Home again, home again, jiggity jig

We got home Saturday.  The kids had been really great travelers until the last day... then they were loud and squirmy, but we made it home without incident.  

Sunday was my parents mission report in their ward.  Their ward is a new one, so they actually didn't know very many people yet and there were a lot of kids squirming in sacrament meeting.  Mine were definitely louder than usual.  I think they were glad to be home and glad that Grandparents were home too.  Both of their talks were excellent and then we went to my parents house with cousins, and second cousins that had come.  I love that my Mom's cousins still come to support things when they can.  It's always so good to see them.  

Seth got home to a birthday card from Grandma Robertson.  He loved it and wanted me to take a picture of the Hippo birdie 2 ewe.  

Monday was a try to catch up from the last three weeks and prepare for the next two ones for me.  I have a list of things a mile long.  We also came back to one of our trees had fallen down and had split our baby silver maple tree on it's way down.  So we're going to be cutting up trees this week.  My sister, Sharon, and my parents were going to the Humanitarian Center to tie quilts while my sister Janelle watched Sharon's babies for the morning.  They asked if Ada and Evelyn wanted to go.  They had a complete blast and loved it.  Both girls want to tie quilts at home now to donate.  They both love that Grandpa ties quilts too.  Then I went with Sharon to my neighbor's house that sells Lularoe clothing to get some school shirts for Ada and Emma.  It's always fun to chat with my sisters.  I think Thea is starting to like me.  She only cried once when I held her this weekend and fell asleep on me twice.

Tuesday morning, the sisters I minister to and I went to the Butterfly biosphere for $2 Tuesday.  It was fun but extremely busy.  Then we had back to school night.  I was volunteered to be the PTO president elect.... which means that they're training me this year to take over the President position next year.  I really haven't ever done anything with the PTO before.  I enjoy helping in the kids classes, which is probably why they asked me to do it.  That means that I took the kids to back to school night at 5:30 and was there until 8.  I got all the paperwork done, but I still have some emails to teachers to write.  My Mom and Dad took Seth on a Kindergarten date.  They took him out for ice cream and to get him some good school shoes.  He was so thrilled and had to tell me everything.  (Thanks mom!) 

Today is Wed.  I'm in great need of a shower, my ministering sister came by to see how our trip was and to ask about Sam's scouting stuff (she's his scout leader).  She's super sweet and it's kind of funny watching a new mom with all the new mom worries.  The kids are in swimsuits and playing in the water outside.  Ada is painting at the table.  I'm trying to get ready for Evelyn switching dance studios and trying to decide if I'm going to keep teaching fencing with the new fencing club.  The next couple of days should have less mental things and more catch up stuff.  By Saturday, I'm anticipating that we'll be all caught up and in the school swing again.  Next week looks like a breeze.

Road trip sixteenth leg

Our last leg was to spend time with our Brasher cousins.  Because of getting there a night early, we were able to see Jacob, Lizzie and her husband Dusty and everyone else. (Jacob has his own apartment and works evenings, Lizzie lives in Cheyenne and is starting nursing school.)   We always feel very accept by the Brashers and it's fun to hear what they're working on now.  Matthew builds robots and models out of aluminum cans, Joseph is working pulling out nails at a reclamation center to earn mission money (he'll be an awesome missionary!), Robert works as a swim instructor at the rec center, and Samuel is starting another year of Spanish immersion at school.  Evelyn and Samuel Brasher get along famously and Ada and Sam like hanging out with Matthew even though he's 3 years older. 

Ada, Jeremy, Robert, Mary, Jeff, Matthew, Joseph

Evelyn, Sam, Samuel, Seth

(We forgot to take the picture before Jacob and Lizzie left)

This not kid is starting his senior year at high school and they wanted a picture of him in his plate mail for his announcement.  I don't know if we'll actually use them, but we took a couple in their backyard while we had 5 minutes.

War games in the back yard.

Road trip fifthteenth leg

The next driving day was Seth's 5th birthday.  He was thrilled!  He's been waiting for his birthday so that he could go to school and feel like a big kid.  I picked out a Batman lego set for him and he carried it with him for three days because I didn't want to open it until we got home.  As soon as we got home, we made the kids carry things in from the car and Seth recruited both Sam and Evelyn to build his lego set as fast as they could so that he could play with them.  

In the car, we let him choose what we did to keep our minds busy... mostly he wanted to watch movies, so we did.  We stopped part way through Nebraska for a picnic lunch at a Wildlife preserve.  It is over 660 acres and has elk, deer, bison, hiking trails, a playground, and frogs.  We let Seth pick what to buy for lunch and where to stop for dinner.  We splurged a little because he wanted to go to a "Place that has the cookies with the papers inside it." Chinese food.  The plates are big enough that we could split them between the kids and only spent $40 instead of $70.    We were going to stop in Cheyenne for the night and go see the trains at the train station the next morning, but we couldn't find a hotel room for under $180, so Mary was kind enough to let us stay an extra night with her in Laramie.

Road trip fourteenth leg

After visiting our Tarkington cousins, we headed off towards Nauvoo.  I was very excited to show the kids.  I probably hyped myself up too much, but more on that in a minute.  Last minute, we decided to stop off at Carthage first.  I think that was a good decision.  The kids were very reverent and good listening. Sam didn't want to be happy about it at first, but he got over it and actually had a lot of good questions and comments for the missionaries.  I think the John Taylor story really stuck with him, so Jer found a replica of John Taylor's watch to give him.  

Then we headed over to Nauvoo for the rest of the day.  The kids loved the area that they could do stuff that pioneer children would have done.  It was hot, but by the time we got walking around to the different homes and shops it started to cool down a little.  We got to go to the Tinsmith shop, the print shop, John Taylor's home, the Gunsmith/blacksmith shop, and the home of the man that was the gunsmith at the time... Jonathan Browning.  I got to visit the visitors center while Jer had the kids at the children's activity thing.  Then we drove around and talked about the Trail of Hope and the other buildings there.  We drove to the temple and then to the Zion's Mercantile store.  Everything was supposed to close by 5:30, but the store was still open by 6 and they didn't have a problem with us in there.  After that we just drove as far as we could West so that we could get to Wyoming sooner.

If I had lived in that time, I would have LOVED to be a tinsmith.  It's sewing and metal work in one.  

This is the bullet hole that killed Hyrum Smith.

It was interesting to see a bus load of Fundamentalists show up as we were leaving.  Again I was reminded of all the break off churches that still hold Joseph Smith and the early days of the church as part of the their founding as well.  No wonder a lot of people get confused.  There are 6 or 7 churches at least with the same founding.  It also made me very grateful for revelation.  Revelation and Priesthood authority are the two thing that really set the Church of Latter-Day Saints apart from these other.  These other churches began because of people deciding not to follow the current prophet, but God said that he will always lead his church through the prophet.  

By this time, Sam was super grumpy.  It was hot, he was hungry, his crutches hurt under his arms, and whenever he does spiritual things... he has a great experience but then gets tired out.  (I'm not worried about that.  On my mission, it was my experience that many times a spiritual experience will physically take it out of you.  Many of our baptismal families would go home and sleep the rest of the day, etc...)  He was tired and didn't want to do anything more.  I was frustrated because I thought the kids would be running from place to place and just love all this stuff that we'd been learning about.  I told him that we were just going to peek in the printshop for a second and then go to the gunsmith like he wanted to.  We went in and Sam was grumpy and tired of everyone asking about his crutches.  This missionary was able to pull him into a conversation and he really engaged with her.  It helped him to be happy enough to get through another little bit.  He got frustrated when we were back on the street and only agreed to our last stop because it was a Gunmaker.

Seth took this picture.  He asked if he could take pictures when we got to the temple... I usually don't let him, but he seemed really excited to.  I put it around his neck and told him not to run... He got some pretty cute ones for someone just turning 5.  

He got this one of Dad, and I love Dad's picture of it, but I had a hard time downloading it from his phone.

I took these last three

You can barely see it, but the moon is just above the temple here.  We would have loved being able to take Ada in to do baptisms, but we're planning on doing that when we come out to this area in 2024 for the solar eclipse.  Then we can take all three of the older kids.