Last Two Weeks of School

The last two weeks of the kids school year were also the first two weeks off Brandon's new job.  So while we were winding down in one area of our lives we were just starting out with another area.  

Brandon started work in Twin Falls on Monday May 20th.  He left our house in Pocatello around 5:00 am in order to be at work by 7:00.  He had a great first day of work.  He'd been a little worried that the company wouldn't be as cool as they'd seemed during the interview and tour. But they were just as cool.  It's great to have him doing something he loves in a place that values him. 

I was tired from my trip to Zion National Park with my sisters, but Brandon had left the house in amazing shape so I didn't have much to do that first day back.

All I really wanted to do was sit on the couch, but Derrick had a field trip to the zoo here in Pocatello so I went along with that to keep an eye on him.  Veronica was scheduled to go to Pre-school, but I gave her the choice to go to the zoo with me or go to pre-school.  She chose the zoo.

The day was rainy, but we were lucky and it wasn't raining too hard while we walked around to see the animals. 

I love this picture of Derrick and Veronica holding hands.

Derrick was really excited to see the elk.  He kept yelling "IT"S THE ELK!"  Later when he went with his therapist he told her about seeing elk and bears at the zoo.

Here's Veronica doing tricks by the black bear cage.

My favorite animals were the peacocks that were perched just out of reach on the playground. The kids loved getting up close to the birds. 

It's hard to see, but there is a little bird guarding three eggs in this picture. This wasn't an exhibit.  It was just right by the zoo entrance.

After we finished up at the zoo all the kids crossed the street to a covered pavilion.  The teachers got out the lunches for everyone.  I'm glad we were under the pavilion because it started raining HARD!

Here are Derrick and I taking a selfie together.

Veronica and I stayed until Derrick got back onto the school bus and then we went home and spent the rest of the day snuggling under a blanket.  We were so cold. 

That evening Miss Christy brought a fun little craft for us to do during family training.  

Charlotte and Lydia went all out and made some amazing bugs.

Brandon has a little apartment in one of the hangars at the airport.  He's always wanted to live at the airport so he's so happy to be there. His boss lives in another area of the airport and he and his wife had Brandon over for dinner on Monday night.  They all had a good time getting to know each other better.  They are great people and are excited to have someone like Brandon on the team. 

On Tuesday I was still tired from my Zion's trip so I took it pretty easy all day. I took a nap in the morning and in the afternoon.  I did go out to the elementary school to keep an eye on Derrick during recess. He'd been having some behavior problems at recess so Miss Christy suggested we set a timer for 10 minutes when he is on the playground.  When it goes off he has to take a break on the bench, get a drink of water, and take 5 deep breaths.  She started doing that with him during their therapy and I've started doing it with him when I help with recess 2 times a week.  It's made a BIG difference. Just taking a little break helps Derrick re-focus and not get out of control.

In the afternoon Lydia had her ukulele lesson.  I left Charlotte and Veronica home watching TV while I took Derrick with me to drop off Lydia.  We were going to go for a walk, but it was raining (still) so we just drove around a pretty neighborhood.  We saw all these deer chilling out in front of someones house.

With Brandon gone I've had to find something to do in the evenings after the kids are in bed.  I checked out season 4 of Gilmore Girls when he was on his East Coast road trip.  I've bogged down in Season 4 of that show every time I've tried to watch the series.  So this time I decided to start there.  Every night I put the kids to bed and then watch an episode or two.  Some times I do productive things like sort through the never ending supply of kids school papers, but other times I'm so brain dead I just watch the show.

I didn't feel very well when I woke up on Wednesday.  When I got the kids up for school Charlotte and Veronica both had bad coughs. Since I wasn't feeling well myself I probably had more simpathy for them than I would have had otherwise. It didn't take much convincing to get me to agree to let them stay home from school and daycare.

I'd scheduled a massage for that day with some gift cards I'd earned when I was doing physical therapy for my knee.  After a weekend of hiking in Zion I really needed that massage so I left Charlotte and Veronica at home for an hour and got the massage.  It was nice and it helped me feel better.

Later in the day I got a call from Derrick's school.  He wasn't feeling well and had acted up on the playground (probably as a way to try to communicate that he needed to go home) so I went down there and picked him up.

That night we had pancakes for dinner.  Lydia helped me out by being in charge of the pancakes.  I'm glad she was helping because Derrick was EVERYWHERE.  It was one of those evenings where I was happy I set him up with so much therapy during the summer.

Charlotte finished her fairy hotel.  (I can't remember if we've talked about this before, but Charlotte decided to upgrade the original one bedroom toothfairy hotel into an 8 room hotel.)  She made beds out of legos and paper towels. She made other furniture out of things she found in the recycling box.  She even drew pictures for the walls.

She also crafted an elevator.

Here she is posing with the finished hotel.  She wanted to take it to school on Thursday.

But on Thursday she wasn't feeling well again. Neither was Veronica. And neither was I.  So we all stayed home and had a sick day.  It really wasn't helping that the weather was STILL cold and rainy.  I kept thinking, "if the sun would just come out and warm up the air we might all finally get over these colds."  But it didn't and we were sick all day.

Thankfully Brandon came home that night.  I'd been under the impression that he'd work 5 days a week in the summer and have to be on call every other weekend.  But that's not the case.  Instead he works 4 ten hour shifts and has Friday off.  That means he can come home every weekend.  YAY!

Charlotte and Veronica were finally feeling better on Friday so they went to school. (For those of you keeping score at home, this was the only day Veronica went to daycare the whole week.) I went back and forth on feeling better.  I'd be doing fine for a little while and then get super tired and have a headache and need a long nap.

I realized that I wasn't just fighting a cold and recovering from a weekend of hiking and sleeping on the ground.  I was also recovering from nearly two years of non-stop hustling. The whole time Brandon has been in school we've been worrying about money and tests and schedules and work and kids and so on.  Suddenly most of those worries are gone.  Brandon has finished school and tests.  He has a job that pays well and that he loves.  A lot of my stress is gone. I think my body said, "Hey this seems like a good time to take a break so I'm going to TAKE it.

On Saturday I was feeling a little better - at least for a little while.  I went for a long walk in the morning.  (In a light rain) and went grocery shopping around noon (in a heavy rain.)  In the early afternoon I took Charlotte and Lydia to a birthday party at the skating rink.

I LOATH birthday parties, but I figured I'd be sitting around at home so I might as well sit around at the party.  I brought a book, parked myself at a table, and was completely and utterly unsocial.  It was the best time I've ever had at a little kids' birthday party.  Charlotte and Lydia had fun skating past me.

We'd had movie night on Friday night, but since it was raining we had another movie night on Saturday night.  I wasn't interested in the movie so I sat on the couch and read.  (I was reading Brandon Sanderson's The Rithmatist if you are wondering.)

On Sunday we went to church as a family for the first time in three weeks.  After church the sun actually came out so we all went on a walk to the park.

At home Brandon made rhubarb pie out of the rhubarb Lindsey's mother in law gave me last week.  It was so good.

Normally Brandon would have gone back to Twin Falls on Sunday night, but he had the next day off for Memorial Day so he was able to hang around another day.

Charlotte and Lydia wanted to go on a nature walk so we did that early on Monday morning. They brought journals to write down the things they saw.  They brought me to tell them how to spell the things we saw.

We live in a really cool part of the city so there was a lot of variety on this walk. It's so fun to be able to cross a river just a few blocks from our house.

We even found a nest on the ground.  We think it was a hummingbird nest.

Here the girls are copying down information from the sign.

And then they had to spend some time up in a tree.  They love climbing trees.

The way home took us through sage brush.

Back at home I had the perfect meal for keeping kids out of my food.  Rhubarb Pie and a mushroom and onion sandwich on rye bread with pepperjack cheese.

We had planned to go to the Pocatello Downs horse race up at the fair grounds.  Admission was just $2 per adult and kids under 12 were free so it would have been a cheap and fun thing to do.  But guess what? It was raining AGAIN.  So we stayed home and watched movies.

On Monday evening Brandon left for Twin Falls.  We were sad to see him go, but it was nice to know he'd be back home in just 3 days.

Tuesday was a partially rainy day.  It was nice-ish when I went to help out at Derrick's recess.  I took a nap on the couch around 1:00.  When I laid down the sun was shining in my eyes.  When I woke up there were dark clouds covering the sun.  By the time I picked the kids up at the bus stop it was raining again.

When I took Lydia to ukulele that evening it was still raining so Derrick and I drove around the neighborhood again.

In the evening we went to the park and Veronica learned how to do the monkey bars.
On Wednesday I did something new. I'd won a free photo facial through the Idaho Falls Mom's Blog.  At first I wasn't sure if I would use it, but then my friend Sarah told me all about the cool things the facial would do.  And she told me the place was in Pocatello - not Idaho Falls.  So I made sure to schedule an appointment before the kids were out of school.

I'd been a little worried about going to the day spa.  I pictured some hip 20 year old trying to upsell me on other procedures I needed. I was worried I'd leave the spa feeling worse about myself.  But that's not what happened.  Instead my facial was done by an older guy who looked like a well dressed rancher - and not in an ironic way.  He told me stories about using his backhoe so I'm sure he knows his way around a ranch.  The facial was more painful than expected (he bascially moved a really hot light around my face) but it was fun.  And I can definitely tell that a lot of my sun damage is gone.

When the kids got home from school we enjoyed rain free time in the back yard.  My garden had doubled in size thanks to the rain.

The kids played in the backyard and I worked on finishing a project I'd started at the beginning of the month.  I made a bike rack out of a pallet.  This youtube tutorial showed me how to do it.  I'm so happy with how it turned out. No more bikes falling over in the garage.

That evening Brandon called me for what he's started referring to as "Talking Real Estate with Brandon."  He'd been driving by homes that were listed on Zillow just to get a feel for the neighborhoods.  It was all very encouraging.  

On Thursday I went to help with recess for the last time this year.  Then I came home and literally did nothing.  I had a lot of things I could do, but I just felt like savoring the chance to do nothing.

When I picked Veronica up from daycare she was sad that the next day was going to be her last day.  We decided to make cookies for her friends.  So we made chocolate chip cookies.  Most of them were for her class, but we had a few waiting for the big kids when they got home from school. I joked on Facebook that I'd finally got my Mom-Game together enough to have cookies waiting for the kids.

When I picked the kids up from the bus stop I decided to take a picture of the bus pulling up.  We've spent a lot of time at this bus stop.  It's kind of sad that the kids are done riding Bus 38.

Derrick went with his therapist and the girls and I went down stairs to go through their clothes. We pulled out all the long sleeve winter clothes and boxed them up. Then we replaced those clothes with the summer clothes.  The girls have A LOT of pants with holes in them so I took those up and later turned them into shorts.  It's so nice to finally have all the summer clothes out again. 

After dinner I told the kids we had a few fun things we could do.  First we went to the elementary school and took pictures of the three older kids.  I brought Brandon's cap and gown and had them wear that.

Here's Lydia.

And Charlotte.

And even Derrick put the robe on for one picture.

Here are all of them in front of the door.  We are going to miss Indian Hills.  It's been a good school.

Then we drove to ISU and took pictures of Veronica.  Here she is in front of her school.

And then we walked over to the arch where graduates often pose for pictures.  

I put this on Facebook the next day.  It was kind of a silly way to honor the fact that Veronica has put up with a lot of time in daycare in order for her dad to get his degree.

Today Veronica finishes her two year course of study at ISU. Skills she has acquired include writing her letters and numbers, counting to 100, riding the J bus around campus, and learning to play with kids her own age.

She has pushed through long days at the Early Learning Center including occasional early morning drop offs and/or end of the day pick ups.

She's logged more time on the ISU campus than her father who took all his classes at the airport.

She is looking forward to a summer of relaxing and fun, interspersed with fights with her older siblings.

She has mixed feelings about continuing her studies with Kindergarten in the Fall, but is encouraged by the fact that she'll only have to spend half a day at school.

Then we did this fun picture with all four kids.

Veronica wanted a close up.  Charlotte had passed this pumpkin shirt on to her and she was very proud of it.

On our way back to the car we passed the sprinkers.  Of course the kids wanted to play in them.

Then we drove across town to the car wash place and went through the automatic car wash.  After that we went to Brooklynn's playground and played there for a long time.  

We drove back home in some crazy wind that was blowing elm seeds all over.  It was really fun to drive through.  When we got home I was a little surprised that Brandon wasn't home from Twin yet, but he pulled up about 5 minutes after we got home.  Everyone was so happy to see him. 

On Friday we put the big kids on the bus for the last time this school year.  And we took Veronica to daycare for the last time ever.  

I'd filled out a mortage loan application with our credit union on Thursday and on Friday I talked with someone on the phone.  He put together some quotes for us.  That was very encouraging.  We do qualify for a home loan.  With Brandon's student loans I was worried our debt to asset ration would be too high, but it's not (at least when Twin Falls prices are considered).  I feel a lot more prepared to start looking for a home. 

Around noon I went to the elementary school to help set up for field day.  Brandon picked Veronica up from daycare and then brought her to the school so she could play too.  

I'd signed up for the bubble station for 2 reasons.  1. It's super easy.  And 2. I figured Derrick would want to hang out near me if I was near the bubbles.  I was right - he had so much fun watching the bubbles.  But he did like wandering to the other places as well.  I'm glad Brandon was there.  He walked around with Derrick and kept him on track and out of trouble. 

 Veronica seemed a little confused as to what she was doing at field day.  I think she was still wrapping her head around the fact that she never would go back to daycare.

 Charlotte and Lydia ran up to me when they first came out onto the playground and then they DISAPPEARED into the crowd.  They would reappear every so often when they needed me to hold something.

 Field day was a huge success.  The kids all had fun playing.  I liked being in charge of bubbles and was surprised at how many kids wanted to play near my table.  Even the 5th graders weren't above popping bubbles.

 After school officially ended we went back inside so Derreck could get something from his teachers. His 1st grade teacher and his special ed teacher had bought him a car at the book fair.  They wanted him to have something to remember Indian Hills.  They both said they learned a lot from Derrick this year.  He LOVED the present.

 Brandon helped him assemble it at home and Derrick has been proudly showing it to everyone.

That night Lydia had a little ukulele recital.  Her teacher has about 5 students and they all played a song or two.  I assumed that Lydia was one of the less advanced students so I figured she'd be near the beginning of the program.  So I was surprised when I saw the program and she was listed 4th.  Turns out she's actually doing pretty well.

Lydia had worked very hard on her songs. And she did really well. She played Home from the movie Ferdinand, and Frosty the Snow Man.  My camera battery died at the beginning of the song so I had to hurry and change it, but I was able to get recording before the chorus.  

Here she is with her teacher Chelsea.  Chelsea has been so great and definitely taught Lydia a lot.  If we were staying in Pocatello we'd keep doing lessons with her next year. 

We went out for ice cream cones at McDonalds after the recital.

On Saturday we had a full day of activities planned.  I didn't think we'd get to do everything, but I was willing to try.

First up was the free day at the zoo.  The zoo opened at 10:00 and we got there around 9:35 we ended up being the first people in line.

There was a credit union handing out sunglasses so the kids grabbed those as soon as the zoo gates opened.  Then we hurried into the zoo.  Since we'd been the first in line we kind of had the place to ourselves for a little while.

We hurried up the hill to the top level of the zoo and enjoyed looking at animals without any crowds around.

Here's a while fox.  The kids had a scavenger hunt list to fill out. It was fun telling them how to spell words and watching all 4 of them write it down.

The animal we saw the most were the Yellow Bellied Marmuts that were scampering all over the hillside.

I think my favorite animals on this visit were the grizzley bears.  They were both more active than I've ever seen them.

Derrick loved the Elk again.

We saw the white peacock.

And then were treated to this sight from one of the other peacocks.  It had been turned away from us, but it turned around so we could see his feathers.  Then he lowered them.

The credit union had everything ready for free hot dogs.  Last year this had been outside the zoo and we hadn't bothered to stand in line.  This year it was inside the zoo and we were able to get in one of the first spots in line.

The kids played on the playground while we waited for the hot dogs to be ready.

Here's everyone eating.

After eating we went outside the zoo to an area where the kids could jump in a bounce house and also get a free balloon.  Normally I'm pretty impervious so the sponsors of events like this, but this time I was like, "hum, I wonder what this credit unions mortgage quote would look like."

Later in the day we went to the Library for their summer reading kick off.  They had people dressed up like Star Wars characters.  Boba Fett was giving out free books.  Charlotte took one look at him and was like, "nope, I don't need a free book."

That evening we went to the Neighbor Works BBQ.  This is a program that helps build up neighborhoods in Pocatello.  I'm doing a self study home buying class through them.  The BBQ was great. We had burgers, met our neighborhood captain, didn't tell anyone we are moving out of the city in a few months, and got free potted flowers.  

On Sunday we had a good day at church.  Brandon has been released from his calling as Sunday School teacher.  So he didn't have to prepare a lesson.  That kind of felt weird. 

After church Charlotte and Lydia and I made home made egg noddles following this guide from Tasty. 

The recipe needs a lot of egg yokes so Brandon got to work making a pie so he could use the egg white to make a meringue.  Derrick had fun helping him beat the egg whites.

The noodles were really fun to make.  We've watched the tutorial a lot so it was great to finally do it.

I thought the noodles tasted great, but Charlotte and Lydia ended up not liking them.  I thought that was ironic.

And here's Brandon's pie. We didn't have any lemon so he made a pineapple meringue pie.  It was so good. It tasted like pineapple upsidedown cake - only without the cake.

After dinner Brandon read with the kids for a while.  We all enjoyed out last little bit with him.  Then he packed up his stuff and drove back to Twin Falls. 

Another thing I did on Sunday was make a schedule for the next two months.  Last year the kids did adventure camp through the Learning Center.  This summer we are doing Mom Adventure Camp.  Our calendar has a morning activity, an afternoon activity, and an evening activity listed on it.  I'm SUPER excited for this summer.  It's the first summer I'm home with my kids since the summer of 2016.

And (spoiler alert) the first two days have gone really well. The kids and I are having a blast here in Pocatello.  I'm looking forward to living in Twin Falls, but I'm not quite down with Pocatello yet.  There are still a lot of memories to make here.