This week was supposed to be my "fail safe" week in school. I my semester ended on June 30th so I absolutely had to be done by then. I planned to be done earlier than that, but I still kept this week open "just in case." Well as you all know, I finished June 20th.
That meant I didn't have to do any school this week. And that meant I didn't come up with a bunch of other coping measures / procrastination projects to distract myself from the pain of school.
Which all boils down to I was super lazy this week. (At least by my standards. We still did a ton of stuff.)
Someone who wasn't lazy this week (or ever) was Brandon. And that leads to the big story from this week - the jeep is almost put back together.
On Monday morning I walked into the garage and found this sight. Brandon had finished putting the engine together the Saturday before. He was nearly ready to put it back into engine compartment. He just needed to install the engine mounts.
I've had some people ask me about the yellow color. Brandon painted it yellow because 1. He could. And 2. This way it will be easier to clean and spot any leaks.
I sat in the shade and outlined a blog post I wanted to write. The kids played in the water. Charlotte figured out that if she laid on the drain she could stop all the water from draining. She created a huge "lake" around her.
After the park we headed home. I mentioned that we could stop at the school for lunch. The girls didn't want to do that. But Derrick did. So we dropped the girls off and Derrick and I went to the school. My friend Cori was there with her kids and we had a good time talking.
I took this picture at some point in the afternoon. We might appear to do a lot in this family, but we also watch A LOT of TV. The kids usually spend at least 4 hours watching shows in the basement. They each have a day to pick what to watch. Charlotte is Monday, Lydia is Tuesday, Derrick is Wednesday, and Veronica is Thursday. Charlotte picked Curious George.
After dinner we went outside to do something the kids had been begging us to do for several days - blow up the new pool. We bought one of these pools back in 2020 and it worked well for two summers. But by the end of last summer it was a patched and leaking mess. So I threw it away.
I went to work at 2:00 when Brandon came home. I was kind of out of it at work. I'd been there on Friday morning, but I felt like I was coming back from a long weekend.
Back at home I took this picture of Derrick helping Brandon make pizza (or maybe it was the other way around.) The kid's each have a night they make dinner. (And it's different than their TV day). Derrick is Monday, Lydia is Tuesday, nobody is Wednesday (it's a really busy night with church activities), Charlotte is Thursday, and Veronica is Friday. If they help make dinner on their night they get paid $1.
Derrick was really eager to earn money. He was saving up for a $15 water gun. He had $13 and was really excited to earn that last two dollars.
I kind of thought the kids would be too big for one of these pools this summer. But they said kept asking where the pool was and acted very sad when I said I threw it away. So I bought a new one.
While Brandon figured out how to use the air-compressor to blow up the pool, I went around and took garden pictures. Here's the blackberries. Last year we had a grand total of 1 black berry in the fall. So it's exciting that we have about 50 for the summer harvest. (And we'll hopefully have tons in the fall this year.)
And look at the raspberries that are coming on for the summer harvest. This is the first year that we'll truly get two harvests from these plants and I'm excited.
And here's Lydia with the first of the onions.
And look - peas- FINALLY. These did not turn out as well as they have other years. But they did eventually grow.
And the tart cherries were close to ripening.
Brandon gave up on the air compressor and reversed the suction on the shop vac. That did the trick.
We decided to put the pool up in a slightly different spot because it would have more sunlight that evening. The kids had a blast playing in it.
Charlotte and Lydia were in the pool almost as soon as they got up on Tuesday morning. Veronica soon joined them. And Derrick was in there as soon as he was done with therapy.
Derrick had picked some sort of giant balloon as a prize at the dentist's office the week before. The kids filled it up with water.
Here it is.
Here's a view of the main garden. I'm really happy with this area. Most things are doing well. These garden beds get sun in the morning and early afternoon, but thanks to the fence are shaded during later afternoon and evening.
And here's the other garden. I'm not so happy with this area. It works really well as a cool season garden, but not so well in the summer. I'm also rethinking some of the garden boxes. So expect some changes over here.
I spent a lot of time reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I checked this book out from the library for Brandon because he liked The Martian by Andy Weir and I figured he'd like this too. But the timing worked out well for this to be the first book I read post-Accounting Degree.
On Tuesday Derrick went with Miss Brittani for the second to last time. (I'd requested that Derrick only work with Mr Kelly in July.) I worked on that blog post. It's about some of the resources I acquired from my Bible Study friends that I use when studying the Come Follow Me Curriculum with the LDS church. I submitted it for publication with an online magazine and I needed a image to go with it. I put one together. (This isn't the final one, but it's close.)
I knew very little about the plot of the book going into it. I knew the main character wakes up on a spaceship with no memories of why he's there and gradually he realizes he's on a rescue mission to save Earth. But that's just the starting place. This book was a delightful story full of twists and turns. I didn't expect this book to make me so happy. I highly recommend this book to anyone.
On Wednesday I took the kids to see Sonic 2 at the $1 kids movie matinée. Derrick's therapist met us there and she and Derrick sat together so it counted as therapy. But once again I was like, "why are we doing therapy this summer?" I could have very easily taken Derrick to this movie by myself.
On Tuesday evening Lydia asked, "Hey can we watch the next Star Wars movie tonight?" I couldn't see why not. So the kids and I watched Return of the Jedi. This movie holds a special place in my heart because it is the Star Wars movie I saw first. And for years it was the only Star Wars movie I saw. (I've tried explaining to my kids how hard it was to track down VHS copies of movies in the early 90s and they pretend to kind of understand, but they don't really get it. The fact that ALL the Star Wars movies are ALL available ALL the time on Disney Plus still blows my mind.)
We had a great time watching the movie and the kids loved it. When it was over they asked when we can watch the next one. We have to take a break for a week because we'll be camping next Friday so it's going to be over two weeks until we watch The Force Awakens. The kids are a little sad that they have to wait so long. I was like, "I spent most of my life thinking I'd NEVER see the 7th movie actually made. You can wait two weeks."
The problem is that Derrick has outgrown all of the behaviors that originally concerned me. He doesn't run away from loud crowded rooms. He can (usually) interact okay with other kids. He can talk in a way that most people understand what he's trying to say. So our old ways of doing therapy aren't really needed any more. He still has needs, but I'm beginning to see that we should come up with new ways of approaching those needs. I just don't know what those new ways are yet. I'm meeting with our case worker at the end of the month and I'll be talking to her about what services are available to for pre-teen children.
Anyway, the movie was really fun. I only fell asleep for about 10 minutes of it. My favorite part was the end when Knuckles, voiced by Idris Elba, starts learning how to play. He says so many funny things in about 5 minutes. My favorite line was "I had the fun." or something like that. What made me laugh so hard was I kept picturing super dramatic Edris Elba saying those silly lines in a recording booth. It just cracked me up.
On Wednesday evening Derrick finally earned his squirt gun. I'd ordered it from Walmart.com a few days earlier and it was shipped to our house. It showed up on Wednesday afternoon. Derrick helped make dinner on Wednesday to get one more dollar. When he had the $15 he needed he gave the money to me and I gave him the squirt gun. That's how I usually do things when the girls are saving up for stuff too. It works so much better than walking into a store full of distracting expensive stuff.
Derrick was so proud of himself for earning this gun. This was the first thing he's ever saved up for and it was such good practice for him. We'd printed out a picture of the gun and I glued an envelope under the picture. I drew 15 squares on the envelope. Every time he earned a dollar and put it into the envelope he'd cross off a square.
He'd been saying things like, "I have 10 dollars and I need 5 more" all week.
He went outside and tested it out right away.
When we sat down to eat dinner I realized Veronica was missing. Brandon told me she was asleep. I checked on her and this is what I found. Veronica rarely naps so she must have been really worn out.
Brandon was still plugging away at the jeep. He'd successfully attached the engine.
Here are the kids on day three of playing with the pool. (Veronica was still asleep so she's not in the picture.) Derrick was having a great time with the squirt gun.
We all love the city pool, but its also nice to have a backyard pool. I like that the kids can play while I get other things done.
Thursday was a cooler day so the kids didn't play in the pool as much. We'd recently had six camp chairs delivered in 3 large boxes so the kids made forts out of the boxes and had nerf wars. Charlotte and Veronica cut holes in their boxes so they could shoot their guns without being exposed. It looked really cool the first time they did it.
Here's Lydia shooting from her fort. The kids figured out a way to play where they weren't shooting each other so much. They each set up two cups in their fort and the other team had to try to shoot the cups down. That worked really well.
Here's Charlotte on her side of the room.
Derrick went with Mr Kelly to a fish hatchery nearby. They had a great time and Derrick came home talking all about the fish. Mr Kelly told me that he'd be working at another company in a few weeks so he wouldn't be able to work with Derrick all summer like we'd hoped. This is super sad news because Derrick and Mr Kelly get along so well together. But it's also another reason I think we are done with the current way we do behavioral therapy.
I was out in the garage talking to him while he worked and he nonchalantly released the tension on the chains on the engine hoist. I was like, "wait a minute! The engine is IN! And you just casually released those chains. This is a huge deal."
He just kind of smiled and kept working. He still has a billion more steps to get this thing running so to him this wasn't that big of a deal. But to me it showed that this project that started last August is finally nearing an end. I've been teasing Brandon that I conceived, carried, and birthed babies in less time than it's taken to fix the jeep. But I didn't have to wait for parts so I guess that gave me an unfair advantage.
Charlotte and Lydia had to get out of the pool so we could go to their camp kick off meeting at the church. I was looking forward to the meeting because I knew very little details about the Girls Camp that was happening in a month. I was interested in learning more details.
Well, details were hard to come by. The meeting was mostly lead by the Youth Leaders who giggled their way through talking about camp. One of them said, "This year camp is going to be at suwan valley." And I had to interrupt and say, "I'm sorry, you weren't clear. Did you say SUN Valley or SWAN Valley."
A little while later they said, "Okay it's time to fill out secret sister sheets. Here you go," And I had to interrupt again and say, "You have first year girls here who don't know anything about Secret Sisters. Can you explain what that is and how it works?" The giggly youth leaders tried to explain, but finally an adult leader had to step in and clarify things like how many items to buy and the price range. (And I wasn't asking that question just for Charlotte and Lydia. There are about 5 first year girls.)
I felt like I was mostly getting the info I needed - even if if was delivered in a giggly piecemeal way. But I realized how bad the communication was at the very end of the evening one when of the other parents said, "Okay just to be clear, camp starts for all the girls on Wednesday right?' And I was like, "It starts on a Wednesday?!?" That hadn't come across to me at ALL. I'd assumed it started on Monday and ended on Friday. But no it started Wednesday and ended Saturday. You'd think that would have been one of the first things they told us.
So during refreshments I started asking the adult leaders other questions. This camp was going to be in a cabin. What kind of cabin? Were there showers? And what about the dress code? They said "follow the for strength of youth guidelines," but what did that really mean? Did I need to make sure the girls had one piece swimming suits?
And the biggest question of all: Were those giggly youth leaders going to be giving information in this same way at camp? Because I seriously doubted their ability to convey anything clearly and I was worried that my 11 year old first year campers would be completely lost the whole week.
In hindsight I came across as confrontational and harsh. I later apologized for not expressing my concerns in a better way. But I was really frustrated at the lack of clarity about even basic details. I'd expected this to be a meeting where parents got a lot of information about camp. If it was just to "get the girls excited" then why bother inviting the parents. The details could have been texted or emailed to me.
When it was all over Charlotte and Lydia told me they were glad I was there to ask questions. They confirmed what I'd suspected when they said, "We didn't know what was going on at all."
But I am excited for them to go to camp. And I'm fairly confident they'll have a good time. Still I'm still not sure 11 year olds in Young Women's is a good idea.
All day on Thursday I'd been trying to get into the right headspace to go grocery shopping. The problem was I was having trouble writing the shopping list because there were so many different things happening over the next few days that I needed to buy for. I finally divided a piece of paper into four sections.
Section 1 was for the food I needed Friday-Sunday. I literally wrote each meal we'd have on the shopping list and listed any ingredients I needed to buy.
Section 2 was food for the 4th of July on Monday. We were planning to have friends over for a BBQ so I wrote down what we'd need for that.
Section 3 was food for the camping trip the kids and I were going on with my sisters and their kids from Tuesday to Friday. I was only in charge of 3 meals so I wrote those down and all the food that would go with them.
Section 4 was food that Brandon would need while he was in Twin Falls. (He had to work and was also no-so-secretly excited to have the house to himself for a few days.)
With my shopping list finally done I was able to go grocery shopping on Thursday night. Charlotte came with me and was a big help. When we got home I started making trail mix and dividing snacks into baggies.
Friday was going to be a busy day so I realized the best time to go to work was 6:00 AM. I dropped Brandon off at his work and then went straight to mine. I was there until about 9:00 and then went home. Derrick and Veronica had only been awake for a little while when I got home.
After everyone else was awake we spent a few hours cleaning the house. We had a lot of things planned for the weekend and I didn't want to waste time with cleaning on Saturday.
After Brandon came home from work I took the kids to the pool. The tower was up so they all passed the swim check and went to the deep end to play on that. They are all so independent at the pool now.
We came home and then I went to do some clothes shopping. I needed a few more shirts and shorts for the family camping trip the next week.
When I got back I found the kids and Brandon getting things ready for a fire in our firepit.
Charlotte lit a one match fire and earned a Swiss Army knife.
Brandon had set up an umbrella to shade the firepit. But it was still 5:00 on July 1st and so we were all really hot. The kids ran back and forth from the fire to the pool.
They would all dunk their heads in the water to cool off.
Here are Brandon and I.
At some point we took a mini field trip to the front yard for some reason. I took a picture of the lilies that had bloomed.
And look! The catalpa is taller than me!
We had hot dogs for dinner and marshmallows for dessert. The marshmallows were the giant kind. They were fun, but also really messy. I don't think we'll buy them again.
Here's Derrick roasting his.
Here's me.
The kids took turns squirting each other with the squirt gun. 
This reminded me of the games my siblings and I would make up. Here's a video.
The kids also playing in the pool.
After they left, Brandon and the girls started taking sleeping bags up to the tree house. The kids like to sleep in the treehouse once a year and this is the day they picked to do it. They moved the mattresses from the patio to the tree house (which makes so much sense I don't know why we didn't do that sooner.) Brandon also blew up the air mattress.
Derrick had told us all he planned to sleep in the house so he went to bed. When I went to check on him he was already asleep.
Here's Lydia in the tree house.
And Charlotte.
And me. I was also planning to sleep in the house, but I went up to hang out with everyone for a little while.
Everyone got situated.
Veronica was sad about something so I let her use my sleeping bag. It's super comfy and she's obsessed with it. That cheered her up a little, but she was still a little sad when I took this picture.
I ended up falling asleep with everyone else. I woke up again around 2:30 and debated whether or not I wanted to sleep inside in my own bed. I had to go to the bathroom and that was the kicker. If I had to climb out to go to the bathroom I knew I wouldn't come back.
I took this picture from the ladder as I climbed down.
On Saturday morning after the kids woke up and had breakfast we went on a Family bike ride - or at least that was the plan.
The older three kids hopped on their bikes and rode around no problem. But Veronica was having trouble. She's grown a lot and her bike is getting small which made her feel less stable, which made her steer more wobblier, which made her not want to try at all.
So I sent Brandon and the kids off, while Veronica and I practiced.
She did okay and felt more confident. But neither of us wanted to try to catch up by riding our bikes. So we got in the car and drove to the splash pad on Main Street. The other kids and Brandon were already there.
They all had a great time in the fountain.
Brandon and I sat in the shade and watched from a distance.
There was a farmers market going on down the street so we went and checked that out.
Then the bikers biked home and we drove home. I took this picture by city park.
Brandon and I went to run some errands. One of the places was Lowes so we could buy this water jug. I've wanted one of these for a while and this month I have at least 4 different opportunities where I could use one so it was time to buy it.
When we came home it was around 2:00. I'd told Derrick we'd go to the pool at 3:00. I went to take a nap and woke up to a rain storm about 30 minutes later. I was so glad that I'd made sure we cleaned up the sleeping bags.
We'd been running loads of laundry through the washer and drier all Friday so now it was time for the kids to put away their laundry. When we were done with that I had the kids go outside and help me put away the sleeping bags and the air mattress. Brandon kind of wanted to leave everything up for our date that night. But I wanted to get everything put away before something happened to it. When I saw Charlotte and Lydia heading out to the treehouse with graham crackers and glasses of milk I knew it was time to put things away. The last thing I wanted to do was go camping with a bunch of gear that had spoiled milk all over it.
The rainstorm only lasted about 15 minutes, but it cancelled our pool plans. Derrick is really nervous about thunder and strong wind. So he was not going to the pool after that.
I started cooking food for the camping breakfast I was in charge of. Over the next several hours I made strawberry muffins, sausage and cheese biscuits, and plain biscuits. I put them in the freezer so they'd could freeze before the trip.
Brandon kept working on the jeep. After the engine went in he was able to put so many other pieces back together. He'd labeled everything really well when he pulled it apart so really it was just a matter of reattaching things.
We had freezer pizza for dinner because I knew we'd just want something easy to eat this day. Brandon kept working on the jeep and I kept working on prepping food.
Around 8:00 it was time for our long anticipated date. The plan was to watch Stranger Things in our room. I'd picked up two Red Box movies for the kids so they wouldn't 't be trying to stream anything while we were streaming Stranger Things. I told the kids, "Okay, we are here. But pretend we aren't here."
Brandon and I went into our room and started watching the final two episodes. In case you don't know, this season of Stranger Things was released in two parts. Part one was 7 episodes long. It came out at the end of May. Then we had to wait until July 1st for Part two which was *only* two episodes long. But they were each like mini movies. Episode 8 was like an hour and a half long and Episode 9 was almost 2 and a half hours. I knew we'd want to watch them back to back and there was no way we could watch 4 hours of Stranger Things after the kids went to bed - especially with the kids going to bed around 10:00 these days. So that's why we did it this way.
The show was so good! I'm fully invested in every single character in the show so to see them all in danger was really scary.
We paused the show at a (terrible) stopping place around 10:15 and "came home" from our date to put the kids to bed. Then we went back to our room and kept watching.
The ending was good. But I'm already eagerly anticipating Season 5. It will come out in about 2 years. Maybe by that time the kids will be old enough to watch it. They've asked when they can watch it. Brandon and I told the girls that they have to be able to go into the basement by themselves first. (We've lived here almost 3 years and the girls STILL have to have a buddy to feel safe in the basement. That's something they started in our last house which was understandable because that basement had some creepy elements. But they still insist on having a buddy in the basement of this house.) Derrick can watch Stranger Things when little things like wind and dark clouds don't scare him anymore.
And that catches us up again on this blog. And just in time too. The next post will cover a major holiday, a camping trip, and hopefully the completion of the jeep so it's good to be caught up.
Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment
What do you think?