As simple as it gets around here

This week was defined more by what didn't happen than by what did happen.

What didn't happen was a concert. The Magic Valley Symphony was supposed to have a concert on Friday, but our piano soloist - who the whole concert revolved around - got COVID. So that cancelled the concert. That also cancelled the dress rehearsal on Thursday night. And it cancelled the pre-concert slideshow I was in charge of making. 

So that opened up a lot of my week. 

Also Veronica is done with Physical Therapy. So I didn't have to worry about taking her to that two times this week. 

So my week felt very relaxing. I mean we still did a lot, but it felt relaxing because we didn't do as much.

I didn't take a lot of pictures from the week, but I'm still going to do a post today, because I don't want to get behind again. Getting caught up took a lot of time last week. 

Actually I'm still trying to get caught up. Because I realized I forgot a few very important things in the last two posts.  

One is about my birthday. When I put Derrick to be that night he gave me a great gift. Usually I sing him a bedtime song like Itsy Bitsy Spider, I'm a Child of God, or Edelweiss. He asked for Edelweiss on my birthday.  And he sang it with me.  It was the cutest thing ever. 

The second thing I forgot is that my blog post for East Idaho Mom's was published. I'd asked my sister Lindsey to help me write this one because the topic of the post was her idea. It was really fun to collaborate on an idea with her. 

The third thing I forgot is something that put me in a great mood for an entire day, and I can't believe I forgot to mention it in last week's post.  I even set it up, but forgot to write about it.  Let's see if I can get it right this time.  

Last week I wrote this about Friday Morning:

I was checking my email and found an email from the school district with the finalized 2021-2022 school calendar. There had been some debate about what the first day of school should be so I was curious what the decision had been. So I downloaded the calendar and was happy to see that the first day of school will be August 16th. We have an end date. The kids will be back in school on August 16th.

Then I was going to add this story to Saturday Morning:

In the morning I stayed in bed for a while. I wasn't sleepy so I was playing on my phone. Our trip to the cabin had put me in the mood to plan a few more trips. I have trips booked through May, but haven't pinned anything down for the summer. So I was looking at possible places and trying to come up with a plan for the summer. I realized the big wild card was a trip to Yellowstone that we'd been thinking about. I needed to nail down the date for that trip and then I could plan around it. 

I thought, "We've always wanted to go to Yellowstone in the Fall. Last year the school district gave the kids the Tuesday after Labor Day off, but it didn't work for us to go last year. I've been waiting to see if they'll do that again."

Insert long pause here. 

Then I realized, "Oh My Gosh, I looked at the new calendar yesterday. I didn't even think to look at that weekend!"

I immediately pulled up the calendar again. Yes, the Tuesday after Labor Day was a day off of school. And the Friday before was an early out. I started looking up Yellowstone campsites right away.  It was hard to do that on my phone so I hurried and got up so I could use my laptop. 

I looked up a few things, talked to Brandon to make sure he was on board, and then booked 4 nights at the Canyon Village Campground for Labor Day Weekend. 

This put me in SUCH a good mood. This summer will mark four years since we lived in Yellowstone. We've talked about going back for a visit ever since we moved away, but it just hasn't worked out. Now we are finally going to go back. 

With the Yellowstone Trip finally on the calendar I could begin to see when and where our other trips could happen. I penciled them in, but didn't book anything yet. I wanted to, but couldn't. We know we want to go to the Utah Side of Bear Lake in July, but those reservations don't open up until 4 months before the date of stay. And our trips for June and August are to places that don't fill up super fast so I don't need to make reservations for those places yet. Plus we are kind of waiting to see what's going on with our extended families' plans before we set our summer plans in stone. But at least I have a tentative plan. 

I was in such a good mood the rest of the morning. Brandon told me, "I love it when you plan things, it makes you so happy. It's worth the money just for that."

Okay, now we can talk about what happened this week. 

First up, I have a new office at work!  And I completely forgot to take pictures of it.  Oops. But let me tell you about it.  

I had been sitting at the front desk. When I was at work I took care of the receptionist duties while also taking care of the billing side of things. The company was small enough and the phone didn't ring that much so it wasn't a big deal to balance the two jobs. 

That is until January.  January was a busy month. I felt like I could never get on top of things. I only work about 12 hours a week so I'm busy the whole time I'm at work anyway. Plus we added two new clinicians so that increased my workload. And the phone seemed to be ringing a lot more than usual. Every phone call for a new client seemed to take about 20 minutes. And I just didn't have that kind of time. 

Thankfully my boss noticed my growing stress levels. Before I even asked, he proposed a schedule change. He'd have our afternoon receptionist increase her hours so she could work in the morning at the same time I was working. This was great!  

We had an extra computer in our breakroom so I moved in there while the receptionist used the front desk. It was so nice to have someone else covering the phone. I could focus on taking care of billing and payments without being interrupted. But I felt kind of cut off in the breakroom. We keep the door closed to the breakroom (so clients don't see the fridge when they first walk in) and I didn't like having a closed door between me and the waiting area. 

Fortunately for me, one of our offices became available. When we first moved into our new office we'd rented out the smallest room to another therapist from Burley who was trying to build up some clientele in Twin Falls. The room was more of a glorified closet and we weren't even fully using the three big rooms yet so it made sense to rent it out. But now our company had tripled in size. (From three employees to nine.) And that glorified closet was looking like it would be nice to have available. At the same time the therapist that rented the room decided that he'd rather work in Burley 5 days a week. So he decided it was time to end his rental agreement. He's a nice guy so it was sad to see him go, but that didn't stop me from putting dips on the tiny office. 

We decided that I'd use the office in the morning and then it would be available for therapy in the afternoon. Over the weekend my boss was able to move a small desk, a futon, and my filing cabinet into the office. When I got to work on Monday the office was ready for me. I hunted around our back rooms and found a few pictures that hadn't been hung up yet. They made the office look great. But one wall was still blank. I planned to stop at DI and see if I could find a nice picture for a couple dollars. 

Anyway, having the office was super nice. I could still hear what was going on at the front desk and help out if needed. And I could talk to clients about their bills in privacy. That actually came in handing the very first day. I haven't had an office with walls since I worked in Yellowstone so I'm super happy about this change. 

Back at home, the kids had to take their I-Station tests for the month. They hate these so I try to keep the rest of the day pretty easy if it's an I-Station day.  Derrick will usually buckle down and do the test, but this time he was not interested in it  AT ALL. He sat at the computer and didn't answer any questions.  When I tried to prompt him he just started yelling "No" over and over again. So we paused that test and tried again another day.  

Derrick's obstinate mood lasted through the rest of the afternoon. We had horseback riding lessons scheduled for that day and it was supposed to be Derrick and Veronica's turn. But when we got out to the ranch Derrick refused to get out of the car.  

Veronica went first while we waited to see if Derrick would perk up. Mary, who is the lady who owns Saddle Up Kids, is so good at her job. She started Veronica out on the same lesson Charlotte and Lydia had had about guiding the horse forward, back, and side to side.  But she quickly noticed that Veronica was much more nervous and also slightly off balance. So instead she walked around and led the horse with Veronica riding on the back. While they walked she told Veronica to do things like hold one arm out to the side, touch her head, hold both arms above her head, and other things to help her feel more balanced.  It looked an awful lot like the types of exercises Spencer had Veronica doing in Physical Therapy. This is just another way Veronica can work on teaching her wonky vestibular system about how to balance.  

Here's Veronica at the end of her half hour lesson. 

Derrick still refused to get out of the car so Mary offered to do 15 minute lessons for Charlotte and Lydia. They jumped at that chance.  Here's Lydia doing her lesson. She's at the point now where she can walk the horse away from Mary, go around a barrel, and then come back. 

And here's Charlotte.  I think she can do the same thing as Lydia, but I was busy taking Lydia to the house to go to the bathroom so I missed most of Charlotte's lesson.

Here's Charlotte posing again. 

The weather on Monday was an absolutely gorgeous day. It was 50 degrees which felt amazing. It was hard to believe that we'd been sledding only a week earlier and had spent the previous Thursday at a snowy cabin. 

Back at home the girls spent a lot of time organizing their room. I'd bought them regular sized hangars earlier because I realized that all their dresses were sliding off the hangars they'd used since they were babies. The girls LOVED the new hangars and were inspired to hang up a lot of their shirts and other clothes.  This kicked off organizing a lot of things in their room. The best part was I didn't have to do any of it.  

Okay, the next three days don't have any pictures.  I'm sorry. 

There really wasn't anything too remarkable about this week anyway.  

Derrick had speech therapy on Tuesday. I had rehearsal on Tuesday night, but it was nice and laid back. We turned in the awful Gershwin Suite in F Major (that is only in F Major half the time). Our director said that the soloist was able to reschedule for November so we'll be playing that music again later in the year.  One of the college students in front of me turned to her friend and said, "We'll I'm graduating this spring, and I won't be looking back." I laughed. 

We got new music for our April concert and it's much much more do-able. I felt like a halfway competent musician while sight-reading the new music. 

Wednesday night I had an Autism Support Group Meeting. It was the first in person meeting since the fall. Only one other person was able to come, but it was so good talking with her. She made me feel like this is still a good use of my time. And there were several of the regular attendees who would have come, but things came up at the last minute.  So I'm feeling hopeful for our March meeting. 

Thursday was errand day after school. Charlotte and Lydia didn't want to go so I let them stay home while I took Derrick and Veronica around. Our first stop was the library to pick up some things I had on hold. Derrick wanted to find The Meg movie.  But we couldn't find it.  He ended up in tears about it. I just couldn't win with that kid this week. He was fine for all his therapists, but for me he was falling apart.  

I ended up taking him home and plugging him into Youtube to watch clips of The Meg. Then Veronica and I finished our errands. I'd ordered office supplies for work and needed to pick those up at Office Depot.  She was planning to buy stuffed animals. So we still went and did our errands even though no one else came with. I got the supplies and she bought a few stuffed animals.  I checked DI for a picture and was surprised to find that all the large pictures were $20. Even the ugly ones. I'd been hoping for something along the lines of $5 so this was more than I was willing to pay. I started to think of other ideas for office art work. 

Thursday evening I made dinner and put it into the oven to cook. Then I sat on the couch and read a book. I looked up and realized the sky was still light even though it was 6:15 in the evening. This made me so happy. 

On Friday I had a little bit of end of the month stuff to do for work, but it was all stuff I could do from home. So I just took care of that in my pajamas while Brandon took care of his school stuff with the kids.  Then I took care of school after he went to work.  

Our big focus this week was reports.  This is what I later wrote to our mentor when I reported on our weekly work: 

Writing/LA: We kept working on reports this week. We checked out books from the library and used those for our reports.

For Derrick and Veronica we read the books and then I just had them tell me about the pictures and things they remembered. I typed up their reports pretty much word for word with what they told me. Derrick liked doing that so much that he actually "wrote" two reports.

Charlotte and Lydia each wrote handwritten notes. Charlotte was able to get her' organized and typed this week. Lydia is still in the handwriting phase. She has 9 pages of handwritten notes. (I suspect that she's doing a lot of word for word copying, but I figure it's good handwriting practice so I'm holding off on a big lecture about plagiarism.) We'll proofread these drafts next week and then make a final draft.

These are Charlotte's notes organized. 

And this is Lydia working on copying down things for her report. 

Here's our weekly work for the week. (I don't talk much about school but we do do it every day.)

After we were done with school and after I'd reported our work to our mentor I took the office supplies over to my office building. Then Derrick and I went to the Library to pick up The Meg.  (I'd requested it on Thursday after I got home from errands. I'd assumed it was checked out and we'd have to wait a week to get it, but I guess it was somewhere in the library because the email saying it was waiting for us came in right away.) This made Derrick much happier.

It was really snowy on Friday afternoon.  For a while there the snow was blowing sideways. Lydia called it a blizzard. 

After dinner on Friday we watched the second Croods movie.  The kids had been eagerly waiting for this to come out on redbox. I wasn't expecting much from this movie. But it was delightfully funny.  Also I really really appreciated that the two girls in the movie didn't fight over the one boy.  That was a very refreshing storyline. 

When the kids were in bed Brandon and I watched WandaVision. AHHHHH so many answers and yet so many questions. Then we watched Captain America Civil War to catch up some more on Wanda and Vision's past. Civil War is super long and talky so we fast forwarded through a lot of it to focus on Wanda and Vision more than Captain America. 

We didn't have much planned for Saturday.  I told Brandon that basically all I needed done that day was a shelf put up in the bathroom. Last week Brandon had been complaining about our crowded counter in the bathroom (again). I remembered that we had some shelves that we weren't using. I was able to find one of them (the other is MIA somewhere in the house) and stained it.  I'd let it dry, but Brandon hadn't had a chance to put it up after it was dry.  

So he put it up first thing on Saturday.  And it changed the whole feel of the bathroom. 

Here is the before picture. 

And here is the after. Brandon is so happy to finally have a clear counter. 

Last week Charlotte had been jealous when she heard that Lydia and I went to Artic Circle and had shakes.  So she wanted her own one on one lunch. So we did that. Then we went to buy paint for an idea I'd had for my office. 

When Charlotte got home it was time for me to spend time with Brandon. We've realized the kids are finally old enough that we can leave them home with out a babysitter for a little while. This makes it so much easier to go on dates.  This week we walked over to the new D&B store that is super close to our house.  D&B is a garden/farm/tool store. I bought a lot of garden stuff at the old store last year.  Now that they are open right by my house I'm sure I'll buy even more stuff there. 

We had a lot of fun walking around the store and looking at EVERYTHING.  Brandon asked me if I could have anything in the store what would it be.  I told him I wanted the bags of cow manure for my garden. He said, "I'm looking for Mother's Day ideas here, I can't get you manure for Mother's Day."

Then we walked to Smiths and bought a bag of Peanut M&M's. We ate that while walking home. This date may sound lame, but it's actually the type of date we would do before we had kids.  It was so great to feel like we had the freedom to take our time walking around stores again. 

Back at home the kids and I went to work on the idea I'd had for art in my office.  I asked each of the kids to paint a picture of a different season.  Charlotte did Spring, Lydia did Summer, Derrick did Fall, and Veronica did Winter. 

Everyone had fun doing this project together.  Derrick needed a bit of help, but he followed directions really well.

Here are the finished paintings.  I love them all so much.  I'll put them up in my office next week and I promise I'll remember to take pictures. 

I'd told the kids I would pay them for their art work. But I didn't actually have any cash on hand to pay them. So I wrote up little Bills of Sale as IOU's. 

Charlotte and Lydia set up a store and I pretended to buy the paintings. It was really fun and simple. 

And that gets us caught up again.  Whew it feels good to stay on top of this.  

Thanks for reading. 

Snowy Snow Snow

Hey good news. The pictures uploaded in the right order today! Yay! No crazy time reversing posts needed today.  

Let's start off with Valentines Day. or maybe a more accurate name would be Tiredtines Day.  Seriously, by the time actual Valentines Day rolled around we were a little done with celebrating. We'd done a party on Friday and a date on Saturday. So on Sunday we didn't do much at all. 

I'd started a puzzle on Saturday evening and that took up most of my time on Sunday. Charlotte sat down and helped me with a lot of it. So did Lydia. We had fun talking. Brandon helped with exactly one piece and kept pointing it out as the piece he'd put together. We were not impressed. 

We had church which was Sacrament Meeting followed by a quick Primary. Since we are still doing social distancing they had the kids meet in the chapel and had them sit with family groups. They asked the parents to stay with their kids. I stayed since I knew Brandon probably wanted to talk to his friends in the foyer. (Brandon is a social butterfly at church.)

All the primary kids were in the room together which made things a little tricky for the teachers. On the one hand they had new Sunbeams that had to be made to feel loved and welcomed. And on the other hand they had older kids who didn't want to be talked down to. The leaders chose to focus on the little kids. And so the older kids immediately felt like they were in a baby class. 

Charlotte and Lydia were not happy about being in Primary where they knew all the answers. They are now the oldest kids in Primary and they could tell. But they put up with it. They did like when the chorister had them sing "My Own Sacred Grove" because that had been their favorite song before COVID shut everything down.

 

Derrick did okay with the start of Primary, but as soon as they started singing he was out of there. He went out into the foyer where he sat with Brandon. 

Veronica figured out that Primary was only supposed to last 20 minutes. She asked me to set her a timer for 20 minutes. As soon as it went off she left. 

As soon as primary was over (at about minute 27) Charlotte and Lydia were the first ones out the door.

Honestly that's about how I expected our first week back with Primary to go. 

After church we drove around town checking out the sledding hills. It had been snowy all weekend and we wanted to go sledding on President's Day. But Twin Falls is a little lacking in sledding options. We talked about going to Sun Valley or even Pocatello, but those were a little further away than we wanted to drive. So we were trying to see what was available locally. 

Brandon had a list of sledding hills in Twin Falls. We drove by two parks that each had some random hills. They were okay looking. Brandon said that there was a hill on the CSI campus. I couldn't think of any hills on that campus so I was very curious what this hill would look like. Well we drove by it and realized it was actually a decent sized hill. We decided this was where we'd go on Monday. 

Back at home we had a Valentines Day Treat. I'd mentioned that it would be fun to have peanut butter rice crispy treats so Brandon made those. They had a chocolate top that was so yummy.

The kids like to get out the guitar and strum it. Veronica spent a lot of time playing some really relaxing sounding music. For being such a high energy kid she plays very mellow songs.  

Brandon made lasagna for dinner and he set the table all fancy. We had a good time eating together. 

After dinner the kids were playing quietly. I realized I hadn't heard from Derrick in a while. I asked Brandon to go check on him. He went down to Derrick's room and found Derrick asleep in his bed. It was 7:00 PM. Derrick had put himself to bed by himself.

After the other kids were in bed Brandon and I wanted to watch a romantic movie. We looked up a list of the best romance on Netflix. One that stood out was a Will Ferrel and Rachel McAdams movie called
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga.  We decided to give it a try. And oh my goodness was it funny and yet also very endearing. I had songs from the movie in my head the rest of the week. 

Monday was President's Day and Brandon's boss said they could have it off of work. So he was home all day.  I had work, but since there wasn't mail and the bank was closed I didn't have a ton to do. So I was only there until about 11:00 rather than 12:00. 

Brandon took care of teaching some of my subjects so that when I got home we didn't have to worry about school. Instead we could go sledding as soon as we were done with lunch. 

Brandon helped track down all the kids hats, gloves, boots, and snow pants.  The kids all got into their gear and we got into the car and drove over to CSI.  As soon as we were out of the car the kids were heading toward the sledding hill. 

I think the hill was built to be an outdoor amphitheater. It was horseshoe shaped. The north side of the hill was perfect for sledding. 

We've been accumulating sleds for the past several years. We have six now so everyone in the family can have a sled. I told Brandon this is peak parenting - having enough sleds for everyone. 

This hill was the perfect size because it provided a good ride down, but the hike back up wasn't too steep or too long. 

Here are Brandon and I together. 

Here's all the kids (and Brandon) with all the sleds.

And here I am in the picture too.

You can kind of see Brandon and one of the kids forming a human train to go down the hill. There were some pretty crazy combinations that we came up with. 

There were a couple times I went down with Veronica and she and I went in completely different directions than I expected. Derrick and I would go down together too and we'd go really far. My favorite runs were when I went on my stomach. Brandon said I made a funny face everytime I did it. 

Here's a video of me going down the hill. I never did learn how to steer. 

Here is Brandon doing some crazy stuff. 

We sledded for about 90 minutes and had so much fun. We probably could have stayed another half hour but the hill got really crowded again and we were feeling kind of soggy so we decided to go home. 

At home everyone changed into warm, dry clothes. Brandon and the kids watched a movie. I went grocery shopping. When I was at Winco they had bouquets of roses on sale for $3.99 I'd told Brandon I didn't care about flowers, but and I didn't. But seeing that deal made me want flowers. So I bought a bouquet and these flowers have made me so happy all week long. Post-Valentine's Day flowers might become an annual tradition.

Tuesday was a busy busy day. At the beginning of the day I wasn't sure how I was going to get through it all. 

First I had work. The mail showed up right after I got to work so I had all the checks to process and get to the bank. 

Second I had to leave work early and drive over to the hospital to get my second dose of my COVID vaccine. That went well but the actual shot hurt more than the first time. 

Third I went back home to do school with the kids. 

Fourth, school was kind of short because at 2:30 I had to take Veronica to the doctor for a follow up appointment about her Physical Therapy. Veronica was still walking on her toes, so we were discussing whether or not she needed leg braces. I wasn't too concerned about the toe walking anymore though. One of the main reasons we started physical therapy was because Veronica just seemed really unstable. I assumed it was because she was always walking on her toes. 

Well her physical therapist worked with her on the toe walking, but in the process noticed that she just seemed to have problems with her vestibular system. Like her internal sense of balance wasn't quite calibrated right. So he started working with her to develop a better sense of balance. And we saw a lot of good results from that.  Veronica wasn't falling as much any more and she seemed to be more spatially aware. 

The best evidence for her progress actually happened at the doctors visit.  When the nurse asked her to stand up against the wall she was able to stand with her heels directly against the wall and her back straight. She's never been able to do that before. I've literally had to hold her heals against the wall on previous visits.  But this time she did it perfectly.  

So I talked to the doctor about the pros and cons of braces.  Ultimately it came down to the fact that they'd be a lot of work and a lot of money that would probably just result in Veronica hating to wear them. 

So we decided to hold off on them for now. And we also decided that it's probably okay to stop PT. (Though we also discussed Veronica's fine motor skills and we might be doing some PT for those in the fall.)

I took Veronica home and spent maybe 10 minutes there before it was time to take Derrick to Speech therapy. Which is held in the same complex as the doctors office. Thank goodness I pick these things based on how close they are to my house.

Normally I walk around the outside of the building while Derrick is doing therapy, but I was tired and also had something else I needed to do.  I was going to miss symphony rehearsal that night, but I still needed to do a lot of work on the Gershwin song. So I went over the music and finished writing in names of notes. The song is in a lot of key signatures that I've never played before so I need a lot of help with the notes. For the life of me I can't ever remember that a D flat is the same as a C sharp. So I literally have to write in C sharp above the D flat notes. Same thing for G flat/F sharp. 

I spent about 30 minutes doing that.  Then I started to feel really tired. Like really tired.  I kept imagining how nice it would feel to crawl into bed when I got back home.  

Derrick finished up therapy and we drove right home and I got right into bed. I slept for 90 minutes.  When I woke up I felt so much better. 

I'd thought ahead and had sloppy joe sauce cooking in the crock pot. So I didn't have to do much for dinner.  I got dinner on the table and got dressed in my work clothes again. 

As soon as Brandon got home I went back to work. We were having a staff meeting.  It was a much needed staff meeting. Everyone works very different schedules so we are rarely all together. So it's good to get together as a team. Plus we've added two new therapists in the last month so we needed to welcome them. And most importantly we just had a lot of things to go over to help things run smoother. We were able to get a lot of things figured out. 

I had to miss rehearsal because of the work meeting. We had a concert on Friday the 26th so I was a little nervous about missing the rehearsal. But we'd have two rehearsals with our piano soloist the next week so I was hoping those would be enough for me to be ready for the concert. 

I came back home and crashed on the couch. I wasn't exactly sleepy, but I was tired. So I just worked on the puzzle and watched WandaVision Fan Theory videos from Super Carlin Brothers on Youtube. 

Wednesday was a day that I'd been worried about for a while. I'd heard that the second dose of the vaccine was the one that might give me some bad side effects like a high fever or a headache.  But instead I woke up feeling AMAZING. I was in such a great mood at work. 

I've been working in our breakroom since our receptionist is using the front desk while I'm at work now.  But we do have a middle office that we've been renting out to a therapist from Burley that isn't with our company.  Well that therapist decided he was done trying to build clientele in Twin Falls so he moved out on Monday night.  I told my boss I'd love that office.  So we were figuring out a way to configure it so that I could have it in the morning and one of our therapists would use it in the afternoon. It's a small office, but it's fun to know that I'll have an office. 

Back at home I had a lot of plans for what we were going to do that afternoon. But instead I got a headache and was tired. I think it was the vaccine side effects. I laid down on the couch and told the kids we weren't going to do school that afternoon. They all cheered. 

Charlotte and Lydia were working on some lego creations. They took these pictures. This is a rock concert.  

Here are the performers. 

There were fireworks going off above the stage. 

A crowds-eye view.

I pulled myself off the couch to take Veronica to her PT appointment. I talked to her therapist about how the Doctor and I didn't think braces were a good idea right now. I also said I felt like Veronica's balance had improved to the point where I wasn't as concerned about her toe walking. He agreed. And we realized we were kind of done. This would be her last appointment. Spencer gave her a shirt when they were all done. She put it on home and she proudly modeled it. 

That night I finally finished the puzzle after the kids were in bed. This had been such a hard puzzle because so much of it was the same color. I'm putting a warning label on this one for the future.  

Thursday was a fun day at work. I needed a bulletin board hung up in our breakroom. I was going to do it myself, but I couldn't find a drill in the area where we keep tools.  So I just called Brandon and asked him to stop by on his way to work and hang it for me.  He came and did an excellent job.  My favorite part was when he asked for the drywall anchors that came with the bulletin board. I handed them to him and he immediately threw them in the trash. Then he dug in his pocket and pulled out the heavy duty wall anchors that he loves to use. This is why I just asked him to help rather than trying to do it myself. 

After work I went home and the kids and I quickly got through some school stuff.  While the kids were doing social studies I checked my email. I had an email from the Symphony Director. The subject line was "Our Soloist Has COVID so  . . . "

This concert has revolved around a professional piano soloist from Canada who was going to come play with us. He was going to start the concert with an 18 minute solo. Then we would play the final movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. Then we'd play the entire Gershwin Piano Concerto in F Major which is at least 35 minutes.  The soloist was a big part of the Gershwin Piece. 

Our director had heroically found ways to keep us rehearsing through every social distancing restriction since January, and had many contingency plans for how to make this concert happen. But the soloist getting COVID wasn't something he could work around.

The concert had to be cancelled. 

And wow was I relieved!  I mean it's terrible that someone had COVID, but but I was still not feeling great about my ability to even fake my way though the Gershwin piece. Plus I hadn't even started the pre-concert slide show that I was supposed to make. And I wasn't sure how I could handle having three nights spent with the symphony during the last week of February. So it took a lot of pressure off of me when the concert was cancelled.  

We will have a concert in April where we'll play the Beethoven so that rehearsing wont have been in vain. And in theory the soloist will come play with us in a year so I guess I have a year to figure out all those crazy key signatures. 

Anyway, in honor of the concert that was not meant to be, here is a Youtube video of the Gershwin Piano Concerto in F (and a whole bunch of other really hard key signatures.)

When the kids were done with school we ran a few quick errands.  And after that we started packing the car because we were going on another mini-vacation that night.  

This month's destination was a cabin at Lake Walcott State Park. Lake Walcott is about an hour east of Twin Falls. I picked this location because of the cabin. There was no way we were going to tent camp in February, but I liked the idea of staying in a cabin. This state park doesn't do online reservations this time of year so I had to call the park on Tuesday to let them know we were coming out.  The ranger gave me the code to the lock box for the key so I didn't have to worry about making it to the park while a ranger was on duty. 

Earlier in the day Brandon had already pulled all the sleeping bags out of the garage. The kids helped me pack their clothes. Charlotte did the dishes before we left. I put all the food into containers. 

And all of a sudden we were ready to go.  We didn't have to wait for Brandon to get home since we'd already decided that he'd just drive out separately from us after he got off of work. So the kids and I started driving out to Burley and then a little north to reach the state park. 

We were using the GPS on my phone (yes, I've finally caved and started using that). We've named her Georgina. I had my phone balanced precariously on the center console. I made a sharp turn and the phone went flying. It landed on the floor by my seat. It was fine, but I couldn't reach it just yet because I was trying to drive. I jokingly said, "Oh no, Speak to me Georgina."  And just then she said, "Continue straight for 10 miles."  The kids laughed and laughed. Honestly that silly moment made the whole trip worth it. I'd been kind of debating whether or not we should even go on this little trip. It was a lot of work to pack for it and it seemed kind of crazy to drive for an hour just to stay in a little cabin. But while we laughed at the GPS talking I realized that we wouldn't be laughing if we weren't on this trip. We HAD to get our of our routine every now and then to shake things up and let funny things happen. 

The drive was pretty uneventful after that. It took an hour to drive to the State Park, but it didn't really feel that long. Soon we were pulling up to the State Park. 

It was after 5:00 and the ranger had told me that the visitor center/office would be closed by 4:00 so we didn't even bother going there.  Instead we just drove around looking for the cabin. 

We passed a whole herd of deer while we were driving around. 

This one was very interested in our car. She stood and looked at us for a long time. 

We finally found the cabin. I was able to get the lock box open on the first try and soon we were inside the cabin with the heat on. 

We had a great view of the lake. A lot of the shore was frozen, but there was water visible too.

Here are the kids peeking out the back window of the cabin.

The cabin technically had room for 5 people. There was a bunk bed with room for 1 on the top and 2 on the bottom. And a futon that folded down into a bed. We knew that we could squeeze the 3 girls on the bottom bunk so we knew we'd fit. 

I'd packed everything to make hoagie sandwiches so I sat down at the tiny table and made those. The kids played a little bit of CandyLand. 

Here's the itty bitty table.  The kids ate their sandwiches on the bed. They also got juice pouches and bags of chips.  Veronica told me, "I love this life."  I think she was talking about staying in the cabin, but it's also possible she was just really happy about having her own chips. 

Brandon arrived about 90 minutes after we got there. I'm glad we got there first. He came in the dark and was able to find the cabin because the lights were on. 

We hung around in the cabin for a while and talked, but soon it was time to get the kids ready for bed. We all bundled up and went on a walk to the bathroom. The bathroom felt super far away. It was on the complete other side of the parking lot. The wind was blowing and the night was so dark. We had a lantern, but that didn't help too much. The bathrooms were worth the walk though. They had flushing toilets, lights, and a heater that was running and made the room super warm. 

Then we went back to the cabin and helped the kids into their pajamas. I'd had the kids pack warm pajamas because I worried the cabin wouldn't be very warm. I was so wrong. The cabins little heater combined with the body heat from the 6 of us to keep us toasty warm all night. We were almost too warm. 

The kids had trouble falling asleep. Last month when we stayed at the glamping dome at Miracle Hot Springs they'd fallen asleep fairly easily. I thought that would happen this time. But I'd forgot that last time they'd been swimming before bedtime. This time nothing had worn them out.  So they spent at least an hour squirming in their beds and rustling their sleeping bags. They did eventually settle down.

In the morning we were all awake before 7:00 that never happens at home. Everyone had to go to the bathroom so we bundled up again and braved the cold to walk to the bathroom. We were surprised by more snow that had fallen during the night. There was even some still falling while we walked to the bathroom. It felt very magical. 

Here's the bathroom.

And here is another view of the cabin.

Me. I was surprised by how good I looked considering I hadn't washed my face before bed the night before. I'd been expecting mascara and smeared eyeliner. 

We didn't want to go back into the cabin quite yet so we walked around and explored a little bit while we were still in our pajamas. It reminded me of the time we camped at St Joseph State Park in Florida and we went for a walk on the beach really early in the morning - only this time the ground was white from snow instead of sand. 

Here's a pretty snow covered path.

We went down to the lake shore. 

I thought this was a log, but its a frozen wave. 

A look along the shore. 

Here's our cabin through the trees. 

The kids by the wave. 

Lydia holding some ice. 

This is a dock that was pulled up onto land before winter.

Here are Charlotte and Lydia on the porch swing. 

We went back into the cabin and had breakfast. I'd brought little boxes of cereal for the kids and store bought granola for Brandon and me.  When breakfast was over we changed our clothes. Thankfully I'd thought to pack snow pants and gloves for the kids. I hadn't expected snow at the lake because it's not in the mountains, but I'd decided to bring the winter things just in case. I guess the lake is at a slightly higher elevation than Twin Falls, because there was obviously snow. 

The kids went out onto the shore and had fun playing on the snow and ice.  They were able to uncover the ice and had fun sliding on it.  

Derrick had been looking forward to going fishing on this trip. Brandon had brought the fishing poles, in case we'd found a good place to fish, but the snowy wonderland put a wrench in that plan.  Derrick was adamant that we go fishing.  So he and I went on a recognizance hike to see if we could find a place with open water where he could fish. 

There was a nice sidewalk that went around some of the lake. 

Then we found a snowy path that led through sage brush and thistles. 

Derrick was hoping this area would be a good spot. He thought the grey stuff was sand. But I threw a snow ball in it and showed Derrick it was really slushy ice. 

We could see Brandon and the girls across the shore. We spied on them with the zoom on my good camera.

Derrick wanted to keep going. (He always wants to keep going.) We found a good spot, but it was about a 30 minute walk from the cabin. I was pretty certain that Brandon didn't want to go all the way there just to try to fish in the cold water. And I knew Veronica didn't want to go there. Somehow she'd walked out of the house with two right shoes - and only one of them fit her. She was really struggling with the snow as it was. There was no way she'd want to walk over to this fishing spot. 

So while we walked back to the cabin I tried to introduce Derrick to the idea that we probably weren't going fishing.  He was talking about how he'd show Dad the way to this perfect spot . . . how they'd follow our foot prints . . . how Dad would be so happy.  And I was saying things like, "you know, I'll probably stay at the cabin with Veronica" and "Charlotte and Lydia might not want to walk this far."

In the end Derrick was just fine with not going fishing, but not because of anything I did.  When we walked into the cabin Brandon and the girls were watching Donald Duck Cartoons that Brandon has saved on his phone. Derrick was sucked right in. 

They watched cartoons for over an hour.  Brandon said this was how he was able to make dinner every night when we lived in the RV.

Here's another picture of me.  I was wearing my "Let's Go Where the WiFi is Weak" shirt again. But we had Wifi. In fact I was checking my email and found an email from the school district with the finalized 2021-2022 school calendar.  There had been some debate about what the first day of school should be so I was curious what the decision had been. So I downloaded the calendar and was happy to see that the first day of school will be August 16th.  We have an end date.  The kids will be back in school on August 16th. 

We'd seen a few trucks driving by the cabin, but so far we hadn't seen any rangers. The ranger I spoke to on Tuesday had told me that if we didn't see anyone we should just put our payment into the drop box at the RV campground near the cabins.  So I walked over to the campground with Charlotte and picked up a fee envelope. Then we walked back and I filled out the envelope and a check. Brandon and I walked back to drop off the payment. 

There really was no rush for us to leave, but by this point it was 11:00 and we didn't have much else to do.  I tried googling things to do in Rupert Idaho and laughed when 5 of the top 10 things were things to do at Lake Walcott.  So we decided it was time to get going.

Brandon took Charlotte and Lydia in the jeep and I took Derrick and Veronica in the Honda. We drove the 30 minutes to Burley at met up at the McDonalds. I went through the drive through and got burgers and fries for all of us. Then we sat in our separate cars and ate lunch. 

I told Brandon that the last time we drove around in two separate cars like this was when we were moving to Twin Falls. Then I realized that this was actually the 18 month anniversary of when we bought the house.  What a way to celebrate. . . by acting homeless. 

We kept up the homeless vibe by finding a Smith's just to use the bathroom. And then going to a park so the kids could play. You can see that we'd left the snow behind at the lake. 

Some of the kids were even barefoot. 

They did their favorite park passtime and filled the slide with rocks and then slid down. They also collected rocks. 

Brandon and I sat on the bench and hashed out some more of the reasons I want to go back to school for a second bachelors. One reason we came up with was that if Brandon ever wanted to start his own business (something he's talked about occasionally) it would be super helpful if I could run the accounting side of things. It was fun to sit there and dream about the future.

After a while the sun went behind a cloud and things didn't seem as warm. So we got back in the cars and drove back to Twin Falls. While we were driving Veronica reminded me that I'd said we'd buy ice cream at a the grocery store instead of Mcdonalds. So we stopped off at Smiths and bought ice cream. We had that when we got home.  

We spent the rest of Friday just kind of hanging out. I can't remember anything specific we did. We did see an owl on our powerlines and that was cool.

After the kids were in bed Brandon and I watched the 7th episode of WandaVision. Thanks to all the fan theory videos I'd been watching this episode wasn't much of a surprise. (Brandon told me I'm not allowed to watch any more fan theories until the season is over.)  When the episode was over I told Brandon, "I feel like we need to go back and watch Age of Ultron so we can remember how Vision was even created." So we did that.  

The first and only time we watched Age of Ultron was in Fort Rucker (I think). I remember liking the movie, but I also remember being underwhelmed by it. So I was kind of expecting to be bored by it.  But this time it was really fun. I laughed a lot at it. And it's really cool to re-watch it now that Wanda and Vision have become such beloved characters. 

The nice thing about these little mini trips is that they happen from Thursday to Friday. So we still have our Saturdays to get things done around the house. So on Saturday morning we cleaned the house really well. 

After the house was clean Lydia and I went to lunch.  She'd been asking a lot of questions about growing up and I thought it would be fun to have a lunch date and answer her questions.  We decided to go to Artic Circle so we could get shakes. I let her ride in the front seat of the car (like a grown up) and we had a great time together. 

 Brandon had been asked to teach the Elders Quorum lesson on Sunday so I decided that was a sign that it was time to cut his hair. We'd been in a good natured stand off about his hair. Neither one of us wanted to be the one to cave and say it was time for a hair cut.  So his hair just got longer and longer and for him that meant it got puffier and puffier. It really hasn't mattered because it's not like he had anything too official to do the past few months. But we both agreed that he should have a hair cut before teaching a lesson at church.  

So I cut his hair.  

And then I let him cut mine.  

Ever since last March Brandon has been offering to cut my hair. He's watched a few Youtube Videos and even ordered the same scissor kit that my sister Hillary uses.  But I've been hesitant to actually let him cut my hair.  

But lately the ends of my hair have been really dead and my hair has been more and more tangled. I was hoping to hold out until I saw my sister Hillary again, but I don't know when that would be.  So I finally agreed to let Brandon do it.  My hair is long, but only because I can't figure out what else I would do with my hair right now.  So if he completely screwed it up I could just cut it off. So we went for it. 

And he actually did a decent job. I forgot to get an after picture though. I'll have to take one for next week.  

Charlotte and Lydia spent a lot of time building a Lego Airport.  This is the Control Tower. They created a lego person for each of them. Veronica's lego person is the Air Traffic Controller. 

This is the walkway to the airplane. 

This is a snack bar in the airport. 

The check in desk.

The metal detector. 

And the plane with the passengers. 

Here's the whole airport. 

And the whole view. 

Here they are playing with the legos. 

Our Sunday was really good. I got caught up on the blog and the kids played well together all day. Brandon's lesson in Elder's Quorum went well. Then he stayed after church talking to people for over an hour.  (I told you he was a social butterfly at church.)

And that get's us caught up again.  Yay!

Thanks for reading.