Weekend backpacking up Rock Canyon

I am so dang proud of these kids.  They set a goal of backpacking with Dad as he prepared his stuff for overnight TERT hours.  They both would fill up their bags and walk on the treadmill on an incline so that they were in shape to do it.  They both said it was hard, and both said they would do it again.  Especially Sam.  He came back beaming.  They went up Rock Canyon to where Jer had scouted out a camp site, but when they got there Ada started exploring and found another path that led away from the main path.  They followed it and ended up in this gorgeous spot that was much quieter than people walking through your camp at 5 am.  Someone had made a giant lean to and the kids had a blast with that.  They were supposed to go on Sam's birthday, but it ended up being rainy.  When they went ended up being in the mid 80s.  And now it's in the 70s.... They managed to pick the hottest two days of the month, and they still came back smiling.  I used to like backpacking.  Now I'm old and decrepit.  Between my heart, my hip, and my foot... hiking and sleeping on the ground are not a great combination.

Sam got so many comments on his Perry the Platypus shirt.  You'd think that we live in nerd land or something.... oh wait, we do.

These guys have my heart.  I love them dearly.

The rest of what's been going on

So our dishwasher died about a week ago.  Jer has replaced the pump and repaired a pump on this one.... so we called it officially dead. We ordered a new one, but it was just after the Memorial Day sale and everyone was out of most models in the color we needed.  It's going to be to us hopefully by June 30th, but until then we are hand washing dishes.  Two of these weeks I'm going to start daycare again, so..... dishes for 14.  That's okay.  It's boring, but it's not hard.  I told the kids that they need to wash what they use right after they're done with it.  That's cut down on dishes a little.  Instead of 2 hours a night, it's closer to half an hour.  Jer's been really good about doing dishes.  He knows how much I hate handwashing.  Bless that man.

We also have done something that I really have enjoyed over the last month.  We had both sets of Grandparents speak at our sacrament meetings and tell us their personal conversion stories.  I've loved every single one of them.  I think personal testimonies are beautiful things.  

Ada and Sam both made some progress with their youth goals.  They both set running as their physical goals.  Ada wanted to run a 5k and Sam wanted to do a 10k.  Jer remined them to go running occasionally and one day this last week they challenged each other to finish their races.  And they did.  I love that they did that for each other.  

The rest of the week

Before leaving for Wyoming to meet the Grandparents, Emma and Stephen brought Peter over for dinner and games.  It was fun to see Emma in her new role as Mom.  They are super cute parents.  Peter's recovered from his surgery and Emma dealt with Covid isolation and surgery like a champ.  I think that everything going on is actually helping her with her anxiety.  She seems so calm and collected.  It was fun to see them.  I enjoy their company and "my" great nephew is pretty cute.  He stares at Stephen no matter who's holding him.  He's a Daddy's boy already and he's only 8 weeks old.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures while they were here.  But it was fun to see them. 

Wed this week we went on a bike ride with my parents.  They found this awesome 50 year old tandem bike on KSL for $50.  It's fun to drive, but you definitely have to have a wider turning radius than your used to on a bike.  I have a We-ride on my bike that the kids have all taken turns using.  It's easier to turn than with the tandem and I've only crashed once with a kid on the back in the 10 years that we've used it.  I rode the tandem with Seth on the back this time. It's more stable and not as wobbly, but I wasn't used to how it turns and crashed halfway through our ride.  I was able to half catch myself so that no one got really hurt.  I slowed down the fall and Seth jumped out of the way without getting hurt.  I scratched my leg and twisted my knee and back, but nothing that won't go away in a couple days.  My parent's house has lots of fun paths around the lake and through birding areas.

Evelyn forgot to bring shoes down, luckily Jer was able to drop some off for us, but Jer's team just did a release that day and he had to be working instead of biking with us.

Jordan's baptism

My nephew, Jordan, got baptized this last week. It was really neat.  He was worried that they wouldn't be able to do the baptism and that my parents wouldn't be able to make it out to Virginia for it, because Virginia's still on lock down.  Their family ended up coming out to stay with my parents because my brother was working from home anyways and at least here they can leave the house.  They couldn't even leave their apartment out there.  Jordan had his birthday and they approved having his baptism here.  ALL of us got to be part.  That was fun.  

]

After the baptism in the morning, I went a school board meeting and Ada decorated Sam's cake.  She had all these plans to make it fancy and Sam said no... nothing but Oreos.... so that's what she did.  Then we sang to him and had birthday cake at Grandma's since the cousins were still together after the baptism.

I can't believe this kid is 11.  In some ways he's so mature and in others he's not.  He can't wait to be able to attend the temple next year.  He's really disappointed that he has to wait another 6 months.  He, Ada and Dad were supposed to go on a backpacking trip for his birthday but it rained so they rescheduled it for this next weekend.  They're actually leaving later today.  I hope he has fun.  He really likes doing things.  He hates boredom.

Ballet

Ballet has definitely not been the focus lately.  They've been doing classes online, which never keeps Evelyn's attention very long.  They had just started classes in person again with 6 ft spaces between all students when their yearly program was scheduled for.  They couldn't do the program that they had lined up, so they took individual classes, recorded them, made a compilations and next week they are going to show what they recorded on a big screen in the park.  I think that it's a very creative solution to the problem.  None of the girls knew their new dances very well, so it was more of a fun thing than a professional thing.  Seeing Evelyn in makeup throughs me everytime.  It's weird and luckily she and Ada both think it's uncomfortable to wear.  Ada has some, but she doesn't wear it constantly.  That makes me glad. 

They did the recordings in the ballroom at the Provo Library.  Evelyn's part was a pixie.  She said it went great.  I wish I could have gone in and watched it, but every time I do she spends more time looking at me and waving than she does dancing.  

I forgot my flash.... darn.

Outdoor camping

This last week, Jer had gotten a small tent for when he was working with TERT.  The kids wanted to try it out, so Jer set it up and the kids had a campout in the backyard.  Ada ended up inside halfway through the night, but the others stayed.  It's really a 2-3 person tent and there were 4 of them, so.....I remember sleeping in the backyard during the summer.  We slept on our trampoline and my foster sister, Shelly, would treat us like we were at an Army camp.  "Lay down soldier". "Drop and give me 20." I loved it.  It was thrilling.

Leftover pictures

So I found a couple more leftover pictures from the past weeks.  I mentioned that we got to the Hansens for the first time in many months.  Here's Ellie and Seth playing while staying apart.  I was really impressed at how well the kids did that.  They played and I didn't see them get close except when it was time to eat... 

Ellie set up these chairs with the balls lined up on them.  Seth would then come by and knock all the balls off them.  That's kind of how their friendship works.  She sets it up, he pulls it down.... and yet I've never seen either angry about the other.  

Last week, Aubrey got hit by a car while she, Jonathan and Amelia were out on their bikes.  She says she doesn't remember anything.  They had stopped to cross the street, a lady stopped next to them and then Aubrey's bike was under the car and Aubrey was on the ground with her helmet split up the back.  Aubrey felt really bad for the lady.  She said that she was so apologetic and very sorry that it had happened.  I'm really glad that she's okay and that she was wearing her helmet.  Jer's sister, Emily, actually got hit by a car twice growing up.

These are while we got the Turkish/Greek food for Evelyn's birthday.

Turkish Delight.

Birthdays week

So this week we celebrated Evelyn's birthday 9th birthday.  This spunky kid loves to read, loves to play with Seth, loves to talk and talk, loves when she receives praise, loves to hug, loves learning new songs on the piano, and is a cute little ballerina.  I got her a stuffed Dobby, illustrated stories, and a lego set.  My sister, Janelle, got her a Go nuts for Donuts game.  It's super cute and very easy for different ages to play together.  Sharon got her a simplified Disney movie music piano book.  She was thrilled that it had the Lava song and the theme song to the Incredibles in it.  Evelyn wanted a Turkish themed birthday.  We got her Turkish delight after she insisted.  I told her that I didn't like it and she ended up not liking it either.  But the other kids liked it okay.  We also went to the Greek n Go food truck, which is the closest thing that we have to a Turkish restaurant.  We left the house and she had to pee 6 times in the 20 minutes that it should have taken to go and come back. So.... another UTI.  At this point I'm pretty sure that she's just forgetting to drink and getting dehydrated.  This is the third one since starting to homeschool.

Memorial Day/my birthday we went on a visit to the Little Sahara sand dunes.  I love it.  I don't think I'd ever like this during the really hot months, but we have fun playing in the sand, digging, and just laughing.  It was the perfect social distancing day trip too.  There were very few people and we were very spread apart.  We saw lizards and mice.  I remember my Grandma Ellis showing me what the animal foot prints looked like when we were younger.  We took sleds, but it wasn't cold enough to really use them.  Mostly the sleds were used to carry stuff up to where we set up our shade.

They made me a birthday "throne".  It was so funny and surprisingly comfy, but the minute you move at all you're stuck in that new position.  They were all cute helping each other make it.

Sam really wanted to bury everyone, so they dug a very big hole and I helped bury them.... then dig them out again after.

We filled the boy's shirts up with sand.  They looked like they were carrying sand bags around.  It was so funny.  Sam even hiked up a sand dune and back with it in his shirt.

Jer brought sticks to play pig sticks with the kids.  Seth and I cleaned up our lunch area while these guys played.

Uncle Seth invited us to go star gazing with the Wilcox cousins.  That's always fun.  He bought a really cool telescope too.  You put in two points of refence and the telescope can find anything from there.  My mom found this tandem bike at a yard sale for $50.  McKay's family is currently staying with them during quarantine and they've been making good use of it.

Jonathan, Ellie, Aubrey, Millie, Walter, Amy, Mariah, Ada, Seth, Sam, Evelyn

Last treatment gong!

On Friday we got to celebrate Judy's last day of radiation (YAY!).  The Hansen cousins and us put together a welcome home for her.  Now she just has to get her drain removed and do some recovering.  She did extremely well and we're so glad to see her on the recovery side of things.  We all had masks on and got to hug her for the first time in almost a year.  That was great.  We'll still have to be careful, but now her body can start recovering and we're excited for her.  Since we were there together, we brought donuts to celebrate Evelyn's birthday with the cousins that we haven't seen for months.  Especially Millie.  Evelyn loves Millie so much.

A couple other things from this week?  We had to get rid of the bees that decided to make their home in our siding and had started coming into our laundry room and bathroom.  We called to see if we could get them rehomed because they were honeybees.  They said that they couldn't because of where they were building their nest, so they said to just kill them.  Jer took care of the ones outside and the 8 or 9 that made it into the house got closed into the laundry area until we could get them all.  By the time we got back to them, they were all dead.  Either the cooler was too cold for them or the sun killed them through the window.  Evelyn has started back at her dance class for the first time on Monday.  It's a little different, but honestly she does best focusing with fewer distractions around. Our dog getting out of the backyard for the first time in a long time.  Seth took her on a walk and didn't close the gate all the way.  She ended up getting into our neighbor's trash and into our own.  Grrr.