The lead up to Timpanogos

I'm in kind of a difficult spot. I haven't written about our trip to North Idaho. That's a big post - or possibly several big posts. And now I need to write about my experience climbing Timpanogos on Saturday. Which is also a big post. 

And I don't even feel like writing at all. 

So this post is an attempt to get the writing juices flowing again. (Though the fact that it took me three tries to spell attempt is not a good sign.)

I'm going to write about Monday Sept 8 to Friday Sept 12 in this post. And then write about the Timp climb in another post and then tackle the North Idaho Trip. So we'll see how this goes. 

Really this week was pretty simple. I'm struggling to think of anything of note that happened. Actually, that's not true. Charlie Kirk was killed in Utah on Wednesday of this week. But we will NOT be talking about that. Maybe that's why I don't remember much because I was trying to process that for half the week. 

Anyway, Veronica had theatre on Monday. I can't remember if it was Monday or Wednesday, but one of those days I was driving her to theatre and she was talking about how she didn't really like her part. They have the kids divided up into Jocks, Brainiacs, Drama kids, and Cheerleaders. I thought they'd have Veronica as a jock because she is so tall. But she's a theatre kid. She was saying she didn't like her part. But when I picked her up they'd worked on another song and the theatre kids got to do some fun stuff and she was SO EXCITED about being a theatre kid. I've just kind of learned that she will always be in a bad mood pre rehearsal, but will be in the best mood ever after rehearsal.

Here's a picture I took of the kids lego things down in the basement.  

 

Tuesday was a VERY big day for Derrick. He has been eagerly waiting for Jurassic World Rebirth to be released on DVD. Brandon picked him up from school and then they went to Walmart to buy the DVD. They also found Jurassic World Dominion in the $5 bin so they bought that too. 

Here's Derrick posing with the DVD's. 

And the backs. 

I spent the afternoon cutting down sun flowers in the bed in front of the fire pit area. One sunflower had literally fallen over while we had people over on Saturday and I'd been like, "Yeah, I think those are done."  So I cut them off at the roots. I left the roots in because it's supposed to help the soil health to leave the roots in because the microbes around them.  

Then I mixed in the old wood chips that were on top of the soil. I threw down some wild flower seeds that I'd picked from flowers in the front yard and then covered the whole thing with the new wood chips.  

The whole thing looks really nice now. 

That evening after dinner Brandon had rehearsal. The kids and I watched Jurassic World Rebirth. It was a fun movie. It was REALLY dumb and convenient in some places. But overall really fun. Derrick had watched it over the summer and he was so excited for all of us to finally see it. 

On Wednesday I moved the last of the wood chips as soon as I was done with dropping kids off in the morning. I didn't really have a spot for them so I put them in a pile in the back yard next to the plum tree. It was good to get the driveway clear again. 

Then I took a shower and was ready for scripture study by 10:00. We had our biggest turn out all year. Five people including me. 

After that was over I worked on auditing exponent stuff. I'm all caught up from the summer. 

Thursday was the last day of school for the week. Friday would be a teacher work day. So after school I met Veronica in the parking lot of the middle school so we could put her string bass in the van. 

But we didn't go home right away. We had a meeting with her whole SPED team and many of her gen ed teacher. It was a REALLY REALLY REALLY good meeting. Honestly, if we'd had a meeting like that at the end of 5th grade or before school started a lot of my concerns would have been addressed. 

The end result of the meeting was to move Veronica back into the hybrid reading class. But this time I everyone - including me and Veronica - agreed that was the best choice. 

When it was all over I emailed the team and told them that I was really impressed by them. I told them it felt like a completely different school than when Derrick was there only two years ago. 

One of the biggest changes is they have a SPED director for the school now. Back when Derrick was here they had a SPED reading and a SPED math teacher. And the math teacher also took care of all the paperwork. She was really overworked and both teachers were burned out. They retired at the end of the year. 

Now they have new SPED reading and SPED math teachers, and also a whole separate person who is the director who takes care of a lot of the paperwork. That right there makes a huge difference.

I'm feeling better about SPED at that school than I have in a long time. 

That meeting was good but also DRAINING. I came home and just kind of melted into a puddle of sighs for like two hours after that. 

But then I had to pull myself together and pack for the weekend. I packed my backpack with things I'd need for hiking Timp. Things like my heavy duty ankle brace and a blanket. I also packed a suitcase with things I'd need the rest of the weekend. 

And then I packed a tote with lots of supplies to help me and my sisters relax and recover after the hike. At first we'd planned to just go to Emily's house after the hike, but I realized I was over 40 and would want to do sleep in a real bed and not a couch after hiking all day. I was also really interested in a hot tub.

So Lindsey booked a hotel for the three of us. I wanted to make the hotel really calming so I packed a lot of things like fuzzy blankets, fake plants, and my essential oils diffuser. 

I went to walmart and bought things like fuzzy socks, spa head bands, chapstick, and flavored water. 

It was really fun to pack all that. I think I was more excited for the hotel than I was for the mountain. 

On Friday the kids didn't have school so I didn't have to worry about all the drop off and pick ups. But I decided to just sleep in a little bit rather than going to work early. I went to work for about two hours and then came home. 

Brandon had been going into work an hour early all week so he could get off early on Friday. He was home around the same time I was. 

I finished packing up my stuff and then drove down to Utah. I hadn't slept well that night so I was so tired on the way down. I had to pull over and take 15 minute naps twice on the way down. 

I arrived at Emily's around 3:00. Lindsey had flown in from Houston the night before. It was so good to see her. We talked all afternoon. 

Emily made pizza for dinner. Then we went to Winco and bought lots of good food for our hike. Back at home Lindsey made ham and cheese sandwiches on cheese bagels with cream cheese. I divided up the things like grapes, cookies, and chips into baggies. That way we would each have our own food if we got separated. (This was very smart.) 

We were planning to leave at 3:30 the next morning so we were hoping to be in bed pretty early. So David slept on one of the couches and let me and Lindsey and Emily share the bed room. Lindsey and I got the bed and Emily slept on my air mattress on the floor. 

I was so tired - and I did sleep - but it wasn't as well as I'd hoped. But I didn't feel super tired the next morning. In fact, I woke up on my own at 2:45 because I guess my body was excited for the hike. 

And that's the story of my next post.