Summer 2022 - Week 6 - Progress on the Jeep

This week was supposed to be my "fail safe" week in school.  I my semester ended on June 30th so I absolutely had to be done by then. I planned to be done earlier than that, but I still kept this week open "just in case."  Well as you all know, I finished June 20th. 

That meant I didn't have to do any school this week.  And that meant I didn't come up with a bunch of other coping measures / procrastination projects to distract myself from the pain of school. 

Which all boils down to I was super lazy this week.  (At least by my standards.  We still did a ton of stuff.)

Someone who wasn't lazy this week (or ever) was Brandon.  And that leads to the big story from this week - the jeep is almost put back together.

On Monday morning I walked into the garage and found this sight.  Brandon had finished putting the engine together the Saturday before.  He was nearly ready to put it back into engine compartment. He just needed to install the engine mounts.  

I've had some people ask me about the yellow color.  Brandon painted it yellow because 1. He could.  And 2. This way it will be easier to clean and spot any leaks.  

On Monday morning the kids and I ran a bunch of errands.  We went to the library.  Stopped at Norco for some things that would be embarrassing to one of the kids if wrote about what we picked up, picked up a small order of craft supplies at Walmart Pickup, and then went to the splash pad on that side of town. 

I sat in the shade and outlined a blog post I wanted to write.  The kids played in the water.  Charlotte figured out that if she laid on the drain she could stop all the water from draining. She created a huge "lake" around her.   

After the park we headed home.  I mentioned that we could stop at the school for lunch. The girls didn't want to do that.  But Derrick did.  So we dropped the girls off and Derrick and I went to the school. My friend Cori was there with her kids and we had a good time talking. 

I took this picture at some point in the afternoon.  We might appear to do a lot in this family, but we also watch A LOT of TV.  The kids usually spend at least 4 hours watching shows in the basement. They each have a day to pick what to watch.  Charlotte is Monday, Lydia is Tuesday, Derrick is Wednesday, and Veronica is Thursday. Charlotte picked Curious George. 

I went to work at 2:00 when Brandon came home.  I was kind of out of it at work.  I'd been there on Friday morning, but I felt like I was coming back from a long weekend. 

Back at home I took this picture of Derrick helping Brandon make pizza (or maybe it was the other way around.) The kid's each have a night they make dinner.  (And it's different than their TV day). Derrick is Monday, Lydia is Tuesday, nobody is Wednesday (it's a really busy night with church activities), Charlotte is Thursday, and Veronica is Friday. If they help make dinner on their night they get paid $1. 

Derrick was really eager to earn money.  He was saving up for a $15 water gun. He had $13 and was really excited to earn that last two dollars. 

After dinner we went outside to do something the kids had been begging us to do for several days - blow up the new pool.  We bought one of these pools back in 2020 and it worked well for two summers.  But by the end of last summer it was a patched and leaking mess.  So I threw it away. 

I kind of thought the kids would be too big for one of these pools this summer.  But they said kept asking where the pool was and acted very sad when I said I threw it away. So I bought a new one. 

While Brandon figured out how to use the air-compressor to blow up the pool, I went around and took garden pictures.  Here's the blackberries. Last year we had a grand total of 1 black berry in the fall.  So it's exciting that we have about 50 for the summer harvest. (And we'll hopefully have tons in the fall this year.)

And look at the raspberries that are coming on for the summer harvest.  This is the first year that we'll truly get two harvests from these plants and I'm excited. 

And here's Lydia with the first of the onions.  

And look - peas- FINALLY.  These did not turn out as well as they have other years.  But they did eventually grow. 

And the tart cherries were close to ripening. 

Brandon gave up on the air compressor and reversed the suction on the shop vac.  That did the trick.

We decided to put the pool up in a slightly different spot because it would have more sunlight that evening.  The kids had a blast playing in it. 

On Tuesday Derrick went with Miss Brittani for the second to last time. (I'd requested that Derrick only work with Mr Kelly in July.)  I worked on that blog post. It's about some of the resources I acquired from my Bible Study friends that I use when studying the Come Follow Me Curriculum with the LDS church. I submitted it for publication with an online magazine and I needed a image to go with it.  I put one together.  (This isn't the final one, but it's close.)

Charlotte and Lydia were in the pool almost as soon as they got up on Tuesday morning. Veronica soon joined them. And Derrick was in there as soon as he was done with therapy. 

Derrick had picked some sort of giant balloon as a prize at the dentist's office the week before.  The kids filled it up with water. 

Here it is. 

Here's a view of the main garden. I'm really happy with this area. Most things are doing well. These garden beds get sun in the morning and early afternoon, but thanks to the fence are shaded during later afternoon and evening. 

And here's the other garden.  I'm not so happy with this area.  It works really well as a cool season garden, but not so well in the summer. I'm also rethinking some of the garden boxes. So expect some changes over here.

I spent a lot of time reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.  I checked this book out from the library for Brandon because he liked The Martian by Andy Weir and I figured he'd like this too. But the timing worked out well for this to be the first book I read post-Accounting Degree. 

I knew very little about the plot of the book going into it. I knew the main character wakes up on a spaceship with no memories of why he's there and gradually he realizes he's on a rescue mission to save Earth.  But that's just the starting place. This book was a delightful story full of twists and turns. I didn't expect this book to make me so happy. I highly recommend this book to anyone.

On Tuesday evening Lydia asked, "Hey can we watch the next Star Wars movie tonight?"  I couldn't see why not. So the kids and I watched Return of the Jedi. This movie holds a special place in my heart because it is the Star Wars movie I saw first.  And for years it was the only Star Wars movie I saw. (I've tried explaining to my kids how hard it was to track down VHS copies of movies in the early 90s and they pretend to kind of understand, but they don't really get it. The fact that ALL the Star Wars movies are ALL available ALL the time on Disney Plus still blows my mind.)

We had a great time watching the movie and the kids loved it. When it was over they asked when we can watch the next one.  We have to take a break for a week because we'll be camping next Friday so it's going to be over two weeks until we watch The Force Awakens.  The kids are a little sad that they have to wait so long.  I was like, "I spent most of my life thinking I'd NEVER see the 7th movie actually made.  You can wait two weeks."

On Wednesday I took the kids to see Sonic 2 at the $1 kids movie matinée. Derrick's therapist met us there and she and Derrick sat together so it counted as therapy. But once again I was like, "why are we doing therapy this summer?" I could have very easily taken Derrick to this movie by myself. 

The problem is that Derrick has outgrown all of the behaviors that originally concerned me. He doesn't run away from loud crowded rooms.  He can (usually) interact okay with other kids. He can talk in a way that most people understand what he's trying to say. So our old ways of doing therapy aren't really needed any more. He still has needs, but I'm beginning to see that we should come up with new ways of approaching those needs. I just don't know what those new ways are yet. I'm meeting with our case worker at the end of the month and I'll be talking to her about what services are available to for pre-teen children.  

Anyway, the movie was really fun. I only fell asleep for about 10 minutes of it. My favorite part was the end when Knuckles, voiced by Idris Elba, starts learning how to play.  He says so many funny things in about 5 minutes.  My favorite line was "I had the fun." or something like that.  What made me laugh so hard was I kept picturing super dramatic Edris Elba saying those silly lines in a recording booth.  It just cracked me up.

On Wednesday evening Derrick finally earned his squirt gun. I'd ordered it from Walmart.com a few days earlier and it was shipped to our house. It showed up on Wednesday afternoon. Derrick helped make dinner on Wednesday to get one more dollar.  When he had the $15 he needed he gave the money to me and I gave him the squirt gun. That's how I usually do things when the girls are saving up for stuff too. It works so much better than walking into a store full of distracting expensive stuff. 

Derrick was so proud of himself for earning this gun.  This was the first thing he's ever saved up for and it was such good practice for him. We'd printed out a picture of the gun and I glued an envelope under the picture. I drew 15 squares on the envelope.  Every time he earned a dollar and put it into the envelope he'd cross off a square. 

He'd been saying things like, "I have 10 dollars and I need 5 more" all week. 

He went outside and tested it out right away. 

When we sat down to eat dinner I realized Veronica was missing. Brandon told me she was asleep.  I checked on her and this is what I found.  Veronica rarely naps so she must have been really worn out.

Brandon was still plugging away at the jeep.  He'd successfully attached the engine. 

I was out in the garage talking to him while he worked and he nonchalantly released the tension on the chains on the engine hoist.  I was like, "wait a minute! The engine is IN! And you just casually released those chains.  This is a huge deal."

He just kind of smiled and kept working.  He still has a billion more steps to get this thing running so to him this wasn't that big of a deal.  But to me it showed that this project that started last August is finally nearing an end. I've been teasing Brandon that I conceived, carried, and birthed babies in less time than it's taken to fix the jeep. But I didn't have to wait for parts so I guess that gave me an unfair advantage.   

Here are the kids on day three of playing with the pool. (Veronica was still asleep so she's not in the picture.)  Derrick was having a great time with the squirt gun.

We all love the city pool, but its also nice to have a backyard pool. I like that the kids can play while I get other things done. 

Charlotte and Lydia had to get out of the pool so we could go to their camp kick off meeting at the church.  I was looking forward to the meeting because I knew very little details about the Girls Camp that was happening in a month.  I was interested in learning more details.  

Well, details were hard to come by. The meeting was mostly lead by the Youth Leaders who giggled their way through talking about camp.  One of them said, "This year camp is going to be at suwan valley."  And I had to interrupt and say, "I'm sorry, you weren't clear. Did you say SUN Valley or SWAN Valley."

A little while later they said, "Okay it's time to fill out secret sister sheets. Here you go,"  And I had to interrupt again and say, "You have first year girls here who don't know anything about Secret Sisters. Can you explain what that is and how it works?"  The giggly youth leaders tried to explain, but finally an adult leader had to step in and clarify things like how many items to buy and the price range. (And I wasn't asking that question just for Charlotte and Lydia. There are about 5 first year girls.)

I felt like I was mostly getting the info I needed - even if if was delivered in a giggly piecemeal way.  But I realized how bad the communication was at the very end of the evening one when of the other parents said, "Okay just to be clear, camp starts for all the girls on Wednesday right?'  And I was like, "It starts on a Wednesday?!?"  That hadn't come across to me at ALL. I'd assumed it started on Monday and ended on Friday. But no it started Wednesday and ended Saturday.  You'd think that would have been one of the first things they told us.   

So during refreshments I started asking the adult leaders other questions. This camp was going to be in a cabin. What kind of cabin?  Were there showers? And what about the dress code?  They said "follow the for strength of youth guidelines," but what did that really mean? Did I need to make sure the girls had one piece swimming suits?

And the biggest question of all: Were those giggly youth leaders going to be giving information in this same way at camp? Because I seriously doubted their ability to convey anything clearly and I was worried that my 11 year old first year campers would be completely lost the whole week. 

In hindsight I came across as confrontational and harsh. I later apologized for not expressing my concerns in a better way.  But I was really frustrated at the lack of clarity about even basic details.  I'd expected this to be a meeting where parents got a lot of information about camp. If it was just to "get the girls excited" then why bother inviting the parents. The details could have been texted or emailed to me. 

When it was all over Charlotte and Lydia told me they were glad I was there to ask questions.  They confirmed what I'd suspected when they said, "We didn't know what was going on at all."

But I am excited for them to go to camp. And I'm fairly confident they'll have a good time. Still I'm still not sure 11 year olds in Young Women's is a good idea. 

Thursday was a cooler day so the kids didn't play in the pool as much. We'd recently had six camp chairs delivered in 3 large boxes so the kids made forts out of the boxes and had nerf wars. Charlotte and Veronica cut holes in their boxes so they could shoot their guns without being exposed.  It looked really cool the first time they did it. 

Here's Lydia shooting from her fort.  The kids figured out a way to play where they weren't shooting each other so much.  They each set up two cups in their fort and the other team had to try to shoot the cups down. That worked really well.

Here's Charlotte on her side of the room.

Derrick went with Mr Kelly to a fish hatchery nearby.  They had a great time and Derrick came home talking all about the fish.  Mr Kelly told me that he'd be working at another company in a few weeks so he wouldn't be able to work with Derrick all summer like we'd hoped.  This is super sad news because Derrick and Mr Kelly get along so well together.  But it's also another reason I think we are done with the current way we do behavioral therapy. 

All day on Thursday I'd been trying to get into the right headspace to go grocery shopping. The problem was I was having trouble writing the shopping list because there were so many different things happening over the next few days that I needed to buy for.  I finally divided a piece of paper into four sections. 

Section 1 was for the food I needed Friday-Sunday. I literally wrote each meal we'd have on the shopping list and listed any ingredients I needed to buy. 

Section 2 was food for the 4th of July on Monday. We were planning to have friends over for a BBQ so I wrote down what we'd need for that. 

Section 3 was food for the camping trip the kids and I were going on with my sisters and their kids from Tuesday to Friday. I was only in charge of 3 meals so I wrote those down and all the food that would go with them.

Section 4 was food that Brandon would need while he was in Twin Falls.  (He had to work and was also no-so-secretly excited to have the house to himself for a few days.)

With my shopping list finally done I was able to go grocery shopping on Thursday night.  Charlotte came with me and was a big help. When we got home I started making trail mix and dividing snacks into baggies.  

Friday was going to be a busy day so I realized the best time to go to work was 6:00 AM. I dropped Brandon off at his work and then went straight to mine. I was there until about 9:00 and then went home.  Derrick and Veronica had only been awake for a little while when I got home. 

After everyone else was awake we spent a few hours cleaning the house.  We had a lot of things planned for the weekend and I didn't want to waste time with cleaning on Saturday. 

After Brandon came home from work I took the kids to the pool. The tower was up so they all passed the swim check and went to the deep end to play on that.  They are all so independent at the pool now. 

We came home and then I went to do some clothes shopping.  I needed a few more shirts and shorts for the family camping trip the next week. 

When I got back I found the kids and Brandon getting things ready for a fire in our firepit. 

Charlotte lit a one match fire and earned a Swiss Army knife. 

Brandon had set up an umbrella to shade the firepit. But it was still 5:00 on July 1st and so we were all really hot.  The kids ran back and forth from the fire to the pool. 

They would all dunk their heads in the water to cool off. 

Here are Brandon and I.

At some point we took a mini field trip to the front yard for some reason. I took a picture of the lilies that had bloomed.  

And look!  The catalpa is taller than me!

We had hot dogs for dinner and marshmallows for dessert.  The marshmallows were the giant kind. They were fun, but also really messy.  I don't think we'll buy them again. 

Here's Derrick roasting his. 

Here's me. 

The kids took turns squirting each other with the squirt gun.   

This reminded me of the games my siblings and I would make up.  Here's a video. 

The kids also playing in the pool. 

Around 8:00 some neighbors stopped by to share a treat they'd made.  They ended up staying and talking on our patio until about 10:00. I'm so glad COVID is mostly behind us and stuff like that can happen again. 

After they left, Brandon and the girls started taking sleeping bags up to the tree house. The kids like to sleep in the treehouse once a year and this is the day they picked to do it.  They moved the mattresses from the patio to the tree house (which makes so much sense I don't know why we didn't do that sooner.)  Brandon also blew up the air mattress. 

Derrick had told us all he planned to sleep in the house so he went to bed.  When I went to check on him he was already asleep.

Here's Lydia in the tree house. 

And Charlotte.

And me.  I was also planning to sleep in the house, but I went up to hang out with everyone for a little while. 

Everyone got situated. 

Veronica was sad about something so I let her use my sleeping bag. It's super comfy and she's obsessed with it. That cheered her up a little, but she was still a little sad when I took this picture. 

I ended up falling asleep with everyone else. I woke up again around 2:30 and debated whether or not I wanted to sleep inside in my own bed.  I had to go to the bathroom and that was the kicker.  If I had to climb out to go to the bathroom I knew I wouldn't come back. 

I took this picture from the ladder as I climbed down. 

On Saturday morning after the kids woke up and had breakfast we went on a Family bike ride - or at least that was the plan. 

The older three kids hopped on their bikes and rode around no problem.  But Veronica was having trouble.  She's grown a lot and her bike is getting small which made her feel less stable, which made her steer more wobblier, which made her not want to try at all. 

So I sent Brandon and the kids off, while Veronica and I practiced. 

She did okay and felt more confident. But neither of us wanted to try to catch up by riding our bikes. So we got in the car and drove to the splash pad on Main Street. The other kids and Brandon were already there. 

They all had a great time in the fountain. 

Brandon and I sat in the shade and watched from a distance. 

There was a farmers market going on down the street so we went and checked that out. 

Then the bikers biked home and we drove home.  I took this picture by city park. 

We'd been running loads of laundry through the washer and drier all Friday so now it was time for the kids to put away their laundry.  When we were done with that I had the kids go outside and help me put away the sleeping bags and the air mattress.  Brandon kind of wanted to leave everything up for our date that night. But I wanted to get everything put away before something happened to it. When I saw Charlotte and Lydia heading out to the treehouse with graham crackers and glasses of milk I knew it was time to put things away.  The last thing I wanted to do was go camping with a bunch of gear that had spoiled milk all over it. 

Brandon and I went to run some errands. One of the places was Lowes so we could buy this water jug.  I've wanted one of these for a while and this month I have at least 4 different opportunities where I could use one so it was time to buy it. 

When we came home it was around 2:00.  I'd told Derrick we'd go to the pool at 3:00.  I went to take a nap and woke up to a rain storm about 30 minutes later.  I was so glad that I'd made sure we cleaned up the sleeping bags. 

The rainstorm only lasted about 15 minutes, but it cancelled our pool plans.  Derrick is really nervous about thunder and strong wind.  So he was not going to the pool after that. 

I started cooking food for the camping breakfast I was in charge of. Over the next several hours I made strawberry muffins, sausage and cheese biscuits, and plain biscuits. I put them in the freezer so they'd could freeze before the trip. 

Brandon kept working on the jeep.  After the engine went in he was able to put so many other pieces back together.  He'd labeled everything really well when he pulled it apart so really it was just a matter of reattaching things. 

We had freezer pizza for dinner because I knew we'd just want something easy to eat this day.  Brandon kept working on the jeep and I kept working on prepping food. 

Around 8:00 it was time for our long anticipated date.  The plan was to watch Stranger Things in our room.  I'd picked up two Red Box movies for the kids so they wouldn't 't be trying to stream anything while we were streaming Stranger Things.  I told the kids, "Okay, we are here. But pretend we aren't here."

Brandon and I went into our room and started watching the final two episodes. In case you don't know, this season of Stranger Things was released in two parts.  Part one was 7 episodes long. It came out at the end of May. Then we had to wait until July 1st for Part two which was *only* two episodes long.  But they were each like mini movies. Episode 8 was like an hour and a half long and Episode 9 was almost 2 and a half hours.  I knew we'd want to watch them back to back and there was no way we could watch 4 hours of Stranger Things after the kids went to bed - especially with the kids going to bed around 10:00 these days. So that's why we did it this way. 

The show was so good! I'm fully invested in every single character in the show so to see them all in danger was really scary. 

We paused the show at a (terrible) stopping place around 10:15 and "came home" from our date to put the kids to bed.  Then we went back to our room and kept watching. 

The ending was good. But I'm already eagerly anticipating Season 5. It will come out in about 2 years.  Maybe by that time the kids will be old enough to watch it.  They've asked when they can watch it.  Brandon and I told the girls that they have to be able to go into the basement by themselves first.  (We've lived here almost 3 years and the girls STILL have to have a buddy to feel safe in the basement. That's something they started in our last house which was understandable because that basement had some creepy elements. But they still insist on having a buddy in the basement of this house.)  Derrick can watch Stranger Things when little things like wind and dark clouds don't scare him anymore.   

And that catches us up again on this blog.  And just in time too. The next post will cover a major holiday, a camping trip, and hopefully the completion of the jeep so it's good to be caught up. 

Thanks for reading!

Summer 2022 - Week 5 - Finish line!

We are actually caught up on this blog - after this blog is finished.  This post will cover from Sunday June 18th to Saturday June 26th. 

Sunday was Father's Day.  It's a good thing we didn't plan to make Brandon breakfast in bed because he slept and slept and slept. I think he finally got up around 10:30. 

We'd hid his Candy Gram card under Charlotte and Lydia's bed when we'd made it on Thursday. I was so impressed that none of the kids had blabbed the secret to Brandon.  Even Veronica who is notorious for giving away presents was able to keep the secret. 

We put the card on the table after breakfast and when Brandon finally got up we all rushed up stairs to be there when he read it. 

Here's what it said:

MR GOOD[DAD], We are just a bunch of NERDS, but we give you a perfect SCOR because you LOOK at something and U-NO how to fix it. Sometimes life is a ROCKY ROAD but today is your PAYDAY. You deserve a FAST BREAK so TAKE 5. You're not a DUD you're a MEGA dad. Mom things you're an IDAHO S[T]UD and a BIG HUNK of love. You make us SNICKER and bring us lots of JOY. You are such a GOOD dad. Love your SOUR PATCH KIDS.

We all got ready for church and went there. After church Brandon cooked Hamburgers with the grill.  This wasn't exactly a Father's Day Present, but it came in handy this day. 

Here we are eating on the patio.  Notice how we are all wearing jackets.  The weather was still unseasonably cold. We were all freezing on the patio.  

The week before I'd talked to my siblings about our family rhubarb pie recipe and how it didn't direct you to cook down the rhubarb.  Lindsey had found the recipe in her collection and texted it to all my siblings.  We all had a good laugh at the recipe. We were especially aghast at the 3 eggs that went with the rhubarb filling.  Then Brandon saw it and said the eggs made sense.  He said he'd try to make the recipe.  So he did it exactly as directed.   

I tried it and it was . . . odd. It wasn't bad, but it was rather like eating sweet potatoes with a weird crust. 

Anyway, we need to try a strawberry rhubarb pie. Here's another huge strawberry harvest. These ones were made into strawberry syrup for pancakes on Monday night. 

Monday was the observed day for the Juneteenth.  It's a new Federal Holiday which meant there wasn't any mail and the banks were closed.  That meant that I didn't need to go to work. 

So instead I planned to stay home and get a lot of studying done for the last little bit of my last class.  

That morning I took Brandon to work at 6:00 and then went to Bible Study at 6:15. We are still doing Theology Proper. This week's material centered a lot around the Trinity.  Which is not an LDS doctrine.  

We also talked about God's Decrees which is basically what LDS people would call The Plan of Salvation. 

I was there to just kind of listen and didn't chime in much. But it's still so cool to hear women talk about God so confidently. They could toss out scriptures in Psalms and Ephesians and talk about things they'd learned during recent sermons.  

Contrast that with Sunday school at my ward on Sunday where people just talked in vague generalities about things. We are all somewhat aware that somewhere a scripture backs up what we are talking about, but we don't know. We are so scripturally illiterate in the LDS culture.  It's sad. 

Anyway, back at home I opened up my laptop and started reviewing some practice problems and watching some videos that recapped the various chapters. 

And I immediately fell asleep. 

Subsequent study sessions didn't go much better. 

I tried powering through because I'd taken this whole day off. The kids were happily watching movies and were leaving me alone, but I could NOT focus on the super boring material. 

After I picked Brandon up from work I disappeared in the basement to try to study.  For some reason I kept getting really anxious about studying.  I was nearly in tears at one point. It didn't make any sense.  This was my last course and I had until June 30th to finish.  That was 10 days away. But I was still having some sort of anxiety attack over this class. 

I went back over the Pre-Assessment and realized that maybe I hadn't done as badly on it on Friday as I'd thought.  Sure there had been a few areas where I was still approaching competent, but there were others where I was competent or exemplary. 

I decided it was time to try to take the Objective Assessment. I was a little worried about it because I was still traumatized from not passing the Intermediate Accounting 3 test on my first try.  But I also had to admit that studying wasn't working. If I failed I'd at least have a clear study plan.  And if I passed - well then I'd be DONE.  

So after dinner Brandon took the kids fishing at Dierkie's lake and I walked over to my work office to take my test. 

I try to take my tests when the office isn't officially open, but sometimes there are still a few people around.  I always put a note on my door saying when I'll be done.  This time I added an extra note that said, "If you hear quiet weeping, it's normal.) 

It was a hard test, but I felt pretty confident. Still I wasn't sure what the final result would be. So when I finished the test and logged into the school website I was a little shocked to see this. 

I texted Brandon that I was done and then decided I wanted to celebrate with ice cream.  I walked home and dropped off my stuff and then walked to Smiths to buy ice cream. I bought some for the whole family and then a pint just for me. 

I went home and ate it on the patio. 

Then I went inside and found the book Brandon had been reading.  It's called "Project Hail Mary" it's by the same guy who wrote the Martian. I'd checked it out from the library for Brandon, but I'd planned to read it when I was done with school.  And now I could.  

It was so fun to read an actual fun book again. 

The kids came home and we all celebrated the fact that I was done.  We'd all made it through.  

On Tuesday the kids had their first day of Vacation Bible School. Last year the three girls went to VBS at Full Life Family Church.  They had loved it.  I'd always planned to sign them up again.  The kicker was a few weeks ago when I heard Veronica singing one of the songs she'd learned at VBS last year.  It goes something like, "With my hands, I will praise him. With my feet I will praise him. With my life I will praise him."  When I heard her singing that I knew that she had to go back again. 

Full Life Family Church wasn't doing a VBS this year so I had to find another place.  I picked Amazing Grace Fellowship because a lot of people said they had a great children's ministry.  Also their VBS was scheduled for the week that I thought would be my last week of school. I figured it would be good to  study each morning while the kids were at VBS.

None of the kids wanted to go. They were like, "Mom don't make us."  I told them. "I'm not going to make you go somewhere you hate. BUT I'm also not going to let you sit around the house all summer and not try anything."  I told all three girls that they had to go the first day.  After they knew what VBS was like at this church they could decide whether or not they wanted to stay home. 

So I took all four kids to the church building. Derrick's behavioral therapist met us there. I was hoping Derrick would like VBS, but the opening part was just too loud. He didn't want to stay.  So Miss Brittani took him to a park. 

Charlotte and Lydia were a little hesitant, but they were in a group together so I wasn't too worried about them.  But Veronica was very, very nervous about the whole thing.  This same thing happened last year.  I'd had to stay with her for about 40 minutes last year so I was planning on that happening this year.  I sat with her during the whole opening part.  When she went with her group to the Bible Story part I said good bye. 

I had a ministering interview at the LDS church which is like a block away from Amazing Grace. So I went there and did that.  Then I went home and just kind of did nothing. 

I had so many things I could do, but my brain was still a little in shock from finishing school a little early. So I just rattled around the house. 

At 12:00 I went back to the church and picked up the girls. Veronica was practically glowing.  She'd loved it all so much. She told me all about the Snack and how delicious it was. She told me about puppets that helped tell Bible Stories.  She told me about games they'd played.  She was definitely coming back the next day.  

Charlotte was also interested in coming back the next day. She wasn't quite as enthusiastic as Veronica (few people are) but she'd had a good time. 

Lydia told me she was not coming back.  She'd had a good time, and I think she could have enjoyed the rest of the week.  But I think she was also interested in testing my promise to see if I really wouldn't make her go.  So I kept my promise and let her know that she could stay home the rest of the week.

I went to work in the afternoon when Brandon was home from work. I had a lot to do because I'd been home on Monday.  

In the evening we also had team meeting at work.  I was in charge of picking up a snack for our meeting. Since I still had so many strawberries I decided to bring those.  I bought little short cakes at the store and brought cut up strawberries and whole strawberries too.  They were a big hit and everyone was impressed that I'd grown them. 

The kids had all made tie dye shirts at VBS and were encouraged to wear them all week long.  The shirts were sent home in baggies and had to sit in the dye overnight.  So after I dropped Brandon off at work on Tuesday I came home and rinsed out the shirts and got them washed and dried so that kids could wear them. 

The VBS leaders had even made a shirt for Derrick which was really appreciated.  He'd already left with Miss Brittani when this picture was taken, so we just had the girls hold the shirt up. Lydia still didn't want to go, but she wore her shirt anyway.    

I dropped the kids off at VBS and then went to work. (Lydia just stayed home and watched TV.) I was training my backup and Wednesday morning worked better for both of us this week.  

At 11:30 Miss Brittani dropped Derrick off to me.  He was soaking wet from the splash pad they'd been playing at. He and I picked up the girls from VBS.  They showed me some cool sand art they'd done that day. 

When Brandon came home from work I went back to my work.  I had a lot of stuff that I hadn't been able to do that morning during training. Also I just felt like I had more room in my brain to focus on work stuff.  I wrote a big to do list and got through a lot of it. 

On Wednesday evening the girls had a Young Women's Activity at the pool. I'd been asked to go along to help out since one of the leaders was out of town. I brought Derrick and Veronica too.  We all had a good time at the pool. It was kind of funny to watch Derrick and Veronica who were only 10 and 8 pass the swim check while the 11-14 year old girls didn't even try.

On Thursday Derrick went with Mr Kelly again. They went fishing at Dierkie's lake. Lydia stayed home again (she was really liking all the time to herself after a month of being with her siblings non-stop.)  Charlotte and Veronica went to VBS for another day.  This time they made cross necklaces with beads that represented different things.  They wore them proudly for days.  (And in our house we don't have any hang-ups about crosses so I didn't mind at all.)  

I went to work again and chewed through more of that to-do list. It was kind of amazing to dedicate so much time and attention to work. 

The kids all had a dentist appt at noon so I had to pick up Lydia from home and then the other two a little early from VBS. I'd told their leaders so they had them waiting for me at the check out tables.  Derrick and Mr Kelly met us at the dentist office. 

The kids did great and once again we had no cavities.  The dentist commented that all three girls have really similar x-rays. They all have the same tooth coming in under a baby tooth.  He was surprised that 8 year old Veronica has such advanced teeth.  That's how she's always been.

Once again I went back to work in the afternoon. By the time I left I'd finished all but three things on my to do list.  I've felt on top of things at work, but now I feel like I have a good foundation to stand on and stay on top of things. 

It was an end of a pay period that day. My time sheet said I'd worked 7 hours more than usual. And that was WITHOUT working Monday. 

When I got home from work on Thursday night I came home to a little RV trailer in our driveway.  Brandon's friend had asked him to de-winterize his RV and do a few small repairs. The easiest thing was to just park it in our driveway. 

That night we had "Beaver Tails" for dinner.  These were a dessert that I'd noticed while waiting in line at Lagoon.  Basically it was scones with dessert toppings.  Was this a healthy dinner? Not by any means.  Was it a memorable one?  Absolutely. 

Lydia showed me the staircase she'd made for her Barbie house.  I was super impressed.  I told her she could be in charge of building our staircase when we remodel the house. 

All summer long I'd been wondering when we'd turn on the airconditioner.  There had been a few warm to hot days, but they'd been rare enough that we hadn't turned on the AC. We'd just gone down in the basement during the hottest parts of the day. 

Well in the afternoon of Thursday June 23rd Brandon finally decided it was time to turn on the AC.  It was on for about 20 minutes when a huge windstorm whipped up outside.  So we opened the windows again and let the air blow into the house. 

There were some big clouds that came with the windstorm.  There was a really cool sunset that night. 

I took pictures of my flowers in the orangish light that it gave off. 

They looked so cool.

Check out the peony. 

And the marigolds. 

Brandon had been working on the jeep a lot throughout the week. The engine was all together and painted. Like all together!!!  I'll admit I had my doubts that we'd ever get to this point.  But here we are. 

And here's the place it will go.  We are so so so so so close to having a second car again. 

Friday was the last day of VBS. Charlotte and Veronica went for their last day. Derrick didn't have therapy so he just stayed home with Lydia. I went to work, but since this was Friday I only went in for about an hour. 

Then I came home and called my parents and had a great conversation with them for over an hour.  It's amazing to not have to worry about homework anymore.

I picked up Charlotte and Veronica at 12:00.  They'd had a bounce house to play on that day. Charlotte's leader had said she'd really enjoyed Charlotte and week.  Veronica's leader said something like, "Veronica was never scared after that first day."  They got a popsicle on the way out and that was it.  

Charlotte will be too old for VBS next year, but Veronica will be old enough for a few more years.  We will definitely be back.  (Especially since I've heard her singing some new songs that she learned this year.) 

We went home and started watching Empire Strikes Back for our Star Wars movie of the week. The kids really liked this one too. They'd seen this one before and I think it was the one they remembered best.  They kept saying things like, "Oh I've seen this part."

Charlotte had been saving her money for a lego set that she wanted.  She had $40 from the art contest she won. The lego set she wanted was $88 and she'd been slowly earning money. We have a couple ways to earn money in our house.  The kids get $1 for babysitting themselves when Brandon and I are gone for things like work or taking Derrick to speech therapy.  They get $2 when we are on a date.  They also can earn $1 for helping with dinner. Charlotte was doing all these things and dutifully saving her money. 

I'd already bought the set when it was a good deal on Amazon so it was just waiting in the closet until she had all the money.  On Friday she decided she couldn't wait any longer.  She talked Lydia into loaning her $14 so she could "buy" the set from me. 

Lydia and I agreed and Charlotte had her set. 

All three girls went downstairs and started putting it together.  Here's what it looks like all set up. 

There were so many cute details and animals. 

It even had a big slide. 

And a "Momma" elephant. 

And a bathroom.

There were also these separate little things. 

Here are the girls sitting around working on the set. I was reading to them while they played.  That's another thing I have more time for now. I've always read to them, but now I can do it without thinking about how much school work I still need to do. We finished Fablehaven and started reading The Silver Crown. 

Another thing I've been doing with the kids is playing chess.  Veronica LOVES to play chess with me and she's actually pretty good. Sure, I could probably beat her if I didn't go a little easy on her, but she catches me and takes my pieces unexpectedly a lot of the time. Now that I'm done with school she's always setting up the board and saying things like, "Mom, come play chess with me."

On Friday night we went to the pool around 9:00 PM. This was something we've looked forward to for a while. The pool was doing a nighttime movie. They were showing Moana. 

And for once the pool water was actually WARM. The last couple of days had been hot enough to warm up the water. It felt so good when I got in.  When I'd been at the pool with the kids on Wednesday night I hadn't put my head under the water.  But this time I did.  Veronica and I played "dive for the gem" over and over again.  Later we switched to playing catch with a small pool ball.  And later we shot baskets with the water polo balls.  It was probably one of my favorite times at the pool ever. Definitely from this summer. 

Derrick has always wanted to swim "at midnight" so he was really excited to do it again. He passed the swim check and was able to go in the deep end.  He started going off the diving board and did it over and over again.  Here he is in a rare moment of sitting on the side of the pool. 

Charlotte and Lydia were also having a good time.  We'd invited their best friends - the other set of twins to come with us.  All of them had a great time in the water. 

Here's the movie set up.  The pool is on the left side of the picture.  There is a grassy area on the right side and that's where the movie screen was.  Brandon didn't want to get into the water so he sat with the other twins' mom and talked to her before the movie started.

The movie started playing around 9:45.  Both sets of twins got out of the water to watch the movie.  We'd brought changes of clothes and pillows and blankets so they were pretty comfortable.  

Derrick, Veronica, and I stayed in the water.  Here's Derrick climbing out of the pool to do another dive. 

And here he is jumping. 

Veronica and I got out around 10:30 when the water wasn't quite warm anymore. We went into the bathroom to change.  When I came out Derrick was sitting at the life guard station right by the locker rooms.  I was like, "What's going on?"  And the lady in charge told me that he'd fallen off the diving board and she was doing an accident report.  I guess Derrick had walked off the end of board while he was distracted by the movie.

He had a scrape on his foot that wasn't bleeding and later would have a pretty big bruise on his butt (that he keeps trying to show to people) but he wasn't too hurt.  In fact, he was already asking to go back to the diving board while I finished giving information for the accident report. 

He went back to the diving board and jumped off at least another 50 times. 

He wanted me to take a few videos of him jumping. Here's one of them. 

The pool gradually emptied out.  Derrick was the only kid in the deep end for at least the last half hour.  There were probably 5 people in the shallow end.  A lot of people stopped watching the movie and went home.  But we stuck it out. 

Derrick jumped off the diving board right up until the end of the movie at about 11:15.  He'd had a great time.  As we walked away he said to the people taking down the blow up screen, "Thanks for letting us swim at night and watch a movie!"

The girls were all freezing from sitting around for so long.  I was feeling pretty cold too.  We were so happy to get back into our warm car.  

We got home around 11:30 and everyone was starving.  Normally the kids eat popcorn after swimming.  This time I told everyone they could have cereal. I wanted them to go to bed with some food in their tummies so they wouldn't wake up hungry early in the morning.  

We all went to bed around 11:45.  I was so cold I wore sweat pants and a long sleeve shirt.  I should have put socks on too because I felt like me feet never warmed up that night. 

In the morning I woke up around 6:30 and took care of watering all the plants (We are only able to water every other day so it's very important I don't miss a day.) Then I went back to bed and slept until like 11:00. 

I was tired from the night before, but I was also just tired in general.  I'd just done a bachelors degree in a year. I needed a break. 

Even after I got up I didn't do much.  I laid on the couch reading for a long time. Brandon went to de-winterize an other RV for a friend. That friend paid him in cash and Brandon came home and gave the cash to me.  He said, "Here this is for our RV business."  That perked me right up.  I love accounting for cash. 

Normally I would do a deposit right away for any cash, but we don't have a bank account for the business yet because we don't have a Tax ID number because we don't have a name yet. 

Still there was a lot I could do.  I set up a Google folder for the business (under my email for now because we don't have a business email because we don't have a name.) I created some basic spreadsheets for keeping track of money.  

I even got on the secretary of state website and checked our potential business name to make sure it's available.  It is. 

Right now, our biggest hurdle is setting up the LLC. I want to make sure we do it right- especially since I want Brandon and I to be co-owners of the business.  So I emailed the Small Business Development Center and requested an appt.  I'm hoping they can direct us to a lawyer who can help get the LLC set up correctly. 

Brandon's friend had invited us to a BBQ at the park later that evening to celebrate his daughter's half birthday.  (Her real birthday is Christmas Day and that just doesn't work out very well, so they do fun things on her half birthday.)  

We had a great time at the party.  It was with several family's in our ward.  I know them all, but not well so it was fun to have a chance to sit and talk.  Here are the kids eating cake. This was the only time all 4 of them were together.  Most of the time they were playing with one of those battery operated kid sized cars.  They were slightly too big, but they all took turns squishing in so they could have fun driving. 

When the party was over Brandon and I dropped the kids off at home and then went on a date.  Since we'd already ate at the party we just went to another park.  We talked about name ideas and started drawing up a logo. I went through a business plan checklist and filled that out. 

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually really excited to be starting a business. 

Things are never boring around here. 

Thanks for reading!