My theme this week was to just take it one day at a time. There were so many things on the calendar that if I started thinking too far into the future I'd get all sorts of overwhelmed.
So I'd just look at each day and figure out what needed to be done, when, and by whom. I literally would plan out the day on a white board so I could know when we we needed to be where. And somehow it all worked out.
I still have the nagging sensation that I missed something. But I haven't figured out what yet. So I think we are fine.
Amid all the crazy were a lot of really cool moments so I'm actually really looking forward to doing this recap and telling you about the fun things that happened this week.
But strap in because this was the most Decemberist week in December.
We left off the last post on Sunday December 11th. Here's my flower. I'm glad I decided to grow this during December.
And look here's my amaryllis flower from last January. I've always kind of wondered if these would regrow a second year. But I've never tried. Well this one was just kind of left on our microwave all year and basically forgotten. A few weeks ago I noticed it again and decided to water it and then it suddenly started to grow. So this has been fun.
Okay, I know what you are really interested in - Derrick's train. He was so excited to finally open it up and set it up.
Monday felt like it came way too early. I got everyone off to school and then went to work, but the whole time I was at work I just wanted to go home and sleep. I'd woken up that morning with a headache and it never really went away. So I did something I never do. I shut my office door. I put a sticky note on it that said something like, "I'm here and happy to help, but I have a headache so please knock first."
I got off work around 11:00 and went home. I wanted to try to do something for myself each day to I could avoid falling flat on my face (metaphorically) on Saturday like I had the last two Saturdays. So I decided this was a perfect day for my tradition of watching the Noel episode of the West Wing. I made myself a lunch and ate it while watching that show while I was curled up in a blanket.
It was so nice to just relax and watch something that I knew I'd enjoy. For some reason I really enjoy watching this episode. Maybe because it's a nice reminder that Christmas doesn't have to be MAGICAL all the freaking time.
I was loving the show and then all the sudden I was waking up. I'd slept though the whole Yoyo Ma/PTSD climax of the show!. I must have been super tired. So I went back and watched that part again.
At 2:00 I walked over to the school to pick up Derrick and Veronica. Veronica came out first. She looked like she was about to cry. She told me she felt like she needed to throw up. Derrick joined us and we all walked home together. Derrick was so concerned. He kept asking, "What about your concert Veronica?" I told him we'd think about that in a minute.
Veronica was wearing a long sleeve shirt, a coat, and snow pants. It was a relatively warm day and I suspected that she was just overheated. So when we got home I had her take everything off and change into a t-shirt and shorts. She felt so much better after that.
This was good news because we had a busy afternoon planned. We were going to do our tradition of having the kids pick out presents for each other at the dollar store. Then the girls and I would pick up their Live Nativity costumes. And that night Veronica had a choir concert at the Roper Auditorium. So it's a good thing she was feeling better.
After Charlotte and Lydia came home from Middle School we went to the Dollar Store. We took two cars because Brandon and Derrick were going to run an errand the same time I went to pick up the costumes. While we were driving we had to stop at a 4 way stop. I was waiting for my turn when suddenly a car ran into another car at the four way stop. I was like, "I just witnessed an accident." So I pulled over where those two drivers were and gave them my number in case they needed a witness statement from me. That was rather exciting.
We all went into the dollar store together and the kids tried to keep their purchases a secret from each other as they picked things out. I think the kids had fun, but I was thinking this tradition needs some changes for next year. I think we might have outgrown the dollar store. (And now that I type that I feel like I wrote the same thing last year. So we REALLY need to come up with a new version of the tradition next year.)
After the dollar store Brandon and Derrick went to Lowes. As usual I've asked for a Christmas present that necessitates Brandon buying a new tool. (This year it's a scroll saw.) So they went to pick that up.
I took the girls to get our costumes for the Living Nativity. Britt had sent out an email with instructions for where to find the costumes in the barn this year. She always does a good job of describing where to find them. Here are the girls looking through the rows of children's costumes. We realized that they'd outgrown most of those costumes so they ended up picking out costumes from the women's section.
We had a quick dinner and then it was time for Veronica's choir concert. This was for all the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders at our school. But it was held at the Roper Auditorium at the high school. This was the same place where Charlotte's orchestra concert was last week. This time there was a cute background up. I think the way it worked was that this background was set up all week and all the elementary schools had concerts throughout the week. They used the same background
This is the first time I've ever been to an elementary concert like this. They didn't do this the Christmas before Covid so this might be a new tradition for Twin Falls elementary schools. I don't know. What I do know is that the music teacher at our school is a first year teacher (she'd actually finishing her student teaching this year.) Veronica has LOVED music this year and I could see why. The teacher was so good with all the kids.
The first graders went first and sang three songs. They were all super animated and sang their hearts out. Then the second graders did their three songs and also sang really well.
Next the third graders went on the stage. We had to sit towards the back because of Derrick so I didn't get really clear pictures of the kids. But it's still pretty easy to see Veronica because she is the tallest in her grade. She's up on the top row in a red shirt.
I felt a little bad about her outfit. Somehow it never dawned on me that this was a Christmas Concert AKA an occasion to dress up. Veronica never really got that memo either. She was told to wear something red, or green, or white, or gold, or silver. When I told her to get ready for the concert she came out wearing her white and black sweat pants and a ripped red shirt. I told her to change her shirt. So she wore a different red shirt. I'd felt bad enough about the ripped shirt critique that I didn't say anything about the sweat pants.
When I started seeing other little girls in poufy, sparkly dresses I was like, "Oh it's THAT kind of a concert. Oops." Not that Veronica would have worn a fancy dress anyway, but we could have at least planned her outfit a little better.
She did want to wear her sparkly shoes. We bought these at DI a few weeks ago for church and she LOVES them. So she wore them to the concert. Here's a picture I took after the concert. Veronica wasn't phased by her outfit so I decided I wouldn't worry about it either.
I was really curious how the concert would go. Remember Veronica was recently diagnosed with Anxiety. And she self diagnosed herself with Stage Fright years ago. She hasn't participated in any sort of singing in front of people since she had a panic attack during the Primary Program in 2019.
She looked a little nervous as the kids came on stage. But she perked up as soon as the first song started. It was Jingle Bell Rock. There were lots of actions and other things. She was so into the song. She knew ever word, and every action. I could have cried.
The next song was about a dancing snow flake or something.
Then it was time for Veronica's favorite song. It was Reindeer Zone to the tune of Danger Zone. Someone passed out sunglasses to all the kids while they were going on stage and they put them on for this song.
Here's the video of it. I just love watching Veronica sing her heart out.
The concert had started at 6:30 and was over by 7:15. Brandon took the older three home and I waited for Veronica and then took her home. She was positively glowing with happiness. She was so proud of herself. She kept saying, "Mom, I did my dream. I sang on the Jive Stage." She's often told me that she wants to be in Jive one day. I've been thinking, "that's nice, but what about your stage fright?" Now I'm not so worried about that.
Later I sent her music teacher an email congratulating her on an excellent concert and telling her what a victory this was for Veronica. She really appreciated that.
At home we celebrated with ice cream and then it was bed time.
Brandon wanted to show me some of the things he's been working on in the garage. I went out there with him. I liked seeing what he was doing, but for the most part I was just standing there thinking, "This is cold, and uncomfortable, and I'm bored." And then I said, "You know what would make this place better? A couch! I'm going to see if any of our old office couches are still available."
Brandon was kind of like "hmm that could be nice."
Brandon stayed in the garage and I went back into the house. I climbed into my warm, comfy bed and watched some stuff on youtube. I kept thinking, "If we had a garage couch I could do this exact same thing in the garage and Brandon and I wouldn't be so separated in the evenings."
The appt started at 8:30 and was done by 8:55 and then we hurried over to the school. We were there by 9:10. I'm so glad we have an orthodontist that is on our side of town. My mom drove me 30 minutes for my orthodontist appointments, and I just don't think I could do that.
I tried to think of something I could do that morning. I've tried to designate Tuesday mornings as "Me time," but well, you've seen how well that's worked out. I thought about going home and going back to bed. But I decided I needed to do something more than sleeping.
I decided to drive over to the canyon rim trail and go for a walk. This was such a good decision! There was no one else on the trail. I listened to a podcast and just walked and walked. I made it to the Evil Knievel Jump Site.
I came home and had lunch and then went to work. While I was at work I asked about the old couches. They were still available, but they'd been moved into storage in a co-workers shop/garage. So I talked to her about picking up one of the couches that evening.
I came home from work a little after Brandon had picked up Derrick and Veronica from school. I checked something on Facebook and saw the obituary for a family member. I read the obit and saw the date for the funeral. Then I went to the garage to talk to Brandon about the funeral.
This was for his Aunt Terrie. She'd died very unexpectedly on Saturday. We'd been curious when her funeral was going to be. I'd hoped it would be Saturday so we could go to it.
Brandon and I grew up 10 minutes away from each other. He was in Taylorsville and I was in Kearns. But we didn't meet until we were in college. We didn't know it, but our lives had one area that overlapped. And that was through Brandon's Aunt Terrie.
Terrie was married to Brandon's uncle Ken. She had two children with him in the late 80's, but they ended up getting divorced. She was still close with Brandon's mom and dad even after the divorce and Brandon's cousins often came over to his house to play.
Terrie married a man named Mike in the 90's. Mike already had 8 children. They created a Yours Mine and Ours situation with her 2 children, his 8 children, and then had a son together.
Terrie and Mike and all those kids lived less than a mile away from the house a grew up in. They were in a completely different stake and the kids went to a different elementary school than me so I didn't know any of them until I was in Jr High. Brandon's cousin Suzy was a grade younger than me, and I never knew her when we were in school. But I did know Suzy's step brother Tim. Tim was my age. He played viola so we were in Orchestra together every year from Jr High to High school. We went to the district writing festival in seventh grade. He asked me to dance at a region dance when I was 14. I probably had a crush on him for a while. I know one of my best friends did.
I read the paper nearly every day and I sometimes would read the obituaries. Around my birthday I'd check to see the people who had died on my birthday. One day in February I read an obituary for Tim's dad Mike. He'd died on my 14th birthday.
I didn't know Terrie at the time, but it's very impressive to me to know that she kept taking care of her 8 step kids. Many of them had moved out by the time Mike died. But others, like Tim, were still in school. Terrie was there to raise Tim. He did some amazing things. He was student body president in 9th grade. He was involved in Orchestra. I don't know if those things would have happened without Terrie staying in his life.
When Brandon and I were dating he saw a picture of me at a dance with a group of friends. He pointed at Tim and said. "I know him. He's my cousins' step brother." And so that's how we found out our connection.
Later I'd meet Terrie and she was always just a beacon of light. I really liked her. So I was really affected when I found out she'd died. It was completely unexpected. I wanted to attend her funeral if possible. When I read her obituary I found out the funeral would be on Saturday. And so I talked to Brandon and we completely changed out plans for Saturday so we could go to Kearns and attend her funeral.
But I'll talk about that more when we get there.
Let's get back on track with Tuesday stuff. When Lydia came home from school she showed me a big rip in her coat. She'd snagged it on a fence on the way home from school. Normally I'd have Brandon patch it up. (He'd literally just patched my coat that afternoon.) But Lydia was about due for a new winter coat anyway. We were already planning to go to Michael's that afternoon. I told her, "We'll just stop at Once Upon a Child and look for a coat too."
So we went to run errands. I'd had the idea to take Lydia to Michaels that morning. I'd realized that Charlotte and Veronica had both had concerts that were a big deal and Derrick had his victorious visit to the model train club. Lydia didn't really have a BIG thing that had happened this December. I figured she'd like visiting a craft store.
So anyway, first we went to Once Upon a Child and found a nice coat for $12. (I love that store!)
Then we went to Michaels. Somehow Lydia has never been to Michaels. Joanne's and Hobby Lobby are slightly closer so those are the stores we usually go to. So this was a brand new experience. Lydia was in HEAVEN. We walked up and down every aisle. She looked at everything!
I'd planned to only buy something for Lydia for $5. But then I saw something that would help with a project, and another something that would help with another project, and Lydia talked me into buying two things for her, and well we spent $25. But it was great!
Brandon was in charge of dinner at home. He'd made Biscuit Men. (Biscuits cut out with the gingerbread men cookie cutter.) At first I was like, "This is it?" I didn't mean it in a rude way, but more in a confused way. I was thinking, "You were home for 2 hours. And this is all you made?" Later I found out that he'd also made rollo cookies and I was like "Oh, that's what you were doing."
Anyway, the Biscuit Men turned out to be a huge hit. The kids ate a lot of them.
After dinner Brandon took the kids down stairs and watched Elf with them. I stayed upstairs and logged into the zoom meeting for the Exponent Blog Christmas Party. This was so much fun! I only joined the Exponent blog team a few months ago so I was feeling a bit of imposter syndrome. It was so strange to see my name and face on the same screen as people like Spunky, and Top Hat, and Emily GP, and Bryn Brody, and APRIL YOUNG BENNENT! These women are AMAZING. Some of them have doctorate degrees and write about historical aspects of Mormon Feminism. And I'm just there as this accountant who likes to write. But they accepted me in and liked what I had to say.
Spunky had assigned us each a secret Santa. We'd mailed our things off in time for them to arrive before the party. I received a bag made out of fabric with Ruth Bader Ginsberg all over it. It was cute. I'd had Spunky as the person I had to buy for. She just moved to America from Australia. I figured she'd need some help with January so I sent her an Amaryllis flower. She said it was perfect.
The party wrapped up just as the movie was ending. Brandon and I went over to my co-workers house and picked up another couch. We picked a yellow one that seemed to have "garage couch" all over it.
We put it in the van and brought it home. We put the kids to bed and then moved the couch into the garage. It was perfect! I found a card table and all the wrapping supplies and hung out in the garage wrapping presents while Brandon did other things. I was like, "This is the BEST time I've ever had in the garage. I feel like I actually have a spot for me out here now."
I stayed up until 11:00. I regretted that the next day, but it was wonderful in the moment.
I didn't take any pictures because 1. There are lots of secrets piling up in the garage right now and I didn't want any evidence on my phone. And 2. My phone was in Veronica's room playing calming music for her to sleep to.
When we went inside I snuck into Veronica's room and got my phone. There was a polo from my sister Hillary. She had unexpectedly finished all her hours for hair school and had GRADUATED. This was amazing news. She'd had a lot of delays on her hair journey and while we knew she would probably finish in December the exact date was a little up in the air. And suddenly she was DONE.
On Wednesday I got everyone off to school again. Here's a sample schedule of my morning.
5:00 - Brandon's alarm goes off.
5:15 - Brandon get's up and gets ready for work. He's really quiet and sneaky - like he doesn't even turn on a light. He just has everything laid out and then uses the light on his phone to find everything. Sometimes I wake up when he's getting ready and some times I sleep through it. If I wake up I'll read news emails on my phone for a while.
5:45 - Brandon leaves for work.
6:30 - My alarm goes off. Sometimes I'll get up and get ready. Usually if I need a shower. But other times I'll just stay in bed.
7:00 - Time to get up for real. I got around and wake up all the kids. For Charlotte and Lydia it's more of a courtesy call to let them know morning is here and they need to get up within the next 30 minutes. For Derrick and Veronica it's more of a "you need to start getting up now."
7:15 - When I walk with Derrick and Veronica to school this is the time they need to be eating breakfast. But I've been driving them lately so everything has kind of slid.
7:40 - This is the time we used to leave to walk to school. Now it's more of the "Hey you should probably put your shoes on now" time.
7:50 - Drive to school. It's less than two blocks. But it's icy and cold and the sun hasn't come up yet. So we drive right now.
7:55 - Drop Derrick and Veronica off. It's fun to watch them walk toward the school together. This is the last year they will be in elementary school together.
8:00 - Back home. Charlotte and Lydia are up by this point. They are eating. Getting dressed. Brushing their hair. Packing their back packs. Etc.
8:15 - Drive Charlotte and Lydia to school. It's within walking distance as well, but again, it's cold and icy and the sun is still not fully up and Charlotte has a violin. So we drive.
8:20 - Drop the girls off. Try not to get into an accident with all the other parents. The drop off is pure chaos and I can barely handle it.
8:30 - Make two left turns and a right turn and arrive at work.
After all that it's a relief to make it to work. I just do stuff in my nice cozy office. I count money. I enter insurance payments into the computer. I track down unpaid insurance claims. It's lovely. In case you haven't realized it - I adore my job.
I left work around 12:00 and came home and made myself a lunch. My "thing for myself" for today was to watch the Netflix Documentary about Harry and Megan. I'm not sure if I love the format of each episode, but I do like the content. I went through a phase before I had kids where I read a lot about the royal family. So I'm enjoyed the documentary.
I was also working on Brandon's home made present. I had it all done before Brandon came home from work at 2:00. I was just finishing wrapping it when he pulled up.
At 2:30 I went over to the school to meet with the Vice Principal for Veronica's 504 plan. We got it all finalized and I signed it. Oh that felt good.
When I was done I took pictures of the things that PTO had paid for recently. Here's the Santa and the Reindeer. Apparently the Santa sings! Veronica says it's great.
This kind of put a wrench in one of our plans for that night. Brandon was auditioning for the Music Man that night. Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica wanted to go with him and audition to. I was fine with the twins going because they can handle staying up late. But Veronica really starts falling apart if she has to be out and about after 8:00. I just wasn't sure she was old enough to be in a play that had rehearsals to 10:00 every night for 2 months. (I'd also been worried about the whole stage fright thing, but Monday's choir performance had me thinking otherwise.)
Veronica and I talked it over on the way home and agreed that it wasn't the best idea to try to join the play this time. She should just stay home and rest that night.
Derrick and Veronica had a combined Boys/Girls activity that afternoon. The plan was to meet at the church at 4:30 and make cards. Then they'd take them to the Assisted Living Center our ward oversees. They were going to sing for the people living there. Veronica wasn't going because she didn't feel well, but I wanted Derrick to go. They recently put in new leaders over boys activities and I wanted them to get to know Derrick and vice versa.
But I also had some reservations about Derrick going to a 90 minute activity at two locations with brand new leaders. In my mind there were so many things that could go wrong.
So Brandon went along with Derrick. He hung out in another room while Derrick was at the activity. Derrick had a BLAST. He made several cards. The tentative plan had been for Brandon to bring Derrick home when everyone else went to the assisted living center. But Derrick had such a great time and the leaders were so good with him that Derrick wanted to go to the assisted living center and then get dropped off at home. So Brandon said that was fine and just came home.
Derrick was dropped off about 30 minutes later. He said, "I sang the songs. I sang Jingle Bells, and Rudolf, and another one."
I was like, "Who is this kid?"
After dinner Brandon and Charlotte and Lydia went to audition for Music Man. Brandon had skipped this part with Guys and Dolls so he didn't really know what to expect. But he also wasn't too worried. The director for Music Man was Jared Johnson AKA Nicely Nicely Johnson from Guys and Dolls. So he knew what Brandon could do. (Namely show up every night and bring absolutely no ego with him.)
Brandon went first and said, "I'm not here to play Harold Hill. If you want me in the Barbershop Quartet that would be cool, but I'm happy in the ensemble." Then he sang "The Christmas Song" for his audition number.
Charlotte and Lydia auditioned together. They sang Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. They said it was really scary to stand on the stage with a bright light shining on them.
I'd been second guessing our involvement in this play all week. I kept thinking "we are so busy! how do we have time to be in a musical?" But then I realized that I was thinking that January would have the same level of busyness that December had. And that's totally NOT the case. I started to imagine how nice it would be to have musical rehearsals to get us through the dead months of January and February. So who cared if the auditions were smack dap in the middle of our busiest month?
After the kids were in bed I hung out in the garage with Brandon some more. I was pretty tired though so I went to bed around 9:30.
On Thursday I decided to keep Veronica home. She wasn't super sick, but I figured she should stay home. There have been a lot of illnesses going around. The Kimberly School district (the city to the west of us) actually shut down their Middle school because so many teachers and students were sick. And two of my co-workers had brought their kids to work with them because they weren't feeling well enough to go to school.
So Veronica stayed home. That meant I was a little limited in what I could do for my me time that morning. I opted to go back to bed after all the other kids were in school.
When I woke up Veronica was feeling okay enough to go with me on a bunch of errands. And we ran a lot of them.
First we went to Kaymie's to drop off a gift for her. Do you know how hard it is to buy a present for someone who has been de-cluttering their house all year? I ended up giving her an amaryllis too.
Then we went to Chicken Liz's for more eggs. She has chickens, but her small family can't keep up with all the eggs her chickens are making. We worked out a deal where I pay her $5 for about 30 eggs. That is a STEAL in this economy. But she felt weird asking for money and I felt weird NOT paying and so this is a good compromise for both of us.
Then we went to the library.
And then the bank. We dropped off a deposit for PTO and for Twin Falls RV Guy. Later I'd go to the bank again with a work deposit. So it was a triple header day for bank deposits.
Finally we went to Winco and bought some groceries for the week.
We brought the groceries home and had lunch. Then we went to my work. Veronica hung out on the futon in my office. She mostly watched Youtube, but at one point she tried to fall asleep. Brandon came and picked her up when he got off work at 2:00. I stayed until about 3:00.
When I got home I made German Pancakes for dinner. We haven't had these for a while because eggs have been so expensive. But thanks to Liz we had a lot.
Then we had to divide and concur. I took Derrick and Veronica to Derrick's Occupational Therapy Appointment. Brandon took Charlotte and Lydia to the Living Nativity. I was a little concerned about them that night. I wouldn't be there to help them get dressed so I kept saying things like, "Wear your hoodie under your robes." And "Here are the warm socks. Don't forget to put them on." They mostly remembered, but I did find a pair of warm socks that never made it onto Charlotte's feet.
Derrick has a new occupational therapist and a new time slot. We used to go for Speech at 3:00 followed by Occupational Therapy at 3:45. But now we got for OT at 5:30. It was already dark when we got there. That was weird.
Normally they have a rule that siblings can't come to the appointments. But I was like, "What else can I do? Veronica hates being home alone." So I brought her and the office manager just kind of ignored her. I think she was thinking, "It's the end of the day. There are hardly any other people here. Who cares?"
After Derrick's appt was over we went home and got bundled up. We were going to walk through the living nativity. The living nativity ran three nights, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I didn't want Derrick and Veronica up super late on a school night so that's why we weren't participating in it this night. But I still wanted to see it. So we drove over there and walked around with the other visitors. We had hand warmer and those helped make the cold more bearable.
We were greeted by Roman Soldiers. The next group of people we saw were a bunch of children. They were begging for coins. They had a little boy in a wooden wagon and were saying things like, "Our brother is sick and we need money for the doctor." It was very clever.
He did something funny with the fish and Derrick pretended to faint. Ivan said something like "Here's fish for medicine." Then all of a sudden there was a sheep in Derrick's face. Charlotte and Lydia had been nearby and one of their sheep had run over to see Derrick on the ground. That woke Derrick up in a hurry.
For more of Ivan's hilarious jokes you should see this article done by the Times-News. There are pictures and then a video that includes Ivan being silly. Also Brandon is in the background. Here's the link.
One of my favorite things about the Living Nativity is the level of detail that goes into everything. This is real bread for sale.
This table has fake fruit. But it's still AMAZING looking.
Here are the girls with their sheep again. They had three sheep. Two were on leashes and the third just followed. They had real names, but the girls named them Stubborn, Stubborn Sr, and Stubborn the third.
And here they are with a Roman Soldier on horseback in the background because that's a normal.
They were having the time of their lives with those sheep.
Derrick, Veronica, and I were there from about 6:45 until 7:15. We were freezing and very happy to go back home. Brandon, and the girls would stay until the event ended at 8:30.
Derrick and Veronica watched something on TV and I made some treats. I'd signed us up to provide cookies for a Christmas Party at the assisted living center. Also a party of sorts was shaping up for Saturday.
Since we were making an impromptu trip to Utah for the funeral I'd reached out to my sisters and parents to see if we could stop by and visit them. At first it was just going to be individual visits, but then it turned into a whole get-together at Emily's house. So I decided to make a whole bunch of treats and divide them between the assisted living center and the family party.
I made Rice Crispy Treats and the dough for some chocolate cookies. The dough had to chill in the fridge for a while so I put it in there and then cooked the cookies after everyone was in bed. I haven't baked like this in a while and so it was nice to do this.
On Friday everyone went to school - even Veronica. I went to work and got a lot done there. Fridays are turning into my "get everything done that I put off during the rest of the week" day. This time it was tackling our outstanding balance. The receptionist and I made a lot of phone calls to people who'd missed making a payment when there wasn't coverage at the reception desk. We were able to get a lot of payments and the balance went down by a huge amount. It felt really good to get on top of that.
At home I watched more of the Harry and Meghan documentary while working on a little project.
When Derrick and Veronica came home I helped them pack for the trip to Utah on Saturday. I'd been planning to stay overnight from Saturday to Sunday so I had them pack their pajamas and a change of clothes for Sunday. But as we were packing I realized there were problems with that plan.
I kept asking Brandon things like, "What are we doing with Marcia while we are gone?" And "You told your mom that we are staying at her house on Saturday night, right?"
And based on the answers to those questions it became apparent that maybe this should be a day trip instead of a overnight thing.
And actually that simplified things greatly. We just had to worry about Church clothes for the funeral, a change of clothes for after the funeral, and winter gear because there was a lot of snow that I knew the kids would want to play in.
By the time Charlotte and Lydia were home from school I told them, "Just find your Sunday clothes and give me a change of clothes."
Brandon spent some time outside with the van. The van has a safety feature where it will beep if one of the sliding doors isn't shut. I guess that's a good thing, but for some reason the sensor didn't work well in the cold. The door would be shut, but the sensor wouldn't register as shut. So nearly every morning we'd have to drive to school with the van beeping the whole way. We'd just turn up the radio and try to ignore the beeping. I'd mostly figured it out and had some tricks for reshutting the doors with my dashboard buttons, but I kept imagining a nightmare scenario where we had to drive to Utah with the door beeping at us the whole way.
So I told Brandon to find whatever made the sound and rip it out or smash it if needed. It was buried pretty deep in a wall panel, but Brandon got to it and basically preformed a lobotomy on the thing that made the beep. It will never make a sound again. YAY! The kids and I can hardly believe that we no longer are under the tyranny of a malfunctioning sensor.
We had another quick and early dinner and then it was time to get ready for the Living Nativity. This time Veronica and I would be dressing up for it too. (Derrick had more sense than any of us and just wanted to stay home and watch movies.)
I had more time to take pictures before we left. Here's Charlotte in her outfit. She'd been able to find an outfit with the same poncho she wore last year. I love this poncho. I feel like it's something I would have made for Charlotte.
We said Lydia looked like Mary.
Here's my whole outfit. It's kind of hard to tell, but my dress was made out of a blanket. I was excited to be super warm this year. I was also wearing thermal gear that Brandon was issued when he was in the Army.
We drove over to the Living Nativity. Britt's neighbors let us park in their circular driveway so we just have to walk a little bit to get to the property. Charlotte and Lydia took off running as soon as we parked. They wanted to make sure they got those sheep again.
Here's a picture I took when we got to the set.
Here's a view of the set.
I sat on a bench because my boots weren't doing any favors for my feet. It was fun to watch Brandon interact with the guests. He's so good at doing accents and saying fun things. This is his third year as "The fish man" and he's at the point where people remember him. He loves getting people to smile at things he says.
I'm not an actor and so I have a hard time getting into a character. I prefer to just be in the background and smile at people. There was a basket of fish heads near my seat. I had fun encouraging kids to look into the basket. They'd be like, "ew, gross."
Towards the end of the night Veronica and I found a nice fire to stand by. Charlotte and Lydia came and stood with us.
I love this picture of the three girls together with a Roman Soldier in the background.
The event ended at 8:30 and we all met up and Brandon's fish stand. Every year a kid named James comes over and helps Brandon sell fish. This year Lydia knew James from her reading class.
We wanted to take a family picture and decided to include James as "Fake Derrick."
He was pretty cool with that role. I died laughing when I saw this picture. I was like, "Why did we put the fake kid front and center?"
Veronica wanted to bring her fish skeleton home, but she settled for a picture.
We were so happy to get home where it was warm. I was sad that we couldn't go back to the Living Nativity because we'd be out of town on Saturday. But part of me was secretly happy. The forecast said it would be something like 8 degrees on Saturday night.
I started a load of laundry to get the costumes washed. They all smelled like smoke, and incense, and sheep, and fish. Britt didn't expect them back for a few weeks, but I've learned that my house just isn't big enough to have costumes and snow gear in it at the same time. So I wanted to get them washed and back to Britt's house soon.
Then we went to bed because we had a big day planned for Saturday.
On Saturday we got up at 7:00 and everyone got dressed in Church clothes. There was some grumbling about all of that. But we were in the car by 7:45. Most of the drive was pretty uneventful. We did see an ice rainbow at one point.
We drove straight to Kearns and arrived about 10:50. Just enough time to find the bathroom and then find a seat before the funeral stated. The kids were glad they didn't have to do another viewing.
Derrick was sitting next to me. I showed him the program with Terrie's picture on the front. I told him, "She died." He said, "WHAT? NOT ANOTHER ONE?" I guess he hadn't realized we were going to a funeral. But that was kind of the sentiment from Brandon's family. This was the third aunt/aunt figure that he'd lost in 4 months. Veronica kept saying things to me like, "Bestemor is loosing all her friends this year. I need to tell Heavenly Father to stop killing our family."
It was kind of surreal being at this funeral. The church is next door to a park I played at throughout my whole childhood. Actually when my family moved into the neighborbood, the houses across the street from this church building were in my ward. Later they were split off to another ward and that ward later went into a different stake, but at one point that area had been in my ward.
Terrie was also only a few years older than my parents. I was sitting there in my home town at a funeral for someone my parents age and I was thinking, "Oh this hits a little too close to home. I don't like this."
The funeral was lovely, but it was a pretty raw event for everyone. Terrie's death had been unexpected. She'd literally worked up until the day before she'd died. How do you process something like that?
The closing song was "Each Life that Touches Ours For Good" which once made me cry while singing it in a student ward at the end of a semester. There was no way I could get through that song without crying at a funeral! And I just kept thinking about how I didn't know Terrie when I was a teenager, but she was there for Tim, and Tim was a good friend to me when I was a teenager. What parts of my life would be missing if she hadn't been there supporting Tim?
The service was over by 11:45. (Derrick was super happy about that because I'd told him it would last until 12:00) Brandon's sisters were there with their husbands and his parents were there too. We talked with them and Brandon talked with his cousins.
Then it was time to leave. I was happy to be done with all this funeral stuff. I had Brandon drive by the house I grew up in, the church we went to, and my elementary school. Then we left Kearns and went up to Layton to Emily's house.
My parents were there and so was Hillary and her family. Hillary was cooking lots of yummy things. We'd decided this was basically her graduation party. My family changed out of our church clothes. We had yummy food. It was nice.
Some of the kids wanted the snow pants I'd brought for them. They went out and played in the 8 inches of snow in the yard.
I sat and talked with my sisters. Here we are on the couch.
At some point I was like, "How many kids are on this couch anyway?" A lot of kids had been finding their moms.
A little before 5:00 we started gathering our stuff. Even though we'd just been there a few hours there were quite a few things to find. We had boots, and snow pants, and church shoes, and church clothes, and coats, and gloves. I thought I got everything, but about 15 minutes after we drove away Veronica was like, "Mom, I can't find my coat."
I'd never actually seen her with her coat on that day so part of me suspected it was still at home. But she was pretty sure it was at Emily's. Emily would be at her ward party and it just didn't seem feasable to go back for the coat.
We were planning to go see the Christmas Village in Downtown Ogden so I did some quick mental assessments of what we had that Veronica could use to keep her warm. Fortunately we actually had an extra coat. Brandon had brought an overcoat to wear with his suit, but he 'd also brought his winter coat. So when we got to Ogden Brandon put on the overcoat and let Veronica wear the winter coat. It was huge on her, but it kept her warm.
Our first stop was a restaurant called Rovali's on 25th street. We got onto the reservation list and were told there was a 40 minute wait. That was perfect. We headed down to the city park and started looking at the Christmas village.
We'd come here last year for the big lighting festival. We'd watched the parade and fireworks. But when they turned on the lights the crowds had been so deep that we could hardly see the houses. Brandon and I had todl the kids that we'd come back later. Well later turned out to be a hyear and three weeks later.
We'd seen about a third of the park by the 30 minute mark. We started heading back so we could be close to the restaurant when I 'd get the call that the table was ready. We were about a block away when I got the call.
We were so excited to be inside somewhere warm! We ordered three pizzas. A 14 inch pepperoni, a 14 inch cheese, and an 8 inch grilled chicken and jalapeno. Derrick could read his menu and kept trying to order a meatball sandwich. I told him we probably should try that at home first.
Rovali's is something of a Christmas tradition now that we've been there twice in a row.
We got in the car and started driving home. It was a fairly uneventful drive. (Though we did need a few bathroom breaks at first because the kids had so much water at the restaurant.)
Brandon had taken a nap at Emily's so he was good to drive. I fell asleep a few times on the way home. Most of the kids fell asleep too.
The roads were clear, but the night was cold. At one point the van's dashboard thermometer said it was 3 degrees outside.
When we pulled up to the porch we had quite the surprise waiting for us. There were two bags on the porch. One was big and red. The other was a gift bag. None of us could believe it.
These bags are baffling to me. The gift bag had snacks and a few unwrapped toys. It had an envelop attached to it with our name on it. There was money and a gas card in the envelope, but no signature.
The red bag had four wrapped gifts in it. They were addressed to "teen girl," "teen girl," "boy," and "girl." Which is pretty understandable for a Secret Santa operation. But the bag also had two unwrapped gifts. One was a game. The other was a present with a gift tag addressed to "Derek."
I can't figure it out. I don't even know if these gifts are from the same group or we just happened to get Secret Santa deliveries from two different organizations on the same night.
But I guess I'm not supposed to figure it out. What I do know is that Charlotte and Lydia, who know the full truth about Santa, are suddenly wondering if maybe he's real after all. I told them, "Things like this are why I say I believe in Santa."
After the excitement of the unexpected Christmas gifts we put the kids to bed. One reason that I'd been happy to drive back the same day was that now we could sleep in on Sunday. It was so nice to wake up in my own house on Sunday morning.
Sunday was a pretty chill day. Derrick spent a lot of time out in the snow looking for clues as to who could have left the presents. Veronica went out there too and secretly wrote everyone's names in the backyard snow. That had Derrick and Lydia super intrigued. I kept saying, "I'm pretty certain if someone thought we were home enough to leave presents on our doorstep they wouldn't have gone into our backyard to write names." But no one wanted to listen to my logic.
And let's end this post where we began, with a picture of my flowers. They grew a lot this week.
And that's the end of our super busy week. Don't worry, this week leading up to Christmas is a lot less eventful.
Thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas.
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