New calling and other happenings

Two weeks ago I spoke with the bishop and he released me from Primary. He said I've served well, which I really appreciated. I'm not a perfect teacher by any means (I struggle with classroom management), but the children love me, we've felt the Spirit in our class, and they understand the doctrine a little better. The past couple of months I've been losing morale and I've been feeling pretty isolated, but I didn't expect a release any time soon because I knew they were already trying to find eight more teachers, so I was planning to persevere and deal with my social challenges in other ways. I told the bishop I was surprised they were releasing me, but he said they had actually been prompted quite a while ago to ask me to be a family history consultant, but they had put it off because they really needed me in the Primary. Then the prompting came again and they decided they shouldn't ignore it. So I've been asked to be a family history and temple consultant, and he also asked me to be a back-up Sacrament meeting chorister. I'm grateful that I will be able to go to Relief Society again (I actually only attended once in this ward before being put in Primary). The bishop said Heavenly Father is aware of my needs and maybe that's partly the reason for the calling change. I don't really feel qualified for my new responsibilities, but I do love family history. We'll see how it goes. Today was my first week back in Relief Society, so that was nice. Apparently a couple of the girls from my primary class cried today when they found out I wasn't their teacher anymore, so I guess I've made an impression. It's definitely been an experience that stretched me.

Our plants are growing. The tomato plants are getting big and we have a few cherry tomatoes. I finally gave up on growing zucchini from seed and bought a plant from Lowe's, and it's thriving. The cantaloupe is taking off and has a lot of flowers, and so do the cucumbers.

The kids have been out of school for a week. In some ways it will be nice to be less bound to the school schedule and have more time to play, practice the piano, do chores, etc., but I have to admit that sometimes it's hard for me in the summer when it's hot and the kids are home with me all the time. I need to sit down and figure out some things we want to do. We probably need to keep working on Kevin memorizing addition and subtraction this summer, and I still haven't figured out any swimming lessons. I'm leaning towards finding someone for private lessons because they never seem to swim much in group lessons. I think Kevin and Heidi are ready for a break from school work. I'm working on putting together some daily responsibility charts and Saturday chore charts. Maybe I should make some for myself too.

Ryan is working on some material that will be distributed to the public about the solar eclipse coming up later this year. It talks about things like how to safely view the eclipse. He's also getting a different borrowed office (they're still working on getting him a permanent one), which involves moving his stuff out of his current borrowed office so the old chair of the psychology department can move back into it, then the new chair will move out of her office to the chair's office and Ryan will get her office. So right now he's kind of in limbo.

We bought nectarines at Costco yesterday and there has been considerable discussion about what these things are called. The kids keep wanting to call them tangerines, but they've also said nangerines and (my favorite) submarines.

Kevin discovered the Secrets of Droon series recently. We checked out four on Friday evening and by yesterday he had already finished them all.