At some point this month Charlotte thought it would be funny to sing the 12 Days of Christmas Song. She changed the lyrics to be the things she read on our calendar for May.
It turned out to be a very long song. It's where I also got the idea for the format for this blog post. This is fitting because many parents refer to May as "the other December" because there are so many events that lead up to the last day of school.
One other note before we get going, I took a lot of pictures the past few weeks. But most of them were of my flowers. I think that every time life got overwhelming I decided to go outside and look at my flowers. That happened a lot.
Okay here we go.
On the First Day of May my month gave to me: A update on this blog, a few church meetings, and a family meeting over zoom.
This Sunday was pretty typical so we won't spend much time on it. Mostly I just updated this blog. I do want to mention that Derrick is super cute in church lately. He likes to find the pages for the songs in the hymnal. He'll find the pages when we sit down before church starts. Ten we put little book marks in them so they are ready to go when it's time to sing. He really likes me to point to the words on the page while I sing. I remember following along like that with my Aunt's Vera and Lisa when I was little and they lived in my ward. Its how I learned to sing. I think its how Derrick is learning to sing too - but he's still in the "retaining info" stage. Knowing him, the songs will pop out of him perfectly memorized in like 2 years.
Derrick's other favorite thing to do it to try to keep the little disposable sacrament cups. This has been a life long goal that was never attainable until COVID. When we visited Emily's ward last year they didn't collect the sacrament cups. We just hung onto them. All my kids were like, "THIS IS AMAZING!!!!!"
So now Derrick is always trying to keep the cups. I've been able to keep a close eye on him and usually make him put them back. But occasionally he gets away with it. Sunday was his most successful attempt. I watched him put his cup back, but all of a sudden he had another cup. I was like, "Where did you get that." He showed me that he'd picked up the second cup from the discarded cups with his left hand while he was taking the sacrament with his right hand. I was pretty impressed by his slight of hand. I also told him not to do it again. He keeps trying, but I'm onto him now.
After church my Aunt Vera had set up a little family zoom call. She does this every week, but this was the first time we were able to get on. It's fun for my kids to see my Aunts and Uncles.
Also let's take a look a flowers. We are going to need this because things get crazy this week.
Here's my little corner garden. This spot brought me immense joy this year. It gets more sun than the bed in front of the house so the flowers bloomed about 2 weeks earlier than the others. They were so fun to see.
On the Second Day of May my month gave to me: An appearance on a podcast, a sick kid, teacher appreciation week, lots of homework, the other twins coming over, a doctor's appointment, and a karate class.
Yes this is the day that my episode of Baconsale was published. Brandon goes into work at 6:00 again these days so he woke up at 5:00 to get ready for work. I normally just fall back asleep in the mornings when he wakes up, but this time I was like, "BACONSALE." I immediately grabbed the phone and pulled up the episode and started listening.
Okay, actually before I did that I had to check out the episode art. I had to see what that looked like. I loved it right away. Kent did such a good job with this picture.
Then I started listening. I was prepared to turn it off if I hated the sound of my voice. But I never did. As soon as I introduced myself in the episode I was like, "WOW, I sound GOOD!"
It was so fun to relive the recording through listening to the show. I was also happy to find out that it all hadn't been a dream. Here's the link if you want to listen to it. https://baconsale.com/2022/05/02/baconsale-episode-350-our-350th-episode/
And if you are intrigued by the show you should go back and listen to other episodes. Its a really fun show and it's all "Family Friendly" so you don't have to worry about little ears overhearing anything questionable.
I got the kids up and helped them get ready for school. Over breakfast I had them listen to my my introduction on the show. They were so excited for me. (I imagined us listening to the whole show later, but they never cared to do that.)
Lydia wasn't feeling well so she talked me into letting her stay home. She had a cough and her throat hurt. At some point I gave her a home covid test, but it came back negative. Charlotte hadn't been feeling well the week before, so we figured Lydia had what Charlotte had.
I walked the other kids over to the school and I went inside with the kids to help get some things ready for Teacher Appreciation Week. The PTO and the Principal were working together to provide something for the teachers ever day that week. Monday's gift was cookies from Sipps. Liz picked the cookies up and brought them over. I updated our little letter board. I also had thank you cards for each teacher.
Originally we'd been considering doing the cookies just for the teachers that had classes all day. But the principal encouraged us to do gifts for the whole staff. I'm glad we did that because it was fun to see the paras and kitchen staff come in and get their cookies. They were all so excited!
I hung around the school for a bit, but ran out of things to do so I had to go home and start working on homework. School was NOT going well. I was still in Intermediate Accounting Three. According to my timeline I should have taken the test and finished the class the week before. But Baconsale had thrown that plan into disarray. I was hoping to catch up this day.
I didn't go to work that whole day. I just stayed home and tried to study. I got some things done, but I was distracted by Lydia's coughing. I decided that she needed a strep test. I called the doctors office, but the soonest they could get her in was Tuesday morning. Back in Pocatello the kids went to a children's clinic that had a strep test that you could just show up for. We don't have that here. Instead we have a "not-so-insta care" at the hospital. I'd taken Charlotte there in the pre-covid days and it had been very slow. But I figured it was faster than waiting until Tuesday.
After school the other set of twins came home with Charlotte. Brandon came home soon after they did. I left him in charge of all the other kids and took Lydia to the hospital for the "not-so-insta" care. It hadn't changed a bit in two years. It was still super super slow. I was regretting that I hadn't brought my laptop so I could work on practice problems for my homework.
When we FINALLY got into see someone our visit was probably 2 minutes long. They did the strep test. I was surprised that they didn't also do a COVID test. Lydia had half of the list of COVID symptoms, but no one ever brought up covid. I was like, "Oh, I guess we are done worrying about that."
The rapid test came back negative. And so did the long test later. The whole thing felt like a waste of time. But at least we could rule out strep (and covid, I guess)
We got home just at dinner time. After dinner I took Veronica to her Karate class. She is doing really well with that.
One the second day of May my month gave to me: Work, a sick kid, therapy for Derrick, and a failed test attempt.
Lydia still wasn't feeling well on Tuesday so I let her stay home again. Derrick also stayed home because he announced that he "couldn't go to school on Tuesday" and I was too burned out to care or try to figure out why. He promised to go to school on Wednesday and that was good enough for me at this point.
I spent the morning studying and then went to work. Derrick and Lydia hung out and watched TV. Lydia coughed like a billion times and drove my crazy. I literally went to work to get away from her cough.
The only other thing that matters in that whole list of things is that I failed my test that evening. This was the first test I've failed the whole time I've been at WGU. In hindsight it was kind of inevitable that I would fail this test. I was not prepared for the test - especially the giant section on leases. But I'd squeaked through on other tests so I thought that maybe I'd be able to do that again.
But I didn't realize just how unprepared I'd be. I'd been rushed the whole time I was studying. And what I'd done was every time there was a hard question or problem I'd just skipped it. I guess I thought I'd come back to it, but I never did. So when I sat down to take the test, and my brain saw the hard problems, it didn't try to puzzle them out. It did what I'd taught it to do, it just skipped them.
The results were not good. What's worse was that I even missed a question in the pension section. I'd been solid on that from day one.
I was not happy about this. Not only would have I have retake the test, but now I was placed on a study plan where I'd have to complete a bunch of practice assignments and get my instructor's permission before I could take the test again.
I was already behind on my schedule. This slowed me down even more.
One the Fourth Day of May my month gave to me: A sick kid, A doctors appointment, a published blog post, supervising a bounce house, therapy for Derrick, a school district event, a nearly a nervous breakdown.
Wednesday was a crazy day. There was so much that happened. I needed the car that day so I started out the day by taking Brandon to work at 6:00. Then I came home and started working on some of the things I needed to do for my "Remedial Intermediate Accounting Class."
I got the kids up. Lydia was still not feeling 100%. She'd had headache and tummy aches in addition to the sore throat and cough. There was going to be a bounce house at school that day and Lydia didn't want to miss it, but then she realized that jumping up and down in a bounce house sounded terrible with the way she was feeling. So she decided to take one more day and rest.
She was supposed to preform with Charlotte in the honor choir at the school district event that night. We figured it would be best if she rested so she could feel 100% that night.
But I was able to get the other three to school so that was good.
I think we need a flower break. This day was insane! So you need some pretty to prepare for it. The tulips by the house started blooming.
So pretty!
And look at this lawn. We'd had a fair amount of rain and the lawn was an unreal color of green.
And daffodils.
Both garden beds looked so happy.
I left Lydia on her own and went to work for about 90 minutes. Then I rushed over to the hospital for a well women check. Now that Brandon has a job with actual insurance benefits I can go to the Ob/GYN office at the hospital. No more indifferent general practitioner at the low income clinic for me. I met with a female PA who was just wonderful. She actually listened to me. I haven't felt listened to since the last female doctor I met with in Pocatello. I talked with her about my weight and energy concerns. She agreed that my heavy periods sounded abnormal. She ordered a bunch of blood tests to give us some idea of what might be going on.
I left feeling so much better about things.
I rushed back home to check on Lydia. She was doing better and I offered to take her back to the school, but she declined.
I got on the computer to do some studying and also looked at Facebook. I saw that my latest piece for East Idaho Mom's had been published. You can read it here https://eastidaho.momcollective.com/author/valerieillguth/
At 2:00 I ran over to the school to help out with the Bounce Houses. These were a reward for the kids working so hard on their I-SATS. The principal had ordered 4 bounce house and the kids came out a class at a time. So the houses were never super crowded. This was all supposed to happen on Friday, but that day turned out super windy so it was moved to today.
I'd signed up for 2:00-3:00 which was the time the first graders were assigned. So I didn't get to see any of my kids. But I was told that Derrick LOVED this spiderman bounce house.
This castle one was fun too.
Mostly I just hung out with the other moms and the teachers. I got caught up on the latest news. The Principle had bought school shirts for the teachers as the Teacher Appreciation gift for Tuesday. But something went wrong with the order. All the sizes were too small. She was trying to figure that out.
I also heard that the lunch that PTO had brought in from Cafe Rio had been a huge success. Liz had asked for a donation from Twin Falls Children's Dental and they'd provided us with $600 that nearly covered the full cost of the lunch. The teachers had loved it.
The Principal also roped me into helping with the 5th grade walking field trip the next day.
At 2:45 I went into the school to meet up with the school counselor to get something for the Friday gift.
I ran into the music teacher and told him, "Sorry Lydia wasn't here for rehearsal today. But she'll be there tonight." He told me that it was district policy that if a student missed school they couldn't participate in any sporting or performance events that night." I'd never heard that rule. And kind of thought he was being a prick. But there was nothing I could do about it. Poor Lydia was devastated when I told her that she couldn't preform with the honor choir that night.
I was also getting to be an emotional mess. The day had been full of rushing around, I hadn't had a kid free school day in nearly a week, and I'd had hardly any time to work on my homework for the class I was behind in.
I think I just sat on the couch and sighed like a billion times.
Miss Brittani showed up and picked up Derrick. She took him to the school district event happening at the City Park. A little bit later my family drove over to the event.
Our elementary had a table set up along with all the other schools. I'd signed up to take the second shift at the table so the first thing my family did was get in line for the hot dogs. I was so happy they had food at this event because I just didn't have it in me to worry about dinner. We saw Derrick and Miss Brittani they were in line for snow cones.
We picked up our food and ate it by our Elementary school table. It was fun to see the other moms there. Brandon and the kids went around and looked at all the other things on the other tables.
Each school was doing some sort of performance in the band shell. Our school was scheduled for 6:10. Poor Lydia was sad that she couldn't perform. But she'd perked up a bit that evening when she realized how many people were there. She realized that it wasn't that obvious that she wasn't able to perform.
Miss Brittani and Derrick walked around a lot. At 5:30 their time was up so I was in charge of Derrick again. I immediately lost track of him. But he'd wander by every few minutes so I didn't worry too much.
When our school was announced I left our table and went over to the bandshell to take pictures and videos.
Here's a movie of their first song.
Here's the movie of their second song.
And here's their third song. It's called Wacky Do Ra Me. I only have a still picture of it because my phone died almost as soon as the kids started singing.
The next group to preform was JIVE from the high school. We stood around and watched them sing. Then we went back to the table.
The event was winding down and Derrick realized that there were tons of hotdogs left. So he went over there and worked his charms. They food people gave him a big bag of hotdogs and buns that had already been wrapped up. He was so happy about that.
I was in charge of cleaning up and most of the other moms had left. My family helped me carry the boxes that held the table displays and the mascot costume. Yes, there had been someone in a mascot costume at the event. It had been a teenage daughter of one of the other moms. She hadn't wanted any of her friends to know who she was so she changed under the display table.
My kids thought the mascot costume was the coolest thing ever so they tried it on when we got home. I was in my room doing something and nearly freaked out when this thing came walking through my bedroom door.
I started studying and Brandon got the kids to bed. Then he went outside and started wrenching on something out there. I went to check on him and found him rigging up a pully system to the beam across our carport.
He was planning to pick up the locust tree that he'd bought that day. (Oh yeah, that happened today too.) He needed a way to get the tree off of his buddy's truck. He was so happy as he worked to engineer the pully system.
I went inside and went back to studying.
On the Fifth Day of May my month gave to me: an IEP Eligibility Meeting, a published magazine article, a Walking Fieldtrip, a stolen hour at work, and a tree delivery.
Thursday started out with something that I'd wanted for a year. Last year I wrote a letter to the school asking that they evaluate Veronica for Special Education. I was concerned that she just wasn't progressing in school the way she should. Granted, it was homeschool and I was her abysmal teacher, but I still felt like there was something else at play beyond just my inability to teach. I was thinking something like ADHD or Dyslexia.
The process was slow. For one Idaho doesn't consider Dyslexia a disability. So they school would have to show that she had language disorders. Also the school had to establish her current levels and then show that she warranted assessments. The assessments didn't even start until mid February.
But now it was finally time to have the meeting where the school talked about what they had found and what we could do about it. We'd scheduled the meeting while they were still doing the assessments so just having the meeting didn't mean anything.
My first hurdle of the day was figuring out what to do with the kids during the meeting. The meeting started at 7:30. School didn't start til 8:00. In theory I could drop the kids off for breakfast at 7:30, but I'd tried that with PTO meetings in the past and it hadn't gone well.
So instead I'd asked Kaymie if she'd watch Derrick and Veronica at her house from 7:20 to whenever she took her own elementary kids to school. She agreed. She was also willing to take Charlotte and Lydia. But I said they could walk. I figured it was good practice for bring more independent in Middle School.
Derrick and Veronica walked to Kaymie's with me and then I kept walking over to the school. I got there at 7:31.
The meeting went really well. There were lots of people there including, Veronica's teacher, the school SPED teacher, the school assistant principal, the district psychologist, and the Speech Language Pathologist for the school.
Everyone presented their findings from various tests and observations they'd done. For the most part Veronica was coming out on the slightly lower than normal range. The district psychologist had gathered a lot of data on Veronica. It showed that she was a little slow at processing things. Everything showed that Veronica wasn't doing as well as her peers, but it wasn't enough to warrant an IEP or even a 504 plan.
I asked, "so now that we have all this data, What do we do?"
And that's when the assistant principal's face lit up and she said, "That's what I'm going to talk about." She taught Title 1 kids for years and so she has a special place in her heart for kids like Veronica who need extra support, but aren't low enough to qualify for IEP and 504 plans.
She started telling me about the computer program where they house the IEP's and 504 plans. She said there was a third type of plan that they usually open during the year and then close at the end of the year. She'd gotten special permission from a district person (at the District Event the night before) to create a plan for Veronica that would always stay open. The plan would have a list of accommodations that Veronica needed. These were accommodations that the psychologist recommended based on her observations plus things that her current teacher knew worked with Veronica.
This plan unfortunately wasn't legally protected like an IEP or 504 plan would be, and it wouldn't exist outside of the Twin Falls School District if we ever moved. But it would exist at the school from Day One next school year. Her 3rd grade teacher would be able to go into the school year knowing a lot of things about Veronica and how to help her. This was so much better than waiting for the teacher to catch on that Veronica needed extra help.
In the end I felt like this was a great situation. I could have cried a few days later when I received the written version of the accommodations Veronica would have. THIS is what I'd been hoping for all along.
After the meeting I went home and went back to studying and working on my own accommodations for my own learning problems. Things were coming along. I was actually working the hard problems instead of skipping them. I was hoping to take the test again on Saturday.
I also was finally able to figure out how to view my article in the May edition of Idaho Falls Magazine. I'd written this article back in February and had a really hard time remembering what Spring was like while I wrote it. But now that I read it in the spring I felt like I got it just right. You can access it here, http://read.uberflip.com/i/1464158-may-2022/60 If the page doesn't come up you might have to "flip" through to Page 60.
Around 12:00 I headed over to the school and went into Lydia's 5th grade class. Her teacher split the kids into the kids that were going on the walking field trip to the middle school and the ones who were staying behind. (The ones staying behind were going to the other middle school and would have their own field trip the next week.)
There were three 5th grade classes. Two of the teachers were going, a para was coming too, and so was the school counselor. I was the only parent who was going. I'd been invited for three reasons. 1. I had already completed a background check because I was on PTO. 2. I had two fifth graders. And 3. I'm just always around the school anyway. I was fine going because I wanted to see inside the Middle School anyway.
The three 5th grade classes got in a long line and started walking toward the middle school. The middle school is about half a mile from the elementary school so this wouldn't be a super long walk. I walked with Charlotte and Lydia and just generally tried to keep the kids in a line.
We made it to the middle school and were directed to the building with the auditorium. The kids were split up into small groups. 7th and 8th grade ambassadors were assigned to each group. They would take them on a tour of the school. A middle school counselor told my and the teachers, "You ladies are welcome to just sit in here and relax for an hour."
Normally I would jump at the opportunity to sit and talk with other women for an hour. BUT I was super busy. This field trip was happening during the time I would normally be at work. I'd been planning to go into work that afternoon after the kids were home from school. Here I was with an hour of free time, and my work is literally across the street from the middle school soccer fields.
So I told the teachers, "hey, I'm going to go to work. I'll be back in an hour." I set my phone timer for 60 minutes and ran across the soccer fields and across the street. I got to work still wearing my volunteer nametag sticker. The receptionist looked at me funny and I said, "I just escaped from a field trip." I hurried and got a bunch of stuff done. I was about to hit send on my last email when my timer went off.
I hurried back over to the school and got there about 5 minutes before the kids came back. Success!
The walk back to the elementary school was super muggy. We were all regretting wearing pants by the time we made it back to the school.
We made it back just as school was ending. I picked up Derrick from his classroom. He was super upset because he'd thought this was a speech/ot day. He was like, "Mom, why didn't you come get me at 2:45!" I had to explain that we didn't have that this week.
At home I worked on some homework. Brandon went to pick up the tree. His friend Chase was meeting him at Webb Garden Center to get the tree. A little while later they showed up with the tree in the truck. Here's the top part of the tree with Lydia in it for scale.
Chase backed the truck up so that the root ball of the tree was under Brandon's pully system. The pullies had been hanging there all day and I know our across the street neighbors had been curious. I heard one of them say, "Oh that's what that's for" as the tree was put into place.
Brandon hooked it all up and it was time for the moment of truth. He wrapped the rope around his body and tied a bowline knot. Charlotte and I held onto the trunk of the tree so it wouldn't hit the top of the carport at it was raised up. Chase got in the car, ready to pull it away as the tree lifted off the truck bed. Brandon pulled down on the road and started to back up to try to lift the tree with the pullies.
And nothing happened.
For a second it looked like this whole plan was a bust. I suggested that Brandon come closer to the root ball. He was trying to pull back when he should really be pulling down. He did that and that's when everything started working. The pullies did exactly what they should do and made it possible for Brandon to lift a 350 lb root ball off of the back of the truck with just his strength and body weight. Of course I filmed the whole thing.
When the tree was done on the ground Brandon said, "Who needs a skid loader!" The garden center had been willing to deliver the tree, but they'd have expected a skid loader or bobcat or some other machine to get the tree out of their truck bed. Brandon had figured out how to do it with just simple machines.
I wanted to get right to work digging the hole. But somebody had to take Veronica to karate and that somebody was me. So she and I got in the car and went to Karate.
When we came back home and hour later Brandon had dug a hole so deep the twins could stand in it.
At least that's what it looked like from far away.
Brandon had to run off to set up chairs for a funeral the next day so it was my turn to take over digging the hole. I love digging so this was fun.
The kids and I worked on digging the hole until about 8:00 when it was getting dark and we couldn't really see very well. (Plus the girls were starting to monkey around with the pully and that was annoying.)
Charlotte and Lydia and I have been reading the Matched Trilogy for what feels like all year. We made it through Matched and Crossed fairly quickly but stalled out in Reached. Part of the problem was I knew how it ended and it wasn't exactly riveting. So we took our sweet time with that book. Well, we'd used up all three renewal options through the library and the book was absolutely positively due back on Saturday. So we were trying to finish the book. At the beginning of the week we were still something like 250 pages away. We'd been reading all week, but still had a lot of pages to get through.
So at bedtime I started reading the girls and read and read and read. We were closing the gap, but it was still taking a while. Brandon came home and helped get Veronica and Derrick in bed. I kept reading. I had to stop at 8:45 to do a scheduled call with my course instructor.
That was a good call. I was hoping to take the test on Saturday. But my course instructor had to sign off on me doing that. But I had to finish all my little tasks before she would sign off. But her weekend started at 12:00 on Friday and I wasn't sure I'd be ready by then. We made a plan for me to be done with certain things by noon on Friday and then she'd allow me to schedule the test, with the condition that I still study and only take the test on Saturday if I felt absolutely ready.
Then I went back to reading to the girls. My voice gave out on me around 9:15. But we were now within 100 pages of the end of the book. We were going to make it.
I went outside to figure out what Brandon was up to. I figured he'd have covered the tree's root ball in a tarp and would be working on cleaning up the pullies or something. Instead I found him with the tree NEXT to the hole.
I had no idea he'd been moving the tree while I was reading to the girls. I had no idea he could move the tree by himself. He'd got it onto our piano mover and then put plywood boards on the grass. He'd pushed the piano mover across the boards and got the tree to the hole. Now he was removing the wire mesh that supported the root ball.
After he'd taken that mesh off he and I put the root ball into the hole. There was no way we could really orient it so basically how ever it fell into the hole is how it stayed. Then we buried it back up. Here's our handiwork.
I stayed up late working on homework so I could show my teacher that I was making progress to be ready for the test. Brandon stayed up frosting a cake that he'd agreed to make for a funeral. (In case you can't tell he's quite the renaissance man.)
On the Sixth day of May my month gave to me: Another Baconsale appearance, the last teacher appreciation gift, food for a funeral, lots of homework, lots of work, and finally finishing a book.
One of the first things I did on Friday was take pictures of the tree. Going out my side door was a little like encountering a murder scene. There was a trail of evidence leading to the tree.
Here you can see the plywood Brandon used to get the piano mover across the grass.
And here is the tree in all its glory! We paid $quite a bit of money for this tree. The hope is that buying an older tree will allow the tree to create more shade quicker than a smaller tree. And the more shade will help our grass survive the afternoon heat in the summer.
The tree was 13 feet tall, but we trimmed off about a foot of dead wood. It's still taller than the cherry trees we planted two years ago.
We now have 5 trees, of various sizes, lining the fence.
At some point that morning I pulled up the "Bacon-bit" episode of Baconsale. I'm on this little mini episode too.
Here's the link to it: https://baconsale.com/2022/05/04/baconbit-team-listener-vs-team-jk-2022/
I was in charge of the teacher appreciation gift for this day. I'd made giant cards out of poster board for each teacher. The school counselor had each class sign the cards while they were in her class for her little social skills training every other week.
I wanted to get the cards handed out before school. So once again I went over to the school a little early. But not too early this time. Derrick and Veronica went with me and Charlotte and Lydia walked over on their own later.
Derrick went right to breakfast, but Veronica wanted to pass out cards with me. Just as we were walking into the school a first grade girl named Valerie went skipping by. She was singing, "School School School, I love school." She stopped and asked me, "What are you doing?" When I told her we were handing out cards she wanted to help too.
She ended up being the BEST helper. She would run up to the teachers and say cute things like, "HAPPY TEACHER WEEK!" Veronica and I were more like, "Um hi, here's your card. We think your great." But little Valerie was like, "HERE'S YOUR CARD! YOU ARE THE BEST! I LOVE YOU! THANK YOU FOR TEACHING!" I think I'm going to enlist her help every year. She makes a great hype woman.
I got all the cards delivered and barely had time to rest on those laurels before it was time to have another phone call with my Course Instructor. This was an appointment I'd made weeks earlier on the off chance I wouldn't pass the class. I'm so glad I had it scheduled. I was STILL fuzzy on leases and told the instructor, just talk to me about leases for a while. She asked some follow up questions to see where my issues were and then gave a quick mini lesson on leases. She also told me that Leases had been her least favorite subject in her undergrad and she'd literally walked into her professors office slammed down her text book and swore every swear word she knew about how much she hated the subject. Yeah leases are the worst.
I spent the rest of the morning working on practice problems. I took a small break to take the food for the funeral over to my neighbors. She would take the food to the funeral. That helped me out a TON because I didn't have the car that day and I didn't have to worry about having the car that day.
Side note about the funeral food. They'd sent around a sign up sheet in Sunday school. I'd signed up for ranch dressing. Brandon was sitting next to me and said, "Sign up for a cake." I told him he could do the cake, I was busy and was only doing dressing. So he made a cake and I provided a bottle of store bought ranch dressing.
Around 11:00 I was done with all the things I needed to do to get my instructors approval to retake the test. I sent everything over to her and she was able to give me the approval.
As soon as I sent the email I got a text from my mom. I ended up calling her and talking to her while I walked to work. I even took the long way. If she'd called any earlier in the day I wouldn't have been able to talk, but she somehow found the one hour in my whole week where I actually had free time.
I planned to only stay at work for about an hour to 90 minutes. There was a small event happening at the school that I'd been thinking of attending. But I'd been putting in about only an hour or so of work the past two days and so there ended up being quite a bit I needed to do. I knew Brandon could get the kids after school so I actually stayed at work until nearly 4:00 just getting caught up on things.
That night Brandon watched a movie with Derrick and Veronica while I powered through the last of Reached with the twins. We were all very happy to be done with that book. It ends okay, but like I said, it's not very riveting.
Okay let's take a flower break. I'm not sure where these fit, but we'll put them here.
Look how pretty these tulips are.
I'm so glad I added daffodils last year.
Aren't they so pretty.
On the Seventh Day of May my month gave to me: Lots of studying and a passed test.
I promised my instructor that I wouldn't take the test until I felt ready and not until the afternoon on Saturday. So I spent most of Saturday morning hiding in the basement doing more practice problems. I was so sick of this course, but the good news is that I felt more confident about it all. Leases finally sort of made sense.
At 2:00 I went over to my work office and signed into the online test system and took the test. I could tell I was more prepared for this. I could actually look at the prompt and figure out what I was supposed to do with the problem. My brain didn't go into "skip this mode."
I was pretty certain I'd passed the test, but it was still good to see the results.
I literally have no memory of what I did after the test was done. I think my brain just shut down with relief as soon as I got home.
So let's look at the flowers again.
Here are the tulips open this time.
I never get tired of this.
And look at this beautiful cherry tree in the back yard.
On the Eight Day of May my Month gave to me: Mother's Day.
I'd ignored the kids so much while I was studying on Saturday that I really wanted to spend time with them on Sunday. I also wanted to relax as much as possible. So Sunday was really chill.
Here's the presents the kids gave me. (Brandon's present was taking care of all the tree related logistics.)
My Baconsale Hoodie had shown up in the mail the day before so I was wearing that as much as possible.
I really wanted to just wear the hoodie to church, but I changed.
Church was interesting. Our ward always has the graduating Seniors talk on Mother's Day. There were 5 this year and they all did a good job.
Then we went to Relief Society where things went sideways. For some reason the Bishopric had been invited to speak. They took up most of the meeting sharing stories and insight that, while good, was just strange to hear from 3 men during Relief Society. I was like, "Um stop talking about how great women and mothers are and let us TALK in our own meeting." It was not a good meeting. I ended up being so annoyed by the whole thing that I emailed the (new) Relief Society President and the Bishop and shared my concerns. (In a very nice way. I wasn't angry, just annoyed.)
One of the things I said was:
"I'd like you to imagine that three women were invited to speak to the Elder's Quorum on Father's Day. The three women talk about the fathers in their lives and fathers in the scriptures. They allow some time for the Elders Quorum President to share his thoughts, but the majority of the meeting is taken up by the women talking to the men about other men. No time is given to the men in the room to share their experiences with Fatherhood. No time is given for the men in the room to share stories of men in the scriptures that are good examples. The time is mostly taken up by women, explaining to men why men are so important.
The bishop wrote back thanking me for bringing up my concerns and saying that in the future they would do things different if put in the same situation. Later the Relief Society President stopped by to talk about her perspective. She was only put into the calling last month - and she came from Young Womens so this was all new to her. She was grateful I'd voiced my concerns. So that all eventually worked out.
But on Mother's Day I was just annoyed.
When we got home from church I changed back into my hoodie. I'd ordered Anne of Green Gables from Amazon with my Baconsale Prize Money. (Anne of Green Gables is probably the least Baconsale thing out there, but I wanted to get something that meant a lot to me.) The kids and I went downstairs and watched that while Brandon made enchiladas for dinner.
The movie was so fun and made me really happy to watch. Plus I was able to spend time with the kids without having to actively come up with a way to entertain them. So that was good.
On the Ninth Day of May my month gave to me: Bible Study, a work admin meeting, the other twins coming over, karate class, and the worst period of my entire life.
Let's start with talking about that period. If that's gross to you, you can skip the next few paragraphs. My period had started on Saturday, but it I'd been denial about it actually being my period. It was too early and so I just assumed it was mid-month spotting or something. But it didn't stop on Sunday, and by Monday I was forced to admit this was really happening.
And by about 8:30 am I was realizing this was not just a normal period. I'd gone to Bible Study at 6:15 and had to leave around 7:00 to make sure the kids were getting up for school. By the time I got home from Bible Study I'd already soaking through the period underwear I was wearing. The underwear that should last me at least 4 hours on a heavy day.
I called my OB/GYN right when they opened at 9:00 and made an appointment for a follow up with the PA. I felt like an idiot because I was there 4 days earlier, but I was trying to advocate for myself as well as I advocate for my kids. The next appointment was on Friday Morning. I said I'd take it.
I spent the rest of the day avoiding sitting directly on anything and taking lots of showers. I had to go to work for the admin meeting and I only spent about an hour total at work because I had such bad cramps.
Brandon was also not feeling well (muscling a tree into place had caught up to him) so I picked him up from work in the morning. He went to bed and slept for a long time.
I sat on the couch in comfy pajamas and looked at my next school course. My advisor had told me that it was all down hill from here, but I didn't believe her until I saw the new course work. It was a Compensation and Benefits course that was mostly just general ideas about how to reward (pay) people. There was no complicated math. And really no hard concepts - just broad overviews. It was a breath of fresh air.
In the afternoon I went to pick up the kids from school. I'd sent Derrick to school without a jacket that morning because I'd assumed the day would warm up. But instead it got colder. When I walked outside to get the kids I turned around and grabbed my coat. I also grabbed Derrick's. He was so happy when I showed up with his coat. He said, "Thank you! I was so cold!"
The other set of twins came home with us again and played with Charlotte and Lydia all afternoon. We really like having them come over.
Brandon revived around dinner time. He'd been sleeping the whole day and was still feeling tired, but he did feel better. He took Veronica to Karate after dinner.
On the Tenth Day of May my month gave to me: A snowstorm, a whole day of school, a field trip for Veronica, therapy and boys activity for Derrick.
When the kids and I walked to school on Tuesday we all wore winter coats. I can't remember if it was actively snowing while we were walking, but it was definitely snowing later in the morning. I took this picture while I was sitting at the kitchen table.
Plus I had a task to compete for school. I was told it could be done in a day so I decided to work on that all day.
The task involved setting up pay grade bands for a fictional company. The task gave me a bunch of info, but it was up to me to make several decisions and then justify them. I've learned from other tasks that it's best to just fully believe in the company and write accordingly. So that led to me writing paragraphs like this one:
ALL of that was just backstory stuff I made up. But hey, I ended up passing the task so I guess it worked.
When I picked the kids up from school Veronica excitedly told me all about her day. She'd had such a good time going on the field trip to the pool. She's a good swimming so she was able to pass the swim check and play in the deeper end. Not all the second graders could do that.
Miss Brittani came over and picked Derrick up for the boys activity. They were cleaning up trash at another church. I'm so glad Miss Brittani helps with those activities.
I'm not planning to leave my job for a while, but recently we hired a new receptionist and decided to cross train her on how to do my job. She's not exactly going to replace me (because NO ONE can do that at this point) but she will be able to fill in when I'm gone. That will be a big deal because right now my boss has to take over for me whenever I go out of town. And that's just not something he has time for.
So I started training her on how to process payments. I don't realize just how much I do, and just how many little things I know until I try to tell someone all about them.
That afternoon Veronica had a girls activity where they painted rocks. They will hide them on an upcoming activity.
That night I went with Charlotte and Lydia to their Young Women's activity. It was Senior Night. The 5 graduating high school seniors showed slideshows of them growing up and then one of their family members talked about all their accomplishments. It was really fun.
One the Twelfth Day of May my month gave to me: A morning with my friend Liz, Derrick's speech and occupational therapy, and karate for Veronica.
But first let's look at flowers. I love how these tulips almost look like they are glowing.
After checking on all my plants I headed over to Liz's. Liz and I were hoping to get together for a while, but my stupid hard accounting class put a pause on that. But now that I was in an easier class we were finally able to get together. I went over to her house and we had a wonderful 3 hour discussion about theology. I really enjoy talking about religion with Liz.
That afternoon Derrick was supposed to have Speech Therapy followed by Occupational Therapy. And I had prepared him for those that morning. But at some point the office called me and let me know that his Speech Therapist had to go home early. So we didn't need to be there at 3:00. But I knew if I didn't pick Derrick up at 2:45 and get him out of school early he would be SUPER disappointed.
So I picked him up early and then told him that we didn't need to go to therapy right away. So instead we went to Smiths and picked up texas toast for making french bread for dinner.
Then we went to D&B and walked around. And finally we went to Occupational Therapy. His current therapist is leaving and I'm super sad about it. She's the miracle worker who taught him to tie his shoes.
After dinner Brandon took Veronica to Karate. He likes watching her practice.
On the 13th day of May my month gave to me: Another doctor's appointment, Mustang Day, an afternoon with Charlotte, Yearbook sales, and very nearly causing a riot.
Friday was one of those super busy days where I was running all day. I needed the car so I took Brandon to work at 6:00.
I drove the kids to school and then went straight to work after dropping them off. I worked for about 90 minutes and then had to run out the door to drive across town to my doctor's appointment.
This was my long awaited follow up doctor's appt. I went in with notes I'd been keeping all week about how awful my period was. When my doctor walked in she said, "I hear you had the period from Hell this week." I told her yes.
We talked about options for what to do and came up with a medication that will probably take care of the problem. I'm so grateful that I finally took care of this. (And that I finally have insurance.) My only regret is that I didn't take care of this sooner.
After my appt was over I took my work deposit to the bank next to the hospital. (I hadn't had time to drop it off at the branch close to my office.) Then I went to Norco to pick up more pull ups for Derrick. (We get them free through Medicaid, but we have to get them from the medical supply store.) Then I went to Walmart pickup and picked up a swim suit that Charlotte and I had ordered the night before.
After those pick-up errands I drove back across town to the elementary school. It was our final Mustang Day of the school year. A bunch of other moms were taking care of the sale. I was there to count cash. But first I had to do a bunch of other things. I had Liz sign a check and gave it to the principal to pay for one final teacher appreciation thing. (Bounce house rental at an end of the year staff event.)
Then I went to the library and paid for a library book that went missing months ago. (It showed up later in the back of Derrick's desk.)
I ran into the assistant principal and talked her her about Veronica's plan.
And then I went and counted cash while the sale was going on.
When the sale was over we took a final inventory of things that hadn't sold out. Most of the toys had sold out, but we still had lots of different candies. I needed the final count numbers in order to figure out how much money to expense this year and how much to roll over as the cost of inventory.
Liz and I put everything away in the closet and then had a moment where we realized this was it. We were done serving together on PTO. Her son got into one of the Charter schools so she won't be at the elementary school next year. I've loved serving with her and I'm super sad to see her leave. But I know she's doing what's best for her family.
After we finished with the closet I went to the office and check out Charlotte. It was finally her day to get out early and spend the afternoon with me.
First we went to the bank and dropped off the money from the sale. Then we went to Sipps and got Nutella Cookies.
I missed it all because I was trying to keep track of yearbook sales, but some kid pushed Charlotte and then some other kid pushed him and then someone's glasses got broken. There was very nearly a riot going on before the teacher in charge of watching the front of the school made it over.
When the yearbook sales died down I took the money home and counted it and then went back to the bank to deposit it.
Then I came home and . . . well I have no memory of the rest of the night. I was pooped.
Okay, I'm not entirely sure when I took these next pictures. Maybe Friday night? These are of some cute things the twins made for their doll houses in the last few weeks. This is a built in bookcase.
We must have packed on Friday night, because we woke up early on Friday and drove down to Utah. We drove straight to Lagoon and were there minutes after the gates opened. We took our cooler to the terraces in the back and then headed out to ride some rides.
We had a BLAST. We rode the Odysea and liked that it sprayed us with water. Here are the kids watching it.
We met back up again for lunch at the terrace. We noticed a lot of people seemed to be heading over toward Pioneer Village/Rattle Snake Rapids so we decided to wander that way. We were excited to discover that the Log Flume was up and running. So we got in line for that.
The kids thought it was so much fun! Derrick kept saying things like, "I'm so wet!"
When we got off the ride we saw a bunch of peacocks in the bushes.
Then we took the kids over to the line for Rattle Snake Rapids. The line was VERY long and Lydia and Charlotte thought we were crazy to stand in such a long line. I kept telling them, "This ride is worth it." But they weren't sure until we got to a point where they could actually see the boats that people rode in for the ride. They watched a boat float down the river and were like, "OOOOOOHHHHHHHHH."
I think this is us in line for Rattle Snake Rapids. We'll pretend it is.
Soon it was our turn to get onto a boat. The kids were definitely very happy by this point. They thought the ride was so much fun. And we got really really wet.
As we walked back passed the super long ride Charlotte and Lydia told people, "It's worth the wait!"
I've loved having season passes to Lagoon because every visit has unlocked new adventures.
We rode a few more rides, but most of the lines were really long. We got in line for the Bat and were in line for 40 minutes. We were all pretty worn out by the time we got off that roller coaster.
It was close to dinner time so we said goodbye to Lagoon and drove to my sister Emily's house. She was having an unofficial family get together. My parents were there and so was my sister Hillary and her family. Brandon and I stayed for about 30 minutes and talked to everyone, but then we left.
Emily was watching our kids so we could have a night to ourselves so we could celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.
We debated going to our hotel to shower and change, but we were too hungry. So we just picked a place for dinner where we wouldn't have to be fancy. We went to Warren's Craft Burger on 25th street in Ogden. We didn't even have to worry about taking off our hats - because our waiter was wearing a hat too.
Brandon got a burger that had a brisket on top with a raspberry BBQ sauce. I tried a bite and it was AMAZING.
I had a bacon cheese burger and it was delicious too.
Our meal was great! We had a fun time talking and laughing.
Then we drove to our hotel and had a nice time without any kids to worry about. The last time we went to a hotel together was in Austin Texas in 2014 so we were definitely happy about this chance.
On the 15th day of May my month gave to me: Going to church with my sister, driving home, dinner on the patio, and a cloudy lunar eclipse.
We checked out of our hotel around 10:30 and went to Emily's. The kids were ready for church and we went to Emily's ward for Sacrament Meeting. Then we said goodbye to Emily's family and drove back to Idaho. Our whole trip had been about 36 hours, but it had been perfect.
Here are my flowers when we got home.
You might be sick of them, but I'm not.
Look at that color.
I love these ones by the front porch.
And look at this windchime. I got it for my birthday. But Brandon only recently hung it up. I love it.
Here's this view of the flowers.
And look! The catalpa's leaves are starting to show up.
The kids played outside and set up the umbrella. And look, here's Marcia. We'd left her at home over the weekend and asked our neighbor to put her into the house at night and taker her out again. That worked really well.
I straightened up the patio and we decided to eat outside.
I love doing this.
Derrick was the next one to come out. He was so happy to see me.
While Derrick was still outside Charlotte and Lydia came out. Here's a picture with Charlotte, but somehow I missed one with Lydia.
Charlotte and Lydia ran off and I walked around with Derrick for a while. He was trying to convince me to let him come home with me early. I told him we'd have to ask his teacher if there was anything important going on after lunch. Just then his teacher came out.
Brandon had cooked dinner over some charcoal in a pan and he let the kids roast marshmallows after dinner.
That night Derrick had been looking forward to "The Red Moon." (Thanks to the Pixar Movie Turning Red.) We'd had the lunar eclipse marked on our calendar for weeks. But as it always turns out - the sky was cloudy. Fortunately, Derrick was content with looking at pictures the next day.
On the 16th Day of May my month gave to me: A Mom and Me Karate Class.
Veronica's karate gym hosts different events each month. April had been a Buddy Pillow Fight. In May it was a Mom and Me Karate Class. So I got to go with Veronica and participate in the class. I learned the complicated moves she's been learning all month. We'd take turns holding a pool noodle and hitting it the way we were supposed to. It ends with a direct punch to the "face" an Veronica always had a very determined look in her eye. Karate is definitely her "thing."
On the 17th Day of May my month gave to me: My 15th wedding anniversary, a passed test, a school picnic, and a lazy afternoon at the park.
Yes, Tuesday was our 15th Wedding anniversary. I remember when people who had been married for 3 years seemed like experts. 15 years was impossible to imagine then. And yet, here we are.
What's our secret? I literally don't know. But I'm pretty certain it has to do a lot with Brandon. I'm too volatile to have made it to 15 years on my own.
Lydia made this present for us.
I dropped the kids off at school in the morning and then walked to work. I took my laptop with me because the first thing I was doing was taking my test. I passed that test EASY. That meant I only had 2 classes left and nearly 6 weeks to finish them. All my panic from earlier in the month seemed kind of pointless now that I had so much time left to finish 2 courses.
I clocked in for work and did about 90 minutes of work. Then it was back to the school for a lunch time picnic.
This outdoor lunch was a Morningside tradition for many years, but it was almost completely forgotten. The only other year my kids attended this school was the Covid year. So I don't know any of the end of year traditions. At the end of last year they didn't do the picnic and then 11 staff members left - including the Principal and the main lunch lady. So when the administration started planning the end of this year things no one thought, "we need to do the picnic."
It wasn't until our April PTO meeting that a parent said, "Does anyone remember the picnic?" No one in that room at that time remembered the picnic, but the Principal asked around and the teachers told her that it had been a tradition. So it was added to the calendar.
I'm so glad it was! There were so many parents who came out to see their kids and eat lunch with them. We came in the school and then waited for our kids in the hall.
Veronica was so happy to see me waiting in the hall for her. I didn't want to eat a corn dog for lunch so I'd brought my own salad - but I'd forgot a fork. Her teacher gave me one.
We went outside on the lawn and ate lunch together. Then she showed me all the things she likes to do on the playground.
We talked to him and he said there wasn't much going on. Then Derrick started crying. He said things like, "I'm going to miss you Mr Rahe. What will I do without you?" He gave his teacher a big hug for a long time. It was the sweetest thing ever.
Derrick's bell rang and I told him I'd pick him up after Charlotte and Lydia's lunch was over. I went over to where Charlotte and Lydia were playing with the Kangaroo Ball. These have been a big hit this year.
When the recess was over I went into the school with the girls and Charlotte asked her teacher if I could watch her give her State report. Both girls had picked Alabama as their state. I'd printed off a few pictures of us visiting places in Alabama and Charlotte had added them to the poster along with drawings of the state flower and tree. She did a good job with her report. (Lydia had given her report with a slideshow that morning.)
We had to eat the ice cream before it melted so we each had two cones.
Here's a picture of Lydia because I'd missed one earlier.
I went to the office and had them call down for Derrick. Then he and I walked home. I got right to work on the pre-test for my next class. My advisor had recommended starting with that because then I'd see what I needed to study. I was happy to see that I wouldn't need to study much. But I decided to wait until the next week to really get going on the class because I had other things to do.
I'd been working on the final numbers for PTO. I was trying to reconcile our revenue with our deposit record and our expenses with our withdrawals. I got the revenue/deposits into balance, but was about $200 off with the expenses/withdrawals. Thankfully it was $200 over which meant I was double counting something. I suspected it was somewhere in the sales tax.
I worked on that off and on for the next few days and got the number down to $39.30. I still can't find the double count, and I've had to build the number into my spreadsheet as a line item. Overall I'm super happy with how things turned out. Of all the thousands of dollars I had going in and out of that account all school year it's impressive that I'm only off by $39.30.
When Brandon came home from work we realized two things. 1. We had a rare unscheduled Tuesday afternoon. Derrick's therapist had something going on so we didn't have therapy, and nobody else had anything else scheduled. The second thing we realized was that we didn't want to cook - AT ALL.
So we ordered Dominos Pizza and picked that up. We also stopped at Smiths and got icecream and cones. Then we went to a park and had all that for dinner.
And here she is on her own.
This was a rare day of not much. Mostly I just worked on the PTO financial stuff. I also trained the backup person at work.
I took this picture on the way to school on Wednesday. This is the last time the kids will walk to school together. They will be in school together again in Highschool, but I doubt they will walk to school then.
And here's Lydia.
Then we just took some without the cap and gown.
Lydia is on the left and Charlotte is on the right.
I thought we'd messed up the order of the picture, until I saw this one that we took when they were starting Pre-K. Lydia is on the left and Charlotte is on the right.
That evening the twins and I borrowed Brandon's cap and gown and went over to the school to take some pictures. Here's Charlotte.
And now here we were, one day a way from finishing fifth grade. We went out to the playground and took some more pictures.
I felt sadness at the last day of school, but mostly relief. After weeks of go go go, I was looking forward to a slower pace.
I walked with the kids to school one last time. I went inside with them because I needed to pick up the last of the yearbook money. I counted that in the break room. The whole time I was counting there were teachers and staff walking in and out talking about how they were feeling about the last day. EVERYONE wanted to talk.
Our school will be hosting Summer School this summer so I took a few of the PTO things from the breakroom and stashed them in the PTO closet. Then I locked it for the last time this school year.
I walked from the school to the bank which are about a mile apart. I dropped of the yearbook money deposit and then walked to work which is about a third of a mile from the bank.
I got a lot of things done in preparation for a change in my schedule. (Since Brandon gets off work at 2:00 I was planning to change my schedule to go into work after 2:00.)
I had a work deposit so I walked back to the bank and dropped that off. (Conveniently, the PTO and my work use the same bank, but I'm always terrified I'll mix up the deposits so I try to do them separately.)
And then I walked back home. The bank is almost a mile from my home. So I walked a little more than 2.5 miles that morning. I like walking so on days like this when I can walk everywhere I need to go I don't mind not having my own car.
I had just enough time to make myself a sandwich and then it was time to pick up the kids. They got out early on this day.
I'd cleaned out the PTO mailbox that morning and there were some gifts for the PTO members from one of the teachers. So I texted my PTO ladies and let hem know to meet me by the marquee sign in from of the school. We were hanging out and talking when the bell rang and the kids started coming out.
Veronica was the first one out. But I didn't have time to really talk with her before Derrick came out. He had huge tears coming out of his eyes. At first I thought someone had pushed him or something. But he was sad about school being over. He was saying things like, "I'm going to miss Mr Rahe!" And "I'm not in 4th grade anymore!"
I barely had time to give him a hug when Charlotte, Lydia, and the other set of twins came around the corner from the back of the school. Of the 4 of them, 3 of them were in tears. They said all the 5th grade students had been put in two lines so they could give each other hugs. No one had been expecting that. Apparently even the biggest bully in school cried during those goodbyes.
I looked over at Veronica. I don't know if she'd always been crying or if everyone else crying had set her off, but she was in tears too.
I had no idea what to do with 5 crying kids. I was hoping by the time we walked home they would be mostly over the crying. But they sobbed and blubbered the whole way home.
In hindsight all this emotion makes sense. We haven't had a real last day of school since 2019. In 2020 we were home since March 13th and the school year just petered out. I home schooled in 2021 and that year petered out as well. We didn't have any sort of big event to mark the end of the school year.
When we got home I ran down into the pantry and looked for whatever treat I could find. I found a package of mint oreos. So I gave those to the kids. I also told them to watch a funny movie.
That sort of helped. But one of the other twins had to call her mom and cry for a while before she felt better.
Eventually Charlotte remembered that she had something to show me. It was a envelope with $40 inside. It was the prize money for a "Healthy Soil" poster contest she'd entered. She'd worked on the poster while I was deep in that last hard Accounting class. I'd spent so much time studying in the basement that I'd almost completely missed seeing her work on it. And I never thought to take a picture of it.
She won 1st place for her Elementary and 2nd place over all. We didn't get the poster back so I'm assuming it's moving on in the competition.
Here's Lydia with her poster. (You can see she's still really sad about the last day of school)
And I just breathed a sigh of relief. We'd DONE it. We'd made it through a whole school year. As far as I know none of my kids had covid this whole year. They never had to quarantine and the school was never shut down due to an outbreak. At the beginning of the school year I hadn't been sure about any of those things.
The kids watched movies and played all afternoon. At some point Brandon came home and at some point the other twins got picked up. Later Veronica would have Karate.
Now it was time to focus on our plans for the summer. But that's another post.
Thanks for reading.
And for making it this far. I know this was a long one.
