Pics of the Week: 2018 Quotes

Joyce, age 7

"Beebes"

"Oak will be there, and that guy who’s kind of like Oak…"
-the day after Noah returned from 2 years in Bulgaria. It took Joyce 24 hours to connect the name "Noah" with the new guy who had showed up in our house

"You know Charlie's dad in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? His job sounds quite fun to me: Screwing on toothpaste lids in a toothpaste factory."
-mulling over career choices

"Mom, do you know what I've always wanted to do? Kiss my belly button."
-May 2018

"It's more polite to say 'excuse me' after a burp than during it."
-so true.

"I liked his 'peace notes'. Is that what you call them?"
- Joyce, complimenting another piano student in her group class about his grace notes.

"I use my tummy as a heater. It doesn't even use electricity."

"We should always bring our bikes when you and Dad go on your honeymoons."
-Joyce, talking about biking the walkway with Sage and Mercy while Mike and I walked and talked. Aug 12, 2018.

"Yesterday I didn't have my tummy...because I was wearing my swimsuit."

"I've always wanted to wake up at 3AM!"
- excited about a meteor shower.

"Why doesn't she just ask him!"
-Indeed! Joyce is put off by all the manipulation of a female character on Little House on the Prairie who is trying to get a man to ask her to marry him.

Sage, age 10

"When I'm reading, unless I get an itch or something, I forget it's not me in the book."
-Sage, describing why she likes reading so much.

"My voice is sore from screaming and laughing at Danny." June 22.

"Sometimes I even tried to miss you, but it just didn't happen." 15 July 2018
-Sage said this to me after spending a few weeks with cousins and grandparents in the USA

"The funny thing is, that in America they have such big wards, but they sing so quiet! I started singing like normal - like I usually do - and everyone was looking at me!"
-Robust hymn-singing is one of the many things we love about our little New Plymouth branch

"I hope I didn't look like that when I started ballet." Nov 13
-Sage taught us ballet steps for FHE using our patio doors as a long mirror. We have rarely laughed so hard! Or been more impressed with Sage! However, in a more serious moment, later in the evening, Sage confided a real worry that she might have ever looked so ungainly.

"We've never sung that song as well as we did today!"
-after the Primary Program and an arrangement of Armies of Helaman. Robyn Wilton has been an influential Primary chorister.

"Does she always give 120% to whatever she's doing?"
-Miss Rowena, Sage's ballet teacher, asked me this after class one day

Sage: "Danny said he wasn't ticklish, but I know his ticklish spot."

"Where's me?"
-Sage looking for her alter ego in Sound of Music when the scene changed.

"They call me 'The Calculator' at school - it's really annoying."
-The downside of knowing math algorithms in a classroom where algorithms are considered "a little naughty" by the teachers, even as they indulge once in a while and solve a problem quickly using the "old-fashioned" method. (In schools here, the term 'algorithms' refers to adding vertically by carrying the tens, subtracting vertically by borrowing, multiplying vertically, or using long division.)

Mercy, age 13

Mercy: "To help me have a good time in seminary don’t let Oak rip into me too much."
-Jan 29th. The first online answer I received from any of my students as I started the new school year as the online seminary teacher. The question was "how can I help you have a meaningful year in seminary?"

“It took me ages to even remember where he was going. I had to think of ‘bogan’ to remember what it started with.”
-Mercy, re Noah’s mission call to Bulgaria.

"These other students are not equipped to comment, but I like them to try anyway. I am so proud of you. You played beautifully. My college students struggle with this piece, and you are playing so well."
-Classic Dr. Peery-Fox comments to Mercy after Mercy played her Chopin concerto at group class and the other students gave critical comments. I am not usually in the studio during Mercy's lessons, but happened to be in the room to hear this comment as I was helping with the technical set-up.

"I can only do 25."
-Only? Mercy, after Sage and Joyce and Oak recited 40 digits of pi. Every once in a while I realize that my kids' reality is much different than my own. I don't think I've ever known more than the first 4 digits of pi and had never aspired to learning more.

"We had SO many good runs before we got kicked off!"
- Mercy, pushing the limits at Parakai pools during an orienteering weekend.

"I was going to wake up and do social studies and use practicing as breaks, but it just seems so weird not to practice. I don't even know if I'll be able to be productive until I've practiced."

"I had the BEST practice this morning!" And then as an afterthought: "I practiced for 3 and half hours, though."
Me: "Was that your plan? Or did you just keep thinking of things you wanted to do?"
Mercy: "I kept thinking of things I wanted to do."
-Every once in a while, it's nice to have a Saturday with nothing else on.

"Mum, that run-through made me feel like practicing. It was fun!"
-Mercy after a good run-through of her Chopin concerto with me on the second piano. What a pleasure for me to play the second piano part so many times with Mercy this year! Chopin concerto was a big part of the year for both of us.

"There's a tooth in the pocket of my rain jacket right now."
-Mercy surprises us all by contributing to Joy's and Sage's conversation about what happened to their baby teeth when they fell out.

Mike: "What's Oak saying about your new outfit? Is he teasing you or complimenting you?"
Mercy: "Both."
-A-ha

Adventure Racing 'Dream Team' 2018

"There's SO much PLANNING - I LOVE it!"
-Mercy froths over the chance to plan food for the family backpacks

"Solo Sockless Summit"
-The Strava title of Mercy's run on the day she decided to summit Mt Taranaki alone, realizing too late that she'd forgotten her socks. Instead of giving up her plan, she used bandages from her first-aid kit.

"Crack up" or "oosh" or "skuxx"
-One of these responses is sure to suit any occasion. Right, Merce?

Oak, age 17

Oak: I’ve never heard so much swearing at a testimony meeting, y’know just under their breath or to the side if they were nervous, but still felt the Spirit so strong.
-Jan 2018, re FSY, a week-long youth camp for 900 youth

"This looks GREAT...whatever it is."
-Oak, glancing briefly at dinner when he came home from Timber Trail. I enjoyed many satisfying - if not discriminating - compliments from Oak this year regarding my cooking.

Me: "How has our little branch influenced your testimony?"
Oak: "I feel it's helped me understand the 'spirit of the law.'"

"We're happy that there are so many of you who love the same things we do."
-May 11, excerpt from Oak's acceptance speech for the team after winning the 2018 Hillary Challenge.

"I have nothing to write about in my college essays. I haven't failed at anything in life."
-Oak

"I wiped the bathroom down with my socks" . . . "They were clean because it was the first time that I wore them. They were soaked from my run in the rain."
-Sometimes Oak helps around the house without even being asked. May 2018

"Spit works the best."
"That's what Luke taught me."
-Oak talking about how he does his hair, getting the front part of his hair to stand up.

Oak: "No one else has a jacket like mine."
Noah and Danny: (sarcastically and in unison) "You're so cool."
Oak, with good humor but full confidence: "I actually am sometimes."
-Noah and Danny to Oak on the phone, discussing Oak's vintage Boys' High jacket that he received from one of the older ladies in the branch.

"It was nice for the 'drop-kicks' to have a few songs that they knew well enough to sing all the words."
-In one of their more Mr Bingley/Jane Bennet moments, Oak and Poppy find something positive in the fact that a few off-color songs were played by the DJ at the school ball.

"They don't happen every year, to have a duo like Oak and Jason. Special individuals."
-Mr Hewlett, adventure racing coach

"Why are we here?"
-Oak and Jason yelling lines from Remember the Titans at the starting line of Cross-Country nationals.

"You're the best un-coached runner in NZ."
-Mr D text to Oak after he got 13th place at nationals. June

"I'm way less arrogant than most boys my age."
-Oak's [faulty] defense when we called him out.

"It's nice to breathe New Zealand air again. It makes me feel like running."
-Oak, Camp Tuhikaramea, Sunday morning July 29, after returning from a trip to Utah.

"I need some casual shoes. Like last night, I wore my slippers."
-What?! Oak was casually referring to attending 'Les Miserables' at the most formal theatre in town in his slippers. August 26.

I didn't choose the slobby life; the slobby life chose me."
-Another attempted defense from Oak when challenged about his overflowing cubby.

Why would you want to learn to play netball? It's like basketball with thirty-thousand rules."
-Oak feels dismissive about netball after Girls' High beat Boys' High leadership in netball.

All of your kids have to call me "unckie". (rhymes with monkey)
-Oak makes a decree to his younger sisters at the dinner table one night.

Oak: "Living in NZ makes the global stage seem a lot smaller. Like running into one of the Barrett brothers in a jumpsuit and gumboots in the fish and chips shop less than an hour before watching his brother score a try on TV. And everybody in NZ is watching the game."
Oak: "there are three Barrett brothers on the All Blacks, aye?"
Mercy: "...Jordy, Scott and Boden."
Sage: "Kieren Read came to our school. He's the uncle of somebody at my school."
-my kids casually impress me with their rugby knowledge at dinner one night

"Almost none of my friends drink...it's really weird. I've got like five friends [who don't]. Poppy doesn't have any."

While playing Boggle...
Joyce: "What's a 'git'?"
Oak: "It's probably short for 'nugget.'"

"I'm going to learn how to work harder and longer than I could before."
-One of Oak's first serious comments about starting his 5-month job as a dairy hand on the South Island.

"It's old, though. It's one of those houses you drive by and wonder if anyone lives there."
-Oak, describing the house he's sharing with another farmhand ("Woozle") on the farm.

"I wasted thirteen dollars!"
Oak, in anguish about pre-paying for more gas than would fit in the car. Money feels different when you are living on your own.

"I've never felt so healthy mentally, physically or spiritually in all my life."
Oak in email from Dec 10, 2018.

Danny

=Danny in Kaluga, Russia=

First letter from the MTC, July 5:

"Funny Moment: So we taught a first lesson on the 3rd day here. And up to that point we had learned basic introductions and the alphabet so we could kinda (at least try to) sound stuff out. During the lesson we asked her to pray and she said she didn't know how (I think...) but we didn't know any responses except good (which is probably the most overused word ever right now) so we just said that! And sat there awkwardly...and then said "see you later!" which is the only goodbye we know..and stood up and left it was pretty rough but so funny after. Can only go up from here!"

Noah

=Noah started 2018 in Bulgaria, then came here to New Zealand for 6 weeks, then Marysville, California for 3 months, and then moved to Cambridge in August=

"[I'm] pretty sure about going to Harvard. Hard to say no when God’s put so many opportunities in my way that I didn’t deserve, the scholarship, even getting in."

"You’re going to Harvard? And going to be in the Air Force? It’s like Hollywood."
-Nick, German gap-year student, to Noah.
That's what I think, too!

“Welcome home, Noah!”
-Noah, slamming his pen down on his Boggle scoresheet. He scored 25, no one else scoring over 10. (playing with Mike, Oak, Mercy, and me)

"Every time I go to pray, I want to do it in Bulgarian. Same thing happened tonight, and I realised that you wouldn’t mind if I did, so I went ahead and prayed in Bulgarian."
-Noah, March 25, 2018 after interview.

"Getting a haircut used to be the most insignificant thing on my weekly planner when I was a missionary. Now it's the biggest event of my week."
-Noah, comparing missionary life to his life in California selling pest control

"I've conquered Instagram."
- cryptic message sent on July 22. Since coming home from his mission, Noah is making friends with a smartphone for the first time in his life.

"I'll only say this once, but for how much we're paying for this place, it's not very nice."
-Noah, utilizing the family policy that you can complain about anything once. Comment re shared apartment in Cambridge. August 27, 2018

"I don't want to meet the person I'm going to marry on my first try!"
-Noah, entering the dating scene, perhaps underestimates the challenges ahead.

"I said (joking) that I wouldn't marry someone who can't beat me at Scrabble and now I can't live it down. The problem is that I am really good at Scrabble, and word is getting out. At Word Game app I don't just win but I blow people out of the water..."
-Noah bemoans an offhand comment made at a ward social.

"We realised it was a Moment even as it was happening. One person said, 'this is what I hoped Harvard would be like.' It's not like this every day, but I've had other such moments."
-Noah, describing a particular lunch in Annenberg Hall. Students are required to live and eat together

"They thought the class was too big, so they split it."
-Noah, speaking about his Russian class which started with 14 students.
During his first term, Noah had Russian with 7 (and then on Tues/Thurs did small groups with 4), Freshman seminar with 7, Math with 30ish (also divided into groups), and Engineering Lab with 30 students (split into groups of 3 or 4 to work on a robotics challenge), and an Institute Class (using JS Papers as text) with 3 students ("but only cuz they offered two other classes on campus and I must have picked the one most people couldn't go to").

"I want to be more funny. Life would be better if I were funnier."
- I hoped that Noah's ambitions would expand while he was at uni, but I didn't predict the direction his ambitions would take.

Mike

"The only way to stay on top of this yard is just to kill things."
-Mike, Jan 31. Mike opened the window by his desk at noon, and when he came back at 6PM, a vine had crawled into the house.

The aggressive wisteria vine.

"That's one of the things I love about work: I can count on seeing at least one baby every day." March 2018

Me: What are you doing?
Mike: I'm jogging in place in bed.
- Trying to warm up the covers on a cold winter night.

"Enjoy it, this will be the only sunset we see on this trip."
-Besides doomsday weather forecasting, Mike also endured much ribbing about comments such as this one during our trip to Australia.

"If I were them, I would have been more talkative."
-Mike puzzles over the difference between himself and others. Mike said this after hearing that we ran into some Aussie members of our church in an Indian takeout shop (recognized by their FSY t-shirts), who didn't seem to want to talk as much as Mike would have liked.

"I guess you could get used to big creatures like that, but that was shocking."
July 21, 2018. Mike after seeing a monitor lizard in Cape Hillsborough National Park, Smalleys Beach.

"I want to go visit the new babies. It's no fair that the grandmothers always get to go."
-after seeing sweet video and pictures of Andrew and Allison's baby, Robin, with Grandma Miller.

"Some people who weren't even there noticed it!"
-Joyce and Sage talking about Dad's loud cheering at school cross country, and how some of their teachers who weren't even there had heard about it.

"My bum doesn't think this is funny."
-Everyone else was already laughing, but we laughed even harder when Mike made this comment. We had just realized that, because of a nav error, our 'big' 8k kayak would be a 16k kayak. Tolaga Bay.

"Please post it because it will just add to your character."
- Oak giving sarcastic advice to Mike about FB use.

"My watch says I did."
-Mike meekly accepts the judgement of his sleep app.

Holly

"I had a Sophia-the-First backpack for two years and you still don’t know who she is?!" ----Sage to Mom. It's true - I don't have much of an eye for pop culture.

"EVERYBODY'S mums and dads are 35 or 36."
- Joyce, spoken with full emphasis on "EVERYBODY."
(How did this happen? When Noah was little, all the mums and dads were 10 years older than me. Now, when Joyce is little, all the mums and dads are 10 years younger than me.)

"I have this weird ability to inspire grit in kids through piano practicing. The arguments that I have with our kids always revolve around me telling them they've practiced enough, and them wanting to practice something more." May 2018
-I'm truly not sure how this has happened so much over the years.

"I like saying 'Mom.'"
-A casual observation by Joyce that made me feel happy

"Organised. Philosophical. Adventurous."
- When the kids were asked to come up with 3 words to describe me in a word game. Solid.