Summer Vacation 2026 - Week 9 - Seussical Week 4 - Brandon in Minnesota

The big event this week was that Brandon was at a work training in Minnesota. He was in Minneapolis. That's where his dad lived for about 8 years from the time he was 5 to about 13. So when Brandon found out he was going to be in Minneapolis he invited his dad along on the trip. His dad just had to pay for his flight and his meals. Brandon would already have the hotel and the rental car. His dad thought that sounded fun so he made sure to come. 

So Brandon went to training during the day and then drove around Minneapolis with his dad. His dad showed him many of the houses he'd lived in and the parks he'd played at. They had a great time. 

And what kind of training was this?  Well this is the type of thing that illustrates why I'm still kind of fuzzy on what Brandon actually does at the hospital. Here's how he explained it to me?

Brandon: So you know what an endoscope is?

Me: No.

Brandon: Is the little tube with a camera that they use for colonoscopies. 

Me: You learned how to fix those?

Brandon: No, if they break we return them to the manufacturer for repair.  But they need to be cleaned . . . 

Me: So you learned how to clean them?

Brandon: No, I learned how to fix the machine that cleans them. 

Me: Okay

See why it's so hard to know what he does? In a lot of cases the things he repairs are not very close to the patient. They are like three steps removed. 

So anyway, that's what he was doing all week. He left Monday morning and came home Saturday morning. 

The kids and I had a good week. It's been a long time since Brandon was gone this long. The kids have grown up a lot. I was struck by how much more helpful they are these days. 

Like when I saw a mouse outside the house I went and found Charlotte and she took care of setting the traps. I told her I'd pay her $1 per dead mouse. She caught 3 the first night and two more later. 

Or how Derrick told me at 8:00 PM, "Mom, I'm going to mow the lawn."  When I told him it was too hot he told me it was only 80 degrees. And then mowed the front and back lawns. 

One thing I didn't anticipate was how LONG the days would be without Brandon. He usually gets home around 4:00 and I didn't know how much we all relied on his arrival to break up the afternoon. Without him the days just stretched on and on without any really delineation. 

Anyway, let's do this recap thing. this will cover from Monday July 20 to Sunday July 26

Monday started out with Brandon leaving early. Soon after he left Charlotte also left. She was working an extra shift at the berry farm. That's because the berry farm is really also a garlic farm. The garlic has been harvested, but it needs to be cleaned for storage. So they offer extra shifts for kids to come clean garlic. 

Brandon took the blue van because it was the most reliable car we had and he had a 2 hour drive to the Boise airport. Charlotte took the grey van. And that left me with the pilot. I alternated between driving the pilot and the grey van through the week. 

I went to work and got a lot done. I recently decided that I need to aim for 4 hour shifts on Mondays and Fridays. So I worked from about 8 to 12. 

In the afternoon I took Derrick to the pool. He likes to go to the very deepest part of the pool and then push himself all the way to the bottom. He does this over and over again for like 40 minutes. 

I go in the shallower part of the deep end and do little foot strengthening things. Mostly its just jumping up and down using different parts of my feet. But I also do some stretching. It's really good for my feet.

That evening the kids were called for rehearsal, but I wasn't. I stayed home with Derrick. I think I mostly just worked on blog stuff. 

At rehearsal the kids were working on the fish scene. Jojo imagines that the bath tub is a pond and imagines fish swimming in it. The kids in the cast come out with fish and do a little dance. Charlotte and Lydia's job is to bring the bath tub on and off the stage. They do a lot of prop moving. We joke they are the Thing 1 and Thing 2 Furniture Moving Company.

The fish are supposed to be done by all the kids 12 and under. So Veronica is in that. Two of the fish kids were out of town so Charlotte and Lydia ended up learning the dance. At the end the director filmed the dance and put it in our Band group. The kids who were gone could watch the dance and see what they needed to do by watching Charlotte and Lydia. 

They all had a really fun time. 

Tuesday was my day off. It started off with watering as usual. The yard is looking so pretty. 

I'm really happy with the fire pit area. The plants around it are coming in nicely.

Charlotte and Lydia both worked at the berry farm that morning. When they got back we went on our adventure for the day. We went out to Lake Walcott. The only time I've ever been here was when we stayed in a tiny cabin here in February of 2021. I've always kind of known there was a swim beach there, but I never knew what it was like. So I decided it was time to find out. 

I'd invited Jori to come too. She and her family went out earlier in the morning. She texted me and let me know the beach was great!

The kids were all hungry so as soon as we got there we had lunch. 

Here's Derrick with the water behind him. 

Here I am. 

Then we played in the shallow water for a long time. It was fun to just stand in the water and talk with Jori and Tim. The kids were telling them all their throw up stories. Great bonding time. 

We left around 3:00 and drove home. We'd taken the grey van for two reasons. 1. The pilot sounds like a tin can when you drive it. And I didn't want to listen to that for an hour. And 2. The grey van was so close to 300,000 miles. When we got home we were within 25 miles. 

That night I realized that we are at the point of summer where boredom strikes no matter what. We'd had a lovely time at the lake that day. And yet in the evening we were all super bored. 

Also we missed Brandon.

Veronica and I didn't have rehearsal. We weren't sure about Charlotte and Lydia. So they went to the theatre and hung around until Nate decided that he didn't need them in that scene. And then as soon as he sent them home he thought of something funny they could do. 

Wednesday all three kids had their normal shift at the berry farm. I did my own weeding in my yard while they were gone. It's been kind of humid lately and even though it was 8:00 AM it was already like 74 degrees and I was sweating. 

I went to work in the afternoon. Veronica had an orthodontist appointment at 2:00. Any other summer I would have had to rearrange my whole day for that. But this summer I HAVE TWINS WHO CAN DRIVE. So Charlotte took her to the appointment and I just stayed at work. It was just to repair a broken bracket so I didn't really need to be there for anything. It was great!

We'd ordered off brand high tops from Amazon for the kids Seussical Costumes/School shoes. Those arrived in the mail. 

The grey van had been driven to and from the theatre on Tuesday night and to and from the berry farm on Wednesday morning and then to and from the orthodontist so it was now within 7 miles of the 300.000 mile mark. 

I didn't want it to happen when we were unprepared. So I had the kids all get in the car and we went for a little drive to go over 300,000. We drove east out of town and then turned into a fancy neighborhood in Kimberly. Here's the link to the video. 

And here is the still picture. 

Then we went to McDonalds and got hot fudge sundays to celebrate. 

And here's the van at home. What a good van!

One notable thing was NOT happening this week - Derrick wasn't at Boys Camp. That's because our stake leaders completely failed him. 

Months ago one of the stake young men leaders sent out an email letting us know the boys would be doing a stake level boys camp. I replied to the email and let him know that my son had autism and I'd like to know what kind of support would be in place for my son. I didn't say this, but I imagined something like inviting Brandon to attend the camp as a cook or something so he could be there if Derrick needed him. 

I figured I could bring that suggestion up when the leader replied to my email. 

But instead I heard nothing. 

Near the beginning of the summer Brandon tried emailing members of the Stake Young Mens presidency. By this point our main priority was just trying to get some sort of itinerary for the camp. It was being called something like, "Army of Helaman Camp." I've heard that name used for a camp that was more of a missionary training thing than a camping trip thing. I was worried that it would be full of "sit down and listen to a speaker" type activities that would be super boring for Derrick. Brandon and I were trying to find out if the camp would be a good fit. 

No one replied to Brandon. 

No one was replying to anyone actually. Our bishopric knew NOTHING about the camp. The stake leaders were in charge of it and had said they didn't need help from ward leaders. This also made me nervous. I didn't feel comfortable sending to a camp run by people neither he nor I knew.  

On June 29th we got a text message from our ward leaders asking for a head count for the boys who would be attending the camp on July 22. I replied that we were still trying to get an idea of if the camp was going to be a good fit for Derrick. 

Our bishop called the Stake Young Mens president and FINALLY got the itinerary. He called me and read it off to me. I knew it wouldn't be a good fit. The second day had "free time and games."  I was like, "And that's where they all lose Derrick."

The bishop agreed. He said that maybe they could get Brandon approved to go on the camp. I was like, "Sorry that's not possible. Brandon has a work trip that week."  Also he doesn't exactly have a job he can just take time off of with three weeks notice. 

So Derrick wasn't going. He was pretty okay with that, but I was annoyed. He could have gone if ANYONE had spent ANY time doing preplanning. It was just a massive fail. 

Later my friend Cort offered to take Derrick up for a day. Cort was helping drive boys up on Wednesday and was going to stay overnight and then come home. He would have been happy to bring Derrick along. And I would have been happy to let him. But I told him, "I don't want the Stake to be able to count him. If they didn't go to any effort to include him I don't want them taking credit if he does attend camp."

So that was that and it was fine. (But I'm still a little mad about it.)

That night at rehearsal we worked on blocking some of the Whoville scenes. I'm in the "Here on Who" number, but then it goes into the bathtub/fish scene which I'm not in. I brought a book and read that when we were done with Here on Who.

Thursday was a busy day with watering and then grocery shopping. Followed by a quick shower and then meeting with Andrea at Chattertown and then going to work at Aspen Grove. 

Derrick had been asking to make spaghetti hot dogs. I thought he wanted to just make spaghetti with like chopped up hot dogs in it. That sounded terrible. But then he showed me the youtube video of how to do it. I realized this would be a fun project for him. So we spent about an hour doing this. 

First we had to stick dry spaghetti into an uncooked hot dog. 

Then we boiled both of those in a pan on the stove. When the hot dog was cooked and the noodles were soft we used tongs to get them out of the water and put them on a cutting board with wax paper. Derrick spread sauce on the noodle and then added cheese. 

Then we rolled it up and put it in a bun. The first time we did this we didn't cook the noodles long enough and they were still brittle and broke when we tried to roll them. But it worked the second time. 

Our third try was the best. the video told us to butter a bun and cook the whole thing in the oven for a few minutes. So we did that with the third one. Derrick said it was delicious. 

Rehearsal was supposed to be a music rehearsal for the other half of how to sing Here on Who. But we had some conflicts. Newsies was opening that night. The third floor practice room shares a wall with the balcony of the theater. And it's not a sound proof wall. 

So we were going to have to do the singing practice in the small classroom on the second floor. But the Air conditioner was out. And putting 20 people in a tiny room without air-conditioning while temps were near the 100's was not a good plan. 

So rehearsal was cancelled. Instead I took the girls to find the two make up things they would need for the show. They were going to have their make up done for the promo poster on Friday. Alexandra was going to do all their make up and provide most of the supplies, but we needed to buy black eyeliner and red lipstick. So we went to target for that. 

When we came home we watched Men in Black. We've been watching space movies this summer and that one fits the theme. The kids have seen it before, but not recently. And some of the kids had never seen it all the way through. It was really fun to watch. 

On Friday I went to work for the morning. While I was there I texted Laura to see if she needed anything for the costumes ahead of the promo shoot that night. 

She replied back that she still needed to get red shirts for the girls. So after work we went to Hobby Lobby and bought two red shirts. 

I was fine with this because my other plan for the afternoon had been cleaning the house and I didn't really have my heart set on that. 

But part of me was a little annoyed because we've been talking about those red shirts forever and here I was buying them at the last minute. Laura had been saying that she was going to look for them at thrift stores - which is fine. But they really only cost like $8. It would have been fine for me to pick those up earlier. 

I'm started to realize that nearly everyone in theatre has ADHD and they LOVE doing things last minute because that's how their brains thrive. Meanwhile I have anxiety and I LOVE doing things ahead of time so I don't have to worry about them. It's kind of a stressful combo. (For me - the ADHD people are fine with their dumpster fire lives.) 

At 4:00 we went to the theatre and met up with the other promo shoot people. Andrea's daughter Capri is Jojo so they were there. Alexandra started with Jojo's make up. She had a very specific plan for the Whos. Capri was SO CUTE. She looked like a little cartoon character. It made me an Andrea excited for our own Who make up. 

Then Alexandra started working on the twins. Lydia went first and then Charlotte. Laura had finished panic sewing the outfits and the girls changed into those. Andrea had made the headbands. The final result was so cute!

The only thing missing was tights. The girls were supposed to be in red and blue stiped leggings. But Laura forgot to send me the link and I forgot to follow up on getting it from her. So they were in their Cinderella tights. They'll have the real tights for the show.

I'm going to share the pictures, but understand that I'm really not supposed to share these until the official poster comes out. I'm banking on the fact that only a few people read this blog these days. Please don't reshare these pictures. (DAD I'M TALKING TO YOU!)

 Here's Charlotte

And here is Lydia. 

And here they are together. 

Our friend Ian took the official pictures. He also took pictures of Jojo, The Cat in the Hat, and Horton. They will all be on the poster. 

We are all pretty excited to have family members on the poster. This is the first time. 

When we got back home Veronica had made pizza for dinner. Bless that girl. 

We all watched Men in Black 2. 

Then at 9:00 we went to the pool for another "midnight swim."  There were lots of people there. The kids all played in the deep deep end. I stayed on the other side of the deep end and did all my little foot hopping things. There was fun music playing and the sky had really pretty clouds lit up with the sun set. It was a lovely evening. 

We planned to stay about an hour. But at the 40 minute mark the life guards blew their whistles and ordered everyone out of the pool. They had seen lightning. 

But they didn't really make that clear at first. So everyone was just kind of standing on the grass waiting to be let back in. I knew it was probably because of lightning and Charlotte had seen it. So I told the kids, "Let's go before everyone starts leaving."  So we grabbed our stuff. As we were leaving the building the staff came over the loud speaker and said something like, "Sorry we are closed for lightning. If you paid for admission tonight please come to the desk for a complementary wristband for free entry on Saturday or Sunday." I was like, "Yep, we left just in time."

Brandon's plane arrived in Boise late Friday night. He'd planned to drive home after landing, but he was super tired. So he stopped at a rest stop and slept until the sun rose and woke him up around 6:00. 

So he didn't get home until about 8 on Saturday morning. I was already up and watering. 

Here are my pretty Rose of Sharron blooms. 

and look at this fun Cosmos. 

Brandon came home and told me all about his trip. Then he took a shower and fell asleep. I finished watering and then started packing up drinks for my work BBQ. We were having a casual get together for work. The admin team was in charge of main dishes and everyone else was just in charge of side dishes. I'd volunteered for drinks because Brandon was out of town and I'm don't love cooking for a crowd. 

I had pink lemonaid in my 5 gallon water cooler. I had a bunch of water bottles in a cooler with ice. And I had 48 sodas in our electric cooler. Brandon and the kids helped me load everything up and then we drove to the park. And then when I realized that park was the wrong park, we drove to the right park. 

The BBQ was really fun. I was the second employee so I know everyone. But a lot of the employees don't know each other. So it's important that we do things like this. Sure we all work together, but therapy is kind of a lonely profession so it's important that people feel like they know their coworkers. 

We had a fun time talking. I felt like I did a good job of asking people questions about themselves and starting conversations among people that way. 

When that was over we came home and watched Men in Black 3. I really like that one. And then we all just relaxed the rest of the day. Brandon slept a lot. I worked on my Habakkuk blog. (And learned how to spell Habakkuk correctly.)

Veronica was making more dinosaur lego things. She did a silly thing with a "Lady and the Tramp" style dinner. Two raptors were at dinner with a human on the platter. A T-Rex played a guitar. A Pteranodon played the accordion. We all thought this was hilarious. And Veronica has a weird imagination.

On Sunday we drove down to Utah for our nephew/cousin Weston's mission home coming. Two years ago we missed his farewell because of a flat tire. This time the drive was uneventful. 

Here are the kids on the couch before we went into the chapel. 

Derrick was having a hard morning and the chapel felt loud and chaotic so he and I went back into the foyer and talked it over. Then we just stayed there because it was so calm. We both ended up sleeping through most of the meeting. When we woke back up Derrick was in a much better mood. 

Here I am after my little nap. 

Then we went to Melanie's and had a wonderful time talking and laughing with everyone. It was a really good visit. 

Around 5:00 we left and drove back home to Twin Falls. When we got back the city was super smoky from wild fire smoke in Oregon. 

We all went to bed pretty quick. Brandon fell asleep almost as soon as we got home. 

And that's another week. 

Thanks for reading.