I tried to come up with a description for this post other than Seussical Week 2. But really that's it. It's just Seussical week 2. That was the dominant thing going on this week.
After the busiest three weeks of the whole summer it was nice to have a week that was kind of boring.
It wasn't completely boring - this is a house full of teenagers after all. Charlotte and Lydia went backpacking with Brandon. Derrick and Veronica had a slightly intense dog sitting job. And the blue van died for a few days.
But overall, it was a simple week. So let's do the recap. This will cover from Monday July 6th to Sunday July 12.
Monday was pretty typical. I went to work in the morning. In the afternoon I picked up Derrick's friend Ty so he could come over and see Derrick's computer games run with the new Graphics card. I think they had fun together.
Later, after Ty had gone home my friend Alison came over to pay Derrick for watering her plants while she was gone. Before she came Derrick had been talking about all the things he wanted to buy and trying to figure out how he would save up for them.
She came over and had a bill in her hand. I thought it was a $20 and was thinking, "That's kind of too much. All he did was water 10 pots for three days."
She handed him the money and then left. As she was leaving Derrick looked at the money and said, "Mom, I told you a $50 bill was REAL!" She had paid him $50! That was incredibly generous of her, but it also upended our entire economy in the house. The girls had all been working super hard taking care of dogs over the 4th of July weekend and they were going to make about $50 for all their efforts. So there was some jealousy over how much Derrick got paid.
Derrick was super happy because suddenly he had enough money for a lego set he'd been wanting.
(And for the record, I did know that $50 were real. I don't know why Derrick thought I didn't know about them.)
That night we didn't have rehearsal. I spent most of the evening writing blog posts.
Tuesday morning started off with watering the yard and then scripture study at 10:00. We studied Habukkuk this month. Habukkuk is my FAVORITE prophet in the 12 minor prophets because he yells at God and I find that highly relatable. It was a good study.
That afternoon I looked at the LONG afternoon and evening ahead of us. Brandon would be at CSI so we wouldn't see him until 8:00. And I didn't think any of us were called for rehearsal. So I decided that we should go to Dierkies Lake. I also decided it would be easy to just get to pizzas to eat there rather than try to come up with all the things for Hoagies. So at 2:30 we picked up pizza and drove to the lake.
The kids had a fun time swimming and I laid on the blanket and read. I was reading a book about the TV show Parks and Rec. It was so fun.
At some point I realized that we DID have rehearsal. Or at least Veronica did. She was a fish in one scene so she needed to learn the Ooohs and Ahhs for that part.
We came home from the lake and I took a shower and then went to my friend Carol's birthday party for about an hour. I was there from 6-7:15. It was fun. Then I came home and picked up Veronica and took her to the theatre. She went to the 3rd floor and I went to the 2nd so see if I could find Andrea. I knew she would be there because her daughter is Jojo who was singing a lot in this song.
Andrea was there. She was talking costumes with Laura. All three of us had a good time hanging out. I told Andrea - "It's happening! We are in a play together and we can hang out!"
I tried on my costume again and remembered to take a picture this time. This is a weird smile, but I do like this dress.
Wednesday the kids were up early for their shifts at the berry farm. They did a lot of garlic trimming and so when I picked them up at 10:00 they all smelled a lot like garlic.
The young men were supposed to go to the temple for baptisms that night, but SURPRISE SURPRISE no one made a reservation. So instead they made the decision to switch the activity from the next week with this week. The next activity was a root beer float activity. And in theory this was SO EASY to change activities. But someone still had to buy the ice cream and root beer. And since Brandon was already at work. That someone was ME!!!!!!!
I was happy to buy the things. It really wasn't that big of a deal. I was already going to the store to pick up a prescription. But it just highlighted yet another instance where the Young Mens leadership made a decision that created a situation where someone besides them had to pick up the slack.
File that away, it's important later.
Anyway the activity was really fun. Brandon asked me to buy three different types of rootbeer and three different types of vanilla. The boys did a taste test with the rootbeer and the ice cream to pick their favorite flavors. Then they made their ultimate root beer float with their favorite ice cream and their favorite rootbeer.
And all the extras came home to our house. So that was fun for the rest of us.
That evening at rehearsal we were all at rehearsal so practice singing the big opening number - Oh the Things you Can Think! This was so fun to go through.
Also we got our scripts!
Thursday was another watering day. I get up at 6 and start the sprinkers in the front yard. (They aren't on an automatic timer yet so the timer is me.) And then I drag a little sprinker around the back yard and water the back lawn that way for like an hour. I'm seriously considering that we dedicate all of October to putting in the back sprinkler system.
My friend Kori was in vacation in California and had asked us to take care of her dogs. This would be a big job because it was so hot. We'd let the dogs out at 7:00 and then bring them back in at 10:00. Then we'd let them out again at 7:00 at night and let them back in at 10:00. So that involved going to Kori's 4 times every day. And they live across a busy street so I would need to drive the kids.
Thursday was the first day doing that. Here's Veronica with the dogs. She LOVES dogs so she was so happy.
We'd driven there without any problems so it was a shock when we went to the car and I couldn't get it to start! I could turn the ignition, but nothing happened. Not even the click of a dead battery.
I called Brandon to see if he could trouble shoot it with me. But he couldn't think of any obvious fixes. So he said he'd look at it later. Veronica and I just walked home.
I was a little annoyed about the problem because this was the NEW van. But overall I was just grateful that it had picked a convenient place to die. I was glad this hadn't happened at the grocery store when it was full of perishable food.
I went back home and hand watered the garden. Look at my pretty sun flowers.
Then I took the grey van and Charlotte and we went grocery shopping. They grey van was like, "What? You need me?" It has been like 300 miles short of 300,000 miles for a while so it was kind of nice to put some more miles on it and get it closer to the goal.
After grocery shopping I went to work. I was doing well at work for the first hour or so, but soon I felt very sleepy. I didn't want to go home because I had a lot to do, but I really couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. So I did something I've thought about doing before, but have never actually done. I clocked out and then took a nap on the futon in my office. I think I was asleep for about 40 minutes and then I was able to get up and get back to work.
When Brandon and I were both done with work we went over to Kori's to check on the Honda. Brandon brought his multimeter. The battery still had a charge of 12 volts so the battery wasn't the problem. The car hadn't done any "cachunga" noises before dying so that ruled out the alternator. And that just left the starter.
So we kind of knew what was wrong. But Brandon had no time to work on the van. He was getting ready for the camping trip with the twins. So we just left the van to sit in front of my friends house for the weekend. (And he did replace the starter on Monday and it did work again.)
That evening Veronica and I had rehearsal. We were going to learn the chorography to "Here on Who." This was our first chorography rehearsal. Our friend Sara was teaching.
It was SO MUCH FUN!!!!
We started with a silly warm up. At first I was like, "this feels dumb." But I didn't worry about it and just had fun. I'm glad we started with something silly because it made us all feel really comfortable trying new things in front of each other.
Everyone was really encouraging of each other. I think it helps that there are like 6 whos who are under 12. Everyone was kind to the kids as they figured things out and that made us all kind to each other.
Veronica and I are a little who family. We sing a line that goes something like, "picture the tinies houses and grocery stores." We also move around A LOT. There are only about 13 whos so we are trying to make the town seem busy even through there are not a lot of us.
At one point we needed to partner up. Veronica and I were partners. Then they wanted all the shorter partners in front. Well that meant I was in front because Veronica is slightly shorter than me. I was there with all the tiny kids. It was really funny.
During that part they had the front row sit down while Sara taught the back row the movements. I joked, "If I sit down I don't know if I can get back up." Little Claire who plays Cindy Lou Who thought that was so funny. She said, "She says she doesn't know if she can get back up!!!!"
The song has a lot of silly little sounds so for the next 3 days my brain was just full of "Who Who, Who Who" And "Wadda Wadda Wadda" noises.
On Friday Brandon took the day off work. He and the twins had already packed their stuff. They got up and drove to the Sawtooths and went on a back packing trip.
I was home with Derrick and Veronica all weekend. Well first I went to work and when I was done with that I was home with Derrick and Veronica.
I wanted us to get away from Twin Falls for a bit so we went on a drive out to the Hagerman Fossil Beds. Derrick has wanted to visit these because they have the word FOSSIL in them. I told him they were kind of boring, but he still wanted to see them.
So we drove out to Hagerman and went on the road to the Fossil Beds.
And yep, they were boring. There's no active dig sites for tourists to see. And most of the stuff is about the Oregon trail.
When we were done with the drive part we went to the visitor center.
Here's the fossil of the Hagerman Horse.
And the other fossils.
And that is basically the whole thing. Yep - kind of boring. But at least we went.
We drove back on the freeway and stopped in Jerome. Moss Greenhouse was closing for the season in a few days and everything was 75% off. So I got several plants for less than $20.
The whole time we were driving we were in the grey van. We were able to put a lot of miles on it that weekend. It's now about 170 miles away from 300,000.
And then we came home and made root beer floats.
It's become tradition to make Pizza on french bread when Brandon takes the other kids hiking. So we made that. Then we watched The Simpsons Movie. That was funny. Derrick is at the peak age for appreciating the Simpsons.
At 9:00 we went to the pool for their first "Midnight Swim" even in years. (They had to fix their underwater light system.) I was expected just a few people, but it was PACKED. There so many people there. The day had been nearly 100 degrees so the water was super warm. It felt really nice. We stayed for an hour.
On Saturday morning I got the kids up early to help take care of Kori's dogs. A day or so earlier I'd noticed that she had volunteer Salvia plants growing in her lawn. I texted her and asked if she was okay with me digging them up and taking them home. She said okay.
So while the kids played with the dogs I dug up about 6 plants from Kori's lawn.
And then I came home and planted them in my yard. I was super worried about transplanting them on a weekend with super hot temperatures. But they survived.
Here's the one from the lawn picture. It's doing great.
I also did a bunch of other yard work during the morning and again in the evening. I'd bought these plants called Truffulas at Moss Green house. I wanted them in my yard in honor of Seussical.
Here's some other garden pictures. Look at these huge black berries.
And I have gogi berries.
Brandon and the twins came home and told us all about their hike to 4th of July Lake. They'd had a great time.
Sunday was a super busy day. By the end of the day I was thinking, "I can't wait to go to work tomorrow and relax."
First up was guest posts. Normally that's pretty simple. But this time there was a submission from someone who has kind of a large following and a slightly controversial platform. So I asked all the other bloggers what they thought about publishing something from this person. And that lead to a BIG discussion on our conversation thread. The consensus was to not publish the submission.
Next up was a meeting with the bishop. He wanted feedback on how the young mens program is going. And I did NOT hold back. It was a respectful conversation, but I was very direct and honest. I used the fact that I bought ice cream that week as an example of how the leaders are making decisions, but not understanding how the consequences of those decisions are trickling down to other people.
The meeting lasted about 45 minutes. And I was really proud of myself for not flipping into Fawn mode. Several years ago I realized that meeting with the bishop triggers my fawn response and I become a COMPLETELY different person in the bishops office. I could be super upset about something in the lobby but as soon as I'm in the office I'm all smiles and trying to make a good impression.
I worked really hard to quell that fawn response. So I was very proud of myself for getting through a whole meeting with the Bishop and the second counselor without feeling like I had to make them happy.
As soon as the meeting was over I went into the lobby and was surprised to find Brandon and the kids there. It was 1:15 and church started at 1:30, but our ward couldn't get into the chapel because the other ward was still standing around and chatting in there.
I asked someone, "what's up?" And they said, "there was a farewell in that ward." And I was like, "Well they need to be farewelling somewhere else."
I pushed my way into the chapel and started going up to groups of young adults re-living their high school glory days and told them, "HEY WE HAVE ANOTHER WARD STARTING IN 15 MINUTES. YOU NEED TO MOVE TO THE HALL WAY!!!!!" Yeah I might have been a little louder than I should have been but SERIOUSLY they needed to get out of there.
I shooed about 3 separate groups out of the chapel and then more of our ward was able to make it in. Alison's mom was already in the chapel and she told me, "Good for you Valerie! I've never seen a ward stay that long!"
Later Alison saw me and said, "You are my hero!"
In hidesight I probably should have gone up to the microphone and in a calm tone said something like, "Brothers and Sisters, we have another ward coming in. Please move your conversations to the foyer." But well, my default setting is loud. So that's what everyone got.
Anyway, our Teachers were FINALLY able to make it into the chapel and they started preparing the Sacrament. We started about 5 minutes late.
After sacrament meeting I had to leave church and go to my friend Sarah's house for the monthly meeting for the Theatre Gala of the Magic Valley. It was a good meeting. It was my first time officially leading the meeting as "The Chair."
And after all of that it should be no surprise that I broke out in hives again that night. (But I'll have good news about making progress towards solving the hives problem in my next post.)
That afternoon Derrick was surprised to see a small package show up on our porch. It was a lego set that he'd ordered that had been delayed for a couple days.
He's been buying dinosaur legos. This one was a baby velociraptor and some plants that it hid behind.
And that concludes that week. I'm actually caught up again. Thanks for being patient as I caught up.
Thanks for reading.
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