The week we bought a new van

This big news for the week of January  19-25 was that we bought a new (to us) van! We officially bought it on Saturday, but I started planning to buy it on Monday so we'll talk about that first. 

The van belonged to my brother Billy. He'd bought it from my aunt Karen back in 2023 when he'd moved back to the United States from New Zealand. Then he and his family moved to Canada. 

About 6 months or so ago Billy was possibly going to get a new job in Ottawa Canada. That's over on the other side of Canada. He wasn't sure if he wanted to take his van with him. When he mentioned he might sell it I was like, "Oh I'll buy it!" His van was a Honda Odyssey and I LOVE Hondas and have quite enjoyed the Odyssey I bought from my sister Emily. 

Well Billy didn't get the Ottawa job and ended up not having the Vancouver job anymore either. So he was back in the US trying to figure out what was next. He and his wife Becca decided their best plan was to go to Germany. They could stay with some friends and Billy could take some auditions and see what happened. (My brother is a professional French Horn player.)

So they went to Germany with the hope that he'd get a job, but even if he didn't they would have a cool adventure for a few months. He ended up getting the second job he auditioned for. So he and his family are staying in Germany for the foreseeable future. 

And that meant his van was available for me to buy if I was interested. And boy was I still interested. My van has been getting very close to 300,000 miles. But I had no real plan for a new vehicle. Actually we've been talking about buying Brandon a truck. If he got a truck Charlotte and Lydia would get the Pilot and I'd keep driving the van. I was just kind of planning to drive the van until it died and then replace it with maybe a 5 seater sedan or something. 

But buying the van from Billy changed the whole equation. I'd get the new van and the twins would get my old van. Brandon would keep the Pilot - for now. He's actually fairly certain he knows what's wrong with the Jeep. Remember the Jeep? It's been in exile in our garage waiting for Brandon to fix it. If he does get it running he will drive the Jeep. The Pilot will go to the girls. I'll keep the new van and we will sell the old van. 

Anyway that's all really complicated, but the final result is NO CAR PAYMENTS. And I really really really don't want car payments. So it made a lot of sense to buy Billy's van for cash and then move on with my life.  

I told Billy we'd buy the van when we was settled in Germany. So I wasn't planning on getting it for a month or two. The van was parked at our friend Maddie's house so there wasn't a big rush. Then our friend Maddie told Billy that she needed the driveway space soon and she didn't want to have it parked on the street for a long time. I decided we might as well get the van before the end of January. 

We were already tentatively planning to go to a hot spring on Saturday the 24th. We were talking about going to 1000 Springs here in Idaho, but in the back of my mind I was trying to figure out how to plan a trip to Crystal Hot Springs in Utah. Going to get the van was the perfect reason to also go to Crystal Hot Springs. So we decided that we'd go to Utah and get the van on Saturday and then stop at Crystal Hot Springs before driving back to Idaho. 

This was a really fun plan to look forward to all week. Especially since most of the days were cold and overcast. I was looking forward to soaking in some nice hot water.

Anyway, let's do a quick recap of the days before Saturday and then I'll tell you all about that trip. 

Monday was a pretty standard day. In the afternoon Derrick had an orthodontist appointment. He's close to getting his braces off, but we still don't have an end date. I've been waiting to schedule Veronica until we know when Derrick is done. I told her that I'll have her get them on in the Summer even if Derrick isn't done yet. 

After that appointment was over Charlotte wanted to go to DI to buy clothes for her deer costume. So I had her drive over there. Lydia came too. Later that night Brandon went with them to Hobby Lobby so Charlotte could buy flowers for the costume. 

I had a team meeting at work that evening. When I came home Charlotte modeled her deer costume. 

Tuesday was also a pretty standard day. The biggest thing was that the CSI semester has started again. Brandon went out to Burley for the first day of class for the newest round of Maintenance Certificate Students. It's a two year program. The first years come on Tuesday night and the second years come on Thursday nights. Brandon is mostly teaching on Thursdays with a few Tuesdays thrown in there. He went out to meet the new students. This will be his third year teaching at CSI. He loves it a lot. 

Charlotte added her wooden hooves to the boots and so her costume was finished. Here she is showing it off.    

You can see her tail in this picture. 

And then we put Lydia in the picture for scale. The hooves and the antlers make Charlotte so tall. 

When she went back down stairs to change she had to go down the stairs really slowly. I told her, "don't trip, I don't know how to explain any of this to the ER."

Wednesday was a really busy day. My Bible Study group had our second meeting. This week was on the details in the book of Joel. The first week had been the big picture and now we were really getting into the book. It went really well. 

That afternoon I went to the High School and met with Charlotte and Lydia and their counselor. I had a lot of questions about things like duel credits with the college and online classes. And so it was easiest to just meet with her and get the questions answered. Also I wanted her to put faces to names for the twins. It was a really good meeting. 

Then I stopped by Ivan's office and picked up the mail and talked to him for a while. The department of health and welfare has recently done some stupid stuff for OT's and so we were talking about that. The Governor is also proposing a lot of Medicaid cuts. And some state legislators made some really bad comments about people with disabilities. So it was a TERRIBLE week politically. (And that's not even counting what was going on in Minnesota.) It's just been awful. 

Then I came home and audited the December financials for the Exponent. It only took like 45 minutes. It felt good to be on top of that. 

That night the kids could have watched the World Wide Youth Devotion for their Youth Activity. But my kids don't really like just sitting and watching stuff like that. So none of them went. Instead we stayed home and Derrick and I watched Jurassic World Dominion. 

We'd tried to watch it the day after Christmas but I'd been so tired I kept falling asleep. This time I was wide awake. And I liked the movie. I kept saying, "How did I sleep through this?" I also knew the names of all the dinosaurs. Veronica was like, "How do you know the names?"  I said, "I've listened to Derrick talk about dinosaurs for like 6 months!"

Brandon spent a lot of the evening in the garage. Our goal for January was to get the garage cleaned out and functioning as a shop again instead of just a cluttered storage space. Part of that plan was to add more shelves to the garage. I suggested that he move the jeep out so that he could build the shelves a lot easier. He really took that to heart. He moved the jeep out of the garage on Wednesday night. Charlotte helped steer it out while he pushed it out. 

On Thursday Ivan was in Boise to attend some hearings or something at the capital. So I went into his office and took care of organizing the filing cabinet. I've worked for him since the summer on 2023 and we still have every piece of mail since then in the filing cabinet. I worked on moving out everything that was from before 6 months ago. I was there 90 minutes and only got about halfway done. 

Then I went to Chattertown and helped answer questions there. Andrea seemed to be getting really overwhelmed so I invited her to come watch me at Aspen Grove so she could see what it looked like when everything was running smoothly. She came this week and said that it helped her a lot. 

And then I went to Aspen Grove and tried to do all the things in only three hours. I think I need to figure out how to work more hours on a Thursday. But I think that will have to wait until Charlotte and Lydia are driving themselves home from school. 

Brandon was at CSI again that night. On CSI nights he doesn't come home after work at the hospital. He just goes straight to Burley. So we don't see him until like 8:30 or 9:00. 

Veronica's High School Musical cast was invited to go see the second cast perform. So I took her to the theatre at 7:00. Then I picked her up at 8:30. She was so so so so so happy when I picked her up. She kept yelling and screaming about how much fun it had been. Then she said the magic words, "This was the best part of my day." That's when I knew she HAD to be in the next play. We'd thought she would take a break after High School Musical, but I'd started reconsidering that decision when she was so sad after her play ended. Still, I didn't want to sign her up for another play just because she was sad. I needed another reason. And seeing her so happy and so alive after spending 90 minutes at the theatre was just what I needed to make the decision. 

So I contacted the Ovation Team and got Veronica signed up for Alice and Wonderland. Her Monday/Wednesday class was full so we were looking at either the later Monday/Wednesday class or the Tuesday/Thursday class. She couldn't do the later Monday/Wednesday class because their tech week would be the same week as her May orchestra concert. So Tuesday/Thursday it was. I'm actually feeling pretty good about this class because it doesn't start until 5:30. So that will give her some time to decompress after school.  

On Friday I went grocery shopping in the morning after dropping off Derrick. I came home and dropped off all the food and then went to work. 

In the evening we had a pretty chill night. Brandon got out his lightboard so Derrick could practice tracing dinosaurs. 

Derrick liked that. 

Saturday was our big adventure day. We left the house around 8:30 and drove down to my parents house in Taylorsville. Charlotte drove to the first rest stop and then Lydia drove to the border. 

I was supposed to be at a committee meeting for the Curtain Call Awards. I'd been sad to miss it. My friend Karin is also on the committee and so she offered to call me and have me participate over the phone. So while Lydia and then Brandon drove I was on the phone attending the meeting. Mostly I was just on mute and I joked that it was kind of like listening to the most boring podcast ever, but overall I was really happy to still be involved. Karin was running the meeting and had an agenda and kept everyone mostly on track. I was so impressed by her. She's already my hero in so many ways, but she went up in my esteem even MORE as I listened to her run that meeting. 

I was able to make sure that I'm still on the vote counting committee. And I'm still in charge of the awards back stage. This year we'll need to be extra careful with the awards because they will probably have the winners names engraved on them. 

The award ceremony is April 2nd and I'm so excited for it. 

We arrived at my parents house around noon. We'd brought everything for hoagie sandwiches. So we had those for lunch. Then the kids stayed at my parents and watched K-Pop Demon Hunters with them. Brandon and I drove down to Daybreak to Maddie's house where the van was parked. 

When we got there the van was running in the driveway. This was a great sight. The battery had some issues and had been dead, but Kyle had been able to jump it. I'd imagined us spending at least an hour taking the battery out and replacing it so this sped up our day so much. 

We were able to leave Kyle and Maddie's house within a few minutes of arriving. The van was low on oil so Brandon took the van and went to buy more oil. I drove back to my parents. 

Brandon also had the battery tested. It failed on the Crank Charge. So he bought a new one. We probably would have been fine driving it home, but Brandon had forgot to bring jumper cables and I really didn't want to be stranded in the Crystal Hot Springs parking lot later that night. 

Billy and I had already agreed on the price of the van and agreed to take off the cost of the battery. So none of this was a surprise. 

Back at my parents place things were still going well. I decided to get Lynn Wilson Burritos at Maceys. We had those for dinner. Then we left their apartment around 5:00. It had been so nice to have a place to be our home base while we got the car things figured out. The kids would have been miserable if they'd had to come along to Maddie's and then hang out in the parking lot of an Autozone while Brandon switched out the battery. 

We drove all the way up to Crystal Hot Springs near Tremonton. We got there around 6:30. The parking lot was PACKED. I'd pictured this as a little place like Miracle Hot Springs or even Lava. But no there were easily 75 cars there. 

We paid $18 per person for admission and an additional $2 per person for wristbands for the water slides. Then we went to the locker rooms and changed into swimming suits. That was a little hectic because there were so many people, but soon we were outside where the hot springs were. 

I'd imagined that I would take a lot of pictures, but I hadn't planned on how cold it would be. I think it was something like 25 degrees. We immediately got in the water to warm up. Any time we did get out of the water we would start to feel cold again within like 20 seconds. So yeah, I didn't take ANY pictures. 

But we still had a lot of fun. 

We started out in one of the soaking pools, but it was really crowded. So we ended up in the Olympic sized swimming pool. That had a lot of space. 

The kids figured out where the waterslides were. There were two. They slides had lots of twists and turns. After the kids went on them a few times they had me and Brandon go down. We had to go up a lot of stairs. Those stairs were kind of awful to climb. They were in a kind of tunnel so we weren't outside, but it wasn't warm inside there. As I went up the stairs I was like, "This is awful I'm NEVER doing this again."  I barely had time to catch my breath at the top when it was time to go down the slide. The slide was fun, but made me dizzy too. I was so disoriented when I came out the end. 

But it was fun enough that I let the kids talk me into going down the other slide. So a few minutes later I found myself going up the creepy, cold staircase again. I was like, "Wait, why am I doing these stairs AGAIN?"

The other slide was even twisty-er. I was really dizzy when I came out of it. It had been fun, but I was also done with the slides and those awful stairs for the night. 

We spent most of our time in the big pool. It was warm and felt really good, but the outside air was SO COLD. I had to keep splashing water on my face to warm it up. 

There was a dad who had four little kids all holding on to him. He'd say things like, "Hold on I'm going to turn on turbo mode."  And then start walking really fast through the water. All the kids on his back would laugh and laugh. Brandon was like, "I used to be cool like that, but then my kids got too big."  But then he was like, "Who wants to try turbo mode?"  And all our big teenagers climbed onto him and he took off really fast and the kids held on as best they could. It was really funny. 

Around 9:00 the crowds were thinning out. We went over to one of the soaker pools. It was so much warmer!  I was like, "Ohh this is nice!"  There was a waterfall and a cave. We sat under the waterfall and it was so nice to have warm water pouring down all around me. Then we went inside the cave. The water was about 4 inches deep in there. We all laid down and floated in the water. It was like a sensory depravation chamber. It was so relaxing. 

Around 9:40 we got out to get ready to leave. I was feeling amazing and then we had to walk through little puddles of freezing water to get back to the building. I said, "This is like the best of times and then the worst of times."

The locker rooms were a lot less chaotic. We changed and then met up with Brandon and Derrick. Then we headed back up a big ramp to the check in lobby. I took one picture. 

Overall I had really liked Crystal Hot Springs. But next time I want to come at in like March. I don't want the temperature difference to be quite as extreme. 

We had a few snacks in the car so we got those out. Then Brandon took Lydia and Derrick in the new van and I took Charlotte and Veronica in the old van. At the Utah/Idaho boarder the girls took over driving. Both did an awesome job. Brandon has taught them to pass trucks really well. I didn't worry at all. 

We got home at 12:45 and went straight to bed. 

I thought I'd sleep in really late on Sunday morning, but I was awake by 7:00. My body wasn't tired, but my brain was. I didn't really want to do a lot all morning. 

I had a big list of things that we needed to do with the new van. Things like registering it, getting insurance, taking it in for an oil change. But I also had "post about it on Facebook on the list." so that's where I started. 

The old van was at 298,998 when we pulled into the driveway on Saturday night. We'd added another 500 miles to it on this trip to pick up the new van. I wanted a picture of it saying 299000 so Brandon and I went and drove around our neighborhood to get the odometer to that number. 

He wanted me to take a picture of it at 298999 because that was a cool number too. 

And then it rolled over to 299000. 1000 miles away from my 300,000 mile goal. 

Then I took a picture of the new and old van together. 

And for comparisons sake I took a picture of the new vans odometer reading. 195,745. That number is incredible to me. The Honda Pilot hit 200,000 miles when we were living in Yellowstone in 2017. So it's been almost 9 years since I owned a Honda with a 1 as the first number on the odometer. 

I tried to get a picture of our "Fleet." This was the best I could do. That's the jeep parked in front of the garage where Brandon pushed it out on Wednesday. Then there is the old van. You can see the red Pilot and then behind it is the new Blue van. I'm so glad we have this paved double driveway. There's plenty of room for all these cars. For the first couple days I kept thinking, "who is coming to visit us?"

We pulled ourselves together in time for church at 1:30. In Sacrament meeting Derrick was sustained at the secretary of the Teachers Quorum. Then they set him apart during class time. Brandon and I were there for that. 

After church we had Jori and Tim and their kids over for dinner. A few weeks ago Brandon had been like, "Hey let's have Jori and Tim over for pie." And that turned into pie and dinner. We each made a dip to share. Jori and Tim brought spinach artichoke dip. And Brandon made 7 layer dip. Those were good for dinner. And for pie we made an apple and a lemon meringue. (I say we, but it was all Brandon. I didn't even look at these pies until he was done cooking them on Friday.)

Jori's kids love playing with our toys. One of her girls lined up all the horses. This looks a lot like what my kids would do. 

And that gets us all caught up for the week. Thanks for reading. 

High School Musical Week

The main event this week was Veronica's participation in High School Musical with Ovation at the Orpheum. That DOMINATED the week. But there were a few other things happening here and there so let's do this recap thing. 

I'm trying to remember anything special about Sunday January 11th. But nothing is coming to mind. I'm pretty certain that Brandon took the girls driving in the evening. Both of them are very close to getting all their driving hours. They mostly need night time hours now. So Brandon took them driving around town after dark.

Oh I should mention what happened in Relief Society. We were going over Elder Kearon's talk.  I didn't think I had much to contribute so I was planning to just listen. But then we were talking about something about God's mercy. My study of Joel had included studying Exodus 34:6-7. The scripture points out that God's wrath only extends to the 3rd and 4th generation, but his steadfast love extends to the 1000th generation. So I opened up that part of my scriptures and read the verses and then explained that we should see how expansive his love and mercy is compared to the teeny amount of time that is wrath lasts. 

I thought that would be it for the lesson, but later the lesson started talking about God giving us new hearts. And AGAIN I thought, "Oh I read about this while I was studying Joel."  This time the verse was from Ezekiel 36:26-28. It talks about God changing the people's hearts from hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. So I raised my hand and shared that scripture. I said something like, "Wow, my scripture study just happened to coincide with this lesson really well."

And if you are wondering why my study of Joel led to two completely different books of scripture - well that's just how Joel is. He quotes and references A LOT of other Biblical authors. 

On Monday my friend Kori hosted another "we survived the break" brunch. These are so fun. She has little fried egg griddles so everyone can make themselves a fried egg and add in as much cheese and bacon as they want. And everyone brings something to share. I'd made raspberry chocolate chip muffins the night before so I brought those. (They weren't as good as the name makes them sound. I want to find another recipe.)

Monday was the only day all week that Veronica did NOT have anything to do with the musical. We made sure her costume was ready. She needed black pants, a graphic t-shirt or black shirt, and a flannel shirt. She already had the black pants. Charlotte let her borrow her red flannel shirt. And we found a graphic t for her to wear. But later in the week she decided she just wanted a black shirt. She had one that she wore, but it was a little small. So I bought her a new one at Hobby Lobby in time for the Dress rehearsal on Thursday.  

On Tuesday's I usually go into work at 12:00 and stay for 3 hours. But I was still feeling kind of behind so I went into work right after I dropped Derrick off at school. I was planning to leave a little after admin meeting so I was hoping to be home around 1:00. Instead I didn't leave until after 2:00!  I worked over 5 hours. And really there was still so much I could have done. January is brutal!

At some point in the afternoon I took this picture of three different books all about the same subject. After Brandon and I had so much fun reading Into Thin Air together I wanted to read him Endurance. The Endurance was a boat that sank in the Antarctic waters in 1915. The crew had a ridiculous journey to safety. My sister Lindsey had recommended the book to me and I'd read it about 18 months ago. I wanted to read it to Brandon. 

So I checked out Endurance from the library and started reading it to Brandon. But after about a chapter and a half I was very confused. This Endurance was about the sinking of the Endurance. But it was NOT the Endurance book that I'd read. The book I'd read had been written by the Captain of the Ship. I distinctly remembered specific stories that he told in first person. This book was telling those same stories in a detached 3rd party narrator way. 

So I had to stop reading and figure out what had happened. I ended up checking out two more Endurance related books from the library to find the one that I'd already read. 

The Endurance I had read was "Endurance: An Epic of Polar Adventure" by Frank Arthur Worsley. He was the captain of the Endurance and was on all the major adventures of the expedition.

The Endurance that I'd picked up this second time was "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" by Alfred Lansing. It was written by someone who researched the voyage and includes a lot of journal entries from the men on the voyage. This was also the book that Lindsey had read. We had no idea that we'd read too different books!

I took a picture of all the different books. The one I recommend is the white one. That's the one written by Worsley.  

Veronica had her first tech rehearsal of the week that evening. She had to be at the theatre from 5:30 to about 9:00. At about 4:45 I started working on her hair and make up. The hair and make up recommendations were for either braids or "half up/half down" hair. We played around with a few different things. Nothing was looking right. Then I finally said, "Oh wait, this is supposed to be 2006. NO ONE in 2006 parted their hair in the middle that's a now a days thing." So I parted her hair on the side and then pulled her hair back. That did it!

Then I did her make up. And then I started having a very weird out of body experience. Every time I looked at her I was like, "Holy Crap, it's me from 2006."  I even asked Brandon, "doesn't she look like me from when you met me?  He agreed. 

For reference here's a picture of me and my siblings in 2006. Veronica was looking a lot like me in this picture. 

When she came home that night some of her bangs had escaped from where I'd pulled them back. We decided that she liked the look with the bangs out and to the side so that's how we did her hair the rest of the week. So she didn't quite look like me from 2006 anymore. But I'll tell you what she did look like later. 

Brandon dropped her off at the theatre at 5:30. She had a great rehearsal. She'd been really nervous about tech week, but it was so much fun for her. She came home so excited. 

Wednesday was my day off - but only in name. After I dropped Derrick off I went out to Filer to learn how to do the bookkeeping for Jump Company. It was like going back to Kindergarten. I felt SO DUMB as Chris Ayers was going over how to do everything. Like I know the concepts, but I had to learn so much about how to use this specific version of QuickBooks and how to get info from the bank account and the Square account. It was A LOT to learn. 

I was there 2 hours and by the end I felt like if I looked at another number I was going to die. 

I went home and had a little break and then it was back to look at more numbers! I met up with Brian Keene to get added to his campaign bank account. But thankfully I didn't actually have to do anything with that one. 

That evening Veronica had theatre again. Charlotte and Lydia weren't interested in the young women activity so they didn't go. Derrick's class was having a planning meeting. They were told to come with ideas for activities. I knew Derrick had a lot of ideas so before he went I helped him make a list. He told me 10 things and I wrote them down for him. 

Derrick's planning meeting turned out really well. The leaders were impressed by his list of ideas. He was the only boy who came with a list. On Sunday he was actually called into the Teachers Quorum Presidency as the Secretary. That list was one of the main reasons the Bishopric felt inspired to call him. I was like, "if they want someone to keep them on track, Derrick is definitely their guy. He LOVES calendars and lists and making sure that things are planned."

I took Derrick to the activity. I didn't feel like driving back and forth so I just hung out in the lobby while he was at his activity. I was kind of in the middle of reading two books. The main book I was reading was Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet by John G. Turner. I'd been in the waiting list for this at the Library for months, but it was worth the wait. It was much more readable than Rough Stone Rolling. I'd also read John G Turner's biography of Brigham Young. I'd liked that one but I LOVED this one. 

But I didn't feel like reading that one in the church lobby. So I brough the other book I'm reading. It's called The Tears of Things by Richard Rohr. It has a chapter on the prophet Amos. That's the next book in my bible study so I'm getting ready for that one. 

Derrick was done at 8:00 and I brought him home. I felt a little lost all week with Veronica gone until 9:00 every night. We often read Harry Potter books at 8:00. So every night at 8:00 I was like, "What am I supposed to do???????"

Brandon picked Veronica up from the theatre, once again she was so happy. 

On Thursday Veronica was pretty tired so I let her sleep in for first period. I took Derrick to school and then came home and got Veronica and took her to school. After I dropped her off at school I went to Hobby Lobby and bought her black shirt. The air had been clear on the way to the mall, but right before I reached the mall everything got really foggy. When I drove home the fog was still just as the mall. But later in the morning the fog was all over town.  

I checked in with all my little billing clients. At 11:00 I went to Chattertown and helped Andrea with learning more billing things. Then I went to Aspen Grove and did all the things there. 

When Derrick got home from school on Wednesday he'd been so excited to show me something he'd made at school. It was a drawing of a DNA spiral. He'd traced it from his computer in science class. Then on Wednesday night he traced a velociraptor on his Chromebook at home. He taped the paper to his screen and then carefully traced the drawing. He showed it to me on Thursday. I was so proud of him. 

Veronica had her dress rehearsal that night. There are three casts for High School Musical. Veronica is in the cast that met from 4:30 to 6:00 Monday and Wednesday. Her cast was the first to perform. (I'd signed up for this one in case we did make it into Anastasia. I wanted this play out of the way before Anastasia got too busy.) The other casts were the 6:00 to 7:30 Monday/Wednesday class. And the 6:00 to 7:30 Tuesday/Thursday cast. Each cast will take a week doing tech week and then doing three shows. The other casts were invited to Veronica's dress rehearsal. Veronica will also go to their dress rehearsals. Veronica had so much fun performing in front of an audience. When it was over the audience gave feedback. One of Veronica's friends from orchestra said, "Veronica, you were the best!"

Veronica also got her cast t-shirt. She was so happy to have this. 

For reasons that have never been fully explained to me, Charlotte has been making a deer costume for herself. She'd spent quite a bit of time making ears and a tail and antlers and hooves. Here are her antlers and ears. 

And here is her tail. 

I'd gone grocery shopping with Charlotte that night. We came home with lots of food. Everyone helped put it away. 

Friday was the big day for Veronica. But she was pretty exhausted. I let her sleep in for first period again. Then I took her to school. I'd emailed my friend Kerri who is the attendance secretary at the school. I told her, "We are trying to find the balance between the fun of theatre without triggering an anxiety attack."

I was at work for a long time that morning. And then I came home and TOOK A NAP because I didn't have to go grocery shopping. I picked Veronica up from school after her 6th period. Her 7th period is kind of a lame class so I didn't feel bad taking her out. She came home and took a shower and then relaxed. 

Brandon and I made pizza for dinner. At 5:00 I helped Veronica with her hair and make up. I took a picture with Veronica because we look similar. 

But she didn't really look like me now, instead she looked like me 28 years ago. I found this picture of me in 7th grade. I specifically went looking for this picture because I knew that my bangs were hanging down like Veronica's were. Yep, quite a bit of resemblance there. 

I told Veronica to pick which night we went to her play. She picked Saturday night. So we weren't there for opening night. But I'm told it went very well. Here's a bunch of pictures I stole from Facebook. First here's the cast list. There were a bunch of other friends in this cast. My friend Jeanette's daughter Kate was one of the thespians with Veronica. Both Finn's from our ward were in the cast as Jocks. Nora was a cheerleader. Our friends Kylie and Justin were also in the cast. 

Here's Veronica after the show. 

Here are all the kids doing a cheer before the show started. 

And here is the cast picture. 

Oh and here's another one of Derrick's tracing pictures. This is the indoraptor. Seriously there is nothing that dinosaurs don't motivate this kid to do. I could barely get him to hold a pencil a few years ago. And now he'd tracing pictures like this. 

I spent the evening watching the Era's Tour Documentary. I was working some more on my scrap books. I finished 2023 and 2024. I made it through episodes 1-4. I loved the documentary. At one point I came upstairs nearly in tears because of the new Reputation body suit. (Which sounds really dumb in retrospect, but I was so so so happy to see it in the documentary.) 

On Saturday we slept in. On Wednesday I'd had to give myself a pep talk to get out of bed. Part of the pep talk had been, "You can sleep in as late as you want on Saturday." So I slept until after 10:00.

 Brandon and I had a goal to get a lot of the junk out of the garage. I took Veronica to the theatre for her first show at 12:30. When I got back Brandon had backed the Pilot up to the garage. We started putting a lot of metal into the back. We had our old washing machine and our old oven. Then Brandon went all around the garage and found all sorts of metal that he'd been planning to take the the recycling center. Some of this was from 2 jobs ago. It was just scrap that he'd brought home to recycle "someday."

Well this didn't turn out to be someday either. We drove over to the metal recycling place and it was CLOSED. It didn't open until Monday. So Brandon drove around all weekend with what I called "the Jingle Jangle Machine."  He was finally able to take it to the recycling center on Monday after work. He got $22 for all the metal.  

We were more successful with the other load. I checked to make sure the transfer station (our version of a dump) was open. It was. So we backed the Odyssey up to the garage. Then we folded our old King size mattress in half and secured it with tie downs. We were able to fit it into the van that way. We shoved an old Twin size mattress into the van too. Brandon also put in an old TV (another thing brought home from work - Brandon definitely has an M.O.) We took that stuff to the transfer station. We paid $7 and then unloaded everything in a big bay. (We made sure we got the tie downs before leaving the mattress.) Later big trucks would scrape everything up and take it to the multi-county dump somewhere past Burley. 

Everything went so fast I never even took a picture. 

At 3:30 I picked up Veronica from the theatre. She had loved the matinee show, but she also needed a break. She was home for 90 minutes and was asleep for probably 45. 

I helped touch up her make up and took her back to the theatre at 5:30. Then I was home for a bit and then me, Brandon, Charlotte, and Lydia went back to the theatre to watch Veronica's third and final show. 

We sat up in the balcony for the first time. This was a great place to see the whole cast. We could see Veronica perfectly every time she was on stage. She was delightful to watch every time too. She had really good expressions. At one point the thespians all sing a song together. She was so good in that. 

She was really good in everything. It's so fun to see her singing and dancing with everyone. I loved watching her sing, "Stick to the Status Quo." "We're all in this together" was also a really fun number.

All the kids did great. I was so proud of all the kids that I knew in the cast. And really the whole cast in general. There was a lot going on with singing, dancing, props, scenery. 

Oh and here's a really funny thing about the scenery. At one point Troy takes Gabriella to his hide out area. It's kind of a garden area. And guess what they used? My panel from Much Ado about Nothing. AKA "The Panel we do not speak of."  Lydia painted all the panels except one. I'd painted one of the garden panels. It was kind of a "hey I'm driving you here so I'm going to help while I'm here" kind of a thing. It looked okay, but it was never the best panel and yeah, we just never really talked about the fact that it existed. It was just kind of there. 

Well it got it's turn to shine!  

I was just going to put a picture of that panel up on the blog, but then I realized I've never written about going to see Much Ado About Nothing. That's part of the unfinished blog post about the week we went to Northern Idaho. I guess I need to get back to finishing that post. 

When the play was over we met Veronica in the lobby. It was really crowded so we didn't spent a lot of time there. We went home, but Veronica stayed at the theatre. She helped everyone clean up and then they had their cast party. There were treats and the kids sang karaoke.    

Brandon picked her up at 10:00. I was in my room reading when they got home. (I'd finished the Joseph Smith book and was now reading The Lost World Jurassic Park.) Brandon came and got me so I could be with Veronica. She was crying a lot. She was so sad that the play was over. She was going to miss all her friends and all the fun. 

After she stopped crying she had fun talking about the play. She'd dropped her pencil in a classroom scene. It had looked kind of planned, but she told us that it wasn't planned at all. I was joking and saying "this scene is now about Veronica getting her pencil back."  We had some good laughs. 

She'd got the award for "Strength of Character." She also got a printed out cast picture. Later we bought some frames and she set up this whole theatre display in her room. It has things from her three plays: High School Musical, Matilda, and Willy Wonka.  

We'd planned on her taking a break after this play, but she was so sad that I asked if there was still room to sign up for Alice in Wonderland this spring. There is still room so we are taking a few days to figure out if she really does want to get into another play. 

And she is for sure doing Newsies this summer. She's really excited about that one. 

Sunday was a very chill day. We slept in again. At church I helped out in Derrick's Sunday School class. The teachers of that class the last two years were my friends Megan and Justine. Charlotte and Lydia LOVED them. Megan is going through a high risk pregnancy so she was released at the end of 2025. But they hadn't called anyone to replace her so she was back in the class at the beginning of the year to help Justine out. I was like, "What the heck?"  So last week I'd texted Justine and told her that I would sub with her until a new teacher was called because I did NOT was Megan to feel like she needed to step in and help. 

So I came to church with my Biblical Timeline Poster and planned to give an overview of Biblical history. In Sacrament meeting I was surprised when Justine was released. (She'd literally been released 30 minutes before church started. We'd been texting 45 minutes before church and she'd had no clue she was getting released.)  A husband and wife were called to teach the class. They have two boys in that class so it makes a lot of sense to call them. 

All four of us adults were in the Sunday school class together. Justine taught for about 15 minutes, I taught for about 10, and the new teachers taught for about 15. By the end I was like, "I think this 4 teachers work really well with this class." There are a bunch of boys Derrick's age so it can be a rough class. Four adults really helped those kids stay contained. 

That evening we watched Jurassic Park Fallen Kingdom. Lydia was being silly so when the Raptor Blue started fighting the indoraptor Lydia said something like, "Blue is thinking, 'how many dinosaurs do I have to fight for you, Owen?'"  We all laughed about that. We were all laughing and joking through the rest of the movie. 

And that gets us caught up for another week. Thanks for reading!

We survived the first week back to school

This might be the shortest blog post in a long time. The kids started school this week and we were all basically in survival mode as a result.  So let's do a really quick recap. 

Monday was a teacher work day so the kids didn't have school. I went to work for about 3 hours. I took care of the deposit and a few other things to get back on top of things after not being in the office since Wednesday. 

In the afternoon I went grocery shopping and got a lot of things for the week. We needed lunch things especially. 

That evening Veronica had her first theatre rehearsal since before Christmas. Brandon and Charlotte went with her. Brandon is helping build things for Anastasia and he wanted a good blue print of the stage. A blue print of the stage doesn't really exist yet so he was making one. He and Charlotte measured lots of things and then he came home and started drawing it up.

Also speaking of Anastasia, the cast started rehearsal on Monday night. I was so so so so so glad that I wasn't in the play. I did not have the energy for that.  

Tuesday was the first day for the kids to go back to school. All three girls were pretty annoyed they had to go back. Derrick on the other hand was THRILLED. He was so excited to see his teachers and his friends again. 8th Grade has been such a good year for him. 

I got everyone dropped off at school and then went right to work. I planned to be at work all day. Back in December, we had a lot of clients get scheduled for therapy that would start in January. But I couldn't check their insurance until January because so many things change at the beginning of the years. So I planned to check all those insurances on Tuesday. 

I was worried about working that much in one day so I came prepared with a Celsius drink. Lately the drinks have been a little too potent for me so I've preferred the mix ins. But this time I thought a drink would be the better plan. But I forgot to account for how well rested I'd been over Christmas Break. I wasn't operating at an energy deficit like I have been when I've drunk the canned drinks. 

I hadn't even drunk through a third of the can when I began to realize that this was a VERY bad idea. Celcius drinks don't normally give me the caffeine jitters, but this one did. I was like, "Oh shoot, this isn't made for desk work."  I had so much energy that I had to clock out of work and walk over to Fred Meyer to buy a calendar for my office. 

That exercise helped me feel more settled. I was able to get through the rest of the day of work. At 3:25 I picked Charlotte and Lydia up from the high school. When we got home I told them, "I have to go on a walk or else I'm going to explode!"  So I went on a 20 minute walk and was back home around the time Derrick and Brandon got home. A little later Veronica came home. 

That evening Derrick, Veronica, and I watched, "Peter Pan Goes Wrong" on Youtube.  This is done by the same group who produced  "The Play that goes wrong." I'd heard of it, but I hadn't seeing it yet. It was so funny. We were howling with laughter. Lydia was upstairs with her door shut and said that she felt like she was in the same room as us because we were so loud. I highly recommend that show it was hilarious. 

Wednesday was my "day off." But it felt really busy. I stopped by Ivan's office to pick up the mail and to get my pay check. Later when I was trying to do mobile deposit of the check I accidently wrote my password wrong too many times and locked myself out of the bank account for the first time ever. So I had to call the bank. Brandon and I have had the same bank since we got married and around the time that Veronica was born they sent out a thing recommending that we have our own log ins to online banking. But I never did that. So for 12 or 13 years I've just been signing in as Brandon. 

So that meant that when I called to reset my account access they couldn't just easily do that. Brandon would have to call in. 

The good news is that I was able to register and get my own account access. But when I logged in all our sub-savings accounts had the nicknames that I'd given them like 15 years ago. Like we had an account labeled "phone" that had more than $1000 in it. It was like looking at a strangers bank account. It wasn't until Friday that Brandon called and got account access. Then I logged in as him and wrote down all the nicknames of the accounts and then updated my account. But for three days I was like, "I have no idea what these accounts are?"

Anyway, back to Wednesday. This was the first day of the 2026 version of my ladies scripture study. We are studying the 12 minor prophets this year. We are doing Joel this month. I'd made a timeline of the bible from 1300 BC to 70 AD. I showed them the various events on the timeline such as the division of Israel and Judah, the fall of Israel, the fall of Judah, and the return of Judah. I also pointed out when Solomon's temple was built and when it was destroyed with the fall of Judah. I showed when it was rebuilt and when it was destroyed in 70AD. A lot of people really appreciated the timeline. 

There were 5 of us in attendance. Jori, Rachel, Diantha, Olyvia, and me. Olyvia also had her baby Adellman. I was so happy they wanted to come. I've dreamed of this specific study for 2 years so it's exciting to have it finally happening. 

After everyone left I did a little bit of billing stuff for Ivan and Cassy. I also did that bank account phone call. 

Veronica had therapy at 1:00 so I picked her up and took her to therapy. While I was there I called my friend Brian back. He'd called me earlier that morning. He officially asked me to be the treasurer for his campaign against Mike Simpson in the republican primary for House District 2. I'll meet up with him next week to get put on the campaign bank account. 

Veronica pointed out that she had a really busy afternoon and that it didn't make sense to take her back to school. So after her appointment we went home. She took a shower and I worked on getting my laundry put away and washing dished. 

And then it was time to get the twins. Soon after that it was time for Veronica to go to theatre again. Brandon took her because he needed a few more measurements. 

That evening all the kids had youth activities. The young women were doing something with goals and vision boards. The Young Men were practicing passing the sacrament. Derrick was so involved. During this activity last year he'd come out and sat in the lobby with me after about 10 minutes. But this time he was there the whole time. (It helped that Brandon was in there with him.) 

I was also at the church. I met up with my friend Jeff and we discussed Sunday School things. It was a good discussion.  

On Thursday we were all dragging that morning. But everyone still managed to get to school on time. I had a lot of work that day. I took care of things for Castle Therapy remotely. Then I met with Chattertown and helped them with questions. My friend Andrea will eventually take care of all the billing for Chattertown on her own, but for the next few months she wants my help so she doesn't mess anything up while she's learning what to do. 

Then I went across the hall and helped out Gaining Perspective with a few things. And then I went to Aspen Grove and took care of a bunch of stuff there. 

On Thursday evening we had NOTHING planned and it was great! I spent a lot of the afternoon/evening updating this blog. Then at 8 I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to the kids. Veronica is my main audience, but Derrick is usually listening when we are reading. Charlotte liked to listen too. And on this night all four kids were listening. 

Charlotte had started a project to make an outfit to look like a deer. I don't fully understand the project, but she's really excited. She bought boots at DI and was covering them with fur from Hobby Lobby. She was hand sewing the fur to fit the boots while I was reading. 

On Friday we were all so happy to have made it to the end of the week. I went to work after dropping all the kids off at work. I was there until about 12:30 when I was just like, "I don't care how much more work I need to do, I can't stay here any longer."  So I left and went grocery shopping. Then I came home and took a nap. 

We were going to have home made pizza that night for dinner. But I finally got access to Brandon's bank account and I knew how much money we had in our food account. I'd been assuming it was under $100. But it was more than that. So I told Brandon to order pizza since none of us had motivation to make dinner. 

We had that for dinner and then the kids and I watched Captain America the First Avenger. Those early marvel movies are almost adorable in how simple they are. 

Brandon went to our friend Derrick's house to create a DND character. Derrick is putting together a group of people in our ward to play DND and he recruited Brandon. 

Veronica spent a lot of time painting a canvas with different landscapes. 

Lydia had been working on a new dress that fit over her hoop skirt. Here's how it looks. 

On Saturday our big project was to go through the totes that had all the girls' Barbie stuff. They'd put most of their barbie stuff away about 2 years ago. But they hadn't gone through their stuff very well when they did that. They decided they wanted to go through everything. They wanted to pull out what they wanted to keep and then give the rest to Jori's kids. 

They had Barbie stuff in 3 totes and a few boxes. They went through everything. I was there to keep them on track. They were able to throw away a bag and a half of trash. (Cardboard creations that didn't look as cool any longer and then just random trash.) They had a big box of things to give to Jori's kids. And they kept two totes worth of Barbies and accessories. 

By the end they were going through all their little creations and cooing over how cute everything was. Here they are looking at the thanksgiving food they made years ago. 

In the evening Jori brought her girls over to go through the box of things we were giving away. Lydia wanted to see her girls get excited about the Barbie things, and she was not disappointed. The girls loved everything! They were so excited about the 8 or so Barbies that the girls gave away. And they loved all the accessories the girls were willing to part with. Jori's youngest is 6 so these Barbie things will have opportunities to get played with. 

After they left we had dinner and then watched Peter Pan Goes Wrong as a family. It was just as funny the second time through, but I don't think I was laughing as hard. 

And now we've made it to Sunday. Our church doesn't start until 1:30 so we have very long mornings now. Brandon and I spent some time making a list of all the projects and things he needs to work on in the next few months. 

I took a picture of our rose. The new little rose is so close to opening. I'm hoping it opens this week. 

And that's us. 

Thanks for reading. 

New Years Week

Here's a whole post of what we did during the week of New Years, or at least the memorable that I've been able to remember through the fog. It's really hard to keep track of the days between Christmas and New Year. So things are a little hazy. 

And actually, speaking of hazy things. There were two things I completely forgot to write about when I was writing about Christmas. The first was on Christmas Eve. When we got to Steve and Jacque's house there was about an hour before the party officially started. Lydia and Derrick ended up hanging out on the porch swing together. They had a really fun time talking about dinosaurs.

The second thing was on Christmas Day. I spent a lot of the evening booking hotels for our Spring Break trip to Southern California. Yes we are finally doing that. I booked everything with reservations that didn't require me to put down any money so I can change things if I need to later. But the trip is roughed in and feels much more real. 

While I worked on that I had lots of music playing. Everyone was requesting fun songs. That was a great evening. 

Okay, now onto the week of December 29.

On Monday Brandon left for work. Or so I thought. About 20 minutes after he "left" he came in my room and told me the battery on the Pilot was dead and that he needed me to give him a ride to work. I'd just been writing an instagram on my phone while all snuggled up warm in my bed. I had no idea he'd been outside trying to jump the Pilot with the Odyssey. I was like, "I could have helped."

He'd pushed the pilot down to the end of the driveway so that he could get the odyseey next to it. We tried pushing it up out of the gutter, but the two of us weren't strong enough to push it up. So the Pilot stayed at the end of the driveway most of the day. Every time I looked out the window I thought someone was coming to visit us. 

I dropped him off at work. Then I went back home and went back to bed. Later I went into work around noon and stayed there for three hours. Then I picked up Brandon after we both were done with work. 

Brandon went out to work on the Pilot. Our neighbors had been dying to know what was going on all day so they gathered around. Soon about 3 guys from the street were helping Brandon push the Pilot into the driveway. 

Brandon took out the battery and took it to Autozone. He found out the battery was actually okay. It was the starter that was the problem. I'm still not entirely sure how he deduced that. But that's not my area. My area is making sure that we have money for things like this. And I'm VERY good at that. Brandon told me that a new starter would cost $180 if we took the old one in and exchanged the core or whatever. I was like, "that's no problem at all." 

Brandon felt like he had to get the starter out right away, but I told him it was getting dark and cold outside. There was nothing I had to do on Tuesday that would be hurt by me giving Brandon and ride to and from work. So he didn't worry about the car the rest of Monday. On Tuesday he was able to get the starter replaced after work. I'm so lucky to have him.

In other money news on Monday Derrick had earned $100. He's been saving up for a computer console tower. I told him if he could save $120 we'd start looking for a computer tower. So he's been saving all his money. My kids earn a dollar a day for going to school. They also earn a dollar for babysitting themselves when Brandon and I go on a date or are at work when the kids are out of school. They also earn a dollar if they make dinner. So Derrick has been carefully saving all that money. He earned the last dollar by babysitting himself while I was at work.  

Derrick knew that Brandon had a $100 bill. So he asked to trade his 5 twenties for that hundred dollar bill. Brandon said that was a great idea. So here's Derrick with his first ever one hundred dollars.  

Brandon spent the evening helping Veronica open the geodes that he'd bought her for Christmas. He'd bought special saw blades to open these. They had a lot of fun. 

Tuesday was . . . Tuesday was  . . . Tuesday was the day Brandon fixed the starter after work. And I know I went to work. I think I went grocery shopping because it was Brandon's pay day. And I think I updated this blog on Tuesday. And most of the other details are completely eluding me. 

But I know what I did in the evening. My friend Kaymie had recently graduated with her associates from CSI. This is a huge freaking deal because she did that degree while she had a kid each in elementary school, middle school, high school, and even one at home working after high school. I really wanted to celebrate her accomplishments. So I was thrilled when Jori planned a little get together to honor her.  Jori, Kori, Natialie, Kaymie, and I hung out and talked. We had a really good time. 

Wednesday was New Years Eve. I went into work for a little bit, but I didn't stay very long. Later, at 5:00 I logged into the system to submit the last of the claims for 2025. That was a good feeling. 

I'd written about potting the rose on my blog on Tuesday and then I saw the rose in real life and was like, "that grew a lot in a week!"  So I took a picture of it. 

I had the kids help me get the basement cleaned up so we could have our New Years Eve party down there. I'd sent out a little invite to my friends letting me know they were invited to come watch the original Jurassic Park Trilogy with us. I listed out the approximate times we'd start each movie in order to be done by Midnight. 

I wasn't sure if anyone would be able to come, we have a lot of friends with little kids, but I wanted people to know they were invited. Our friend Joe ended up coming with his teenage kids Addie and Ty. Addie is Charlotte and Lydia's age and Ty is between Derrick and Veronica. None of them, including Joe had ever seen Jurassic Park. So that made it super fun to watch with them.  

As usual Brandon had lot of great food prepared. 

I took this picture before he put out the shrimp. 

Here's one of his amazing cheese ball. These are always so good. 

Joe and his kids loved Jurassic Park. I'm glad we could introduce them to this movie. They had only planned to stay for one movie before going back home to hang out with Megan and the two younger kids. So they left. 

We turned on the Lost World Jurassic Park. That one is definitely lower quality. I was curious if the book is better so I ordered it from the library while we were watching it. (I picked the book up yesterday so I don't know how it compares yet.) I thought for sure I'd seen this movie recently with Derrick. But as we were watching it I was like, "Oh I have absolutely NO memory of this." I realized the last time I watched this movie was with Brandon before any of the kids were born. I think it was before I was even pregnant. So at least 16 years ago. I remembered certain parts, but other characters and scenes were a complete surprise. 

When that one was over we put in Jurassic Park III. That one is an even steeper drop in quality. But it was still fun to watch. We had fun mocking the choices the characters made. 

The movie ended about 3 minutes before midnight. There was just enough time to pull out our martini glasses and fill them with rootbeer for everyone. We toasted at midnight. We went outside for a minute to watch all the firework shows put on by neighbors on other streets. And then we went inside, refrigerated what was left of the cheese ball and went to bed. 

We slept in on Thursday. Well, sort of. Veronica was still in charge of Chandler's dog. So I had to get her up at 8:15 to go let Okie out of her house to use the bathroom. But as soon as we were done with that I went back to bed for a long time. 

When I did get up my main goal for the day was to take down the tree. I'd actually had it out for the tree for a couple days, but the thought of digging out the box and the totes was overwhelming. So the tree stayed up. But I had nothing else to do on New Years Day so it was time to take the tree down. 

I spent hours packing up the ornaments. I realized that I could store things better in the totes if I wasn't storing ornaments in round containers. Brandon had brought home a bunch of small rectangular boxes from work for wrapping presents. He still had a lot of those boxes in the garage so I went and got them and used them for storing ornaments. Then I stacked those boxes inside the totes. It worked very well. Here are all the decommissioned round containers. These were just a conglomeration of things we'd had on hand. The middle clear one is a cake container that has well outlived its original purpose.  The one on top was an ice cream container that Brandon's grandma used to store her nativity set. 

Here's a picture I took when I was taking a much needed break. I'd finished the ornaments. Brandon had packed up both trees. (Yes, we ended up with two trees in our living room.) And I was working on all the other decorations. 

We'd added quite a few other decorations this year. Since we had more shelf space we needed more things to fill them. Charlotte had bought decorations at Hobby Lobby and Goodwill. Then a few weeks later she found a whole little Christmas village in a box for free when she was taking Marcia on a walk. So we had a lot of new decorations that needed to be packed up. I'd bought two new totes to hold everything. 

The good news is that since I was using the rectangular boxes I was able to pack more efficiently. At the beginning of the season we unpacked 4 totes of Christmas things. I was able to get everything - including the new things - packed into 5 totes. 

But wow! I was so worn out. 

On Friday Brandon took the day off work. He started cleaning out the garage. Our goal for January is to get the garage organized really well. I worked online for about an hour, but I didn't want to go into the office. Instead I worked in the basement. I got all the holiday totes back under the stairs. The Christmas things always go in first. Usually we store the tree in under the stairs, but there just wasn't room anymore. So that went out to the garage. Then I put in the Halloween decorations and costumes. We have 5 of those totes too. And then the other holiday things went in last. Whew!

With the totes out of the way I moved onto organizing the shelves where we store things that probably would go in our kitchen if it had any storage space. Things like big pots and pans, the blender, serving trays, crock pots, etc. This was the before picture. 

I also straightened up the food storage shelves. Here's the before picture. 

And I did get things looking better, but I ran out of motivation for taking after pictures. So just trust me that things looked better.

You'll also have to trust me on this other not pictured thing. Veronica also earned $100. Chandler and Cort paid her for watching Okie for over a week. Veronica was very happy to get that money. It made all the early wake ups, and long walks, and remembering to take Okie in at night worth it.  

Lydia had been working on a new painting for our kitchen. Here's her "nest" where she had been working for two days. 

While I was taking pictures she noticed it needed something. So she leaned across the chair to put it on real fast. I joked that we should tell everyone that she painted the whole painting in this position. 

Charlotte had also been artistic. She drew this picture. 

I can't remember exactly what night we did this, but one of these nights Derrick, Brandon, and I watched the 90s movie Vertical Limit. It was a completely made up movie about people climbing K2. Lindsey had told me about it. We are both going through a phase of reading every book we can about people who climb high mountains. We'd both read the book "Into the Clouds" about people who tried to be the first to summit K2. And then Lindsey had been like, "There's a dumb movie about K2" so of course I had to watch that. It was really dumb, but in like the best way. We had a lot of fun mocking the movie. And then we found a reaction video on Youtube and that was almost better. Later Lindsey said she'd watched K2 around the same time with her son Knoxx and they'd had a lot of fun making fun of it too. 

And speaking of books about high mountains, I read "Alive" during this week. Alive is about a plane that crashed in the Andies mountains in the 70's. If you've heard of it you probably remember it because the survivors of the crash stayed alive by eating the bodies of the people who died. This is actually the book that I thought was "Into Thin Air." So I'd never wanted to read Into Thin Air because of the cannibalism. When I figured out that Into Thin Air was about climbing Everest I was like, "then what's the plane crash one?"  So then I had to read Alive. It's circular logic, but hey that's how my brain works sometimes. 

I'd been worried the cannibalism would be sensationalized in the story. But it's actually handled really well. So I give it a tentative recommendation. If you like are like me and like reading books about people freezing in the snow while you are snuggled warm in your bed, then add Alive to the list. 

Another book I've been reading has been a dinosaur encyclopedia that Derrick got for Christmas. We sat down and read about 20 pages every day of break. And what's amazing is that he did most of the reading. He'd read the stats of course, but he'd also read a lot of the paragraphs talking about each dinosaur. His reading has really improved lately. 

We'd also look up things that we didn't know. Like we read one dinosaur lived in among Mangroves. So we looked those up. I also had our globe and would find the countries where the dinosaur fossils were found. So Derrick was doing a lot of extra learning while going through that dinosaur book. 

On Saturday I sat down and made an important list. I wrote out my work commitments, my volunteer commitments and my other commitments. There are FIFTEEN things on this list. That's it, my year is full. 

Our main goal for the day was to hang up Lydia's painting. Brandon had a production meeting for Anastasia in the morning. I took Lydia to Fred Meyer to find picture hook thingies. When Brandon was back he hung the picture. Here's how it looks from our front door. 

And here's how it looks when you go through the doorway to the kitchen. I love how it ties the curtains and the chair rail together. 

And here is the picture up close. This is Grand Prismatic Spring. In the background is Excelcier Geyser. Next to the geyser is Opal pool. I'd been looking at buying a canvas print of a similar picture, but a lot of the pictures looked suspiciously like AI or were too expensive. So it was great that Lydia decided to use her Christmas Canvas to paint this for us. 

And speaking of art here's a picture all the kids drew. I started with Derrick drawing an island and writing Jurassic World Evolution 3 above it. He drew Marcia on the island. Then everyone started adding things to the picture. I think they did this on New Years Day because I had to keep interrupting their happy giggles to get them to carry totes and things for me. 

On Sunday our church didn't start until 1:30, but Derrick, Brandon, and I went over to the church at 11:45 so Derrick could be ordained a teacher. Here he is looking all spiffy before we left. He's developing his own sense of style. When we bought his latest pairs of church shoes he wanted ones with white soles. And he prefers bow ties to long ties. He's also asked for a suit coat. I told him we'd get him one when we were sure he was done growing. 

He was so excited to be ordained a teacher. He's grown up so much in two years. Two years ago he was crying about moving out of primary. And now he'd perfectly comfortable in Young Mens. 

Our ward had like 8 boys move up from Deacons to Teachers and only one boy move up from Primary to Deacons so Derrick will still have opportunities to pass the sacrament if he wants. But he's more excited about the teacher duties. He's excited to "guard the door" and calls it that even though we've explained the word usher.  When we went to church at the regular time he helped get the sacrament trays ready. 

Church was a little dodgy. They announced the wrong classroom for one of the youth Sunday School classes. So me and my friend Amanda were directing the kids to the correct classrooms. I was like, "Once again the MOMS step in and fix everything."  

Veronica stays in the youngest Sunday school class. She is thrilled to have a year where she isn't in Derrick's class. Derrick moved into the middle class taught by our friend Justine. Charlotte and Lydia' have loved Justine as a teacher. She was in Young Women's before and when they first met her they were like, "Mom, that lady who is really invested in us says hi."  And now they are like, "How can we leave Justine!  She UNDERSTANDS us!"  They have moved up to the oldest Sunday School class taught by the previous bishop and his wife. 

I decided to be attend Sunday School because I actually like the Old Testament and was curious how my friend Jeff was as a teacher. 

I lasted a whole 5 minutes. 

I wont go into why, but I was really hurt by something Jeff said. For a day or two I was willing to give up on Sunday School again for this year. But then I was like, "this is Jeff. He is my friend. I've known him for over 4 years. I'm not going to let this ruin our friendship."

My New Years Resolution is to do hard and scary things. Mainly, I need to start an actual billing and bookkeeping business to cover all my little billing clients. And that is hard and scary so I made my New Years Resolution something that will make me do that. But it also covers any other hard and scary things - including having a hard and scary conversation with Jeff about Sunday School. 

So on Tuesday I texted him and asked him if we could meet and talk about the thing he said and why it hurt me. And on Wednesday we had that conversation when we dropped our kids off for the youth activities at the church. It was a really really really good conversation and was much better than the Molotov cocktails I'd been considering throwing at all the bridges. 

Do we see eye to eye? No. But we do understand each other and that's a big deal. At the end of it Jeff asked, "Are we still homies?" And yes, we are still homies.   

But back to Sunday. We watched Newsies after dinner. Ovation will be doing Newsies for the summer play this year. I'd thought that girls camp would interfere with the rehearsal schedule. But it doesn't conflict at all. So I was trying to get one or more of the kids interested in being in Newsies. Veronica was immediately hooked. She kept saying "I can see this being so fun!"  So at least Veronica is going to be in Newsies this summer. 

And that get's us to the end of Christmas Vacation - almost. The kids actually didn't go back to school until Tuesday. So Monday was kind of a soft start to the week. But we'll talk about that next week. 

Thanks for reading.