Week before vacation

For the second time EVER this blog post will be completely written via mobile rather than a web based browser. (The other time was when we were moving from Alabama.)

We are currently driving between St George and Las Vegas. The scenery is boring so it's a perfect time to update the blog.

This last week was mostly me trying to tie up a thousand loose ends so I could drop out of my life for 10 days. There was a lot to do.

The good news was that Brandon was home. For a long time we thought he would have to be in Ohio for a training this week. But that was postponed. And that meant he was home. 

Okay, let's get going on this recap.

Sunday March 15 was our stake conference. So we just stayed home and watched/listened on zoom. My friend Hanah is trying to get into the sour dough donut market so she baked some test donuts and had us and a few other people come over for a taste test. That was fun.

At home Charlotte and Lydia finished part of a bird costume they had been working on. Each feather was made out of foam paper.

They had been working on this for several days.

I had one little daffodil that bloomed in the front yard.

I spent most of the day writing and writing and writing.

I updated this blog - TWICE! I did the regular update for the second week of March. And then I finally finished the post about our northern Idaho trip.

Then I wrote a rough draft of my post about the book of Jonah.

Monday

Monday was a full day of work (5 hours) at Aspen Grove.

At home I was feeling kind of depressed. I had a lot to do, but just didn't feel like doing any of it. But I finally got myself outside to fertilize the lawn. And that got me going. I fertilized the front and back lawns. Then I weeded a garden bed. It made me feel really good to get my hands in some soil.

Tuesdays are a day where I normally go to work in the afternoon, but I would be in the office on Wednesday afternoon this week. So I decided to just work from home. I worked on stuff on my computer until about 1:00 and then spent the rest of the day outside. 

I went to D&B and bought chicken manure to amend the garden beds and some stuff to make the soil around the berries more acidic.

I was able to weed the rest of the garden beds. I planted peas, lettuce, spinach, and onions. I also sprayed the fruit trees on last time. (The plum and peach trees were about to bloom so this was squeezing in at the last minute.)

I was supposed to go to Parent Teacher Conference at the High School. But I didn't want to get ready for that. So I asked Brandon to do that. He went there. It was the first time he's ever been in the High School. Which is kind of wild to think about.

Here are pictures of the garden when I was done.

This is the only true onion bed. For some reason I planted onions in every other bed last fall. But this is the main place for onions.

Here's spinach I planted last fall. I added more seeds.

This bed will have lettuce and carrots. (And onions.)

This will have peas.

And here's the whole view.

And here are the peach blossoms nearly ready to bloom.

Wednesday morning I started out at castle therapy and got a lot done so I could be gone for a week.

Then I went home and had my scripture study group. This was the second week of Jonah. We focused on Chapter 2 and chapter 4. 

At 12:00 I was at Aspen Grove for our monthly team meeting. We used to do these in the evening, but decided that daytime is better now.  We had Cafe Rio food to celebrate Aspen Grove's 7th Anniversary on April 1.

I did a small training on how to handle late cancellations so that the billing doesn't get all screwed up.

After the meeting I went to my office and worked for several hours.

After school Brandon went to Veronica's parent teacher conference.

That afternoon Derrick helped me find all the camping stuff in the garage. We were hoping to go grocery shopping as a family for vacation food, but we just didn't have time.

Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica all went to Young Women. They were playing Bunco.

Derrick and Brandon went to the Teachers Activity. They did scavenger hunts at the mall.

I stayed home and worked on my Jonah blog post. It will be published on the 29th. I wanted to have it done so I didn't have to worry about it while I was on vacation.

Thursday was the kids first day of Spring Break. At 9:00 I took Derrick and Charlotte shopping for all the fun trip food 

We brought it home and put all the fridge and freezer stuff.

I gave the kids a packing list for their clothes and things. 

Then I went to work. First stop was Chattertown. They are doing so well. Andrea was trying to ask me something long term. I was like, "um, I'm like a day away from vacation. I'm not able to process that right now."

Then I went to Aspen Grove and took care of some things.

After I was done there I went home and did the last of the Castle therapy stuff.

And then I took a nap.

When I woke up the kids were cleaning out the van. That was so nice of them.

Charlotte and I started dividing all the snack food into baggies. She also started packing the food bag.

At 5:15 I took Veronica to theatre. I'd been so worried I would forget to do that! This day did not feel like a Thursday at all.

One of the things on my to do list was to go look at the plum and peach trees which had bloomed.

Here's the peach tree.

It's so pretty. I'm glad I got to see it bloom. I was worried I'd miss it.

Here are some crocuses in the front yard.

Brandon was at CSI all evening so it was up to the kids and me to pick the car. Lydia helped me figure out how to fit things.

I spent the rest of the evening scheduling guest posts for the Exponent. There were three really good ones that came in so I got them scheduled to go up while I was gone.

Friday was day zero for our trip. We would be leaving that evening. But Brandon and I still had to go to work. He had a full 8 hours. I only did about 2.5 at Aspen Grove, but there was still a lot of work at home.

While I was at work the kids took care of matching socks, washing the dishes, and cleaning up dog poop from the yard.

When I got home I took a small nap and then finished packing the fridge and freezer food into the cooler. We got all the backpacks and suitcases packed in the car. We had so much food. Like almost too much. It was a good problem to have.

I watered all the garden beds really well.

Here's our Forsyth bush.

Here's the garden.

Here's a little bulb bed. I think we'll miss these tulips.

And here are the peach tree blossoms again.

There were lots of mason bees buzzing around the plum blossoms.

In the front yard there were hyacinths blooming.

They were so pretty.

Brandon made it home around 3:40. He changed while we finished the last of the things - locking windows, washing a few more dishes, and taking out the garbage.

And then we were off!

I'll write all about our trip later. Thanks for reading!