Two LONG Weekends

Dearest Castillo Children,

Hello, my lovelies! You are sick currently. It's so hard to hear your little coughs. It doesn't seem to slow either  of you down, but enough to be hacking up stuff. Yuck! So we had to stay home from church because of your illness. Even though I subbed in Nursery last week and I know what kid we got the cough from; we decided not to keep spreading the "love". *WARNING: I'm tired from this weekend so my post might be extra grumpy/complaining* I really HATE it when people bring their sick kids to church. Come on people! I know you don't want to hang out with your two year old either but then MY two year old gets sick. I am so glad I didn't get it though since I had two big events this past weekend. Nora was sad to miss church, she LOVES church. She gets to see her friends and play in Nursery. Too bad she can be kind of a terror in Nursery but I don't think it's because she dislikes it. It's hard that church is at 2 so Nursery is right in the middle of her nap time. I thought that 7:30am church was bad but 2 is really testing me. I can't wait for our new building to be done! The newspaper said that it will be complete in October! YAY! A few months earlier than last I heard. It probably means new ward boundaries and I'll miss some of my ward friends since I am like 70% sure we're going to be put into another ward, but I can't wait to have a normal time for church. Now to see if they'll finally let me have a calling other than music...

Since I have two weeks to fill in I'll start with last week. Last week I went to Ross and found these really cute blue curtains for my family room. I decided to redo the colors in my family room to yellow, blue, orange and green. Really cute and happy colors. Oh! That reminds me! I started another blog called Grumpy Hubby Designs! I thought that since I am already doing so many thing around my house lately I might as well blog about it. That way I have a place to show off all my cute projects. The reason I named it Grumpy Hubby Designs is because EVERYTIME (<--- might be an exaggeration...) I want to do something to the house my hubby gives me a looks that says, "over my dead body" and then we argue about how my design is super cute! Okay, maybe I just keep pestering him until he finally lets me do what I want. :) I thought that the arguments would be funny to include in the blog since they make me laugh. ANYWAY - I found these curtains and I loved them but I needed one more set for all the windows I have in the family room. So on Saturday we went to three different Ross Stores looking for my windows and your dad was SO sweet and kept trying to fine them. The best part of the day was the beautiful weather! It was the end of May but the breeze and day was gorgeous. It was in the low 80s - especially nice since we were in the 100s only a few days prior. We decided to get some In-N-Out for lunch and we to Reid Park to eat. We ate lunch, walked around the lake and even feed some ground squirrels some french fries. Nora would walk up to them very carefully and try to place the fry as close as she could. They, of course, would dart back into their holes but I was impressed how slow and careful Nora was when she walked towards them. So cute. We ended up feeding most of the fries to the squirrels. We have decided that we are not fans of In-N-Out's fries. Actually, most fries I am not a fan of anymore. We had to leave the park a little earlier than planned since some youth decided to smoke illegal substances near my babies. In the middle of the day. In a crowded park. If their was an officer near by I would have tattled that you would not have believed! I think cigarettes are bad enough - do NOT smoke junk near my kids. Oh, Tucson. Why do you have to be so ghetto sometimes? (I guess it could have happened anywhere but Tucson and I are in a fight right now) Anyway! At the third Ross we went to the curtains were there and I was so pleased! It really was a wonderful day out with the family.

On Sunday we had Todd's old roommate Greg over with his new wife Annie. They are expecting their first child in about 4 months. We're really excited for them. They are such a neat couple. Greg was super cute with the girls and since they are having a girls Annie got to see a preview. Todd was just to happy to have Greg over since they are basically the same person.

Monday was Memorial Day and Daddy got to stay home from work. YAY! I love that we get to have some holidays with Daddy. I read something my mom wrote about my Great Grandma Nora (That's who you are named after Nora) that I thought was so cute. She use to call Memorial Day "Decoration Day" and would go to her garden and cut a bunch of flowers and take them to the grave of the soldiers. I love that! We spent the day as a family. I wanted to buy some paint since they had a sale on it at Home Depot. I got two gallons of paint to paint my bedroom and bathroom. (More details to come on that on my other blog) While we were in the parking lot and backing up someone hit us. We were all the way in the parking lot and an old man backed into us. Todd got out to look to see if there was any damage. He said there was just a scratch so it wasn't enough to worry about. However, when we went over to JC Penneys he saw that actually he hit the side of our car and there is a nice soft ball sided dent in it. :( I felt so sick about it! We are hoping (okay - just me, really) to get a minivan in a year or so and our car we'll need to sell has a dent in it. I don't know how much it'll cost us to fix and if it is worth going through our insurance. Probably not. Then Todd leaves me at the store and goes with the girls to Best Buy. He forgot his phone at home so we planned to meet up at Best Buy when I was done. He comes to my store however so I think he is now in my store and when I am done I search everywhere for him. I page him twice like he's a 4 year old. I go to Best Buy to page him. I can't find him anywhere! I look for over 30 minutes and I'm starving at this time. Finally I ask I guy to check the bathrooms for me and after he says no one was in there he tells me he saw a man matching my description going into Best Buy. Sure enough it was Todd and my girls. He hadn't heard the page I made and I found him coming to find me. I could have killed him! It was so unlike him to be inconsiderate. SO not like him. After I ate and was able to calm down (already upset about the car and search for someone for 30 minutes <--- not an exaggeration) I realized how grateful I am for the qualities I have in my husband. He really is considerate and observant and I don't appreciate it as much as I should.

The rest of the week was crazy! We feed the missionaries on Tuesday since they didn't have anyone to feed them and they actually called us to let us know. Good missionaries. It was kind of last minute so we made waffles. I accidentally dropped a waffle on the ground and I felt so bad about it! One of the Elders was so nice that he said it was the 5 second rule and that was the one he wanted. Sure enough, when it came time to eat he made sure he had that one. It strangely did make me feel better. We made two packages of bacon for them since every man I know LOVES bacon. Who am I kidding!? Everyone loves bacon!

Wednesday Nora to got experience going to a movie theatre for the first time! It was so fun! Annalise was left with a family friend (I watch her little boy on Tuesday so she could go to the movies) and it was just Nora and Mommy special time! Nora even saw her friend Audrey there and got to sit next to her. We bought popcorn (it was free!) and watch Happy Feet 2, which was awful. But the actually experience was fun. Good thing we only paid .50 each for the movie! Nora was ready to go home before it was done but we decided to stick it out. The worst part about the experience was they played this tweetie bird cartoon. It was the first time Nora has seen cartoon violence and I was not happy about it. The worst part was the cat was being sucked up into a vacuum and Nora screamed. I mean, screamed loud. She has a fear of the vacuum and seeing the kittie being sucked up was horrifying. Luckily the kittie was fine so she was okay. But it was still sad...and I little funny.

Thursday was library day and we learned about spiders. Nora didn't want to dance or sing any of the songs but Annalise LOVED it. She was in the middle of everything. I have decided that large crowds make Nora a little nervous but Annalise loves them. She wanted to stand in the middle of everything and clap. Annalise has been making me laugh so much lately. I have to say that 16 months is the best age. She can communicate and play by herself but she is still super cuddly without having tantrums. So cute! She has started to say prayers with us where we say the prayer and she repeats. But she is getting to know the flow of a pray so she'll skip things. Like when we say "thank thee" she skips to what she is thankful for, which happily is usually Mommy. She hears "In the name of Jesus Christ" and immediately starts saying "amen!" so we have to work hard to get her to say Jesus Christ. She still just says "Jesus, Amen!" So cute! So funny. I can't help but giggle. I have to say one of my favorite images is having Annalise kneeling in front of her Daddy with his arms wrapped around her as she learns to pray.

I can't speak much about Friday since I wasn't with you guys much doing that day. I left for the day to help out with the Youth Trek for church. I had to dress up as a pioneer and make a little Pioneer Village for everyone on the Trek to go to. I was in charge of making lemonade for people. We had them make ice cream and butter and they got to wash their hair (which was popular with the girls). They took family pictures, shot bb guns and even had a trading post where they could get candies. It was really fun. It was a beast of a day though. It was about 107 or 110, I can't remember the final degree. Bah! We drank water and stayed in the shade. I have to admit that I didn't feel that hot. As weird as it seems having long sleeves and a bonnet was perfect for the weather. I felt fine. I was tried because they asked the women to help the Young Women push their carts up a hill while the men were "called away to war". I hope it was an amazing experience for the youth. My trek changed my faith and was a very important turning point for my life. I hope they allowed for it to be something special for them, too.

On Saturday morning and I a wonderful opportunity to go to a Republican brunch where I got meet people running for office. I got to see my mom's crush, Jeff Flake. He is Congressman running for the Senate for Arizona. My mom loves him because he is so against over spending in Washington. It doesn't hurt that he is also Mormon. ;) But I got to sing the National Anthem. The mike they gave me cut out in the middle of the song so I had to belt it out as loud as I could. I didn't hit my high F, which made me sad, but it's hard to hit it when you have to belt. Oh, well, it happens. I spent several nights over the last two weeks working on the National Anthem and a special American medley called Of Thee I Sing, America. Sadly, during that song they didn't listen since the MC said it was a break so everyone talked to their neighbor. Crazy. I worked really hard on that one. Maybe I should have worked harder on the National Anthem. Oh, well, right? It was a really neat experience regardless. However, two early morning and a lot of running around made me SO exhausted. I was kind of glad to stay home with my two sick babies.

Well, we're up to date now. It has been a crazy couple of days and I'm looking forward to a fun June. While I was on the trek I was talking to a bunch of people and I realized there was so much I want to share with my children, especially my girls. The importance of picking the right man to marry, the balance of fun and freedom to responsibility and consequences. I know you are going to be wonderful, beautiful and intelligent Young Women someday. I am excited to see that day when it comes.

With All My Love,

Your Mother