All the Things

My last post was about how we had a relatively simple week. This post is the exact opposite. The last 10 days have not only been busy they've been full of some big changes. 

Okay, maybe that's over selling things. But there have been some unexpected changes in the last few weeks. 

And a lot of gardening. 

So let's get cracking on this thing. I'm heading out to the Ladies Retreat with Twin Falls Community Church and I want to get on top of the blog before that. 

Sunday March 10 was Stake Conference. We had the zoom link so we just stayed home and slept in. Charlotte REALLY slept in. She didn't come out of her room until 1:00 PM. It was also the first day of Daylight Saving Time so technically it was what had been 12:00. But still. That girl LOVES sleeping in.

I was still feeling a bit off from my panic attack the day before. I actually went and took a long nap in the afternoon. I woke up super sweaty. It felt like when a fever breaks. I felt so much better. It was like I'd been sick - without actually being sick. 

It was odd, but I was glad I was feeling better. 

I went outside and took a picture of the compost ring I'd been able to set up and fill halfway the day before. I was super excited about this compost ring. It comes apart so in a few months I can undo the fasteners and move it to a new spot. Then I just shovel everything into the ring again. It makes it easy to rotate everything. 

We'd decorated for Easter and the kids were playing with the giant gold egg. Derrick and Veronica would put it on their heads and pretend they were helmets. 

Monday was March 11. The week before my boss had told me that we were going to get a new clinician. It was kind of an emergency situation. Another marriage and family therapist in the area had been in a Ski accident. She had a long road of recovery ahead of her and so she wasn't going to be able to supervise clinicians. So her clinicians had to find new supervisors. We were taking one of these clinicians on. 

Everything was going to go into effect as of April 1st. I was working to get this new clinician added to our Tax ID with all the insurance companies. My boss stopped by to see how everything was going. I said, "I'm so glad we have until April 1st. It's nice to have a lot of time to get this done."

And then he said, "Actually, she's going to start with us on Thursday."

Of course. That's how it usually goes with this company.  There's never a dull moment in a growing company.

So then I spent the next few days trying to get everything ready for that.  

That evening I had Bible Study. We spent 90 minutes on Philippians 2:19-30. Eleven verses! It's basically 2 paragraphs. But Liz is so so so good at pulling information out of passages like this. 

These passages are about Timothy and Epaphroditus. One of the takeaways from the passage is to support missionaries. Liz encouraged us to think of ways to support missionaries. I was feeling a little called to repentance because I've been really grumpy about our church's missionary program lately. But I was like, "Oh yeah, I really should be doing more to support them."

And then I was like, "Wait, I signed up to feed them on Saturday. I'm at least doing something."

Tuesday was a pretty regular Tuesday. Brandon was teaching at CSI again that evening. So I made whole wheat bread. This was quite the process because I had to start by finding the wheat grinder and grinding the wheat. The bread was totally worth it. 

At 9:00 I had my first online Scripture Study group in a while. We were studying Mosiah chapter 7. AKA the chapter where we find the plot again.

Veronica had a field trip to Boise on Wednesday. This was the traditional Fourth Grade field trip that used to happen every year before Covid. Veronica is our first kid to go on this trip. 

She had to be at the school at 7:00 in the morning. She was so worried that I wouldn't wake her up. So she made me promise to wake her up after I took Brandon to work. So at 5:30 I got her up. She really didn't have much to do because we'd already packed her lunch and she'd slept in her clothes. 

She watched instagram videos while I took care of some things on the computer. 

Then at 6:55 we drove over to the school and she joined all the other 4th graders in the school. They got on the buses at 7:00 and drove to Boise. 

Veronica's class was combined with Parker's class so his mom was able to take some pictures of them together and send them to me. 

The height difference between these two kids is hilarious. 

They went to the Penitentiary, then had lunch, and then went to the capitol. 

And why wasn't I there? Well there were a lot of reasons. For one I still needed to be in Twin Falls to pick up Derrick and Brandon. And I had to work in the afternoon. 

But the main reason was that I'd already scheduled the Scripture Study Group for that day. So I didn't go. 

Veronica didn't really mind. She was so excited to tell me all about the trip when she got back around 4:30. 

Thursday was Pi Day. Lydia had signed up to take a pie to her math class. And then Charlotte signed up to. So Wednesday night Brandon took them to Smiths to pick up Chocolate Cream Pies. 

But when Thursday rolled around Charlotte was exhausted and didn't want to get up for school. Since I'd had something similar on Sunday I was probably more sympathetic than I would have been. So I let her stay home. But we didn't want her class to be short a pie so Lydia dropped off Charlotte's pie when she dropped off hers. 

Derrick was really curious about this whole Pie thing. I told him it was a math thing and he might have a pie in his math class. But he didn't. He was super disappointed about that. I was feeling like I needed a pie in my life too. So we went to Smiths and bought another chocolate cream pie. 

Later that day our neighbor Jennifer brought over the left over pie from the pie day she'd had with her grandkids. So we ended up with three different types of pie. 

Friday was a super important day. Taylor Swift's Eras Tour had come to Disney Plus the day before and we were having a watch party that night. 

Like seriously, nothing else important happened on Friday. 

I mean I worked and all that. But as soon as I was done picking up Derrick and Brandon I went home and started getting things ready. 

Brandon had no interest in The Eras Tour so he was planning to go camping. He'd made brownies for me the night before. But I was on my own for everything else. He left while I was in the middle of setting up the Family Room.  

I'd gone shopping on Thursday and bought lots of fun food. Here's a big sandwich I made. 

I also made Pizza on French Bread.

But the thing I was the most excited about was this cookie Charcuterie board. 

Here's the whole spread. 

Derrick had helped me move his futon from his room into the family room so we had lots of seats. That's good because we had lots of people in the basement. 

Jori came with her four girls. Macey dropped off her twins and her boyfriends daughter. And my friend Chandler came with one of her daughters. 

Everyone got food and we started watching the show. Everyone was glued to the screen. 

It was a fun party. We ooohhhed and awed over Taylor's outfits. We talked about our favorite songs. We sang along.

Everyone stayed for three Eras - Lover, Evermore, and Reputation. Then most everyone left. But Lydia and Aurora stayed and watched the whole things. (Well we did fast forward through All to Well because they are children and don't understand the emotions behind that song. We also fast forwarded through Folklore.)

Saturday we cleaned up the house - which was pretty easy because the kids had helped me clean most of the house before the party. We also put away all the party stuff. 

Brandon got home after everything was done and we joked that it was like I didn't even have a party because he'd left before anything was set up and he came home after everything was back to normal. 

This Saturday was so much better than the week before. The weather was warm again and we spent a lot of time outside. I'd become impatient waiting for my tulips to do bloom so I'd bought some pansies to plant. They looked so happy in the front yard. And I even saw a bee on this flower before I took a picture. 

We got the patio all cleaned swept off and set up cute again. 

Brandon was home for a little bit, but then he went to the Orpheum to do a read through for the Treasure Island play that Ivan and Jarod are writing. They'd invited a bunch of actors to come and read through the play and give feedback. 

A little before 3:00 I took the kids to the St Patrick's Day Parade on Mainstreet. It was a little stressful because I dropped the three older kids off and then went to park the car. When I got the meet up spot with Veronica, Derrick was crying because he'd left his "quiet headphones" in the car. So I left Veronica with Charlotte and Lydia and took Derrick to the car. We weren't that far, but we missed the beginning of the parade and Derrick was upset about that. 

But eventually he calmed down and sort of enjoyed the parade. Here's a car that looks like Mater. 

Charlotte and Lydia looking festive. 

On the way back to the car the kids were all walking in a line like this. So I took a picture. 

and then they tried to climb this building. 

And did an okay job.

I'd started making pizza dough before we left, and it was rising perfectly when we got home. I rolled it out and decorated 4 pizza's. 

At 5:00 the missionaries came over and we had dinner with them on the patio. It's been a really long time since we've had the missionaries over. We only get the meal calendar about every 8 months and it's usually full by the time I see it. 

But the lady in charge of the calendar forgot to send it around the week before Stake Conference. So she was scrambling to fill it up. She's Kaymie's next door neighbor and one day Kaymie and I were standing on the corner and talking. That lady drove by and saw us. She came over with the clipboard and asked if we could feed the missionaries. I realized Saturday would work. So I signed up. 

And then 3 days later I went to Bible Study and was glad that I was supporting missionaries in at least a small way. 

After the missionaries left Brandon went back to work on the Honda. He'd made a major breakthrough on whatever was wrong with the car. There was something wrong with like a spark plug tube or something. He'd tried a lot of things, but finally just got someone at work to mill out a metal tube to his specifications and then that made all the difference.

He was onto the putting everything back together phase. He wanted to show me the new engine cover we'd bought a few weeks earlier. 

I spent a lot of Saturday moving the rest of the old compost pile out of this corner. Our compost system was basically "throw everything over here and forget about it."  That didn't really work that well. (Shocker) but there actually was some decent compost at the bottom of the pile. 

I was really happy to get to the point where everything was level again.

I put up these little bee houses that Charlotte and Lydia made in the manufacturing summer camp last year. 

And here's the nearly full compost ring. 

I was so happy when I saw how pretty the patio looked when I randomly walked by it. I had to take this picture. 

The kids spent some time setting up Leprechaun traps in the living room. 

Brandon meant to get up and spring the traps a little after bedtime, but he was so tired. He'd slept in the car on his camping trip and so he was very grateful for a bed. He fell asleep and didn't wake up again until morning. 

Veronica was out of bed before us and she was so sad that the Leprechaun hadn't come. So I had to do some quick thinking. I told her to come in my room and watch some funny videos to feel better. While she was distracted I grabbed the stuff out of the closet and hid it in my laundry basket. Then I told Brandon, "Hey can you take this downstairs and get it started,"  While gesturing to the gold coins and Lucky Charm cereal hiding in the basket. 

Brandon took care of all that and by the time Derrick was out of bed everything was ready. Derrick came in and told Veronica, "Hey the Leprechaun came!"  Veronica was like, "NO WAY."  And then she was so surprised to see everything sprung. I suggested that maybe the Leprechaun was hiking from Marcia and didn't have a chance to do anything until Brandon took Marica outside. She totally bought that. 

Charlotte and Lydia got up too which was a HUGE deal if you remember that Charlotte had slept in until 1:00 the week before. I teased her, "Wait, you know how to get out of bed before 8:00 on a Sunday?"

We all got ready for church. Derrick has been obsessed with seeing how tall he is compared to me. I've been guessing that he'll be taller than me by his birthday. He's already the same height as me.

After church we were going to go on a hike, but Brandon and I weren't really into the idea. So we decided to go to the First Federal Park. When we got there we discovered that half of Twin Falls had the same idea. 

So we drove over to Filer and found a park there. Nobody was there when we got there and really only about 4 other people every came. 

The kids played hide and go seek and Cops and Robbers for over an hour. Brandon and I laid on a blanket and took a nap. 

Back at home, Brandon made crepes and I cut up a lot of fruits in rainbow colors.  This was a fun St Patrick's day meal.

Veronica had some sort of run in with the powdered sugar. 

I went outside to take pictures of what Charlotte had been working on on Saturday. She was moving dirt into piles on either side of the chicken wire in the chicken coop. 

She'd been doing this for days. 

It was a lot of work. 

Here's the hole where the dirt was coming from. This area has terrible soil so I'm fine with the kids digging it all out. 

That evening we watched October Sky because the tube that Brandon had milled out reminded me of the things that the machinists made for the rockets in that movie. 

Monday the 18th was the most ALL THE THINGS DAY  of all of these days. 

There's a scene in an episode of The West Wing where a character asks Josh Lyman to describe what was happening on a particular day. Josh feels like that's impossible and replies with, "The amount of things that happen around here in a day!"

That's how I felt about Monday. 

It started off with Veronica not feeling well. She'd had a seal bark like cough all weekend. We'd tried some cold medicine and even some allergy medicine, but the cough didn't go away. 

I wasn't that worried because coughs with kids is like fish in water this time of year. But when I checked on her on Monday morning, she wasn't doing any better. 

She was also wheezing and seemed to be having trouble breathing. And she was running a fever. I concerned enough that I knew we needed a doctor's appointment. So I got my phone and called the doctors office. While I waited for them to pick up I thought about what I was going to say. 

I realized that as soon as I said, "She's having trouble breathing" they were going to say something like, "She should be seen right away. Can you take her to urgent care?"

I didn't even bother with waiting for them to pick up. I was like, "we aren't going to wait for an appointment. We are going to urgent care."

Honestly, if I didn't have to worry about Derrick I probably would have just told Charlotte and Lydia they had to walk to school and I would have taken Veronica to urgent care right away. But I knew Derrick wouldn't do well with that drastic of a change of routine. 

So I rushed everyone through the morning routine we left the house about 5 minute earlier than usual. Usually I'll drop Charlotte and Lydia off and then go park and walk Derrick into the school. But this time I dropped them all off at the front and told Charlotte and Lydia walk Derrick into the office. They were like, "Mom, we don't know how." I said, "It's like dropping off a piece of paper, only it's your brother. Just take him in to Kerri. She'll know what to do."

So that went faster than usual. Then Veronica and I drove across town to the Urgent Care at the hospital. We could have gone to the quick care that was close to us, but they didn't open until 9:00. 

We got to urgent care about 8:30. Veronica coughed right when we walked in and the lady at the desk said, "Oh I'm guessing that's why you are here."

We had a seat and after a while Veronica got called back to have her vitals checked. This was the main reason I'd wanted to get there as soon as possible. I had no idea what her blood oxygen levels were. I was relieved to see that they were 98.

We waited a super long time to be called back to a room. Which was encouraging because it meant things were super serious for Veronica. But still it was a long wait. 

Veronica was happy to finally have somewhere to lay down. 

They gave her Tylenol and ibuprofen for her fever. (I could have given it to her at home, but I wanted that fever on record.) They tested her for covid, flu, and strep. 

The nurse practitioner came in and talked to me. I told her, "Honestly, this reminds me of when my babies would have croup. Like it feels like croup.  But is she too old for croup?"

She came over and listened to Veronica cough and breath and she was like, "Yeah, that's croup."

So that's when I learned that 10 year olds can get croup.

The NP ordered a steroid to help with Veronica's swollen throat. When the MA brought it in it was in a syringe looking thing. Veronica was relieved to find out that she just had to drink it. The MA warned her it would taste really bad, but Veronica was like, "I don't care as long as I'm not getting a shot."

We were finally able to leave at 11:15. We'd been away from the house for 3 hours. 

We stopped at my office so I could pick up any mail. I was super excited to see that a bunch of checks showed up - including one of my missing checks.

So while Veronica watched TV at home I worked from home and got those checks entered. 

I picked up Derrick at 12:30. He was super worried about Veronica. He asked me, "Is she okay?" and was happy to hear that she was feeling better. 

At 1:30 I picked up Brandon and we took the checks to the bank. 

That afternoon Charlotte and Lydia had an orthodontist appointment and then we were going to go get their hair cut. 

Charlotte's hair was very damaged from being bleached and dyed twice. All winter long it's been tangling up every day. I'll spent at least 20 minutes brushing out her hair after every shower. And then it just tangles up again. 

We've tried a lot of different treatments and some sort of worked. But on Sunday I reached my limit. I was like, "Nope, I'm not going to do this any more. We are getting it cut after school tomorrow."

Charlotte knew this was kind of inevitable, so she didn't protest, but she wasn't happy about how short her hair ended up. So no pictures of the haircut. But here's the biggest mat that the hairdresser cut out. I said we should name it. 

Lydia also got her hair cut. But it wasn't as dramatic. 

We got home from the haircuts and there was a giant flat bed trailer blocking the street. It was driven by a man in our ward who had picked up the Jeep over the weekend and brought it home to us. 

Yes, that's right. The Jeep was home. This was a whole process that I was like barely involved in. Back when the Honda Pilot started having problems in December Brandon and I started talking about bringing the Jeep back to Twin Falls. We realized that we needed the Jeep back in the rotation of high milage car collection. 

Brandon got to talking to our former bishop Jim. I'm not sure what the conversation was exactly, but Brandon mentioned that we had a Jeep that was stuck at his parents house. Brandon asked if they could take Jim's truck down to Utah some time and pick up the Jeep. 

Jim took that request and ran with it. He LOVES Brandon. They have a lot of similarities in dream careers not working out and Jim has said he sees Brandon as a younger brother. So he really wanted to help Brandon out. 

He coordinated with a guy in our ward who has a really nice flat bed trailer and family in Utah. They figured out a weekend that that guy would be in Utah and he could add a stop at Brandon's parents to get the Jeep.

We knew the Jeep was coming home this day, but honestly it didn't seem real until I saw it in on the flatbed in the middle of the road.   

Jim had made sure there were two other guys to help get the Jeep off the trailer. That's Jim in the red shirt. 

That's the guy with the flatbed in the black hoodie. Basically these guys are angels. 

Here's the Jeep being a drama queen and blocking the whole road. 

They got the jeep off the flatbed and then pushed it into the garage. 

But wait, wasn't the Honda Pilot in the garage?  That was the second surprise of the afternoon. The Pilot was RUNNING. 

Brandon was able to finish getting everything together and then started it up and drove it out of the garage. He even drove it around the block. 

This Honda went out of commission and back into commission so unexpectedly. So after almost 4 months of being a one car family we suddenly had two running cars and maybe a soon to be third car. 

The rest of the evening was spent outside. Derrick and Charlotte worked together to move dirt. 

Tuesday was the first morning in a very long time that I didn't have to wake up at 5:00 and take Brandon to work. It felt so weird. 

I still couldn't believe the Pilot was working. 

Veronica seemed to be feeling better so I dropped her off at school and got everyone else to school like normal. Then I went to work at Castle Therapy. There were some complicated payments that I needed to spend a lot of time on. So I was working on those and planned to stay in the office as long as it took. I was able to start the last one when I got a call from the Elementary school. Veronica was running a fever. 

So there went my day. 

I picked her up and we went home. I tried working on that last payment, but it was too complicated to do from home. So I gave up and watched TV with Veronica. 

After Brandon got home I went into Aspen Grove and tried to get on top of things there.  It was so nice to be able to drive to work and know that Brandon didn't need the car. 

He actually had CSI that night. I got back home a little after he'd already left. 

I'd signed the three middle school kids up for back to back parent teacher conferences. So we went over to the middle school for those. (When I made the appts, I'd assumed we'd walk. But we had a working car, so we drove.)  

Derrick and Charlotte watched instagram videos on my phone while I met with Lydia's prime time teacher. Then everyone switched and I met with Charlotte's prime time teacher. And finally I met with Derrick's. At the end Derrick was able to take home the mask he'd made in social studies. 

It was creepy. He said he was a bird.

Back at home I made sloppy joes for dinner. Lydia asked me if I'd make bread that night. I was like, "Bread is for cold dark evenings. It's sunny and warm. We are going outside."  So we all went outside after dinner. 

Derrick and Veronica spent a lot of time cracking rocks with a hammer. 

I helped Charlotte move rocks to line the bottom of the chicken coop. This will hopefully keep Marcia from digging under the fence to reach the chickens. And it's a use for those rocks. 

Charlotte and Lydia had made a door on Monday night. Here it is. 

I was having an idea for what to do with this back area. So for once I was took some before pictures. 

Here's Derrick's cracked rock collection.

Wednesday was the last day of school before Spring Break so when Veronica came into my room and said that she hadn't slept well  . . . well I just kind of gave up on her going to school for the week. 

She stayed home and slept while I ran to Castle Therapy and finished that last complicated payment. 

Then I came home and did my scripture study group. We were on chapter 8. 

When that was over Veronica told me she was super bored. She was sick of movies and TV. So we made cookies. 

When Brandon came home I went to work to try to catch up from everything that I'd been neglecting earlier in the week. It felt good to get on top of things - sort of. 

At 6:10 Veronica and I went to the elementary school for her Parent Teacher conference. It was a good meeting. Her teacher has been fabulous this year. 

We got home just in time for Brandon to take Charlotte and Lydia to young womens. (There was no young mens).  When that was over Brandon and the girls bought more chicken coup stuff at lowes. 

And here we are at Thursday. It was the first day of the kids spring break. That meant I could sort of sleep in. Or at least enjoy the fact that I didn't have to rush anyone out the door. 

I got up and worked on some Castle stuff I could do from home. Then I finished up the kids Medicaid application. By that point Derrick and Lydia were up. I went to work. I told the kids that when I got home we'd do the dishes together. Or they could do them while I was gone. I was happy to see that they did do them while I was gone. 

I worked for about 90 minutes and then went grocery shopping. I was back home by 1:00. 

Brandon was home a little after 1:30 and that's when the fun part of the day started. He knew that the twins were going to be on him to work on the coop so that's all he had planned for the day. 

Here he is working on the coop with the kids. 

A closer picture. The coop is on it's side in this picture. 

After a lot of work, it was ready to put into place.  Here's Charlotte demonstrating something. 

I like this picture of everyone doing something in the yard. 

Here's me. I'd helped Charlotte move the rock, made pizza for dinner, and working on a project with big cement pavers. 

Here's my project. These pavers were from the front yard. I'd popped them out of the ground when I first started redoing the front yard last fall. Brandon had helped me move them to a pile behind the house. I wasn't sure what we were going to do with them. But a few days ago inspiration struck and I realized I could use them to mark off a flower bed at the very back of the yard. 

They don't match up perfectly, but they look pretty good anyway. 

Here's another view. And this is totally proof that I don't really plan out my projects that far in advance. Because whose bright idea was it to have this giant compost ring right in the middle of my walkway? 

Here's a hole Lydia had been working on.

Brandon cemented in this post so he could hang the door on it securely. 

Here are the girls showing off the coop some more. This is only the first level. There's apparently more coming. 

And here's my project that I expanded to include the rose bush. This whole area looks so much better. It's gone from being an afterthought area to actually looking like some thought went into it. (Or at least it will after I move that compose ring. 

Anyway, I feel like we need to look at the first picture I posted of this area - just for comparisons sake. 

And that get's us all caught up. Like I said I'm headed to Retreat tomorrow. This is my third year going and I know I'll have a lot to write about. So I'm glad we are all caught up. 

Thanks for reading.