End of School and Camping

This is going to be a quick post, because, spoiler alert, I'm not in Idaho or with my family right now.  I've flown out to North Carolina to help my sister Emily get ready for a cross country move to Utah.

We have a lot of work to do so I'm going to hurry to get this done before I have even more to write about. 

So let's start where so many of these recaps start, with Lego creations. 

Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica made a whole lego town. 

This is the coffee shop.

The park. There's a merry go round, a slide, and a swing. 

The pet store.

The doctor's office. (With a random saxophone on the floor.)

McDonalds.

More of Mcdonalds. 

This is the front, they even made golden arches.

The book store. 

I love how clever they are with legos.  

This is from back on Wednesday May 12th. The girls had Activity Days at the church. We almost didn't go. The leaders hadn't told us what the activity would be and it's hard enough to get my girls to go when we know what they will be doing.  But at the last minute we went.  The girls were so happy because the activity was cake decorating.  They had so much fun decorating their cakes.

Derrick and I went to the pool and bought our summer pool pass and signed him and Veronica up for swimming lessons.  He was disappointed that we did all that and weren't able to actually get in the pool. He is eagerly awaiting the start of the summer pool season.  (I am too.)

What would a blog post be without a check in with the flowers.  Here's the front of the house with the tulips in all their glory. 

We also have bleeding hearts. 

Charlotte and Lydia have created a backyard oasis. They go out here every day and read and play. 

Our lawn was looking kind of crispy and we had a hot day so I told the kids they could put on their swimming suits and run through the sprinkler. I'd bought new swimming suits for Charlotte and Lydia so they were happy to get to use those. 

They ended up building a shelter.

It was so Marsha could stay out of the water. 

Here they are on a different day enjoying their oasis. 

Look at my tree. It has good little branches growing. 

I went out in the backyard one evening and thought the clouds were so pretty. 

Charlotte and Lydia played with their barbies and pretended they were at a gym. 

They had a lot of fun with those. 

The family's would do elaborate routines. 

On Friday I was able to finish up the new part of the garden. I put the supports in for the pumpkins and suddenly the area looked so much more complete.

I also bought tomato and pepper plants. I put them on the patio to harden off. 

On Friday night Derrick and Brandon went to Father's and Sons at Nat-soo-pah Hot Springs. Derrick was so excited to go camping. 

The girls and I had a super stereotypical girls night. We ate nachos, did facials, and watched chick flicks.  

Here's our food.

We watched Ever After. We'd tried watching that movie for a similar girls night 5 years ago and they didn't really understand the movie.  So we tried again and the girls loved it this time.  Then we watched Mama Mia and they liked that too. They really love the music and we've been listening to it a lot ever since.

On Saturday morning I got up and planted the tomatoes and peppers. 

Here are the tomatoes. 

The regular peppers. 

The pumpkins. 

And the hot peppers. 

I also worked on moving the last of the grass from the new garden bed in the front yard to the back yard. While I was working on that Veronica came out wearing her Halloween costume.  I still laugh every time she wears this. 

Brandon and Derrick swam at the hot springs in the morning and then came home in the afternoon.  That evening we picked up Pizza from Little Caesars and took it to Centennial Park for dinner. 

Here's the view of the river. We are so spoiled with the Snake River. 

Then we drove a little bit to the trailhead of Auger Falls. It's the time of year when all the waterfalls are running. 

The kids had fun with this big rock.

Of course they figured out how to get up there.

Then we went hiking on the trails. 

We never made it to Auger Falls (we weren't really trying to) but we liked exploring all the different trails. 

Here's one of the other water falls. Near the top is an area named Mermaid Cove. We WILL make it there this year. 

On the way home we stopped at Lowes so I could buy a few rolls of sod. Then I came home and put them on the low hill that we have by the fire pit. The area looks so inviting now. I'd also made a little test bench with some cinder blocks and a board. Charlotte and Lydia were testing it out on Sunday.  

Here's the grass.  I'm glad I went with sod for this area. It was such a quick fix.

Let's check in with the other part of the garden.  Here's the lettuce. 

Lydia helped me get everything for a salad. We had lettuce, green onions, and radishes. 

I don't remember why I took this picture. Maybe it was to show off the Cleaning Bingo Board in the back ground. 

On Monday we were supposed to go to Field Day for Venture School.  I got off work and Brandon had all the kids ready to go. We were all really excited because Field Day is always the best day of school.  

Well we really should have known better by this point.  Hardly anything we've done with Venture School has been impressive. We arrived and the only games that were happening were soccer and frisby. No bubbles, no parachute, no races.  Just soccer and frisby.  We were a little late and so the games were already going.  The lady in charge told my kids to join a frisby game.  I could tell none of the kids were excited.  So as we walked toward the frisby game I whispered, "Just keep walking.  We are going to leave and go to the park."  The kids couldn't believe I was letting them leave.  When we made it back to the car they cheered. 

We drove off without saying goodbye. And I didn't feel guilty at all. I don't owe Venture School anything. 

We went to the First Federal Park. I was able to find a shady spot. I called my friend Kaymie and warned her about the lame field day so she joined us at the park. The kids played for a long time and we had a great time. 

We stopped at Winco so I could grab a few things for the week. We also bought Creamie's and ate those on the patio.

We were done with school (FINALLY) but technically school was still going for the rest of the week. I'd decided that we'd do that they do in elementary school and just clean most of the week. I made a big Bingo board with different cleaning jobs on it. It took us nearly two days to get a bingo, but we did get a lot of the house clean. 

Here's Charlotte vacuuming out the couch. 

And Lydia washing the stairs. 

Monday was also our 14th wedding anniversary.  Our hydrangea blooms on my Anniversary and so I put some in a vase. 

Brandon and I had big plans for dinner so I just fed the kids pancakes for dinner. Here's Derrick helping flip the pancakes. 

And here's Veronica washing windows. 

Brandon and I went to Texas Roadhouse for our anniversary.  Texas Roadhouse is brand new to Twin Falls and a few weeks ago my boss gave me a gift card as a gift for "Administrative Professionals day."  I decided to use the gift card for our anniversary.

I ordered the stake and shrimp combo. It was so great.  Even the mushrooms were amazing. 

Brandon ordered a full rack of ribs. He'd already eaten a ton of rolls and a bunch of fried pickles. But that didn't stop him from downing most of his ribs.  And what he didn't eat was saved for dinner part two on Tuesday night. 

We had such a fun time on our date. 

Tuesday was a busy, busy day. We spent so much of the day cleaning.  We took down all the school stuff in the basement. It feels so nice down there. 

Wednesday we had to run a ton of errands.  I was getting ready to be gone for a while.  I had to return library books, pick up more pullups for Derrick, and get some office supplies for work. I also had a phone call with my advisor for when I start school on June 1st. 

Wednesday evening we spent a lot of time packing the car for our next camping trip. It felt so overwhelming to get ready for a plane flight and a camping trip at the same time.  But somehow we got everything done. 

Thursday was the last day of school. In other years I've taken pictures of the kids on the last day of school. But I'm so over the kids school this year. So I just wrote my unofficial motto for the year and took a picture of that. 

This is what I wrote on Instagram:

"Done is better than perfect" has been my unofficial motto for homeschool this year. Today is the last day of school for our district. We are finally done. And yes, it's much better than perfect.

Homeschool has been what we like to call "a fun once." I always wondered if my kids would do well with homeschool and Covid gave us a reason to try. It turned out okay, though I learned I'm more suited for administration than teaching.

My main reason to homeschool was that things just seemed too unpredictable with returning to school. I would rather plan to have the kids home 100% of the time than have to scramble when the school randomly sent them home again. This worked out really well.

My favorite thing about homeschool was how much Brandon was involved. He took care of teaching Math and Science and was the BEST.

I'm not sure if the kids academic abilities improved much this year, but I loved how much time they had to play and create. The new skill I'm most excited about is that Derrick learned how to play pretend this year.

So what's next? Well the kids are definitely going back to their regular elementary school in the fall.

And, after surviving home school with my sanity intact, I've decided to do the other thing I said I'd never do: I'm going back to school! I'm going to get a second bachlors degree in Accounting. (Which in hindsight is what my first bachlors should have been.) I'm going through Western Governors University and start June 1st.

I think I'll need to keep using the motto for my school adventure.

I went to work on Thursday for the last time for a week and a half.  I tried to get everything for me to be gone for over a week. I'm pretty certain my work can survive without me, but I also expect to spend quite a bit of time straightening things out when I get back. 

Back at home I finally packed my bags for my trips.  I had two bags.  One for the camping trip and one for the trip. It was so hard to keep track of which bags go where. 

I also took pictures of my flowers. Here's a volunteer poppy growing up against the back of the house.  

The bleeding heart. 

The tulips are fading and now there the wildflowers are starting to bloom.

I love these cute violets. 

This has been a mystery plant the whole time we've lived there.  But now it's starting to make a flower bud. I think it's a hollyhock. 

I actually don't mind dandelions. I like yellow and dandelions are a pretty shade of it. So when this one popped up in my flower bed I let it stay.  There were not other plants near it and so this dandelion made a really good addition.  It's been really pretty.

Here are irises and lilies getting ready for their time to shine. 

Look at how much the tree has expanded.  We can actually see the leafs when we drive by the house.  

The peonies are also about ready to bloom.

There were some cold nights in the forecast fro when we would be camping and I was worried about my tomatoes.  So I put together some makeshift cold frames using stools and plastic that came with a mattress.  After we left I worried that the cinder blocks would somehow shift off the tops of the stools and smash the tomatoes.  But Brandon told me that everything was fine when he got home. 

Brandon came home from work around 6:00 on Thursday and we were able to leave for our camping trip shortly after. 

We drove out to Bruneau Dunes State Park. We hurried to set up the tent and then we went to the little dune to play on it until dark.   We got there right as the sun was going down.

Here are the kids rushing to the dune.

They'd been looking forward to this for a long time.  We've been here twice before, but its' been almost 18 months since our last visit.  We'd hoped to come last year, but our camping reservation had been cancelled due to Covid. 

The kids were heading up the hill before I was even across the parking lot. 

I was impressed by their energy.

Here they are at the top while I was struggling up the hill.

Here's another view of the sunset.

I finally made it to the top and took a victory photo with Brandon.

Here's Charlotte getting ready to sled. 

There is a really pretty pond behind the dune. I love this view. 

Here's Lydia getting ready to sled. 

Derrick went down the hill and I couldn't see him for a second.  Then I saw him off in the distance. 

Here he is bringing his sled up the hill from far away.

This is a zoomed in view of the campground. 

Here's Derrick and Veronica sledding.

Veronica fell out. 

We stayed on the hill until about 9:45. Then we went down and went back to camp.

This was our first tent camping trip of the year.  And I was wishing it was really another cabin trip. The first time we camped at Bruneau dunes was in early May in 2018 and the weather was great on that trip. So I'd assumed that it would be even better this time.  But no, it was cold and rainy.  But our tent kept us dry so there wasn't much to complain about. 

Brandon made breakfast. It was raining lightly, but we never bothered to put up the tarp we'd brought so the rain wasn't too bad. 

Here are the kids sitting around the fire. 

I was wearing my "let's go where the wifi is weak" shirt again.

After breakfast we had a choice between sitting around the campsite and freezing or going on a hike and getting warm.  So we chose the hike. 

We drove to the trailhead for the big dune. You can see the big dune in the back of this picture. 

The trail started out level and went through some trees. Veronica hadn't wanted to change that morning so she was hiking in her sleeper. 

Then we made it to the sand. This is where we took off our shoes and put them in a bag I was carrying. 

We did this hike back in 2018 so I knew the kids could do it.  But I was a little worried about me.  I was getting over a cold and so I was struggling with breathing as I went up. I'm also less in shape than I was in 2018. I was also worried about my knee.   

I just went nice and slow and gradually I made it higher and higher up the dune. 

Most of the kids were way ahead of me. 

Selfie time

I'd called ahead to make sure Marcia could come on the trip. She was allowed as long as she was on a leash and we cleaned up after her. 

Looking down the trail. The sand was wet from the rain and we were breaking a thin crust with every step.

The kids liked digging under the crust and watching is collapse. 

I kept going at my slow and steady pace.  Brandon was with me for most of the way. We were at a disadvantage because we were so much heaver than the kids. We sunk deeper into the sand with every step than the kids did. The kids made it to the ridgeline at the top way before Brandon or I did. 

Brandon went ahead to make sure they were safe up there. 

I finally, finally, finally made it to the ridge line. 

I was so proud of myself for making it.  There had been a point about 20 feet below where I'd considered just giving up. But I figured if I'd made it that far I could make it the rest of the way.

Here's the view of the lake.

And the campground.

Someone had a boat on the lake. 

Here are the kids playing on the ridge line.  You can see that there is still a higher peak that we needed to reach in order to be at the very top.

Here are the lower dunes. 

The kids had fun sliding short distances down from the top.  I kept saying, "If you have energy to go down you have energy to keep going."

So we kept going. 

Veronica was really struggling.  Brandon and I took turns encouraging her along.  She kept saying, "I can't do it."  And I kept saying, "You are literally doing it while you say you can't do it. Just keep going!"

I counted down the elevation change to the top for her.  I said, 20 more feet, 19 more feet, 18 more feet."  It was partially to motivate myself to the top. I was so proud of her when she reached her siblings at the top.   

Here are Brandon and I taking a victory pose.

Looking back. 

All the kids passed out at the top. 

Selfie with all the dunes behind me. 

Veronica wanted to be a wolf in her victory pose. 

I had Brandon take my picture I want to use this as my motivation when my Accounting Program gets hard. I think I'll tell myself the same thing I told Veronica, "You are literally doing it while saying that you can't do it."

Here's Brandon's victory pose with a dog and a wolf in the picture. 

When I was done taking Brandon's picture I looked down and noticed that Charlotte had buried Lydia up to her head. 

It was so funny!

I went closer, but she'd already uncovered her arms. 

Then Charlotte had a turn.

Here's Derrick at the top.

He slid down the other side and we all realized that the wind wasn't blowing as hard on that side so we went over there. 

We chilled out in the sand for a long time. 

We were up there for a long time.  Eventually we decided to head back down. 

Here's another view of the pond. 

The kids were down the dune really quick.  Brandon and I took a little longer. I hadn't had any trounle with my knee on the way up, but it was hurting a teeny bit on the way down.  I took my time to make sure I didn't torque it weird.  

And soon we were back down and at the trailhead.  

We drove back to camp and had a second lunch to augment the snacks we'd eaten on the trail.  Then I took a nap in the car while Brandon played cards with the kids in the tent.  I'm not sure how long he lasted before he was asleep.  

I woke up and all the kids were playing around the campsite. And they were all barefoot.  The light rain had stopped while we were hiking but it was still cold.  I was glad that there were hardly any other campers left at the campground.  Most of the other campers had cleared out in the morning. 

Derrick was spending time looking for Prairie Dogs.  He said he'd saw one so he was waiting by a hole for another one to pop up.

When Brandon woke up we went back to the little dune for more sledding. When we got there I realized my phone was missing. I was pretty certain it was in the car, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Brandon's was dead so I went back to our campsite to charge it and then call my phone.  I could hear it buzzing in the car, but I couldn't locate it.  And every time I got close to finding it the call would go to voicemail.  So I gave up until I had someone to help me look for the phone.  I knew it was in the car and that was good enough. 

I met up with everyone on the top of the dune. 

The kids had such a good time.

They would go down and back up over and over again.

They figured out they could dig out the sand under Brandon and make him slid down.

We probably could have stayed on that dune forever, but we were getting hungry. So we went back to camp.  Charlotte helped me find my phone. It had fallen all the way under the back seat.  I don't even know how that happened.  

Brandon worked on building a fire. 

Lydia chilled out in the tent. 

Derrick had fun wearing the water backpack.

Here are the kids enjoying the warmth of the fire. (Not pictured are Derrick and Charlotte's bare feet.  I think I'm raising Hobbit's. 

We had stew and soup for dinner.  It was perfect on this chilly day.

RVs and trailers were arriving all evening.  The campground had been nearly vacant that afternoon, but now it was nearly full. It was interesting to see how much it changed in a short period of time.  

We had fun sitting around the fire and talking.  But soon it had died down and it was time to douse it.  Derrick loves when we pour water on the fire. 

Then we started packing everything up.  I'd planned to have my flight be the next day because we were only an hour away from the Boise airport so in theory it would be easy to get there and drop me off. But we had quite a bit to do to make sure that we could leave on time in the morning.  My flight to North Carolina left at 8:45 the next morning.  I wanted to be at the Boise Airport early.  (Actually my Anxiety wanted to be at the airport early.)  So we'd have to leave at 5:30.  

We packed all the campchairs, the sleds, and the big suitcase in the car's "hat."  The next morning the kdis would have their sleeping bags with them in their seats and we'd just put the tent in the back of the car.  

At bed time I snuggled with Charlotte and Lydia for a while. We were getting ready so say goodbye for our longest separation ever and they wanted to make sure to spend time with me.  When they were asleep I went on a walk with Brandon around the campground. 

Then we went to bed.  

My alarm went off at 4:30 so I could get up and take a shower.  Thank goodness the campground has showers because I was not interested in flying across the country with sand covering every part of my body.  

It had rained all night so the tent was soaked on the outside.  Brandon didn't even bother with trying to get it back in the bag.  He just "wadded" it up.  (Brandon is incapable of actually wadding a tent, it was still a pretty decent folding job.) And put it into the car.  

Then we started driving to Boise.

We were a mismatched crew on the drive.  I was all fancy and nice looking and the rest of the family looked like they were fleeing a natural disaster. 

Honestly, if the kids were older we probably would have just left them sleeping in the tent and Brandon would have taken me to the airport and then come back. But they aren't old enough for that so they all got to sleep in the car.  

We made it to the airport right on time.  I grabbed my airport bag with all the things for my trip. I left all my sandy clothes behind.  

I said goodbye to everyone and went into the airport for the beginning of my next adventure.  

And that will be what my next post will be about.