illguthlife: Retreat, Spring Break, Easter, and Derrick's fake birthday

The kids have been on Spring Break since Thursday March 21st. This has been a really great Spring Break. We are going on vacation in April for the Solar Eclipse so we didn't plan anything big for Spring Break this year. There was something nice about just kind of hanging around with low expectations.

I already wrote about Thursday the 21st, but I feel like I need to just mention it again for continuity. The weather was amazing on Thursday and as soon as Brandon was off of work the kids made him start working on the chicken coup. We were all outside for a very long time and it was wonderful.

The weather stayed nice on Friday too. When I came home from work in the morning all the kids wanted to go on a walk to the Elementary school. I still had to pack for Retreat so I told them to walk over to the school and then I'd meet them there.

I hurried and packed my stuff and then I walked over to the elementary school. As I walked over I thought about 4 years ago when everything was shut down for covid. Back then I made a point of taking the kids on a walk around the neighborhood each day so that they could get familiar with it. Now they were just walking to the school by themselves. I could hear the kids laughing and talking before I crossed the street to the school. I found them on the "cupcake."

I don't know why they call it the cupcake. But that's what Charlotte and Lydia have called it for years.

Then they went over to the bigger playground and showed me how Marcia likes to play on things.

We stayed at the school for a little while, but the kids were thirsty so we went back home. Here are some crocuses that were growing in the front yard.

I had to go for my weekly meet up with Ivan. When I came home all the kids were in the back yard. This was so different than how things usually are. Usually the kids are watching TV when I get home. But they all seemed sick of TV. They wanted to be enjoying the nice day outside.

They wanted me to take this funny video of them with the chicken coop. Here it is on Youtube as a short. https://youtube.com/shorts/15JTM5fvImM?si=LXOVvcRGg_dFarTe

And here are the still pictures.

The kids were so funny.

I went around and took some more pictures of other things growing. I like these hyacinths.

And the lilac is growing too.

I was all set to go to Retreat. I was getting a ride this year because I didn't trust the Honda Pilot to drive to Fairfield. And the minivan doesn't have the 4 wheel drive that's recommended for making it to the retreat location. So my friend Ali was going to pick me up. I watered all the plants in the front yard while I waited for her to come.

Brandon came home about 5 minutes before Ali arrived. It was nice to see him before I left.

Ali came and I put my suitcase and camp chair into the back of her truck. Since I wasn't driving I didn't need my keys or really my purse. I'd brought my wallet, but put it into my suitcase. It was so weird to just get into her car without worrying about anything.

We picked up a lady named Allison who I sort of knew and then my friend Natalie. We all had a good time talking as we drove up to Fairfield.

This was my third year going to Ladies Retreat with Twin Falls Community Church. It was Natalie's 4th year. (She's one of the founding members of the church so she'd been there for that first retreat.) Ali and Allison have been with the church for several years, but they hadn't been able to go other years. So this was their first year going.

We made it to the Intermountain Christian Camp in Fairfield. We were in the same building we were in last year. The dirt road to the building had a lot of big puddles that made me VERY glad I hadn't driven the minivan.

Here's the building we were staying in.

Later I went around and took some pictures of the scenery outside.

This is the view from the back. This is looking west.

The side - looking north.

And the front. This is looking mostly North east.

We went inside and were greeted by a lot of people who were already there. I recognized most of the people that were there. I was able to have a good conversation with my friends Amanda and Shari. And I was able to talk to Liz for a bit.

At some point I went upstairs and found a room. I was a little sad about this part. I've shared a room with Chicken Liz the last two years. She moved in the last year so being her roommate wasn't an option this year. I wasn't sure who I would share with this year. I decided to just go pick the same room I'd had last year. And if anyone needed a roommate I'd offer my room.

So I went up to room 209 and set up my stuff on the lower bed. Last year I'd had a hard time sleeping because it had been so strange to sleep in a sleeping bag on a bed. It had also been really hot. So this year I brought real bedding. I had a sheet, a big pillow, and two blankets.

At 5:30 it was time for the retreat to officially start. We started with dinner. We had chili and corn bread. I'd sat by Natalie's crockpot full of chili in the car and it had smelled amazing. So I was very excited to finally get to eat it.

After dinner it was time for our first session of the retreat. This year our speaker was a lady named Tara. She's a biblical counselor in Pocatello. (We had a least two mutual friends.) Her topic was about having our identity in Christ and not being afraid of what people think of us or trying to make our identity about what people think about us. At least I think that's what the topic was. It was kind of fuzzy. I'd gotten used to some very deep, and specific study of passages of scriptures with this church. It was a little odd to have it be a more nebulous idea.

Last year we'd studied a chapter and a half of 1 Peter. The year before we'd gone over the Mary and Martha story in Luke. This year was not like that and I was missing the other way of doing things.

I was also missing my friend Ferin. Last year we'd sat in the back and shared a blanket and I'd helped her find scriptures in her Bible. This year I was sitting by Ali and she was fine to sit by, but it wasn't the same.

After the instruction part of the retreat it was time to change into pajamas and then come back downstairs for the fun time. The last two years we played Pictionary, but this year we played Fish Bowl. Everyone had written down 5 words that started with the letter R.

We went around in a circle and each person took a turn explaining the word so that everyone on their team could guess what it was. So for a rose they'd say something like, "its a flower that you smell." That round was fun.

Then we did the second round where we had to act out the word. So for a rose you'd pretend to smell it. That round was stressful. Ali and I kept saying that we hoped the basket of words would be all used up by the time it came to us. It made it to me close to the end. I wanted to do a good job so that Ali wouldn't have to do that round. I ended up acting out 9 different words and so Ali ended up with only 1 word to act out. So I guess that went well.

On the final round we could only say one word. So rose would be "flower." By that point we knew most of the words so if we got stuck we'd just start yelling out all the R words that we knew were options.

It was a fun game.

Then it was just free time. Lots of people were playing games, but I wasn't really feeling in the mood for games. So I went and found the coloring books and talked with another lady who was coloring.

Someone had brought the National Park coloring book from last year. Here's the Yellowstone page I'd done last year.

This year I decided to do the Capitol Reef page.

I colored with the other lady for a long time. When she went to bed I went and sat by some of my friends who were playing Liars Dice and kept coloring. When they were done we talked until about 12:30.

Then the last of us went to bed. There were fewer women here this year than the year before so I'd never ended up with a roommate. That was actually really nice. The mattress was really noisy every time I rolled over so I was happy I wasn't keeping a roommate awake as I tossed and turned.

I slept better than I did last year. I wasn't as hot and the bedding worked a lot better. But it still wasn't a great night's sleep. In the morning I joked, "This is why this is just a one night's sleep."

Saturday morning started with Breakfast at 8:30. It was breakfast casseroles, fruit, and yogurt. Then we had our next session of instruction. Again I just wasn't feeling it. And actually I was feeling physically uncomfortable. My camp chair just was not as comfortable as I wanted it to be. My hips were hurting. So during a break in the first session I got the couch that was behind me and slid it over to where I was sitting. That was so much better. I assumed that I was uncomfortable because I was getting old, but in hindsight I think I was beginning to get sick.

Every year I forget to take pictures of the big gathering room. But I didn't forget to take pictures of the cute little decorations on the tables. I was in love with this little bird this year.

It was so cute with it's little display.

Here's another display on another table.

The morning session ended and it was time for free time. We usually go on a walk during this time. This year it was a small group. Just Me, Liz, and a lady named Grace. We had a nice walk, but we got rained on during our walk back. It was nice to be back inside.

We had sandwiches on the most delicious bread made by Shari. That bread was probably the highlight of retreat for me - and that's saying something.

We still had an hour of free time so I went upstairs and took a nap.

Then it was time for the last session. I'd given up on really learning anything by this session, but that doesn't mean I wasn't loving this retreat. There were still things I enjoyed. We started each session with Liz interviewing someone. She'd ask them fun questions and then move onto questions about their religious upbringing and how they found Jesus. This year she interviewed Lisa and Shari. Shari's story was especially good.

I also LOVE singing with this group of Ladies. We sing such beautiful songs. I love how the music echos around the room. My favorite song is called "Yet Not I But Through Christ in Me." Here's a Youtube video of the song. My favorite part is when the melody goes really high on the choruses. Mentally I call it "throwing up" which now that I think about sounds really gross. But it's like throwing the music up to the high ceiling of the main gathering space. It has a really cool echoing sound. I love hearing it.

Retreat it always really special for me. And this year was special too, but I found myself feeling a little different toward it this year. I realized I wasn't as socially desperate as I have been in other years. Okay, maybe that's not the right way to describe it. Let me try again.

In other years I've felt very alone in my ward. There weren't a lot of women my age in my ward and I wasn't close friends with the ladies who are my age. So retreat was always a good chance for me to hang out with women my age. But in the last year several new families have moved into my ward. We've started hanging out with them and some of the existing families. I don't feel as lonely at church on a weekly basis as I did before.

So while retreat was still special it wasn't exactly filling a desperate need in my soul this year. I also have created my own scripture study group this year. I'm deeply studying for that on a weekly basis. So I'm not as spiritually hungry as I've been in other years.

I guess I'm just growing up and maturing. And my relationship with Retreat was changing slightly to reflect that.

Also, in hindsight, I was in the early stages of getting sick. That was probably affecting things. I noticed that I was starting to cough a little bit during that last session. And I was sitting on my couch again. I even fell asleep for the last 20 or so minutes of the instruction.

We finished everything with group prayer. I was worried about this part because last year it had turned me into a sobbing vulnerable mess. And while that was ultimately okay, it was also kind of embarrassing. So I did NOT want to do that again.

This time I ended up paired with Allison. She was very kind and we had a sweet time praying over each other. I cried, but not noticeably.

And then it was over. I'm always so sad when retreat is over.

We packed up our things and helped clean up the gathering areas. Ali, Allison, Natalie, and I all got into the truck and started driving home. We had a really good conversation on the way home.

It was weird to get dropped off at home. I was so happy to see everyone, but I was also really tired.

Brandon had taken the kids to Lowes and bought wood. They unloaded it off the top of the van.

I was trying to hang out with everyone, but Brandon said, "You seem really tired."

I told him I was. It was only like 8:30, but I went into my room and got ready for bed. In the process I somehow ended up throwing my glasses in the garbage. I'd been thinking that maybe it was too early for bed. But after I found my glasses in the garbage can I was like, "Yeah, I think I need to go to bed." So I got to bed and read for a little while until I fell asleep.

I was much more awake on Sunday. Church was really good. I'm struggling to remember what we did after church. I can't remember anything.

The kids had watched Jurassic Park with Brandon on Thursday and Jurassic Park 2 on Friday. So I we watched Jurassic Park 3 on Sunday evening. Then we watched the Honest Trailer and the Pitch meetings for the Jurassic Park movies. Those were funny.

Monday was the first day of Spring Break. I had a couple of worries before Spring Break. 1. Was that I didn't want a repeat of Thanksgiving and Christmas Break where I worked way too much while also trying to balance hanging out with the kids. So I was determined to not work too much.

2. I didn't want the kids just sitting around watching TV during the break. I didn't want to spend any money or go very far because we had such a big trip coming up in a few weeks. But I didn't want to do NOTHING either.

So I came up with a plan to take the kids on a hike every day of Spring Break. And because this is my MO lately, I made sure to invite a lot of people to join us. Here's the schedule I made for the week

I also created a Facebook Group where I posted picture and links. It felt really good to have a plan.

Another thing that happened a lot during Spring Break - that I did not plan - was that we went to D&B a lot.

On Monday morning after I got home from work the kids talked me into taking them to D&B to see if there were any baby chicks. The kids all know that we aren't getting chicks until after our trip, but they still wanted to just go look at the chicks.

So we went to D&B. There weren't any chicks there. But we could see that they were planning to get a shipment on Wednesday. So we looked around at other stuff - including the garden area. We all liked these little deer.

At 2:00 we met up at the trailhead for the Perrine Coulee Waterfall. There were seven other families there. When we started up the trail I counted over 30 people. I had not expected that many people so it was a little crazy. But also really cool.

The waterfall was smaller than I'd ever seen it.

It was also blowing all over the trail. I've never seen it do that.

Since the main trail was too wet we all ended going up a side trail.

There was a little cave that lots of kids crowded into.

Here's a group picture in the cave.

We kept going up the trail a little farther.

It was very pretty.

I liked the view of the golf course. I've been reading a book about Twin Falls. This area in the canyon was owned by IB Perrine. It was a fruit orchard. IB Perrine was one of the people who helped found Twin Falls.

And here's the view of the bridge named after IB Perrine.

Here's Lydia going back down the trail.

Here's the waterfall again.

And me. I thought I was making a normal face, but not so much.

Here's our group picture at the end. Several people had gone home by this point so we didn't have a complete group. But this was still impressive.

I felt kind of bad because I wasn't feeling super great and I'd almost completely lost my voice. So even though I was "in charge" of this whole thing I had a hard time directing people or really interacting much because my voice was so shot.

We went home and I took a nap.

Tuesday I worked from home for Castle Stuff and for a lot of Aspen Grove stuff. I did go into work for about an hour for admin meeting, but that was it. I'm glad I was already kind of planning to work from home because I was coughing and sneezing a lot that day. I'd also lost completely lost my sense of smell and taste.

It wasn't covid it was just a bad cold. I'd lost my sense of smell and taste from a cold two other times in my life. Once was when I was 15. Someone gave me a Symphony candy bar for my birthday. I remember eating it and not being able to taste it at all.

The other time I couldn't smell or taste at all was about 10 years ago when we lived in Texas. Charlotte and Lydia had played with the toaster and kept putting a piece of bread into the toaster to watch it pop up. I'd been sitting in the living room - possibly feeding Veronica. I had no idea that Charlotte and Lydia had burned the toast until there was smoke coming out of the toaster. I hadn't been able to smell the toast at all.

So this was the third time I'd lost my sense of smell and taste. It was just as strange.

I'm glad I already had a hike planned for Tuesday because we probably would have just sat at home all day. Instead we went to the trail in Rock Creek Canyon.

We went to the big willow that the kids always like playing at.

Jori and her family started out with us. But one of her girls got hurt right away. It was serious enough that Jori wanted to take her to get it looked at. So they left before we even started on the trail.

My kids had fun playing around the tree.

They all went across this log. Someone had put railroad spikes into the sides so there were hand and foot holds.

then Derrick and Charlotte played on this log.

And then it started hailing after about 15 minutes so we gave up and went home.

Brandon was at CSI for the last time for a few months. We were on our own again. We decided to make Cake Pops and maybe give some to Jori's family as a "sorry you got hurt present." I texted Jori to see how her daughter was doing and if they wanted a treat. She told me that her daughter was okay and nothing was broken (thank goodness.) She also said they had enough treats at the moment.

That was another thank goodness moment because the cake pops were not working out. These were originally for St Patrick's day so I'd bought green candy melts. I still haven't learned that food is just not meant to be green. They were kind of looking like buggers.

And then we had structural issues. They kept falling off the sticks.

So we ended up just putting them back on the cookie sheet. And we ate them all by ourselves so no one else would have to see these flopped cake pops.

Brandon's class hadn't lasted very long this week. (It was on work orders and there's only so much you can say about those apparently.) So he was home around 7:00. That was nice. It was also nice that I wasn't teaching my scripture study class. So we went on a walk and had a nice long talk.

Wednesday is normally my day off so I was holding myself to that. But I did have a few things I needed to take care of from home. When I was done I took the kids to D&B to see the chicks.

The kids were so excited to see them.

Charlotte had been walking Derrick through all the things that they needed to do to take care of the chicks. He is getting very excited to have chicks of his own. The girls are all beyond excited too.

Our hike on Wednesday was to Auger Falls. Jori came to that one and no one got hurt this time. She had her 4 girls in yellow jackets so they wouldn't get lost. That was a good plan.

The kids all had fun on the crazy rocks.

I still wasn't feeling great, but I'd taken Dayquil right before the hike and that had kicked in enough to keep me going. I was also not sneezing or coughing as much. But my ribs and stomach muscles hurt from all the coughing and sneezing from the day before.

Anyway, I was happy to be on the hike, but I wished I was feeling better.

The kids had a great time running around.

Doesn't this look so fun?

I honestly didn't think we'd make it to the waterfall. We usually get distracted by the rocks. But after playing on the rocks everyone wanted to see the waterfall. So we kept going.

And when we made it to the waterfall I was so impressed. I don't think there was this much water flowing here when we were here before.

It was really cool.

We found a spot where the kids could get closer. I didn't think my ankle would like going down there so I stayed up and watched.

Veronica was pretending to be a turtle with this rock.

the kids had found a bunch of shells. They brought these up and showed me.

then we went back.

We were done hiking at like 4:30 and we were starving. Brandon suggested we pick up pizza at Costco on the way home. That sounded like a great idea so that's what we did.

When we drove home I had the pizza on my lap and I could barely sort of smell it.

On Thursday morning I woke up to snow on the ground. It wasn't a lot, but still it was SNOW. I was hoping to go to one of the Hidden Lakes behind Dirkes Lake for the hike that day. But when I got home from work the weather was still terrible and the kids were all snuggled up on the couch watching TV.

So I called off the hike and then took a much needed nap. While I was napping I could hear hail hitting the house.

When I woke up I found Brandon and the girls outside. They'd been working the coop. They'd set up the canopy to protect the power tools and had worked through the rain and the hail.

I went around and took pictures of things that were growing. Here are the crocuses.

A pansy.

More crocuses.

the Lilac in the side yard.

Here's spinach in the backyard.

A pea plant.

Here's lettuce.

Onions from seed.

and onions from starts that I planted in the fall.

Here's the view of the canopy work station.

They'd made a lot of progress on the second level of the coup.

That evening after dinner I went grocery shopping. When I got home I took Derrick to Smiths to let him pick out a birthday cake.

Derrick's real birthday is April 8th. That's the day of the Eclipse when we were be in Texas. A few weeks ago Derrick told me he didn't want to celebrate his birthday away from home. So I told him he could have a "fake birthday" before our vacation.

We went to the calendar and I told him to pick a day. He happened to pick Sunday March 31st which is Easter this year. If it was any other kid I would have told him, "Pick again. We are not doing a birthday on Easter." But Derrick actually was born on Easter. His birthday and Easter won't actually line up again for like 90 years. So I was like, "Hey, why not? Let's celebrate your birthday on Easter this year."

But we already had planned on picking up a store bought cake for his birthday on the day of the eclipse. So he still wanted a store bought cake. So that's why we were picking one out.

This is the one Derrick picked. He told me it was the best cake ever. He took this picture while I was getting gas. He told me, "I always want to remember this cake."

Veronica showed me a little cave for a tiger figurine that she'd bought that day at D&B. Oh yeah that's right. We'd gone to D&B that day to see the baby ducks that they'd been expecting. The ducks weren't there, but all three girls had bought little figurines.

That night after the kids were in bed, Brandon and I went to Smiths for their caselot sale and to buy Easter candy. That was a fun little date.

Friday I was feeling mostly better. At least better than I had most of the week. I went to work for a while. When I came home I took pictures of the progress that had been made on the coop on Thursday.

It was looking a lot like a coop.

Here are the holes the kids have been digging lately. They look like golpher holes.

Here's Lydia and Marcia enjoying the sun.

Here's a picture of my amerillys that was finally blooming. It looked like an Easter lily.

Our adventure for the day was Balanced Rock Park. Jori's family joined us again and we had a great time. We did a fire and the kids made friends with an old man who was fishing. He let them fish and Derrick caught a fish.

Here's a picture of the canyon.

When we got back home the girls dragged Brandon outside and made him keep working on the coop.

Derrick lit another fire and kept going with that.

It was a nice evening.

I love how the chicken area is taking shape.

I went inside and took a shower. Here's how the coop was looking when I came back outside.

Brandon was super tired by Friday night, but he didn't want to go to bed. So I had him stay up with me and watch the very abbreviated Eras Tour. I showed him one or two songs from each era. He liked that short version. It was fun to share that with him.

Saturday was probably the first day that I felt actually well all week. My sense of smell was back about 40% and I could actually breath through my nose again.

We got the house cleaned up in the morning. And then in the afternoon everyone was back outside.

I had my own project. I took Veronica with me to the State Liquor store. She helped me pull a bunch of boxes out of the dumpster. Back at home I put all the cardboard down on the flower bed at the back of the yard. Then I went to Lowes and bought 10 bags of top soil.

This will hopefully work as a weed barrier back here.

I loved how it turned out. I didn't quite have enough top soil to completely cover the cardboard, but I had enough to hold it down. I'll get more when we are back from our trip.

Look at how great this looks! I can't wait until there are flowers growing here.

And check out the work that Brandon had accomplished on the coop. He made this marco polo video for his family.

I'd bought one lavender plant to put in the garden bed. I planted that. As soon as I was done putting it in the sky started dumping a bunch of rain. Brandon and the girls had just finished putting away all the tools. It rained for like 20 minutes and everything became a muddy soggy mess. So that was pretty much the end of doing much outside the rest of the day.

Inside I took a picture of my amaryllis.

It's so pretty.

We watched some movies. Veronica and Derrick weren't too interested so they got Easter things ready.

Veronica made this whole sign herself. (She'd had me write down how to spell everything.)

Derrick even found the motion detecting camera and set it up on top of the fridge by himself.

Brandon and I put Derrick and Veronica to bed, but Charlotte and Lydia were still wide awake. I had them come into the living room and help blow up balloons for Derrick's Fake Birthday.

Charlotte went into the kitchen and was messing around with the motion capture camera while Brandon watched on his phone. Charlotte grabbed a magnet picture of Jesus that we have on our fridge. She put it in front of the camera and Brandon nearly died laughing.

There was just something so funny about Jesus staring into the camera. It was like he was saying, "Really Guys?"

Brandon laughed and laughed. He was laughing so much that we were all laughing at him. It was so funny.

When we all calmed down from our giggle fest we all went into my room. Charlotte and Lydia had thought I was going to make them go to bed, but I was like, "No, if you are awake you are going to help." They helped stuff plastic eggs with candy and then helped fill the Easter Baskets.

Then Charlotte wrote a note from the Easter Bunny and Lydia drew a picture.

It was really nice to have their help. I'd been really excited for Easter and had used it as an excuse to buy beach stuff for our vacation. But I was a little burned out by this point.

I actually ended up going to bed around this point and let Brandon and the girls finish up and take care of hiding the baskets.

Sunday was another cold and snowy day. We all slept in until around 9:00. Then the kids got up and started looking for their baskets. They found a bag on our porch with a note from a secret friend. Someone was going to set up an egg hunt for us in our front yard, but ended up just leaving it all in a bag because of the weather. This was really sweet to find. If you are reading this, thank you.

Here are Derrick and Veronica with their baskets.

And here are Derrick's birthday balloons.

Here's everyone in the morning. We had a discussion about staying home from church. But ultimately rallied and went to church. It was only for an hour and it was nice to be there.