None of the things

There are some weeks where everything lines up and we have ALL THE THINGS happening in one week. 

This was not one of them. 

This was the type of week where everything lines up and we had NONE OF THE THINGS. Veronica didn't have therapy therapy. She didn't have girls activity. Derrick and Charlotte and Lydia didn't have a youth activity because there had been stake activity on Sunday. I didn't have Bible Study or my scripture study group. 

About the only regular stuff that made it onto the calendar was Brandon teaching at CSI and Veronica's vision therapy. Other than that it was a very simple week. 

So this is going to be a very simple recap. 

Sunday was too cold for hike. So we spent the afternoon trying to figure out to do and at least one kid got kind of yelled at. There's a reason we go on hikes on Sunday. 

Later in the day the kids discovered that the game Shell Shocker was no longer blocked on the school issued chrome books. All four kids spent the rest of the evening playing that game together. Basically they are eggs that go around shooting each other. 

I've started a thing where I make muffins on Sunday night so we can have them for breakfast on Monday. This started two weeks ago when we were nearly out of milk on Sunday night and I didn't want to run to the store on Monday morning just so the kids could have cereal for breakfast. So I made muffins. 

It went so well that we've just decided to make Muffin Monday a thing. We've always had such rushed mornings that we've literally never had anything other than cereal for breakfast. So these muffins feel very exciting and new. 

So anyway, I made muffins again on Sunday night. The kids ate a few before bedtime, but we saved the rest for the morning. 

Monday was a good day. I got a lot done at work. Then I picked up Derrick and we went grocery shopping during the hour between when I pick him up and when I pick up Brandon. 

We picked up Brandon and dropped him and the food off at the house. Then we went to the orthodontist. Derrick's teeth have been moving together very well. But as they move together the wire actually starts poking out the back. So we had to go in really quick to get the wire clipped. We were in and out of there within like 5 minutes.

Brandon took care of picking Veronica up from school. And later he took Derrick to Robot Club. (Oh that was another thing that stayed on the calendar.) 

They use these super cute Codey-Rocky robots and learn to program them with the computer. Brandon wants to get one. 

I spent Monday night finalizing some plans for our trip to Texas next month. I reserved our rental car and the hotels we will stay in on the way down there and back. It was really fun to get that all planned out. 

Tuesday was another good day. On most of the days of the week I pick up Derrick from school and then pick up Brandon from work right after. Sometimes we stop at the bank before we get Brandon. Other days we go straight there and wait for about 5 minutes. I figured since this has been part of my daily routine since December I might as well take a picture of it. Here's Derrick and I hanging out together. 

Here's Brandon's work. It's a big warehouse type place. 

This is the front where Brandon comes in and out. 

That afternoon was cold, but that didn't stop Charlotte from working on the chicken area. She had all the chicken wire in place. Now she was going around with a strand of wire and basically sewing the top wire and the bottom wire together. That way some dumb chickens wouldn't figure out how to escape through the gap.

I can't remember why exactly I took this picture. Probably as a reminder that we really should paint the back of the garage this year. 

I was excited that this soil was actually brown. Usually its all dry and grey over here. But we'd had so much rain that it was actually full of moisture. 

Here's another garden bed. This one has onions that I put in last fall.

And look! Daffodils!

I went into the front yard and was looking at the tulip points that are coming up there. 

They are so much harder to see in these pictures than they are in real life. 

These ones are easier to see. 

The side yard has lots of things popping up too.

I was very happy that we were seeing signs of spring. 

Brandon taught at CSI again on Tuesday. The main CSI campus is in Twin Falls. But Brandon teaches at the Mini-Cassia campus in Burley. (Mini-Cassia refers to Minidoka and Cassia Counties. And Cassia is pronounced Cash-ah because Idaho is weird like that.) Anyway, Burley is like 40 minutes away and Brandon teaches from 5:00-8:00. We only have one working car right now. So Tuesday nights are nights that we just plan to be home all evening. 

I've figured out that its a good opportunity to make bread. Normally I look at bread recipes and I'm like, "Oh I do not have time for all this rising." But these days I have enough time on Tuesdays. So last week I made bean bread and this week I made banana bread. 

Our banana bread recipe calls for cooking the bread for an hour at 325 and then another half an hour at 300. Normally that is crazy talk. I can't keep track of something in the oven for 90 minutes. But that's just fine on Tuesdays. 

We knew that it might snow on Wednesday, but it was still crazy to wakeup to THIS. There were like 3 inches on the ground. And because the weather stayed cold for a few days the snow didn't melt right away.

I was trying to take a picture of the snow on the chicken area at the very back of this picture. So look through the patio and you might see the snow on the chicken wire. It was pretty.

I didn't work on Wednesday and this was also my last week of the break before my scripture study group started up again. I was basically planning to do nothing. 

This is what nothing looking like. 

1. I dropped all the kids off at school. (Easier said than done. Veronica was reluctant to go, but it was picture day so I didn't want her to miss it. I dropped her off late around 8:30.)

2. Then I went to Smiths and picked up a prescription and got gas. 

3. Then I went to Castle Therapy and spent an hour there. 

4. Then I went to the bank and opened my own checking account. This was actually kind of a big deal. I've never had my own account with a different bank than the one I started with at 16. When Brandon and I got married we'd opened a joint bank account with the same bank that I was already with. And we've used that account for almost 17 years. The bank is based in Utah, but thanks to the internet we were able to always use that account even when we lived in other states. Heck, Brandon still used that account when he was in Korea. 

So even though we've settled down in Idaho we've never considered changing banks.  Brandon did open his own account with a bank that's in Idaho and Utah. But we've kept our joint account with the Utah bank. And everything was fine until I started getting paid by East Idaho Moms. 

I get a small amount for every blog post that I write for East Idaho Moms and they pay by check. When I got the first check I tried to put it into my account using mobile deposit. But there was something wrong with the way the routing and account numbers showed up. My mobile app wouldn't accept it. 

Since this was going to be a reoccurring payment I wanted to come up with a good long term solution. And so I decided I might as well get my own bank account at the bank where I go to at least once a week to drop off work deposits. Brandon and I already have a business account with this bank so yeah, it was high time one of us get a personal account there. 

So I went in and my friend Dina helped me set up an account. Dina along with Tracy and Darla are bank tellers that I've worked with for YEARS at this point. I've been dropping off deposits at this bank since 2020. Aspen Grove uses this bank, the PTO uses this bank, Twin Falls RV Guy uses this bank. I'm here a lot. 

And I'm especially particular to this branch. When Aspen Grove moved to a new location I figured that I probably wouldn't go to this branch as often. But I don't like the branch that's closer to Aspen Grove. The drive up window is bigger and I always seem to be at the third bay with a giant truck between me and the window. 

So I prefer to go to the usual branch, which is closer to my house anyway. The tellers know my name, I know there names. It's fun. (And totally a sign that I've lived in this city a long time.)

Anyway after all that I went home and made myself lunch and then relaxed on the couch watching The Crown. (I've been watching this show for like 18 months and I finally made it to season 3 a few weeks ago. That shows you how much time I actually have for TV.)

I was going to work on a project or something while watching TV. But I just felt like relaxing. 

Then it was time to pick up Derrick and Brandon and get busy again. 

Derrick has been OBSESSED with buying a VR headset. He found one on Amazon for $26 and was working hard to save up money to buy it. I pay the kids $1 to help make dinner, but lately no one has really cared about that. Derrick took advantage of that and helped make dinner nearly every night for two weeks. 

I knew he was close to getting enough money so I added the headset to my order of some other stuff from Amazon. It would arrive on Thursday. 

Here's Derrick with his $26 after making dinner on Wednesday night. He was so excited. 

Which made what happened on Thursday extra disappointing. When the package arrived Derrick opened it and discovered that it wasn't a headset. It was the silicone coverings for a headset. 

Somehow he'd never noticed that. Brandon hadn't noticed it when I'd had him look over what Derrick had found to make sure it was a good deal. I hadn't noticed it when I'd placed the order. 

UGH, you think they could advertise the fact that this WASN'T a headset a little better. 

Derrick was majorly disappointed. This was a good moment of learning that advertising isn't always truthful. 

I told Derrick he could keep his money and buy something else later. I initiated a return and on Friday Derrick and I took the box to a UPS store to be returned. 

In other news on Thursday I noticed a daffodil trying to poke up through the snow in the front yard. That was encouraging. 

And we finally got our new sign at Aspen Grove. We've had the sign from the social work company that was here before us. It's been very confusing for clients. So it's good to finally have our correct sign. 

Friday was the last day of Third Quarter and some how that felt like a very big deal. It was also a short day. Derrick was done with school at 11:50. Veronica was done at 12:45. The twins were done around 1:30

When I picked Veronica up from school I was able to talk to Kaymie for the first time in a while. She asked me, "Did your kids all finally go to school every day this week."  I thought a moment and said, "Oh my gosh! They did!" Aside from Veronica going a little late on Wednesday all the kids had gone to school and stayed there every day that week. That hasn't happened since late November. 

When Charlotte and Lydia came home it was time to open the school money jar. We'd started this jar about 5 weeks ago as an incentive to get the kids to go to school. They got a dollar for every day they went to school, but we took out two dollars if they stayed home. 

Here are Derrick and Veronica proudly holding the money jar. Charlotte and Lydia were excited about the money too, but they didn't want to be in the picture. And Veronica had had a pajama day at school so that's why she is in her sleeper. 

Then Charlotte started cutting it open. I tried to take this picture of her, but she stood up to get scissors right as I took the picture. 

We got the jar open and started counting the money. There were $76.41 cents in the jar. Divided by 4 that meant that each kid got $19.10. 

Everyone was pretty happy to get the money. 

Brandon was exhausted from his week so he went to take a nap. The kids and I felt like celebrating the end of the quarter. Veronica had been talking about watching Mission Impossible and that reminded me that the kids hadn't seen Mission Impossible 7 yet. So I thought it would be fun to get that movie from Redbox. Except it wasn't on Redbox. Apparently the only way to watch that movie is to stream it on Paramount Plus. So I signed up for a free week of that. 

I made pizza and also went to the store for root beer and ice cream. 

Brandon woke up and we all ate pizza downstairs while watching the movie. It was a fun night. We paused after a sad part and Brandon dished up the ice cream. 

When that movie was over the kids wanted to watch the new Teenage Mutant Ninga Turtles movie that was on Paramount Plus. So we had a double feature night and watched that too. 

Saturday was a day of unrealized expectations. I wanted to get so much done on Saturday. And we did get the house clean and we did get a little bit of yard work done so I guess I should be happy about that. 

And I am. The kids all worked together really well to get the house cleaned fast. And I was able to move my compost pile into a new compost bin. Oh and I finished writing a lesson plan about 2 Nephi 31-33 for the Exponent. So I did get stuff done. It wasn't a completely unproductive day.

But I wanted to do more outside. But the weather was not quite warm enough to make it nice enough to stay outside for very long. Derrick and I tried to light a fire in the afternoon so he could have something to do, but all the wood was too wet. And I just ended up feeling uh. 

I took a shower and ended up having a something of a panic attack in the shower. What? Showers are supposed to be relaxing!  I have no idea why I had a panic attack there of all places.

So that was kind of it for the afternoon. I got in bed and just watched reels for a long time. I took a nap. Brandon made hamburgers for dinner and I got up to eat with everyone. Then I went back to watching reels in bed. 

I got up again to see a lego Pirate ship that Veronica made. 

Here's the captains room.

And the crew's room.

Here's a house Charlotte has been working on.

A little later Veronica came in my room and asked if I was going to read to her. I told her I'd read to her in there. She got a new arm chair in her room last week. I sat in it and looked at the books on her book case for the first time in a long time. I was like, "Oh I forgot we had Bunnicula. We should read this." So I started reading her Bunnicula and she loved it. I read it to her in like 2 nights. Then we started reading How to Eat Fried Worms. That's the one we finished on Saturday night. 

Veronica has never really had an attention span for listening to books. Charlotte and Lydia loved listening to me read chapter books around the time they were 4. But Veronica has never been able to just sit and listen - until now!

She wants me to read her Harry Potter. But I think we need to stick with shorter chapter books for a little while. 

After Veronica went to bed I stayed up reading my own book for a while and then fell asleep. 

And thankfully I woke up this morning feeling more like myself. 

Today is the beginning of Daylight Saving Time. I have mixed feelings about that. I'm happy it will be lighter in the evenings. But oh, mornings are going to suck this week. 

Today doesn't suck though. We have Stake Conference and we always stay home and watch it via zoom. I would have loved a zoom link when we were living in Alabama and we had to drive 30 minutes with 4 little kids and then try to keep them quiet for 2 hours in the Relief Society room. So I figure I've done my time. I'm watching it via zoom. 

And today is supposed to be warmer than yesterday so hopefully we can get out on a little hike this afternoon. 

Anyway, thanks for reading. 

We made it to March

This was such a good week. It was good for several reasons, but I think the biggest contributor was the fact that we'd been outside so much during the weekend. My body got lots of vitamin D and endorphins and so life was good for the next 7 days. 

Here are a few things that were good. 

1. My feet didn't hurt on Sunday. I was worried about my feet by the end of Saturday. They were throbbing and sore and hurt every time I tried to walk on them. I was worried they would be sore the rest of the week. But I woke up on Sunday and they only hurt a little and by the end of church they were fine. 

This was great because hey, no pain is always good. And also because I'd been doing an experiment. I was trying to eat less sugar and more healthy foods to see if that helped at all. Between my birthday and Valentines Day I'd been eating quite a bit of sugar and I'd noticed that my feet were hurting even without a lot of physical activity. The last straw was when a tiny tendon or something started throbbing even when I was laying in bed. 

My feet have hurt off an on for almost 2 years. But it's always been tied to standing or having done a lot of walking. They've never just hurt when they had no pressure on them. 

So I figured that if my feet hurt worse when I ate sugar, they must feel better if I ate less sugar. So I tried that out and YES it worked. My feet were doing a lot better. 

And really all of me was doing better. I wasn't just cutting out sugar I was tried to eat more vegetables and protein and good fats to keep me full. I could feel all of my body thanking me. 

I've been trying to learn to be happy with the body I have and not try to change it for esthetic reasons. And that's been a really good thing for my mental health. But now I'm feeling like I've learned all I needed from that and it's time to focus on eating right and doing things that are good for my body. Not to change it, but to help my feet out. 

2. I got caught up on writing. One reason I'm always trying to keep this blog updated is because it acts like a dam to my other writing. If this blog isn't updated I have a hard time focusing on my other writing. So getting caught up on this blog helped me think about other things I needed/wanted to write. 

On Thursday I had a flash of inspiration for a blog post for East Idaho Moms. Of course that inspiration came right as I was about to start a long day. But I jotted the ideas down and later that evening I was able to write out the post. 

And on Saturday I spent a lot of time working on my next post for the Exponent. It comes out next Thursday so it was good to get that done early. 

3. And the third good thing is probably the best thing of all. I made it to Friday without feeling like I was going to have an emotional breakdown. My last several Friday's have been INTENSE. So it was very nice to get to Friday and be like, "Hey I feel fine."  I was training my back up at work and she asked me, "What do you usually do in the office on Fridays?"  And I was like, "Um, I'm trying to figure that out. This is my first normal Friday in a while."

So yeah it was a really good week. Let's take a closer look at it. 

The weather was still beautiful on Sunday so after church we went for a hike. We went out to Balanced Rock park. There's a trail that we've gone down a few times, but we've never made it very far. This time we wanted to go as far as we could. 

The trail was pretty straight, but there were plenty of chances to scramble over rocks that were to the side of the trail.

We could see into Salmon Falls Creek. There were fish down in that green space.

Here are the kids by a little cave.

This canyon is so cool looking. 

The kids liked this dividing line between the light and the dark.

Here's proof I was there. 

I love the canyon walls here. They are so cool.

Me again.

We were disappointed when we came to a spot on the trail where a rock wall blocked the trail. There were some other hikers ahead of us who were trying to figure out how to climb around the rock to the other side. We knew we couldn't get Marcia around that wall so that was basically the end of the trail for us. (And for the other hikers, they didn't make it around either. 

We took our time going back along the trail. We went up a steep hill to get to the canyon walls.

the kids had fun climbing on this rock wall.

Here's Lydia.

and Derrick

And Charlotte

Veronica wanted to pose like she was on the lion king.

And here's Brandon looking all cool.

We moved along to another cool rock area. 

But my foot was starting to feel a little sore so I didn't want to go up that steep incline.  

Veronica and I sat on a rock and looked at shapes in the rocks on the other side of the canyon. We saw turtles, elephants, the imposter, and a frog.

Here are the kids going to another cool area. 

I took this picture when I was hiking back. This canyon is so pretty.

Brandon and the kids took a different path. You can see them all teeny tiny above that big rock.

We went back to the car and then drove over to the actual balanced rock so we could at least see that. 

We went back home and had a nice afternoon there. I was cleaning off things and found my to do lists from Friday. Whew that had been a DAY.

And my Saturday to do list too. We got just about everything done. 

Oh and in case you were wondering. This is what my steering wheel/ignition was looking like. I laughed every time I had to start the car.  But hey, at least it starts. 

Monday was such a good day. I was riding the high from the weekend and I was in such a good mood. I got a lot done at work. Then I picked up Derrick from school and we hurried to do some grocery shopping. I'm trying to push our grocery shopping day off of Wednesday. Brandon used to get paid on Thursday morning so it worked to go shopping Wednesday night. But his company switched their payroll company and for some reason that means that his direct deposit does come in until late Thursday afternoon. Thursday is too busy of a day for grocery shopping and Friday and Saturday are crazy days at the store. So that's why we are trying to push to Monday. 

So anyway, Derrick and I did a quick trip and then picked up Brandon at work. All three of us unloaded everything.  

All day the wind had been blowing and we knew a storm was coming. It finally hit that afternoon. Even though we knew it was coming, it was still crazy to see snow after our lovely weekend. 

I took Derrick to robot club so Brandon could stay home and check out his welder that had just arrived. He needed the welder to fix the Honda Pilot. At first he'd been asking me about buying a $700 welder and I'd been like, "Um can you rent one?"  But then the car still wasn't getting fixed. I joked that Brandon was just holding out on fixing the car until he could get a welder. Brandon was like, "Actually there's a $100 welder that should work." I was like, "why didn't you say so. Just buy that!"  So he did. 

He didn't really get a chance to work on the car though because Charlotte really wanted his help with the chicken coop. They actually went to Lowes and bought wood and other things to make it. 

I was supposed to go to my small group for Bible Study, but Lydia seemed to need some snuggle time and I've learned with her that when she needs snuggles she NEEDS snuggles. As a toddler she'd follow me around crying all day unless I let her sit on my lap for an hour. If she got that hour she was fine the rest of the day. It's still kind of that way even though she's 13 now. She doesn't need daily snuggles, but she does need them occasionally.  So I stayed home from Bible Study and snuggled with Lydia on the couch.  

On Tuesday I was hoping to get a lot done at work, but things were conspiring against me. The software we use was having trouble saving payments and that was frustrating. I was also trying to train my back up. It's great to have someone to back me up when I'm out of town or whatever, but training her slowed a lot of things down. 

Also Charlotte called me and so I went to the school to pick her up. So yeah, by the end of the work day I knew that I was going to have to come into work on Wednesday afternoon because I did not have everything done that I wanted to. 

That evening Brandon was at CSI. He leaves around 3:30 and doesn't get home until 9:00. Since he takes the car it meant that we didn't have anywhere we could go during that time. And that means that I could really focus on making bread. And I decided to go really extra and make bean bread.

Here's the bread at the end of all the risings and baking. 

The kids all played really well with each other. They played dark tag together for over an hour.

On Wednesday I had plans with Jori. She'd given me earrings for my birthday and when I told her my pieced ears were currently grown over she was like, "Oh I can piece them for you."  She told me what to order on Amazon. 

So on Wednesday when I was done with my work at Castle Therapy I went over to Jori's. She showed me around her house and then we got down to business. She pierced my ears so quick and fearlessly.  

I totally love how they look.

And then we hung out for hours. She's painting a peacock mural on her daughters bedroom. She told m that I could help by just sitting in there and talking with her so she could have something to keep her entertained while she worked. Um yes, I can talk for hours. That's one of my best skills. 

So we had a blast doing that. She also made me a tomato and pickle quesodilla that she's been promising me for a while. It lived up to the hype. 

The only reason I left was because I had to pick up Derrick and then Brandon. 

And then I had to go to work. It was kind of a drag to be there after a fun morning. But it was also good to get caught up on a lot of stuff. I've been putting off calling Select Health for about a week and I finally called them and had an hour long phone call and got lots of insurance stuff verified. 

Lydia has been making little parrots out of colored paper. She'd put them on my laptop at home just to be fun. I liked them so much I told her I wanted to take them to work. She said they were $1 a piece. I told her I'd buy all 7 for $5. That was a good deal to her so she sold me the birds. I put them on my monitors at work and have already had so many comments about them.

When I came home from work Charlotte was in the backyard working on the chicken area. I helped her out a bit by trimming the rosebush so it wouldn't poke her while she was working around it. 

She's so dedicated.

Charlotte, Lydia, and Derrick were all supposed to have a game night at the church for a youth activity. But none of them were in the mood for that. Instead they just wanted to stay home and play dark tag again. (It's basically Hide and Go Seek  in the dark.)

Thursday was Leap Day. It was fun to write 2/29/2024 on everything I was signing that day. I did a lot of stuff at work and then took a little break to go meet with my accountant about our taxes. I'm so glad I have someone helping with those. Between my two jobs, Brandon's job, and our business it's just easier to have another adult help us out.

Then it was back to work for more work. 

I'd talked to the kids about things we could do to make Leap Day special. They wanted Pizza and Root beer floats. Lydia was especially excited about the pizza.  All week she'd told me how much she looked forward to it. 

Well sadly, when it was time for pizza Lydia wasn't feeling well. She had body aches and was really tired. She basically just moped through dinner.  

This was another Thursday where everyone was just tired. The kids all kind of did their own things after dinner.  Brandon and I went grocery shopping "together."  

Brandon and I have been grocery shopping separately for so many years that when we do get to shop together we've discovered that we do it completely different. 

I start out in the fruits and veggies so I can buy a lot of those while I have energy and still feel full of money. Then I go through the rest of the store aisle by aisle, but with diminishing care. My goal is to get in and out of there as quick as possible. If I forget something I usually won't go back for it. 

Brandon on the other hand starts in the dairy section with the milk then he goes around the store in  . . . well I'm not sure if it's an orderly fashion. There must be some sort of logic to it, but I don't know what the logic is. He's also always willing to back track for any item. And he LOVES to comparison shop. 

So when we shop together it turns into me following him around saying things like, "why are you going here? And who cares if we forgot the ketchup. And I'm so sick of this."  Meanwhile Brandon is like, "Isn't this the most fun you've ever had? Of course I want to back track over the store to see if canned peaches are cheaper than these ones in the plastic containers." 

We've discovered that it's better if we divide the list. This time we were working off of different lists all together. I was shopping for our family (Derrick and I had missed a few things on Monday.) Brandon was shopping for things for an Elders Quorum activity on Friday. 

We got home and the kids helped us put away the food. (Well everyone except for Lydia who was asleep.) Then we all had rootbeer floats.  

I'd thought about doing something cool like a time capsule that we only open on Leap Day. But that felt too complicated by the end of the day. I'm slowly learning that holidays in the middle of the week are just too hard to make special. 

Friday was such a good day. For 1 it was March 1st. February hadn't been too bad. But it was still nice to know that it was over. I laughed really hard when I saw this meme on Facebook. 

Like I said earlier it was one of the first normal Friday's I've had in a several weeks. That means that it didn't have any appointments during the morning. 

I was able to spend a whole 3 hours at work. And then I met up with Ivan at his office. I haven't done that since the beginning of February. 

Lydia had tried to go to school that morning, but she did call home. I was able to pick her up a little bit before meeting with Ivan. Then I picked up Derrick and Brandon. 

When we got home I was so surprised that I didn't feel completely bombed out of my mind. 

When Charlotte came home from school I took her and Lydia over to Aurora and Gwen's house for Aurora's birthday sleepover. Those twins had had very different ideas for a party. Gwen had wanted a party party with like 20 friends. Aurora had wanted a small movie party with a few friends. So her parents decided to each host a party for the twins. Macey took care of Aurora's and Brandon took care of Gwen's. 

So Charlotte and Lydia had a sleepover with Aurora. 

My Brandon was busy with prepping food for his Elder's Quorum activity. He'd made brownies the night before and then started chili chip dip that morning. In the afternoon he took a nap and then went to work on everything else. 

At 5:00 we loaded up the car and took everything to the church. Here's all the food when Brandon was done getting it all laid out. 

There was a sandwich.

A charcuterie board.

Brownies

And chili chip dip as well as little smokie sausages. 

I left Brandon before anyone showed up. I was a little worried no one would show up. But 15 people came. They had food and played games. Brandon said it was a really good opportunity for people to get to know eachother. 

Back at home Derrick Veronica and I made pizza on french bread and then watched Across the Spiderverse. 

Someone gave Brandon a ride home around 9:00. He'd had a great time. 

Saturday was another snowy day. The wind was making the snow come down sideways. 

We stayed inside all day. Derrick and Veronica and later Charlotte and Lydia helped me get the house clean. Brandon was outside working on the Honda. 

In the afternoon I took Lydia and Veronica to DI. Lydia wanted more church skirts and Veronica needed more church shoes. She was also looking for an armchair for her room. We found all those things. 

I was planning to come back to DI with Charlotte and Derrick, but they didn't want to come. So I went back by myself. Derrick needed new church shoes so I just looked for a pair that was bigger than my feet. Yes, Derrick's feet are bigger than mine are. 

I also found shoes for Charlotte by looking for shoes that were slightly smaller than my feet. And I found some shoes for me. 

Saturday night we were planning to have baked potatoes for dinner, but we realized no one was really in the mood for a sit down dinner. So it was just kind of a fend for yourself night. 

Brandon and I went on a date to run errands. 

When we got home the kids were still watching movies and I just went to work on my Exponent post. 

So the week kind of ended anti climatically, but it had still been a good week. 

Anyway, that's it for this week. 

Thanks for reading.