Boise throws everything off

Well I'm behind on this blog again. And the reason is right in the beginning of this post. Every year I go to Boise for a two day Board Meeting/Training. And it always throws things off. The good news is that things have stabilized a lot so I can get caught up again. So let's get going on this. 

Monday October 20 was the first day of the Boise Trip. My friend Renea is also on the board of Idaho Parents Unlimited. She always offers to drive us both to training. Last year I had to come late so I didn't go with her. But this year I went with her. I dropped all the kids off at school and then she met me at my house. We had a fun time talking all during the two hour drive. 

The board meeting was at the Riverside Hotel for the second year in a row. So we drove there and went to the Topaz conference room. They had just finished the morning meeting which is a training for any new board members. My friend Mindy was in the meeting. I knew her when we lived in Pocatello and I recruited her to represent that area. I haven't seen her in person in SIX years so it was great to catch up with her. 

They had a boxed lunch for all the board members who were arriving. The IPUL staff also came and had lunch with us. 

In the afternoon the staff told us all the good things they have been working on. There has been a lot of uncertainly around funding this year because a lot of IPUL's budget come from Federal money, but they have still continued on with helping families of parents with children who have disabilities.

The board is made up with parents who have children with disabilities. Which is good because no one minded when I had to get up to take a few phone calls regarding Derrick. 

I haven't had any phone calls from the school this whole school year, but the day I go out of town I ended up with TWO!  He'd hit another student and been really upset so the teacher called to tell me about it. Then she called to say that she didn't feel comfortable with Derrick going home with his friend Max after school. Derrick was still just so upset. I was like, "Okay, but you need to call my husband because I'm in Boise and he's the one who will have to get off early from work to pick Derrick up."  So yeah that was not fun.    

We ended the meeting by dividing into groups and brainstorming about different topics. My group was talking about needs that IPUL should know about. We came up with a few. 

The meeting ended around 4:00. Renea and I went to check into our hotel rooms. There were five of us who had come in from various places around the state. Renea and I were from the Twin Falls area, Mindy was from Pocatello, Shelley was from Idaho Falls, and Jamie was from somewhere up north- maybe Moscow. We tentatively made plans to meet up at 6:00 for dinner. 

The hotel room is always my favorite part of these trips. It's amazing to have a huge room like this just for me. 

I relaxed and watched TV and then went down to the lobby to meet up with everyone else. Mindy is getting her MBA and she had a lot of homework so she didn't want to meet up for dinner. And Jamie was catching up on work. So it was just me, Renee, and Shelley who went to dinner.  We went across the parking lot to Ling & Louie's Asian Bar and Grill. I had already eaten a salad I'd packed so I wasn't super hungry for dinner. I got a small platter of spicy shrimp and some sort of pineapple side dish. It was really good.  

We all went back to our hotel rooms. I spent a few hours writing for this blog. And then I went to bed. 

On Tuesday morning it was so nice to not have to worry about getting kids to school. Brandon went into work late so he could take care of all that while I was away. 

I went down to breakfast around 8:00. This is a fancy hotel so you have to give them your room number before you can go into the breakfast area. It's also expected that you leave a tip for your server. They also have a omelets station where someone makes an omelet for you.

Renea, Shelley, and Jamie met up with me and had breakfast with me. Then we all went into the meeting room at 9:00.

I'm trying to remember the focus of that morning. But it's kind of running together with our actual board meeting that was in the afternoon. Basically there was just a lot of talk about the future of IPUL and getting serious about fundraising for income sources outside of the government. 

The best part of the whole meeting was that I actually knew what we were talking about. I've been on this board for just under 3 years. It took about 2 years for me to understand everything. I remember sitting quietly during those first few meetings and listening to everyone else talk and give good responses. I was like, "how do they know so much?"  And now I'm one of the people talking and giving good responses. 

One thing we talked about was having some new committees. There would be a Financial Committee that who ever was the treasurer would be in charge of. I'm currently the treasurer so that would be my committee. There was also a fund raising committee. I had no intention of being in charge of that so I made sure that we made the Financial Committee be separate from the Funding Committee. 

I got ANOTHER call from Derrick's school while the meeting was going on. This time it was about the flu mist paperwork I'd filled out. They needed to clarify something before they could give him the flu mist. 

We had a plated lunch around noon and we worked on things while we ate. Then we had the official board meeting from 1:00-3:00.  At the very end we voted on new officers. My first two years as Treasurer are up, but no one else was interested in being Treasurer so I was reelected. Jen stayed on as President for 1 year because our Vice President who would have stepped into her role had to step away for personal reasons. So she will be the President for one more year while Jake, who is the new Vice President gets experience. Jake was the Secretary so Renea took over that position.    

Our meeting surprisingly ended on time. Renea had to pick something up at a store called World Market Center so I went on that little side quest with her and then we drove home. 

On Wednesday I had to catch up on EVERYTHING. First up was Scripture Study. As soon as that was over I went into work at Aspen Grove. I was going over some billing training with two of my co-workers. That was good, but also slowed me down a lot. 

Then I spent an HOUR submitting claims. Usually this takes me about 15 minutes a day. But I'd (foolishly) not done anything with Aspen Grove on Monday or Tuesday. So I had so many claims to submit. 

That afternoon everyone had parent teacher conference. I took Veronica to theatre and then I took Charlotte and Lydia to the high school for Parent Teacher Conferences. High school is like Middle school. They don't expect you to meet with every teacher. You just talk to the Advisory Teacher. So that was good. 

After I picked Veronica up I took her and Lydia to the middle school for Veronica's parent teacher conferences. When we were done talking with her teacher we went to talk to Mr Heck. He was Lydia's art teacher and she wanted to say hi to him. 

And then we came home and I put my pajamas on because I didn't have to go anywhere else. We had dinner and then we watched the last episode of Wednesday. This had been a fun series. When that was over we watched Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. There were a few good laughs. both things had Jenna Ortega playing a character with a complicated relationship with her mother. So now they have kind of run together in my head. 

On Thursday the kids didn't have school. I spent a lot of the morning at work trying to catch up on everything. Then I stopped by Castle Therapy and picked up the mail. I spent another hour or so in my room working on that billing. And then I fell asleep on my bed. 

The kids had been happily cleaning the basement. They told me I didn't need to help. One of the things they were working on was getting Lydia's fabric stash cleaned up. As the kids were moving the fabric around they discovered four couch covers. Lydia has had a lot of random things donated from various people. The purple covers used to be on Jori's couches. The blue ones were on my old arm chairs. 

The kids put them on and came into my room to surprise me. It was really funny.

They looked hilarious. 

Brandon was at CSI that night so we all were on our own for dinner.   Later that night I took Lydia and Charlotte to Walmart. We bought things for their party and a few other things.  When Brandon came home he cooked the twins birthday cake.  

On Friday the kids didn't have school again. I had to work so I was gone most of the morning. The kids worked on rearranging and then decorating the basement. This was mostly Charlotte's project with help from the other three. Derrick was especially helpful because he was so tall. He helped Charlotte tape streamers to the ceiling. 

Here's the final result. They'd moved all the legos out and then pushed the couch all the way to the end of the room. They set up a table for food. And then they took all the Halloween decorations from upstairs and brought them downstairs. 

They even had the pumpkins from the porch. 

Charlotte ran the LED lights around the base of the walls. They looked really cool.

They even put a white dress on Lydia's dress form. The girls at the party named her Barbara after the lady on Beetlejuice. 

Here's the food table with lots of goodies. 

This was all in preparation for Charlotte and Lydia's birthday party. They were turning 15 on Halloween.

We'd also rented the spiny thing from Cort and Chandler. It's officially called a Human Gyroscope. They charge $200 for an all day rental or $100 for 4 hours. But we got it for $50 since we are friends. And they left it in our driveway for like three days because they were too busy to come pick it back up.  This is Derrick demonstrating how it worked.  

They'd dropped it off on Monday morning. The kids said that all morning they'd watched cars drive by the house real slow as the people in the cars staired at this contraption in our driveway. 

Derrick liked it when Brandon got him stuck upside down. 

About 7 of the twins friends came to the party. After everyone arrived they all came outside to play on the gyroscope. 

Here's Lydia taking her turn. 

Here's proof I was there. 

When Charlotte took a turn she whipped around so fast. 

She was all over the place. 

Here she is in the upside down position. 

And here's Veronica taking her turn. We let all the other guests go first before any of my girls got on it. So by the time Veronica was on there the light was a lot different. 

After everyone had a turn they went back down into the basement. Mostly the girls ate, talked, and listened to the songs on our Halloween play list. Brandon and I stayed out the way and Derrick was upstairs most of the time too. Veronica went back and forth between downstairs and upstairs. 

Here's a picture we took when it was time to open presents. 

It was fun to have this many teenagers in the basement. 

Even Marcia was dressed up for the fun. 

And here are all the girls - I think. I feel like someone either isn't visible or is grabbing a present. 

Brandon did a "simple" cake. I know, I know. But our last cake had been a REPLICA of the Orpheum. So yeah, this is simple. 

He put 30 candles on there. 15 for Charlotte and 15 for Lydia. 

Here they are lit. 

When Brandon and I were back upstairs I told Brandon about my friend Alison's mom. Alison was one of my friends in high school. Alison was the youngest of like 7 kids. So by the time her mom got to her she had seen it ALL. She was unfazed by having 6 or 7 girls over on Friday nights or for sleepovers. I've been thinking about her a lot lately now that my girls are in high school. I told Brandon I hope to be like her - always welcoming of my kids friends. 

And then I was like, "Hey I'm Facebook friends with Alison. I should tell her all this too."  So I sent her message telling her that I thought her mom was pretty cool. She was really happy to get that.  

Saturday was one of those days where I just could not get up the energy to do anything. We cleaned up the basement a bit. But that was about it. 

I was so glad that I'd trusted my instincts and NOT planned a second party for this day. This is when we would have had our big Halloween party for all of our friends and their families. But I'd looked at the calendar and been like, "No, we can't make that happen this year."  I just knew that I wouldn't have it in me for a big party after Brandon's play and after trying to catch up after going to Boise for two days. 

So instead of stressing about a party I slept in. And then did pretty much nothing all day. 

Brandon had been asked to be Mad Eye Moody at the house that always has different themes each year. He was happy to do it because it kind of took the edge off the post play blues. But he had to be there at 3:30. So that made the day feel a little off. 

Charlotte and Lydia were also invited to dress up like Hogwarts Students and walk around. But they didn't have to get into a specific costume or have special make up so they could show up a little before it started. So at 5:45 I dropped them off. 

Then I took Derrick and Veronica to Magic Valley High School for a "Haunted School."  We got there right as it started at 6:00 and there was already a long line. We were in line for a while. Veronica didn't mind though. This was her first thing she was going to with her Halloween Dragon Costume. She had so much fun entertaining the other kids in line with her dragon. 

Derrick was also dressed up for the first time. He was a DNA scientist. He was really excited about that. 

We Haunted School wasn't super scary and maybe wasn't exactly worth the long line. But it wasn't terrible either. 

When we were done with the Haunted School we drove over to the Harry Potter House. Charlotte and Lydia found us. Here we are waiting in line. 

Someone had a drone flying around with a dementor attached to it. That was fun. 

As we waited in line we slowly moved closer to the house. Suddenly we realized that Brandon was standing near the front of the line. Here he is in his costume. He and the kids had stayed up late after the party on Friday and watched the 4th Harry Potter movie. He'd wanted to get the accent down. He was doing a great job. Brandon was one of the only characters doing an accent. Everyone else was kind of like, "Hey I look cool. Do you want a picture?"

Here's everyone posing with Brandon. (and yes that is the temple in the background)

We moved on from Brandon. The whole time we were in line I'd been debating if I should talk to the lady in front of me. I'd recognized her after a few minutes in line. She was my boss's sister in law. Her name is Whitney. She'd done our headshots a few times when I first started working at Aspen Grove. I also knew her through the theatre. She's never done a play with Brandon, but I'd seen her in at least one play. And I was planning to see her in another play in November. So I knew exactly who she was. 

Her son was a ghostbuster and his gun thing was dragging around. After I almost stepped on it for like the third time I picked it up and kind of placed it on his proton pack. As I did that Whitney was like, "Oh I'm sorry."  I told her it wasn't a big deal and then I asked, "You're Whitney right?"  She said yes and said, "and you're Valerie?"

So yeah we both had been debating talking to the other for about 15 minutes. We had a good time chatting the rest of the time we were in line. Later I went home and sent her a Facebook friend request. We had 81 mutual friends. I don't know why it's taken us this long to actually connect.

The walk through was . . . okay. My family is kind of spoiled by the Wilson's Harry Potter event. So this was nothing compared to that. But it was still fun. 

Here are just some random pictures. 

Cort was playing Voldemort. We called him Coltymort. But later I saw Chandler call him Volde-cort on Facebook. Here's Veronica taking a picture with him.

Some lady took a video of Cort walking around and ended up going viral. I can't find the original post, but here's a link to someone who reposted it. 

Veronica ended up missing a step in the lawn and fell down hard on her ankle. That ended the evening for us. She didn't break it, but it hurt so she was not having any more fun. I took all the kids home. Brandon got home later.  He'd had a great time. 

Sunday was another tired day. Jori has been repainting her kitchen and she was tentatively asking us if she could cook in our kitchen. I kept thinking we should invite her family over for dinner with our family. But I was still so tired. So I didn't. And she didn't even need my kitchen. And everyone was fine. 

Brandon took the twins out driving for a long time. I watched a movie with Derrick and Veronica (I think) I really have no memory of last Sunday. 

And that gets us caught up on that week. The next week was the long awaited week of auditions for Anastasia. I'll tell you all about that in the next post. 

Thanks for reading.