Happy Times Outside

I did spend time inside last week. But you wouldn't know it from my phone. Nearly every picture from last week is of outside the house. 

Obviously that makes it a good week. 

Let's talk about it. 

First up are these lovely spring brownies that Charlotte and Lydia made on Sunday afternoon. They used all the left over frosting from our sugar cookies to frost the brownies. They wanted to decorate the brownies like an Easter Egg. The girls made these brownies completely on their own. The only thing I did was help them pick out the recipe. (We have like 4 different brownie recipies.) When we were eating the brownies I said, "When your kids can make desserts by themselves, the second half of your life begins."

Charlotte and Lydia were invited to Youth Group at Chicken Liz's house. (Her husband is the Youth Pastor for Twin Falls Community Church.) They were doing a bonfire and making smores and Charlotte and Lydia loved the sound of that.  So they went over there and had a great time. 

Brandon and I took Derrick and Veronica over to the school so Derrick could use his metal detector to look for treasure in the bark chips and gravel around the school. 

Well it was just supposed to be the bark chips and gravel. Derrick got a little overzealous and pulled some plywood off of the bottom of a one of the portable buildings. He wanted to go under the portable and look for treasure.  He kept telling me that the metal detector knew there was a treasure box under there. I told him the metal detector was picking up the giant metal I-beam that was just laying on the ground. 

So he did not climb under there and I took this picture to email to the principal to let her know what happened and that this board needed to be nailed back into place. When I imagined parenthood this is not one of the things I ever imagined doing. 

Back at home Brandon and I walked around the yard and looked at everything that's growing. I have little daffodils in the front. 

And hyacinths too.

These are the tulips I dug up from Chicken Liz's fence line last fall.  (She was planning to just cover that area with gravel, so I asked if I could dig up the bulbs first.) They were overcrowded and not blooming last year. But this year a few of them are going to bloom.

Here's my lilac.

And here are the big daffodils in the back. They grow next to our gas meter and they make that whole area so pretty.

The Cherry Tree was starting to bud. 

So was the peach tree. 

And LOOK little peas.  This is the latest I've ever had peas come up. I planted these back in March, but here they are making an appearance on April 16th. 

And what would a look at the back yard be without checking in with the new trees. Gosh, I never get sick of how green they are. 

I was happy to see a little raspberry shoot popping out of the ground. 

On Monday I was able to make it to lunch time Yoga with Amy Toft at the College campus. It's funny because she's taught lunch time yoga at the community center right by my house and work for years. And I never could make it there. But now that she'd across town at the College I'm signed up for her class. 

Actually I think that shows how much I've cleared my schedule lately. I'm not in school which gives me a lot more time of course. But I've also established a really good work routine that leaves time for other things. So I can make it to yoga across town these days. 

That afternoon I took Veronica to her next eye appt. The exam on Thursday had just been a regular eye exam. This one was to specifically measure how her eyes are working together. (Spoiler alert: They aren't.)

Veronica is always really self conscious when I'm watching her do stuff.  So even though I was in the room with her I couldn't pay very close attention to what they were doing. I spent most of the time on my phone. 

The most memorable part of the appointment was near the end. They had a nice picture of an eye chart. It just fell off the wall. No one was even near it. It just fell.  When we looked at it we saw that it was held up by the tiniest little screw.  The lady who was doing all the tests was like, "I have worked here for 4 years and that thing has never fallen down. Now I'm wondering how it stayed up so long."  Veronica has been laughing about that ever since.  

There's another test that Veronica could do that measures how her vision is affecting her body coordination. We aren't going to do that test right now because it's a 2 hour long test that can only be done in the mornings. But I might schedule it for the summer. 

We don't have the actual results of the tests yet. But we should have them soon. Depending on what they say Veronica might start vision therapy. 

Tuesday was one of the Tuesdays where I didn't need to go into work. (I'm trying to do these every other week.) I had plans to do lots of yard work.  Namely, moving rocks.

When we moved in the front flower beds were full of rocks. I wanted to plant flowers there so one of the first things I did was move all that rock. I didn't have a great idea for where to move the rock to so I just piled them up in the space between our garage and our neighbors fence. And there the rocks stayed for the next 3 and a half years. I finally knew what I wanted to do with those rocks.  I wanted to put them behind the new trees. 

First I built little dirt moats around each tree so the water wont run off everywhere when we water. Then I laid down weed prevention fabric. Then I started moving the rock from beside the garage to behind the trees. I had a good start on the project and could have kept going all morning, but then it started snowing. 

See the snow. 

I decided I had other projects I could work on in the house so I put my wheel barrow away and went into the house. 

I'm glad I did because then it started snowing harder. I sat at the dining room table and sorted through all the papers the kids have been bringing home all year. 

As I sorted the papers I looked out at the snow storm. It was kind of cool to see the new trees get covered in snow. In this picture you can just barely see them on the far side of the patio.  This is actually one of the reasons I planted the trees.  Our neighbors dining room window lines up with ours.  It's too far away to actually see into their house, but it's still just kind of strange. As these trees get bigger we won't be able to see their window anymore.  

I was impressed that the snow was sticking. 

Here's the view of the front yard. 

All the snow melted by the afternoon.

I took Veronica to therapy and then tutoring. 

That evening I did have to go into work for our monthly team meeting at 7:00. Those are always good meetings so I didn't mind. 

Wednesday I had work in the morning and then yoga. When I got home I decided to get back to work moving rock. I moved rock from about 1:15 to 2:45. I only stopped because I had to go pick up Derrick and Veronica after school. I love how this looks. 

I went around and took more pictures of the yard. Here's the lilac bush. 

The tulips. 

Daffodils. 

Hyacinths. 

There are little baby spinach leaves coming up in the veggie garden.

This is the red oak that I planted in the fall of 2021. It's only about 18 inches tall, but it has lots of little buds.  Last year these buds didn't just grow leaves, but also shot up about 12 inches.  So we'll see if we get some more growth from this baby this year. 

Here are the daffodils by the gas meter. 

Here are sprouts coming off the raspberries. 

And here's the peas again.

Derrick was finally able to go with Mr Mark and take his Metal Detector. They didn't find anything, but they had a good time. 

Charlotte and Lydia had ISAT testing at school. They were pretty exhausted by the time they were home from school. They didn't feel like going to Young women that night. They just stayed home and we read Catching Fire.

Oh but I have to mention what Charlotte and Lydia were doing all week.  They were watching Chicken Liz's chickens while she was out of town.  Every morning they'd get up at 7:00 ALL BY THEIR SELVES. And ride their bikes over to her house so they could let the chickens out of their coop. Then in the evening they would go back and put the chickens back in the coop. As if that wasn't enough, they were also watching our neighbors Kathy's cats. They'd go over every day at 5:00 to feed that cats and change their litter box. The girls were so responsible with all these things. I didn't have to remind them at all.  

Thursday is my grocery shopping day so I took care of that as soon as I dropped Charlotte and Lydia off at school. It was just the small week so it didn't take long. I was back home pretty quick and was able to just relax at the house for a while before I went to work in the afternoon. 

I had to leave work at 2:30 so I could pick Veronica up from school. We've added another tutoring day to the schedule. That started right at 3:00 so I had to pick her up a little early from school. I was a little worried about how she would do with tutoring right after school. But actually she was amazing. She was so focused. 

Brandon took care of picking Derrick up and then they went home and worked on Derrick's airplane.  They've been working on this for a while and have lots of pieces glued together. 

I watched them work together when I got home on Thursday. Derrick was carefully gluing the pieces of wood that he'd carefully cut out. I was like, "Okay, yep, we are done with Occupational Therapy for now."

I've been thinking about ending occupational therapy for a while, but I wasn't sure if I was ready to do that. But this convinced me that we are ready.  Derrick is getting so much better at using his fingers to do small things. 

So that evening when we went to OT I asked his therapist what goals we were working on.  We looked over the goals and realized that he's basically meeting them all.  So we decided to be done with therapy.  Technically we've just paused it for 3 months. If I feel like he needs services again we can always get him back in and the staff will follow up with us in three months to see if we still want to do OT. But right now I think we are done.  

We've been going to Children's Rehab and Therapy since like June of 2020. And now we are done. It's so strange. 

Friday was one of those blessed days where we had nothing on the calendar. I got a lot done at work in the morning which was nice. 

I picked up Veronica's new reading glasses from the eye doctor.  Here we are playing twins.  

Without glasses. 

With glasses

Brandon and I were considering going to the Symphony that night. Amy Toft had tickets available if we wanted them. When Brandon got home from work he needed a shower. And then he decided to shave in case we did go to the symphony. But when he shaved he remembered that our bathroom sink hadn't been draining well all week. And so that lead to trying to plunge it out. Which led to pulling the whole thing apart. And when he took everything out from under the sink he realized the faucet was leaking a bit. And that lead to us going on a date to Lowes to buy a faucet. And by the time everything was back together we were too tired for the symphony.  

So we all stayed home and watched movies. 

Saturday

Okay here we are at Saturday. And what a Saturday it was. 

First up was the State Relief Society Conference. You may recall that I didn't love the experience last year. It was too much sitting, too much listening, and not enough doing or connecting. After I went to the Leading Saints Retreat I felt inspired to contact the Stake RS Presidency to talk to them about how to make the RS conference feel more like a retreat. 

The Stake RS Presidency was kind enough to listen to my suggestions one evening in October. But I left the meeting feeling like every single one of my ideas had been dismissed or outright shot down. I honestly didn't think I'd bother going to another RS conference 

That is until I saw the invitations. 

The theme of the conference was literally Connections. The thing I wanted most out of an RS Conference was a chance to connect, and I'd told them that. I thought, "Maybe they did listen to me after all!"

I turned the invitation over and saw even more evidence that my ideas hadn't fallen on deaf ears.  There were 5 classes to choose from. Last year we'd been herded around the building through three classes. But this time we could pick 3 classes from a list of 5 and go to them in what ever order we wanted.

AND one of the classes was a stretching and movement class. This was another thing I know I'd recommended. I'd been so sick of sitting after last years conference that I requested a change to walk around the temple or play a game or maybe do Yoga. This class looked like their answer to my request. 

So I started to think that I should go to this Conference. But I was still a little wary. I didn't want to waste 4 hours of a glorious Saturday on another boring conference. 

Brandon told me I should go so I went. And I loved it. (The kids had bet Brandon $5 that I would hate it so they were all very disappointed when I came home and told them I'd had a good time.)

There were so many good things. The Stake RS President was the Key Note Speaker at the beginning and the Stake President only made a few minutes of remarks after she spoke.  (This was something that I hadn't written on my official recommendations, but had come out in the discussion. I was like, "Relief Society is a WOMENS organization. We don't need the Stake President to speak at all and if he does speak it should only be for a few minutes.")

Then we split up into the breakout sessions. I went to the stretching and movement class. It was fabulous. The speaker talked about connecting with our bodies and how important that is. Then she showed us some stretches we could do. The chairs were spread out enough that we had enough room. Some people laid on the floor. Some stayed in their chairs. 

I thought about how last year I'd felt crowded into this room with 50 other women. And now I was laying on the floor with maybe 15 other women. So much better!

The next class I went to was the Connecting to your Spouse one. This one was good. Not great. But good. I didn't really learn anything, but just having the autonomy to pick the class made a big difference. I was like, "Well I picked a dud, but at least I picked it.  I wasn't forced in here."

The next class I went to was "Connecting to your family near and far."  I was kind of hoping for this one to have suggestions for how to build connections. And we kind of got that. The lady who taught the class shared tons of ideas and things that her family has done over the years. It was really sweet to hear about all the great things her family does; Fourth of July Parades, her Dad's 90th birthday - complete with t-shirts, multiday family reunions - again with t-shirts, stitching projects with her sisters, family Come Follow Me Study during COVID, etc. But after a while I got a little overwhelmed. I was thinking, "What about us regular people who just want to do better at connecting." Or what do we do about connecting with difficult family members?"  She was giving a Pie in the sky presentation that just didn't feel attainable. (To be fair she was condensing like 65 years of Family Traditions into a 40 minute presentation. I bet if I did that it would come off as unattainable, too.)

Before and after each class I'd had a chance to talk with different women. Some I already knew and some I didn't.  But I was really looking forward to lunch. Last year lunch had felt like an after thought. The food was good, but we'd been running late and hadn't made it in there to eat until 1:00. This time we were in there at 12:15 and had a long time to sit and chat before our families expected us back home.  

I sat at a table with about 6 other ladies from my ward. We went around in a circle and shared our favorite classes. At one point two ladies were crying. Yep, connections made. 

I came away from the conference feeling a little proud of myself. Maybe no one else noticed the changes to the conference. But I noticed them. It felt good knowing that I'd been listened to. I guess that prompting to talk to the RS Presidency last year was inspired after all. 

All the kids were in a great mood when I got home. Brandon and the kids had cleaned up the house and then they'd all gone to Walmart to buy a fishing license (and doughnuts).

They were all eager to go fishing.  So soon after I got home they packed up their stuff and went to Dierkies Lake.  Brandon took these pictures. 

Here's one of the twins. 

Veronica getting ready to cast.

Lydia

Derrick

Brandon

Charlotte caught a fish. She was pretty happy.

Derrick caught a little one. 

I don't really care for fishing so I stayed home. I took care of putting away all my laundry while watching The Crown on my laptop. 

Then I went outside and finished moving the rock. I don't really have enough to put it in front of the trees, but I put down enough to hold down the weed barrier. 

I have big plans for this area, but none of them are finalized. And so right now the name of the game is weed prevention. 

The kids and Brandon came home after I was done. Here they all are looking very proud of themselves. 

Charlotte showing off the fish.

I kind of thought the kids would be done with being outside for the day. But NEVER underestimate how much my kids love the outdoors because they were all for doing another fire that evening. So we got the fire going. Charlotte liked to lay by it. 

Here's Derrick playing with it. (You can see the noticeably smaller pile of junky wood in the background.)

And here's the fire. It's been fun to do these for three straight weeks. 

Brandon cooked hamburgers on the BBQ  grill again. Here he is with all the hamberger toppings. 

Here's Derrick happy about his burger. 

And Charlotte and Lydia with there's. 

Here are me and Brandon together. 

At some point someone took off their socks and started filling them with dirt. This led to Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica declaring the socks full of dirt to be "babies."  Here they are playing with their babies. 

Here's Lydia with a close up of hers. 

Here's Veronica demonstrating that her baby was throwing up.

At the same time the girls were playing with their "babies" Derrick took his dirt sock and threw it off the tree house. The contrast between the two ways of playing was hilarious. 

Derrick and Charlotte ended up inventing a game where they would throw Derrick's dirt sock across the yard. Here's Derrick watching the sock fly through the air. 

They played for a long time and had a great time. I told Brandon, "You know, that lady that taught the connecting with family members class had so many picture perfect ideas for what family get togethers look like. But I bet she can't even imagine how much fun these kids are having with dirt stuffed inside socks."

We'd started the fire around 6:30 which is later than other weeks. So we stayed outside a lot longer than we have other weeks. It was cool to watch the fire in the dark. 

We put the fire out around 9:00. Then it was bath time for everyone. (This fire/play in the dirt thing on Saturday night really helps us make sure we are clean for Sunday.)  We put the kids to bed and then it was our turn for showers. I took one and then Brandon did. We were planning on watching Frasier when he was done. But I was nearly asleep. Brandon still tried to turn the show on, but I was completely asleep within 5 minutes.  So, so much for that. 

On Sunday we all made it to church by 9:00.  Church was over by 11:00 and we were done with our Come Follow Me videos by 12:30.  And then we were like, "Now what?"

Several months ago a friend of mine shared that her family likes to go on hikes on Sunday afternoons.  They have like 9 kids and she says it was the only Sunday activity that they could all get along while doing.  I talked it over with Brandon and we decided that we were okay with Sunday hikes too. This was one of the first sunny Sunday afternoons of the year so we decided it was a good day to try out this hiking on Sunday thing. 

We decided to drive out to Balanced Rock and hike up there. So we got in the car and drove the 25 or so minutes out to Balanced Rock.

This place is so close, but I think it's been like 2 years since we were last here. Last time it had been hot and we hadn't had quite enough water, and someone said they saw a rattle snake and so we just left and well waited two years to ever come back. 

This time we made sure all the kids had their water bottles (Thank you Easter Bunny) in their backpacks. And it wasn't super hot because it was only April.

Here I am with the rock.

We made it up the trail and could see the rock from the side. 

And then we scrambled up the rocks and were behind the Balanced Rock.

This is the point we'd heard about the Rattlesnake and turned around 2 years ago. But this time we kept going.  The kids had fun climbing all over everything. 

Here's Lydia. 

All the kids on a rock.

We ended up higher than Balanced Rock.

We followed a trail to come cool formations.

This cave was nice and shady and cool.

Here's Veronica.

Brandon was able to take a picture of the kids from the other side of the cave. 

Here's Derrick on another rock.

And me. 

Here's Charlotte standing over a deep cravass. 

Brandon took this picture of me on the trail. 

This outcropping was as far as we made it on the trail.

All the kids really liked it. 

Derrick started playing with a red ants nest. He flipped the rock that was their roof off. They were mad, but none of them bit him. Fireants would not have been as kind. 

Everyone resting. 

This was such a cool place. 

Veronica and Charlotte had fun building Carens.

Here's the view looking East. Our next stop would be in the canyon on the right hand side of the background. 

We hiked back to Balanced Rock and then back down the trail. (Veronica slipped twice and was sad about that.) Then we drove a quarter of a mile to Balanced Rock Park.  This is in a shady canyon and was so peaceful and beautiful.

The fishing poles were still in the back of the van from the day before so the kids grabbed those and started fishing. 

Charlotte was in heaven!

I just can't get over this picture. It's so perfect. 

We left Balanced Rock Park when it started raining. We had a simple dinner of chili for dinner.  Then we watched the Parent Trap. 

The kids later told me that this weekend had felt like "A Real Weekend."  That was good to hear. I have many more "real weekends" like this planned for this year. 

Thanks for reading.