The stuff between Graduation and the Zion's Trip

Last weekend I went on an amazing trip to Zion National Park with my sisters.   Really really really want to tell you about that trip.  But I still need to write about the week before that trip. 

So let's get through this post quickly and then we can do another post about the Zion Trip.  (IT WAS SO PERFECT!!!)

The 10 or so days between Brandon's graduation and my trip basically had three main things going on:

1. My parents moved to my sister's house in North Carolina and Brandon drove the moving truck for them.

2. I spent every spare second writing. 

3. Derrick was a little pill and had me reconsidering all my summer plans. 

Let's discuss.  

The Sunday after Brandon's graduation was a good day.  Lydia bore her testimony in sacrament meeting.  She had me write it out before she went up.  I wrote it word for word what she said. This is basically how it went.  

I want to talk about my baptism.  When I saw my sister Charlotte get baptized she came out of the water with the biggest smile on her face. I wanted to do it too.  When I got in the water it was boiling hot. I was worried about having it go over my head. But I went out and my dad baptized me.  When I came out of the water I felt good and I had the same big smile on my face.

I loved listening to Lydia share her testimony. She read her little story really well.  At the end of it I almost started crying.  Not because I was touched by her testimony (which was sweet) but because she book-ended her little story.  I was impressed by her instinct to do that. 

I also bore my testimony about how we feel we were led to Pocatello and to our ward. We've been so blessed by the connections we've made here. 

One of the family's in our ward had an emergency with one of their children that had to be life-flighted to Primary Children's hospital early Sunday morning.  We were asked to include them in our fast.  I was really worried about that child. Things weren't looking very good for her.  But within a few days she made a miraculous recovery and was back at home within the week. 

On Sunday afternoon the girls went in the back yard and drew with chalk.

This represented the life of a snowflake.

This was some sort of abstract rainbow.

Derrick was all over the place and was getting into everything.  Brandon ended up taking him on a long walk.  I was starting to get concerned because I didn't know if I could handle Derrick while Brandon was out of town.  I'd been planning on staying in Pocatello with the kids through the summer while we house hunt in Twin Falls.  But with Derrick all over the place I didn't know if that was a good idea.

I remembered his Developmental Disability Program Social Worker mentioning that we also qualified for respite care so I sent her an email asking her for the details.  On Monday she got back to me and said that in addition to respite care we also qualified for some additional therapy hours.  We concocted a plan for the summer that involves something like 20 hours a week of therapy for Derrick.  That made me feel much more in control about my summer plans.

My sister Hillary arrived on Sunday night in order to help with the final stages of my parents' move. Veronica's hair was getting long and since she refuses to put it into a pony tail or brush it I asked Hillary to cut Veronica's hair.  Veronica sat so still for her and was so happy with the short result.

Hillary brought Walter with her - much to the delight of all my kids, but especially Derrick.

He loves his cousin so much.  And Walter loves the attention.

Hillary stayed the night at my parents and stayed up late packing up their kitchen.  In the morning I got the kids off to school and daycare and then headed over to help pack.  Brandon went somewhere (I literally can't remember) and met up with us at my parents apartment.  We took a selfie to document one of the few times we'd be together in the next few weeks.

Everything got packed up, but it wasn't time to get the moving van yet.  I had an appointment to donate plasma scheduled and since Brandon wasn't doing anything I hurried to schedule one for him so we could go together.  We've both been donated twice a week for over a year, but this was the first time we've gone together.  It was kind of funny to be there at the same time.

After we were done donating we drove over to the daycare to get Veronica.  I should mention that I'd originally planned to have her finish daycare at the same time Brandon graduated.  But then I started wondering what on earth she and I would do together for three weeks before the other kids got out of school.  I realized I'd probably just park her in front of the TV while I wrote.  So I decided to keep her in daycare until the other kids were done with their school.  That turned out to be a good plan - especially on days like today.

Anyway, we picked up Veronica and then swung by the house and met the other kids at the bus stop.  We'd taken the jeep with us when we donated plasma because we were so happy it was working again.  But we'd left the Honda at my parents'. So we had to squeeze all four kids into the back seat of the jeep while we drove back over.  This was met with mixed reactions.

Brandon went with my parents to pick up the moving truck while Hillary and I took the kids on a walk to one of the little parks in the apartment complex.  Walter needed a diaper change and all my kids were FASCINATED.

Brandon came back with the truck and we started loading it.  Some men from the ward came over to help and so everything went in really fast. Soon we were vacuuming out the empty apartment and turning the keys back in.

The kids and I drove back to my house with my dad while Brandon and my mom went back to U-haul to put the car onto the trailer.  We drove by the courthouse on our way and I realized that if I was still working there this would have been my first day back at work after my month off.  I'm glad I followed my instinct and decided not to go back.  So much has changed in the last month (Brandon got a job) that I couldn't imagine going back and having it work.

Soon Brandon pulled up in the moving van.  He dropped my mom off and then parked the van up the street in the church parking lot. My parents got into Hillary's car and she drove them down to Salt Lake. They stayed in a hotel that night and then flew to North Carolina in the morning.

On Tuesday we babysat one of my ministering sister's baby boy.  We had him all day.  At first I didn't think I could watch him because I needed to be at Derrick's school to help with recess in the morning.  But then Brandon reminded me that he would still be around in the morning.  So we watched the baby.  The kids were so excited to see him in the morning and when they got home from school.

Brandon took off for Salt Lake sometime in the afternoon on Tuesday.  He stayed in a hotel that night.  In the morning he was supposed to pick my brother in law David up from the airport at 9:00 the next morning and they would both start driving the moving truck to North Carolina. But that plan hit a snag when David missed a connecting flight.  The airline couldn't get David to Salt Lake until 12:00 the next day.  So Brandon and David didn't get on the road until noon.  They had hotel reservations all the way in Lincoln Nebraska.  They drove as fast as they could to make up for lost time, but they didn't arrive at the hotel until 3:30 in the morning.  Brandon said he nearly fell asleep in the hotel lobby as they checked in.

Other than that little problem they had a great trip.  Brandon and David share a birthday and are exactly three years apart.  They were excited to have some "guy time" without their kids around.  They enjoyed talking and joking during their three day trip to North Carolina.

Meanwhile I was home with the kids.  I wasn't sure what to expect with Brandon gone. So I was surprised by how normal it felt.  Honestly, it kind of just felt like he was at school during the day and studying at the library at night.

On Wednesday the girls had Activity Days.  I took Derrick and Veronica to the park after we dropped them off.  Veronica wanted to show me the static electricity in her hair.

On Thursday I ran some errands and bought flowers to put together simple teacher gifts for the kids teachers.  I got the flowers at Lowes in a pack of six for like $2,50.  The pails came in packs of 3 for a $1 at the dollar store.  And the Thank you cards were also a dollar.  I can't afford elaborate or expensive gifts, but I wanted the teachers to know we appreciate them.

I also spent lots of time writing and writing and writing.  I wanted to write a guide to Yellowstone for the Idaho Falls Mom's Blog.  And I wanted it published before Memorial Day.  The guide itself was simple enough. But I wanted it to have links back to things I'd written for www.51centadventures.com.  The trouble was that I still needed to finish the posts for about 8 of the links.

The deadline motivated me to start writing with an intensity I hadn't felt in a while.  I'd put the kids to bed and then spend and hour or so writing.  Then I'd wake up in the morning and write a bit before they woke up.  After everyone was in school I'd write more. If I didn't feel like writing I'd edit pictures.  To keep myself on track I'd leave myself motivational notes like this one. And it worked, post after post kept coming together.

On Thursday night I took a break from writing to do the Relief Society Meeting for May.  Our theme was Teaching the Gospel in the Home.  Even though I'd come up with the idea for the activity - I knew it sounded dry.  So I tried to come up with ways to make it a fun and worthwhile evening.  The first thing I did was delegate the refreshments to my wonderful committee member Khyliegh.  The only direction I gave her was to "make something that will make everyone glad they came."  Holy Cow did she deliver.  She made Baked Alaska!

I kept saying, "I'm glad I came!"

I also personally texted something like 30 women in the ward and asked them to take 3-5 minutes and tell us what they were doing to study the new Come Follow Me Curriculum.  Of those 30 about 15 said they could make it.

We ended up with 18 sisters which is a record for an activity that wasn't a dinner.  I was so happy. I told everyone that I'd assembled a panel of experts.  (Which was all of us) and that we'd be sharing ideas.  Everyone got a name plate to write their name on so they looked like a fancy expert.

We had a great time sharing our experiences.  Most people admitted that they'd started off the program really well, but had fizzelled out.  I said that was why we'd planned this activity for May because it would be a good chance to start trying again.

I wish I'd assigned someone to take notes, but I did make a list of the electronic resources people mentioned.  I tracked down links and put this up in our RS group for anyone who couldn't make it.  I figure you may want to see it too.

• Don’t Miss This - Youtube Channel
• New Testament for Latter-day Saint Families - Book
• latterdayfamily - Instagram
• Sing Along Videos - LDS.org
• Children’s Bible Videos - LDS.org
• Life of Jesus Videos - byutv.org
• Great Courses New Testament Series - Can check out from Marshall Public Library
• LDS Perspectives - Podcast

I was so happy with how the evening turned out.  I was also happy that my kids were well behaved.  We didn't have an official nursery. I just kind of stuck my kids in the nursery and told them to be good.  I imagined nightmare scenarios where Derrick got upset and ran out of the building and I had to go looking for him while trying to keep the meeting on track.  But thankfully nothing like that happened.

We were up kind of late that night so in the morning I let Derrick sleep in.  I got Charlotte and Lydia up and helped them get to the bus on time, but I just felt like Derrick would have a better day if he slept in a bit.  He slept in until 8:00 so I'm glad I followed my instinct.

I helped Derrick and Veronica get ready and then we dropped Veronica off at Daycare.  Then I drove Derrick to the elementary school.  We gave his teacher her flower.  Derrick was so excited to give it to her. His teacher gave me a large envelope with a mothers day present inside. I took it out to the car and drove over to the parking lot for the nature area that is next to the school.  Charlotte and Lydia were coming there for a fishing field trip with all the supplies provided by Idaho Fish and Game.

Lydia's class came over first.  She was so excited to see me. But as soon as I got situated with Lydia I got a call from the school. Derrick hadn't realized that I'd taken his Mother's Day present.  He was looking for it and getting more and more agitated.  So I had to leave Lydia, run back to the car, drive back to the other parking lot, show Derrick the envelope, open the envelope so he could confirm it had the gift, and then leave again and drive back to the nature area.

UGH Sometimes autism bites.

I'd felt bad about leaving Lydia and her buddy to fend for themselves so I was very relieved when I got back and found then next to my friend Robin.  She'd helped them bait their hooks and was helping them cast.  Thank goodness for other moms who step in when they see a need.

Lydia's class's turn ended at 10:00 so I said goodbye to her.  Charlotte's class arrived and we started fishing.  Charlotte had a pole that didn't cast (or a mom that didn't have a clue what she was doing.) So Charlotte would just dangle the line and watch the fish swim up to the hook.  We had a couple close nibbles, but in the end no fish.

After school Derrick went with his therapist.  (We'd moved his Monday therapy to Friday since we'd been packing my parents on Monday.)  Then we all met up at the park for family therapy. I'd packed sack lunch/dinners for everyone so we ate those while we talked about Derrick and his needs.  We came up with a good plan for helping Derrick at recess.  Then we said goodbye to Miss Christy and went for a hike up City Creek.

I set my timer for 30 minutes and we hiked until it went off.  Then we turned around and went back down.

Charlotte was being overdramatic about the length of the hike.  She said her legs couldn't walk anymore so she crawled the last little bit up to our porch.

That night I let Charlotte stay up with me in my room.  We watched Tasty cooking videos online and laughed a lot.

On Saturday we went to an automatic car wash.  I'd told the kids if they were good while Daddy was gone we'd go to a car wash on Saturday.  There is a new one in Chubbuck that we've passed a few times and it's looked cool so I wanted to go there.

Well the kids had been excellent all week so we went to the car wash.  They had so much fun.  I'm glad I filmed their reaction.
The car wash attendant up-sold me on buying unlimited car washes for a month for only a few dollars more than the one wash I was paying for.  So we went through the car wash again a few minutes after the first time.

After that we drove to the Museum of Natural History to celebrate National Astronomy day.  There were a couple fun projects and activities.

The kids liked looking at a solar viewer.

Then we went home and had a relaxing couple hours there.  In the afternoon we went up to Idaho Falls so we could spend some time with my friend Sarah. Sarah and I are excellent online friends who are learning how to be In Real Life friends.  You'd think it would be easy since we live less than an hour away from each other, but it's been tricky to find time to get together.  The last time I saw her was December.  The last time our kids were together was October.  But hey at least we are trying.

We went to the park and Charlotte remembered all her tree climbing skills she'd learned in Boise.

We also spent time at Sarah's house.  They kids loved playing with this fun kinetic sand.

And jumping on the trampoline.

Somehow I didn't get a picture of the kids playing with Sarah's dog Lemon.  But that's okay because you can see Lemon on her instagram account.  Lemon made us all want a Goldendoodle for a dog.

Sarah and her husband Jeff fed us hambergers for dinner.  (Sarah impressed me by grilling them herself.)  Before everyone was done eating their first burger, Veronica was asking for seconds.  I couldn't believe it when she downed the second burger quickly too.  That girl was hungry.

I was so glad that we had somewhere to spend our Saturday afternoon.  I knew Saturday would be hard because we couldn't just pretend that Brandon was at work.  So I'm glad I made plans for that day.

That night Lydia had a turn to sleep in my bed. I was super tired so we only watched one youtube movie and then went to sleep.

I probably should have also made plans for Sunday because that day turned out to be HARD.

First I had to make sure all the kids took baths before church. I hate supervising that when Brandon is around to help, so I'm not sure why I wasn't better prepared for it to drive me crazy when I did it on my own.

We made it to church on time, but from the moment we sat down Derrick was asking to go home.  I was sitting with him in my lap and trying to keep him in the room. He was doing everything he could do get me to take him out.  But I knew that I couldn't give in.  During the sacrament he crushed up his piece of bread instead of eating it, and he probably would have done something similar with the water, but I didn't let him near the cups.

The worst part was when he started pulling the buttons off his shirt.  He ended up taking all the buttons off and then taking his shirt off.  I was dying inside, but keeping it cool on the outside.

It was Mother's day and all I could think about was how happy I was that our ward doesn't have people speak about how wonderful mothers are.  Instead they have the highschool seniors speak about gospel topics.  I really appreciated that.  I didn't want to hear about some mythical Proverbs 31 type mother.

We made it through sacrament meeting.  I'd agreed to help sub a Primary class so I went with the kids to singing time.  I kind of wish I hadn't agreed to help sub because I really could have used some time away from my kids, but the way Derrick was acting I probably would have been in Primary with him anyway that day.  He kept trying to take his shirt off again, but I made him keep it on this time.

Class went okay - I'm glad it's only 25 minutes long these days.

And then we could finally go home.  But I realized that I had no idea what we do on Sunday afternoons.  We've had my parents over on Sunday afternoons for months. What were we going to do without them?

The afternoon ended up being pretty awful. We just didn't know what to do with each other and Derrick was all over the place. Eventually the kids went downstairs and watched movies while I sat on the couch and tried not to cry. 

We had a Dejorno Pizza for dinner.  During dinner we talked about ways to make Sunday go better.  We decided on a few things.  1. Baths should always be done on Saturday.  2. We'll always have movie night on Saturday night after baths.  3. After church the kids can watch the movie night movie again while Mom takes a nap.

In the evening we decided to go to the park.  I was still pretty raw emotionally so I was really touched when Charlotte and Lydia presented me with a hat full of flowers.  They'd wanted to make me feel better.  And they did.

The park visit didn't end well though.  Derrick ended up hitting Lydia really hard and I had to grab him and hold onto him while we walked home. I yelled at him about how mad I am that he keeps ruining things like this for us. I'm not proud of it, but I told him, "if you can't behave you wont be able to do fun things with us this summer."

Derrick seemed to get the message.  He was a lot calmer when we got home.  Everyone changed into pajamas and then we opened up the couch bed and watched Relative Race on my laptop.

As soon as it was over I put the kids to bed and then retreated to the calming influence of writing.  I worked on my post about Brandon's Graduation.  Derrick crept into my room and laid down in my bed.  I just ignored him.  He fell asleep. I let him stay in my bed. No matter how much he drives me crazy I can't get over how innocent and peaceful he looks when he is asleep.

Monday was a much better day.  Derrick went to school happily and I had a lot of time to myself to write and write and write. I still had four more posts to write, but I needed them done by Wednesday.

In the afternoon Derrick went with Miss Christy and the girls did a Lemonade Stand.  It was a good first day.

In the evening we met up with Derrick and Miss Christy at the elementary school for the school picnic.  We all had hot dogs.  The kids were supposed to play games, but a rain storm blew in. Lydia was getting scared of the lightning and I figured we should probably head for cover.  So we left early.  I found out later that they ended up sending everyone home a few minutes after we left.

On Tuesday I was able to help another ministering sister with babysitting.  She and her husband were packing and so I watched their baby for a few hours so they could get a lot done.

Derrick was so happy when he came home from school and could play with the baby.

A little bit after the baby was picked up we left to pick up someone named Brandon!

He and David had stayed in Lincoln Nebraska on Wednesday night, Indianapolis on Thursday night, and had arrived in Haw River, North Carolina on Friday night.  They unloaded the moving van and got my parents somewhat situated in the Mother in law apartment in Emily and David's house on Saturday.  That afternoon David took Brandon to the bus station and Brandon caught a bus to Washington DC.  His twin, Bryan, and his family met him there.  They stayed overnight in a hotel.

On Sunday they went to several Smithsonian museums, including the Air and Space Museum.  Then they went back to Bryan's house in Virginia.  And on Tuesday morning Brandon flew from Virginia back to Utah.  He took the Salt Lake Express shuttle back up to Pocatello.

We were so happy to have him home.  The most immediate reason was that he cooked dinner for us while I holed up in my room and wrote.

I was busting out blog posts and record pace and so Brandon took care of the kids' bedtime that night so I could write.  And in the morning he let me write some more.  Thanks to his help at the end I was able to finish everything I needed to for the Yellowstone post.  I was a little in shock at how much writing I'd been able to do in such a short amount of time.  I guess I should work with a deadline more often.

While I'd been writing, Brandon had been helping me pack for my camping trip. He laid all this stuff out and told me to pick what I needed.

We took a break from packing to go celebrate our anniversary.  Our anniversary is May 17th and this was only the 15th, but it was literally the only day we would spend together in two weeks so we celebrated when we could.  We went to Ross Park Drive In like we did last year and got burgers and onion rings.  Happy 12 years to us.

Then it was back to packing.  Here's the contents of the  first aid kit Brandon put together for me and my accident prone sisters.

We loaded the tent, sleeping bags, and other camping gear into the jeep for me to drive down to meet up with my sisters. Then I hurried off to go donate plasma.  As I left I had a moment of inspiration.  I realized that I should take the Honda instead of the jeep. We'd fit better in the Honda and that way Brandon could pack the jeep and have it ready to take to Twin Falls the morning after I got home. 

We'd promised the kids that we'd do another car wash so when I got home from donating we zipped up to the car wash.  That was fun.  When we were done with the wash we parked at the vacuums and cleaned out the Honda to get it ready for the trip.  I had to buy a few last minute things at Walmart, but the kids wanted to go to McKees so I dropped everyone off at McKees so they could see the animals there and I hurried to Walmart.  Then I picked the kids and Brandon up and we all went home. 

I'd foolishly planned lasagna for dinner, but there was no way it was getting made so we just had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Brandon helped me move everything from the Jeep to the Honda.  It all fit much better. 

By this point I felt like I'd been rushing for over 12 hours and I was getting close to a full on anxiety attack. I don't know why I felt so keyed up.  I was planning to drive to my sister Hillary's house in Salt Lake that night, but I didn't really HAVE to leave at a certain time.  I guess I was just excited, but feeling it in weird ways. 

I still needed to shave my legs before leaving, so Brandon sent me into the bathroom to take a shower to calm down and shave my legs.  That helped a lot.  Soon I was ready for my trip. 

I went out to the car and started driving on my way to Salt Lake.  The kids came out and waved good bye to me.  I'll admit I really wasn't that sad to drive away from them.  I'd just survived a week on my own with those kids.  I was really for a few days of fun with my sisters.

I'll tell you all about it in my next post.