Swimsuits and Stomach issues

Here I am, once again trying to catch up on all the events that happened in May. It's June now so I better get cracking. This post will cover May 15th through the 21st. 

You might remember that my last post ended with us arriving home after a weekend in Utah. We'd celebrated Mother's Day at Brandon's parents house, but we also did the belated Easter Egg hunt. 

Well we got home around 11:00 and everyone went to bed. I figured we'd all sleep through the night, but around 1:30 I woke up to Veronica standing by my bed. She hasn't done that in a long time so it kind of scarred me at first. Then she told me, "I threw up."  

I figured it was because of all the Easter Candy and punch she'd had on Sunday. She's thrown up after eating too much sugar before and it's usually a one and done kind of thing. So I scooted over in bed and let her lay down next to me and I figured that's how we'd stay the rest of the night. 

If only I was so lucky. 

She ended up getting up EVERY half hour and throwing up or having things come out the other end. Every.Half.Hour. 

Brandon gave up after the first round and went to sleep on the couch. He had to be at work at 5:30 so I didn't blame him. 

I was finding towels, finding Pedialyte, finding changes of clothes for Veronica, finding Clorox wipes, etc. At first I was trying to clean up the bathroom a little bit after every time Veronica exploded in it, but as the night wore on I realized that this was beyond a quick wipe down. Brandon ended up taking care of cleaning up the bathroom when he was back home from work the next day.  That seemed like a fair trade for a night of sleep. 

Veronica finally seemed to empty out around 5:30 and fell asleep.  I was able to get to sleep around then too. 

In the morning I got everyone else off to school and then emailed my boss that I'd be working from home that day. Veronica was feeling better stomach wise, she was pretty weak and tired though. So she went downstairs to watch a movie and I went into my room for a long nap.

I finally got up around 11:00 and we had lunch. Well I did. Veronica had toast or something. Then we drove over to my work so I could check the mail and pick up some things. But when we got there I realized I didn't have my work keys. I'd taken them off before our trip to Utah because I didn't want to loose them. But I'd forgot to put them back on. So we drove back home and then drove back to work and got my stuff. 

Then we went home and I did a little bit of work from home, though I'll admit, I was pretty out of it. 

At some point I must have gone outside and wandered around and taken pictures because these are on my phone for Monday afternoon. 

It's kind of hard to see, but I love the view of all the tress in my backyard. You can see the yellow locust, the white cherry tree, and the purple lilac in the back neighbors yard. 

And LOOOOOOK there are cherries on the sweet cherry tree. Pollination worked this year! This is the first year with more than 1 or 2 cherries on this tree and I am super excited about that.   

All I really wanted to do that afternoon was sleep, but earlier I'd promised Charlotte and Lydia that we'd go get their ears pierced. They've wanted to do this for a while, but I was kind of low on money for this sort of thing. I'd already paid for their yearbooks, and their end of the year field trip so I wasn't in a position to pay for getting their ears pierced for a while. I told them, "But if you want to pay for it we can do it right away."  Both girls were pretty flush with cash. They'd been paid for babysitting Liz's chickens and Kathy's cats. And so they both had money to pay for getting their ears pierced.

So we went to Claire's at the mall and got it done. They were both super nervous and there were some tears of anticipation. But the lady who did the piercing was really good. Both girls walked out with big smiles on their faces.   

Charlotte got little metal studs. 

And Lydia got purple. 

On Tuesday Veronica was feeling better, but she still couldn't go to school because I'd made an eye appt for her for this day. This was the final eye evaluation before we'd start vision therapy. This exam was the Visual Information Processing Evaluation that measured her Visual Spatial System, Visual Analysis System, and her Visual Motor System. When these results came back they were abysmal. For example she scored in the lowest 1% for silent reading fluency.

But once again it was good to see all the "bad" results. Because these bad results gave us answers for what she is specifically struggling with and that means that we can work to improve things. 

This exam took two hours. I could have dropped Veronica off and picked her up later or even just waited in the waiting room. But Veronica didn't like either of those options.  So I was in the exam room with her. But she also doesn't like me watching her when she does things like this.  So I brought my laptop and started working on the PTO Treasurer's report during the exam. 

I could have had Veronica back to school in time for lunch, but she'd worked so hard during the 2 hour evaluation that I figured she deserved some McDonalds. So we stopped there and I ordered her a Big Mac Meal. Normally that girl can eat a hamburger and fries like nobodies business, but her stomach much have shrunk after Monday's bathroom adventures because she could only eat about half of it. 

 

I dropped her off at school and went home and had my own lunch. Then I went to work and got caught up on stuff there. 

After Veronica was home from school I took her to Therapy and then to Tutoring. 

While she was in her therapy appt (I don't have to sit in on those) I called Banbury Hot Springs and made reservations for two Kayak's for me and Brandon the next day.  We'd been planning to go Kayaking to Blue Heart Springs for our 16th wedding anniversary for a while. But I'd been hesitant to actually make the reservation. Brandon's work has some ridiculous time off policies so he'd have to call in sick in order for him to take the day off for our anniversary. I wanted to be sure he was still going to do that before I made the reservation. He assured me that he was going to call in sick so I made the reservations. 

Back at home Charlotte and Lydia had brought home their various projects they'd been working on for various classes. Lydia had made a diorama of the cornucopia scene from the first Hunger Games book.

She'd used modeling clay to make the people. This is Rue running for the trees. 

This is Katniss running for a backpack.

Charlotte had drawn an arial view of the Arena from Catching Fire. 

On Tuesday evening ALL I wanted to do was watch a movie. We'd watched Spiderman Far From Home a few days earlier and then I'd ordered No Way Home from the library. It had come in and I didn't want to wait any longer to watch it. So I told Brandon and everyone, "Let's just watch No Way Home tonight as a way to start celebrating our anniversary early. 

All year long we'd been watching Spiderman movies. The kids thought we were watching all of them so we'd be ready for Across the Spiderverse when it came out in June - which was partially true.  But the real reason we'd been watching all the movies was so we could watch No Way Home. 

It was so much fun to watch that movie with the kids. I don't want to spoil too much if you haven't seen it, but basically there are a lot of references to the other movies in this movie. Like A LOT. The kids would see someone and be like, "What is he doing here!?!"  And then something else would happen and they'd be like, "Oh wow, What?!?"

We laughed so hard at one part that we rewatched it at least 5 times. 

It was everything I'd hoped it would be. 

Except for one little thing. 

Charlotte and Lydia had caught Veronica's stomach bug. Neither of them had wanted to eat much dinner. Almost as soon as the movie started they both started throwing up. They had throw up buckets and would just do their stuff in there and we'd all pretend like it wasn't happening. 

It made for kind of a surreal viewing experience. There would be an amazing moment happening in the movie and Charlotte would be throwing up through it. Or another epic thing would happen and Lydia would throw up. 

I was like, "Is this really my life?"

I asked the girls later if the movie had helped distract them from their stomach pain, or if the throwing up had left them with unpleasant associations with the movie. They told me they still really liked the movie - even with all the extra things going on. 

The good news was that Charlotte and Lydia were pretty much done throwing up by the time it was bed time. They basically passed out on the couches downstairs and slept there all night. 

Brandon and I were still planning to go kayaking in the morning. Our original plan was to go while all the kids were at school. But Charlotte and Lydia's sickness meant they would be staying home on Wednesday. I was glad that they were the ones who were sick and not Derrick or Veronica.  The twins are fine at home for extended periods of time. Derrick and Veronica are not. 

Right before we went to bed Brandon said his stomach hurt. At first I didn't think it was possible that he could be sick too. But yes, he was sick too. He spent most of the night throwing up. 

Around 5:30 he realized that if he called in sick there would be no one to open the building. So he dragged himself over to work and unlocked the building. Then he called in sick. (For Realsies) Then he went to Smiths and bought some medicine for himself (and everyone else) and then came home and crawled into bed. 

I got up and helped Derrick and Veronica get ready for school. When I got back home I wasn't sure if I would need to reschedule our kayaking trip or not. But Brandon's little bit of sleep had worked. Plus he was following the same schedule everyone else had - throw up every 30 minutes for 5-7 hours and then be done. So he said he was feeling fine. 

We both packed up the few things we needed for the trip and then drove out to Banberry Hot Springs in Buhl.  

Banberry Hot Springs themselves are currently under construction. But the kayak rentals on the Snake River are still operating. An attendant met us at the gate and escorted our car down to the river. Then he went over the rules with us and gave us some pointers on how to find Blue Heart Spring. 

We got into the kayaks and started floating down the river.  Here's Brandon.

And here's me. This was about 10:00 in the morning. The morning was cool, but not cold.  

We were so excited to be on this adventure together. The past couple of weeks had been so busy. It was nice to have a chance to spend time with just the two of us. 

Blue Heart Spring was more than a mile down the river so we had a good time just drifting and practicing with our paddles. Brandon had some kayak experience. 

I did not. I'd been canoeing a few times, but this was my first time in a kayak. It was so much easier than a canoe. 

Eventually we were in sight of the cover for Blue Heart Spring. 

We paddled into the cove and the water went from murky to clear. 

It was so blue it looked like Peacock Feathers. 

It was incredible. I'd seen pictures of this place, but nothing compared to being there for real.

Here I am.

We pulled the canoes onto a little beach and then got ready to get into the water. 

We had swimming suits under our clothes so it didn't take much time to get ready physically. But emotionally it took some time. 

This was a cold water spring that stays at a temperature of something like 50 degrees. Even going in up to my knees took some bravery. Brandon took this picture of me. 

Brandon went in deep and then dunked his head. He came up gasping for air. I tried it a little bit later. I'm glad I did because I think I would have regretted not doing it. But I didn't want to do it again. 

We ate lunch on the shore - well I did at least.  Brandon's stomach was still a little touchy. He didn't eat much. 

Another group of kayaks showed up after we'd been there about 20 minutes. There were four of them. They were the only other people we'd seen on the river all day. We got back into our kayaks and paddled around some more.

Here we are without sunglasses. 

I still can't get over how blue the water was. 

I also really liked the contrast with the dark rocks in the water. 

It was so cool.

It's hard to see, but the springs are bubbling up from the sand in this picture. 

Then we started paddling back up the river. This was the part that had me worried. How hard would it be to paddle back up the river? We'd actually thought about doing this trip in 2021 when Brandon's brother Bryan came out to visit with his family. But I'd had concerns about taking 4 adults and 7 kids down and back to a place none of us had ever been before. I figured we could make it down to the spring just fine, but would coming back be a complete disaster?

I was happy to find out that it really wasn't much harder to paddle up steam than down. It was more work for sure, but I didn't feel like I was fighting the current or anything.  I was even able to take a few pictures without loosing any upstream progress. 

There were many dark clouds behind us and a stiff breeze picked up. There were a few waves on the water that were kind of tricky. But we made it back without any problems. 

We'd rented the kayaks for 4 hours. So we could have stayed out into about 2:00. But we made it back around 1:15.  We drove back to Twin and found the girls at home enjoying a movie.  I'd texted my neighbor to be on call just in case they needed her, but they hadn't had any problems.  They just needed to rest. 

Brandon needed rest too. He'd done so well on our little kayaking adventure, but he was completely exhausted. So he laid down and took a really long nap.

At 3:00 I went over to the school to pick up Derrick and Veronica. Derrick came out with a bunch of stuff. He said, "I graduated."  This had been his last day in his SPED class and his teacher gave all the 5th graders a lot of cute things. 

At home he showed me what he had. 

These glasses were cute. 

And so was this cap. 

Veronica had one last art class, but she wasn't feeling well again so she just came home with me and Derrick. Derrick didn't seem to be feeling all that great either. He said his stomach hurt. He kept burping out the worse smelling burbs I'd ever smelled. 

I'm trying to remember what we ate for dinner that night? No one was really hungry so what ever it was it wasn't that special. 

This had been such an odd anniversary. On the one hand it was AMAZING because we'd kayaked to Blue Heart. But on the other hand it involved 3 and possibly 5 sick family members. I guess that's just how life is. 

That night Derrick was playing in the backyard. He came back in and told me, "I found a bat." I was like, "A baseball bat or an animal bat?"

Turns out it was an animal bat. It was hiding under the rain gutter behind the patio. It's hard to see in this picture, but it's there up against the wood. 

One of the first things Derrick did on Thursday morning was go check on the bat. It had flown away in the night. 

On Thursday Derrick and Veronica stayed home sick. At some point Veronica's stomach issues had returned and so she was staying home.  Derrick never threw up, but based on his burps I kept expecting him too. So I kept him home. 

I was surprisingly healthy. I never did get sick with what everyone else had. 

I'd planned to go grocery shopping, but instead I stayed home and cleaned all morning. Earlier in the week I'd said this house was going to need an exorcism after everything that had gone on. So this was me taking care of that.  I cleaned the bathrooms, I did the dishes in the kitchen and found all the dishes that were all over the house. I did laundry and put away laundry. It felt good to get on top of all those things again. 

Normally I go into work at 12:00 on Thursdays, but I was really on a roll with all the cleaning, plus I didn't want to leave Derrick and Veronica home in case someone started throwing up again. So I didn't go into work until Brandon got home at 1:30. 

I got done with work and was heading home from the bank about 5 minutes before the middle school kids were released from school. So I parked and waited on the side of the road where Charlotte and Lydia walk home.  They were excited to see me offering them a ride home. 

I told them that wasn't all.  We were going to go swim suit shopping. So when they got home they dropped off their stuff and we went shopping. 

This was the first year in several years that we've done swim suit shopping in person. This was for two reasons.  1. The girls had a field trip on Monday to 1000 Springs Resort. We didn't have time to wait for an online order. and 2. The girls have grown up a lot in the last year and their bodies aren't exactly one size fits all anymore. We needed to actually see the swim suits and make sure they'd fit. 

Our first stop was Target.  On our way inside Charlotte and Lydia wanted to sit in the "silly cart."  I told them, "these things were my saving grace when you guys were all little."  I could put Charlotte and Lydia in the seats, Derrick in the basket seat, and Veronica's car seat into the cart. That left very little room for the stuff we needed to buy, but these did allow me to go into a store with all the kids. 

We started at Target because I'd found Veronica's swim suit bottoms in the adult women section last year and I was hoping for the same luck this year. But Charlotte and Lydia are in a hard stage to buy for right now.  They aren't little kids anymore and they don't fit those sizes anyway. But they aren't women either and hardly any of the adult women styles appealed to them. And we couldn't seem to find a good juniors section. 

But the trip wasn't a complete bust because the girls used their cat and chicken money to buy big lego sets. 

Then we went to Walmart. Walmart has been good to us with kids swimming suits. But we ran into the same issue. The kid stuff was too little and the adult stuff was too adult and there wasn't much of a juniors section. 

In desperation I told the girls, "we'll there's one more place we can look. A few years ago I found your swim suits at Costco. We can try there."

Here's the deal, Costco gives me terrible anxiety. I used to think it was because the parking lot is too small and there are just too many people in the store. But I'd been thinking about it and I was thinking my issues ran deeper than that. My parents did a lot of bulk shopping when I was growing up. And sure some things were great, but a lot of the time we'd have a ton of something like mayonnaise but no bread. And over the years I just decided that I'd rather buy a small thing of mayonnaise AND bread AND lunch meat AND cheese for the same price as one of those huge things of mayonnaise. So when I go into places like Costco my brain starts sending out messages like, "Sure you can buy a lot of food here, but it will not be enough." And that's what triggers my Costco anxiety.

I'd been thinking that what I needed to do was start facing that anxiety. I should just go into Costco and walk around. I didn't have to buy anything I could just walk around and get used to being around all those people and all that food and all that stuff.

And then maybe on the next trip I'd buy one thing. Just one thing. 

And so when we needed to get swimming suits for the girls I decided that this would be my trip to buy just one thing.     

I was literally talking myself through every step of the process. My thoughts (and sometimes my words) sounded like this, "Okay, we just need to park. Just get through the parking lot and here's a spot and great job Valerie. You did it!"  

Then it was, "Okay we are walking into the store and here's my card and yes, now we are in."

This was a Thursday afternoon at like 5:00 and the store wasn't very full of customers. That was good. We were able to find the swim suits and miracle of miracles they had cute suits in the girls sizes. 

There wasn't much of a line at the check stand and soon we were back in the car. I was like, "We did it! We had a trip to Costco that didn't trigger my anxiety. 

That victory was a little short lived though. When we got home the girls tried on their swimming suits and they were too small! So much for buying swimming suits in person being better than online. 

I was dreading having to go back to Costco so soon when Brandon volunteered. He said, "I'll take them back for you."  Oh thank goodness. 

We had dinner and then I was feeling the effects from a week with very little time for myself. Brandon said he was fine with the kids and so I escaped to the garage. I wanted to update this blog, but I was so braindead I decided to watch an episode of The Crown. After that I was able to write. 

Brandon took all the kids to costco and they exchanged the swimming suits. Then he hung out with the kids and made sure they were all in bed on time. 

On Friday I was going on an all day field trip with the 5th grade to Nat Soo Pah Hot Springs. I'd asked Derrick's teacher if she wanted me to come and she said it would be a good idea and so I was going on the field trip. I'd planned to ride the bus with Derrick and we'd stay there the whole time his class did, but I rethought that plan for two reasons. 1. It had been nice to be able to leave the Middle School field trip when we needed to. Derrick might get tired of swimming sooner than everyone else and I'd want the option to leave earlier with him. And 2. Veronica was saying her stomach hurt again. She hadn't thrown up in 24 hours so there was really no need to keep her home, but she was worried she might throw up again. So I told her I'd drive my car to the hot springs and if she got sick again I'd come get her. That reassured her enough that she went to school without any problems. 

Plus she was having her ice cream party for passing of her multiplication facts from 0 to 11 so she didn't want to miss that. 

Derrick went to school wearing his swimming suit. He had so much fun showing off his shark shirt.

I drove the 30 minutes out to Nat Soo Pah and got there a few minutes before the busses showed up.  Derrick was happy to see me when he got off. Derrick has been here for Father's and Son's campouts with Brandon, but this was my first time there. 

Derrick was in the water pretty quick and passed off the swim test so he could go into the deep end. Here he is showing off the x on his hand that showed he passed the swim check. (And yes that is green water in the pool. It's got lots of extra minerals in it that make it green.) 

He was one of the first to do this so he had the deep end to himself for a little while. I was thinking to myself, "Derrick may not do well at school, but here's something he is good at."

The day wasn't exactly hot so I was a little nervous about getting in the water. But once I got in it was warm. Not hot, but warm. I had a fun time watching Derrick go off the diving board and swim around. We played some games where we tried to find things underwater. 

We took a break and ate lunch. I bought us both slushee drinks from the snack shop. Derrick got bubble gum and I had blue raspberry. 

Derrick swam some more. His teacher and I talked in the water. I never really imagined swimming with my kids teachers and something I'd do, but hey it's pretty cool. 

I got cold so I went into the hot pool. I really liked that. Derrick said it was too hot for him. A lady came over and got into the pool. She asked me if I was a teacher. I told her I was a parent and I was along to keep track of my son who has autism.  She told me she was one of the bus drivers.  She asked me which child was my son. I pointed out Derrick. She said, "Oh he was one of the best behaved students on the bus! I wouldn't have thought he had any issues."

I told her I was happy to hear that. But I also said that long unstructured days like this can be really hard for him. So I was there in case things didn't go well. 

We finished talking and I got out of the hot water to get a drink. Derrick found me and told me he was ready to go. It was about 12:45. He'd made it almost 3 hours. But I'm glad I had my own car so we didn't have to wait to leave. We said goodbye to his teacher and then drove home. 

I was so tired from the sun and really the whole week so I took a nap after we got home. 

That evening I spent a lot of time weeding my garden. Here's my view while I weeded the berries. 

Everything was looking so good. 

On Saturday I went into work to catch up. This had always been my plan. My boss is super chill with my schedule. He never tells me when I need to be in the office. My time off "requests" are me telling him when I plan to take work off. So on Monday I'd sent out an email saying that I'd be off for my anniversary on Wednesday and for an all day field trip on Friday and that I'd come in on Saturday to make up the time. All he replied with was, "Okay, thanks for the heads up."  

So on Saturday I spent several hours in the quiet office catching up on things. That's my kind of therapy. (Not really, but close.)

While I was gone Brandon and the kids cleaned the living room super well. I came home to them beating the living room rug to get all the dirt out of it. 

Veronica had been playing with her magnets and her chain and created this "safe" for candy.

There was a smoke advisement from fires in Canada so we couldn't have a fire to burn the last of the junky wood. But we still had a nice afternoon outside. It was hot so we set up the pool. Every year I think we are done with this inflatable pools, but the kids specifically asked for another one this year so I bought one. 

Brandon finished installing the garage door opener and now I can easily get into the garage.  THIS IS HUGE.  We've lived her 3 and a half years and my garage key has been awful that whole time. I have to get myself into a zen state to get the key to work and even then there's only about a 50% success rate after about 5 minutes of trying. 

So anytime I need to put something in the garage or get something from the garage I go through a cost/benefit ratio of is it worth my time to fiddle with the key. Usually I just wait until Brandon gets home. As a result I don't really think of the garage as my space. 

But now that we have a garage door opener I can get into the garage with just the push of a few buttons. It's such a game changer. I'm like, "oh I need to get this from the garage - be right back." Or, "You know I need to put this in the garage."  And I can put it in the garage in seconds rather than letting it sit on the kitchen table all day. I don't know how I lived so long without a key.

On Sunday we went to church and I kept trying to figure out how long it had been since I'd been there.  We'd been out of town the week before for Mother's Day. I'd been there the week before that, but I had been exhausted from a busy week and hadn't felt fully present. And the week before that I was on my way to Boise so I hadn't gone to church.  So it was basically a month since I'd really been present in the ward. 

After church I'd volunteered to speak at the Assisted Living facility that my ward helps out with. Our ward does a small sacrament meeting there every week at 2:00. Brandon and Charlotte have both been there before, but this was my first time.  It's just a short meeting so my talk was only about 5 minutes long.  I was out of there by 2:30.  I hurried home because I knew everyone was going to be waiting for me. 

We had a hike planned. We decided that we love to hike as a family and so it's something we feel comfortable doing on Sundays. It's been than staying home and getting mad at each other which is what occasionally happens on our long Sunday afternoons.  Three weeks earlier, when I was in Boise Brandon had taken the kids on a hike and found a swimming hole.  They wanted to take me back there.  So we all hurried to change into swimming suits and put regular clothes on over them. Then we drove into the canyon. We parked at the Auger Falls Trailhead. (This is not Auger Falls, but it is the waterfall at the Auger Falls Trailhead.)

We were heading to the other waterfall that was on the other side of the canyon. 

That waterfall was a refreshing beacon on this sunny day.

That's the Mermaid Cove waterfall.  And for a while it sounded like the kids and Brandon had been to Mermaid Cove three weeks earlier. But I was pretty certain mermaid cove was above the waterfall, and it didn't sound like they'd hiked that far up the trail on the other side of the canyon. So I was super curious where this swimming hole was. 

The dirt road we were following led down to the Snake River. 

We crossed the old bridge to get to the other side. 

Things got a little dodgy on the the other side of the bridge. The way up had only been about 3 feet off the ground.  This side was about 12 feet off the ground and you had to climb down a ladder made out of rebar. For some reason Marsha was on this hike and Brandon put her on his shoulders to carry her down. 

Here's Lydia going down the ladder. 

We were getting closer to the waterfall. 

We didn't go much closer though.  Brandon showed us a trail to the stream coming off the waterfall. The stream went through some rocks and made a little swimming hole. 

Everyone got into the water. It was cold but really fun. 

I got in too, but I wanted to take pictures before I got wet.

Here I am. 

I took this picture after we were out, but we spent a long time in the water.  That white water area by the rocks was like a Jacuzzi. We called it the Fri-cuzzi for Frozen- Jacuzzi because the water was so cold. 

After a while we put our clothes and shoes back on and then started walking back. Here's one last look at the waterfall. I told the kids that next week we'd go to Mermaid Cove above the waterfall. 

It's crazy how dry everything was. The day was probably about 85 degrees and it felt warm. I was glad we'd been able to cool off in the swimming hole. 

Back at the Snake River we wanted to go wading in this shallow area we'd seen earlier.  But when we got close we realized it wasn't shallow AT ALL.  Derrick still wanted to get into it, but the rest of us felt unsafe about it.  

So we were content to just take pictures and then go. 

It was kind of cool to walk on this river bank area.  When the river is higher this is underwater. 

Here's another picture of the not so shallow pool.

The bridge had this cool graffiti on it. I've heard that there are proposals to reconstruct this bridge and officially connect the two sides of the canyon, but for now it's still a little sketchy feeling to explore this area. 

Here's a shell Veronica found. 

Here's the river from the bridge.  

Back at home the kids weren't done swimming. They were back in the pool. I fell asleep on the couch or something. 

Later I came outside to check on the kids.  Lydia was laying down and told me her stomach hurt. I immediately asked her when the last time she had any water. It had been a while so I made sure she got a drink. I was telling her that she probably had a little bit of heat exhaustion. And then she went into the bathroom and threw up all the water. Yep, heat exhaustion. 

Brandon made dinner and I helped Lydia.  It was cooler outside so she laid down on the patio couch. That helped.  Brandon made dinner and we ate it on the patio.  Here's everyone minus Lydia who was still on the couch and not feeling well. She did feel better later in the evening and she has been super good about drinking water ever since so I think that was a good lesson to learn early in the summer.  

That was the end of the week and the end of the stomach issues (thankfully), but it wasn't the end of the swimming suits.  Charlotte and Lydia had a swimming field trip the next day. And of course we had a whole summer of swimming ahead of us. 

Thanks for reading!

A Very Full Week in May

Here we go with another belated recap of another action packed week in May. This one is about May 8 -14th. I kind of had a change of heart about May during this week. I follow a reporter named Molly Grantham on Facebook. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina and I started following her when she wrote a post about her infant son's bout with covid in the early days of the pandemic. I liked her writing and started following her and never regretted it. 

She has three kids. A daughter who is ten-ish. A boy who is 6 or 7 and then the covid baby who is now three. That kid is adorable. There was a whole saga last year where he latched onto a green star shaped balloon and carried it with him for days. 

Anyway, I like following Molly because she is juggling work and kids and life in general and she's super relatable about it all.  She was talking about how she realized that as parents we have times that are "busy" and other times that are "full." May is a month that feels busy (and it is!), but a lot of the stuff that happens in May isn't just stuff to keep us occupied. It's the fulfillment of a lot of work. 

I liked that a lot. There's a lot going on in May, and for the most part its a lot of really cool stuff. I tried to think of my week as full rather than busy and I think that helped. 

So here we go. 

Monday May 8th was a pretty simple day. I was supposed to go to Yoga after work, but I decided that I'd rather just conserve my energy for later in the week and relax while watching The Crown. That was probably a good idea because I ended up falling asleep during a boring talking part.

After I picked Derrick up from school I had a phone call with Liberty. Liberty is the 3rd party vendor that verifies eligibility for the Department of Health and Welfare. We do this every year for Derrick in order to keep him eligible for the services he receives. This was a pretty run of the mill phone call and the lady doing the interview was nice. 

That evening we didn't have much going on so I spent a lot of time in the garden. Derrick came outside too and had a lot of fun in the mud. I like that the kids have this area to play in.

Veronica played in the kids other play area. As much as I'd love to have a perfectly pristine backyard I like that the kids have these areas to play and do what ever they want. 

Here's my garden where I can do whatever I want. 

I was doing an experiment. Last year I dug trenches down the middle of these garden beds. I would fill up the trenches and water the plants from the trench. It worked well, but the trenches ended up full of weeds. This year I decided to bury the buckets that the trees came in. They have holes in the bottom so water can seep into the ground and encourage deep roots. But since they are plastic they wont let weeds grow in them. 

I also went to the store and bought weed barrier fabric that I put over the whole bed.  When I planted pumpkins I cut small holes for the pumpkins. The idea is that the things that I want to grow will grow and everything else will be blocked. 

And look here are the cherry trees blooming at the same time. 

The evening was really nice.  Brandon and Derrick spent some time working on the car for Derrick's pinewood demo derby. It was cute to hear them working together on that. 

Tuesday was a big day for Charlotte and Lydia. They had their first Middle School Field Trip. They went to the Science Museum. 

My day was pretty normal. Hanging out at home in the morning, work in the afternoon. Then Therapy and Tutoring for Veronica.

I inadvertently set off some text message drama within our Boys Activity text thread. Two weeks earlier the Boys activity leaders handed out pine wood derby cars and told the boys to get them ready for a primary aged demo derby for boys activity in 2 weeks. Boys activities have been bouncing around between Tuesday and Wednesday nights the last few months and I heard both nights discussed for the demo derby, but I didn't hear anything definite. I still hadn't heard anything definite on Tuesday morning. So I sent a text to the leader and asked.  When he didn't respond I sent a text to the whole group to see if anyone knew when the activity was going to be. 

NO ONE KNEW. The text message turned into a whole bunch of confused people trying to figure out when the activity would be.  

Finally someone got on and said that guy in charge of Boys Activity was out of the country on a cruise and so there wouldn't be an activity.  

I was so annoyed when I found that out. Like super annoyed. I couldn't believe that someone could hand out cars for an activity and tell everyone it was in two weeks and NEVER think "hmmm I have a cruise coming up, maybe I should check my calendar and make sure I don't plan an activity for the week I'm going to be gone."  

I was going to send a mass text message saying something to that effect, but I stopped myself and just texted the RS president instead. I very nicely asked her if she could make sure that the Boys Activity leaders are better about communicating activity dates and times in the future. She said she would do that.  She also has a son that in in Boys Activity and he'd been pretty disappointed there wouldn't be a demo derby that week. 

There was a silver lining to all this that I didn't notice until Kaymie brought it up when I was complaining about everything later.  She said, "I bet Derrick was super upset about the plans changing at the last minute." And when I thought about it I was like, "No, he didn't mind at all."  

Derrick has actually been really chill with changes to things he was looking forward to. It's been an unintended consequence to all the therapy sessions that had to be cancelled at the last minute with Mr Mark.  Like I don't think that was Mr Mark's plan, but it has helped Derrick get used to cancelled or rescheduled plans. 

Anyway, the whole reason I needed to know when the boys activity would be happening is because we had something else going on that night. The middle school had a "Special Needs Meet and Greet" for incoming 6th graders. I took Derrick to that. He was able to walk around the middle school a little bit, meet his new SPED teachers, and sit in one of the SPED classes. 

It was good, but it was kind of geared toward helping ease the kids' fears about middle school. It didn't do much for the parents' fears. 

I know Derrick will like Middle School once he gets used to it. But its that transition to getting used to it that has me completely freaked out. And I don't think the school gets it. At one point I asked, "What does the first day of school look like for the SPED kids? Are they in the SPED class all day?"  And the teachers nonchalantly said, "No, they are out there going from class to class with everyone else. All the new 6th graders are worried that first day. The teachers will be looking out for them."

And I was so shocked by that answer that I didn't know what to say next. Like, I'm all for inclusion and everything, but there is NO WAY that Derrick can just be expected to be out in the hall on his own on the first day. There are so many reasons that's a bad idea, but the biggest reason is that they school plays SUPER loud music between classes. And Derrick hates super loud music.   

Another mom asked a follow up question to that and the teachers did say that some kids need noise cancelling headphones or get walked to class a little early. So that helped me feel a bit better. But I kept thinking, "You are going to need a plan like that in place DAY ONE for Derrick. This is not a thing we can just wait and see if he doesn't like it."  In theory we are supposed to have one on one meetings with the SPED staff closer to the beginning of the school year and so hopefully we will get this all in place before the first day. But yeah, I didn't come away from the meet and greet feeling any sort of confidence about Derrick's transition to Middle School. (And spoiler warning, things didn't get better later in the week.) 

That night I would have gone to Bible Study, but our neighbor had given Brandon and me tickets to an Arts on Tour concert that night.  And Brandon and I really needed a date so I decided that was more important than Bible Study. 

So we went to the Fine Arts Center at the college and settled in for the concert. It was a group called Deplessy and the Violins of the World. We went into the concert with no clue what to expect. It was really cool. Here's a video of kind of what it was like. 

   

Wednesday was kind of a crazy day for me. As I was getting ready to take Charlotte and Lydia to school my phone rang.  When I answered it a lady from the college introduced herself and said that we'd won one of the drawings from the Community Event back in April. We'd won the Tablet! This was surprising and yet not surprising. I'd had Super Lucky Derrick put the ticket into the drawing box after all. 

I told the lady I'd come pick it up after noon yoga. 

I also needed to buy a Styrofoam ball for Charlotte.  One thing I hadn't realized about 6th grade is that there are a lot of projects at the end of the school year. I'd already bought a Styrofoam ball for Charlotte and Lydia's project about Mars for their science class. Lydia had created a diorama of the Cornucopia from the first Hunger Games for her language arts class. Charlotte was working on a poster about the layout of the arena from the second Hunger Games book. And now they were both working on projects for their Social Studies class. Lydia was making an Aztec Temple with Aroura and they needed a box. And Charlotte was making an igloo with Noah and needed a Styrofoam ball.

I should have picked on up on Tuesday, but it had slipped my mind. So I told her I'd get it after work on Wednesday and drop it off at the school before she needed it. 

I'd hoped to be done with work by 10:30, but one thing lead to another and I was there until like 11:30. And I was starving.  So when I got done with work I went home for lunch. That meant I missed the last Yoga class of the cycle. I went to Joann's and found a perfect Styrofoam shape for Charlotte. It was a dome shape and was basically already an igloo.  She wouldn't have to carve it at all. Then since I was close to the college I picked up the tablet. 

I made it to the school in time to drop off the Styrofoam thing for Charlotte. I was too late to drop off the box for Lydia. (She ended up just taking it herself the next day.)

The big story on Wednesday was that I went to the school to add some things to Veronica's 504 plan. But we need to do some back story on that first. 

Several weeks ago I had Veronica's eyes checked by a pediatric optometrist. She had a regular eye exam and then he recommended she have a binocular vision evaluation. This measures how well her eye muscles are working together.  So we did that exam. I received the results via email during lunch when I was with the IPUL Board in Boise. Wow, was that a cool group of people to be with when reading complicated eye exam results. 

I read things like, "Veronica was found to have inadequate automaticity, inadequate fixation maintenance (ability to maintain steady and accurate fixation), inadequate pursuit eye movements (ability to accurately follow a moving target), and inadequate saccadic eye movements (ability to make accurate eye movements from one target to another, as in reading). This condition is called oculomotor dysfunction and poor automaticity."  And one of the other board members was like, "Oh my son had that problem too. He did vision therapy and it helped him out a lot."

I was already pretty certain we'd be doing vision therapy, but hearing another mom talk about it was very encouraging. 

Also, I know this is kind of odd, but I was super excited to see INADEQUATE so many times. Some people had just kind of said, "Well just read with her more, she'll get better at it if you practice more."  And I was like, "But reading with her is the WORST. She just guesses the words. She isn't getting better."  It made me feel vindicated to see that Veronica has a legitimate problem that makes reading hard for her. It wasn't that we weren't trying.

Veronica has issues with her Ocular motility (eye tracking), Accommodation (eye focusing), and Sensory and motor fusion (eye teaming). The doctor recommended Vision Therapy and also gave a bunch of recommendations for accommodations that can be put in place in school. So the day after I got home from Boise I emailed Veronica's teacher and some of the staff to let them know we needed to update Veronica's 504 to reflect those accommodations. 

And then because that week was super busy, I COMPLETELY forgot the email. When I was in the school on Wednesday to get stuff ready for the Engage in Education event I'd run into the Assistant Principal. But she was with a little kid and I totally thought she was one of the kindergarten teachers. She said, "I haven't forgot your email."  And I was like, "What email? I don't think I'm the parent you think I am."

She looked confused and said, "About the 504 plan?"  And then I was like, "OOHHHHH THAT EMAIL."  I just started laughing. I was so embarrassed. I apologized and told her that I was just super overwhelmed with May. Then we made plans to meet the next week. 

So this was us finally meeting. We added a few accommodations, like letting Veronica sit closer to the board if needed. But my favorite accommodations is to limit time spent on homework. We are only going to do 10 minutes of homework. After that I will draw a line on the homework and sign it saying that's as far as we got in 10 minutes. This is going to be a life saver - especially as she goes into 4th and 5th grade. 

While I was in the school for Veronica's meeting I also had an informal meeting about Derrick. One of the School District Social Workers was in the office. She has worked with Derrick since day one at that school four years ago. She says he's her best friend. I said to her "Dee, what are we going to do without you?"  And she said, "Oh don't you know where my office is, it's at that middle school!"  I knew she split her time at several different schools, but I'd assumed they were elementary schools. I didn't know we'd still have some access to her in middle school.

I told her about how I still had so many concerns for Derrick starting middle school. She validated my feelings.  She said, "Yeah he is going to need a plan for those hallways right from the beginning." It made me so happy to have someone share my concerns. She volunteered to come to Derrick's IEP meeting in the fall and talk about his strengths and weaknesses for the team there.  She'd also said that she'd made sure that he'd have a plan in place on the first day. That made me feel so much better. 

Okay, let's look at some flowers. My tulips were at their peak this week. 

Oh they are so pretty. (And in case you are wondering about the car in the background. That's Brandon's friend's. He's in the middle of a move so he parks his Jeep in our driveway.)

I love how pretty these are. 

When winter was hard and long and cold, I'd imagine these flowers and they helped me feel better. 

I love the sun shining through the petals. 

Like isn't that just gorgeous!

This fluffy daffodil is one of my favorites. I need to get more of these. 

More pretties. 

And more. These blooms only really last about 2 weeks so I have to take so many pictures while they last.

Here are some hyacinths. These smelled so good. At one point I just sat on the porch with a hyacinth blossom by my nose. It was so nice. 

One of my favorite things about tulips is how they multiply. This all started with I think 50 or maybe 80 bulbs that my Aunt Julie gave me as a housewarming gift when we moved in in 2019. Four springs later we have something 200 blooms. 

Inside the house Derrick and Brandon kept working on Derrick's model airplane. 

Charlotte and Lydia didn't have Young Women that night. (There was some sort of Pre-FSY activity that Saturday for kids 14 and older.) It was really nice not to have to take anyone anywhere that evening. I decided that it would be a good idea to go grocery shopping that night instead of Thursday morning.  So I did that. 

The reason I wanted to go grocery shopping early was so I could help out longer at Bounce House day on Thursday.  This is what our elementary school does instead of Field Day. We rent three bounce houses and then let the kids come out by class and jump in them. This works really well for our school because we just don't have the parent volunteer base to run a field day. For bounce house day they just need one or two parents to help keep an eye on the kids for an hour.  

I'd signed up for the 9:00-10:00 shift, but because I'd already gone grocery shopping I could stay until 11:00. I'd just signed up for what worked the best with my schedule. I didn't know when my kids would be jumping. They'd sent out the schedule the night before. Derrick would be jumping around noon on Thursday and Veronica would be jumping on Friday. So I didn't expect to see either kid. 

When I got there a kindergarten class came out and jumped. They were so little that even getting into the bounce houses was a struggle. 

Next up was a third grade class.  I thought it would be Veronica's friend Parker's class. But instead it was Veronica's class! Their teachers had traded times. It was so fun to see Veronica.

She had a great time running around and jumping. 

She was everywhere.

Here she is inside one of the bounce houses.

My wild and crazy girl.

Who is also a little clumsy.

Last year we only rented the bounce houses for one day. Each class had 20 minutes and we'd barely fit them all in. This year the school has more classes and so it just made sense to rent them for two days. This time each class had close to 40 minutes. The kids were so tired by the end of each session. 

The next class that came out was a second grade class.  I went home after they were done. 

I went to work and got stuff done there. Veronica had tutoring at 3:00 so I had to pick her up early from school. I pick her up at 2:45, but I have to get there by 2:30 if I want a parking spot. So I was back at the school at 2:30. 

This was during Brandon's shift at the bounce houses.  He was out there with a 4th grade class.  Veronica's 3rd grade class had been CRAZY as they jumped so I was thinking that the 4th graders would be even more intense. But when I went over there they all seemed more like the 2nd grade class had been. I was trying to figure out what would make them less wild than the 3rd graders and then I looked at Brandon. He was out there in a black shirt and sunglasses with his arms folded. He looked so tough and honestly a little mean. No wonder those kids were so well behaved.

I hung around with Brandon for a few minutes and then went into the school to check out Veronica. Brandon would get Derrick after school. Veronica and I went to her tutoring appointment and then came home. 

I don't remember anything special about that evening. I did have the kids pack their suitcases because we were going to Utah on Friday. 

On Friday morning I was walking into work and checking my email at the same time. I had an email from a blogger friend with a link to the Salt Lake Tribune's Mormonland Newsletter. - where I WAS QUOTED!!!! I'm a perma-blogger for the Mormon Feminist Blog the Exponent II. I keep it on the downlow and write under my middle name for a lot of reasons. It's been a really good outlet for me to have a space where I can write about my feelings about church. I'd written a post about how my dream calling is to be the Ward Financial Clerk. It was supposed to be published in June, but another blogger needed more time to work on her post so we traded days. So it was published May 9th. It got a lot of response on the blog, but I had no idea that Mormonland picked up on it and added it as their "Quote of the Week."

Those ellipses cover a lot of ground so if you want to read the whole thing you can click here. 

I've suspected that Tribune Staff was reading my work for a little while. Jana Reiss shared info in one of her columns that I'd earlier shared in a post. But this was more than just a suspicion. It was proof. It's always nice to know that people are paying attention to what I'm saying. This was another reminder that my words have power. 

Friday was another day with another thing at the school. First I went to work in the morning. Then I came home and had something to eat. Then I walked over to the school and met up with Derrick's class. 

We were going on the Walking Fieldtrip to the middle school. I'd gone on this field trip last year with Charlotte and Lydia. Last year I went because they needed an extra adult and I was one of the only parents with a background check. This year I went exclusively to be with Derrick. 

The middle school and elementary school are less than a mile a part. So it's not a long walk. The other elementary school that would be at the middle school had to be bussed over. We all went into a the auditorium and watched a video about what to expect in middle school. 

Then the kids were split up into groups and went on a tour of the school. Last year I'd been so busy between school and work and kids activities, that when they took the kids on the tour I'd run over to my office across the street from the school and worked for an hour. This year I didn't do that. I stayed with Derrick and went on the tour. 

But I had issues with the tour. There were two 7th graders acting as tour guides and ours didn't have much personality. Like we went into the lunch room and one of them just kind of mumbled, "this is the lunch room. You can eat in here."

Derrick wasn't paying attention AT ALL. I was thinking, "Come one guys. You need to really sell how cool this place is." But they kept mumbling their way through the tour. 

Derrick was really focused on the lockers. The video had shown how to do them and there had been a basket of practice locks in the auditorium. He kept talking about those locks.  So eventually I just gave up on the tour and took him back to the auditorium. We went down the 6th grade hall so he could see that. I was hoping we'd see one of the twins, and we did! We ran right into Charlotte as she was coming back from the bathroom. 

Back in the auditorium we found a lock. It had the combination written with tape on the bottom. I showed Derrick how to spin the dial. It took a few tries but he figured it out and was able to open it. He was really proud of himself for that. 

His group was going through the auditorium so we joined up with them for more of the tour. But Derrick lost interest again. Actually, by this point it was more like he was overwhelmed. The school was so big, and so different. We sat in the back of the auditorium and he started to cry. He kept asking to go home. Finally his teacher gently told me we could go back if we wanted.  So Derrick and I started walking back to the elementary school. 

Derrick was crying and yelling. He kept saying, "I'm not going to 6th grade!"

I kept thinking, "What are we going to do?"

When we made it back to the school we saw Dee the Social Worker. She asked how it went. I told her. "Well out of 200 prospective 6th graders Derrick was the only one audibly crying."  She said, "We'll figure it out." That made me feel better.

We both agreed that what Derrick needs is a one on one tour of the school with an adult. We'll hopefully get that set up in August before school starts.  

There was still like 45 minutes of school, but there was nothing for Derrick to do so we planned to just go home. I had the office lady call down to Veronica's class and get her so she could come home with us.  Veronica was kind of like, "Why am I going home early."  I asked her if she wanted to stay and she was like, "Nope!"  So we all walked home. 

Brandon was home from work so we just needed to wait for Charlotte and Lydia to come home and then we could drive to Utah. But I had a little nagging worry in my mind. 

The front tire on the van was flat. 

It had gone a little flat earlier in the week, but Brandon had pumped it up. Now it was a little flat again. Brandon wasn't worried about it, but I was. I said, "I'm just going to take this over to Les Schwab real fast and have them look at it."

So I drove over to Les Schwab. I told the lady at the counter. "I'd rather spend 30 minutes here than 3 hours on the side of the road on the way to Utah."  So they looked it over and yes there was a nail in the tire. They got it all patched up. And it was free because we've bought tires for other cars from Les Schwab. I love that place!

While I was waiting I got a text from the mom who is in charge of the yearbook for the elementary school. She had sold all but 7 of the yearbooks and had the money ready for me. She lives one street over from me so I told her I'd pick it up when I was done with my tire. 

So I went straight there and got the money and then brought it home. I get FREAKED out when I have any PTO money at home and this was nearly $2000 worth of checks and currency. So I hurried to count the money, enter it onto my spreadsheet, and then write up a deposit ticket. 

I'd planned to clean out the car during this time, but Brandon was a champ and did it for me. Then I took the car to the bank so I could deposit the money. Usually I use the drive through, but this was the type of thing you go into the lobby for. My teller friend Tracy helped get it all counted and deposited. I'd been under by $50 when I counted the 5s so we actually had a little more money than I'd thought. I was like, "Yeah I did this super fast because I can't stand having all this money at my house." All the tellers nodded and smiled because they get it. 

By the time I was back home Charlotte and Lydia were home from school. They ran over to our neighbors and took car of her cats. We finished packing the car. We had a quick dinner and then we were on our way to Utah. 

The drive was nice and uneventful and we didn't get stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire.  The kids were so excited to see their Bestemor and Besterfars house. We haven't been there since Christmas. 

On Saturday I'd made plans to have lunch with my mom, my sister Emily, my sister-in-law Becca, and her mom Kim. We were all going to meet up at Letherby's in Taylorsville. 

So in the morning I drove down to Emily's house in Layton. Somehow on Friday I'd also found time to dig up some strawberry and raspberry plants for her. So I dropped those off. She wasn't home, but David and the younger kids were. Little Juniper latched onto me super quick. She made hand motions for me to follow her into one of the bedrooms.  She wanted me to jump on a mattress on the floor. Then she climbed up on a bunk bed and threw stuff down. We very quickly made up a game where she would throw stuff and I'd catch it and throw it back. She loved that. We played for like 20 minutes.  When I tried to go into the kitchen to talk to David she came and found me and pulled me by my leg back into the bedroom. I was like, "Okay, I'll play with you."  It was actually really fun to just play her simple games. 

The whole time I was playing I was trying to figure out how old she was. I finally figured out she was 19 months old.  And then I was just kind of in shock. Charlotte and Lydia were 17 months old when I had Derrick. HOW did I have a newborn with two kids this age?  No wonder I cried so hard when I found out I was pregnant with Veronica.

Emily came home from her project and got ready for lunch.  She rode with me down to Letherby's. Mom, Becca, and Kim had just got there ahead of us. We ordered sandwiches and then had ice cream. This was a new thing for me. I'd been to Letherbys before, but I'd never ordered real food and I'd never been there during the day.  The food was good and the icecream better. But it was the conversation that was the best.  

After lunch Emily and I drove across the street so I could pick something up for Brandon at West Valley Hobbies. He'd been so happy when he found out that I'd be in that area because he needed airplane dope for his project with Derrick and this was the best place to buy it. He even drew me a map of the store so I'd know where to go. I'd never heard of Airplane Dope before and had so much fun with the word. I kept teasing him by saying things like, "Let me get this straight, you need me to buy you dope when I'm in Taylorsville?"

Then we drove out to South Jordan to see Billy. He recently got a new job with a symphony in Vancouver (the one in British Columbia) and they are probably going to move before I'm in Utah again.  So I wanted to see Billy. It was fun visiting with him. We played Baconsale and connected John Rhys-Davies to Adam Scott.  That was HARD, but really fun.

Emily had to get back to her house so we left after being at Billy's for an hour or so. When I walked through the door at Emily's Juniper was like, "You came BACK!"  She pulled me into the bedroom again and we played all the little games again.  

She looks a lot like Charlotte did at this age. 

I didn't really have anything else going on for the day so I just kind of hung around Emily's house for a while. I played with Juniper while Emily got a lot done.

At one point Bridger's friends came over and had a fire where they burned all their school work for the year. This was my 5th fire in 6 weeks. 

I really did need to get going so I left while the fire was still happening. 

I stopped at Smiths and picked up some things for dinner on Sunday and then I drove up the canyon to Steve and Jacque's house. I got there after all the kids were in bed. 

Sunday was Mothers Day.  We watched our church on the computer. (I'm beginning to realize that a lot of wards are cracking down on making their zoom links available. Ours still sends it out every week. I think one reason our ward hasn't made the link exclusive is because our bishop often needs to watch sacrament meeting remotely. He's a helicopter pilot for the hospital. There are weeks he's scheduled to work on Sunday's. He watches sacrament meeting from work. And since he needs the link I think he's made the decision to keep it available for everyone.)

After church the kids wanted to watch a movie. We picked the animated Cinderella. That was so much fun to watch with the kids. We used to watch it all the time when they were little, but it's been a while. We had a great time watching it together. 

In the late afternoon we had a dinner with Brandon's sisters.  Brandon had everything to make zero-proof Strawberry Mojitos. And I mean everything. He'd bought all the fun little tools for making cocktails and had even bought the glasses.  The accessories were kind of my Mother's Day gift, but the real gift was the drink. It was so yummy. 

Here I am enjoying it.

The kids went outside to play.

Here's Veronica enjoying the Blue Shoe (even though it was more purple). Brandon was making lots of the drinks from that Mocktail night at the library. 

We also made the Ginger Gastric which is heavily vinegar based. Brandon's mom likes vinegar and so she liked that drink.

Here I am enjoying my drink some more.  Brandon and I made these for the adults. It was fun to hand his sisters a drink right as they walked in and be like, "Happy Mothers Day."

We had lasagna for dinner and then it was time for the belated Easter Egg Hunt. Veronica and I were calling this day M-easter because it was a mix of Mother's Day and Easter. 

Here's Derrick finding eggs. 

This hunt is serious business because the yard is so huge.

The kids were out looking for a long time. 

Here's Lydia looking under the porch.

Then we went inside and the kids opened all their eggs. Everyone talked for a long time. 

Then we got ready to go and started driving home. We made it home a little before 11:00. Everyone was super tired and went to bed really fast. 

And that's the end of that very full week in May. 

Thanks for reading.