chalkboard.

It was completely adorable.