First two weeks back in school

The last time my kids were in a classroom was Friday March 13th.  The last day of their 18 months at home was Friday August 13th.  That's kind of a random coincidence. 

Veronica had lost a tooth over the weekend and so the Tooth Fairy came on the first day of school. That was fun for her.

We were all very excited for the first day of school on August 16th.  Brandon and I had been waking the kids up at a half an hour earlier each week for the past month so it wasn't too hard to wake up at 6:30 on the first day of school.  

Brandon woke the kids up by playing Phantom of the Opera music really loud on our sound system.  It was kind of an ominous way to start the year, but it did get the kids out of bed. 

I made muffins to go with the cereal that the kids usually eat. All the kids were excited to get dressed in their new school clothes.  

And then we realized we still had 45 minutes until school started.  Maybe 6:30 was a bit early to wake up.  

With all the extra time we had a lot of time for pictures.  Here are the three girls in front of the house.  (Derrick didn't want to be in this picture.)

And here are the four of them. 

We did individual pictures too. Here's Charlotte.  She's going into 5th grade. At our elementary school 5th grade is the oldest grade. She was so curious if she would really be as tall as the 5th graders always seemed to her when she was little. 

Here's Lydia. She was excited about 5th grade too. She'd made herself a little lama decoration for her backpack.

Derrick didn't want a individual picture.  He wanted to get going to school. 

And here's Veronica. She was so so so so so so excited to start school. I'd thought she might be nervous or shy, but she was raring to get to school.

I think we went back into the house for a little bit longer, but nerves started to take over.  So we decided to walk to school and just get there early.  Brandon walked with us.  Here are the kids heading down the street. 

The school is barely two blocks away so it's easy to walk to.  We found a good meeting spot at the front of the school where the kids could meet up and then walk home together.  Then we went around back so the kids could find their places to line up. 

As we walked around Derrick randomly started talking about finding his girlfriend so he could go on a date with her.  I was like, "what or who are you taking about?" He literally NEVER brought up a girlfriend before. I'm still not sure what that was all about. 

Charlotte and Lydia immediately teamed up with the other set of twins that are in their classes.  And Derrick found a friend. (Who was not a girlfriend.) Veronica's line up spot was at a different part of the play ground so I walked over there with her and helped her find it.  Then she ran off to play. 

I planned to go to work soon after dropping the kids off so I was dressed nicely in my work slacks. I think a lot of people thought I worked at the school. A little girl came up to me and asked for help finding her class.  I wasn't sure where she lined up, but I saw the Principal and took the girl over to her and she helped the girl find her spot.  Then a mom came up to me and asked me to help point out a certain teacher to her.  

Then the bell rang and everyone lined up. Brandon and I watched as all our kids went into the school.  Each of them waved and then they were gone. 

I thought I would feel sad, but really I just felt relieved.  The kids were in SCHOOL.  

I had a couple different goals for this week, but this day I really just wanted to clean my room before work.  So I went home and straightened up my room.  I told Brandon, "I'm going to be able to clean something before work, go to work, and then come home and it will STILL BE CLEAN." 

After my room was clean I went to work. Later I'd adjust my schedule a bit to go into work later in the morning and through part of the afternoon, but I wanted to stick to my morning schedule this week. I wasn't sure if Derrick would make it though a full day of school so I wanted to have my work done in case I had to pick him up after lunch. 

So I went to work. When I came home the house felt so quiet.  But in a good way. 

I did school work and then it was time to pick the kids up from school.  

Two years ago I'd had to physically pick Derrick up from school each day.  But this year I told the school that he could walk home with his sisters.  But since that was a new concept for everyone I wanted to be close by in case something went wrong. So I went over to the school and waited on the other side of the crosswalk.  

I watched the kids meet up in front of the school.  All four of them gave each other BIG hugs.  It was adorable.  Then they turned and came across the street.  

When they meet up with me they all started talking at once.  They'd had AMAZING days.  All of them were so excited to be back at school. 

At home we kept things pretty low key. And in the evening the kids went to bed easily at 8:00. 

We got back into the swing of things pretty quick. I ended up not taking very many pictures over the next week so this recap will be a little short on pictures, but I do want to tell you about some of things that happened.  

Derrick came home from school on the second or third day with a tooth in a little container.  He'd pulled it out during class.  When he'd gone out to the bathroom to get toilet paper for the bleeding he'd passed Lydia's class.  Lydia said he'd called to her from the hallway, "Lydia guess what! I lost a TOOTH."  She'd been so embarrassed. 

Car maintance and repair took up a lot of Brandon and my freetime this first week. Brandon had been taking apart the jeep to fix it's many issues.  (The thing is 20 years old after all.) And ran into a problem with the Freon. It needed to be emptied in order for him to take off the air conditioner.  But he couldn't just release the gas into the air.  It has to be done with collection tank.  So Brandon needed to take the Jeep somewhere.  But so much stuff had been stripped off the jeep that it couldn't run any more.  So Brandon had to call a tow truck to take the Jeep to an automotive shop just to have them empty the Freon. The tow truck picked up the truck on Tuesday and brought the Jeep back on Wednesday. 

On Thursday I took the Honda for an oil change and on Friday took it in for a tire rotation.  It's been okay to do those things with the kids in tow, but it was really nice to do them on my own.  I was able to study on the WGU app while waiting for both appointments.  

Another thing that happened that week was Brandon and I went grocery shopping together on Wednesday morning. We'd been running low on food, but I hadn't wanted to do a big grocery run so we'd been just doing little trips to Smiths for the past week or so.  With the kids in school Brandon and I were able to go to Winco and each of us filled up a cart with food.  We had so much fun doing that.  Brandon commented that I seemed more relaxed than I had been in a long time.  

Thursday was a super social day for me.  It started when I dropped the kids off at school.  Charlotte and Lydia were making plans with the other set of twins for them to come over to our house on Friday.  I  talked with their mom to make sure we were all set for that.  

When the bell rang I went around to the front of the school where the kindergarten moms were dropping off their kids. I said hi to Liz from Bible Study and asked how her day was going.  She told me they'd woken up to their basement flooding that morning.  That was not good. I made a mental note to check in with her later.  

I was also able to see two friend from church who also have kids in the kindergarten class.  

In the evening the social fun continued with a Progressive Dinner for Relief Society.  The dinner was supposed to be in the yards for three ladies in the ward.  But the weather had turned cold, windy, and was threatening rain.  So the dinner was moved to the church.  

We started in the Relief Society Room for appetizers,  moved to the Cultural Hall for Dinner, and ended with Dessert in the Young Women's Room.  I didn't care about the change in location.  I was just happy to be around other women.  It was so much fun to talk to everyone.  

When it was all over I was loaded up with leftovers.  I'd brought chocolate zucchini bread, and there was some left over.  Plus my friend sent me home with a bunch of the sandwiches and wraps.  So I grabbed some extra plates and made stops on the way home.  I dropped some things off at my Ministering Companion's house.  She'd been out of town until about an hour before the activity so she hadn't been able to make it.  Then I stopped at Liz's house and gave her some of the zucchini bread.  She was so touched.  She took me in the basement and showed me all the damage.  

The final stop was my friend Kaymie's.  Kaymie has two kids in elementary, one in middle school, and one in high school.  She is spread thin thin thin.  She was also happy to have a plate of food. 

And then I went home and basically didn't talk the rest of the evening. 

Thursday was also special because it was our two year anniversary of buying the house. We've now lived here longer than we lived in Pocatello.  And we are fast approaching the milestone of living here longer than we were in Texas. We've also lived in Idaho for 4 years which means that we've now lived in Idaho longer than we lived in the south. 

We celebrated the two year anniversary of our house by having in appraised on Friday.  We are in the middle of refinancing the house and so we needed an appraisal.  So on Friday morning after the kids were dropped off I hurried home to help Brandon finish straightening up the house and yard.  

We got the results of the appraisal the next week and WOW they were better than even our lender's estimate had been. This led to some really cool things with our refi, but I won't go into those details until it's all final.  

At some point I told the girls I wanted to make a sign for the house that said, "Don't mind the mess - Future Engineers at Work."  The girls loved that and made their own sign. 

The kids get out of school at 3:00. At 2:50 I usually start walking down the street to meet them across the street from the school. I was putting my shoes on to go out the door when I heard stomping footsteps outside the house.  I thought. "that kind of sounds like Derrick's stomping, but he's still in school."

And then I looked out the window and saw Derrick walking up the driveway.  

He came in the back door and I was like, "Derrick what are you doing home?"

I couldn't get an answer that made sense out of him.  He told me he'd just decided to come home.  But I couldn't figure out how he got out of the building. 

I hurried to send an email to his teacher, his SPED teacher, and the Principal to see if they knew what had happened.  I wasn't mad but I was super curious how he'd managed to leave school early. 

I knew that the girls would wait for Derrick at the school so I needed to go over there and tell them that he wasn't coming.  I probably should also have gone in the school to talk to the people there to see what had happened, but this was the day that the other set of twins and their little sister were coming home with us.  I didn't want to waste time in the school.  So I just met up with the kids and we went back home.  

Derrick's teacher called me a little later to apologize and explain.  They'd been outside for some end of the week fun activities.  The teacher had the kids bring their backpacks out because they wouldn't be going back in the building. He'd been keeping an eye on Derrick, but must have lost track of him.  

This, combined with what Derrick had been telling me made so much sense.  Derrick had thought school was over because he'd gone outside with his backpack.  That's how he'd got out of the building. 

I told the teacher that honestly I'd expected Derrick to have to come home early this whole week.  So 10 minutes on a Friday was actually a success. 

Meanwhile the girls were having a blast with the other set of twins.  The twins had come over one other time before COVID, but that felt like ancient history.  All the kids had a good time playing all over the house. Their mom picked them up at 5:00 and I told her that the girls were welcome back any time. 

Derrick's also got picked up at 5:00 because Friday is one of his new therapy days. Mr Chris was taking him fishing at Deirkies Lake and Derrick was so excited. Brandon called me to let me know he'd be home late on Friday.  He was on a mobile call all the way in Fairfield which is like 2 hours away.  

So the girls and I had a lot of free time.  We flipped through Disney + and Netflix and discovered that Beethoven was on one of them.  So we watched that.  Veronica got super worried about the dog, but I helped reassure her that it was going to be fine.  She loved the end.  

Then the girls saw a movie called Vivo and wanted to watch that.  It didn't look that interesting to me, but I said they could watch it. I went upstairs and worked on school stuff. Vivo was a musical and as soon as the singing started I thought, "Is that Lin Manuel Miranda?"  And Charlotte yelled up from the basement, "Mom, I think it's Hamilton singing!" 

I didn't watch the movie, but I loved listening to the music come up from the basement.  There is something so hopeful and sincere about Lin-Manuel Miranda's voice. It just cuts right into me. When the movie was over the girls all told me it was their new favorite movie. 

Derrick came home so excited about catching fish.  And later Brandon came home too.  

After the kids were in bed Brandon and I stayed up watching "Here Today." I'd rented the movie from Redbox because I'd heard Billy Crystal talking about it on the Id10t Podcast.  It sounded good and the movie did not disappoint.  I LOVED it and have been thinking about it every since.  

Here's the preview to get you interested. 

On Saturday we didn't have to clean up the house because it was already clean from the appraisal. That was nice because we all needed a really chill day.  

Derrick woke up around 7:00 and started talking about fishing right away.  I told Brandon, "you better take him fishing or we are all going to hear about it all day long." So Brandon took Derrick to Dirkie's lake and they caught a whole bunch of fish. 

I stayed home and did some yard work. Around 12:00 the girls and I walked over to a primary activity at a church kind of by our house.  They complained about walking the whole way there, but I told them it was good for them.  

When we got to the activity it was kind of boring for my almost 11 year old (and their sister who is just as tall as them) so we didn't stay long.  

I went back to pulling weeds and taking care of the garden.  Here are some picture updates of the garden. 

We have really pretty sunflowers that have made the overcast days seem more bright. 

These three sunflowers in the front yard were just little volunteers that I let grow.  They are taller than me.

And look at the catalpa tree.  It's come a long way from it's days as a stick. 

The Hollyhock is blooming a second time. 

And look at all these cute boarder flowers.  These are all from seeds I tossed down last summer. 

The rose bushes are blooming again too.

In the backyard things are growing well.  Nearly the whole month of august has been overcast and under 95 degrees and my plants have all done really well.

Here are the black berries. 

The one pumpkin plant that sprouted late and avoided being scorched to death by the sun. 

And the pepper plants.  I picked a bunch of jalapenos and made some jalapeno and cream cheese wraps. 

Look at how well this raspberry plant is doing.  We are just a few weeks away from ripe raspberries. 

And here's a look at the other garden. 

There are some little things growing over there.  Like another round of peas.

The sun flowers are growing in the kids garden.

And here's another look at the new garden.  

In the house we read some of the book The Mouse and the Motorcycle. I got it from the library in honor of the girls' pet mice.  Veronica made this design with all her change while I read. 

Later I sat down and did some more studying.  This was the first week since I started school that I didn't finish a class in a week.  I'm done with the easy classes and now onto the hard ones.  Right now I'm in Financial Accounting AKA the class I took when I was 20 that convinced me I NEVER wanted to be an accountant. 

Well I'm happy to report that I've matured a lot since I was 20. Back then I just didn't have a lot of life experience to understand a lot of the financial concepts. This time around the material is still complicated, but it makes a lot more sense. But I do have to go through it slowly in order to make sure I'm understanding it. In the other classes I took I would fly through 6 or 8 lessons a day.  This time I'm doing 3 or 4 a day. 

While I was doing home work the kids played downstairs.  They made a living room with a Television set. 

Brandon and Derrick came home and Brandon was able to work on the Jeep. This looks overwhelming to me, but Brandon is loving it. 

On Sunday we had church.  Everything kind of felt like a holding pattern.  Everyone knew that at Stake Conference the next week there would be boundary realignments happening with our stake and some surrounding stakes.  So everyone was kind of waiting to see what happened with that before they made any new announcements. 

After church Veronica had a zoom meeting with my sister Lindsey.  Lindsey recently went through some certification to be able to do dyslexia certification. She needs some practice giving the tests. I have some suspicions about Veronica and learning disabilities.  I've requested Veronica be tested by the school, but they are still gathering data on that.  In the meantime it seemed like a good idea to let Lindsey do a little practice test on Veronica.  

So Lindsey did a very short version of some of the tests with Veronica.  This turned out to be a very eye opening experience for me.  Veronica did WAY better with Lindsey over zoom than she ever had during the whole year of homeschool with me.  

I told Lindsey, "this is a completely different child than I was teaching last year."  I don't think all of it was due to Lindsey.  I think a lot of it was from just one week with her second grade teacher.  Every day Veronica was coming home telling me something new she had learned.  She went from being completely indifferent to being a little knowledge sponge.  A good teacher really can make a big difference. 

Our second week of school started off well.  It was a little harder to get the kids up in the morning, but overall they were still excited for school. 

Here's Lydia drawing one afternoon while I read to the kids. 

This week my personal theme seemed to be all about caring for my spirit. On Monday I went to a lunch time Yoga class with Amy Toft at the Community Center by my house. Amy is such a good Yoga instructor because she lets you know you have a choice with every position.  She's not super duper flexible and she doesn't expect anybody in her class to be either. 

On Tuesday I went to Symphony rehearsal in the evening.  I'd been on the fence about doing symphony again this year.  I'm already so busy with my school that I wasn't sure I could fit practice into my schedule.  But I realized I'd be sad to miss out on it all.  So I decided to do it again. 

This year we don't have to wear masks to rehearsal. (Apparently, Idaho has decided that if we pretend COVID doesn't exist it won't bother us. This is a terrible plan, but it's what we are doing right now.)  So here I am posing without a mask with my bass. 

This is my 2nd year with the Magic Valley Symphony and it's my 10th year playing the bass.  We have some really good songs lined up and most of them are going to be fairly easy.  So I'm happy to be back. 

On Wednesday morning Brandon and I dropped the kids off at school and then went to the Twin Falls Temple for a session together.  We've wanted to go since the temple reopened, but decided to make it a priority this week when we found out the temple was closing for scheduled maintenance in a few weeks. 

I'd renewed my recommend back in May, but all during April I'd had a big internal struggle about whether or not I even wanted to renew it.  I'm frustrated by A LOT in the LDS church, but because I pay tithing and have a temple recommend it looks like I'm just fine with the church. I was considering letting my recommend lapse as a form of protest.  But ultimately I decided that was like drinking poison and hoping someone else would die.  I still fit the qualifications for a temple recommend so I figured I might as well still have one.  (I refuse to use the word "worthy" because I DON'T need someone else to determine that for me.)

This was my first time back at the temple since the pandemic and I wondered if I would view it differently because I feel like I've changed a lot in the last 18 months.  There were definitely some things that I noticed that I didn't notice before, but overall it was still a good experience so I'm glad I decided to keep my recommend current. 

 Here's a look at the Jeep. All the blue are little pieces of tape that Brandon put on the end of each hose and wire as he disconnected them. He wrote on each tape what part they went to. 

He has plans to get this all apart, cleaned and then put back together again.

I'm glad he knows what he's doing because it just stresses me out to look at this. 

Our neighbor Kathy had the girls come down to her house to pick up some barbies that she no longer needs.  The girls were in HEAVEN.

They played with them for a long time. 

A really long time. 

On Thursday night there was PTA meeting at the school. I had a feeling that if I went to the meeting I would end up in a leadership role.  I hadn't heard anything about a new president or any other roles so I figured there was still a need for those to be filled.  

I've secretly wanted to be PTA Treasurer for a while because I really want an chance to count a lot of cash. (And because I know I'd be a good treasurer.) But I just wasn't sure if I'd have room on my plate to add PTA to all the other things I was doing. 

So I debated not going to the meeting.  Then I decided I'd be mad at myself if I didn't go and someone else ended up treasurer who didn't do a very good job.  

So I went to the meeting. There were a total of 5 people there. And one was the outgoing president. And she was looking for a new president and treasurer.  I said, "Well I won't be president, but I'll definitely be treasurer."

And within 24 hours I was added to the PTA bank account, given a whole tote Treasurer stuff, and signing checks. 

I'm actually super excited about this.  Yes it's another responsibility, but managing money is such a natural thing for me that I'm not expecting this to be very difficult.  

On Friday morning I had Bible Study again with the Twin Falls Community Church.  I really love this group. Every time I go it amazes me how Liz can pull so much information out of a handful of verses.  Before this class I'm not sure I'd ever even read Titus all the way through before. And now I've sat through a total of two hours and 15 minutes on the book.  And we are only to Chapter 3. 

When Veronica came home on Friday she said, "We don't have homework, but I have some work I want to finish from class.  Then she pulled out a math packet and sat down and did all the math BY HERSELF. She even explained to me how to add things like 7+8.  I was like, "who is this kid?"  

Derrick showed me a picture he'd colored.  He had me take this picture and send it to Miss Wenda. 

On Friday night we watched The Mouse and the Motorcycle movie because we'd finished the book.  The only copy I could find was on Youtube and it had been recorded off TV. It had snippets of old commercials and the "after the messages we'll be right back" claymation things.  Those brought back memories. The movie had two parts and Brandon and I tried to explain that when we were kids we would have had to wait a whole week to see the second half of the movie.  And if we were out of town we would have missed it and NEVER been able to see the end EVER. The kids could not quite understand what we were talking about. 

Saturday was another day with nothing big planned. We cleaned the house really well. We decided to rearrange the living room. We put the couch in front of the window.  We all like how open it makes the front room feel.

In the basement we switched out a light in the corner for a new bright LED light.  It changed that whole part of the room.

After the house was clean we went to the pool for one last time with our summer pass. Brandon came with and watched the kids pass the swim test and then go off the diving board.  We had a great time at the pool.

Then we came home and Brandon worked in the garage while I did some stuff in the garden.  Here are the tomato plants.  One of then is nearly as tall as me. 

Charlotte was playing with some binder rings and pretended they were hoop earrings.  They make her look so grown up!

Brandon had decided that he wanted to put his Powerplant certification to good use. He decided to take the engine out of the jeep and inspect it along with everything else.  To do that he'd need an engine hoist so he'd bought one earlier in the week.  (We ran the numbers and it was better to buy one than rent one.) So he put that together. 

Lydia was going around looking at lots of things with a microscope. 

Charlotte helped me harvest some yellow onions. 

Here's a look at the garden.

And the other way.

On Saturday night Brandon surprised me with a date in our tree house.  He'd set up blankets all around the railing to make it private.  Then he laid out sleeping bags. He had chocolate, a candle, and romantic music. It was so cute.  

He didn't plan on us staying out there very long, but I think he was hoping we would. I got cold so I snuggled into the sleeping bag. It was so comfy that I didn't want to move.  I ended up falling asleep after only a little while.  

I woke up around 3:30. At first I liked being out there in the snuggly sleeping back looking at the stars.  But soon I realized that my hips were sore. Plus moon had risen and was really bright.  So we moved into the house around 4:00.
 

It's good that we were in the house in the morning.  Around 8:00 Lydia came out of her room crying that she couldn't breath.  She'd been complaining about a sore throat the night before.  Now she was all congested and coughing.  

When the kids had started school I'd known that the Delta Variant of Covid was running rampant through the US.  And I knew Idaho wasn't doing a very good job of stopping it.  Our school district wasn't even requiring masks.  So I've been expecting something like this to happen from the very first day of school. And I've kind of always known that Lydia would show symptoms first.  She gets sick the easiest out of all the kids. 

Did I think it was Covid? Not really.  I was willing to hope that this was just a regular cold.  But we have a trip to Yellowstone planned for Labor Day.  I wanted to rule out Covid before we went on the trip.

I logged into the hospital's self triage tool and put in Lydia's symptoms.  Then I scheduled her an appt for a COVID test.  We are 18 months into this pandemic and this was the first time any of us needed a test. She and I drove over to the testing site for her test.  

She was super worried about the test and started crying a little bit. When the lady came out to do the test she saw Lydia's tears and so she explained that she didn't have to put the swab very far up Lydia's nose.  She just had to put it a little way up.  That made Lydia feel better. 

So we did the test and then were told that we'd have results in 48 hours.  That was good. But then I had to decide what to do about the other kids.  There's not great advise on what to do with siblings while one is waiting for test results.  

I decided the most responsible thing to do would be to keep them all home from school until we had Lydia's results back.  That kind of sucks, but it's really the best thing to do.  Plus Derrick seemed to have some symptoms by the end of the day and that kid NEVER gets sick so obviously we were dealing with something contagious. 

Lydia and I were back home in time for our stake conference to start.  We were already planning to watch it over Zoom so that wasn't a big deal.  There were a lot of changes to the boundaries of 3 stakes and a whole new stake was created.  Lots of ward boundaries were also changed.  Our ward stayed intact, but we were moved into the new Twin Falls East Stake.  Brandon and I are excited about all these changes.  

And that gets us caught up. 

This next week will look different than I'd thought, but I'm hoping Lydia has a negative test result and we can get back on track.  If it's a positive test we'll deal with that too.  

I'll keep you updated.  

Thanks for reading. 

Last two weeks of summer vacation

We are now one week into the school year.  And I really want to tell you how that is going, BUT first I need to get you caught up on the last two weeks of summer vacation.  

So we are going to do that in this post and then I'll turn around and crank out a second post about how school is going.   

I alternated between two feelings during the last two weeks of summer vacation. 

1. Sadness that the summer was ending.  This wasn't just the end of the 12 week summer.  This was the end of 18 months of the kids being home basically 24/7.  It was a challenge to adjust to having them home, but we've come up with a good routine and rhythm and I was sad that it was ending.  I was THRILLED that another adult was going to be teaching them, but I knew that we were approaching the end of an era. 

2. The second feeling was one of complete surrender.  I'd made it through 18 months of the kids being home and I was pretty burned out.  I didn't care that the kids watched a lot of youtube. I didn't care about making fancy dinners.  I didn't care that the house was pretty messy.  I was limping to this finish line. 

So basically a lot of the last two weeks of the summer was spent wishing the kids would just start school already - while simultaneously wishing for just a little bit more time with them.  

You know, basically how I always feel. 

We started prepping the kids for an early wake up time. Back in July we started getting the kids up at 8:30.  Then we moved it back to 8:00 the next week.  The first week of August we had the kids start waking up at 7:30. This was rough for the kids and Brandon. He hasn't had to get up before 8:00 in over a year.  I've been getting up at 5:30 all summer to study so it wasn't a big deal for me to wake up early, but I did feel like the kids were encroaching on my time. It was even worse the next week when we started getting the kids up at 7:00.

I was used to getting up at 5:30, studying until about 6:30 or 7:00. Watering the garden, eating breakfast by myself, and then getting ready for work and leaving around 7:45. There were days that none of the kids were awake when I left for work.  

But now they were all awake while I was going about my morning routine. Each of the kids and Brandon repeatedly asked me, "Aren't you going to work?" And I'd be like, "Yes, in 45 minutes. You guys are just up earlier than usual."

In other news about the last two weeks - the weather completely changed.  We'd had a super hot July. But August started off nice and cool. There were still hot days, but they weren't the 99+ scorchers we'd been having.  They were more like high 80's low 90's and they came with cloud cover and wind. 

Thanks to the cooler weather our lawn and garden decided to perk back to life.  Here's a picture of Derrick with our super tall sunflowers in the front yard.  You can see the lawn with it's dead spots in the back ground.  This was taken on Sunday August 1st.  By the end of the week most of those dead spots were showing green again. 

Here's another sunflower in the back yard. 

The girls spent time making a lego zoo with lots of different exhibits.  

Monday August 2nd was a pretty low key day.  We'd just come home from Utah the night before and we'd spent the last 10 days with various combinations of family members. So Monday was very much a down day for us.  

We started reading Where the Red Fern Grows and read a lot of that.  I'd wanted to read this to the kids during the school year, but we'd run out of time (and motivation.) But we had a great time reading it without any pressure from school. 

But that evening Charlotte and Lydia convinced me that they had waited long enough for the mice that I'd promised they could buy if they kept their room clean for two weeks.  I'd told them we'd pick up the mice after we were done with visits from family.  So that evening we went to Pet Smart and bought two little "Fancy Mice" and one cage. Charlotte and Lydia bought everything with their own money. We talked about how it was a little bit like getting the dogs in Where the Red Fern Grows. 

They named the mice Whiskers and Rascal. They love them! Having pet mice is a little gross to me, but I remember when I was ten I really liked playing with the pet rats that my friend Becky had as well as the rats and hamsters my 4th grade teacher kept in our classroom.  PLUS these mice have pooped on less of my stuff than Marcia did when she first came to our house so I think I like them a little better than a dog. 

We very quickly learned that these cages aren't big enough for two mice to share so on Tuesday we went back to Pet Smart to buy a second cage. Two cages has worked out much better. 

On Wednesday morning Brandon and I had a meeting at the elementary school to discuss ways to help Derrick transition back to school successfully.  The meeting went so well.  There were so many people there who all wanted Derrick to succeed.  The SPED teacher was there as well as the new Principal, the new Assistant Principal. Derrick's 4th grade teacher was also there.  The new district SPED rep as well as the District Social Worker came too. Everyone had such good input. This is the most confident I've felt at the beginning of a school year since Derrick was in 1st grade. 

Wednesday was the first day we made it back to the pool in over a week.  On our last visit Veronica had passed the swim test and was able to go into the deep end.  But there had been some unique things about that test.  It had been done on the shallow side and was shorter than usual.  She was not sure she could pass the test under normal circumstances 

I was pretty certain she could.  In the time since our last visit she had swam at Dierkies Lake and the deep end of Banbury Hot Springs - both without a life jacket.  I knew she could do this swim test.  

So she hopped in the water and did the test and she passed it!  She was so proud of herself. 

Then Derrick wanted to take the test.  On our last visit to this pool he'd done a practice test with me, but hadn't been able to swim across even the shorter length of the pool without stopping to stand up.  I told him he'd have to practice with me before he could try the test. 

Derrick had also been swimming at Dierkies Lake and the deep end of Banbury Hot Springs without a life jacket and had cliff dived at Dierkies lake (with a life jacket.) And those three things much have given him the experience and the confidence to swim better at the City Pool.  He swam from one side of the pool to the other without touching the bottom.  I was impressed and told him he could try the swim test. 

I stood by the side of the pool while he attempted his test. The life guard had to remind him a few times to do the front crawl rather than a doggie paddle, but at the end of the test he gave Derrick the all important wrist band.  

All my kids were now able to go into the deep end.  And this was the perfect day to do it.  The pool had The Tower set up.  Charlotte and Lydia had fun showing Derrick and Veronica how to cross all the obstacles on The Tower.  

Here are Charlotte and Derrick taking a little rest.

Here's a video of the whole thing. (Plus some crazy flips from Charlotte and Lydia.)  I was so proud of everyone.  Back when we went to the pool for Derrick's birthday in April Veronica had been super bummed that she couldn't play on The Tower.  Now she was able to swim well enough that she could play on it too.

Charlotte and Lydia spent a lot of time trying to go up the wall straight out of the water.  I'm not sure if Charlotte ever did it, but Lydia did it a couple of times. 

I spent the whole time standing at the edge of the pool. I knew Derrick and Veronica could swim, but I didn't quite trust all the bigger kids that kept crowding around.  I wanted to make sure that Derrick and Veronica were okay.  They were just fine and actually Derrick went up to a life guard and pointed out some of the boys who were pushing so I knew I didn't have to be so watchful next time. 

I've been keeping track of all of our pool trips this summer.  This turned out to be our 20th trip for the summer. (Not including lessons.) 

We went back to the pool on Friday. The kids all passed the test again. The tower wasn't up this time so they were able to use the diving board. 

Here's a video of all the kid jumping off the diving board. 

I spent some time outside of the pool doing homework. (More about that later.) I was kind of bored and mourning the fact that my kids were all growing up and playing in the deep end. What about all of our fun games in the shallow end? I can't swim so I wasn't about to go off the diving board, so what was I going to do at the pool now?

Then I remembered that anyone over 14 doesn't have to take the swim test to go in the deep end.  And a good third of the deep end is only 5 feet deep. I could just go over to that part of the deep end. 

So I went over to the deep end and jumped on in.  The kids realized I was over there and came over to say hi.  They were all like, "MOM how did you pass the swim test?"  I told them I didn't have to. We had fun racing and practicing treading water. Charlotte and Lydia kept trying to get me to swim over the deep water, but I wouldn't do that. 

So I can still have fun at the pool with my kids.

Okay here's the school update for the week.  This week I was doing the Business Capstone Class.  In this class I had to do a business simulation for a company for 6 quarters.  It was all done on the computer and was like a really boring video game. The company was a bike company and I was in charge of all sorts of decisions.  I could design bikes, make advertisements, open stores, decide how many salesmen to hire, etc.

At first I simultaneously overwhelmed and bored with the simulation. There was A LOT of data to parse through and I wasn't exactly interested in running a bike company. But then I remembered that I live with a guy who likes bikes.  So I involved Brandon in designing and naming the bikes.  He had fun helping with that.  

As I went through the simulation I understood it better. By about Quarters 4 and 5 I was more into the simulation and liking it more. I don't think I ever LOVED this course, but overall I enjoyed it. 

After the simulation was over I had to write some reports like I was an executive writing about the company.  This was my favorite part. Here's an example of the types of things I had to write.  

1. SWOT Analysis for Cat on Wheels Bicycles

Strength - Three Profitable and Competitive Product Lines 

The Beach Line, the RaceTrack Line, and the Rocky Line have all had high sales and favorable customer ratings. The new models of all three lines did very well. The legacy models have also continued to have sales. 

Weakness -  Lagging behind the competition in the roll out of some new features. 

For various reasons we did not invest in R&D in Quarter 5. This was a huge oversight that led to us missing out on leading the market in Enriched Carbon Fiber material and more aerodynamic racing tires. 

Opportunity - Demand for the Rocky Deluxe is higher than for any other brand

In previous quarters the Rocky line of bikes has not been as successful as we had hoped.  But in Quarter 7 demand for the Rocky Deluxe is higher than for our Beach line or Racktrack line. It’s higher than for any other Mountain Bike on the market. We’ve always believed that the Rocky line could fill a need in the Mountain Bike market and this quarter is the time to really show that the Rocky Line of bikes meet that demand.

Threat - Bolt Bikes has Enriched Carbon Fiber material in their product line

Bolt Bikes is probably our biggest competitor and they have not made it easier by already rolling out products with Enriched Carbon Fiber frames.  Their bikes are now even stronger and lighter. We have invested our own R&D into Enriched Carbon Fiber, but it will not be available until Quarter 8. We have to be careful not to lose our market share to Bolt Bikes this quarter.

On Friday morning I went to Bible study with the Twin Falls Community Church again. And once again it was great.  I'm really enjoying getting to study Paul's letter to Titus better than I've every studied it before.  We spent another hour and a half discussing 5 verses. Plus the ladies are really cool to talk to as well.

On Friday afternoon we'd hoped to go back to the pool, but the weather took a cooler turn and so it didn't seem like a good pool day.  Instead Veronica convinced me to take everyone to the mall so she could buy gum balls. 

On Friday night Brandon took Derrick and Veronica camping at a spot on some BLM land near Shoshone.  

Charlotte and Lydia and I had a girls night while they were gone.  We went to the store and bought icecream and candy. Then we watched Cheaper by the Dozen. 

Saturday was the first Saturday in a while that we would be home most of the day. I knew I needed to spend most of the day working on my garden. It's been very neglected with all the family visits and homework that I've had going on. 

I spent hours pulling weeds.  This was one of about 4 wheelbarrows full of weeds that I threw away. 

Everything looked really good when I was done.  You can't really tell in this picture, but the black berry patch is weed free.  I also divided up a plant that had a bunch of shoots and transplanted them to areas where other plants didn't make it though the scorching summer. 

Here's a picture of the new garden area.  Not all the plants grew the way I wanted them too over here, but a lot made it. 

Our lawn had come back to life and decided to grow again.  Lydia mowed the front yard and Charlotte moved the back yard. This section where the leaky pool was, was especially tall and thick. 

Charlotte went around and picked produce.  Here are some of the cucumbers.  

And here are the onions. 

I didn't get a picture of this, but the girls also spent about an hour playing in the mud in one of the empty garden beds.  They brought the grass clippings over from the long grass and squished it into the mud with their bare feet.  They had a ton of fun.

Here's the "old" garden area. I ripped out the dead pea plants and planted more pea seeds for a fall harvest. Charlotte pulled most of the onions.  The cucumbers are producing like crazy. They are the star of the garden show right now. If I forget to check on them for a day or two I'll go outside and find HUGE cucumbers.  And the strawberry transplants survived really well. 

Around noon we were hot so we went to the pool for a while. All three of us were over in the deep end. 

Around 3:00 Brandon called me.  I could tell it was bad news when he started the phone call with "how are you?"

He told me the jeep was overheating and that I needed to come get him. I thought I was going to have to go all the way to Shoshone, but he told me they were only about a mile away. The jeep had been overheating on the way back from Shoshone, but they'd made it into town. They'd stopped at Burger King for lunch.  As soon as they pulled away from the drive through white steam had started coming out from the hood. They'd pulled over on a side street. 

So I hopped in the Honda and went over to meet up with Brandon and Derrick and Veronica. I thought Brandon was just going to leave the Jeep and come back for it later, but then he pulled out a tow rope and said, "Okay, you are going to pull me."

I was like, "What?" and "Where did that tow rope come from?"  

He said he's had that rope for a while. (This was news to me.) And that it was no big deal to tow the jeep. 

I reminded him that the Honda can only pull like 3500 pounds to while he was hooking up the rope I was googling the weight of a Jeep Cherokee.  Turns out the jeep is only like 3000 lbs.  So I was out of excuses. 

I've never towed anything so this was nerve racking for me. Thankfully we only had to drive on side streets and it was a fairly straight shot back to home. But it was still stressful. I knew that Brandon hadn't hooked the two rope around the axle, but every time the car lurched I pictured the whole back axle of the Honda ripping off like we were in a cartoon. 

When we got home I quoted Apollo 13 to Brandon and said, "Let's hope we don't have to do that again."

Brandon was able to drive the jeep into the garage and immediately got to work on it.  He inspected the radiator and found "a very obvious crack." (It was like a hairs width.) Then he started pulling things out. 

Brandon has been talking about overhauling the Jeep for months.  He's just been putting it off for various reasons.  Well, the jeep has decided it's time. So for the next little bit we are a one car family. Brandon and I work so close to home that it isn't really a problem.  He can ride his bike to work most days.  And if there is a day he needs the Honda I can always walk to work. 

While Brandon worked on the Jeep I kept working on the garden. I found a Praying Mantis in some weeds and showed it to the kids. 

Charlotte was the only one brave enough to hold it. 

I'm trying to remember any specific stuff about Saturday night. Oh well let's move onto Sunday. 

My friend Amy Toft was teaching Relief Society on Sunday and asked me to share an experience during her lesson. I haven't been able to go to Relief Society since we started having regular meetings because I've been going to Primary with Derrick. Brandon is the Elder's Quorum secretary so he has to be in Elder's Quorum which means I'm the one with Derrick.  But this time I had to be in Relief Society. So we decided to see how Derrick would do in Primary without one of us there.  Brandon checked on him periodically, but overall Derrick did great on his own. And I had a FABOULOUS time in Relief Society. 

Also here is a picture of my hair somewhat done and showing the Bailage that my sister Hillary gave me a couple weeks earlier.    

Charlotte learned how to do her own hair and wore this cute hair style to church. 

In Lego news, the zoo was taken down and this yacht was put up.

On Monday we went to the pool again.  Derrick and Veronica both failed their swim tests on the first try.  Veronica had been pushed into touching the rope by the other swimmer during the test and that was an automatic fail. Derrick swam the last 30 feet under the water which also was a fail.  They were both pretty bummed about failing.  But after waiting 30 minutes they were able to try again and passed on the second try.

On Tuesday we had the big event of our last week of Summer Vacation. It was a day trip to Stedman's Place. We first went here three years ago with the kids' daycare.  Brandon had been out of school for a week and it was my day off so both of us went along with the kids.  We had a BLAST on that trip.  

The next year I didn't have the kids in Daycare, and we were in the process of moving to Twin Falls.  The kids' daycare leader, Miss Wenda, invited us to meet up with them at Stedman's Place. So we did and had a BLAST again. 

Last year was COVID and so we didn't even think about Stedmans.  

I didn't plan on Stedman's this year either, but several months ago we drove through Pocatello and Derrick literally started crying and asking to see Miss Wenda.  A few days later he was able to talk to Miss Wenda on the phone.  She invited us out to Stedman's Place again and I immediately put the date on our calendar.

Stedman's place is located about an hour away from us.  It's a little more than halfway between Pocatello and Twin Falls.  The people who own the property have put up two huge waterslides on the hills on their property. They let groups come out to their property to slide on the hills. 

We got there a little after 12:00. The day care had been there for a little while, but they were just finishing up their lunch. They hadn't gone to play yet. 

Right when we pulled up Derrick went running over to the group yelling, "It's me, Derrick. I'm nine."  Wenda finished talking to the day care kids and sent them over to the hills.  Derrick and my other three kids went charging to the hills with all the other kids.  But after a little bit Derrick found Wenda and spent a lot of time with her.  He also saw Miss Chelsea and immediately recognized her and said hi.  

It was so good to see Miss Wenda again. Here's a picture of her with Derrick.  She and Derrick spent a lot of time together when he was in kindergarten so they developed a pretty deep bond. 

We had such a fun time on the hills.  I made sure to slide down with each of my kids. I would slide down the hill and then walk back up and slide down with the next kid.  At one point I didn't have time to catch my breath at the top before I was sliding again.  I was like, "scream scream screa--- pant pant pant scream pant scream pant."

Here's a video of me and Charlotte going down the big hill together.  

And here is a video of all 4 kids going down the lower hill all together. 

Here I am at some point.

Here's Derrick and Wenda sliding together. 

I love this picture of them together.  I put this picture on Facebook and talked about how I used to think that if my kids went to daycare they would be raised by strangers. But I didn't realize that strangers can become good friends.  I'm so glad that Wenda was there for us at the daycare. She was so good for Derrick.

I went up and down the hills a lot. I used a tube every time, but my kids preferred to go on their knees. 

I love this one of Veronica.

We had a few snack breaks, but most of the time the kids were sliding. We stayed about 30 minutes longer than the daycare did. 

When we got home we were so tired.  We pulled out the "emergency pizza" out of the freezer and had that for dinner. 

During the evening I began to realize that something wasn't quite right with my right knee.  It was feeling stiff and was starting to swell up. I couldn't think of anything in particular that I had done to hurt it, but I guessed that all the running up and down the hills had aggravated some tendon or something. The interesting thing was this wasn't my left knee that had been hurt when I was hit by a car three years ago. This was my "normal knee."

So I dug out the knee brace that I'd used on my car crash knee and wrapped up my knee.  Then I took a dose of ibuprofen. The kids were all complaining of various aches and pains too so I gave them each an ibuprofen.  Obviously this day had been rough on all of us. 

In school news I had a super easy class for the week.  It honestly was deceptively easy.  I kept over thinking the tasks.  It didn't take long to finish once I figured out what was expected. 

I also got another certificate of completion. I put this up on the wall with the other one.  

At the end of the week I got notification that I'd passed off my tasks for the easy course.  By completing that last class I'd successfully completed my goal of going through 11 courses in 11 weeks.  I'd done the equivalent of 33 credit hours in less than 1 semesters.  

On Wednesday Derrick had a boys activity and I was helping out.  Amy Toft is in charge of the boys activities and her co-helper recently moved.  I mentioned to Amy that was about all I had to say.  Amy and I are cut from the same cloth so we love working together. 

Charlotte and Lydia and Veronica were supposed to have a girls activity at the same time, but that got cancelled.  So they came to boys activity too.  That was good because I needed them to help explain one of the games.  It's called Capitan Potato Chip. The girls had learned it at Vacation Bible School and loved. They had fun teaching the boys how to play.

On Thursday I came home from work and had about an hour until Derrick would be home from therapy.  So I told Veronica we had time to run to McDonalds for lunch.  She has been asking to go to lunch with me ever since I took Charlotte and Lydia.

She told me she was really hungry so I ordered her a Big Mac Meal.  When she opened up her Big Mac she looked at it like it was something she'd wanted all her life. She was so impressed that it came with three buns and was bigger than her mouth could open.  I've often wondered what this kid's Love Language is.  I think I've finally figure it out.  Her love language is Fast Food.

We had a fun time talking and eating in the car.  We talked about how she would be going to school on Monday. This was the first time she would be in public school all day.  This is also the first time that we won't have time together without the other kids around. When she was in daycare I had Tuesday's off from work and so I didn't send her to day care on Tuesdays.  That was the day we'd go run errands together. And when she was in Kindergarten she was home in the afternoon while the other kids were in school.  But now she'd be at school the same amount of time as the bigger kids. 

I was a little sad when I realized that from here on out I'll run all my errands by myself. But I wasn't too sad because it also feels like it's taken FOREVER for this kid to get into all day public school.  She's only three years younger than her older sisters, but she's been home with me for like 5 extra years at this point.

When Derrick got home from therapy on Thursday he had lunch and then he and I went over to the school.  When we'd had our big parent concern meeting a week earlier the Principal had suggested we have Derrick come take a tour of the school so he could get familiar with it again.  

Derrick and I went to the school and the Principal walked us around the school. In some ways it was the Derrick Illguth reunion tour.  People were so excited to see him again.  One of his aides is now the librarian.  He was thrilled to see her in person. About 6 months into the pandemic he had missed her so much and had begged to be able to call her on the phone. I'd had to do some serious Facebook stalking to get in contact with her so he could call her. We met up with his SPED teacher and some of her aides.  We took a look in the cafeteria. 

The most important part of the day was meeting Derrick's new teacher.  He helped Derrick pick out a seat and taught him the secret handshake.  We found a spot where Derrick could sit if he started getting overwhelmed. 

The whole visit was about 45 minutes long, but it was such a good time investment. Derrick was so excited about starting school on Monday. 

After we got home we went to the pool. My knee was still bothering me and I'd been wearing the brace a lot.  But getting in the water helped a lot.  I kind of felt something pop back into place while I was in the water. 

After we were done at the pool we went back home and changed back into regular clothes. Then we went back to the school so all the other kids could have back to school night and meet their teachers. 

The first class we went to was Veronica's second grade class.  I've heard so many good things about her teacher and she lived up to them in the first few minutes.  She was so welcoming to Veronica.  She noticed how tall Veronica was and made sure Veronica got a high desk so she could be comfortable. Veronica was super excited about having a desk.  When she'd been in kindergarten she'd sat at tables so this was her first time having a desk. 

I had to fill out paperwork, but the teacher gave me a treat when I was done.  That was great.  And all the siblings got suckers for hanging around.  

Then we went to Lydia's class.  In third grade she'd had a cranky older teacher so it was a relief to see that her teacher was young and happy. While I filled out the paperwork I noticed that one of Charlotte and Lydia's friends from 3rd grade had signed in ahead of us.  The girls were super excited about that.  (And later we found out that that friend's Twin is in Charlotte's class. So the two sets of twins are in the same classes.)

We tried to find Charlotte's class after Lydia's, but got confused when we passed Derrick's 4th grade class before we found Charlotte's 5th grade class.  So we went to Derrick's class again so I could do the paperwork there. 

And then finally we walked into Charlotte's class and I realized that her teacher is our kitty-corner-across-the-street-neighbor.  I knew our neighbor was a teacher at the kids' school, but I'd never known what grade or been 100% sure of her last name.  Well now I know.

All the kids were so excited about school after they met their teachers.  Veronica kept saying over and over, "I can't WAIT until Monday." and "When will it be Monday?"

But before we could have the first day of school we had to get through the weekend. And what a weekend we had coming up.  My sister Emily had finally found a house.  They had signed all the paperwork for it that morning and were going to move in on Saturday.  We were planning to go down and help. 

So when I got home from work on Friday we started packing while also getting ready for the first day of school.  

I had the kids pick out their clothes for the weekend and packed a bag for them.  Then I went through their dressers and confiscated all the clothes that weren't exactly school appropriate; all the cut off pants, all the holey shirts and pants, all the shirts that were too short, all the casual t-shirts.  All of those clothes got thrown into a laundry basket to be sorted through later.  

Then I got out the bins with the school clothes.  The kids had been bummed as I'd taken away all their favorite summer clothes.  But they forgot about them super quick when they saw all the cute new school clothes.    We picked out first day of school outfits and put the rest of the clothes in the dressers. 

Whenever we get ready for a weekend away I feel like there is never enough time in the afternoon. That was a case this time as well.  I was actually happy that Brandon didn't get home from work early because it gave me time to get a few last minute things done.  

He did get home around 7:00 and we started driving to Utah. We went to his parents house in Eden and stayed the night there.  We haven't been there since April so it was great to be back for a visit.  

Then on Saturday morning we got up and headed down to the storage unit in Taylorsville. I'd been planning to help out at the storage unit, but my knee was still a little concerning.  I did not want to mess it up more by carrying a heavy box or trying to walk up the moving van ramp.  So I dropped off Brandon and Charlotte and Lydia at the storage unit.  Derrick, Veronica, and I went to my sister Hillary's house.  It was kind of the place where all the disabled people were hanging out. I had a hurt knee, Emily was 8 months pregnant, Hillary had some mystery problem that was making it hard to eat (she got an official diagnosis the next week). My parents were there too and they have their own ailments.  We had a good time chatting, but I think we were all wishing we could be at the storage unit helping out. 

I did help with a few things at Hillary's.  Hillary had let Emily borrow some furniture for their short term rental.  Emily had somehow got it all into her van and had brought it back.  I helped unload it and get it back into Hillary's house.  And Veronica and Derrick helped keep Penny, Walter, Vance and Hazel entertained. 

Things went pretty quick at the storage unit.  Brandon was there as well as Emily's husband David and Hillary's husband Joe.  My cousin Alex was there too and so was my Aunt Vera.  And the older kids were there too.  They had to van loaded in about 2 hours. 

Emily went to Little Caesars and picked up pizza.  (I consider it a huge miracle that she was able to walk in and pick up 9 hot and ready pizzas at lunch time without pre-ordering.) We all met up at a park to eat the pizza and recoup a bit. 

Charlotte and Lydia played in the tree.

The other kids played on this castle that I remember playing on when I was a kid. 

Then we drove up to Layton to get everything moved into the house.  Emily and David had asked their ward to help with this part.  I was so happy when I pulled up at the house and saw a crew of at least 15 people helping to unload the van. Most of the people were from her new ward, but my Uncle John was there as well.  He lives pretty close to Emily's new house. 

One of Emily's new neighbors invited all the kids over to her house to swim in her backyard pool.  She didn't mind that none of them had swimming suits.  The kids thought this was great! 

We were done with the pool about the time the truck was unloaded.  Now was the time for Hillary and me to be useful.  Hillary went to work unpacking and setting up Emily's kitchen.  Hillary is THE BEST at this and she worked her magic again in this house.  

I went to work getting rooms somewhat livable. I put furniture into it's place in the living room and three of the bedrooms.  We didn't have hardware to put the beds together but I at least got the mattresses into the right places.  

Brandon took a nap on the living room floor for a long time, but when he woke up he made sure that the washer and dryer were hooked up.

Emily kept thanking everyone for everything.  She's moved a lot, but she hasn't had family help move in a long time.  She kept saying, "my house has never been this put together this fast."

When we left Emily's house her kids were sitting down to a simple meal at their own kitchen table in their own house.  It was good to see them settled in.  I started my summer with helping Emily pack for this cross country move, and now I was finishing my summer by getting her moved into her new home.  It was a good feeling to know that this project was complete. 

We stopped at Burger King on the way home and got cheap hamburgers for the kids. Then we went back to Brandon's parents house. I got in the shower almost as soon as we got there.  The day had been nearly 100 degrees and I'd been sweating for hours. 

After my shower I met up with everyone else outside for some ice cream.  That tasted so good.  I had a pretty bad headache by this point so I took it really easy the rest of the day.  

We slept over at Steve and Jacque's that night.  I slept well, but in the morning the kids woke me up just a bit too early.  I was grumpy and felt off the whole morning.  But the kids were having a great time at their grandparents so that made me happy.

We wanted to get home early enough to decompress from the weekend and start getting ready for school to start the next day.  So after lunch we got in the car and drove back to Twin Falls. 

I was a grumpy passenger for the first bit of the drive. Then I fell asleep for about an hour.  When I woke up I felt so much better.  I'd just needed a bit more sleep

We got home around 3:00 and basically did nothing the rest of the afternoon. Earlier in the week we'd read almost to the end of Where the Red Fern Grows. We'd got to the end of the big hunting competition. I told the kids the same thing I'd told them when we read the book 4 years ago.  I said, "This is a good place to stop.  We can stop here and pretend the book ends happy."  I've done that a few times when I've read that book. But just like last time the kids wanted to read to the end.  They knew what happened, but they wanted to hear the full story.  So we read the rest of the book. It was sad, but we got through it. 

Soon it was time for bed. The kids were all very anxious and excited about school. And so was I. 

I told Brandon, "I feel like I've piloted a ship for the last 18 months and now its time to put it into shore."  I was ready to be done with this phase and move onto the next one - what ever it was going to be.  

But that's the next post. 

Thanks for reading.