Summer Weeks 4 and 5 - Quick Recap

Heeeeeeeyyyyyy.  

I have so much to do today. We are preparing to go on vacation and I forgot how much stuff there is too pack and prep. 

But I also really want to update the blog because if I don't do it now, well it definite won't get done when I'm home with a billion vacation photos. So this is going to be quick and maybe short. 

Derrick has become very motivated to be potty trained at night. YAY. He told me that if he was dry at night he wanted a Remote Control Spider Man Car. I was thrilled that this was his idea. We made a chart with 20 squares. When he is dry he will get the car. 

We've tried things like this in the past and he usually gets discouraged by how long it takes to earn the prize. So I added a small prize every 5 times he is dry. First he'd get rootbeer, then ice cream, then the DVD Abominable (which I was going to buy anyway, but Hey he said he wanted it as a prize so that's great) and finally the Spider Man Car. 

On Monday June 15th Derrick came into my room at about 6:30 in the morning and announced. "MOM I"M DRY." This was the 5th time he'd been dry and he knew he'd earned rootbeer. He was so proud of what he'd done. I got dressed and we walked to Smith's and bought a case of rootbeer. We came back and he let everyone have a can. 

We'd watched Singing in the Rain the week before and the kids LOVED it. Derrick and Veronica liked to act out one of the scenes.  Here they are doing that.

I went to work in the morning and then the kids and I went swimming in the afternoon. The water was sort of cold and I spent the whole time nearly shivering. After we left the day got colder and by Tuesday we were back in the 60's. 

Charlotte and Lydia are super lucky to be twins. They play Barbies together all day long. They have Frozen Barbies and base a lot of their stories off of the Anya and Elsya youtube channel. (Basically Anya and Elsya are cousins and their mom's are Anna and Elsa.) In Charlotte and Lydia's word Anya and Elsya have baby sisters.  Well they decided to say those babies had grown up a little and started using some other dolls to represent those siblings.  Then they pretended Anna was pregnant with another baby.  They spent a lot of time rearranging their doll house to make room for the new baby.

This is the new babies room.

The now little girls room.

The pet area.

This is Anna in bed with the new baby.

Everyone is crowded around to see the baby.

This next part might have too much TMI for the male readers.  Just giving you a heads up.

I hadn't been feeling well for a few days. I'd feel fine for work, but as soon as work was over I'd feel tired. Sometimes I'd feel dizzy. Other times my arms would feel heavy. It was really strange.

In addition to not feeling well, I realized I had no idea when my last period had been. I've never had a regular cycle, but it's generally every 35 days. I haven't had to track it for years so I haven't really paid attention to what day it starts or what day it should start. I just kind of think back to what was going on the last time I had a period and when it's been about 5 weeks I expect my period to start.

Only this time I can't remember when my last period was because so much of the last three months just blends together. I'm pretty certain I had one in March. And maybe one at the end of April/Beginning of May? But if I did, I cannot remember when it was.

So here we were in the middle of June and I wasn't feeling well and I was tired, and I was beginning to suspect my period was late.

I think you can see where this is going.

I didn't think I was pregnant, but honestly with my track record it wouldn't be outside of the possible universe. Mostly I just wanted to rule out pregnancy as a reason I wasn't feeling well.

So when Derrick and I went to the store to buy a rootbeer we also looked for a pregnancy test. The only ones at Smiths were like $13 and I thought, "Nope, I'm not that curious."

Later that day I went grocery shopping and bought a test for $3 at Winco. On Tuesday morning I took the test. It was negative.  Whew.  I'm not pregnant.

So what's up?

I really don't know. I spent the rest of the week feeling fine in the morning and then crashing in the afternoon. The muscles in my neck got real stiff for a few days.

I started to feel better by the weekend. And now I'm almost back to normal. (I'm still taking naps in the afternoon, but that's more because I choose to and not because my body is crying out for sleep.)

But it's nearly two weeks later and my period still hasn't started. My best guess is that all the stress from the last few months has affected my hormones and that's why my period is late. If it hasn't started by the time we are back from vacation I'm going to make an appointment with my doctor to see if there is anything else going on.

Okay TMI over

When I was at the store on Monday I found a new dish draining rack thingy. We've needed a new and bigger one for a while. So I was happy to see this.

At work our new receptionist came in for some training with me.  She had to give her two weeks notice at her old job so she wasn't able to start for officially for a few weeks. But she was able to come in on Tuesdays to start to see what we do. 

After work I stopped by our new office to mark where on my new desk I wanted my monitor. I knew my boss had talked about repainting the office before we moved in, but I hadn't realized he'd already done it.  It was so fun to walk in and see the bright walls with art hanging on them. 

Our new office has three office rooms.  Each one was painted a really pretty color. One was blue, another orange, and another purple. This is going to be such a great place for our clients - especially the children. 

There were also business cards on my desk. I didn't realize I was going to have my own cards. This is also how I learned that I have been promoted from Administrative Assistant to Office Administrator. 

Brandon's new work is one mile away from my new office. So after leaving my office the kids and I drove over to visit Brandon for a minute.  We met his boss and another co-worker.  Brandon LOVES the people he works with.  He's had very few jobs where he actually liked going to work.  But now he comes home and tells us all about the funny things people say or the good conversations he's had. One day his boss even replied with the correct line when Brandon used a quote from Apollo 13.

While we were there the kids were jumping on top of an old RV couch that was sitting on the floor of the shop. Brandon's boss, Bill, said, "Do you guys want that? It's free."

It took me about 5 seconds to realize it would make a great outdoor couch on our patio and it took me about 30 more seconds to figure out how to fit it in the car along with four kids and a dog.  Brandon put it in the car and we drove home all squished.

When Brandon got home he helped put it in place on the patio.  We covered it with a sheet I'd brought for another outdoor project.  It needed some sort of box underneath to make it higher, but it was good enough to start with.

Here's where it is in relation to the rest of the patio.

I was feeling weak again so I sat on the couch and soon everyone was out there crowded around me.  It was nice to have somewhere comfy to sit. You can't tell, but it was actually pretty cold outside. We had several small blankets keeping us warm. 

Wednesday was another cold day. We'd been scheduled to go swimming at 4:00 so Brandon could meet up with us after work, but it was too cold.  That was fine because I wasn't feeling well. I think this is the day I was dizzy and didn't even trust myself to walk down the stairs. This is how I spent most of my afternoon.

Since the evening was so chilly we borrowed the last two Harry Potter movies from our neighbors and watched the first one for an early movie night. It was actually pleasantly surprised by how well done the movie was. Characters introduced themselves. And people gave important dialogue while facing the camera. I'm sure the move would still have been incomprehensible to someone who hadn't seen the other movies, but it did a decent job of explaining the plot.

On Thursday I realized I was feeling better than I had all week. Brandon and I have noticed that watching action movies somehow usually makes us feel better.  We call it the "Action Movie Cure." I guess that's what worked this time.

Thursday was my last day in the old office. My boss had been taking care of moving everything so there wasn't much I had to do.  I made sure all my office supplies were in my filing cabinet and he took care of the rest.

When Brandon came home from work I took the Honda to get a rock chip repaired. Then I swung by Walmart and Lowes to pick up some things for the house and the garden.

Thursday evening I went out and did some work in the garden.  Our lettuce was nearing the end of it's life and kept trying to go to seed. And despite my best efforts, I couldn't eat it all. I knew it would completely bolt while we were on vacation so it was time to take it out and give it away.

First I took picture to document how well everything is going.

Her's the lettuce. Remember when these were just tiny sprouts?

The forest of peas.

Tomatoes.

Pumpkins. I bought these Furring Stakes at Lowes earlier.  The plan is to train the vines up the stakes and support the fruit with slings.  We'll see how that works.

Onions.  Some of them are developing flower tops.

Beans.

Side View.

Berry Patch.

The raspberry stick that is coming out of dormancy.

Strawberries.

I cut out about 2 and half rows of lettuce. And two rows of green onions.  I spent the evening sorting and washing the leafs. On Friday I put together 7 bags of lettuce and onions to take to some friends who'd said they wanted some.  The kids came with me. They love delivering things to people.  They take turns being the ones to run up to the door.  When they run back to the car they try to jump in through the passenger windows.  Charlotte and Lydia can do it really well.

Friday afternoon we were able to go to the pool again. The day was hot and so getting in the water felt really really good.  It also helped my sore neck feel less stiff.

Derrick wanted me to take a picture of him underwater.

Here are the other kids in the water.  I actually really like the reservation system at the pool this year.  It never feels crowded.  (More people are allowed in the water than this, we were just some of the first people in the water at 4:00.)

Brandon met us at the pool around 4:20. He'd said he was kind of tired and was thinking about not coming, but then he was so hot at work that he was looking forward to jumping in the pool.  The kids were so excited to see him.

We had a good time swimming.  This reminded me so much of all the good times we had swimming as a family in Fort Rucker.

I'd been super proactive and had sloppy joes cooking in the crock pot. So when we got home we just had to change and then we could eat. We decided to eat on the patio. (We eat out there at least twice a week.)

Here are Charlotte and Lydia enjoying plain buns and laying on the couch.

I planted cucumbers in the spot where I took out the lettuce.  Here's a picture of that.

And I'd forgotten to take a picture of the sunflowers so here they are.

After dinner we watched the final Harry Potter Movie. It was really good. The kids loved it.  It took us less than a year to read and watch all the Harry Potter books and movies.

On Saturday we were finally able to turn in the Twin's entries for the Art and Soul art competition. This was supposed to happen in April, but was moved to June.

Here's Charlotte with her house made from Perler Beads (She calls them Fuse Beads).

And Lydia with her pencil drawing.

Here they are together.  We dropped them off at the mall where they will be on display for two weeks.

On our way home we passed a church rummage sale.  I really really really wanted to go check it out. But right now the only thing I really need is patio furniture.  And we could see from the road that they didn't have anything like that.

As we drove through our neighborhood we passed a house that had a big black cupboard out on the side of the road.  It had a FREE sign on it.  I said, "Oh my gosh. That would be perfect to put the couch on!"  So we pulled over and figured out how to shove the heavy cabnet into the jeep.  It stuck out the back about a foot and we couldn't shut the back at all, but we were only a few blocks from home so I didn't mind driving with the back open.

We brought it home and Brandon was skeptical at first.  But after I got it cleaned up and showed him that it was only a few inches shorter than the couch he saw the potential.  He helped me get it into place and put the couch on top. It's a little taller than we want it, but I'm not complaining.

Brandon also made a cute little tent for Charlotte and Lydia's barbie family's to use on camping trips. They took these blurry pictures.

Here's the tent.

Marcia.

Camping Family.

More tent.

Derrick still loves to call people.  On Saturday night he was going through the contacts in the kids phone and asking, "Where's Mrs Fish? I want to call Mrs Fish?"  He could not understand why we didn't have her number and why he couldn't call her. This isn't the first time he's asked for Mrs Fish. The problem is that I'm not sure who this lady is.  She's not one of his teachers or one of the paras that I met. 

So I got on Facebook and looked up anyone with the last name Fish.  I found one that lived in Twin Falls and had a few mutual friends.  I sent her a message saying that I was trying to find a Mrs Fish that worked at Morningside.  She replied that she was who I was looking for.  YAY.  She gave me her number.

On Sunday I told Derrick that I had Mrs Fish's number.  He was so happy!  He called her and talked to her for maybe 30 seconds. He told her about Marcia and later sent her this picture. We also tracked down "Mrs D" on Facebook and he talked to her later in the day.  That was another short conversation, but it meant the world to Derrick that he was able to get in contact with some of his friends.

Veronica has spent a lot of time playing with her magnets.  She's rearranged them into so many different designs for her little bears to live in.

Monday was my first day in our new office. It's so nice to be in a bigger space. Our last place was fine, but it was just a place holder until the practice grew. It's exciting that we are growing enough to have a bigger office.  

Back at home we had plans to go swimming, but first the kids needed to do their job for the day which was clean the bathroom. They were kind of dragging their feet on that until I suggested that we use the time lapse feature on the kids Gabb phone.  They were so excited.  

First we cleaned the kids bathroom, but I didn't have settings right so it didn't record very well.  Which is a shame because Derrick and Veronica worked alongside Charlotte and Lydia.  The twins wanted to try to get a better video so they volunteered to clean my bathroom. That video turned out better.  (Even if their cleaning wasn't as good.) 

We went swimming and had a great time. It was a really hot day so the water felt great.

That evening we made another video of the kids cleaning up dinner. We've done this for nearly three years so they are all really good at doing dinner dishes.  The secret to our success is at the end of the movie.  You can see all of them get a treat out of the treat bucket when they are done. 

On Tuesday the girls had their first church girls activity in a long time. It was a water party at one of the leaders houses. It was at the same time as Derrick's Speech Therapy.  The leader was nice and let Veronica tag along to the activity so I didn't have to find a babysitter for her.

On Wednesday the kids cleaned their rooms. Charlotte and Lydia pretended to shove everything under their bed.

But really they had it all empty under there and set up Charlotte's party light so the dolls could have a dance party.

We were trying to go to the pool at 4:00 to meet Brandon again. But when we got there no one was in the water. There were dark clouds rolling in and the pool was on lightning watch.  So we went home and just turned on the sprinkler.  Derrick was NOT happy.

But the three girls had fun.

Wednesday evening I went grocery shopping for all our vacation food.  That was really fun.  Then Brandon and I stayed up late and I watched him while he replaced the audio adapter to make the DVD sound work in the Honda again. This picture was so I'd remember what station the DVD audio played over.

Watching Brandon work was amazing.  He's like a brain surgeon. He'd already worked on this on Saturday so he'd already figured out all the wires and things. He'd just had to have the part before he could fix it.  (Apparently this is super old technology. The clerk at the car audio store wasn't even sure they had this part, and the package was covered in dust when they found it.) 

Brandon has lots of fun tools like really snips for cutting wires. My job was to hold the flashlight. He got everything fixed and put back together.

I got my desk all organized the way I want it on Thursday. I'm thrilled about the size of my desk. 

I spent a little bit of time in the garden getting things ready for me to neglect it for a few days. I noticed that someone had already wrapped one of the pumpkin vines up a pole.  It was Charlotte.  I had her come take a picture with her handy work.

Our tart cherry tree made four cherries this year.  We picked them.  They were so SOUR!

The peas have turned into a jungle.

They are taller than Charlotte.

The sunflowers are getting taller.

So are the tomatoes.

The beans are starting to climb the strings.

Here's a side view.

There are little strawberries on the plants. 

The raspberry sticks are mostly out of dormancy.

The black berries also seem ready to start some vertical growth.

And look!  Cucumber sprouts.

We spend all Thursday evening packing. Clothes are packed, gear is packed. Food is packed.  It's all sitting in the car and we are going to leave when Brandon gets home from work.

We are going to Washington. We'll visit several different places, but our primary goal is the San Juan Islands. 

This trip has been tricky to plan.  Three parts of our original plan have been cancelled and I had to figure out new plans. One was even cancelled this week. I started out with no reservations at the state parks and now I have 5 nights scheduled at the state parks.  I called San Juan County and Washington State Parks to make sure that they are going to be open.  So far it looks like they will. But the state is requiring everyone to wear a mask in public. 

No matter what, I'm sure this vacation will be memorable.

And I'll definitely tell you all about it when I'm back. 

Summer week 3: Prefrontal cortex problems

My friend posted that on Facebook at the beginning of June and I think I've thought about it every day since then. 

This week was kind of hard. I wish I had something to point to and could say, "THIS, This is what made it hard."  But there wasn't anything specific. And that's what made this so week hard. There wasn't anything I could fix or change to make the week better. I just had to deal with vague discomfort, anxiety, and sadness coming from somewhere. 

I think I assumed that once school ended and summer started then life would be smooth sailing. But its not. There is still a lot of unknowns. Not the least of which is the fact that it's been a really long time since Brandon was working a normal job while the kids and I were home during the summer. There are a lot of things we need to figure out like what do we do in the evenings and what time do we want to make dinner. Add in the fact that there is a pandemic going on and a national conversation about race and well, this summer is not simple. 

I've realized that all the unknowns are starting to wear on me mentally. Through a little bit of reading I've realized that I'm having the textbook symptoms of  prolonged stress affecting the prefrontal cortex. My body is going thought the "fight or flight reflex."  But since I'm not dealing with a one-off moment of panic my body is staying in a heightened state of anxiety. I can't feel it. But my brain is having a lot of trouble. 

This paragraph from a May 18th article for Huffpost Wellness sums up what I mean. 

Chronic stress leaves the brain swimming in the hormone cortisol, which research suggests can disrupt the functions of the prefrontal cortex ― the area of the brain responsible for attention span, decision-making, problem-solving and emotion regulation. Cue brain fog, apathy, indecisiveness and mood swings.

I've found it hard to focus on things that would normally be no problem for me. Each day I seem to only get through one or two "simple" tasks that leave me feeling completely worn out. For example: Last week I registered the Honda online. It took me maybe 30 minutes but it was all I could do for that afternoon. I laid on the couch and took a nap when I was done.  Contrast that with last year when I dropped the twins off at an art class, took Veronica with me to the Assessors to register the car in person, published a blog post, took the kids to the park for lunch, and then took the kids swimming at the lake. 

I haven't been able to write much (besides updating this blog which I can basically do in my sleep after almost 12 years of constant updating.) I have a hard time picking what to make for dinner. I'm sometimes paralyzed with indecision over what to do with my kids each afternoon and usually go for the easy option of letting them watch a ton of TV. 

Thankfully I'm still able to focus at work. I think it helps that I don't have a lot of decisions to make at my job. I just do the work. 

But everywhere else I'm kind of a mess. 

I'm not telling you all this to make you feel sorry for me. I'm telling you to let you know that you are not alone if you are feeling some of these same feelings. Our brains are all struggling right now. 

Anyway, I did take some pictures this week and I did get some things done so let's go through the run down. Just keep in mind that for every picture you see here there was a lot going on that wasn't pictured

We were supposed to go swimming at the city pool on Monday. I'd bought the pool pass a week earlier (which had been the big task for that day) and had a time reserved. But then Monday ended up being really cold. So instead we stayed home and the kids watched Sound of Music. 

We have a lot of oranges from the kids lunches. My kids are spoiled so they only eat little cutie oranges and are just baffled by real oranges. I decided to attempt to make marmalade with all the oranges we had piling up. I took this picture as a before picture. 

I never took an after picture. The marmalade never really set up. It turned out okay, but not exactly right and I was just sick of the project by the end.

The highlight of Monday was when the print copy of Idaho Magazine showed up. It was so fun to see the three page spread of my story. I laughed when I saw that Derrick got his own page. This is such a Derrick thing to have happened.

All the kids loved seeing their pictures and names in the story. I was happy to see my byline in print. It's something I've dreamed of for a long time. But I also had a hard time realizing that I really wrote something that was published in a magazine. I wrote this story in late February/early March. Those halcyon days when the kids went to a physical location for school and I had hours to spend writing. (Not to mention a functioning brain.) I wish I could write something else to submit to again. But it just doesn't seem possible at the moment. 

Still it's really encouraging to finally be published. I'm fairly confident the writing part of my brain will come back online eventually. And when it does I'm sure that this success will help motivate me to write more.

On Monday night I went over to my neighbor Diantha's for a girls night with her and Kaymie. In theory we were making cards, but I found that was too hard for me. I just doodled while we talked and laughed. I'm so glad I have these two friends.

Tuesday was a crazy day. Derrick had a speech therapy assessment. I decided that it was finally time to get Derrick back into private speech therapy. He's had speech therapy through school for years and that's been okay. I've always known that we'd want him to have more therapy, but it just never seemed like the right time. We were always too busy or getting ready to move. But I realized that now was a good time to get him into private speech therapy.

So I've been working on that for a few weeks. I crowd-sourced the local Special Needs Facebook page for speech therapist recommendations. Then I narrowed those down with my tried and true method of picking the office closest to my house.  I had to take Derrick into see his primary care doctor so he could give a referral. I followed up with the office and pretty soon I had an appointment for an evaluation. (And actually this may sound crazy, but this process wasn't that difficult because doing paperwork and evaluations for Derrick is part of my "normal" life. After so many years as a special needs parent, setting up appointments is basically hardwired into me as a default setting.)

The only glitch was that the only available appointment for an evaluation was at 10:00. And Derrick has behavioral therapy and I have work at 10:00. I was able to reschedule his therapy for the afternoon and I just didn't plan to go into work that day. That would have been fine, but we have been interviewing for a new receptionist and the only day one of the candidates could come for an interview was on Tuesday.   So I told my boss I would pop into work in the afternoon to meet with that candidate.

Derrick's eval went really well. And by well I mean he showed that he needs therapy. His therapist is going to work with him improving parts of his vocabulary and describing events and action.

We went back home and Derrick was enjoying relaxing after the 90 minute appointment. He was not happy when Miss Shay showed up and I told him it was time to go with her. He was refusing to go and I was pleading with him. I kept saying, "Derrick, you have to go because I have to go to work."  Finally I got him into Shay's car and they drove off. (Shay texted me 5 minutes later to say that Derrick was doing just fine.)  I rushed into work and talked with the job candidate. It was definitely worth my time to meet with her because she was exactly what we were looking for. Then I came back home and texted Shay and said that Derrick could come back early if needed, He did come home early and went back to watching movies with the girls. I was completely worn out from such an all over the place day. I just laid on the couch the rest of the day.

Moral of the story. Derrick and I really like our normal schedule and I shouldn't mess with it.


Veronica spent a lot of time making one of the closet cupboards into her little lair. (Why she needs a closet when she has her own room is beyond me.)  She put so much stuff in there.

There wasn't much room left for her. 

 She also wore this hat and it made me laugh.

 Our backyard pool didn't get as much action this week as it did last week. Still I'd look out there and see the kids playing with the water guns.  Oh and in case I forget to mention it later.  We drained the pool on Friday. I was taking buckets of water out of the pool to water the trees and garden. Derrick decided to speed things up and undid the valves for all three air chambers. The whole patio was FLOODED.  Charlotte had the brilliant idea to use the wet/dry vac to suck up the big puddles. We did that and had the big puddles gone within a few minutes.

Tuesday night Brandon had a rock climbing class through the College of Southern Idaho Outdoor Rec Program. I'd signed him up for it so he could learn about some of the local areas to go climbing. He had a really good time.

I tried to take the kids on a walk to the park while he was gone, but it turned into a bit of a disaster. Derrick was on roller blades and kept getting really far ahead. Then Marcia jerked her leash and pulled Charlotte's arm really hard. Charlotte was crying and I decided we needed to abort the mission and get back home in case her arm was really hurt. It ended up being fine. But I felt like such a failure.  I couldn't even take my kids for a walk.

Yeah, Tuesday was hard.


But Wednesday was good. The weather had warmed up and we were able to go to the pool! I'm so glad that it is open.  We came in our swimming suits so we didn't have to go into the locker rooms. The staff checked our temperatures when we entered. And then we were just told to stay 6 feet away from other family groups. Easy enough. This picture is slightly misleading. There were other people in the water when I took this picture - they just were on the other side of the pool. 

 I was so happy to take the kids swimming. This is one of the main reasons I work part time - so we can go swimming together.

 Our trip to the pool reminded me so much of going to the pool in Alabama. And I LOVED the pool in Alabama. This was even easier though. None of the kids need swim diapers or even life jackets anymore. Oh I'm excited to go often.

Thursday was another funky day. I wasn't feeling super well. When I left work I was a little dizzy and by the time the kids were eating lunch I was super tired. I ended up taking an hour long nap while they watched a movie. Even after my nap I felt tired and woozy. I was actually afraid to go into the basement because I was worried I'd fall down the stairs.

I spent the day laying on the couch and reading. I read "When they Call you a Terrorist" which is a memoir from one of the ladies who started Black Lives Matter. I'd reserved a half dozen books at the library about social justice and this is the first one that came in.  It was very eye opening. It's a good place to start if you are trying to understand the Black Lives Matter movement.

Not feeling well physically didn't do any favors for me mentally. Or maybe I was already falling apart mentally and it was manifesting itself physically. By the end of the night I was angry and then sobbing.  Brandon heard me out (both when I was yelling and then when I was crying) and while he didn't "fix" anything, it was good to have him listen to me. 

I felt much better on Friday. It also helped that I don't work on Friday's and so I was able to sleep in super late.

We got the rooms cleaned that we needed to and also put away laundry that we'd washed on Thursday.  Derrick has become a pro at putting away his laundry. He's started doing it without being asked. Yay.

I'd picked up a DVD copy of Singing in the Rain. We watched that together in the early afternoon.  The kids have seen it before, but that was several years ago. They LOVED it - especially the Make Them Laugh song.

We went swimming again at 3:00. I forgot to take a picture because I was having such a good time in the water with the kids. Veronica is working on learning to swim. Its very similar to her process for learning to walk and by that I mean she's constantly on the edge of disaster.  The deep end of the pool we play in is about 1 inch lower than her mouth -when she's on tip toes. But that doesn't stop her from just jumping in with the other kids and assuming I'll be there to fish her out. She's constantly launching herself off of the wall and swimming a few feet before starting to go under. I have to keep a close eye on her when we are in that deep area.

We got back from the pool and changed back into regular clothes.  Brandon and Charlotte had a special camping trip planned for the two of them. Brandon came home and they got the last few things together for their trip. Brandon had made a frame backpack from Charlotte's school backpack and my old crutches. Charlotte was so excited for the trip.

 They went up to the mountains around Stanley.

 This is the Salmon River.

 Meanwhile the other three kids and I felt a little lost as to what to do. We are used to having Brandon gone from time to time, but Charlotte?  Lydia especially seemed lonely. We didn't want to watch a movie without Charlotte nor did we want to do any activity that she'd feel bad about missing out on.  So we ended up watching America's Funniest Home Videos on Disney Plus. That was really fun.

Around 8:00 we went on a walk to the school.  (And actually made it.) The kids school has some little farmland on the other side of the fence. There is a horse back there. It seemed to really miss seeing kids every day. It let Lydia pet it and feed it grass.

 Veronica talked me into pushing her on the swings. She had fun leaning back and looking at me.

 Lydia was able to sleep in my bed with me. We stayed up watching How to Cake It videos on Youtube.

Brandon and Charlotte were planning to hike to a campsite, but they never found the trailhead. They did find a campsite near the highway and stayed their. Here is their sunrise.

 Charlotte was in heaven.

 They'd brought Marcia with them and she had a great time.

 More happy Charlotte.

 They went fishing and caught 3 fish. They put them all back.

 Brandon under the highway bridge.  

 Charlotte brought home several small rocks, but she took pictures of these rocks because they were too big to bring home.

 Meanwhile at home we were relaxing and not doing much. (And I had to constantly remind myself that it was okay to not be doing much.) I went out to check on the garden and realized that I haven't taken pictures of it in about 2 weeks.

Here are the tall, tall peas.

 They don't really get past this stage before the kids eat them.

 The lettuce.

 The peas

 The onions

 Pumpkins

 Berries

 Raspberries

 Blackberries

 Brandon and Charlotte came home around 5:00. Brandon offered to pick up pizza on their way home so I had an order waiting for them at Little Caesars.

After dinner I asked the girls if they wanted to read Harry Potter 7. We were in the last 200 pages of the book. We started reading and kept reading and reading and reading. We read from about 6:00 pm until 11:00. We finished the book! The girls were so into all the things that happened. They were jumping up and down and interrupting every few minutes. They were thrilled with it all. It was such a great way to end a kind of blah day.

 Today was a good Sunday. I felt really good all day. We went on a walk to the streets with all the Arts and Crafts houses in the afternoon. Brandon liked seeing all of those. Then we went to the park and the kids played for a long time.

Back at home we watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The kids liked that, but then they wanted to watch Singing in the Rain again.

And that gets us caught up to today.

I'm trying to figure out how to tie this up in a neat bow. But maybe that's beyond my Prefrontal cortext abilities. So let's just call this a night.

Thanks for reading and be gentle with yourself. You're doing the best you can with where you are at the moment.