Update time already? Gees, where does the time go? I think that
most of you are probably pretty up-to-date on us Texan Wendorfs, but
I'll go ahead and give everyone a quick rundown.
Me - I'm tired. I gave my students an exam from 7 - 9 pm last night,
then waited for the 9:50 bus to take me home and drop me off at the
bus stop at 10:50. Then it was a 15 minute car ride home and then
dinner and bed. We had an early start this morning because we got to
go to the Temple together and do an endowment for the first time
in...well...years! Getting up the courage to ask for babysitters is
always challenging. In this case the Relief Society president
actually called us and offered to do it for free! Anyway, Jenny and I
had a really nice trip and session. It was nice to get to chat during
the drive and to be together in the Temple again. It was a very nice
way to end yet another semester at school! Yes, one more is down!
That means that I'm down to two more semesters of taking classes, then
four semesters of working on my dissertation, and then maybe I'll get
a real job! :D Hey, all of a sudden I feel even more tired! ;)
Jenny - As you all know, Jenny is kept plenty busy with Michael and
Carly at home all of the time, and with William at home when he's not
at school. Nevertheless, Jenny has been incredibly blessed to find
the time to do some writing, and has recently had two of her short
stories accepted for publication! Anna has drawn an amazing piece of
artwork for one of them already! Jenny is also really close to
finishing the last pre-editor draft of her first novel! Soon she'll
be looking for an agent to help her do another revision of the novel
and help her try to get it published with a good, well-known
publisher. Jenny is quite pleased with the facts that she both: 1.
got published before she turns 30 next year, and 2. got published
before I did. Jenny has also recently started an online bachelors
degree with a nice, accredited school, so she's even busier than
normal, but somehow she still manages to keep smiling all of the time.
That's when I like to tickle her!
William - William, 6, is quite enjoying himself at Kindergarten!
He's learned a lot and is definitely at the head of his class when it
comes to reading and math! He's also become quite an expert on Star
Wars thanks to his little hooligan friends at school. :) He loves
telling us all about Star Wars and the characters and the main plot
points. His favorite character is Darth Thader, and his weapon of
choice is a red light saber, and apparently in episode 100 Darth
Thader kills Yoda and then they all go hang out with Obi-One at
Ci-Ci's pizza...hey Daddy, can we go to Ci-Ci's pizza? Of course, we
have helped fuel his passion a bit by getting him a Star Wars Lego Wii
game for his past birthday and allowing him to see three of the PG
Star Wars movies. On another note, William will be getting
prescription glasses next week that he has to wear all of the time
except when sleeping or bathing. So I think that I will start wearing
my glasses too...I've noticed that recently street signs have been
getting blurrier and blurrier. (It must be because of the bad
economy, they just can't afford good print jobs anymore.)
Michael - Michael is still just as cute and sweet as ever. He's
probably 4 or something like that and is really good at reading his
letters and numbers. Carly has proclaimed that Michael is her best
friend! When William is at school Carly and Michael do everything
together! And they have a BLAST! Michael comes up with a plan, and
they run around the entire house screaming with delight in each others
company! And indeed it's hard to not like Michael! He's always
smiling and hopping (literally) around everywhere! Michael loves to
make sure that each day has a plan, that each shopping trip has a
list, and that everyone gets their turn! Whenever I take him
shopping, he always makes sure that anything I put in the cart was
already on the list (I admit that I have lied to him a few times so
that I could get something that caught my eye, such as chocolate syrup
for the ice cream (which was on the list!)) He does have a tendency
to break into tears when something doesn't go his way. Such as when I
turn off the Wii or his little Darth Maul can't quite make that last
jump. (Jump Darth Maul, Jump! No, no, no!!!...<tears>) Because his
birthdate is just a few days too late, Michael will not be starting
Kindergarten for another year.
Carolyn - Carly is just about the cutest darn 2 year old you ever saw!
She loves to smile and run around and color and grab anything that
her brothers happen to be holding and then run away screaming with
delight. She's also got quite a vocabulary! That little girl can
talk for HOURS without so much as blinking, breathing, or anything
else that most people consider vital to survival. As far as I can
tell her favorite way to end any given sentence is "right, Dad?"
She's 2, right, and she says stuff like: "I don't know if I want this
one or the other one Daddy." What 2 year old says crap like that?!
Seriously! But you know what, she doesn't speak in public...AT ALL!
The nursery people were astounded when, after Carly had already been
attending for several months, Jenny became the nursery music person
and when she showed up Carly said "hi mommy" and they were like "hey,
she can talk!" It's like that cartoon with the singing frog that
refuses to sing in front of anyone except that pig-man cartoon. And
can she make a pouty face! It's enough to break your heart! She gets
the lower lip quivering and the sad, sad droopy eyes, and the
whimpering and the head bowing low into her folded arms, and then she
peeks to see if you are still watching, and if you bust out the camera
to get a picture of her act she breaks into a big smile! She LOVES
getting her picture taken! She is cute and beautiful and a princess
and she knows it and will tell you so! ("I'm a pretty princess, right
Daddy?") She's also in the middle of potty training, which is going
remarkably better with her than it did for the boys. Though we
haven't started on the night-time phase yet, so we'll see.
The whole family - Well, we've been incredibly blessed! Yes, we're
going into debt at a rate of about $10,000 a year for my schooling,
but the Lord has truly been blessing us! Our van almost never has any
problems, and when it does we can get pretty much anywhere with just
our bikes. A few weeks ago it started making a weird knocking noise,
and I strongly felt that we shouldn't drive it very fast and that we
should drive it as little as possible. So we went about a week
without using it hardly at all until I could take it in that Saturday.
I drove it about 30 miles at about 25 mph and dropped it off on
Friday night and then a neighbor drove me home. They called me the
next day and said that their technician got it about half a block and
then one of the front axles literally fell out onto the street! So,
we were incredibly blessed to have enough money to pay for the repair
and to not have the axle fall out on us while we were driving it
around! We have food stamps for food so we eat really well. We have
Wendorfs and Steens close by (albeit in opposite directions.) We have
a wonderful house in a very nice neighborhood. We're all healthy. My
school is going very well! (I had three different professors come up
to me towards the end of this semester asking if I'd work for them
over the summer! (Since most people have a hard time getting
professors to remember their names, let alone seek them out, this is
high praise!)) Jenny's writing is going incredibly well. Our kids
are almost always little angels, especially in public! I hope that
I'm not coming off as bragging. I'm just very, very grateful for all
that the Lord has blessed us with!!
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