AHHHHHHHHHH I'm determined to get caught up this blog before Summer Vacation starts. And that's a tall order because there has been so much going on. We are DEEP into May-cember. Like I literally have 3 places I'm supposed to be at noon next Tuesday.
But I'm also trying to get caught up at work before summer vacation starts distracting me. So I've spent a LOT of time staring at the computer for work and then I'm not really interested in staring at the computer to update this blog.
But let's see what we can get through. This post is going to cover from Monday April 29 to Sunday May 5.
Before we talk about my family life we need to talk about Taylor Swift because in 20 years that's what everyone is going to want to know - What did Valerie think about The Tortured Poets Department?
Well.
1. I really struggled spelling Tortured there.
2. I wasn't sure what to think at first. The double album came out on April 19th and I kept trying to listen to it throughout the day, but I didn't really get much out of that first listen.
It was really over the next week that I started to enjoy the songs.
And by the 10 day mark I'd developed something that I jokingly referred to as "Taylor Swift induced Tourette Syndrome." I'd have a song running through my head and then I'd start singing out loud seemingly random phrases.
The worst one is when I just randomly blurt out, "FLORIDA." (If you know, you know.)
Other common ones are "I cry a lot, but I am so productive. It's an art." And "Who's afraid of Little Old Me?"
Things really ramped up this week when The Eras Tour resumed in Paris with a whole new era for The Tortured Poets Department songs. (AKA Female Rage the Musical.) I've seen so many videos of "Who is Afraid of Little Old Me" and I CAN'T get enough of it. I'm also obsessed with "I can do it with a broken heart."
This Reel sums up my current Taylor Swift situation. (Also this is like a level three internet meme. There's a lot of layers to this one, so if you don't get it. Don't worry about it.)
So yes, I'm kind of obsessed with Taylor Swift right now and I'm not sorry at all.
Okay, let's talk about the week.
Monday I woke up feeling like I actually woke up. Every school day from the last two weeks had felt like a giant hill to climb up. But thanks to a restful weekend I actually felt like I could make it through the week.
And that's good because Monday was also the first day that Brandon had rehearsal for Treasure Island. He would be gone from 7:00 to 10:00 nearly every night for the next month. Good thing the play has a super fun cast.
In case you can't tell, I really have nothing to say about Monday. I don't have anything about Tuesday either.
So let's just skip to Wednesday. There was a lot on Wednesday.
First it was the chicks 2 week birthday. They had grown up quite a bit in those two weeks.
Charlotte and Lydia had put some of whiskers old things into the brooder. Things like his wheel and his little home igloo thing. It had been a big deal if the chicks could get on top of those things. Now they could jump up with no problems.
Also this was the last Scripture Study group for the next few weeks. We studied Mosiah Chapter 12. It went really well. When I studied for it I ended up reading all the way to Chapter 17 because I wanted to understand the whole big picture of Abinadi's teachings.
Okay, but the real story on Wednesday was the Engage in Education event for the Twin Falls School District. This was going to be the third year this event was held. It's one of my favorite community events. Each school has a display table and each school has some sort of performance. The two previous years were held at the city park and it's so fun to walk around and talk to everyone and see everything.
This year the weather was looking very sketchy so the event was moved to the two gyms at Twin Falls High School. They still had a free hot dog dinner and all the displays and performances, but it wasn't as fun inside.
This year we had not one, not two, but THREE children performing in the event. Charlotte and Lydia played with some other orchestra kids. And Veronica sang with the 4th grade.
So when we got there I helped Charlotte and Lydia find the music room while Brandon took Derrick and Veronica to find the hot dogs.
One of the things I like about this event is that its an opportunity to see teachers and staff that have moved to other places. We ran into the Principal of Harrison Elementary. She used to be the assistant principal at our Elementary. Derrick often yelled, "You're fired" at her when he was mad. She always thought that was funny. She'd also really helped out when we went through the first round of the SPED eval for Veronica. I saw her and I was so happy to tell her that Veronica FINALLY had an IEP. She was thrilled to hear that. She was also so surprised by how tall Derrick is.
I think I've forgot to mention this, but Derrick has been eating eggs like crazy for the past few weeks. He makes an egg sandwich like every day. People were remarking to me how much he's grown and I was saying things like, "Well, he'd been eating a lot of eggs." Derrick picked up on that. So now when people say, "Derrick! You are so tall!" He replies with "I eat a lot of eggs!"
Charlotte and Lydia rehearsed for about half an hour and then came into the gym to play their song.
Here's Charlotte walking by with her stand. (There's an elaborate paper airplane target in front of her.)
Here are the girls on the little stage with the other small group members. This was just a volunteer group that met in the morning before school, so there weren't a lot of them. All the kids were intermediate kids except Lydia. She was the only beginner orchestra member who was invited to do this. I still haven't figured out if it was because the teacher felt she was talented enough or if he knew that Charlotte would be coming so Lydia might as well come along too.
This was actually the first time Charlotte and Lydia have ever performed together.
I recorded a video of them playing, but I can't seem to find it. Just imagine a pretty song.
After Charlotte and Lydia were done Brandon helped them take their instruments to the car. Derrick went with too and stayed in the car. He was done with that noisy place. But he'd done really well.
I stayed in the gym so Veronica would know we hadn't abandoned her. She was with her group of 4th graders waiting for their turn to sing. She was nervous, but also excited.
They put her on the back row. She's so much taller than most of the other kids she probably would blend in better if they put her on the second from top row. But whatever.
I'm missing that recording too. They sang La Cucaracha and shook maracas. It was cute.
Then we came home and Brandon went to rehearsal for Treasure Island. Have I mentioned he's been learning to sword fight for that. He had a bonus rehearsal on the previous Saturday to learn the basic moves. Now they were working hard on choreography.
Brandon plays one of the "bad pirates" that take over the ship. He's part of the group that kills the First Mate. When all the other pirates go onto the island Brandon's character (O'Brian) stays behind to guard the ship with Israel Hans. They get drunk and then start having a drunken argument that leads to a sword fight. I've seen videos of the rehearsals of this fight and it is pretty cool to watch.
Israel Hans kills O'Brian, but not before O'Brian wounds Israel. Then Jim Hawkins come back on the boat and is challenged by Israel. Jim has to fight him and ends up winning. So Brandon's character is the one who dies to show how serious the situation is.
On Thursday my Aunt Karen and Uncle Bruce came to visit. It was funny because we'd randomly met up with them in Temple Texas for the eclipse and three weeks later they planned a random visit to Twin Falls. They were coming to see Shoshone Falls - specifically the Shoshone Falls after Dark show.
They stopped by for a little bit in the afternoon and we showed them around the house and yard. They brought Popcorn and A&W Rootbeer for Derrick. Years ago we'd been on a video call with my extended family. Karen had been drinking rootbeer. Derrick saw that and somehow got Karen to promise that she would give Derrick rootbeer if he came to visit her. She made good on that promise last summer. But she didn't forget that Derrick loved rootbeer. So she brough him more on this trip.
When Charlotte and Lydia came home they had Charlotte's art project with them. Charlotte's art teacher had put them into groups and told them to make something out of cardboard.
Charlotte's whole life led up to this.
She brough home the big sheets of cardboard and engineered wings. Wings that opened and closed when she pulled on strings. She had all the mechianism worked out when she took it back to school the next Monday. Then her group just helped fill in the orange webbing of the wings and paint the cardboard
Her group won first place for the project.
Here she is wearing her wings.
Friday was a day off school. I thought about doing something special. But the kids just wanted a break. So I went to work until 11:00 and then . . . . I literally have no memory of what we did.
But look, here's a picture of Charlotte and Lydia with their phone. So this must be the day they got their phone. So far their main activity is watching instagram videos. They also figured out how to put their spotify account on their. And they have their school grade checking system on there. And they like taking pictures.
My flowers were looking very pretty.
Tulips make me so happy. I saw a reel with someone talking about why they don't grow tulips. Basically the reason was that they only bloom for like 2 weeks. I was like, "But what a joy they are during those two weeks." I literally had a stranger pull up in front of my house while I was outside and tell me how much they love my tulips.
On Saturday I spent the morning weeding this flower bed. It had a lot of grass in spots that didn't need grass - namely around the tree. It looked so much better when I was done.
Here's Marcia wondering if she will ever be allowed to eat the chicks.
The chicks were loving their brooder, but also almost too big for it. We were planning to move them out to the coop the next week. And that meant Brandon had a lot of little project to help the girls with to get the coop ready. They had to put a door on the bottom part and a few other things. (I have no idea what.)
Veronica went to a birthday party. Brandon was so helpful with that. He took her shopping for a gift in the morning so I didn't have to stop working on weeding. And he dropped her off at the pool. I picked her up later. She'd had a great time.
I'm trying to think of anything specific about Sunday. The only thing I remember happened in Derrick's Sunday School class. I've been going to that class to help Derrick. (And also because I've been avoiding Adult Sunday School ever since the WILDLY out of context lesson on Hebrews.) Veronica is over Primary so she comes with me to Derrick's class.
Anyway, that week we walked into the Sunday School class and the kids were asking where the teacher was. I was like, "Do we have a teacher this week?" And then I was like, "We'll this lesson is on chapters from Mosiah and I happen to know those chapters VERY well."
So I was trying to think about how to teach a bunch of 11-13 year olds about King Benjamin's speech. Then the real substitute teachers walked in. They did an okay job, but I'll admit I was thinking, "You put like an hour into this. I've literally spent HOURS studying and thinking about these chapters."
One of the good things the substitute teachers did was try to get to know the kids. They went around the room and asked everyone to tell what they liked to do. Veronica was sitting with the other girls (and totally blending in. You wouldn't know she was a year younger than anyone in that class.) She said she was interested in basket ball. I was like, "Really?" I knew she liked playing basketball at recess, but I didn't realize it would be the first thing she said.
Derrick's answer was something like, "I like going on adventures outside with my family." Again I was like, "REALLY?" I mean, I know that kid is happy outside, but I wouldn't have guessed that would be what he said right away.
Then they asked me what I liked to do and said "Study the Scriptures."
Anyway, that's what we did that week. Thanks for reading. (And hopefully we get all caught up on this thing soon.)
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