A Bittersweet Family Reunion

The last time my parents, all my siblings, their spouses, and all our kids were ALL together was December of 2016. That's the year we met up at my house in Alabama (because somehow that was the central location for most of us at that time.)  My parents were about to leave for a 2 year mission to Brazil and we wanted to make sure we were all together. 

Since then we've had various combinations of meet ups, but we've never been ALL together at the same time. 

So when the stars started to align and it looked like we had a chance of getting together this month we started planning a reunion.

My brother Billy was the catalyst for the whole thing.  He and his family have been living in New Zealand for about 2 years. They moved back to the Utah at the beginning of February. My sister Hillary added a time constraint to when we could easily get together. She and her family would be moving to California in about March. 

My sister Lindsey saw the narrow window of time in February when 4 of her siblings would be in Utah or Idaho.  She decided to book plane tickets from Texas to Utah for President's Day weekend. 

I jumped on her plan and agreed to come to Utah that same weekend.  And to make things even more fun I suggested that the two of us go in together and rent an Air BNB. It would be cheaper and have more amenities than if we booked hotel rooms for our families. 

We picked out a house in near my sister Emily's house in Layton.  Everything was coming together for a great reunion over the three day weekend. I looked forward to staying up late talking with Lindsey. 

On Thursday I went shopping and had so much fun picking out food for the trip. I had plans to have nearly unlimited snacks on the counters of the house. 

On Friday I went to work for a little while in the morning and then came home and helped the kids pack their clothes.  We were planning to take a family picture on Saturday evening. It was just going to be a casual picture - Lindsey's instructions were that everyone needed to brush their hair and no one could wear an ugly sweater. But I still made sure the kids picked out decent shirts.

I packed my clothes and make up.  While I was packing I looked at the medicine cabinet. I remembered what had happened when I'd packed for a trip to Utah last October.  I'd thought, "I don't need to pack medicine - no one is sick." Later that weekend Veronica would run a fever and I'd have NOTHING to give her. So this time I packed nearly everything in the cabinet - fever reducer, throat spray, cough medicine, Pepto-Bismol, tums, ibuprofen, and probably one or two other things. I was not going to be caught unprepared again.

We also packed up all our winter gear. I filled a suitcase with snow pants and another suitcase with boots. We planned to go sledding at some point and I wanted us to be prepared. 

I wasn't concerned about running out of room in the car because we were bringing both cars down to Utah for the weekend.  Brandon had to be back to work on Monday morning. But the kids and I were planning to stay in Utah until Monday afternoon. The best plan we could come up with was to bring both cars so that Brandon could drive back Sunday night and I could stay until Monday. 

The kids and I packed the van and then waited for Brandon to get home from work.  When it was time to leave he took Charlotte and Lydia in the Honda Pilot and I took Derrick and Veronica in the Honda Odyssey. And let's just take a moment and appreciate that BOTH of these cars were working. Things had been a little touch and go earlier in the month. 

Right as I started driving I got a text from Lindsey.  Her flight was delayed.  Something about a plane crash blocking the runway at Houston's little Hobby airport. She had been hoping to arrive at Emily's house in Layton around 5:00, but now it seemed that she wasn't even going to be leaving Houston until 5:00. I didn't think too much of it though. Lindsey has lived in Texas for something like 13 years.  She's flown to Utah once or twice every year.  And she always gets through. 

Also I had a slight emergency of my own to worry about.  I'd been driving for about 20 minutes when Derrick told me he didn't feel well. I told him to just sit and breath.  That worked for about 30 seconds and then he threw up all over the floor of the van. 

I was like, "What do I do? What do I do?"  I was barreling down the interstate at 80 miles per hour and there wasn't an exit in sight. The most I could do was hand a bottle of water back to Derrick. After about 5 minutes I finally saw an exit.  We pulled onto some deserted looking farm road and stopped by an abandoned gas station. I got out and surveyed the damage. 

Fortunately, Derrick had somehow managed to throw up only on the floor mats. So I pulled those out and threw them face down in the dirt. I contemplated just leaving them there, but decided to wrap them up in one of our travel blankets and figure out how to wash them off later. 

Then I pulled out the bag of medicine I'd packed.  I was so happy I had Pepto-Bismol handy. I gave that to Derrick and he said he was feeling a little better.  

So we kept driving. But a little bit later Derrick said he needed to go to the bathroom so we pulled over at another random exit and stopped at a gas station.  Normally we stop at set places on the route so it was really odd to keep pulling off and stopped at these other places. It felt like we were on a whole different road trip. 

We stopped a few other times on the trip. At one point I checked my phone to a whole bunch of texts from Lindsey. They still hadn't got on the flight. She was giving me directions for how to check into the Air BNB (she'd been the one to make the reservation). She also had put in a Walmart order for food. She told me when and where to pick that up. 

Around 5:00 we made it to my sister Emily's house in Layton.  According to the schedule she was in charge of dinner on Friday night.  It made sense for her to host this night because she didn't have to travel. 

She shared the really disappointing news that Lindsey's flight was cancelled for that night. By the time the runway was cleared the pilots had too much cockpit time or something like that. She had the option to rebook and try again on Saturday, but that would only give her like a day and a half in Utah.  That didn't seem worth it. We all understood, but dang that was disappointing. 

Also disappointing was the fact that Billy and his family were supposed to be on that same flight with Lindsey.   I know I said they'd moved back to Utah, but they'd actually spent the last week visiting Billy's in-laws in Texas.  They were scheduled to fly back with Lindsey. 

Billy and Becca and the kids were able to rebook on the Saturday flight so we'd see them the next day.  But it was kind of hard to wait another day to see them. 

Still, it was nice to be at Emily's and see her family. My parents were there too. I haven't seen any of them since before Christmas.  And later Hillary came up to hang out. 

Emily made a really good imitation Cafe Rio dinner.  It was delicious.  When there was a bit of a lull in the evening Brandon and I excused ourselves to go find the Air BNB house. 

It's a good thing that just the two of us went.  Lindsey had mistyped the address so we originally went to the house across the street from the Air BNB.  After we found the right house it took us a few tries to get the code into the door lock right. It would have been really stressful to do all that with the kids in tow. 

We opened the house and were so amazed at what we saw.  It didn't look like much from the outside, but on the inside it was really nice and big. It had a living room, a large kitchen, a dinning area, and another sitting room. There were three bedrooms upstairs, and three downstairs.  There were also nice amenities like a washer and dryer and a game room. 

It was an amazing house!  But I was so sad that Lindsey wouldn't be there to enjoy it. 

We unpacked a little bit. We got the food out of the car and I set up snack stations around the kitchen.  Here's the fruit (and popcorn) station.

Here's the hot chocolate station. The Keurig and k-cups came with the house, but everything else was mine. I was really looking forward to spoiling Lindsey and her family with all these things.  But I figured my other siblings and nieces and nephews would come enjoy them later.  

I took a Marco Polo video as a "What might have been/ hey, who wants to come stay here" video for my siblings. I also took a few pictures.  Here's the second living room.

The upstairs hallway that leads to three of the bedrooms. 

Here's the master bedroom. Brandon and I slept here that night. 

Brandon and I went to Walmart and picked up the order.  It's kind of scary how easy it is to pick those up. I just told them I was Lindsey and they brought it right out. 

Then we went back to Emily's.  I was sitting in the living room and all of a sudden Hillary was walking down the stairs and everyone was singing Happy Birthday.  I was like, "Oh that's for ME!"  Hillary had made this super cute cake to celebrate my birthday.  I had no idea this was in the plan.

Here I am with the cake. All evening we'd been making hopeful jokes that Lindsey was just tricking us and would show up at any moment.  Someone made the joke that Lindsey was going to jump out of the cake and surprise me. (If only.) 

We hung out at Emily's for a while.  Hillary had a little quiz of questions about my life like, "Where did Valerie meet Brandon" and "name the subjects that Valerie studied in college."

Someone asked me what my word of the year was.  I said, "It's self-care."  Brandon said, "Also known as "Valerie ain't doing crap."  I laughed so hard. It's pretty true. 

As the party wound down at Emily's we made plans for rest of the night. I invited everyone over to the house.  Emily said she'd come with a few kids.  Hillary planned to come to. I made sure they both had the address. 

Brandon and I left first and took our kids to the house.  They were so excited to go inside and explore.  Here they all are enjoying the game room. 

Derrick loved the air hockey table. 

Each of the kids picked a room.  One of them said, "I want the room with the TV."  Brandon replied, "They all have a TV."

Here's Lydia's in hers. This was in the basement next to the game room. She liked it because of the fancy lamps and arm chair. 

Veronica picked the room with three twin beds. 

Here's the best picture I got of Derrick in his room. He was so excited about the TV. 

Charlotte was the only one who picked an upstairs room.  By the time I made it up their to take her picture Emily had shown up with some of her kids.  Hazel decided to share the bed with Charlotte. 

Vance had come too and he shared with Veronica. Titus ended up with the last upstairs room.  Emily shared it with him when she finally made it to bed. 

But that took a while because one thing my sisters LOVE to do when we get together is stay up late talking.  Hillary, Emily, and I were up until almost one. We just talked and talked and talked. I don't even remember about what. 

Hillary finally pulled herself away and drove back to her house. I crawled into bed and fell asleep. 

On Saturday morning we woke up around 8:00???? Maybe. I don't really remember. 

We'd made plans to meet up at Hillary's around 9:30.  The girls were going to do hair. The boys were going to go to Top Golf. (There was some sort of free game deal though the realtor that Emily and Hillary use.) 

We had breakfast and then I drove down to Hillary's with Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica.  Derrick originally said he wanted to go golfing, but changed his mind.  So he came down with Emily.  Brandon went with David to go golfing. 

Hillary did a hair mask for Charlotte and Lydia's hair. I took a nap. We all ate lunch. It was very chill. 

The boys came back and told us how much fun they'd had golfing.  Brandon was like, "I helped Asher and Bridger know how to swing."  I was like, "When did you learn how to golf? "  His answer was, "I worked on the golfing merit badge." Brandon really does know how to do everything. 

After lunch was over we helped Hillary with some yard work.  Lindsey had planned this part of the day to be "help Hillary with whatever she needed to get ready to move."  And what Hillary needed was yard work.  

Derrick helped me move some rocks from Hillary's yard into Emily's car. (Emily had plans for them.)  Brandon helped reattach the shed doors. My mom and I finished putting privacy slats into Hillary's back fence.  I thought this would involve weaving the slats between the wire slats.  But it was more like sliding. I called the place we slid the slates "the space between spaces" because I'd never realized how big the gap was between the wire links. 

Lydia was in charge of a window well, but she gave up on that and helped clip long ornamental grass in the front yard. Charlotte was in charge of tidying up the garden, but there wasn't much to do there because the ground was still frozen.  

Veronica and Asher worked together to clean under the porch. I could hear snippets of their conversation.  Veronica is in a unique position in our family.  She's kind of smack in the middle between the older and younger kids.  She's really good at playing with the younger kids, but she can also hang out with the older kids. Sometimes she feels kind of lonely because she doesn't quite belong with either group. But honestly I think it gives her some great people skills.  She'd very adaptable to whatever group she finds herself in. 

At some point Hillary left to drive down to the Provo airport to pick up Billy and Becca and their children William and Clara. My family had last seen William as a little baby. And this was the first time we'd ever met Clara.  She'd been born at the beginning of the year and it had been a race to get her passport in time for this move. 

Here's Lydia holding Clara with Emily and Juniper looking on.  Juniper had seemed so small until Clara came into the house. 

Here's another picture of Lydia with the baby.

And another. 

The original plan for Saturday evening had included a family picture and then either a group date for the parents or all of us going to Pizza Pie Cafe.  But we scrapped the picture when Lindsey and her family couldn't make it.  Since Billy and Becca had just finished traveling - with small children - we didn't feel like making them go out in public again.  So we opted to just get pizza from Costco. 

Emily and I went to pick up the Pizza (and go on a few other errands). We came back with the pizza and we all enjoyed that dinner. 

Billy had recently bought a van from one of our Aunts.  It had some battery trouble so Brandon was helping him with that.  Brandon ended up doing his trick for how to charge a battery really quick - take it out and buy a new one at Auto Zone.  While they were picking up the new battery they also bought ice cream for everyone. 

Hillary said that she'd do my eyebrows as a birthday present so she set up a station for that. She waxed and tinted them. I love when she does my eyebrows, but it usually takes about 3 days for them to go from SCARY DARK to nice dark.  When I was done with my eyebrows my dad said he wanted to take a picture of me, Emily, Billy, and Hillary together.  I was like, "Um, this picture CANNOT go on Facebook."  I didn't even have all the tint washed off of the skin around my eyebrows.  I looked like a troll.  

Charlotte and Lydia were intrigued by the waxing process and decided to try it. Hillary had fun waxing their eye brows. 

We decided to get going around 8:30. It didn't really work for anyone to stay at the house that night so we had it to ourselves. I ended up going to bed and just enjoying silence for a while.  I hadn't realized I needed to recharge. 

On Sunday morning we slept in.  Then I got the master bedroom ready for my parents to stay in it that night.  They'd agreed to come up and stay overnight. I sent them this picture in case they tried to change their minds. 

I moved my things into the room that Titus and Emily had shared. Brandon was going to be leaving that night so I would have this room to myself.  (Or so I thought, this room ended up being shared by Emily and Hazel with Juniper in a pack and play.) 

Here's Charlotte in the second living room. 

Here's Lydia eating in the dinning area between the kitchen and the second living room.

Derrick and Veronica still playing games.  I played a few games with them too.  Derrick was funny.  After we played a few rounds he said, "Let's do the HARD way!"  And dumped all the pucks on the table at the same time. 

At 9:00 we tuned into our ward's sacrament meeting via zoom. We'd given the kids the choice to go to Emily's church at 9:00 or just watch our ward's meeting.  They picked our meeting. While the meeting was going on Brandon started working on a charcuterie board. 

Here's his creation when it was done. He's so good at these. 

We watched The Chosen after sacrament meeting. We are LOVING that show. 

Right as the episode was ending Hillary and Joe showed up at the house. They were followed closely by Billy and Becca.  Everyone spent about 15 minutes crowded around the charcuterie board. 

Brandon usually makes these for holidays that already have a lot of other fun food to compete with.  But this time the charcuterie board was the star.  Everyone loved it. 

Derrick wanted to hold Clara.  He was so interested in her.  

Oh and here's a story from the day before. At Hillary's house he'd asked Becca, "what is your name?"  Derrick got really excited when she said, "I'm Becca."  Derrick exclaimed, "Mom! It's Becca! We saw her on youtube!"  Derrick was so surprised that he was meeting a real life youtuber. We'd recently watched the video of Clara's birth.  Derrick talked to Becca about that for a minute. Here's the link to Becca's excellent channel. 

We'd brought a whole bunch of games.  Derrick got out trouble and played it with Penny. He mostly played it for her - but she liked the little popper. 

William got interested in the game at the end. 

I took Clara from Becca and had a lovely time holding her. I never got to hold just one baby when I had my own kids so I quite enjoy it now. 

Isn't she just the cutest!

Emily's family came over when they were done with church. And later my parents showed up.  There were a lot of people in the house, but everyone could spread out enough that it didn't feel crowded.  There was a big tournament of games downstairs. Charlotte kept coming upstairs to tell me who she'd beat at airhocky. 

Also there was a lot of movie watching going on in the bedrooms. 

We made sure to take another sibling picture that was okay to put on Facebook. My eyebrows were much less scary looking. 

We played a round of picwits and then Billy had to leave.  Utah is kind of a temporary stopping place while he figures out what's next.  He had an audition in Maryland for the Baltimore Symphony on Monday so he had to get to the airport. Brandon never turns down an opportunity to go to the airport so he drove Billy down to the Salt Lake Airport.  

Oh it's probably time to give you an update on Lindsey. We were still all sad that she couldn't be there, but it seemed that maybe it was a good thing she hadn't been able to come. She and her son Rocky both ended up with strep throat. She was in a lot of pain on Saturday. 

At dinner time we had baked potatoes with pulled pork on the top.  Lindsey had ordered the pork and the potatoes in her walmart order.  What she didn't realize is that I'd bought a HUGE bag of potatoes. She knew I'd bought a bag, but she didn't realize how big it was.  So we had so many potatoes.  I told everyone to make sure they took their party favor bag of potatoes home with them when they left. 

I'm not sure what this is a picture of.  Everyone seems to be looking at something, but I can't think what they would be looking at.  We'll just say Brandon was telling a funny story.

Hillary, Joe, and Becca all left to get their kids to bed on something resembling a schedule. Brandon left to drive back to Idaho.  David took Asher and Bridger home with him. 

My parents stayed and so did Emily, Titus, Hazel, Vance, and Junpier.  We figured out that Veronica, Titus, and Vance could share a room.  Emily shared with Hazel and Juniper.  Lydia moved up with Charlotte.  And I slept in Lydia's room. 

But that was after I stayed up talking with Emily and my parents and then with just Emily.  I think the two of us went to bed at 12:00. 

In the morning Emily and I cooked at big breakfast of eggs (from Lindsey), potatoes (from both of us), and left over pulled pork.  

Then it was time to start packing and cleaning. This house had been really fun to keep clean. It had felt a little like I was just playing house. So cleaning up wasn't too hard. 

We checked out at 10:00. Derrick was sad to say goodbye to the "air hockey house"  I told him we'd rent it again when Lindsey came to town another time. That cheered him up a bit. 

We went to Emily's house and put on all of our snow gear.  (It hadn't made sense to put it on at the Air BNB while we were trying to pack everything up.)  The kids played in the front yard for a while. 

Then we followed Emily's van to a hill near their house. This hill was incredible.  It was a hiking trail covered in snow.  The kids kept trying to go down the hiking trail, but inevitably they'd careen over the steep side and go down that. 

It was quite the adventure. 

The kids tried to make elaborate trains with the sleds. 

I love this picture of six of them in a line. Asher is in front followed by Lydia, Charlotte, Veronica, Titus, and Bridger. 

After that hill got a little too steep to go back up repeatedly Emily took us to a more traditional (and safer) sledding hill. The kids had a lot of fun here.  

This was the first time my kids had gone sledding all winter so they were super excited and stayed a long time.  I was glad I'd packed all the gear in addition to the 5 sleds. 

When the majority of the kids were done sledding we went back to Emily's and had quesadillas for lunch.  I put all the snow pants and boots back into the suitcases and put them in the van.  Then we said goodbye and started driving back to Idaho.  

The drive was pretty uneventful.  In fact the kids were so quiet that I had trouble staying awake.  As soon as we got home I went to take a nap. 

Brandon and the twins had rehearsal that night, but that's about the only reality we had to deal with. Tuesday was another day off school so we had a whole other day to recover from the weekend. 

And recover is the right word. Derrick threw up again at 4:00 AM on Tuesday morning.  And Veronica ended up getting a positive strep test on Wednesday.  So obviously this was a draining weekend for us.  

But it was SO SO SO worth it.  

Still it would have been nice to have Lindsey there.  But don't worry too much about her.  The airline provided each passenger with vouchers for hotels and meals and so she wasn't hurting financially. And she was able to rebook her flights for her whole Spring break in march.  It doesn't quite line up with my schedule, but we will make sure to see each other at some point. 

And I think that's a good stopping place. 

Thanks for reading about the family reunion that wasn't quite a full family reunion, but was still nice. 

Birthday/Valentines Day 2023

The last two weeks have been really nice.  I'm finding a new slower paced rhythm of my life that allows me some breathing room. I'm getting better at thinking things like, "that's not a necessary thing to add to my life right now." It's been good for me. 

The last two weeks have also had some special days. My birthday - which always sneaks up on me. And Valentine's Day - which I always look forward to. 

 So let's dive into this recap. 

Monday February 6th was the day before my birthday. It also was kind of a terrible day. I woke up with a headache and just felt tired all day. I felt like I dragged myself through work. The worst part of the day was that I'd helped put together a parent meet and greet for Idaho Parents Unlimited. I'd scheduled the library and helped spread the word. Idaho Parent's Unlimited would have staff at the library from 3-7 to talk to parents. 

In theory it was a good idea. But all day I was so nervous about it. I felt like I didn't advertise it well enough and Sarah from IPUL would have wasted her time coming down. I also worried something would go wrong with the library reservation. I also worried about how much time I'd be able to spend at the event. I'd thought I'd stay from about 3 to 5, but given how I was feeling I wondered if I'd last until 3:30. 

I dragged myself over to the library at 3:00 and found Sarah finishing setting up in the meeting room.  So the reservation had all worked out. 

She and I have talked a lot online over the years, but never actually in person.  (Though I didn't realize that at the time.)  She asked me how I was doing and I said, "I'm a close approximation of a functioning adult." She laughed. 

We talked for a while and then ANOTHER parent showed up. It was a mom who had just heard about IPUL.  She said, "I feel like you set up this event just for me."  Oh that made me feel good. 

I stuck around and helped Sarah fill that mom in on what IPUL does and how they can help her. I was able to stay until 4:00. Before I left a husband and wife showed up.  They said they'd just moved to Idaho that week and were curious what services were available for their son. 

Later my friend Renee (who is also a fellow IPUL board member) messaged me. She had been at the meet and greet toward the end.  She said that 9 parents had come in. I'm so glad that there were people who found the event helpful. 

I'm also glad I can cross it off my to do list for the year. 

That evening Brandon and the twins had rehearsal. I just let Derrick and Veronica watch movies. I think I went to bed soon after I put them to bed. 

Tuesday was a much better day.  It was my birthday!!!!  And I was taking the whole day off of work. 

I had two goals for the day. 1. Stay in bed as much as possible. And 2. Go thrift shopping. 

But I also had a problem. I didn't have a working car. The van door was still stuck open.  Brandon had ordered the part, but it wouldn't be there until later in the day. 

The night before I'd told Brandon. "I want to stay in bed as much as possible, but I also want to go thrift shopping. But I can't go thrift shopping without a car. And I can't have a car without taking you to work early in the morning and that makes it so I have to get out of bed which violates the first goal."

I was saying this kind of as a joke. But Brandon knew that I'd had a rough day on Monday and he wanted me to have a relaxing day on my birthday. 

So he got up early and walked to work. His work is only about a mile away so it's not exactly far. But the route doesn't have great sidewalks. Plus it was 5:30 and dark. But he did it anyway. 

I woke up to a text message saying he wanted me to have the car and be able to sleep and that he hoped I'd have a happy birthday. 

I really married the best guy in the world. 

So I stayed in bed until 7:00 when I had to get up and get the kids ready for school. I dropped them all off and then went right back home and right back into bed. I wasn't really sleepy so I just finished the blog post I'd been working on about the week before. 

Eventually I got up and took a long shower. And had a nice lunch. And then I went to DI and thrift shopped my heart out.  I FILLED at cart with so many clothes and then just wheeled the whole thing into a changing stall and tried everything on. I left with three new pairs of pants, three shorts (I was thinking long term with this trip), a jacket, a pink shirt, a green shirt, and like 6 grey shirts. I've decided to embrace my love for grey so I'd tried on about 15 grey shirts and kept the best ones.  

Lydia called me as I was putting everything into the car.  She wasn't feeling well and wanted me to pick her up. I was already planning to pick up Brandon so I just went to get Lydia first and then picked up Brandon. 

I'd already bought everything to have rootbeer floats that evening, but I'd been craving one all day.  So when the three of us were home we got out the ice cream and root beer and had floats.  Then I got back into bed and enjoyed being there.

I did get up again at 4:00 so I could take Veronica to her tutoring appointment. I'm really happy with how that program is going.   

Brandon made a 7 layer dip and we had that for dinner. 

I took this picture of Derrick's latest hobby.  He learned how to make paper airplanes at boys activity a few weeks ago and now he's constantly folding airplanes and throwing them. The girls were complaining that he was wasting paper.  I told them, "When you were learning to draw you used up so much paper. Now it's Derrick's turn."

After dinner we opened presents.  I showed off all the clothes I'd bought myself. (That's all I wanted for my birthday.)

My mother in law had sent me a package. It had a notebook with a beautiful hand stitched cover on it. 

Here's the back.

I also had an unexpected present show up. I've wanted more storage bins. But I haven't been able to find the size I like at Walmart. I tried to order one online, but the best deal was actually to order a set of 8. That seemed like a lot - but I could also think of about 8 uses for storage bins.  So I'd ordered them.  They happened to show up on my birthday. The kids were kind of disappointed to see what was inside the big box. 

Brandon went to get the rootbeer floats ready. Derrick and Veronica put on a parade of sorts.  Veronica blew on a noise maker while Derrick banged on a drum. It was cute.

Here are the root beer floats. They were so good.  And so much easier than cake. 

Brandon and the girls had rehearsal so they left around 7:30. I hung out with Derrick and Veronica and then put them to bed. 

Oh and at some point during the day the van door part showed up and Brandon was able to get the door to open and shut again.  But something had been pulling power off the battery. So it was dead. Brandon put the charger on it and left it on overnight. 

It had been a great day. And I was feeling so relaxed.  I started making plans for taking more Tuesday's off of work. 

We all had to walk again on Wednesday, but I'd been expecting that so it wasn't a big deal. Brandon came home at 1:40 and then I took the car to pick Veronica up from school and took her to her first therapy appointment. I was kind of hoping for some magic moment where everything would be fixed all at once. But I also knew that probably wouldn't happen. Mostly Veronica and Rachel got to know each other. Rachel took Veronica on a tour of the building and showed her the different rooms.  I was trying to give them space so I didn't go, but apparently there is an art room and a play room and a snack station.

When we were done with therapy we went to Walmart and picked out things for the little Valentine's Day party we do every year.  Veronica had so much fun picking things out.  We couldn't find a few things so we went to Smiths to get pink M&M's and conversation hearts. 

Derrick had asked if he could just walk home by himself so I said he could. Brandon was there when he got home.  Then Mr. Mark picked Derrick up for Behavioral Therapy a little while later. 

When I got home I got a message from Derrick's special needs teacher asking me if I could go with Derrick on a field trip to a concert at the college on Friday.  Then his main teacher sent me a message asking the same thing.  I was like, "YES!"  I'd asked them about two weeks earlier if they needed me to go, but they'd said something like, "Well we don't normally have room for parents, but we'll get back to you."

A little while later I got a phone call from the school principal. She asked me if Derrick had said anything about what happened after school.  I was like, "I haven't even seen him yet today."  I checked with Brandon and he said that Brandon hadn't said anything.  Then the Principal told me that Derrick had got in a fight after school.  From the security camera footage she saw she said it looked like other boys were egging Derrick on to fight.  Derrick wasn't in trouble exactly, but they wanted us to come onto school property to pick him up after school. 

I was like, "OHHHH that's why there was suddenly room for me on the field trip."  But I didn't say that. 

Anyway, we got a lot of things figured out, but the details aren't too important for here. 

The van battery was charged and so I had a working car again on Thursday.  It was good to have my van back. 

Thursday was a small shopping day so I didn't have to spend the whole morning grocery shopping.  I don't really remember what I did that morning. 

That evening I took Derrick to Occupational Therapy.  Then I dropped him off at home and went to the church to make an appearance at a Relief Society dinner. The activity started at 6:00, but I couldn't make it there until 6:30. And I had to leave at 7:15. So I couldn't really help with the activity. But I still wanted to go. 

I had a great time and the food was wonderful. I loved talking with the people around me. When I left someone told me to take some brownies home to my family. I said, "Heck no, I don't want my family to know that good things happen in Relief Society.  As far as they are concerned NOTHING special happens here." 

I got home just in time for Brandon and the girls to go to rehearsal. 

As I put Derrick to bed that night he kept telling me that he didn't want to go to the field trip. I really wanted to go and I really wanted him to go. So we talked through the whole thing. 

But then at 2:00 that morning Derrick appeared at my bedside and told me he was sick. I didn't want to wake Brandon up so we went in the living room.  Derrick laid on one couch and I laid on the other.  I had a hard time going back to sleep. When I thought he was asleep he actually got up and ran to the bathroom.  Right as he did that Veronica came out of her room.  

Derrick was sick and Veronica was nervous and none of us slept well and so in the morning no one went to the elementary school. So no field trip 

I did get Charlotte and Lydia off to middle school.  Then I stopped at my office and picked up a couple folders. I told my co-workers, "my kids are home from school today so I'm going to work from home."

I went home and went back to bed. I slept until 10:00 and then started working. 

I actually got a lot done. Sometimes when I'm at work I wish I could go home and take a nap.  But this time I already was home and I'd already had a nap. I'd been planning to be on the field trip so I had nothing else planned. I just worked and worked and worked. I got a lot done. 

Around 2:00 I took my binders back to work. There were some checks in the mail so I stayed and processed those and then took them to the bank.  

After that I had NOTHING!!!! I was done for the week. 

Brandon had plans with the twins to go winter camping. 

They'd already packed so when Charlotte and Lydia came home from school they basically left right away. 

That left me with Derrick and Veronica home together  . . . again.  We've spent a lot of evenings together so I wanted to make sure this night felt different than most evenings. 

I had a list of things we needed to do.  One of them was to get the Valentine's day treats and cards ready for the kids class parties on Tuesday. It was fun to help them get those ready. 

Then we made a cake. (It was supposed to be brownies, but apparently we are out of brownie mix.) It actually ended up looking amazing thanks to some frosting and sprinkles. 

We still had ice cream so I put together cake and ice cream for us. 

I'd told Derrick and Veronica we could have a sleep over in the family room.  So we went downstairs and unfolded the couch bed. We decided to watch The Avengers.  

I started out on the black couch, but then moved over to the bed when Veronica said she wanted to snuggle. After the movie I went back to the couch and slept there all night. 

We had a fun time with the movies and sleeping in the family room.  We laughed a lot. 

Meanwhile Brandon took Charlotte and Lydia up into the south hills.  They found a place to park and hiked about 100 feet off the road. They dug something of a pit/cave and put a tarp down.  They also covered the top with a tarp.  They had warm sleeping bags, blankets and winter gear. 

They made a fire on top of the snow. They said by the end of their trip it had melted into a pit of its own. 

They had a good time camping and lasted the whole night.  But the consensus was that winter camping is a "fun once."

In the morning Derrick, Veronica, and I took car of cleaning up the house. Brandon and the twins came home around 11:00.  

After they came home Brandon took a shower and then we went on a date to the Home and Garden Show. It was full of lots of fun ideas and dreams.  We took a few pictures with Brandon's phone, but I forgot to get those off his phone. 

We came home and laid down for a nap. I thought we sleep for maybe 45 minutes.  Instead we both slept for something like 2 hours. 

We had a nice afternoon/evening with the kids. After the kids were in bed Brandon and I went out to the garage for our "Valentine's Date."  We had pizza and root beer. 

And we watched a movie.  After scrolling Netflix forever we finally settled on the Kristen Bell, Kelsie Grammar movie, "Like Father."  It was really good. 

Here we are. 

Brandon is my favorite.  And I'm super glad that we put a couch in the garage. 

On Sunday I had to be at the church at 8:30 to run through a song with the choir. That left Brandon to get four kids ready for church.  They showed up during the opening song. 

Our choir number went really well.  It was called "The Fount of Love." I hadn't liked the song much when we first started singing it.  It had a lot syncopated rhythms and parts where the women echoed the men.  But as I got more used to it I liked it more and more. So it was fun to sing. 

I had choir practice at 2:00. After that the whole family went to the park.  We went for two reasons.  1. The weather was like 43 degrees and we were not spending a day like that inside.  And 2. Derrick was convinced there was treasure buried under the bridge at Rock Creek Park.  He'd even drawn a picture of it.  Derrick hardly ever draws so this was a big deal!

So we went to the park so he could dig in the dirt under the bridge and see if there really was a treasure there. 

Charlotte and Lydia found spots to read and draw.

Here's Derrick excited to get started. 

And here he is getting to work. He quickly learned that the dirt was super compact.  But he kept going.  I lost interest and went to the playground with Veronica.  I called my sister Lindsey and talked to her for almost 2 hours.  I went on a walk by myself while talking to her and later went on the same walk with Derrick. (He'd given up digging when he'd hit the water level.)

When we drove home from the park the roads were super empty.  We were like, "Oh yeah the Super Bowl is happening right now."

At home we had dinner.  Then the kids and Brandon watched Studio C sketches while I made some Valentines Day treats. 

Monday was the day Veronica and I had planned for our Valentine's Day party. I still needed to buy balloons so as soon as I dropped Charlotte and Lydia off at school I drove to the dollar store and picked out 4 balloons. I felt a little bad that I didn't have Veronica help with this, but I knew the best selection would be in the morning.  I dropped the balloons off at home and then went to work. 

After work  I checked Veronica out from school at 12:45.  We had so much fun setting everything up for the "party."  I think (actually I know) I spent more on this little gifts than I spent on the kids Christmas stockings.  I make no apologies.   

Here's Veronica posing with everything. 

We had balloons, stuffed animals, giant kisses, M&M's, jelly hearts, home made brownies, homemade raspberry squares (with strawberries, rhubarb, and raspberries from my freezer), and homemade brownies.

I also had two games. Valentine's Bingo and Don't Eat Pete.

Here's Veronica with the balloons. 

The balloons. There were two squirrel ones that said, "I'm Nuts for You."  The dog one said, "I ruff you."  And the pizza one said, "You have a pizza my heart."

Brandon picked Derrick up and 2:00.  He was so excited to see all the fun stuff. But we couldn't eat anything yet.  I kept Derrick and Veronica occupied by watching Buster Keeton silent films on my phone.  We discovered these a while ago after a Baconsale Episode about silent movies. Buster Keeton is like a very daring Mr Bean.  So Derrick LOVES his stunts. 

When it was almost 3:00 Derrick, Veronica, and Marcia eagerly looked out the window for Charlotte and Lydia to come home. 

Everyone was so excited once all four kids were home. I made them pose behind their presents. 

The kids got candy and then we played bingo. 

And Don't Eat Pete.  The "party" is always more of an excuse to eat all the treats, but it was fun to play the little games. 

Here's Veronica posing with the giant kiss. 

Charlotte told me that her favorite part of the day was eating the conversation hearts.  She said, "It's like a tradition that says spring is coming."

Tuesday was real Valentine's Day. Derrick and Veronica took their treats in their backpacks. Charlotte and Lydia didn't have anything. None of us were really sure what happens with Valentine's day in middle school.  Their Primetime classes had little parties, but other than that Valentines day wasn't really a thing. 

I took care of a lot of paperwork that morning.  I was waiting to have our taxes done by our accountant, but I decided to just try running everything through Tax Act. I was super nervous about this year.  Brandon was making a lot more money than he had before. And the business added an extra layer of complications. So I just wanted to see what to expect.  

I was happy to see that we were still getting a refund. Smaller than other (poorer) years, but it was better than owing anything. 

And I was also happy that I was having a real CPA do our taxes.  The schedule C portion of the return had been tricky and I wasn't sure I did everything right.

I went to work and got a lot done.  I'd recently made a breakthrough on a tricky billing situation for one of our clients so I was able to get a lot done with that. It felt good. 

After work I took Veronica to tutoring.  Then I took Derrick to Boys Activity. Derrick does really well at boys activity, but it's still good to have one of us there. I hung out in the lobby and could here Derrick happily talking with everyone.  

This week they made a game of sorts.  It was a block of wood that they sanded.  Then they put a nail in the middle.  The game was to figure out how to balance 7 nails on the nail. Derrick showed me the trick when it was over.  I was so impressed by his deterity.  Who knew that Boys Activity would double as Occupational Therapy practice.  

Here he is at home showing off the trick. 

Wednesday was an insane day. Just look at this schedule for the afternoon. I'd double booked myself with Veronica's therapy and my appt with the accountant both happening at 2:00.  So Brandon took Veronica to therapy. 

Things actually went okay. Everyone got where they needed to be on time and so that was good. 

Here's Charlotte getting ready to leave for her Orchestra concert.  I bought her a new violin case in January and it has been great!  It's kind of funny because she's using the same violin that my sister Emily played in Jr high.  Back then it was a BIG deal to get Emily her violin. Most people had to buy or rent violins from Riverton or Summerhays music. But my parents had known someone who was able to get them a violin for a really good price. I remember how special and unique Emily's violin had seemed and I was still kind of operating from that mindset. So when pocket on the violin case had a broken zipper I was thinking, "oh that will be really hard to replace."  So Charlotte walked around with a broken zipper for a few months. And then I remembered we live in 2023 and Amazon exists. 

I looked up violin cases on amazon and laughed out loud when I saw that we could get the exact same case for $20. Then I looked at other cases and found this cute teal one with backpack straps for like $30 more. So I bought her the case. 

I dropped her off behind the Roper Auditorium and then parked and went inside.  I was going to find our usual seat near the back but then I remembered that Derrick wasn't coming to this concert.  So I found a seat near the front. I was determined to make up for how distracted I'd been at the Christmas Concert so I took lots of pictures. 

Plus I was also testing out the camera on my new phone.  (It had shown up on Monday.)

Charlotte is in the beginner orchestra so they were on the stage first. That gave me lots of chances to take her picture while she warmed up.

After the concert I asked her about her seat. I was trying to figure out if she was officially first chair or if her teacher just happened to assign her that seat. She had no idea what first chair was and had never heard the term Concert Master before.  So I guess she wasn't officially first chair. But it was still cool to see her sitting there. Maybe she'll have the honor for real one day. 

Here's the whole group.  I call them the "Baby Orchestra."

But they've actually improved a lot since the Christmas Concert. I took this video of their last song. 

Brandon and Lydia had come to hear Charlotte play. But they had to get to rehearsal.  So they left after Charlotte's group.  I stayed to listen to the rest of the groups. 

The intermediate orchestra went next.  They did really well.  This was a combined concert with Twin Falls High School.  So next we listened to the Freshman Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra.  That chamber orchestra was especially good.  They played a Lord of the Rings Medley that was fabulous. 

When the concert was over I took Charlotte to the Orpheum for her rehearsal.  (Who goes from a concert to a rehearsal?) 

I told her that if there was a good parking spot I'd go in the theatre with her and watch for a minute.  But if there wasn't parking I'd just drop her off at the front.  Well as luck would have it there was a spot right in front of the door.  So I parked and went into the theatre. 

I really really really really really wish I had a video of what I saw.  Brandon was on stage with all the "pick-a-little ladies."  He had his constable handcuffs hanging off his belt. But he was also holding a fan and fanning himself. I was like, "I didn't think the constable was in this scene?"

I soon realized what was happening. Brandon was filling the role of one of the ladies who was gone for the evening. He was reading from the script in a high falsetto voice.  It was hilarious. He even sang along with the Pick-a-little song. 

I'm glad I was able to see that. 

Back at home Veronica was pretty upset.  I'd been gone a lot longer than planned. But it was kind of a big deal that she'd wanted to stay home with only Derrick. The past 6 weeks she's been too nervous about things like that.  

I got Derrick and Veronica into bed a little before Brandon and the twins came home. I told him what scene I'd walked in on and he laughed.  He told me he'd been playing the main Pick-a-little lady, Eulalie Mackechnie Shinn herself. He said he'd been bragging that he knew every word to the Pick a little song and that had somehow led him to being the stand in for her. 

Today I didn't have much on the calendar. It was my big shopping day and I had work. But nobody had therapy, or concerts, or appointments. Brandon and the girls didn't even have rehearsal. 

And it was the last day of school for 5 days.  The kids get a 5 day weekend off of school for President's Day.  (Charlotte said, "I never cared about Presidents Day until it gave me 5 days off of school)

We are going to Utah to spend time with ALL of my siblings. This will be the first time we are all together in 7 years.  The last time we were all together was Christmas in Alabama. 

So yeah, I'm pretty excited. I'll tell you all about it when we get back.  

Thanks for reading.