Lots of Garden Pictures (and other stuff)

Here we are at the end of another week. This one was an odd week. We started it in Utah and ended it in Idaho. The kids only went to school three days of the week.  Brandon only went to work three days out of the week too. The jeep broke down. I worked four days of the week. 

And with all that going on what did I take pictures of?  My garden!!!  The bulk of the pictures from this week are of my garden. 

So here are all those garden pictures interspersed with descriptions of what happened each day. 

We spent all of Sunday at Brandon's parents house. We had a nice visit with his parents and I took like three naps. That night his mom made a really nice Lasagna Dinner. 

In the evening his sister Melanie came over with her kids. 

Veronica wanted me to take a picture of this Cat Faced Spider that lives on the front porch. 

Monday was Labor Day and we didn't have work or school to worry about.  So we slept over at Brandon's parents one more night.  We left early on Monday morning and drove home before the day got too hot. And wow was it hot!  I considered taking the kids swimming because this was the last day that our pool pass would work.  But we were all just so tired. We pretty much did nothing all day. 

Our plan for Labor Day - before we'd decided to go down to Utah for a funeral - was to go hiking in the Sawtooth Mountains.  But that plan might not have panned out anyway.  There was a huge fire burning in the Sawtooths and at times the highway to the Sawtooths was closed. Also the day was just so hot. So hiking might not have been very fun anyway. 

Brandon had to go back to work on Tuesday, but the kids were still out of school. We didn't have much planned.  Last year we went to Yellowstone and came home late on Tuesday night.  This year we just relaxed.  

I took these picture while I was watering the garden that morning.  Here are the peaches. 

The plum tree. This is it's first year so it doesn't have any fruit, but it's grown a lot. 

And here's another view of the peach tree.  It's hanging down from all the heavy fruit. 

Here's the Morning Glory. 

I really love this. 

This is the kids play area. It has a lot of sweet peas in it. 

Here are the cucumbers. 

We only had one pumpkin plant this year. I was still able to train it up the support. 

We have one white pumpkin. 

I cleaned my room a little bit and then helped Charlotte and Lydia sort through the chaos that had developed on the shelves in their rooms. I'd helped them clean their room a few weeks ago and realized that part of the reason their room is so messy is because they are living in two different worlds right now.  

They have lots of "kid" toys like LOL Dolls and Barbies that they aren't really playing with much, but they aren't ready to part with yet. They also have "middle school" things like make up, homework, and art supplies. 

So I bought some more clear storage bins like the ones I'd bought for Derrick's room.  I helped Charlotte and Lydia sort things into the bins.  That way they have a nice place to store their LOL's and art supplies.  But those things don't have to be out constantly. 

We cleaned off three shelves and it was INTENSE. No one got really emotional, but it was an emotional process. We threw away work books the girls had hung onto since 3rd grade.  Art work they'd drawn in 4th grade, but didn't care about any more. And just a lot of garbage.  

When we were done I went to work so I could have a break. (Yes, work felt like a break after cleaning off three shelves in my kids' room.) When I drove home there was a big cloud of smoke to the north of town.  Later I found out this was a fire burning on the other side of the canyon. 

Tuesday ended up being the hottest day of the year. It was 102 degrees.  I would have liked to take the kids to the pool to cool off, but our passes had expired the day before.  The air quality wasn't great thanks to all the fires though so I guess it was better to stay home. 

We didn't do much that afternoon. 

Well I felt like we did nothing.  Lydia engineered a new amusement park ride out of her legos.  

It was quite impressive. 

Okay, I did do one other productive thing on Tuesday. I stripped the kids white towels. Each child was given a while towel when they were baptized. Derrick and Veronica's towels were still fairly white. But Charlotte and Lydia's were taking on a blueish hue.  (I think they'd been washed with jeans more than once.) I put the towels into the tub with a mixture of Tide, Borax, and Washing Soda. I let them soak for several hours.  Then I washed them out.  This is what they looked like when they were dry on Wednesday morning.  From this picture you can't tell whose towels are whose.  

The kids were all back in school on Wednesday.  It would have been a hard morning to wake up anyway, but I had to make it harder by scheduling Derrick's IEP meeting for 7:30 that morning.  So I had to wake Derrick and Veronica up 15 minutes early. We had to leave by 7:20. They were NOT happy about that. 

The meeting went great! Derrick has such a good team that cares deeply about his school life. We went over the IEP really carefully because we wanted to make sure it was set up right for when he goes to middle school next year.  

After the meeting was over I met up with Berenice who is in charge of the PTO's Mustang Day's this year. I showed her how to use the copier and where to put the fliers. 

I went to work for a long time on Wednesday and got all caught up on things that I'd let slide on Monday and Tuesday. I kept forgetting it was Wednesday. It felt like a Monday. 

That afternoon I took Veronica to Physical Therapy. Normally Brandon does that, but he had an RV to work on. 

Last year Veronica's second grade teacher read the class the book, "The City of Ember." At the end of the year they watched the movie.  Veronica really liked the book and the movie and was constantly asking me to get them. Strangely the library didn't have a copy of either.  They did have a Graphic Novel of the book so I checked that out and we read it.  But that wasn't enough for Veronica. So I decided to buy her the books (turns out is a four book series) and movie for her birthday.  

They arrived in the mail on Tuesday. We decided to start reading the book now so we could watch the movie on her birthday.  So we've started reading the first book in the evening.  It's been a while since I read the kids a book.  We got out of the habit during those last few stressful weeks of my school. It's so nice to read again.  And it's a really well written book so it's been a joy to read. 

On Thursday Derrick made up for the early wake up on Wednesday by waiting to get out of bed until AFTER 7:20. 

Brandon had got up early that morning to drive to Utah for another funeral. This one was for his mother's youngest sister.  Brandon had been asked to be a pallbearer. So he took the day off of work and started driving to Utah. 

Well, around 7:30 he called me and told me the jeep broke down before the Utah/Idaho boarder. He was in the middle of nowhere, but he had cell phone and internet service so he was okay. He was going to try to get a tow truck back to Twin Falls. 

After all the kids were off to school I watered the garden while talking to Brandon on the phone. He didn't think the problem was with the engine. That was still running.  But the car wasn't moving. (So maybe it was a transmission problem?) He was bummed that he'd miss the funeral, but over all he was doing great.  The day was much cooler than the days before. He had tons of free time and no honey do list hanging over him so he was quite happy. 

He'd called our insurance for a free tow.  They couldn't do it to Twin Falls so they took him to a Jeep Dealer in Brigham City.  While he waited for the truck he wrote on his story, practiced his songs for Guys and Dolls, and practiced some card tricks for the play too. 

Since Brandon wasn't stressed I decided I wouldn't stress either. 

So let's just look at pictures of the garden. Here's my blackberries. We have so many of these clusters.  

And here is one of many raspberry clusters. 

Here's the peach tree again. I tried one of the peaches and it wasn't quite ripe, but it had a perfect freestone pit. That will be so nice when these are ripe. 

I love this picture. It looks like a label from a can of peaches. 

Here are the tomatoes. They did so well this year. 

And here's the little red maple sapling that is now taller than me. 

I spent the rest of the morning doing accounting stuff. It was WONDERFUL!!!!!

First I sat down with my PTO binder.  I've been so busy with all the other rolls I've been filling that I haven't had time to actually be the Treasurer.  My binder was a MESS.  I got it organized again.  Then I wrote out reimbursement checks.  The lady who'd bought candy for Birthday Club had misplaced her receipt.  She was stressing out about it and had sent me a screen shot from her back account showing me the purchase.  Using the info there I was able to call the store and have them email me a reprint of the receipt.  When I texted her to tell her that I had the receipt she was pretty surprised.  I was like, "This is what I do."  I love this kind of book keeping stuff. 

I also got our sales tax stuff straightened out.  We only have to worry about sales tax on a few things, and so I'd been putting that off. I finally got it figured out and now I'll be much more on top of it. 

After finishing up the Treasurers' stuff I took a break and then went to work on the RV Guy business stuff.  I still need to get really organized with that, but I'm getting there. 

And then I went to work and took care of lots of money things with that.

Yes it was a happy accounting day. 

I left work a little early an went to pick up Veronica from school. She had a Physical Therapy appt scheduled for 3:00. So I checked her and Derrick out at 2:45. I don't quite trust Derrick to walk home alone yet.  Well actually I do, but since I wouldn't be home until 4:00, and there was no way to know if Derrick made it home safely . . . . well it was just better for all of us to have me pick him up and drop him off. 

We dropped Derrick off at home and then I took Veronica to therapy.  She was working with her original therapist, Mr Spencer.  He's busier these days so he only gets to work with Veronica every few appts. Veronica likes all her therapists, but she LOVES Mr Spencer. They get along really well. Really, she's like a little celebrity at Physical Therapy.  Most of their clients are either high school athletes with injuries or people 35+ with injuries.  So a blunt 9 year old girl is a completely different type of client. They all really like talking to her. 

Brandon was texting me and letting me know that his parents would be driving him home that night. This was a relief.  I'd been trying to figure out the best way to drive to Brigham City to pick him up without completely traumatizing the kids. So his parents driving him home was such good thing. 

They would stay over night in our guest room so I had to make sure that was in good shape.  And the kids helped me straighten up the rest of the house.  We cleaned the living room, family room, and bathrooms.  We've had this bathroom cleaning chart for a long time, but this was the first time we EVER had to use the "extra cleaning in the middle of the week" column. 

The kids were all cheerful helpers and did a good job.  So I ended up paying each of them a dollar for their hard work. 

Brandon wouldn't be home until 9:00 so we went on a walk to the school so they kids and Marcia could run around. Marcia had been really on edge all week. I think all the smoke in the air was making her doggy senses go crazy.  She would go outside and bark over and over again. So she really needed a walk. 

Here are the kids running around. 

The cows were really close to the fence. Marcia is always really interested in the cows.  And this time they seemed really interested in her. 

Brandon made it home a little before 9:00.  They kids were able to see Steve and Jacque for a few minutes, but then they had to go to bed. 

Brandon and I stayed up talking with Steve and Jacque for a bit.  They talked about the funeral and the rest of their days. 

In the morning I took Brandon to work at 6:00 so I could have the Honda all day. Then I went back to bed.  At 7:00 I started waking up Derrick and Veronica.  We left for the school around 7:40 like we normally do.  Steve and Jacque didn't realize we left that early so they missed saying goodbye to them. 

Here's what the sun looked like that morning.  There were two big fires burning in the Magic Valley and so we had lots of smoke in the air.  The kids all had to have in door recess at the elementary school because of the air quality. 

When I came back home Steve and Jacque were awake and eating breakfast.  So were Charlotte and Lydia. Steve and Jacque left a little later.  And then Charlotte and Lydia left for school. 

I worked on figuring out how to put money on Charlotte and Lydia's lunch accounts.  They've been taking their own lunches for the past month, but the novelty of that is wearing off.  So they want the option to eat school lunch. That's fine with me. The elementary school has free lunch for everyone, but at the middle school we have to pay the reduced price.  So I figured out how to put some money on their accounts.  

Then I got ready for the day and went over to the school to help with Mustang Day.  I wasn't planning to be there until 12:00, but that night I'd woken up with the realization that I'd put the smencils somewhere weird after open house.  So I wanted to try to find then rather than make Berenice do it.  I'm glad I did that. They were in the T-shirt box.  

Then I went to work and took care of lots of things there.  When I was done with work I meant to go home and grab lunch, but I forgot and ended up driving to the elementary school. 

I was like, "Oh well, I'll eat later."  And just went inside the school. There were six other parents helping with the Mustang Day sale.  It was so great to see so many people working together.  I got checks signed and handed out and then started bundling the cash.  

I was able to see Derrick and Veronica which is always fun. They are both so tall. 

When it was all over I counted the cash.  We had almost $80 in coin alone.  We brought it almost $1000.  It was AMAZING!

I took the money to the bank. When I walked in I was like, "Who wants to count a lot of cash?"

Then I went home and ate and ate and ate.  

At 2:00 I picked up Brandon from work.  I was listening to the Baconsale Pay-con-bit (a bonus episode just for Patreon subscribers). When we got home I kept listening to the episode. I laid down on the couch and fell asleep so I missed nearly half the episode.  I had to go back and listen to it again. 

I picked up Derrick and Veronica from school and a little bit later Charlotte and Lydia came home.  Brandon was asleep on the couch and we didn't want to bother him so we went downstairs and watched Clue. I'd checked this out from the library again so Charlotte and Lydia could see it (the rest of us had watched it while they were in Utah at the end of the summer.)  I slept through most of the movie. 

Brandon woke up and put freezer pizza in the oven for dinner. That was about all the energy we had for dinner that night. 

Charlotte had ordered a dragon lego set with some money she'd saved up. It arrived while we were watching the movie. They kids all worked together to help her put it together. 

It turned out really cool. 

All that rest of Friday really paid off on Saturday because we go so.much.done. 

We did ALL the laundry, I helped Charlotte and Lydia sort through the things in and on their desk. Brandon helped Veronica and Derrick clean their rooms. 

We got the dog poop picked up outside and Lydia mowed the front yard and part of the back yard. 

Brandon picked grapes off the fence where they've grown over from our neighbors side.  (She says we are welcome to the grapes on our side. 

He ended up with FIVE bowls full of grapes. You might look at this picture and wonder where the fifth bowl is. 

It was already in the sink getting washed off.  I washed the grapes and removed the stems.  

Then I mashed the grapes and boiled them for 10 minutes.  I poured all of the grapes stuff into cheese cloth and let it hang over a bowl and drip out. 

Then I took the juice - added an insane amount of sugar, boiled it, added pectin, boiled it some more, and then put it into jars.  

This is where Brandon came back to help. He helped me with the canning part of this project. I've wanted to learn to can for a while, but this is the first fall I've had time to can.  

And I *think* it worked!!!  At least everything seems sealed and the jelly seems set. 

(Funny story:  The title of the Baconsale Pay-con-bit last week had been, "I'm getting into Botulism." This had been in reference to Botox, but it's what I thought about as I was learning how to can.)

After all that work we needed some playing.  Last year I'd ended up with extra water balloons and I'd never done anything with them.  Derrick had been on my case about those balloons lately and so we'd written on the calendar that we'd play with them on Saturday.  So at 3:00 we got the balloons out. 

They were the type that were easy to fill. 

This turned into quite the war. 

I think we all ended up with bruises from these balloons. 

So I tried to get things a little more organized. 

But in the end it all just devolved into a water fight. 

'

The kids had a blast. 

I went and hung out on the patio.  Here's Derrick - probably taunting someone. 

And I just really like how this all looks right now. 

In the evening I went around and watered everything.  I thought we were done harvesting for the day, but I realized the carrots were ready.  Lydia wanted to pull them and ended up pulling a lot of carrots.  I never thinned them so there were some in really fun bunches. 

Lydia took all the carrots inside.  I washed them off and she cut the tops off. I thought we'd save these for later, but everyone liked eating them. We went downstairs to watch the Mandalorian and all the carrots were gone by the end of the evening. 

We watched 4 episodes of the Mandalorian. We were done at 10:00 and the kids were so sleepy.  It had been a week since they'd been up that late. 

Today we have Stake Conference. We are watching it from home.  I LOVE that Stake Conference is available online now. There were so many times when my kids were little and we had to drive over 20 minutes to the stake center where it would have been wonderful to have the option to walk Stake Conference from home. So I will watch it from home every chance I get.  

And that catches us up for the week. 

(Oh and I'm sure you are interested in a update on the Jeep.  So am I. But I don't really have one. I'm not even sure it's been looked at by a mechanic yet.  Brandon says he thinks it might be the catalytic converter. I guess I'll have an update on that next week.)

Thanks for reading. 

Amusement park bookends

This wasn't planned at all, but this week's post is nicely bookended by an Amusement Park Theme. 

Last week I had just hit "publish" when Charlotte and Lydia announced they were done working on their Lego Amusement Park.  They'd been working on this for several days.  

Here's the areal view. 

The Ferris wheel.  This is quite the engineering feat. The girls have tried for YEARS to build a working Ferris Wheel.  Somehow they finally figured out the secret. 

Here's a character going into the ride operator booth. 

I like all the little details.  This is a flower bed.  There's a grounds worker driving a little golf cart that has a trash bag in the back. 

They put a small roller coaster into the amusement park.  At the end the people get shot by water. 

This is the Merry Go Round.  It really spins. 

Here's a water fountain. 

A little picnic area (complete with picnic blanket.)

There's also a pavilion with trash cans. 

There's also a bathroom tucked away in the back. 

Sunday at church was an interesting experience. It started when everyone got dressed.  Veronica pretty much hates dresses.  We've compromised by letter her wear shirts and pants under her dresses.  But I'm a little picky about the pants.  I don't let her wear jeans (which isn't really a problem because she hates jeans.) And If she's wearing a short dress she has to wear long pants under it. 

Well Veronica got herself dressed in a short skirt and some rather long and baggy basket ball shorts. The combination did not look good and I told her that rather bluntly. Which just made her feel bad. I was able to help her change, but she was super sad and locked herself in the bathroom. 

This was all happening when it was time to leave for church. I figured Veronica wanted nothing to do with me so I asked Brandon to talk to her and get her to church and I took the other kids. 

On our way to church Lydia said she wasn't feeling well and didn't want to go to Young Womens. I said she could go to Relief Society with me. She said that was fine. 

We got to church and found our seats like normal.  Our church starts at 1:30 which is really nice, though we are always a little on the sleepy side because we want to take naps.  Derrick likes to lay down on our bench for most of the meeting. Veronica always snuggles up next to Brandon. Because of all the laying and snuggling it's REALLY important for us to have a bench.  So we make sure to get there around 1:10 in order to claim a full bench. We are often the first family there.  We look SUPER faithful, but really I'm just interested in a comfortable Sacrament meeting. (And it's nice to have 20 minutes to settle down after trying to get 4 kids ready for church.)

Anyway, Brandon and Veronica show up about 1:25 and Veronica is in tears and wants to snuggle with me. She's struggling to calm down and on the verge of hyperventilating so I took her into the lobby to get her calmed down. She calmed down before the sacrament, but she stayed out there with me until after the sacrament.  Then we went back into the meeting. 

The meeting was all about Emergency Preparedness.  Our bishop recently felt really strongly that we need to focus on this as a ward. He called two women to be the committee chairs.  Which is great.  Both women spoke in sacrament meeting.  And, well, how do I say this nicely.  One of the ladies is really forceful.  As a forceful women myself I am trying to give her some grace.  But goodness she came into that meeting swinging.  

She talked about a friend's-relative's-sister in law who randomly met the prophet and asked what she should be focusing on and the prophet's reply in this anecdotal story was to "Get your food storage together."  Then she went on to share many ideas, reason, stories, etc meant to motivate us all to get prepared.  But I think she was coming at this from the "Hey you need to panic and get ready." Not "Make a plan to start doing one or two things better."  One of those approaches is sustainable and one is not. 

The second speaker was much more balanced.  But the overall tone of sacrament meeting was a little on the panic and terror side of things.  

So it wasn't too surprising when, a few minutes into the second hour of church that I got a text from the Young Women's President saying, "Charlotte seemed really upset and went to use the bathroom. Do you want to do fine her or should I?"

I went to find Charlotte in the bathroom and we found a quiet spot to talk about what was bothering her. I first she said, "I don't know."  But when I prompted, "Was is Sacrament Meeting?"  She said, "YES!  Church is supposed to be calming.  Not scary!"

I told her I felt the same way. I told her how that lady was coming from a place of wanted to motivate us to action - and yes maybe some people would be motivated by her words.  But that I felt there were better ways of conveying that message. 

So Charlotte came with me to Relief Society and joined Lydia who was already in there.  

I think it says a lot about the emotional state of our family sometimes when the autistic kid is the one who went to church without any issues.  (It also says a lot about my friend Darla who is Derrick's FABOULOUS primary teacher.) 

Later that night Brandon and I had a long conversation that involved many things but there were two things that are worth mentioning here.  

1. He was feeling done with his current calling as Elder's Quorum Secretary.  The presidency that he was put in with was recently released, but he didn't get released along with them.  He just never felt part of the new presidency. (In all honestly he was pretty burned out while they were coming in with lots of energy and new ideas.)

2. He was interested on getting onto the ward's new emergency preparedness committee. I really wanted him on that committee too.  He LOVES Emergency Preparedness, but he doesn't go down the rabbit trails of scary, panicky preparedness. He's really good at incorporating was to make preparedness a way of life and not a thing you do as a reaction to world events. 

So on Tuesday night Brandon went to the bishop's office and just bluntly told him, "I'm sick of my calling."  And the bishop, who is just awesome, responded with, "Well we don't want that."  He asked Brandon if he wanted a break from callings. Or if he wanted just a Sunday calling.  And Brandon said, "Well I'm really interested in that new Emergency Preparedness Committee.  And the bishop said, "You're on it!"

So that all worked out really well.  

Anyway, back to earlier in the week.  Monday morning was the first PTO meeting of the school year. We start the meetings at 7:30. Parents can drop their kids off for breakfast and then come to the meeting.  I had to get Derrick and Veronica out the door around 7:20 and they did a good job, but I was still about 2 minutes late to the meeting.  

When I walked into the library I thought I was in the wrong room for a second.  There were 15 other people in there.  FIFTEEEN! One Five.  And TEN of them were other parents. Last year it was amazing if we had 5 parents there.  

The meeting went so well. I took care of running the meeting. I don't mind doing that, but this whole time I've been looking forward to disappearing into the background as treasurer.  So it was great to introduce the new presidency members.  The Co-presidents will take care of running the meetings in the future. 

My favorite part was after the meeting.  I was in the teachers lounge. The two parents who are in charge of making sure it's stocked with snacks were in there putting out chips and other treats.  They were talking about making a sign up sheet for parents to sign up for what snacks they wanted to bring.  That way parents could feel involved and PTO wouldn't be stuck with the cost all the time. 

All that was great. Then I looked outside and saw another parent changing the letters on the schools' marque sign.  This was something I'd assigned out during the meeting. 

I was like, "Oh my gosh, it's happening.  We have PARENTS back in the building helping with things again."  That was a great feeling. 

I still have a few things to do to get the presidency up and running.  But pretty soon I can just focus on being the treasurer like I wanted all a long. 

After school Derrick watched Mr Bean on Youtube on my Computer.  There really isn't anything more pure than a 10 year old boy laughing at Mr Bean.  

That evening Brandon had Guys and Dolls rehearsal and I took the kids to the school again. 

They'd brought a ball for Marcia to play with.  But they ended up playing with it more. 

We love these nice evenings at the school. Here's everyone heading home. Veronica had brought her bike and was getting more confident riding it again. (Honestly, I think her recent balance training at Physical Therapy helped her with the bike.)

On Tuesday I had to go to Chick-fil-a and meet with a lady in charge of publicity.  Our school is having a chick-fil-a spirit night fundraiser.  They take care of so much of the heavy lifting. They send out stickers for the kids to wear home the day of the event. They have the cow mascot at the school before and after school so parents can remember.  It should be a good fundraiser. 

I also had admin meeting at work.  Tuesday was a busy day. 

In other news, check out the harvest from my garden. I decided that this is the fall I'm going to learn to can. (This was only slightly inspired by the sacrament meeting talks.) I've always been worried about wasting food if the things I try to can don't turn out.  But at this point I have so many tomatoes that I can't keep up with eating them. They will probably go bad anyway.  So they will be my first canning test subjects. 

Brandon's RV business cards showed up.  Several weeks ago he was at Bish's RV to pick up a part. The guy helping him knew him from when Brandon worked for the other RV place.  He said, "I haven't seen you around lately." Brandon explained that he was starting his own small business for winterizations.  The guy said, "Oh bring your business cards over.  We'll give them out. We have to turn people away because we can't do that many winterizations."  That's how incredible this market is - even our "competition" will advertise for us. 

So on Tuesday Brandon went out to Bish's to drop off his business cards.  While he was out there he also looked at some damage on a friend's RV.  

This is a picture of Derrick and Veronica playing with some of their stuffed dogs.  This was the first day that Derrick didn't have behavioral therapy. If I hadn't paused services he would have had someone showing up at 4:00 to either do stuff at the house or take him somewhere. Instead he found a stuffed dog around 3:45 and played dogs with Veronica for a long time. When Charlotte and Lydia came home they joined in.  It was so nice to hear Derrick use his little "pretend" voice and play with his siblings.  It made me feel good about my decision to pause services. 

That evening Brandon didn't have to go to rehearsal. He was outside doing projects and the kids played for a long time outside.  Charlotte and Lydia had complicated construction projects going on.

There's been an arrow sale at D&B and Brandon had bought himself some arrows.  Derrick wanted some of his own so they went to D&B and bought 4.  Here's Derrick putting the arrow onto his bow. 

And here he is aiming. 

We have a target set up on the fence.  Here's Derrick posing with it.  (I also love his quiver. That was part of Brandon's Robin Hood costume years ago.) 

And here's one last picture of him aiming.  This bow and arrow is so good for his fine and gross motor skills. 

Meanwhile, Brandon was working on his model airplane in the garage. Now that the jeep is done he has room (and time) for these smaller projects. 

On Wednesday I met up with PTO Liz at Java. (And I've decided that now that she's not on PTO her new moniker will be Java Liz.)  I can't make it to early morning Bible Study now that the kids are in school and Brandon goes to work at 6:00.  But I've been keeping up with our reading. I wanted to get together with Liz to discuss our reading for the month.  We were studying Pneumatology - which is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.  This was such a great study.  I loved it.  And our discussion was great too.  I may have had a few major paradigm shifts come from this study. 

That afternoon I went to work and covered the front desk.  I was there from 1:30 to 7:00. I was supposed to get off at 6:00, but there was one client at 7:00 who had really confusing insurance.  I wanted to make sure I talked to the mom.  I'm glad I did because it was complicated, but we came up with a good plan. 

I got home a few minutes after Brandon had left for rehearsal.  He'd taken care of dinner and had made sure the kids took baths.  Gosh he's a great partner. The girls spent a lot of time on their wood crafts again. 

Here's a view of the morning glory. 

These black eyed susans are doing very well. 

And look at the Rose of Sharron. It's been blooming like this all month. 

Thursday was picture day at the elementary school.  It was nice that I only had to get two kids ready for picture day. That's never been the case.  

I talked to my parents in the morning and then took care of the grocery shopping. I went to work for about an hour.  I didn't want to spend much time there because I'd been there so long on Wednesday.  So I did just the bare minimum.  Also I had to rush out a little earlier than normal because Derrick had speech therapy and occupational therapy after school. Brandon took care of taking him all summer.  But I'm back in charge of that. (Brandon is still taking Veronica to physical therapy.)

After Derrick's therapy he wanted to watch some things with Veronica.  Veronica bought a crown at the dollar store last week and has been casually wearing it around the house ever since.  I told my parents about it and wanted to take a picture.  I love her smile in this picture. 

On Friday the kids had an early out.  Derrick and Veronica linked arms on the way to school. 

I met up with the PTO co-presidents at the bank that morning and we added them to the PTO bank account.  It felt good to get them added to the account. We also took Liz off the account.  That was the last little vestige of her being involved in PTO.  She'll be missed, but her son is doing really well in his new school, so I know she made the right choice. 

I went to work and did a lot of stuff.  Then I went home and was there for about 30 minutes before it was time to pick up Derrick and Veronica from school. They got out at 12:45, Charlotte and Lydia were done at 1:35 and Brandon was home at 2:00. 

Last year this is when we took off for 5 days in Yellowstone. But this year I'd never had a great idea for what we could do for Labor Day weekend.  Nothing seemed like a good plan.  So, in a rare move for me, I didn't plan anything.  We tentatively planned to go hiking in the Sawtooth Mountains on Labor Day. But even that didn't require reservations. 

Well throughout the week it became apparent why I'd never come up with plans for this weekend. A close friend of Brandon's family passed away last Saturday. Joan was Brandon's sister's Mother- in-law.  Which sounds like kind of an obscure relative, BUT she's been close to Brandon's family ever since Shannon and Chris started dating in 1992. She and her husband have been at nearly every Christmas Eve party and have often come to Thanksgiving and Easter parties. She's come to weddings and baby showers.  

At first Brandon just planned to drive down for her funeral if it was during the week.  But the funeral was scheduled for Saturday and we decided to all go as a family.  They kids didn't really remember Joan at her prime.  Her health has been declining the past few years.  But I told them that we needed to go out of respect.  Also I really wanted the kids to see a full funeral.  The only funeral they remember is their Far-Far's funeral that happened during covid restrictions.  That was just a grave side service.  They've never been to a viewing or a funeral in a church.  I felt it was important to go to this one as kind of a "prep" for when closer family starts to pass away. 

So on Friday afternoon we packed up our stuff and then drove to Utah that evening.  We stayed overnight at Brandon's parents.  In the morning we dressed in church clothes and drove out to Tooele. 

We went inside the church for the viewing.  I'd told the kids what to expect, but they were all still a little scared.  They didn't get very close to the coffin.  

Derrick talked to Joan's husband Kay.  And in either a moment of being too blunt or being very astute Derrick said, "Well you are all along now." I told Derrick to ask Kay how long he and Joan were married. Derrick asked and Kay said they'd been married for 60 years. 

After the viewing we still had an hour until the funeral started.  Most of the people inside the church were very sad about Joan passing. My kids weren't really sad and were asking lots of questions.  So I decided it was best to go outside and hang out on the grass. 

We had some snacks and the kids asked lots of questions like, "Will the casket be open during the funeral?"  I answered their questions. It was a good experience. 

We went back into the church about 15 minutes before the service started.  The kids were super good during the service.  I was happy we could sit toward the back and we didn't have to walk in and out with the family. 

Later Charlotte told me, "I'm not exactly sad because I don't really know her. But I know my cousins are sad and I want to show them that I'm here for them."  I was like, "That's EXACTLY why we are here."  

I wasn't sure what our luncheon status was, but after the main family members went in for lunch all the other Illguth's went in to. It was a nice luncheon. When it was over the girls staged a wedding with the salt and pepper shakers. 

This is Annalyn, Oakley, Lydia, and Charlotte. They were all born within a year.  Charlotte and Lydia were first at the end of October.  Then Oakley in January. And then Annalyn in the middle of October. 

Here's the "Bride and Groom."

I'd been planning to go to the cemetery in Salt Lake with everyone at 2:00. But none of the other Illguths were doing that.  So we scraped that part of the plan.  

We drove over to my parents and spent the afternoon with them. Everyone changed out of our church clothes right away. Brandon and I picked up pizza for everyone. I laid down to take what I thought would be a 30 minute nap and woke up an hour and a half later.  The kids had been showing my parents point of view videos of all the roller coasters at Lagoon. 

That tied in nicely to what we had planned next.  We said goodbye to my parents and drove to Lagoon.  We got there a little after 6:00. The park closed at 9:00 that night so we had about 3 hours to spend in the park.  And it was wonderful.

We started out with Bombora and the Bat.  I discovered that the Bat is super fun if you sit in the very back. 

Then we went to Rattle Snake Rapids to get wet so we wouldn't be hot the rest of the evening. 

We wanted to see if the Cliff hanger was working - it wasn't. But while we were over at that side of the park we decided to go to Wicked.  Veronica didn't want to go, so I said I'd stay off with her.  But Brandon told me to go and he'd stay off.  He was like, "I've BASE jumped twice this summer. I can let you go ride some roller coasters."

But while we were in line I realized was actually very afraid of Wicked.  I realized I'd been avoiding it all summer.  I'd only been on the ride twice before. Once when Brandon and I were first married. And once during our first visit this season back in March.  On that ride I'd been super worried about Veronica falling out of her seat.  (It would have been physically impossible for her to fall out, but my mom brain was freaking out about it anyway.) That had ruined the ride for me and apparently I hadn't wanted to go back. 

So as Charlotte, Lydia, Derrick, and I got into our seats I was thinking, "Um, maybe I just need to get out of here."  But I stayed seated and tried not to panic.  I kept saying, "This is going to be fun. I'm going to like this."  But I didn't believe it.  

And then the ride kicked off with rocketing us up and over the first hill and I was like, "Oh YES I do like this!"  Without Veronica to worry about my brain let me enjoy the ride.  I realized later that I've been on Cannibal like 10 times since riding Wicked in March.  Wicked is much less scary than Cannibal.  

So I like Wicked again. 

Brandon and Veronica had gone to the bathroom while we were in line.  When they got back Brandon was a little worried he'd missed us on the ride.  And then he heard me SCREAMING on Wicked and was like, "Oh there they are."

After Wicked we went on Spider.  Veronica and I rode together.  We screamed a lot. Her vocal cords ended up strained. She sounded like a 60 year old smoker.  She said, "I screamed my voice box out!"

We went to the bathroom by kiddy land after that and the kids wanted to ride the boat ride that is there.  Then they wanted to ride the Dragon Fly.  They all looked so big on that ride. (Charlotte and Lydia told me to delete this picture.)

But I went the extra mile and took a video.  They're faces are Priceless!

After that we went over to the Tidal Wave.  Here's Derrick while we were in line. 

He liked the reflection of the swings in the water.

Tidal Wave was fun.  Then we went to ride Colossus.  I love riding that in the dark. 

We had time for one last ride.  The kids had wanted to do the Tea-cups so we went over there.  Right after the kids got in the ride attendant closed the line behind them.  She told everyone.  This is the last ride of the night so you can go twice if you want.  They were excited about that. 

They spun and spun and spun.  And then the ride stopped and they had the option to get off.  They didn't get off so they spun and spun and spun again on the second ride.  They were so dizzy when they got off. 

We walked out of the park and took this picture outside the entrance. I love all those big smiles. 

We drove back up to Brandon's parents.  The kids were all half asleep by the time we got there.  I think most of them slept in their clothes.  

It had been a really good day. 

And see, we started the week with a Lego amusement park and ended at a real one.  That wasn't planned, but it sure ties things up nicely thematically.  

Thanks for reading.