Endgame - Graduation Style

Okay, I haven't seen Avenger's End Game yet, but I feel like this is an appropriate title for this post. These last two weeks of Brandon's school have felt like an End Game Scenario.

I thought we'd be coasting to Brandon's graduation.  But instead these last two weeks have been pretty tough.  Brandon had a lot of things he needed to complete and he felt like he didn't have enough time to get them all done. For a couple days it felt like we were back in the Army and/or USU. There were some stressful conversations and sleepless nights. Fortunately he did get everything done in time and we are celebrating his graduation tomorrow.

Let's hurry and get all caught up on the things besides homework that have been happening around here the last two weeks.

I bought my mom these tulips at Walmart and it was fun to see them in bloom whenever I stopped by her house.

 In my last post I showed a picture that Lydia drew.  Here's one that Charlotte did. She's currently working on an animation style drawing phase.

On the Monday after Easter I HIT A WALL.  We'd had such a busy weekend and my body needed a break. I was achy and my head hurt. I put the kids on the bus in the morning and went home to take a nap.  Fortunately Veronica slept in a bit so I was able to get about an hour nap before it was time to take her to school.  Then I tried to get some writing done, but decided that wasn't happening.  I took another hour long nap.  Then I picked Veronica up from daycare, met the kids on the bus, came home and took another nap. 

Derrick went with Miss Christy for therapy and I kind of woke up a bit.  It was Earth Day and Charlotte and Lydia were really excited to help clean up the earth.  Charlotte wanted to go on a walk to the park and bring a trash back to pick up trash on our way. Normally I would be excited to help her, but just thinking about it made me tired again. 

Brandon came home from school and so he took Charlotte on a walk.  They filled a whole 13 gallon bag.  Brandon said Charlotte was a real go-getter and would even crawl under low tree branches to pick up trash. 

I was feeling better on Tuesday.  Which was good because I had a lot of things to do.  I'm glad I wasn't working because Brandon had so much to worry about with school.  I was glad I could take over the grocery shopping and dinner responsibilities.

All the kids had dentist appointments on Tuesday afternoon.  I was pretty worried what their teeth would look like, but somehow none of them had cavities.  YAY.  Derrick's hygienist told me that she was so impressed by how polite he was. He said please and thank you and was in a really good mood.  I love hearing comments like that.

On Wednesday I dropped Veronica off at Daycare and then walked up to Reeds Gym on campus.  The first grade was coming to ISU for a Sports Activity and I was there to keep an eye on Derrick.  The kids passed me as they went walking into the building.  I surprised myself by knowing about 10 of the kids. Several of them were from our bus stop and others were from church.

The kid broke off into groups and rotated through different activities in the gym.  There were about 8 different rotations with different games.  It was fun to watch Derrick take turns with the other kids.

His favorite was the parachute.

And the scooters.

After I said goodbye to Derrick I walked back down through campus to my car.  I took a picture of my favorite flowers.

On Wednesday Night Derrick was pretty energetic so I decided to take him on a walk up City Creek. It turned into something resembling HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training).  Derrick would RUN up the trail and I'd have to run to keep up.  After 30 seconds he'd stop to throw rocks in City Creek.  He'd do that for 5 or so minutes and then get up and start running again. I never considered myself a trail runner until this night.  But Derrick showed me I could do it. This boy might have a career in health coaching.   

 We had a really good time together and I know Derrick really enjoyed being outside.

I had high hopes for how his day would go at school on Thursday.  He's been getting written up for aggression on the playground so I was hoping that he would have a more mellow day at school if he'd gone for a hike the night before. 

I was wrong. 

Instead he had two pretty bad incidents on the playground and got suspended for the rest of the day and for all day Friday.  UGH.

After I picked him up from school we went grocery shopping.  It wan't what I'd planned to do that day, but I needed to do something with him that didn't feel like a reward.

That afternoon I debated taking him to rock climbing class.  I wanted him to know that he was in trouble, but I wasn't sure he'd understand why he couldn't go to the class.  In the end I decided to let him go because I had to take the girls anyway and it would be pretty annoying to sit out in the hall with him while they were having class. 

Well even that didn't go as planned.  Derrick did okay for the first 15-20 minutes, but then completely melted down and started crying.  I took him out and calmed him down a bit, but he said he was done for the day.  So we ended up spending an hour at the park next to the rec center while the girls did their class. 

When I left they were learning to do figure 8 knots.  I was so impressed.  I didn't know how to do that until I was 20.  And here were my girls learning how to doing it. 

When I met up with the girls at the end of the class they all told me they'd had such a good time.  I'm glad they like the class.

On Friday I tried to come up with a list of boring errands that Derrick and I could run together.  Brandon asked us to take an old drill battery to the recycling box at Ace Hardware.  Derrick thought the battery was pretty cool so he carried it around while we dropped off Veronica at day care and then went to Ace.  Ace didn't have a battery recycling place so Derrick kept carrying the battery until we went to Lowes later.

We went to get the tires on the Honda rotated at Les Shwab.  That place is near the courthouse so we walked down there to talk to my co-workers.  That was a fun little trip for me, but Derrick got antsy so we couldn't stay long.

We went back to Les Shwab and Derrick had fun eating the popcorn in the waiting room and watching the tires get taken off and put back on.  It didn't exactly feel like a boring activity to him. When the car was done Derrick came out and excitedly inspected the tires and said, "They are all fixed.  They did it! Woo Hoo." 

Then we ran a couple of other errands and finally dropped off the battery at Lowes. I thought Derrick would be sad to see it go, but he was pretty chill about dropping it in the bin.

We picked up Veronica and I let her and Derrick watch a movie so I could take a nap.  Keeping Derrick occupied is exhausting.


Oh and here's a picture of my pretty tulips in the front yard.

On Friday evening we had a backyard fire so we could get rid of some of the unsightly wood we have piled up against the house.  The day was really windy so the fire was really unpredictable.  We all sat far back from the hot fire.

Charlotte and Lydia retreated to the garage to get out of the wind.

We roasted hot dogs for dinner and then we finally hid our hard boiled Easter Eggs.  It had been too rainy on real Easter to hide them.

Then we roasted s'mores.

On Friday afternoon the kids and I had run to the Dollar Store to buy kites and a few things for Brandon's graduation party.  Earlier in the week Lydia had wanted a kite so bad that she'd made one out of sticks and paper.  I wish I'd taken a picture of it because it was actually pretty impressive.  It hadn't really worked and I told the kids that I'd planned to buy them kites for Easter anyway, but just hadn't done it.  So that's why we bought them on Friday. 

It was way too windy to actually fly them on Friday so we promised the kids we'd fly the kites after we got the house clean on Saturday.  So that is what we did.  We went to the park and set up all the kites.

And they all worked great and none of the kites got tangled.  It was a good day. 

Then we went to Brooklynn's Playground so the kids could play for a bit.  Charlotte hopped on the swing and said that was the only thing she was going to do while we were there.  And she was right.  She swung for 20 minutes.

Then we went to Pizza Pie Cafe and met up with my parents for lunch. My parents really wanted to come here with us before they moved to North Carolina.  We had a great time and ate LOTS of Pizza.

Lydia mostly ate noodles.  She went back for plate after plate after plate.  She made a stack of all her empty plates and wouldn't let the server take them until we were all done.

After that we dropped the kids off at my parents.  They watched Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs while Brandon and I went on a date.  At first we'd considered watching Endgame, but our movie theater is so expensive and I didn't feel like it was a good use of our money while both of us are technically unemployed. Plus three hours was a long time to leave our kids in my parents little apartment that is in the process of getting packed up. 

So we went for a hike up a nearby trail.  I wanted to go on a steep trail to see how my knee would handle it.  The trail went up pretty fast and I was happy that my knee handled it just fine. 

Here are Brandon and I together.  It was fun to be on a trail with just the two of us.  I'm not sure the last time we did this without the kids.

Here I am at the top of the ridge with Pocatello/Chubbuck behind me.  I felt much better about my upcoming trip to Zion's Canyon after doing this hike.

The trail head is just a little ways away from the temple sight so we went there to check it out.  The excavating is done and they are starting to put in water and sewer pipes.

We picked up the kids and went back home.  I laid down on the couch and took a nap.  When I woke up the kids were playing in the front yard with a neighbor girl.  Derrick was kind of bothering all the girls so I told him we were going on a hike together.  We went up City Creek, but this time we didn't follow the water.  We went up the rim trail to the top of a hill.

We ended up fining the 911 trail. This is a mountain biking trail that goes back and forth through a gully.  There is another trail running along the end of the gully.  I walked on that trail while Derrick ran up and down the hills on the 911 trail.  It was perfect because he was getting out tons of energy while I was just on a nice walk.

I loved the views of the city.

And the mountains were pretty too.  I wished I could just keep on walking.

After a while we turned around and headed back.  Derrick kept running the 911 trail.

We went down a different trail to get off the hill and ended up walking by the park to get home.  A couple had a little fire in a grill at the park. Derrick saw it and said to the couple, "That's an AMAZING fire."  We all laughed.

We made it home after being gone for about 2 hours.  We'd had a great time.  I want to take all the kids up there some time.

On Sunday Lydia wanted me to do her hair.  She and Charlotte usually don't want me to do anything with their hair so it was fun to do.

Charlotte had her hair in a bun and wore a nice dress.  After church she yelled.  This it's the really me and hurried to change and take her hair down.  Then she said, "THIS is the real me!"

Brandon will be gone for Mother's Day so I decided that we'd do Mother's Day on April 28th.  I'd ordered some presents for myself and I wanted to eat some yummy food.  So after church I started working on the meal.  Everyone ended up in the kitchen and there was such a great feeling of togetherness all afternoon.  It was probably the best mother's day present any of them could give me.  I went around and took pictures of what we were all doing. 

Veronica was laying in the living room "reading" a Calvin and Hobbs collection.

Charlotte was in the craft area putting together another fairy hotel.  This one has 8 rooms and she spent quite a bit of time making it nice. 

Lydia helped me make muffins.  She kept saying, "you're the best mom ever!  I love cooking with you."

And Brandon and Derrick whipped up home made whipping cream and then made little cakes in the sandwich maker.

Our meal turned out perfect. In addition to muffins I'd made a quiche and little puff pastries.  Everything was super yummy.

Charlotte didn't want to work on the floor anymore so she and I made a desk of sorts out of two buckets and a board.  She LOVED it. Later she made herself a name tag and looked so professional at her desk.

Oh and here are my potted plants that are in the craft corner. I have mint, cilantro, basil, and a pumpkin.  I've really liked having these.

When the kids got home from school on Monday they all wanted to ride bikes.  While Derrick and I had been on the long hike the girls and Brandon had figured out that the alley behind our house is a perfect place to ride bikes.  I'm so glad we figured this out.  I was really worried about how we would do bikes this summer.  Veronica is still learning the mechanics of pedaling and is very slow.  Derrick on the other hand loves to go fast.  Anytime I imagined what it would look like if I tried to take all four kids on a bike ride without Brandon around I pictured disaster.  So I'm glad they can ride their bikes in the confined space of the alley.   

When Brandon came home from school on Tuesday he parked the jeep and then realized he needed to move it for some reason.  When he tried to turn it on again to move it the Jeep wouldn't start at all.  And this time it didn't miraculously start up again a little bit later.  On Wednesday evening he tried to figure out what was wrong. 

Lydia was really cute and wanted to watch everything he was doing. 

He took the starter and the battery to get tested at Auto Zone and both tested like they were working. We can rule out the Alternator because that was recently replaced.  I got on Youtube and became and expert on in importance of cleaning all ground connections.  Brandon actually did the work of cleaning the grounds, but that didn't do the trick.  As of right now we are still stumped. 

I'm super thankful that the jeep held off on turning us into a one car family until Brandon was basically done with school.  This is a minor inconvenience compared to the headache it would have been if we'd been sharing a car while I was still working.

Thursday was the first of some graduation related celebrations so I'll wait to talk about that until my next post. 

Brandon graduates tomorrow and we are all really excited to celebrate that milestone and everything it means for our family.  I share the details with you all soon. 

Thanks for reading.