Our surprisingly simple May

Most years May is a ridiculously busy month. But for some reason this year it's been oddly simple for us. I guess that's what happens when "being in a play" feels like a default mode for your family. When no one is in a play everything feels so much simpler.

I finished my last post on Mother's Day morning. The rest of the day was just as simple. I went to church and then went to Wendy's and got a hamburger. And then I just hung out on the patio. It was so nice to not be in charge of anything. 

Brandon and the kids came home around 9:00. Charlotte and Lydia told me all about their day at Lagoon. They'd been able to ride the new Roller Coaster, Primordial. They actually got stuck on it for about 5 minutes. 

Everyone had a great time at Brandon's parents. Lydia needed to interview someone for her career's class. Brandon set everything up so that she could interview his sister Melanie. Melanie is an artist and Lydia wants to be a professional artist so that's why she wanted to interview Melanie. 

Monday was the busiest day of the week. I'm glad I'd had a whole weekend to myself because I'm not sure I would have survived it without all that relaxation.

When the twins were done with school we went to the DMV to try a 4th time to get their drivers license. The line was still a little long, but it moved fast enough that we only had to wait about 45 minutes. And I had all the documents we needed this time. We were able to get the permits. 

But it felt kind of anticlimactic because we don't get the permits.  They are mailed to the drivers school. We don't get the permits until the girls finish the drivers school. That doesn't even start until June so it was like, "YAY, we did all that for nothing." But at least it's done so we don't have to worry about it in June. 

We went home and I started making dinner. I knew Veronica had a ukulele concert at the elementary school that evening, but I'd never been really solid on the time. So I checked the flier again and realized that the concert started at 5:30 and we needed to be there at 5:10. Which meant we needed to leave at 5:00. And it was like 4:45 when I realized all this. 

So I hurried and got dinner finished and we started eating and then Brandon came home and then I hurried and took Veronica over to the school and a little later Brandon brought the other kids. 

The concert was really cute. There were about 20 kids with ukuleles in the front and then the rest of the 5th grade was in the back singing along. Veronica played ukulele for the first song and then switched with a kid and was in the back for the other two songs. 

Here she is getting ready to play. 

And another one of her getting ready. 

Here's a video of her singing the Ho Hey song. There's a little bit of accompaniment playing over the speakers, but you can here the ukuleles well. 

The concert was nice and quick so it was over before 6:00. We had to leave the lunch room quickly to make room for the parents coming in for the 4th grade recorder concert. 

This was our last elementary school concert. (Not that there were many. Charlotte and Lydia didn't have a ukulele concert because there were still so many covid restrictions when they were in 5th grade. And Derrick didn't go to music for a lot of elementary school.) 

I wanted all the kids to take a picture in front of this school sign, but Charlotte and Lydia were like, "we did you enough of a favor just by coming to this concert. Don't push it."  So it's just a picture of Derrick and Veronica.

We went home and I was thinking we were done for the evening, but then I realized we had time to run over to the Orpheum for the orientation for Veronica's Matilda play. I'd assumed that we'd have to go at an alternate time because the ukulele concert would overlap too much. But we had enough time. So Veronica and I drove over to the Orpheum and then hurried up all the stairs to the school room. 

Veronica was so happy to see a lot of her friends. They called roll and the kids came up to get their scripts. Then they talked about a few things. It was all really quick. Afterward we stuck around a few minutes and talked to people. My neighbor Diana was there. Her teenage daughter has done a few of the big kid plays. And her son is just barely old enough to start the Ovation program. So both her kids are able to be in this play together. 

Then we went home and I was like, "I can't believe all the stuff we did today."

I do a lot of driving in the mornings and Tuesday was no different. I drove Charlotte and Lydia to their middle school. Then drove across town to drop off Derrick at his middle school. Then drove back to my side of town to go to the Castle Therapy office. And then I drove to the Gaining Perspective office abotu a mile away. And that's when someone finally told me that I my back tire was going flat. 

Apparently Charlotte and Lydia had noticed that it was flat as I drove away earlier that morning, but hadn't thought to text me about it. 

I met with Cassy about her billing and then came outside to figure out my tire situation. The tire wasn't completely flat and I was only half a mile from Les Schwab tires. So I just drove over there. They were able to get the tire patched (FOR FREE) within an hour. And I was back on my daily routine without to much trouble. 

Honestly, I'd forgot about the whole thing until I uploaded the picture of the flat that I'd sent to Brandon. 

I continued to feel more caught up at work. There are still a billion things I need to do, but I'm feeling better about it all. 

Someone from another therapy company stopped by with fliers for the summer camps they are offering this summer. The other therapy place does things like speech and occupational therapy. They are offering camps for things like stuttering, trying new foods, social skills, using fine and gross motor skills, etc. They dropped the fliers off in case any of our clients would be interested in the camps. But I was like, "Oh this is perfect for Derrick!"

I've been looking for something for Derrick to do this summer. The girls are all involved in theatre stuff, but Derrick doesn't have anything besides boys camp at the end of July. 

The camps were for kids from 4-18 and would be divided by age so Derrick would be with kids his own age. They also take the Empowered Parent's Grant which we have again. (It's paying for the theatre stuff and the girls drivers ed.)

So I immediately emailed the therapy place about using the grant. By the end of the day I had Derrick signed up for a social skills camp, an outdoor camp, and a pirate camp. Each camp is 90 minutes a day for 4 days. A lot of them are at the same time Veronica is at Matilda Rehearsals. 

I also reached out to CSI about Derrick attending the Trade and Tech camp along with Charlotte and Lydia this year. The girls said they would be fine with Derrick coming with them and being in their group. So I checked with the people in charge of that to see if they would be cool with an autistic kid attending. They said it would be fine. So I got that all finalized by the end of the week. I went from barely having a plan for Derrick's summer to having him signed up for stuff for four weeks. That felt really good.

At home I took pictures of my irises. They are doing so well this year. 

And look at this pretty flax. We had flax in these beds two years ago and I made sure to spread the seeds in the fall. But last year there was hardly any flax that came up. This year though a lot of them came up. 

And here are my little violets that I love very much. Later in the week when we started another project I made sure to protect this little patch. 

And here is my lilac bush. I'm so happy with this. 

I was hoping to start working on digging trenches for our sprinkler system in the front yard on Tuesday, but the day was very windy and cold and I just couldn't motivate myself to start. 

Brandon was at CSI that evening. Veronica and I went grocery shopping. We were running out of everything at the house so it was a much needed trip. 

Wednesday was my day off. I started off the day with my scripture study group. Only Rachel could come this time, but we had a good time talking. She'd been at my mother's day luncheon on Saturday and she said it had been wonderful and had really helped her enjoy actual mother's day so much more than usual. 

In the afternoon I worked on some exponent auditing stuff and also took a nap. 

That afternoon Veronica and I went to Hobby Lobby so she could buy a sketch book. She picked one out that had a cool buckle clasp thing. She spent a lot of time drawing in it. 

Charlotte and I went to D&B to buy more chicken feed and I picked up some bags of potting soil. I'd told myself that this was the year I'd successfully grow flowers in pots and that meant getting good potting soil. So then I spent time getting the pots filled. 

I also got out the Mother's Day presents that Brandon had ordered for me before I'd decided that all I wanted for Mother's Day was to be alone. 

One of the presents is a rain drum. Derrick had seen a rain drum on instagram and showed it to me. He told me, "You want this for Mother's Day."  And he was right. I put it in a pot under a spot where we don't have a rain gutter. Derrick and I tested it out by spraying water on the garage roof with a hose. 

The other present was a solar fountain. I put this one in a pot inside a flower pot. 

That night the girls had an ice cream social for their youth activity. And Derrick helped with yardwork at a neighbors house. 

Thursday was probably the best Thursday I've had in a while. I don't know why but Thursdays have been feeling really cursed lately. I've been super tired, I've been dizzy, I've been depressed. But this time I woke up with tons of energy and I was feeling very on top of things. 

And then I got to Aspen Grove and I opened my email and my anxiety spiked. I don't know why - I read emails all the time - but this time my body was like NOPE, THIS IS DANGEROUS. I told myself to calm down. There was nothing to be afraid of. Like really there wasn't. It was all just run of the mill stuff. 

But it took me a while to get back to feeling normal. 

I did make it through everything and was actually able to get off work about an hour early. I went over to Fred Meyer and bought a bunch of plants to put in my flower pots. I also bought Veronica swimming suit bottoms because the suit I'd bought her online was just a top. 

Then I came home and planted everything.   Here's a hanging basket.

This is the pot with the rain drum.

The chickens are so made that I put these flowers just outside their reach. 

And here the solar fountain again. 

And then after potting all of those things it was time to finally start digging up the front yard for the sprinkler system. 

Our front yard originally had a sprinkler system, but at some point it started leaking and Brandon decided it was better to just rip it all out and start over again. And that's when I decided that if we were going to dig up the sprinkler system I was going to turn a third of the lawn into flower beds. 

The plan was to put the sprinkler system in that same fall that I put in the flower beds. But we ran out of time or money or both. So we vowed to put it in in the spring. And then Brandon made it into Treasure Island and I knew I wasn't getting a sprinkler system in 2024.

This year I was determined to make it happen. Anytime any of our theatre friends asked us about doing the June play I was like, "No, I'm getting a sprinkler system!"

The weather was supposed to be cool for the next week so this was the perfect time to dig up the yard and put in the pipes. So I started digging. 

Brandon had already figured out where all the heads were going. He drew me a rough plan which I basically followed. I dug everything out. 

And then regretted everything. Normally, I have a pretty good vision for my garden projects, but sprinkler systems aren't something I've done before. So I felt like I was messing it all up. Brandon had to keep reassuring me that everything looked exactly the way it should. 

Friday was a big day for Veronica. It was her 5th grade field trip to Nat Su Pah hot springs. We got all her stuff packed and ready. She had a blast!

Charlotte and Lydia also had a fun day. They had their carnival at the end of the day. 

I went to work and got a lot done. Want to know how I know that I'm feeling on top of things again?  I got the bank statement in the mail and had time to go over it the SAME day that it arrived. I've been getting to it the last week of the month every month for like the last six months. 

After work I went to the Orton Botanical Garden. This was the first day of their annual plant sale and I was determined to get a desert willow and two fern bushs. And I DID. I also got a Fire Cracker Penstemon, a golden current bush, Texas sage, creeping thyme, and one more plant I can never remember the name of.  

I came home and planted the Desert Willow right away. It doesn't look like much right now, but it's going to be amazing. 

This is what the flowers on the tree at the Orton Botanical Garden looked like when I saw it last August. I've wanted a tree like this in my yard ever since.

I planted the other plants as well. 

My goal for this area around the fire pit is to have it be very drought tolerant. 

Then I went to the front yard and went back to work on the trenches. On Thursday I'd used the spade to dig out the grass. This time I went back over everything with a small trench width shovel and made the trenches deeper. It was fairly simple. The hardest thing was the shovel was so narrow it kind of hurt to step on repeatedly. By the end of the night I felt like both my feet had huge blisters on the soles. (They didn't that just how they felt.)

Charlotte came out and hung out with me while I dug. We listened to a Big Flop episode about Tiger King. 

Brandon took Derrick and Lydia with him to Lowes and bought all the pipes, connectors, and valves. He got back just as I was finishing with the third pass on all the trenches. Then he went to work on making some of the trenches deeper and digging the hole for the box. Charlotte and Lydia helped him a bit. 

I was done with my part of the front yard so I went into the backyard and transplanted more sunflowers from the path to the area around the fire pit. 

Saturday was our 18th wedding anniversary. We'd had big plans to go kayaking from Centennial Park to Pillar Falls. But every time I thought about booking the kayaks a little voice in the back of my mind said, "Wait until you know if the weather will be nice."

It's a good thing I listened to that voice because the weather forecast was terrible It was supposed to be like 55 degrees and rainy most of the day. So there went those plans. 

Instead we went out to breakfast at Burger King because if one thing is consistent over 18 years its our love for Burger King. 

Then we went to Lowes and bought some more connectors that Brandon had forgot to buy on Friday. And then it was back home to work on the yard. 

It looked like we'd had gophers digging all over it. 

Brandon worked on the line that went from the backyard through the side yard to the front yard. 

I went into the house and rallied the kids to help clean. There was a little bit of resistance, but I was like, "You guys weren't hear last week and no one will be here next week so we need to clean today."  We actually got a lot done. 

It started raining so Brandon gave up on the yard and came in and got the laundry put away. 

That afternoon I took a long nap on the patio while it was raining. That was really nice. 

It stopped raining in the late afternoon which was good because Brandon had an Elder's Quorum activity happening around our fire pit that night. (Yeah, we scheduled it for our anniversary. I really wanted this activity to happen. Everyone's always like, "we should have an activity."  But they never plan anything. I was like, "JUST GET A DATE ON THE CALENDAR!" And the date that worked best happened to be our anniversary.)

Brandon put up a tarp over the fire pit in case the rain returned. We had fun working on this together. 

I helped get the patio all cute. Our friend, Derrick (who we call Grown Up Derrick for obvious reasons) came over and set up his tables. 

Brandon cooked hamburgers on the grill and we ate those as a family.  At 7:00 people started coming over.  One was my friend Carl who took some black berry starts earlier in the year. I had one more black berry pop up after I'd moved all the others. He said he'd want it. So I dug it up and put it in a pot for him. 

Then I went into the house with all the kids. We watched Episodes of Fixer Upper - including the Pit House which is always my favorite episode. 

Between episodes we'd go outside to get snacks off the patio. There were about 11 guys that came over. When we first went out there they were on the patio getting food too so I answered some questions about the yard. 

I've always thought of the yard as a joint project between Brandon and me. But in talking about the yard to other people I realized how much of it is my vision. Brandon just helps with the bigger stuff that I can't do on my own. And he builds stuff for me. But I'm the one putting in the plants and figuring out the overall plan. 

Another time I came out and all the guys were sitting around the fire pit talking.  This was so good to see. Guys have very few places to connect. They need opportunities like this. 

A lot of the guys were gone by 10:00, but the last of them didn't leave until closer to 11:00. We heard from so many people how much they enjoyed it. 

Today we had a relaxing morning. And then went to church. 

After church we went over to Jerome for Payton's 10th birthday party. I feel like she's been 10 the whole time I've known her, but she is finally 10 for real. The party was so fun. She'd had a party for her school friends yesterday. This was for her theatre family. And it really feels like a family. I was missing everyone a lot. It's been weeks since we've been with our theatre people. So it was wonderful to get together with everyone. 

And yeah, that sums up our week. 

Next week is the last week of school. And then we are going to YELLOWSTONE for Memorial Day. Also we need to get our lawn put back together. 

Thanks for reading!

Gardening is my default mode

 I spoke too soon about getting the twins their drivers permits. We went to the DMV THREE times this week and still don't have permits. But more about that as we go. 

This was a very simple week. Blissfully simple. Needfully simple. I was so stressed in April. It's really nice to be feeling on top of things again. Also I had A LOT of time to spend in my garden. I love working on my garden so much. It's my favorite thing and if I could it's all I would do. 

Monday was the first day that we tried to get the Driver's Permits. I had all the documents ready and so as soon as the twins were home from school we went to the DMV. And found the LONGEST line waiting for us. It extended through the whole Drivers license office, out the door and down a short hallway and then around a corner and down the main hallway. 

We attempted to wait in line for about 5 minutes. But the line wasn't moving at all. I told the girls we'd come back in the morning before school at 8:00. The line couldn't be terrible when the office had just opened, right?

At 5:00 I took Veronica to the Orpheum for her Matilda audition. The rehearsals for the play will be in June, but since they only have three weeks to get the show together they are doing the auditions ahead of time. 

I'd signed Veronica up for an audition slot at 5:35. But we got there at 5:00 so she could practice reading the script pages for the audition. They don't normally give you the pages ahead of time, but since Veronica struggles with reading I'd asked for some extra time. Emily, the lady in charge of the program, was happy to help. 

She gave me the pages and said we could go upstairs to the school room to practice. 

Veronica was so happy to be back up there. She was like, "Oh this is my home!" She kept saying, "I have so many happy memories here!"

I was like, "Me too kid."

We went over the script a few times. Veronica would read a paragraph and then walk back and forth across the room. She was really nervous and got the hiccups. It was kind of funny. 

We went downstairs around 5:30. Another girl was getting ready for her audition. She was really nervous about it. Veronica didn't know her, but she still told her, "You are going to do great!"  I was really impressed at how naturally Veronica said that. This program is really something special. The kids are taught to build each other up and to offer encouragement like that. It was really cool to see it in action. 

My friend Chandler arrived with her two daughters right before Veronica went in for her audition. So we talked while Veronica was doing her audition. She sang the song, "Get Lost" from Moana 2. She'd been practicing it all weekend. 

When it was over she was so relieved. It wasn't until Friday that the cast list was posted. Veronica will be the cook that serves the chocolate cake. I'm not sure if she has lines, but it's really cool that she is a named part. A lot of other kids her age only made it into the ensemble. In her last play she was one of the oldest kids. But the age range for this play is 7-15. So she's more in the middle. I think her height and her general enthusiasm for theatre helped her get this part. 

In other Veronica related news - I'm closer to getting her passport stuff figured out. The rest of us all got our passports about two weeks ago. But Veronica's birth certificate is so weird that we have to provide more documentation. Remember, Veronica was born at home by accident. So even though we all ended up at the hospital afterward the hospital staff couldn't do anything with the birth certificate. 

I had to fill it out - by hand. And Brandon signed it as the witness of the birth. That hand written birth certificate was such a headache. I messed it up like three times before it was good enough for the County to accept it. And then after we got the official copy from the county - the state rejected it because I wrote her birthyear squished together so it looks like 20B instead of 2013. The county clerk lady finally took pity on me and typed it. But I've never bothered to pull the typed copy from the state. The hand written county one is technically official - it just looks super odd. 

I've always kind of planned to get a copy of the typed certificate if the handwritten one ever caused problems. But so far it's been fine for things like school registration. 

I knew the passport office would have issues with it though. So when we got a letter from the passport office saying they needed more documentation I figured it was the handwriting problem. So I got online and ordered the typed copy from the state. (I really should have done that sooner, it was an easy process.)

But then I actually read the letter and realized that the handwriting wasn't the problem. The problem was that it was signed by a parent. That was suspicious. They needed more proof that this birth happened - specifically that it happened in America. 

They asked for hospital records, a baptism/christening certificate, or any proof that I was living in America around the time Veronica was born. 

I was fairly certain I had copies of the medical records from when we went to the hospital. I'm not sure why we got those after she was born, but I'm glad we did. I've hung onto them because the ambulance report is actually kind of hilarious. It's like, "We entered the home and found the mother laying on the floor with a newborn baby."  I was hanging onto them for family history reason. 

So I went looking for those and not only found them, but I they were still in the original envelop. Which was addressed to me and had a post mark date. So even this envelope is really good proof. 

So anyway, I'm going to put all this together - along with the typed birth certificate and a letter explaining the situation. Hopefully that will be enough to convince the passport office that Veronica really was born in America so we can get her passport. 

Okay enough about Monday and boring paperwork. Let's talk about Tuesday. 

We wanted to be at the DMV right at 8:00 so that took some extra logistics. Everyone was up earlier than normal. Then I dropped Veronica off at her school at 7:45. This girl routinely walks into the school right as the bell rings at 8:00 so she was kind of like, "what am I supposed to do for 15 minutes?"

Then I took Charlotte, Lydia, and Derrick to the DMV. We got there right at 8:00 and were shocked to see that there was already a line out the door. It didn't wrap around the corner when we got there but within line 5 minutes it was around the corner. 

I was like, "What is going on?" When I'd renewed my license several years ago there wasn't a line at all. And when I got my Idaho license in Pocatello there hadn't been much of a line. Someone a head of me in line mentioned that everyone was there for their Star Card Licenses. The much pushed back deadline was now finally happening on Wednesday. That's why the lines were crazy. 

I was like, "Well forget this. We'll come back Thursday." So we left. 

But then I was like, "Now what?"

It was only 8:10. We were closest to Derrick's school, but I don't normally drop him off until 8:40. I didn't really want to throw him off his groove. But I also didn't want to drive all the way back across town. I knew he could be on campus after 8:00 so we went to his school and I dropped him off and told him to get breakfast. (Later I emailed his teacher and told him to watch out for any behavioral issues because I'd completely thrown off Derrick's regular routine. He wrote back and said he seemed to be okay.)

Then I drove back to our side of town and dropped the twins off at their school. This was basically the same time as normal. I realized I could still salvage this day by going to get an oil change as soon as I dropped the girls off. I like to get oil changes early in the morning because there is no wait, but having to drop Derrick off at school has made that tricky. 

So I drove over to Jiffy Lube. And the guy that came out to talk to me said that there would be a 45 minute wait because they needed to change oil filters on the car that was ahead of me. 

UHHHHHH

So then I decided to go to Castle Therapy. But since I'd been planning to spend a while at the DMV I hadn't brough my laptop with me. So I just picked up the mail and went home. 

Where I got back into bed and fell asleep for another hour. 

When I did get up I felt like I could handle a second try at the day. I worked on the Castle stuff and then went to work at Aspen Grove. 

I'd been able to do 4 hours at Aspen Grove on Friday, Monday, and now Tuesday. I was feeling much more on top of things and actually sort of caught up. 

After work I drove home and got there just as Veronica was walking up to the house. I talked with her for a bit and then drove to Derrick's school for his IEP meeting. That meeting went well. 

Then I was back home and I was so happy that I didn't have to go anywhere else at ALL that night. 

Derrick was happy that his Jurassic World Gyrosphere had arrived. He'd bought this with the money he'd earned from going to school every day in April. (Yes, I'm still paying my kids a $1 a day for going to school. It's the best.) 

Here he is playing with it. He'd called it a jop-o-sphere until I worked with him to say gyrosphere. 

Here it is up close. I'd expected this to be really cheaply made for $20. So I was impressed. And as far as I know the remote control part of it is still working a week later which is more than I can say for most of our remote control toys. 

Brandon was teaching at CSI all evening. He's got three weeks on the Tuesday schedule and then he's off for several weeks this summer. That will be nice. 

When he got home we went on a walk and caught each other up on our days. 

Wednesday was my day off and surprisingly I had nothing scheduled for the day. There were a lot of things I wanted to do, but nothing with a hard deadline or time slot. It was WONDERFUL.

I was able to go get that oil change. (I need to remember that Wednesdays at 10:00 are an amazing time.) I bought sand at Lowes. I worked on auditing the April financials for Exponent. And I worked in my garden. 

My big project right now is getting plants into the area around the fire pit. I want this to be a very water wise garden with a lot of native plants. But native plants can be a little finicky about soil. And this soil is crap. So it needed some work. 

On Saturday I'd gone out with the shovel and turned over the soil so that the existing layer of bark chips was worked into the soil. That will help give it some organic matter. On Wednesday I put sand into the soil to help mitigate the clay. And I added vermiculite to help with water retention.

I mixed that in a lot and then covered the whole thing over with more bark chips. So it looks like nothing really happened in this area, but hopefully the soil will be better than it was.  

I did all of this for an L shaped area around the fire pit. It's the area with the darker wood chips. (They'd been in a pile slightly composting all winter.)

Most of that yard work happened in the evening because it was too hot to work out there in the afternoon. So I need to back up and tell you about the early evening. 

Brandon was able to get off work early because he went into work early. That meant he could pick up Derrick from school so that Derrick didn't have to ride the bus. Derrick really liked that. 

At 4:30 we were going to go to the city park for the Engage in Education event. This is a big showcase for all the schools in the district and it always really fun. Plus they had free hot dogs and that meant I didn't need to make dinner. 

But right when we went to get into the car we found a dog in our driveway. The dog was walking slow and didn't seem to be able to hear or see very well. I figured it couldn't have walked too far so it probably belonged to someone on our street. But I'd never seen this dog before. One of the kids told me the thought it belonged to our across the street neighbor Karen. But I was like, "they don't have a dog."

The dog had a collar with a number to call to report it found so I called that and the lady on the line said that they would contact the owner. So there was nothing to do but wait. So we put the dog on Marsha's chain in the back yard and went to the Engage in Education event. 

This was the first year that we didn't have anyone performing in it or anyone (me) in charge of a table. So it was nice to just show up, enjoy listening to some elementary school kids sing, eat some hot dogs, walk around, and then leave when we wanted to. 

Derrick was in a bad mood so he didn't want to eat his hot dog or really do anything. But he did walk around a bit and we saw some of his old teachers, paras, and administrators. Everyone commented on how tall he was.  

Back at home we still had the dog and no contact from the owners yet. But around 8:00 my across the street neigbor Karen called me. She said, "do you have our dog?"  I was like, "This really is your dog?"

It was her dog. She was out of town, but her adult son who lives with her had accidently left the gate open. So we took the dog back over. Her name is Penny and she's 13 years old. They hardly ever let her out since she's so old and has trouble walking. That's why I'd never seen the dog before.

The kids all had youth group activates that night. Derrick's group was hiking to Pillar Falls, but he was still grumpy and not interested in that. So he didn't go. The girls were going rock climbing at Auger Falls. Veronica and Lydia went. They had a really good time. Charlotte wanted to go, but she decided she'd rather do things with her chickens instead. 

The whole time I was working on adding soil amendments she was doing stuff with the coop. She divided it down the middle with chicken wire. She moved the 4 week old chicks into one half of the coop. They had half the upstairs and the fenced in underside of the coop. The big chickens got the other half of the coop with the door that leads outside. It was a really smart way to get the chickens used to living together without mixing them too much yet. 

Thursday I was back to doing all the work things. They were boring. So let's just skip to the evening when I got to spend lots of time in the garden. 

Oh wait we have to talk about the DMV first. I picked up Charlotte and Lydia from the parking lot when they were done with school on Thursday. We went to the DMV where the line was shorter - still out the door - but shorter and actually moving pretty quickly. After waiting patiently for 45 minutes it was our turn. And we found out that I was missing a document from the driving school. 

UHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I swear Veronica's passport situation is easier than trying to get these practice permits. 

Okay, back to Thursday evening. We had nothing planned for that night. I spent like 5 blissful hours just doing little projects around the yard. Watering, fertilizing the lawn, repotting basil, and transplanting 21 little sun flowers. 

I have a bunch of volunteer sunflowers growing on the path in the back of my yard. I don't want them there. 

So I moved 21 of them over to the new garden bed along the fence by the fire pit. 

I watered them really well and hoped they would survived. They did well overnight and through Friday morning. But Friday afternoon was HOT and I came out to find most of them wilted. But I watered them again on Friday evening and by Saturday morning they'd perked back up. So maybe they will survive. 

I think this area will look good with a row of sun flowrs. 

Friday felt like it had been a long time coming. I did another 4 hours of work. By the end of that I'd been able to submit credentialling packets to Blue Cross of Idaho for all three of the newly licensed clinicians at Aspen Grove. Two of them have worked for Aspen Grove while they were students. I LOVE the part where they go from making basically nothing as students to when they start taking insurance and making real money. I hate the paperwork to get all that ready, but I love the literal payoff from all the hard work. 

Our plans for Friday had changed a few times so we didn't really have anything planned for the evening. Brandon ended up going out to a friends house to look at some problems with their RV. They have baby goats so he took Charlotte and Lydia with him. Charlotte was in heaven. She wants a goat so bad, but we can't have one because we live in city limits. 

Here's a picture of her admiring her chicks when she got home. 

I spent the evening weeding more of the front garden beds. I'd weeded part of them earlier in the week and my neighbor Diantha had talked to me and helped with some of the weeds for like an hour. That had been really nice. This time I was on my own just listening to a podcast. That was fun too. 

I had a lot of grass in one of the beds. I couldn't get to earlier because the tulips were in the way. Now the tulips are almost spent so I didn't feel bad leaning over them to get to the grass. I got a lot of it out. I like to put my weeds in the chicken run. The chickens will eat a lot of weeds. They also like flipping the grass around with their beaks and feet. 

I'm glad Charlotte has these chickens because I love giving them my weeds and kitchen scraps and getting eggs and fertilizer in return.   

Brandon made sure the kids all packed their bags that night because they were going out of town on Saturday morning. At some point in the last week I'd realized that ALL I wanted for Mother's day was to be alone and not be in charge of ANYTHING. So Brandon was taking the kids to his parents house and I was going to have a blissful two days home alone. 

On Saturday morning I woke up at 5:00 and woke the twins up. They were going to Lagoon with the band and orchestra. The high school kids go every year. But the Middle school kids can go starting in 8th grade. Both girls had been looking forward to this forever. 

They got ready and made sure their stuff was packed. Brandon would pick them up from Lagoon at 6:00 that night and take them to his parents. So most of their stuff was going with Brandon, but they were taking a few of their things with them. 

I drove them to the high school at 6:00. They wanted me to wait until the buses left - just in case they needed anything. So I hung around in the car, but I don't think they ever thought of me again after they got out of the car. 

There were four charter buses for all the kids. I don't know which ones the girls were in, but we'll pretend it was this one. 

Then I went home and started working on another part of the garden beds around the fire pit. I needed another bag of sand so I ran to Lowes. When I came back Brandon and Derrick and Veronica were almost ready to go. 

I said goodbye to them and then had the house ALL TO MYSELF.

Derrick is going through his dinosaur phase so Brandon took him and Veronica to the Ogden Dinosaur museum. The last time any of us had been there was Derrick's 5th birthday. Derrick barely remembered it. Veronica didn't remember it at all. I love the smiles on their faces in this picture that Brandon sent me. 

And here's the one picture the girls sent me while they were waiting to get off a ride. They had a great day.

I had such a good day. I got that bed all prepped with sand and vermiculite and then more bark chips on top. This is the bed right by the new arch. I wasn't sure what I was going to try to grow on the arch, but then I remembered I'd bought pumpkin seeds a few weeks ago. So I planted pumpkins on one side and Morning Glory (the good kind) on the other. 

Then I took a very much needed shower.  Followed by a nap on the patio. 

At 1:00 I started prepping things for a little party I was hosting at 2:00. I was having four friends over to commiserate about mothers day. I have specific reasons for why mothers day is hard, and for the longest time I thought I was the only one with those specific reasons. Over the last few months I found out that I wasn't the only one. These were just one on one conversations, but I realized that it would be really cool to get everyone together for a group conversation. So I invited those people to come together. 

It was AMAZING. The four of us talked for four hours and really we could have kept going. It was so healing to hear that we weren't alone in dealing with these things. 

It was my favorite mothers day thing EVER.

After everyone left I just hung out on the patio and played on my phone. I thought about going out to eat, but I'd had a lot of snacks during the party. So I didn't do that. It was just nice to be alone and not have to worry about anything. 

A rain storm moved in and I liked being outside for that. The patio has a metal roof and the sound of the rain on the roof was really nice. 

I made sure to check on the chickens and get them more water. I got them all locked up for the night around 9:00. Then I read in bed for a long time. I'm reading Careless People about Facebook. It started out kind of slow, but then it got crazier and crazier and I'm hooked. 

And now it's Sunday and after ten and no one has come and found me to ask me questions yet. And I don't have to worry about anything. 

This is the Mothers Day of my dreams. 

Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you have a great mothers day however you choose to celebrate it. 

We made it to May

April is finally over! I don't know if April has ever felt so long. This has been a weird year - time wise. Normally February feels long because it's cold and dark, but thanks to being in a play that opened the first weekend in March, February zipped by. And normally May feels super busy, but thanks to all my overcommitments in April, May actually feels very simple by comparison. 

So here is a post about finishing up April and heading into May. 

On Sunday after church we went out to Niagara Springs with Jori and her family. The original plan had been to hike to Tea Kettle Cave. But one of Jori's kids got diagnosed with strep on Saturday. She was feeling better after antiboitics, but not hike a mile and a half better. So we decided to pivot to just going to Niagara Springs and hanging out in the grassy picnic area. 

This turned out to be the way better plan anyway. The day was slightly rainy and there had been thunder and lightning while we were getting ready to leave. I would have been scared to try to hike in that weather. 

We got to Niagara Springs just as the weather cleared up and we never got rained on again. So we ended up having a really lovely time. 

Jori's family had never been there before so we went over to see the springs first. I'd left my phone in the car so I didn't even get a picture. 

We spent most of the time sitting at a picnic table and snacking. The kids played in the run off water and ran around in the grass. 

Charlotte and Lydia wanted to climb a tree, but they couldn't reach the lower branches. They enlisted Derrick and Veronica into helping them carry a picnic table to the base of the tree. 

Then they used that to reach the lower branches of the tree. 

I love this picture of all four kids up the tree - yes all four. Lydia is way up at the top. 

The afternoon was just perfect. It was overcast the whole time, but also warm. We had a really great time hanging out. 

When we got back home we watched a couple episodes of Sweet Tooth. We'd watched the first episode the night before and I'd dreamed about it all night. I was super curious what was going to happen. 

On Monday I was hoping to go to work for several hours. But Veronica threw a wrench in my plans. Or rather Veronica's eye threw a wrench. All week long she'd had a stye that was just getting bigger and bigger. 

We'd started putting warm compresses on it and trying to wash it really well, but it still wasn't decreasing in size. She was really embarrassed about it and didn't want to go to school. 

So I made a drs appointment for her and told her she could stay home the whole day. But the catch was that she had to go to school every day the rest of the week. 

The Drs appt wasn't until 11:30 so I went to work for a few hours. Then I came home and took Veronica to the doctor. It seems like we never see our primary care doctor for urgent medical stuff. We usually end up seeing another doctor. I never mind through because that other doctor has tons of experience. He's a good resource. 

He talked to us about the stye and gave some good tips for taking care of it. He also wrote a perscription for a gel we could put on her eye. 

Everything worked and on Tuesday it all finally started draining and started shrinking. 

That afternoon the other set of Twins came over after school. They hung around for several hours. We were all in the back yard for a while. I was going through all the plants that I got at the class that their step mom had taught at Moss Greenhouse on Monday. I had a lot of four packs and just didn't need that many plants. So I was cutting those in half. I'd keep two and put the other two into a bin for Jori. 

Macey showed up to pick up her girls. We were all standing around talking for a minute. I asked Gwen if she was excited for summer. She said, "yes, but I lose track of my friends during the summer." So then I said that I wanted to make sure we had some get togethers with all Charlotte and Lydia's friends this summer. 

Lydia was like, "Could we just do that this Friday?"  I thought about it for two seconds and said yes. So all four girls started planning who they could invite over. I was happy to let them all take the lead on this. 

After dinner I went on a hike to the Evil Knievel Jump Station. Charlotte and Lydia went with me. Charlotte was so excited to see all the cows in the field next to the trail. 

Here's the obligatory picture of Shoshone Falls. 

On the way back there were a whole bunch of baby cows by the fence. 

Charlotte was in heaven.

When we got home we watched one more episode of Sweet Tooth. I was really enjoying this show. It's been a VERY long time since I went into a TV show or movie without any idea what to expect. I'd never even heard of the show until Charlotte and Lydia talked about it. So it was really fun to watch it and have no idea of where the story was going. 

On Tuesday it was Derrick's turn to disrupt my work plans - but this one was more premeditated. Usually I can schedule his orthodontist appointments close to 9:00 so its really simple to drop in without disrupting my morning too much. This time the earliest we could get in was 10:00. 

So I had more than an hour to fill with Derrick. First we went to D&B and bought four bags of top soil and two bags of chicken manure. Derrick liked loading the bags onto my cart and then into the car. 

Then we went to Castle Therapy so I could do the billing there. Castle Therapy is just one office inside of a larger Physical Therapy office. The Physical therapy people let Derrick run on the treadmill for a few minutes. He liked that. I joked that he had quite the work out that morning. 

And then we finally went to the orthodontist so he could get his wire adjusted. 

And then I finally dropped him off at school and went to work. 

At work I had a huge project. A whole bunch of clients moved from Select Health to St Lukes Health Plan. I've been switched the clients here and there as they've brought in their new ID cards or as claims have come back denied from Select Health. 

On Tuesday 10-15 claims came back denied because the clients had switched to St Lukes. I had to look them up in the St Lukes system, find their ID numbers, get things updated in my system, create new claims, and then manually submit the claims to St lukes. (Normally I can automatically submit claims with my software, but this software doesn't cooperate with St Lukes Health Plan. So I have to submit the claims manually.)

Nothing about the process was hard, but doing it for 10 to 15 clients all in one day was A LOT. I basically melted my brain before it was all over. 

Our evening at home was kind of blah. Veronica doesn't have theatre on Tuesdays anymore and it was kind of nice to not take her anywhere, but it also made the afternoon feel long and directionless. 

Plus the weather got really cold and no one wanted to go outside. And Brandon wasn't feeling well. And uhh basically it was just not great. 

But we finished it off with an episode of Sweet Tooth and that was nice. 

Wednesday was a better day - even if I did have a to do list that felt like a mile long. 

There were so many little things to do. 

One of the things was Scripture Study. We were on the Truck chapter of The Mother Tree. I wasn't exactly sure what to focus on this time so I just left it as an open ended discussion. That was perfect. There were a lot of good things to say. 

Then I spent a lot of the day working through all the little things on my to do list. 

In my Facebook memories a picture of my tulips from 5 years ago came up.  I couldn't believe how much different things looked. 

Here's the picture from 2020.

I went outside and took a picture from the same location. What a difference!

Around the time that Veronica came home from school I'd finished all the boring indoor stuff on my list and could finally move onto the fun outdoor stuff. 

I went to the back of my vegetable garden and prepped two beds for planting. Last summer I moved the wood frames from the area that became the fire pit. Then I just filled them with bark chips when I was trying to figure out where to stick all the bark chips that came with that unexpected second drop. 

Now it was time to actually get the beds ready. I moved the wood chips over so I could dig up the soil under the wood chips. Then I mixed the wood chips in with the soil. I also put two bags of top soil and one bag of chicken manure in each bed. 

When all that was done I was able to plant ALL the plants. Even after giving away so many to Jori I still had so many to plant. I put 11 tomatoes into this bed. (Most of them are indeterminate so I can single stem them up firring stakes so hopefully things wont get too squishy in this bed.)

And then I planted so many peppers in this bed. It was a little early to plant tomatoes and peppers, but I was getting sick of moving them in and out of the garage. I didn't see any freezes on the horizon so I figured it was worth the risk. 

I had four tomatoes that I could not fit in. So I took a picture and put them in our ward's mom chat. My friend Hanah came and got them. (And bought me three small loaves of sour dough so that was an awesome trade.)

None of the kids were interested in the youth activity so they all stayed home. When I was done with the planting we watched another episode of Sweet Tooth. 

Thursday was the first day of May. I was so happy to have made it. It was another big day of work. I was at Castle, and then Gaining Perspective, and then Aspen Grove. I was at Aspen Grove for 4 hours. There were a lot of payments to process, and it was the first of the month so I had to print and mail statements for clients who were past due by over $100 or 60 days.  

That evening Charlotte and Lydia had their last orchestra concert of Middle School. 

I was hoping to get some good pictures to commemorate that. But the girls never really want to pose for these kinds of things. It's like they don't want any photographic proof that they are in orchestra. 

So I'm left with pictures that look like a private detective was trying to sneak and get pictures. 

See, here is Charlotte's back. 

I went up to the edge of the stage while they were warming up and this was still the best picture I could get of Charlotte. 

Lydia at least looked at me. 

The videos I took aren't much better. It's kind of hard to have girls that are sitting on complete opposite sides of a multi-middle school orchestra. 

For the actual performance Charlotte wasn't on the outer edge of the stage. She was the second one on the back row. Lydia was on the back row of cellos. 

But I tried. Here is their first song, Ships of Ireland. 

And their second song, Russian Sailor Dance

Here they are all standing for pictures at the end.

I tried to get a picture of Charlotte. 

Lydia's was harder because she was right beside her friend Hazel. But we finally got one. 

This was the big combined concert with the High School. So we stayed and listened to the Concert and Chamber Orchestra. The conductor teaches two classes at Charlotte and Lydia's middle school. Two classes at another middle school. And two at the High School. Charlotte and Lydia are happy that they already know one of their high school teachers. 

We came home and had ice cream. We were hoping to finish season one of Sweet Tooth, but we were out of time. 

On Friday I woke up feeling OVERWHELMED. I had so much to do at work and I didn't want to do any of it. But I knew it would just get worse if I took the day off. 

So I plugged along with my morning routine and got all the kids dropped off at school. Then I went to work and started getting things done. I wrapped myself up in my office blanket and that helped. 

I got through all four hours of work that I planned to do and got a lot of things crossed off my list. I felt caught up on some things for the first time all week. 

I was done at 1:00 and went to Derrick's school to pick him up. He'd had a rough afternoon on Thursday and had been freaking out on the bus. He hadn't wanted to go to school at all. That morning we made a deal that if he went to work I'd pick him up early. 

He was so happy when I came and got him. We stopped at the bank and then came home. 

When we were home Derrick wanted to watch a movie or something. I was like, "you do whatever you want."  I laid down on the padded bench on the patio and took a nap for 2 hours. It was WONDERFUL. There wasn't even a breeze blowing and everything was silent. 

It was just what I needed after a long week. 

I felt so much better when I woke up. The twins were home and we worked on the last few things to get things ready for their fire that night. Brandon took care of ordering and picking up pizza. 

Around 6:00 the girls started showing up. I think there were 6 other girls there. Aurora and Gwen of course, then a girl named Abby. A girl named Abby from our ward was there. Another girl named Claire and another named Lily. 

Charlotte and Lydia were really kind and let Veronica hang out with their friends all night. They didn't have to do that, but I was glad they did. Sometimes they act like Veronica is sooooooo much younger than them. I'm like, "you have no idea how lucky you are that your youngest sibling is only three years younger than you. When I was 14 Hillary was SIX!!!!!!!!"

Veronica fit right in all night and had a blast. 

The girls started out playing music and being really loud as they sang and danced around the yard. I was being very hands off with this whole thing so I just went into the front yard and worked on weeding for like an hour. 

Around 7:00 Lydia lit the fire and got out things for smores. I went out there and made a smore. I was like, "hey I paid for these. I can eat one."  

Gradually all the girls started gathering around the fire. 

They spent a lot of time talking around that fire. I think they were like this from about 8:00 until 10:00. This night was exactly what I hoped it would be. These girls knew eachother at school, but they weren't really on "hangout after school" status yet. But by the end of the night they'd created a group chat and were sharing pictures and vowing to hang out a lot over the summer. 

Brandon and I sat on the covered patio and talked. Around 9:45 Macey came over and we caught up on life. Neither of us can believe that we are going to have high schoolers next year. (Actually next year is not accurate. It's more like high schoolers in 3 and a half months. If you really want your mind blown, next year as in 2026 is when Derrick will be in high school!)

The other girls parents started arriving around 10:00. All the girls said they'd had a great time. Brandon and I told the girls and their parents that the girls were welcome here anytime. 

On Saturday we had lots of projects. First we started by helping a new family move into the ward. Brandon went to help load things from their storage unit into a moving van. And then I took the kids to the house to help take things from the moving van to the house. There were other people helping so it went really quick. 

Back at home I went through my clothes and switched out the winter clothes for summer clothes and also pulled out stuff to go to DI. I did the same thing with Veronica's clothes. 

Then Derrick and Veronica went with me to DI to drop off the clothes and then go inside to pick out shorts. 

After that Brandon and I spent a lot of time working on things outside. He worked on stairs down into the fire pit (we had been using the stairs used to get to Derrick's loft bed.) And I worked on prepping the soil around the fire pit and getting it ready for plants. 

Lydia spent the whole day down in the craft room. She designed and sewed a bag for her paints so that she could easily take them outside to paint. 

Brandon worked on the stairs all afternoon and was like completely unaffected by the 80+ degree weather. 

I was digging in the soil and taking a thousand little breaks to avoid heat stroke. But I got all the black berries finally moved away from the white fence and the soil turned over and ready for the different amendments I'll add next week. 

At 5:00 we met up with a bunch of friends at a nearby park for a bring your own picnic dinner. It was my friend Chandler's spur of the moment idea. That morning she'd just sent out a text saying that everyone should meet up at the park and bring their own dinner. It was such a good idea. 

Chandler was there with her four kids. Her husband had a drone and Derrick LOVED that. Jori was there with her four kids and so was Lindsay. (Their husbands were working.) It was so fun to see our 11-10 year old daughters walking around together. Beth was there with her kids too. 

Brandon was finally succumbing to the heat. I'd bought him two things of Gatorade and he'd drank those really fast. He laid on our picnic blanket for a long time and finally perked up after a while. 

We went home around 7:00. I told all the kids to take showers and Brandon and I ran over to D&B and bought a cattle panel. Then we came home and installed it as a entryway arch for the fire pit area. 

Here are the stairs that Brandon built and the arch that we put up together. 

And here's what the arch looks like from this side. I'm hoping to get something really cool to climb on this. 

All the kids had taken showers so when we were done we went inside and watched the Season finale for Sweet Tooth. It was really good. It ended on a cliff hanger through so all the kids were begging to watch another. I was like, "no, I need a shower."

So they all went to bed and I took a shower. 

This morning was a perfect Sunday morning. It was rainy and I was able to stay in bed until 10:30. That was really nice. 

The whole day was rainy so we didn't do anything after church. We stayed inside and watched two more episodes of Sweet Tooth. 

Then we took a break for making and eating dinner. And then we watched Star Wars A New Hope because it was Star Wars Day. 

And now we are looking down the barrel of another week. The big news in the coming week is that I'm taking Charlotte and Lydia to get their DRIVERS PERMITS on Monday. In Idaho you can get a drivers license when you are 15. And that means you can get your permit when you are 14 and a half. They turned 14.5 at the end of April. So here we are. 

Thanks for reading!