Summer 2022 - Week Two: Jumping

Alright, here's the promised "Part Two" post to our start of summer recap. Our first week of summer vacation had gone well so we were all pretty excited for the second week.  And the fact that it was Memorial Day weekend made it even better. 

Brandon's family was coming over on Memorial Day for a barbeque. His parents come up to see us several times a year, but his sisters rarely come up to our house so we were excited to have them all come. Plus we had something pretty unique planned as an activity on Memorial Day. 

We spent a lot of Saturday getting the house ready for company.  So I was pretty tired.  During Sunday School at church I snuggled up to Brandon, put my head on his shoulder, and fell asleep. My friend Jenny took this picture and texted it to me.   

That evening the kids and I watched episodes of Sabrina the Teenage Witch while Brandon was at his Self Employment meeting. Charlotte and Lydia were hard at work doing crafts for their barbies while they were watching the show.  

Lydia made a car for her barbie family. 

She did such a good job engineering it. 

Here's the mom and dad with the twin babies behind them.

The little kids, with strollers behind them. 

The babies in their car seats. 

Here's a full top view. 

The car took the barbies on vacation at some sort of tree themed hotel.

Later she made an RV trailer that hooked up to the car.  But I didn't get a picture of that (yet.)

Monday was more than just Memorial Day. It was also the day that Brandon was going to tandem BASE Jump off the Twin Falls Bridge.  

I'm sure you have at least two questions.

1. What is BASE Jumping?

and 2. Why??????

Well, let's start with what BASE Jumping is.  It stands for Buildings, Antennas, Spans (Bridges) and Earth (Cliffs). People jump off high structures with parachutes that open almost as soon as they start falling,  Think of it like really short sky diving. The Perrine Bridge in Twin Falls is one of the only places in the US where you can legally base jump all year long.  

And so why did Brandon want to do that?  Well, why not?

Actually, it was my idea.  Brandon has always wanted to sky dive and so I planned to gift him a sky diving trip at some point in his life.  Then I found out that a guy offered tandem BASE jumps for only $200.  I booked a jump for Brandon's birthday last November. 

When I told Brandon he was like, "No way! That is so cool!"  He kept asking me if I'd really done it.  He couldn't believe it. 

I was like, "Hey, cool things happen now that your student loans are paid off."

Well a few weeks before Brandon's birthday, David Helton (the guy who offered the jumps) went to Arizona to offer sky diving jumps through the winter. So we rescheduled for when he came back into town in early May.  But May was such an insane month I didn't want the jump to happen until the kids were out of school.  I decided to move the jump to Memorial Day and invite all of Brandon's family up to watch Brandon's "Birthday" Jump. 

In my mind it all worked perfectly. The jump would happen at noon and then we'd all go to our house for a BBQ out on the covered patio. 

Well, the weather had other plans.  Each day of the weekend got progressively rainier and colder. It started raining on Sunday night and didn't stop until late on Monday afternoon. I've never seen it rain so hard and so long in Twin Falls. David texted me that the best time to jump on Monday would probably be in the evening.  

So that meant that Brandon's family probably wouldn't get to see him jump. But they were still coming for the BBQ.  But the rain and cold weather was making it so that we'd have to eat inside the house. That meant that house needed to be extra clean. 

While I was running around the house doing last minute cleaning in every room I decided to straighten up the guest room/craft room/study dungeon in case anyone popped their head in there.  As soon as I walked into the room I saw we had a problem. 

There was water running down the wall from the basement window. 

Thankfully I've been anticipating something like this so I had that cardboard between the bed and the wall. The bed wasn't wet yet.  I also didn't keep anything on the floor.  I grabbed towels and started mopping up the water. Brandon went outside with the wet/dry vac and sucked up the water that was pooling on the other side of the window. Then he got a board and covered up the window well.

That minor adventure aside, we were soon ready for everyone to arrive.  Steve and Jacque showed up first followed by Shannon and Chris and their three kids.  Melanie and Justin came last with their 4 kids. 

Brandon cooked burgers and hotdogs with our new BBQ grill.  He had to put it into the car port so that it wouldn't get wet. 


Here are some people eating in the living room.  There were more people eating in the basement too.

We had a great time visiting with everyone.  I took people on tours of the yard and it was so cold we could see our breath!  I'd been hoping to maybe show off some of Twin Falls amazing features, but noone wanted to go anywhere in this cold.

They all stayed for 3-4 hours and then left to drive home.  Brandon and I cleaned up and then we each passed out on the living room couches to take naps.  

Right before I fell asleep I got a text from David.  He said he was going to go out to the bridge to check conditions at 6:00. He'd text me if it looked like a a jump was possible. 

The whole time I was asleep I kept having dreams about rescheduling the jump.  They were more like nightmares.  In real life its not hard to use David's website to reschedule the jumps.  I should know, I've done it twice.  But in my dream it was nearly impossible to use the website.  Browser tabs would randomly close, or I couldn't zoom in on the details of a date. I would try to pull up my regular calendar to look up dates that worked with David's calendar but then they would both close. 

When I woke up it was to a text from David saying, "Winds are great down here. Still going to be a little chilly, but if he's ready to go I am too."

Brandon said he was as ready as he was going to be. I realized that my greatest fear was rescheduling this jump so we might as well do this. 

The kids were downstairs watching a movie or something.  I yelled down to them and said, "Dad's going to do the jump."  Immediately the kids were coming upstairs and jumping up and down.  

I pulled their winter coats out of the box (where I'd put them just days earlier) and we bundled up to brave the cool evening. 

I told David we were 10 minutes away, but Brandon was driving and I didn't factor in the adrenaline rush he was having.  We made it to the Twin Falls Visitor Center in something like 5 minutes. 

We found David and he started talking to Brandon about what to expect.  I took the kids to walk around and stay out of the way.  Here's a view of the canyon with one of the overlooks.

And here's the bridge. Dun! Dun! Dun!

Here's Brandon and David practicing the landing. 

I'd debated whether or not I wanted to walk onto the bridge with the kids.  Normally I'm pretty panicky on the bridge when the kids are on there.  But they all promised to be good and so we went out on the bridge. 

Here's Charlotte looking down at the landing site.  It's the white square under her elbow.

Brandon helped David set up his platform.  I'd always assumed the platform was permanently on the bridge so it was cool to see it go into place. 

Here's a look at the platform.  I was oddly calm about the kids being on the bridge.  The whole thing felt surreal like it wasn't really happening. 

Another base jumper showed up and asked if he could get a ride out of the canyon when I picked up David and Brandon.  I said we had plenty of room. 

Soon it was time for Brandon to go onto the platform. This was the scariest part for me.  I hadn't realized that he'd have to climb over the barrier. Up to this point I'd been wondering if I could jump off the bridge some day, but this part was a huge NOPE for me.  Brandon wasn't clipped into anything and so many things could have gone wrong here. 

Brandon made it onto the platform okay and David started clipping their harnesses together.   I took this picture of the canyon. 

Here they are getting clipped in. 

They turned around and I started recording. I was using my nice camera in one hand and making a Marco Polo with my phone with my other hand.  I pushed record on both devises. I thought that there would still be about 30 seconds of the guys getting ready, but almost right away David yelled, "Are you ready to BASE jump the bridge?"  And Brandon yelled, "Let's GO" suddenly he leaped off the bridge and was falling. 

It all happened so fast I couldn't believe it! Here's the recording. 

And here's the jump from Brandon's perspective. David told him to yell because it made the video better.  He yelled "Take Me Gravity" because that's a line from the movie Luca that the kids really wanted him to say. I think this is the loudest Brandon has EVER been.

Derrick was worried about Brandon so we used my good camera to zoom in on him. Derrick was happy to see him standing up. 

The other jumper got on the platform and soon he was jumping. 

Here's his parachute. 

Charlotte was inspecting the platform construction.  It had arms that went under the concrete barriers. There were even wedges that made sure it was nice and secure. 

Before the kids and I got off the bridge we saw another jumper coming.  I told him that he could get a ride with us out of the canyon.  He said that would be cool.  He climbed out on the platform and then jumped.  

He did a flip off the platform.

And in case you are worried, here's his parachute. 

We could see Brandon and David start walking along the trail that led out of the canyon.  So we started walking off the bridge to the car. The kids and I drove down the canyon road. I knew we had a lot of time, and some of the kids needed to use the bathroom so we went down to Centennial Park to use the bathrooms there. 

We had a perfect view of the Perrine Waterfall. Twin Falls has so many amazing features. 

We parked at the trailhead that the guys would come up.  Derrick was very excited so he and I went down the trail to meet up with Brandon.    

When Brandon came up the trail Derrick was so happy to see him. Brandon told us how much he loved the jump.  He'd landed hard, but the rest of the jump had been amazing. We went back to the car and figured out how to fit 4 kids, 4 base jumpers, and me into an 8 seat Honda Pilot. We ended up squishing all 4 kids into the back seat.  Here they are watching the playback of the camera Brandon was holding. 

Two jumpers shared the middle row with me and Brandon and the other jumper were in the front.  The other two jumpers were from out of town.  One was from Minnesota and that other was from California I think.  They had been trying to do as many jumps as they could while they were in town.  So they'd been jumping and then rock climbing out of the canyon all evening.  That meant they were pretty sweaty.  The kids in the back kept saying not so subtle things about how stinky the car was. 

We went back to the visitor center.  The other two jumpers went to do another jump.  Brandon helped David take down the platform. And that was it. We said goodbye to David.  He promised to have the video of the jump to me later that evening. 

Brandon drove home and told us all about the jump.  He'd absolutely loved it. 

And if this has inspired you to schedule a jump for either yourself or a loved one.  Here is the website where you can schedule the jump with David. https://basejumpthebridge.com/

So how do you follow up a BASE jump?  With Stranger Things Season 4.  Brandon and I finally had time to watch the first three seasons of Stranger Things during the early days of COVID and we'd been eagerly anticipating Season 4 for over two years.  So we'd started watching the show on Sunday night. On Monday, after the kids were in bed we got in bed and stayed up watching more episodes. 

This season is TERRIFYING, and yet so good. 

This meme perfectly sums up the show. It's so scary, but I will keep watching because I love those kids so much. 

Okay, so now we are on to Tuesday, and really it's kind of a blurry day after all the excitement from Monday.  I think I took like 3 naps throughout the day. 

The movie theater here started offering $1 movies again this summer. We weren't planning to see a movie there until next week. But it was a rainy day and we were tired.  Derrick's therapist said she was planning to take Derrick to the movie. And after thinking about it for 30 seconds I decided the girls and I would go too. 

So Miss Brittani took Derrick and worked on things like waiting in line, paying, and other things.  I came a little bit later with the girls.  It was nice that I didn't have to worry about Derrick, but for not the first time this summer I wondered if we really needed therapy for Derrick right now.  Derrick has matured so much this year. I don't really need extra help with him most of the time. But I don't want to loose services if we need them later. I don't know what to do about that yet. 

We watched The Bad Guys.  It was a decent movie, but I slept through the whole middle part. 

At work I had to cover for one of our receptionists that had a family emergency.  So I was at work until 6:00.  Then I met up with Neighbor Liz.  She'd invited me along to help her buy plants for some planter boxes.  She's from back East so she's still figuring out what grows well in Idaho.  I'm not an expert gardener, but I do know little things like we are in zone 6b, that bleeding hearts are toxic, and that lemon plants won't last the winder outside so I think I was helpful.  

We went back to her house and planted the new plants.  

It was so fun. I'm so glad Liz invited me to help with this. 

Wednesday was June 1st and that meant that the fiscal year for PTO was over. I woke up when Brandon left for work and so I decided to start working on the Treasurer's Report summing up the year.  I started working on it at 5:30 and finished minutes before Derrick's therapist showed up at 9:00.  I had no idea that 3.5 hours had passed.  It felt like an hour.  

I like writing and I like accounting so I guess it makes sense that I would LOVE writing about accounting.  And in case you are interested in reading my report you can view it with this link. It's kind of cool to see the whole year summed up.

Like I said, I wrote right up until Derrick's therapist showed up at 9:00.  None of the kids were awake.  I had to wake up Derrick.  But after he was up and going Miss Brittani took him out to do something. I sat down to work on my homework. 

I'm in the last class for my second bachelors degree. Its an auditing class. It's one of those where I need to do a lot of reading.  But its BORING. (I like reading and I like accounting, but I HATE reading about accounting.)  So it's slow going.  

The kids got everything ready for our fairytale play for the week.  This time it was Little Red Riding Hood. 

That evening Derrick had talked Brandon into finally launching a model rocket they'd been working on together. We went out to an area on the other side of the bridge. The rocket ended up not working.  (Something about not enough volts for the big engine.)  But the kids made the best of the situation.  They ran around catching baby grasshoppers for at least an hour.

 

Brandon and I sat in the car and finished listening to the latest episode of Baconsale. Everyone was happy.

Thursday was another long day of studying.  It was also another day that I had to cover for my coworker.  This time I had to go into work from 4:00 to 7:00.  And since I didn't have to be there until 4:00 there was enough time to squeeze in a trip to the pool. 

PTO Liz (who will need a new designation since she isn't going to be on PTO next year) also has a pool pass.  So we planned to meet up at 2:00.  Here's my pool side selfie.

Liz's oldest is 5 and he is still very much content in the shallow area.  So Liz and I sat on that side of the pool and talked.  I kept an eye out for my 4 independent swimmers. 

At one point I looked over and saw Derrick finishing the swim check.  He seemed to be arguing with the lifeguard.  So I rushed over there.  Derrick hadn't passed the full test so they didn't give him the band that would let him into the deep end.  He was upset, but not like scary mad.  I told the lifeguards that he could pass the test last summer, but probably needed more practice.  Then I took Derrick aside and told him he could try again in 30 minutes.  He was mad and splashed around a lot, but calmed down within 3 minutes.  It was probably the best public tantrum he's ever had.  I'm not even sure I would classify it as a tantrum.  

Later I told Derrick that he probably wouldn't have time to do the swim check before it was time for us to go.  I thought he'd be super mad, but he thought about it for a second and then said, "Okay, I'll just play over here."  And he was FINE.  

This level of maturity is AMAZING. And it's another reason that I'm rethinking our need for behavioral therapy this summer.  Four years ago Derrick NEEDED therapy.  Three years ago I had him signed up for 20 hours of therapy each week during the summer.  But I think all the work put in during those days has started to pay off. Maybe it's time for Derrick to practice being part of the family full time this summer. 

Here's a picture I took while all 4 kids were sort of near each other in the pool. 

We got out of the pool at 3:30 and then rushed home.  I'd laid out my work clothes so I hurried to chance.  Then I rushed out the door to work. I made it there by 3:55. Everything would have been fine, except my work laptop was running slower than it ever has.  I was trying to check in clients and take payments while the thing drug and drug.  I was like, "I promise I'm competent at this job."  

Anyway, eventually things went smoothly. 

When I got home Veronica had constructed an elaborate farm scene in her room.

Brandon and I stayed up late and watched the last two episodes of Stranger Things.  We'd made it through 8 episodes in 5 days.  I'd spent most of the week wishing I could just watch all the episodes. There are two more episodes but they don't come out until July 1st. 

I dropped Brandon off at work on Friday because I needed the car. Charlotte and Lydia had a consultation with an orthodontist.  We've been there two other times, but this time we were talking timelines, cost, and insurance. If everything goes right both twins will have braces on in about 6 months.  But oh boy are they going to be expensive. I knew that, but still hearing the numbers made it more real. 

So then I started wondering how we'd pay for them.  And I realized that maybe, just maybe it is time to start our own side business.  

When Brandon's family was at our house on Monday they'd been tossing out business ideas and I was using my talent for saying no. But I did admit that Brandon could easily do RV winterizations and summarizations after work without much financial risk or costly start up costs. 

That conversation came back to me on Friday as I thought about how we'd pay for braces for Charlotte and Lydia (and Derrick and Veronica within a few years.)  I did a few quick calculations and realized that we could pay for braces quite easily with money from RV winter/summarizations. 

So I texted Brandon and let him know that as soon as I was out of school we should start looking at the idea more in depth.  He was like, "FINALLY!"

I went into work in the morning on Friday.  When I came home we watched Star Wars Episode III. This time I was smart and fast forwarded though the talky talky parts.  Even with doing that Derrick was still asking, "Where's R2?" most of the time. 

Charlotte and Lydia were like, "Why are we watching this movie.  It's so sad!"  I told them, "Well if we skip this movie and go to episode 4 you'll spend the whole time asking me things like, "Where's Padme?  Where are all the other Jedi?  Why does Darth Vader have to wear that suit? So we HAVE to watch this one."

When the movie was over it was time to pick up Brandon from work. He and Derrick were going to our ward's Father's and Son's camping trip at Nat Su Pah Hot Springs. Derrick was super excited.  They'd packed most of the stuff on Thursday night so they didn't have to pack much before they were ready to go.

A little after they left Charlotte and Lydia's best friends came over for a sleepover.  We had homemade pizza and then the girls watched The Floor is Lava for a while.  I went outside and mowed the lawn.  Thanks to all the rain it was super long.  

Around 8:00 the girls all came outside and started to play. Veronica and Gwen were smashing rocks with a hammer to make "stew." Aurora, Charlotte and Lydia were playing with their LOL camper. 

Here's a low light picture of my garden.  

The girls discovered the hydrangea and started pulling flowers off. 

This thing usually blooms on my anniversary in the middle of May, but it was about a week and a half late this year due to the colder weather. 

Here's Charlotte in the tree house. 

I decided to put the fountain together.  This was supposed to be done on Monday before all the family arrived, but we'd abandoned that idea when we realized it was going to be too cold and windy to eat on the patio.  

And then I straightened up the whole patio. 

The girls created a center piece with the flowers.  And then decided the patio was their restaurant.  

They made a menu for me and pretended to be my waiters. 

Here's a little video of them bringing out my meal. (It was leftovers from dinner.)

https://youtube.com/shorts/wa5iQk8pCQ8?feature=share

Veronica ordered pancakes because she knew there were extras in the freezer.  The servers brought her some. 

Gwen thought pancakes sounded great so she ordered some too.

We were getting close to 10:00 and the girls were still pretty loud.  I told them it was time to go in and get ready for bed.  We got out the couch bed and set up the other chairs to be comfortable so the 2 sets of twins could both sleep in the basement.  They turned on a movie and watched that until about midnight. 

I knew Veronica would feel left out so I let her sleep in my bed.  We watched Brave on my laptop. I've actually never seen that movie before.  I'm still not sure I've seen it because I kept falling asleep for little 5-10 minute chunks.  But I got the idea. 

In the morning I made muffins for the girls.  They ate and ate and ate. They played for a while. Around 10:00 their dad came to pick them up. Brandon and Derrick showed up at almost the exact same time.

Derrick told me all about their camping trip.  And the cool thing was that I understood about 95% of what he was talking about.  He'd gone swimming in the hot springs and went down the slide and the diving board.  When they were done swimming he played in the stream that runs through the campground. 

He and Brandon had brought the wrong sleeping back for him so Derrick got Brandon's sleeping bag and Brandon used the old one. (It doesn't have a zipper anymore and Derrick didn't like that.)

They had hot dogs for dinner and pancakes and sausage for breakfast. They'd had a great time. 

Brandon hadn't slept well so he ended up taking a long nap.  When he woke up it was time for us to go to a block party at our neighbors.  

I've wanted to plan a block party pretty much ever since we moved in.  But Covid and more covid have prevented that.  I wanted to do one this summer, but I told myself I'd worry about it after I was done with school.  

Well, a few weeks ago a new family on our street came over with an invitation to a block party.  I was so excited because 1.Now I didn't have to plan one.  and 2. It was going to be so much fun. 

They ended up doing a better job than I could have.  They had a HUGE inflatable waterslide. The weather was on the cooler side again, but that didn't stop my three girls.  They played on that thing for two hours.  (Derrick had had enough of water and the outdoors the last two days so he went home and watched a movie. 

There was great food and great conversation. I met one of our neighbors that I've never spoken to before - even though they live one house away from us. I also talked to a lady that I've been Facebook friends with for 2 years, but have never really had time to just sit and talk with. 

The new family was also fun to get to know. They did such a good job hosting. 

When it was over we went home and just kind of chilled out.  Brandon worked on his engine and figured out a quick way to put the springs on the valves.  (I'm not making any promises on the accuracy of that sentence.)

He was ready to move onto the next step which was to install some . . . . crap I forgot . . . thingies. But then the Youtube video he watched about that recommended soaking the thingies in mineral oil for 24 hours.  He and I went to Autozone, but they didn't have the right kind of mineral oil and Napa was already closed.  So that was the end of working on the jeep for this weekend.  (One reason this engine overhaul has taken so long is that ever single step involves a side quest.)

While we were out and about we picked up the 4th Matrix Movie from Red Box.  We watched that after the kids were in bed.  It was pretty great. I am 100% here for all these nostalgic reboots and sequels. 

And that's the end of the second week of summer. 

Things are looking a lot calmer for the 3rd week.  No one is jumping off any bridges.  Really this week and the two following it are all about me putting my head down and just finishing school. 

And now that I've finished this blog post I'm out of ways to procrastinate doing homework this morning.  So I better go.  

Thanks for reading. 

Summer 2022- Week One: Starting Summer Right

We'll start this post off with a little housekeeping. This post was supposed to cover the first two weeks of summer.  I'd uploaded all the photos for the first week of summer last Sunday, but never got around to writing the post. Yesterday I tried to upload the photos from this second week of summer to make one super long post about the first two weeks.  

Well I tried to upload the photos twice and both times something went wrong and the upload failed. I was going to try again, but I realized you'd probably appreciate two smaller posts rather than one big long one anyway.  So this post will cover Week One.  And at some point I'll write about Week Two. 

So let's dive right it. 

School ended for us on Thursday, May 19th.  But since this is my family we are talking about, we were preparing for summer earlier than that. At some point before school got out I started listing all the things we wanted to do that summer.  The list started out two pages long.  Then I got a copy of the "Southern Idaho Kids" Community Calendar and discovered that there are a TON of things happening this summer - Summer Reading programs at the library, nighttime movies at the pool, events at the science museum.  So all that stuff was added.  Plus I just thought of more stuff we like to do.  

The summer fun list grew to be 4 pages long.  As I worked on it I kept thinking, "It's nice to have a proper summer again."

Thanks to COVID, the last two summers were a little light on the activity side of things. But now that community events are happening again things are feeling normal.

I also remembered my "Mom's Adventure Camp" calendar template in my Google Docs.  So I found that and created the summer calendar. This is more of a rough outline than hard and fast rules.  We do well with a flexible framework in our family.

So Monday is "Library Day." Tuesday is "Science Day" (with Brandon), Wednesday we act out a fairytale. (This was the ONE thing that we liked doing during Homeschool that we still want to do.) Thursday is "Art Day" again with Dad. And Friday is "Star Wars Day" because somewhere I decided that it would be an excellent use of our time to watch all the Star Wars Movies this summer.      

Since school ended on a Thursday I designated Friday as "Day Zero." I didn't try to implement much on Day Zero. The kids basically watched TV all day.  I worked in the morning and I'm not sure they even knew I was gone. 

We did watch Star Wars Episode I. But that was about the only "scheduled" thing that happened.

Here are some random pictures from a random day. This is Charlotte's poster about Alabama. 

 

Lydia had been working hard to make her own Hogwarts Castle out of Legos. (I'm 85% certain that's Charlotte in the background of this picture.)

The Castle was really detailed.  Here's the roof. 

I think this is one of the bedrooms. 

Another bedroom.

A common room.

A classroom.

And the great hall.

This is the inside of Hagrid's hut. 

And the outside of the hut. 

Here's the whole view.  You can see she also has the lake and the Womping Willow. 

Friday was a different sort of day for another reason- Brandon was out of town. 

He'd gone to Boise for the Idaho Writer's Guide Writers Conference. Yeah, you read that right. Brandon went to a writers conference, not me. 

I don't really know if I've mentioned this before, but Brandon's been writing a novel for something like 2 years . . . maybe 3 . . . I wasn't really paying attention at first. 

Brandon still has bouts of insomnia so he started writing on nights when he can't sleep.  He started fleshing out a story he'd been thinking about for years.  And gradually a plot and characters took shape. He'd ask for my input and I'd help talk him through some things, but I wouldn't read the book. I'm not sure what my reason for that is. I think I'm afraid of giving harsh criticism and crushing his budding hobby. 

While all this was going on, Brandon also wanted to start a business. I don't have an entrepreneurial bone in my body so this didn't interest me either. (I'll manage ALL day long, but starting a business just overloads my risk tolerance.)  

Brandon kept talking to me about how great it would be to have our own business, and finally I said, "Okay, maybe, but what's the business? Come up with an idea and then we'll talk."

I also told him to sign up for the "Start Your Own Business" self reliance class our stake was offering. Brandon did that and started going to the classes.  After a couple classes he was like, "You know, I'm not really interested in starting a business. I really just want to work on my novel."

This was kind of what I secretly hoped would happen. 

He kept going to the classes, but it was more with the idea that he was "auditing" the course for future reference.  He wasn't actively thinking about starting a business soon. 

Around this time I saw a post on Facebook about the Idaho Writer's Guild Annual Conference in Boise.  I told Brandon he should go.  He liked that idea so he signed up. (And joined the guild in the process.)

He took the whole day off of work on Friday and drove up to Boise in the morning.  He attended workshops, and met many other writers.  He said it was like a Crash Course in Creative Writing. That night he stayed up late working on his story.  Then he attended more workshops on Saturday. 

When he came home on Saturday night he told me all about it. He'd had a great time and met some really cool people. He came away from it feeling like he had friends in the writing community. He's already planning to attend the conference in Utah later in the summer. 

Saturday for me was also really fun.  I worked in the yard for a long time. I pulled grass out of my front garden bed and pulled weeds from lot of the beds in the back yard.  It was a very productive morning.  

But about Mid-Afternoon my body just crashed on me. I suddenly had no energy. 

I spent the rest of the day sitting around doing nothing and wondering what I'd done wrong.  I realized it had less to do with what I'd done that day and more to do with what I'd done every day for the past 9 months.  My body was tired from the last school year.  It was finally over, and my body was demanding some rest. 

So I gave it the rest it needed. 

The downside was that I had to cancel some plans for Sunday.  I'd been hoping to go with my whole family to the one year anniversary service for the Twin Falls Community Church.  This is the church that runs the ladies ministry I've been attending for almost a year. They normally do their Sunday service in the evening so I never can attend.  But this time they were doing it in the morning in the pastor's backyard.  They were going to have a BBQ after the service.  I wanted to go so my Bible Study friends could meet Brandon and the kids.  Plus I figured it would just be a cool cultural experience for us all.  Derrick and Veronica were going to go to the children's class and Charlotte and Lydia would stay with me and Brandon.

But the service started at 10:00 and my kids are used to church that starts at 1:30. They normally start taking showers at 10:00 on Sunday's.  If we were going to be ready for a church service at 10:00 it was going to take a Herculean Effort to get them ready.  And I did not have it in me for that.

So I had to text Liz and tell her I wouldn't be there. 

On Sunday we just went to our church. And it was . . . I don't even know how to describe it.  The same as always . . . just okay . . . disappointing? 

Sacrament meeting wasn't anything that I can remember. But I know I sat there and wondered what it would have been like to go to the TCFF worship service. Would I have felt something different, something new?

One of Derrick's teachers couldn't attend class that day so she asked me to sit in the class. So I was in Primary with Derrick.  His little class went fine - my friend Darla teaches his class and she is great with him.  But I felt bad that Derrick wasn't more engaged. The other kids in the class all answered questions and seemed so in LOVE with church. Derrick just sat there. 

I was thinking, "we'll that's just because he'd autistic."  Then we went into Singing Time and met up with Veronica. I watched her through the whole lesson on the song.  She didn't sing a word. The kids were working on a Father's Day song and so the chorister had them sing the song over, and over, and over. The same song.  For 15 minutes. Over and over and over again.  Derrick and Veronica just sat in their seats and never sang. Not even once.

And I started to wonder what the TFCC children's class would have been like for them. Would it have been boring too? Too childish too? Or would it have engaged them? 

I was in a bad mood after church. I hid it okay, but after the kids were in bed Brandon and I had a long talk. 

I told him I felt like I'd chosen the wrong church to attend that day. That we should have tried to make it to the TFCC service. I wasn't saying I wanted to always attend TFCC, but that I wished I'd attended it THAT day. 

I said that when I attend Bible Study or the Ladies Retreat it feels like I'm sitting down to a well prepared meal.  That someone has put thought into the menu and the service. I know I'll be spiritually fed when I'm with TFCC.  

But when I attend anything with the LDS church it feels more like a cafeteria. I'm pushed along with a long line of other people and someone slaps food on my tray. Food that is similar to what I've had every other time I've been there.  Food that's similar to what everyone else is eating.  Food that is so mass produced it's completely bland. 

I asked Brandon, "If the LDS church is TRUE like it claims to be, then why does it suck so much? Shouldn't the TRUE church also be the BEST church?"

Neither of us had or has a good answer to that.  

(Before you get all worried and send me emails with you testimony, don't worry. I'm not leaving the LDS church anytime soon. It's still my spiritual home. I'm still solid on like 90% of the doctrine.  I just want to be honest with my feelings about some of the problems with the culture.)

ANYWAY, let's move on from all that and talk about what this post is really supposed to be about.  The first week of summer and how it was just perfection. 

Oh wait, sorry, one more religious thing.  Monday happened to be a Bible Study Day. So I took Brandon to work at 6:00 and then drove straight to Bible Study which started at 6:15.   This day was our second half of our study on Bibliology. This has been fascinating for me. The Bible has always just kind of been there in my life. Like I believe it, and I studied it in church and seminary, but I've never really known what to do with it. Like I said, it's just kind of been there.

But when you hang out with people who don't believe in modern revelation and that the Bible contains everything God intended them to know - well the Bible becomes EVERYTHING.  And it's fascinating to sit in a group of women and hear them talk about it. 

Okay moving on to the rest of the day. Sunday night I'd had a whole talk with Derrick about how we were going to go to the library at 10:00 and that we wouldn't turn on the TV until 12:00.  But then I looked at my calendar and realized that I had work admin meeting at 11:00.  So that morning I had to tell Derrick, "I'm going to work at 10:00 and you can watch TV while I'm gone."  Derrick was a little thrown off by that, but ended up being okay. 

We had about an hour before I had to leave for work and Derrick wanted to watch TV right away, but I told him to find something else to do.  He ended up finding his roller blades. That reminded Veronica of her roller skates.  And before I really knew what was going on - we were outside going around the block.  Veronica was really unstable so I had to hold her tightly as she slowly skated.  Derrick was off like a rocket and was out of sight really fast.  But he made it home okay.     

When I got back from the walk I went to work and got ready for Admin meeting. We had the meeting, and then came home and had lunch.

We went to the Library and the kids all picked out books. I wanted to go home and read the book right away, but I'd made a dentist appointment for Veronica. She had a tooth that was bothering her. So I dropped the other kids off at home and we went to the dentist.  

I was worried she had some sort of abscess. But her tooth pain was actually from a tooth that was coming in. The root for the baby tooth was partially gone, but part of it was still there.  The dentist had us make an appt for an extraction in about 3 weeks.  He said, "If it comes out on its own before then - great!  If not, we can help pull it out. 

In other tooth news, Derrick pulled out a tooth that day.  And so did Lydia.  Later in the week Lydia would loose another tooth and so would Charlotte. I kept waiting for Veronica's tooth to come out to complete the set, but it never did. 

When Veronica and I came home from the dentist I looked out the window and saw Charlotte reading on the mattress on the patio.    

The other kids were also ready.  (Okay, Derrick is probably playing his Gameboy, but he was quiet.)  This was so cool to see. 

At some point I sat down to reach with the kids.  We all fit on the couch!  We had so much fun reading together. 

Veronica had karate that night. She wanted me to see the huge "Karate Guys" that were on the walls outside the bathroom.  She said, "they are scary so I always run right by them."

Tuesday was a much more typical summer day. And yet it was also different than any other summer day in the last two years.  There were two reasons.  1. We didn't have a car.  The Jeep is still in pieces in the garage so Brandon and I have been sharing the Honda for months. Brandon took the Honda to work so they kids and I were home without the car all day.  I realized this is the first summer I haven't had my own car since 2013. 

The second thing that was different was that I was home in the morning.  During the last two summers I worked in the morning and usually got home around 12:00 -12:30. I'd get home and the kids would have been eating cereal all morning and the day would be too hot to do anything besides go to the pool. 

This year, thanks to Brandon's 6:00 to 2:00 work schedule,  I don't go into work until 2:00 in the afternoon most days.  That means I have the whole morning to spend with the kids. I'm able to cut off their cereal supply at 9:30, make sure they don't watch TV until 12:00, and we can go places besides the pool! (Not that there is anything wrong with the pool, I just want some variety.)

So on Tuesday I asked the kids if they wanted to walk to the park.  They all wanted to go, but they didn't want to walk.  

Derrick wanted to wear his roller blades.  Veronica and Charlotte wanted to wear their skates. Lydia brought her skateboard.  I was a little nervous about this trip to the park.  We haven't walked to the park in something like 2 years. The last time we tried it it was a complete disaster.  We'd brought Marcia with us and she'd been completely annoying. And the kids had all been tired by the time we got to the park. 

But this time I was a little bit more confident.  For one, we were leaving Marcia at home.  I have long since given up on taking her on any activity. Also this was a therapy day for Derrick. Miss Brittani would be walking with us.  She could keep an eye on Derrick while I was worrying about the other kids. 

At about 9:45 we set off for the park. Veronica wanted to wear her skates, but I bought sandals with me in a bag just in case.  That was a good plan because about halfway there she decided to take her skates off.      

We made it to the park and then a new development occurred.  The kids wanted to go to the skate park part of the park. I was super nervous about this.  All I could envision were broken bones and broken teeth. 

But we walked over there to "take a look."  There was one little hill I was okay with the kids skating down. And we realized the bottom of the skate area was nice and smooth.  It was a good place for Veronica to practice.

So the kids had fun skating around. We stayed there for about 45 minutes until some big teenagers came.  They didn't seem to want to skate around a bunch of little kids so we left. 

It was almost time for free lunch at the school so we walked over to the elementary school so the kids could pick up their sack lunches.  This is another thing we haven't done in a while.  Last summer the kids were too full of cereal to want lunch from the school.  Plus, if I'm being totally honest, the food doesn't taste that good. We were spoiled in Pocatello with delicious food every day at lunch in the park. We NEVER missed Thursday's cheeseburgers.  But over here in Twin Falls the food isn't as good for some reason.  Also you never know what you are going to get.  In Pocatello there was a set schedule, here's it's just kind of random.  

But on this day, we were all STARVING. So when the kids opened up their sack lunches and found hoagies and chips they started eating right away. 

We walked home and Miss Brittani left for the day.  I'm still kind of on the fence about whether or not Derrick even needs behavioral therapy this summer, but Miss Brittani had been helpful this day. 

It was 12:00 so the kids could go watch TV.  Part of our summer schedule was a detailed description of who's day it was to pick movies.  Charlotte was Monday, Lydia was Tuesday, Derrick was Wednesday, Veronica was Thursday, and Mom was Friday. 

I stayed upstairs and worked on homework. Yes I was still in school.  But it was an easy class.  Basically I just needed to do a little bit of reading each day.  I'll probably not talk about school again in this post so I'll just say I passed the test for the class on Thursday. That left me with ONE last class to get through before the end of June. 

I went to work as soon as Brandon got home.  So I was there around 2:15. I stayed until about 5:00.  It's kind of strange to get to work at the time I used to leave work, but it's also nice.  I liked that I didn't have to rush out of there to pick up the kids. Plus I get to see some of the therapists that only see clients in the evenings.  

Wednesday was a lot like Tuesday.  We even went to the park in the morning again. Our play for the week was Jack and the Bean Stalk. Lydia, Charlotte, and Veronica acted it out and I watched it with Derrick and Miss Brittani. 

While I was at work Brandon took care of dropping Charlotte and Lydia off at the church for their young women activity. They were going to the temple to do Baptisms for the Dead for the first time.  I would have liked to have gone with them for their first time, but we never could get any of the available appointment times to work with our schedule.  So I talked them through what to expect and then was like, "Off you go. Have fun."   

When they came home they talked about how great it had been. (The trip to Orange Leaf after the Temple might have also influenced their happy moods.)

On Thursday the kids once again grabbed things with wheels and we went to the skate park.  Here's a picture of all four kids heading out. Derrick is on Roller Blades.  Charlotte was on her bike (she realized her skates were too small.) Lydia was on her skateboard, and Veronica was on Roller skates. 

By this point I was pretty blasé about the park. I still saw visions of broken arms and teeth, but the kids had shown that they were at least somewhat safe in the park.  So I took lots of pictures. 

Here's Derrick.

Lydia

Veronica leaning on the wall, Lydia getting prepared to skate down the one hill I said was okay. 

Another boy was at the park and he let Lydia try his scooter. 

Here's Charlotte riding her bike. 

Derrick skating some more. 

Charlotte trying to go up the big hill.  She eventually got good enough to pedal her bike to the top. 

Lydia preparing to ride down the hill while sitting on her skate board. 

Here's me attempting a selfie.

Here's a video of Charlotte on her bike.  You can see the other kids doing their things.  You can also hear how chill the park is when we are basically the only ones there. 

And here's a short video of Lydia on her skate board. https://youtube.com/shorts/xQ6gC9psidc?feature=share

The kids got tired of the skate park after a while so we went to the playground.  They were tired of that soon too.  But I wanted to keep us out long enough to have lunch at the school before we went home.  We decided to play at the school.  But as we walked over there we noticed some major tree trimming happening at the YMCA/Community Center. The local YMCA recently became the "E Street Community Center."  And with the name change there have been a lot of upgrades to the building.  It got a new roof a little while ago.  And now it looked like they were updating the landscaping.

We sat across the street and watched a whole crew take down some large juniper trees.  There were two people on the roof helping to trim branches off the trees. There was a guy on the ground with a chain saw who was chopping down the trees.  Another guy had a skid loader and would pick up big branches and load them into a wood chipper. It was all very exciting to watch.  

When the front tree was completely down I let out an audible gasp.  There were beautiful wood beams jutting from the building.  I'd never noticed them before because the trees covered them so much.  

Later that evening when I took Veronica to Karate we drove by the community center. The juniper trees were all gone.  So were the pine trees that were near the (very sad looking) playground. The whole building looked so much fresher with all the overgrown trees out of the way. 

In the afternoon I went to work and Brandon took care of taking Derrick to Speech and Occupational Therapy. I'm so grateful that Brandon is available for these kinds of things. 

That night was Veronica's last night of Karate until the fall.  We could keep her in Karate over the summer. They offer classes in the morning as well as the evening.  But with only one car I couldn't see how morning classes would work.  And we'd nearly forgot these evening classes already during this first week of summer.  So it just made the most sense to pause Karate for the summer. 

This was an advancement day.  Each child was brought to the front and the coach would add a stripe to their belt.  He'd say something quietly to each kid.  Then he would turn them around for a picture.  Here's Veronica. 

Sorry it's blurry, but you can tell she is SO HAPPY. Karate has been so good for her.  One of the highlights was when she was showing Brandon some of her moves.  They involve straddling someone and putting them in a type of headlock. Brandon said, "I haven't had this done to me since hand to hand combat training in Basic Training."

We decided to go grocery shopping as a family on Thursday evening.  It's been a LONG time since we went to the store as a family - probably 2 or so years. We bought a lot of food.  

At one point, Derrick decided he really wanted a coconut.  I have no idea why, but he really wanted to buy one.  As soon as we got to the produce section he wanted to know where the coconuts were.  I was busy picking out something normal like bananas so I told him I'd help him find a coconut in a minute.  He said, "I'll ask somebody."  So he went over to a worker who was stocking some food and asked where the coconuts were.  I couldn't quite hear him, but I saw the worker point them out.  Derrick went over and found them and then came back to me as excited as could be.  

I was super proud of him for taking the initiative and asking for help. And I was really happy that the worker had understood Derrick and that Derrick had understood the worker.  It's thinks like that that show that Derrick has made a lot of progress.  

So guess what, we bought the coconut!  

The impromptu coconut lessons didn't stop there. The next morning Derrick was super interested in how to open the coconut.  He really wanted the coconut milk inside.  He'd shake the coconut and hear it sloshing around. 

I told him it was super hard to open a coconut. But that he could try.  First he tried a knife, that didn't work.  Then he went outside and tried hitting it with a rock.  That didn't work.  Then he threw it on the patio.  That cracked it enough to allow the milk to leak out.  I grabbed a cup and we let the milk go into that.  We tried drinking it, but it was yucky.  We tried adding some sugar, but that didn't do anything to help.  So we ended up pouring it down the drain. 

Then Derrick went outside and threw the coconut again.  It split right open!  He was so excited. 

We nibbled on the white coconut, but didn't think it was very good.  I showed Derrick the two shells on the coconut.  He said, "That's why it was so hard."

It had been a very good impromptu science lesson. 

I like working in the afternoon - most days.  But on Friday's it makes the most sense to go to work in the morning.  So I walked over to work and was there for about an hour. 

When I came home we watched Star Wars Episode II. A few weeks ago Derrick and I had watched The Ten Commandments together.  It had taken us less than 2 hours to get through that 4 hour movie because I fast forwarded through all the "talky-talky" parts.  In hindsight, I should have done that with Star Wars Episode II.  We were soooooooooooooooooooooooooo bored for sooooooooooooooooooooo much of the movie. 

Later I introduced the kids to the Honest Trailer for Episode II.  They especially appreciate the joke about how it's over an hour before you meet the main villain. 

After the movie was over we got into swimming suits.  The kids and I were waiting on the front lawn for Brandon to come home.  As soon as he pulled up in the Honda we piled in and drove to the pool. Brandon stayed home because it was a cooler day and he doesn't like the water when it's cold.  Plus he wanted to work on the jeep.  

This was opening day at the pool for the summer so there were lots of people there. But if it had been a regular day it would have been empty because it was SO COLD!  I think the air temperature was barely above 74 degrees. I don't know what the water temperature was.  The kids talked me into getting into the water. Once I was wet I was trapped in the pool because it was too cold to get out. 

We had a good time, but we only lasted about 50 minutes and I didn't take ANY pictures. 

On Saturday we spent most of the day getting things ready for family to come visit us on Monday.  We cleaned the house super well and I spent some time on the garden.  

So let's check in on all the plants.  

Here's the irises. They were just about to bloom before the weather turned cold. Then they held off for an extra week.

The catalpa is doing really well.

Here's the view of the Locust tree from the front yard. I like how it's yellow leaves contrast with the white flowers on the hydrangea and the purple lilac. 

Here's another view of the locust. 

And look!!!!!  Strawberries are starting to ripen. 

The raspberries are growing a ton. 

There are so many shoots coming up.

And look at how great the blackberries are doing this year.  Last year I transplanted them so they didn't do much, but this year they are taking off. 

They look so good!

Brandon and I worked on getting the fountain up and running again.  The water holding area has a leak so he bought some rubberized spray that is supposed to plug up leaks.  It had to cure for 48 hours so we left it open like this and planned to close it back up on Monday. 

I went to D&B and bought tomato plants.  Here's my view while I was planting them. 

And here they are all planted. 

Here's the garden.  I love it when the vertical supports go in.  Even though nothing is growing on them jet they look so cool.

I also brought Marigolds and planted them in the front bed.  

And look, here's an iris in the back yard. 

Saturday night Brandon and I put the kids to bed and then went to the 9:30 showing of Top Gun Maverick at the movie theater. It was such a good movie!  We loved it so much.  

And that completes the first week of summer vacation. Hopefully I'll be back soon with an update on the second week.  

Thanks for reading!