Birthday/Drivers License Week

This was a really good week. But it was also another week full of lots of things. I felt like I was on a different side quest every day. It all culminated with two things. 1. My birthday. 2. Charlotte and Lydia completing everything they needed to get their drivers licenses. 

So let's go through this recap.

On Sunday night we watched Groundhog Day. I joked that on Monday, which was really Groundhog Day I would wake the kids up my playing "I got your babe."  But I didn't really do that. It was a funny joke at 9:00 PM. It was not so funny at 7:00 AM.

Monday started off with an appointment with my dermatologist to see if Opzelora is doing anything for the vitiligo. It's not. But the doctor wasn't ready to give up on it yet. So we'll follow up again in a few months. 

Then I went to work and did lots of important things. But none of them are interesting enough to talk about. I love my job, but it's really not that interesting for blog content. 

Brandon's work day was a little more interesting. It was his first day as a St Luke's employee. He's worked for St Luke's for a year, but he was employed through a 3rd party agency. At the end of 2025 they started taking the steps to make him an official St Luke's employee. It was all finalized and he officially started on February 4th. It was kind of funny because he still had to attend an 8 hour employee orientation on Monday - even though he's worked there for a year. 

I picked up the twins when they were done with school. We drove over and picked up Derrick from his school. Then we went home and dropped off Derrick and the twins got a snack. Then we drove back across town to the County West complex where the Drivers License office is located. 

We were there so Charlotte and Lydia could take their written drivers tests. We waited in line for a few minute. It was NOTHING like the lines when we were trying to get their Learners Permits at the same time as the Star Card deadline. 

For a minute it looked like we'd be helped by the same lady who helped us when the girls got their permits. I wasn't really looking forward to that. She was okay, but she was really no nonsense and didn't do much to make it feel like a special occasion to get a learners permit.  But then we ended up being helped by a man. And he made it so much fun!

He gently teases the girls throughout the process. Like he had to make sure there weren't any holds or something that meant they couldn't get licenses. He was like, "Uh oh, I see two problems. You haven't taken your written or skills test." And that was funny because they were they for their written tests. He also called them Dingus One and Dingus Two. His teasing and jokes helped take away some of the nerves they were feeling. 

The written test was $5. After that was paid and all the paperwork was verified he took them into the testing room. They each sat at a computer. They had to answer 40 multiple choice questions. They could get 6 wrong. If they answered the 6th one wrong the test would kick them out. They would have to wait three days and pay the $5 again. 

I'd told both girls that I was planning on them failing and coming back to take the test. It wasn't because I thought they wouldn't pass, but I wanted them to know that it was perfectly normal to not pass the test on the first try and that I wouldn't have a problem with coming back. 

Both girls had been studying a list of questions from the DMV website. Charlotte had even made a Blooket of the questions that the two of them used to study. 

But they were still both pretty nervous. 

I waited on some chairs in the big room. There was another mom there waiting for her daughter. 

Lydia was done first. I heard the DMV worker say something like, "Okay you can now take your skills test. Here is a list of testers you can call to scheduled that."  So I knew she had passed. 

She came and sat by me and we celebrated. 

Then I heard the DMV worker talking to the next person who was done with their test. They said, "The next time you can retake this test is Thursday."  I thought, "Oh no, Charlotte didn't pass."  I was all prepared to comfort her, but then the other teenage girl walked out from behind the partition. I was like, "Yay, Charlotte is still in it!"

That girl went and sat with her mom and talked about what went wrong on the test. Then Charlotte suddenly showed up and said she'd passed. I was so happy for her. But I hurried us out of the room so we didn't celebrate in front of that other girl who hadn't passed her test. 

I'd been fully prepared to come back for retakes, but I was so happy that we didn't have to.

When we got home I called one of the people on the list of people who could administer they Skills test. I left a message saying I had twins ready to take their skills test.   

On Tuesday I had an appointment at 11:30 to meet with my accountant about taxes. That meant I had to get all my documents together. I spent the morning doing some quick accounting for Twin Falls RV guy and my assortment of billing clients. Then I took everything to Dave's office. I always like him, but I'm also always nervous. Taxes are like getting graded as an adult.

Then I went to work and realized that I couldn't access the Blue Cross of Idaho remit information. That was a BIG problem since Blue Cross is our biggest payer. They could still pay us, but I had no idea which clients the payments were for. That would be something I'd try to get access to for the rest of the week. 

At home I worked on cleaning off the patio a little bit. The weather was a wonderful 50 degrees every day of the week. We were still planning to have my party in the garage, but I knew some people would want to be outside. 

At 5:30 I took Veronica to the Orpheum for her audition for Alice in Wonderland. I could hear her audition and she did amazing. She was so happy after that. She ended up not getting a big part, but that's okay, she's happy to be part of the show. 

Later that night Brandon went to the Orpheum for an Anastasia production meeting. He also talked to Jared and was officially put in charge of all the big set pieces that the Orpheum has. He's going to be basically the set librarian. He'll help people know what set pieces are available for different shows. They already have someone doing this for props and another someone doing it for costumes. But until now they haven't had anyone in charge of sets pieces.  So this is a big deal. 

On Wednesday I had an appointment to replace the windshield on the new van. It had a big crack across the top. The skills test requires you to use your own vehicle and one of the requirements was to have an unobstructed windshield free of big cracks. So I needed that replaced before the girls could take their skills test. 

I dropped the kids off at school and then went to Safelight and dropped off the van. Safelight is like a mile from our house so I just walked home after dropping it off. This is the same thing I'd done after buying the grey van. It had also needed a windshield replacement. But there were two things different this time. 

1. The windshield for the grey van had been over $500. That had been such a terrible price. I was happy when this one was *only* $300. At least something has gone down in price in the last 3 years. 

2. My feet had been in so much pain when I walked home after dropping off the grey van. I vividly remember how much my feet hurt while I walked. That was actually what made me realize that I needed to go get them checked out. I'd realized that I'd immediately taken care of the windshield on a van I bought for $1000. But I'd been neglecting my feet on my one and only precious body. I decided I needed to take care of myself as well as I took care of my vehicles. That was a big wake up call.  

This time I was able to walk home with no pain in my feet. 

When I got home I hurried to get ready for my bible study group. We are studying Amos this week. I'd prepped the lesson plan on Sunday night and had been looking forward to the study all week. Like so much. I even listened to a podcast about 1 Kings 12 so I could be prepared to talk about why Amos was speaking out about Bethel. I joked, "I think I need a hobby."

The lesson went so well. Like so well. Jori, Rachel, and my friend Debbie were there. We had some really great discussions about specific verses. Sometimes we all have to be done by 11:00 or sometimes 11:30. But this time we were still talking at 11:40. I was so happy with how much all my prep work paid off. 

Veronica had therapy at 1:00 and I needed to pick her up at 12:45. When I made the appointment for the van's windshield I hadn't been sure there would be enough time to go back and pick up the van in time for her appointment. So for a minute I'd considered rescheduling the appointment or asking someone to give me a ride to Safelight. And then I was like, "Oh duh, I have two vans!"  So I just drove the grey van to pick up Veronica from the school and take her to therapy. 

Her therapy appointment went well. She talked me into letting her stay home from school since it was already late in the school day. We went home and dropped off the grey van. She and I walked to Safelight and picked up the blue van. She felt like this was the longest walk ever. 

After we had the van we drove to Walmart so we could buy Valentines Day candies and things for the party that we always do for the other kids. That was fun. 

Then we picked up the twins from the high school. 

When Brandon came home from picking Derrick up he had a lot of errands to run. He asked if any of the kids wanted to go with him, but no one did. I was like, "I'll go. I want to hang out with you." It was kind of fun to pal around with him on a week day. 

First we went to the dump to drop off the last of the junk from the garage. We pulled into the bay next to a guy with a trailer on the truck. That guy was like, "Hey Brandon!" We realized it was our friend Cort. He asked, "What are you guys doing here."  Brandon didn't miss a beat. He replied, "Dropping off this car!"  It was so funny. 

Then we went home and put a bunch of old doors into the car. All the kids rooms have closets with big heavy sliding doors. We took them off years ago and never missed them. We thought about donating them to habitat for humanity. But Brandon asked Jared if he wanted them and Jared said yes. So we took them out to the Currry building. 

This was a fun place to visit. There are a lot of good memories in all the set pieces stored in that building. Here are the lockers from High School Musical. 

Lydia's Much Ado panels are all stacked up over here. 

These are the book cases from She Loves Me and the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. 

Here are the stairs from Cinderella

In the corner is one of the spools from Godspell. 

That's a library cart from Music Man. 

These are the desks from High School Musical. The kids had hauled these on and off for the classroom scenes. 

I'm so glad Brandon's in charge of all of this. 

That evening Derrick and Brandon went to the church for the teachers quorum activity. The girls were meeting at CSI for a yoga activity. I took them there. There was also game going on so parking was terrible. I ended up just dropping them off at the front of the building. My friend Amanda is in the presidency and she met them there and got them to the right spot. 

I went home and had a little meeting with two Relief Society Presidency members who came over to give me a present for my birthday. And then I went back and picked up the girls. 

  

Thursday was one of my big work days. It was a four client day. I did things for Castle Therapy, Gaining Perspective, Chattertown, and Aspen Grove. I was pretty pooped by the end. 

Thursday was a really big day for Derrick. It was the day his computer tower arrived. He'd diligently saved up $120 dollars for a tower. I'd told him if he saved $120 Brandon and I would help with the rest of the money for a computer tower. 

Well computers are pretty expensive.  He wanted the computer so he could play the game Jurassic World Evolution. And a computer that could run that kind of program was more money than I really wanted to spend. Even with Derrick's $120 added in.

We ended up going a different route with payment. We still had money on the empowering parents grant that helps pay for educational things. And computers are one of the things they will cover. So we ordered a computer through the grant. The stipulation is that this is the FAMILY'S computer. If one of the girls needs it to write a paper or to use photoshop or autocad they can use the computer too. 

Derrick's money that he saved would go toward paying for the Jurassic World Evolution Game. 

We ordered the computer on Sunday night and it said that it would arrive by Thursday. On Monday I got an email saying the funding had been approved by the grant, but I never got any sort of shipping email. So I wasn't so sure about Derrick getting his computer on Thursday. I'd been preparing him for the computer to take a while to ship. 

So we were both shocked when we drove up to the house after school and there was a computer box on the porch. I was like, "Derrick Derrick, LOOK."

What made it even better was Derrick's best friend Max had come home with us. So he was there to experience Derrick's joy. Both boys unpacked it and then took the computer tower downstairs and hooked it up to Derrick's monitor and key board. They turned it on and were fully prepared to get it all running. 

Except they only had me to help. Brandon was at CSI that night. And I got stuck pretty quick. The computer wanted to connect to our wifi and I was like, "Um I have no clue what our password is."

(Also I knew it was only going to get more complicated with microsoft passwords and the like so I was in no hurry to figure out the wifi password.)

So the boys had to leave the computer and do other things.  When Brandon finally did get home he helped Derrick with a few things and the computer started downloading updates and things. Derrick was so excited with even that little bit of progress. 

On Friday I was getting concerned that we hadn't heard back from anyone about skills tests. I'd called another person on the list and her voicemail had directed me to text her to schedule appointments. I'd done that, but hadn't heard anything back. 

I needed help from mom's who had done this before. So I texted my friends Amanda and Kaymie and asked them for advise. Amanda replied with the name of the tester she'd gone through and said he was a very responsive texter. So I texted him and within about an hour he'd texted me back and we had the twins skills tests scheduled for Saturday morning. Thank goodness for mom friends. 

I went to work, but I planned to stay for only 2 hours tops. I've worked for Aspen Grove for 6 years and every year I take my birthday off of work. This year my birthday is on a Saturday, but I still wanted a little birthday break. So I went to work long enough to take care of a few things and then I was out of there after an hour and 15 minutes. 

I went to DI and did another birthday tradition. I think I've done this every year for 6 years too, but I might have skipped it a bit during the covid years. I do a big clothes shopping trip. I load up a cart full of clothes to try on. Then I take the cart into the dressing room. (In blatant disregard for the posted signs) and try everything on. This year I kept about half of what I tried on. I got a lot of new shirts, a pair of jeans, two pairs of sweat pants, shorts to sleep in (long pants are too hot), and a pair of dress pants. It was a good trip. 

Then I went to Winco and did the weekly grocery shopping and bought a lot of things for my party the next day. 

I came home and put everything away and put my new clothes in the wash. I also did a little bit more to set up for my party. I moved the bikes from the garage out to the patio and put the patio table and chairs into the garage.  

I picked up the twins from school and then went to get Veronica so I could bring her bass home. But she didn't bring it home because the music room was locked. (The last period of the day had a substitute who hadn't realized she needed to leave the room open for kids to get their instruments.)

Back at home Brandon had picked up Costco pizza after getting Derrick from school. So we had pizza. Brandon and I didn't eat much because we planned to go out for dinner on a date later in the night. 

At 6:00 I took Charlotte and Lydia to Dairy Queen to meet up with the Young Women President and her first counselor. I'd met with Mary and Angela last week and told them that Charlotte and Lydia were feeling like they didn't quite belong in Young Women's. Mary and Angela offered to take them out for ice cream so they could get to know them better. 

I sent both ladies some conversation ideas. Most people just know that Charlotte and Lydia are good at art. They don't know much else beyond that. So I wanted the leaders to have other things to talk about. For Charlotte I suggested asking about her chickens, the goat she wants, or about any of her lego creations. For Lydia I suggested they ask for her opinions about stick vs wire welding (She prefers wire), or to hear the story of her and Brandon hitchhiking in Yellowstone. 

I kind of felt like I was dropping the girls off at nursery or daycare. I was like, "I'll wait about 5-10 minutes and then leave when they are comfortable."  Within moments the girls were laughing and chatting, but I still hung around for about 10 minutes and then left. 

I came home and picked up Brandon and we went to Idaho Joes for dinner. I'd been here last March with the Cinderella cast. My friend Sara had ordered a Slicked Pepper Jack Stake Sandwich. When I saw it I was like, "That is AMAZING. I need to come back here and get that."  And I was finally doing that. 

The sandwich is described as "Hand-cut sirloin steak charbroiled then sliced. Served on a warmed French roll with lots of melted pepper jack cheese, sautéed onions and tomato."  It was everything I wanted it to be. Later I joked that if I needed a happy thought like in Petter Pan that sandwich would be my happy thought. 

But really the whole evening would make a pretty good happy thought. Brandon and I are both voting members of the Curtain Call Committee. So while we were at the restaurant we went through the lists of nominations and talked about the shows and who we would be voting for. There were 9 shows in the adult theatre groups. We saw/were in 8 of them. (We'd also seen 5 of the teenage/youth shows, but those weren't part of the voting.) It was quite the season. It was really fun to look back over the 2025 season and talk about all the amazing shows.  

When we came home Charlotte and Lydia were there. They'd had a great time with their leaders. Mary texted me and told me, "Valerie, that was the best thing I've done with week. Thank you for opening the door to us getting to know Charlotte and Lydia. I loved everything about that."  She also said, "I whole new world just unlocked in my mind." Angela added. "Me too! They are amazing!"

I was so glad that everything went well with that get together. Hopefully this will help the girls feel more connected in young womens. 

Brandon started cooking my birthday cakes and I helped make some raspberry sauce to flavor the frosting. I also got a few things ready in the garage. 

Saturday was my birthday! We slept in for a little bit and then got to work. Lydia gave me a present right away. It was a hat that she had embroidered flowers on. I loved it and told her I would wear it all day. She said, "That's why I gave it to you in the morning."

Brandon made frosting and frosted two cakes. I'm not sure what I was up to. Mostly I was nervous for the twins test. They were a little nervous too. The test wasn't scheduled until 10:30, but we left around 10:10. 

We drove to D&B and waited for the tester named Robert to arrive. He'd said he would be in a white ford truck with Oregon plates. So we were scrutinizing every white truck the drove by. Finally he arrived and we walked over to his truck. 

The girls gave him their permits and I gave him the registration and insurance information. I venmoed him $57.00 ($28.50 each). Then he told Lydia to go get into the van and start it. 

Charlotte and I went into D&B and bought chicken food. Then we wandered around and looked at things. After about 20 minutes we went outside and Lydia pulled up soon after. She had a smile on her face. Robert said, "Congratulations you passed."  I breathed a sigh of relief. 

I put the chicken feed in the back of the van and told Charlotte, "Here's your lucky Chicken Feed."  Lydia got out of the car and Charlotte got in. Lydia and I went back into D&B to window shop while we waited for Charlotte. 

Lydia told me the test had been super easy. We'd pictured scary things like 3 point turns and driving on the interstate, but really it was just driving around the roads near D&B. 

After another 20 minutes we went outside and soon Charlotte arrived. I couldn't read her expression so I was happy when Robert said she passed too.  

He gave us sealed enveloped with their results. And that was that. 

They are officially ready for their licenses. I'll take them to County West on Monday and we'll get them issues. I feel so much relief at all of this. It's finally done. We've been working on this since last May and now we are done. 

I dropped the girls off and then went to run some errands. I picked up a prescription at Smiths. I went to my friend Annette's house and picked up some puzzles she was giving away. And then I went to the library and dropped off a book and picked up some books and DVDs.

When I came home I did some creative parking. I wanted the car port to be open so that people could walk through it to our garage. I figured I could fit all four of our vehicles on the side driveway. So I moved the garbage and recycling cans that were between the Jeep and the grey van. Then I pulled the grey van up so it was almost touching the jeep. Then I moved the Pilot right behind the grey van. And that left me with enough room to fit the blue van behind the Pilot. 

There was even room behind the blue van. If the jeep had been closer to the garage I probably could have fit a fifth vehicle behind the blue van. Sometimes I forget just how big our property around this house is, and then I do things like this. 

By this point it was about 12:00 and my party started at 2:00. For the next two hours I just kind of ran around and did random things. I was going to make a veggie tray, but Brandon took care of that. Instead I was arranging the food on the food table in the garage. Setting up the fancy drink stand. Setting things on my give away table. Yes I had a give away table. Brandon had a few things from the garage, the kids had a few toys that they were ready to part with, and I had several books. Rather than take it all to DI we just set up a table in our carport so people could take things as they left. It worked really well and most of the things were taken. 

At about 1:45 everything was ready. I opened up one of the puzzles that I'd picked up from Annette. I wanted to have a puzzle going because that had been so fun at Kami's puzzle party in November. It was a really nice introvert activity. We could do the puzzle without having to make eye contact. So I had a whole table just for the puzzle. Brandon and I started flipping over pieces as we waited for 2:00

Right at 2:00 our friend Avery showed up. She was followed by Amy Toft. And then Kerri and Payton. And then Shellian. I felt like I was able to make conversation with all of them. But then more and more people arrived. 

Sara, Rachel and her daughter Lydia, other Rachel, Jori and Tim and their four girls, Ivan and Trish.

Around this point I remembered I hadn't taken any pictures. Here's the food table. The 7 layer dip was halfway gone. Thankfully we had a second one waiting.  

We'd cut the cakes so people could have them. Look how cute Brandon decorated the simple cakes. 

Peyton didn't want Ivan to steal her chips so she built a barricade in the toy area. 

Here's a view of the tables. 

And here I am. I had the had Lydia made me and a new Baconsale Hoodie. 

The funniest moment of the afternoon was when Avery was complaining that her boyfriend Mathieu is a better singer than her. Ivan was teasing her and saying, "I have no idea what that's like. I don't have a boyfriend that sings better than me."  Ivan's wife teased him and said, "What about Tyler? He sings better than you."  Tyler is Ivan's best friend. They starred in White Christmas together. It was so funny to have Trish insinuate that Tyler was Ivan's boyfriend. Everyone laughed so hard. 

Some people left but more arrived. My friend Marianne arrived with her daughter Lainey. She said they were only staying for a bit. They ended up staying for at least an hour and a half. Cameron and Laura and their daughter Lily came. Laura is the somewhat self appointed creative director for all the plays done by Magic Valley Rep. She will help all the creative teams get connected to the right resources for their shows. So she was talking to a lot of the theatre people about that. It felt like there was basically a production meeting happening. 

Chris and Karin came. They had thought they were going out of town and would have to miss my party. But they decided to leave later so that they could come to the party. I was so happy to see them. They've become some really special people to me over the last year. 

They sat down at the puzzle table and took over where Jori and Tim had left off. Charlotte joined them. It was fun to watch the three of them work together. 

My neighbor Jennifer came over with her daughter Diantha. 

My friend Renea came and I gave her a tour of the year since we both love low water gardening. While we were in the front yard Carol and Kelly arrived. 

When I was back in the garage Susie came. And then Hanah and then Megan and Joe. 

I think that's everyone who came, but I might have forgot someone. Wow it was so much fun to see so many amazing people 

The puzzle was finished around 5:30. Chris jokingly put the last piece into Brandon's pocket so Brandon had the honor of putting in the last piece. 

I'd thought Cameron, Laura, and Sara had left an hour earlier so I was shocked to walk outside and find them all still talking on the patio. That was funny. And honestly an honor. I loved that they felt so comfortable hanging around. They didn't leave until about 6:30.

I started moving a few things into the house. I'd told people not to worry about gifts, but some people still brought them anyway. I was shocked that four different people brought me flowers. Kerri and Peyton brought the blue orchid. Sara brought the small vase of flowers. Karin brought me a whole bouquet of yellow roses. And someone else brought me the Gerber daisies but I'm embarrassed to say I don't remember who.  Maybe it was Amy Toft? I can't remember. I was feeling like the star of a play with those flowers. 

I also had a bunch of cards. Renea included seeds in hers. Jori also gave me a mug with earings in it and Ivan made me some sort of wooden creature. And Amy Toft gave me a face mask. Shellian gave me a gift card. I was overwhelmed by their generosity.  

Brandon and I had been invited to a Super Bowl party on Sunday. We'd planned to bring any leftovers, but we didn't have any. So we went to the store and bought chips and salsa to bring with us. 

Then we came home and I laid on my bed. It was only about 8:00 by this point, but I was exhausted. So I put on my pajamas and got into bed to read. I was asleep by 8:30. 

It had been such a great day. 

On Sunday we slept in. Gradually we got up and everyone took showers. Around 12:00 Brandon took Charlotte to the church and she was called as second counselor in the older young women's class. (We just have two classes - an older class and a younger class. 

At church they read the name of the presidency in Sacrament meeting and then she and the other presidency members were set apart in class. Brandon and I went to that. 

After church Brandon and I went out to Danica and Hunter's house in Filer for a Super bowl party. A lot of the people from my party were there as well as a few others. Everyone was connected to the theatre in some way. No one was really interested in the game. We just ate food and talked. It was great. 

Danica was really only hosting so that Kerri didn't have to. She was joking, "Super bowl what? How much salad can it hold?"

Avery had a bunch of silly flavored sodas. Like dirt flavor or birthday cake flavor. She poured out a little bit for about 12 brave people to try. Brandon was one of them. It was fun to watch people's reactions. 

After that was over we left so we could spend the rest of the evening with the kids. And that gets us caught up. 

This next week the big focus is the Anastasia set. The show opens in a month so it's time for Brandon to buckle down and get the set ready. 

Thanks for reading.