This week

 

Our life has been turned upside down for the week, but life still continues without consideration of other things going on.  Ada was part of the pilot program at BYU for the new FSY program.  She was so excited.  She checked and double checked her packing list.  Monday morning I took her down and checked her in.  Then we went and walked through the BYU campus for a minute before taking her to her dorm room.  She took complete charge of it and as far as I know, she's been having a blast. (And everyone that we talked to had to tell Ada how cute her jumper was.)  I was just going to walk the kids to the bookstore and back to the car, but they all recognized the front of the BYU Art Museum and decided that we had to walk through.  That was a proud mommy moment. I had been to physical therapy that morning, so I was already tired and we had been moving furniture.  I was tired, but I couldn't tell my kids that we couldn't walk through the art museum.  

I know we're smiling here.  My old sunday school teacher, Muriel Thoele, died about two weeks ago.  She has very little surviving family.  She gave me Katy's name as a pen pal when we were 16.  We wrote back and forth for years, I stayed with her family when we traveled through Wales, she came to visit us in the states and ultimately married a man and moved to California.  This was the first time we'd seen each other in person for about 17 years.

My parents invited me and my girls to the ABBA concert.  Ada was semi familiar with the music, so she would stand up and dance around, but Evelyn liked listening with her head under a blanket.  Towards the end she got into it.  I really enjoy the ABBA music though.  

Construction

 

Hard, sleep deprived, worker

Downstairs with the new paint and carpet

Hoarder's house... We loaded our kitchen with most of our library and front room.

Basement after texturing the ceiling

Painting the walls in the front room. Ada, Sam, the sister missionaries and I all worked on this one together.  That was fun.

YW's camp

Ada, Rayleigh, Meg, Rogue, Gabby, Jess

We did a Ward Girls Camp this year.  It was nice, but also more work to have to set up tents for everyone. Ada's "family" named themselves Da Melons because they are Da Bombs.  Her Youth Camp Leaders were Meg and Jess.  Jess is autistic and while she didn't lead a whole lot, she participated more this year than I've ever seen.  Meg was spectacular.  She took over two people's worth of work.  I never saw her complain.  

It was SOOOO HOT!  It was in the upper 90s, but it was nice that our campsite was shady.  There wasn't the normal bickering that I've heard from girls at camp before.  That was nice too.  There was another kind of drama and 3 of the girls had to go home.  Our theme was Through Small and Simple Things.  After being seperate for so long during Covid, a lot of the girls felt disjointed and unattached.  After camp they were so much more comfortable with each other.  God knew that we needed each other.  We can't live completely alone.

Some of our activities were a faith walk, swimming at a pond, glow in the dark party, Miss Timp Pageant, craft time, a paint by numbers activity and a CLAS ropes course.  Ada had fun singing songs with her friends in my car on the way to and from places.

We did the Provo Ropes course.  I was so impressed by the bravery of all these girls.  Most of them admitted that they were afraid of heights, but all of them did it anyways.

   

Flag ceremony

Glow in the dark party

On the way home.

                      

I got home from camp and Jer was frantically putting up a ceiling in our basement.  He's been so amazing.  He was up til 1-2am every day this week to finish the mudding, sanding, painting, etc... of the house so that we could get our carpet replaced this week.  I was able to help for a while, but Ada and Sam have been much better helpers than me this time.

 

Mt Timp hike

 

Sam and Dad hiked Timp again with the Robertson's.  I think it was mostly Marg and her kids with Grandpa.  I'm impressed with them, they did great and even saw a moose.

Seth's Coach Pitch

 

Seth's coach pitch season came to an end.  He loved every moment of it, even in the record breaking heat of this year.

Soda Springs

On the way home we explored Soda Springs and Providence to see Sharon and Brad's new house.

Water bending

Sharon's home is beautiful and I love it!  My Dad actually designed it.  Sharon knew what she wanted outside the house and my Dad helped her fill in the inside.  They make a good team.

 

Lava Hot Springs

I didn't know quite what to expect, but it was fun to ride the tubes down the river.  It was probably a little more turbulent than it usually is because of the current drought.  I kept hitting my bum on the rocks. 

 

Wilcox family reunion

 

My extended family went to Moab together last year while Jer and I were quarantining.  They liked it so much that my parents put together a Wilcox family reunion at the lava hot springs in Idaho.  We stayed in a cabin, went hiking, 4 wheeling, rode tubes down the river, went for ice cream, went swimming at the pool, had a Magic the Gathering battle, and hung out.  We went over my Dad's birthday, so it was fun to celebrate him and remember things together.

We did one of those panorama pictures with some of the kids.  That was fun.

This is Dad's birthday party around the fire.

This was the kids getting their awards for the Magic tournament.  I thought it was so cute.  My brother, Seth, hosted it and helped everyone get their decks ready for it.  Then they had 3 rounds over the 3 days.  

Breakfast

Horsing around

McKay and Sophie brought up their 4 wheelers.  I took all the kids on a ride because I used to drive one when I was little.  Then McKay and I taught Ada and Sam how to drive it.  This one is Evelyn and I.

Seth and I.  Seth was in heaven.

Rae, Sharon, Grandma, Aubrey, Me, Janelle and Ada.

Ada

Devin, Aubrey

Lance, Rae

Isaiah, Michelle, Sam

Jordan, Evelyn

Thea, Vivien, Seth

Birthday ding dongs

My dad REALLY wanted to go to this 3D archery thing right by the cabin.  Apparently they aren't always open and with Covid they really haven't done it over this summer.  We went Saturday morning to check it out and it was by chance the very first time they had done it all summer.  It was a lot of fun.  Ada was pretty accurate.  Seth loved that there was a fake dinosaur that he can shoot.

Grandpa and Evelyn

Sam, Sophie and Seth