Timpanogos 2025

I'm not sure when my sisters started talking about climbing Mt Timpanogos.  It was something like three or four years ago. And I don't know who proposed the idea first. Maybe they both had the idea. All I know is that for the last few summers my sisters Lindsey and Emily have been trying to plan a hike up Mt Timpanogos. 

The biggest obstacle to their plans was trying to time it right. Lindsey often comes to Utah in late June/early July. But apparently the best time to climb Timp is during late August/Early September - which is after school starts. So to make it work Lindsey had to plan a trip to Utah specifically to climb the mountain. 

At the beginning of the year she said she would come to Utah in September specifically to climb Timp. 

My involvement in this hike was more on the periphery. I liked the idea of climbing the mountain, but when my sisters were first talking about hiking Timp my feet were still in really bad shape. Walking a mile was painful - climbing a mountain felt impossible. However, my feet had improved a lot by this year. I knew I couldn't summit - hiking through a boulder field would be murder on my ankles, but hiking on a regular trail would be do-able. So I agreed to come along and just kind of be on my own parallel adventure. 

My goal for the hike was the lake. I'd been that far before. My aunt Vera had taken me and my siblings there when I was around 15. I figured I could make it that far again - maybe. I hedged my bet by saying my other goal was the 3rd waterfall. If I could at least make it to the 3rd waterfall I would be happy. 

I stayed at Emily's house on Friday night and we all woke up at 3:00 to get ready to hike. Everything was already packed so we just had to get dressed. We started driving at 3:30.

Emily invite a bunch of other people along. In the end there were 8 of us in a group. Me, Lindsey, and Emily, two moms from her homeschool group Molly and Emily. The other Emily also brought her 12 year old daughter. Our Uncle Johnny and our cousin Danny also came along. Johnny and Danny had climbed Timp about 3 or 4 years ago and Danny had wanted to do it again. So that's why they were coming. 

My inner 6 year old was thrilled when I found out Johnny was coming. He's only 9 years older than me so in some ways he's more of a cousin than an uncle. He was always SO COOL to me as I was growing up. He told the funniest stories and had lots of interesting hobbies. So grown up me was super excited to have a chance to hang out with him.

Emily's brother in law John and his wife Angie were also going to be climbing Timp that day. But they had a concert that evening and wanted to be done with the mountain earlier. So they left about 2 hours ahead of us.

Me, Lindsey, and Danny shared the back seat of Emily's 8 passenger van. If we were smart we would have gone back to sleep. But Lindsey and I can't stop talking when we are together. Not.At.All. So we talked the whole way. Danny was in on the conversation a little bit too. 

We got to the trailhead around 5:00. The parking lot was already full and there were cars lining the road. We found a parking spot on the shoulder and walked a short distance to the trailhead. 

We were going up the Aspen Grove Trail because apparently that's the Loveless Way. The other option was the Timpanoke Trail. Johnny said he'd asked about that route when he was a kid, but his dad had said, "We don't go that way!"  Though that is the way that Johnny and Danny had gone a few years ago. 

A few of us used the bathroom at the trailhead. I ate the creamcheese and cheese and ham bagel that Lindsey had made the night before. And then we started hiking. 

It was 5:25 AM. 

The sky was dark. The moon was bright so we could see the trail okay. I had a flashlight, but I didn't use it. We could see lights from other hikers going up the mountain in front of us. 

I'm a very slow hiker. My knee was dislocated when I was hit by a car 7 years ago. Everything healed fine, but I've never really regained speed. I also don't have the typical physique of a hiker. Most hikers are what I call gazelles. They are skinny and move fast. In contrast, I'm an ox. I'm heavy and slower. But I have stamina. I can keep going for a long time. 

So very quickly everyone else was pulling ahead of me. I felt bad when I did catch up because I felt like I was slowing everyone down to wait for me. But then I found out they hadn't stopped for me. My Uncle Johnny wasn't feeling well. And the 12 year old girl wasn't doing very well either. The group was moving pretty slowly and stopping frequently for them. 

I was also very aware of everything in my backpack. I go through a lot of water when I hike. This has always been a thing. Back when I worked on the ropes course at Snow Fun I would get terrible headaches if I didn't drink enough water each day. And I'm still like that when I'm outside. So I knew I would need a lot of water for this hike - and really for the whole day regardless of how much I hiked. So I'd brought my big backpack and I had ten 17 oz waterbottles in it. I also had a big bottle of gatorade and a Celsius energy drink. In addition to all that I had my ankle brace, an extra pair of pants, a small blanket, and a book. The book and blanket were for when I was done with my hike and waiting for everyone else to come down and meet me. Oh and I had my food. Another bagel sandwish, grapes, a bunch cookies, trail mix, and jerky. 

All that wasn't impossibly heavy, but it wasn't exactly light either. I drank my first water bottle pretty fast just so I could have a reason so get another water bottle out of my bag and carry it in my hand rather than my back. 

The trail also wasn't quite what I expected. I remembered this section of the trail from the parking lot to the first waterfall as wide, paved, and flat. This trail was narrow, rocky in parts, and more of an incline than I ever remembered. 

As I hiked I found myself repeating some of the lyrics to Stay Alive by Jose Gonzales. Part of the chorus goes:

Dawn is coming
Open your eyes
Look into the sun as the new days rise

I repeated that over and over in my head as I hiked. (Here is the whole song if you want to hear it.)

We passed the first waterfall while the sky was still very dark. I could hear it, but I couldn't see it at all. 

At some point either before the first waterfall or after it, Johnny started throwing up. He gets altitude sickness so he'd planned on throwing up at some point, but he expected it around the saddle high up on the mountain - not down by the first waterfall. He was starting to think that he was getting sick sick, not just altitude sick. But he kept going. 

We made it to the second waterfall as the sky was getting lighter. This camera actually makes it look lighter outside than it really was at this point. 

This is my picture of the second waterfall. 

We took a picture as sisters - totally planning to take another one at some point. But that never happened. 

We kept going and immediately the trail went crazy. There were rocks to scramble over, and big roots crossing the trail. There were parts where we went up for a bit and then went down. At one point I caught up with the group and announced, "Whoever designed that switchback should DIE!"

I was not sure I could keep going if every part of the trail was going to be that rough. 

Johnny was certain he couldn't keep going. We'd stopped at a place with a rock wall and a rock ledge next to the wall. It was a great place to sit and Johnny decided that was as far as he could go. He would go back down the mountain and wait for us, or maybe get a ride home. We were all sad to say goodbye to him, but this felt like the best option. 

I considered turning around too, but aside from having trouble on the rough parts of the trail I was doing okay. Also my backpack was too heavy for me to turn around. Every time we went over a small downhill patch of trail I could feel the weight of my pack pushing into my knees. It was fine for uphill hiking, but going down would actually be harder on my body than going up. I didn't want to turn around until after I'd drunk through at least half my water.  So I kept going. 

Though there were some more rocky parts of the trail where I had to scramble up and over rocks that made me consider just turning around and finding Johnny.  

Fortunately the trail leveled out onto a long, long, long switch back heading north and then another long one coming back south. The trail on those switch backs was easy to just plod along. So I stopped considering turning around. 

Also the sun was coming up. I really liked watched this sunrise. Like really liked it. I knew how lucky I was that my feet had recovered enough to allow me to hike this far. 

And there was actual scenery.   Here's part of the mountain. 

And this is what we would be climbing later. The third waterfall was there somewhere. 


This is looking down at the second waterfall that was now looking very small. My slow body was doing a good job of getting up this mountain. 

But this trail was also doing it's best to discourage me. Look at these rocks I had to climb up!  I had no memory of the trail being like this. 

Still it was worth it. Look at that sun coming up over the mountains in the distance. 

My cousin Danny took this panoramic picture around this time. 

As the sun came up I could also see the fall colors on the mountain. 

And here I am trying to take a picture with the sunrise. 

I made it through the first long switchback and started back on the long one that headed back toward the mountain. I had a pretty good look at where I still had to go. The trail would go over the tan area in the middle of the picture. Then it would start small switchbacks up the shadowy area. The castle looking area at the top was where a meadow started. And after the meadow was the lake.

I met up with the group again. They had taken a long break. They were near a little gully and they told me that it was a good place to go to the bathroom. I didn't have to go then (which was amazing considering I was on my 4th or 5th water bottle). Then we kept going. I took this picture of everyone on the trail as they pulled ahead of me again. 

Here's it is zoomed in. 

I felt bad that I seemed to keep slowing everyone down. So I planned to tell them to go on without me the next time I caught up to them. But Lindsey must have read my mind because they never did wait for me again. 

I wasn't too worried about hiking by myself. The trail was full of people so if I did get hurt I wouldn't be by myself for long. And I was loving the scenery. Just look at this view down the mountain. 

I came to the section of trail that crossed over rock. I later called this "The slog" but I hadn't named it that yet. I was more looking ahead at the area with all the switch backs. I was trying to figure out where exactly the 3rd waterfall was. 

All the sudden someone behind me said, "Is that Valerie?"  I turned around and saw Johnny. It was like he came back from the dead!

In my mind he had immediately gone down to the car after we left him. So I couldn't quite understand how he was here. But really he'd decided to take a nap on the stone ledge where we had left him. He said he'd slept there a while. When he woke up the sun was up and he was feeling a lot better. So he decided to keep hiking. He knew I was going slow so he figured he had a chance of catching up to me. And he did!

I'd been doing just fine on my own little solo adventure. But now that I realized I would get to spend the whole day with Johnny I was suddenly having an AMAZING time. At some point I had told Lindsey about a time when we were little and we went on a hike to Timpanogos cave with our dad and Johnny and our aunt Lori. On the way down on that hike I'd been paired up with Lori who was very fun and I had a great time with - but I was super jealous of Lindsey because she hiked down with Johnny. So I was thrilled to finally have Johnny all to myself on a hike. 

We were reunited at maybe 10:00 AM. We would be together for the next 8 hours before we were reunited with anyone else from our group. We spent all that time talking about our families, our interests, our relationships with the church, our jobs, our hobbies, pretty much everything.

We went across "The Slog" together and started on the switchbacks. This part was CRAZY. There were people who had already summitted coming down the mountain. There were other people going up the mountain. EVERYONE was passing me and Johnny, but there wasn't much room. There were social trails and the real trails and it was getting really sunny and sort of hot. The trails had loose rock and dirt and it just felt a little hectic. 

And one point Johnny told me I was going to fast for him- which just goes to show how bad he was still doing because NO ONE has called me a fast hiker in years. He went ahead and set the pace and we both kept shambling up that mountain. 

We finally made it to some rocks that were in the shade and sat down to take a break. We were both feeling pretty beat, but we couldn't stop for long because the sun was moving higher in the sky and soon broke over the mountain outcropping that had been shading us. 

So we gathered our strength and kept going. We went on for maybe another 10 minutes and came to the 3rd waterfall which was in a kind of alcove and seemed to be in an area that would be shady for a lot longer. 

After all that work, the 3rd waterfall was pretty disappointing. It was dry!!!!!!! But here I am taking a victory selfie. (At the time I thought this was cute, but now that I look at it I feel like there is a lot of exhaustion in those eyes.)

Johnny propped himself up on a rock and fell asleep. I ate my grapes. They were delicious! Some of the best grapes I've ever had in my life. I also took inventory of what was in my back pack. I'd finished my 6th water bottle. This meant I could turn around if I wanted to and the weight of my bag wouldn't hurt my knees.  

Here's the look back down the mountain. We'd come very far. 

We rested there a long time. Maybe something like 30 minutes. (My biggest regret is that I didn't take a log of the times things were happening. Even on the hike time started to feel really fluid and waiting over a week to write about it isn't helping things.) Johnny said he felt like going on and I wasn't ready to turn around yet so we decided we should keep trying to make it to the lake. So we went up the trail a little bit more. 

We stopped so Johnny could go down a side trail and go to the bathroom. While he was doing that I looked up the trail and felt my resolve slipping. I could see hikers on the switch backs far up trail. They were so small which meant we still had so far to go. They were so small in fact that they don't even show up in this picture. Trust me, I've tried zooming in on it and they are just little pixels. 

When Johnny came back we both looked at that trail and I told him, "I think it's time to turn around. We might make it up that, but then we'd have to come down it. Let's just turn around now."

And he agreed. 

So we started heading down the trail. And every five minutes or so for at least the next hour Johnny kept saying, "Oh I'm so glad we turned around." or "It was such a good idea to turn around."

We went back down the crazy tight switch backs which were just as full of people. Johnny was like, "How did we go up this? Was I conscious?"

Now that we were on the downhill it looked like we were coming down after summitting. So some people were congratulating us. That was kind of funny. 

One guy said, "You guys are killing it."  I said, "Oh something died - it was our ambition."  I thought that was pretty funny. 

We went back across The Slog which wasn't that bad because we'd had the long rest. And then we passed, "Reunion Point" where we'd met up again. 

I was starting to need to go to the bathroom. I told Johnny, "There's going to be a gully of sorts up here eventually and I'll need to go to the bathroom there. When we came to it I was like, "Hmmm this doesn't look quite the same. I guess everything looks different now that the day is lighter. So I climbed up the gully and went to the bathroom. Then about 5 minutes later we came to the real gully and I was like, "Oh this would have been much better."  But oh well. 

The only other real notable part from this part of the hike was when I slipped a little. I was holding a water bottle that was nearly empty. It CRUNCHED against a rock when I fell and it sounded like I broke at least 3 bones. Johnny was really concerned until I said, "Don't worry, that was just my water bottle."

We finished the two looooooonnnnnnngggg switchbacks and were back on the part of the trail with the rocks that had been hard to go up. They were also hard to go down. Especially since I was starting to feel dizzy from loosing electrolytes (I'd been sweating a lot.) I was so happy when we finally made it to the rock ledges at the spot where the group had left Johnny that morning. We decided to rest there for a very long time. 

Johnny stretched out and took another nap. I drank a whole bunch of Gatorade. I also took off my boots and rubbed Aspercream all over my feet. I put my ankle brace on. I would have put on my knee brace, but what I thought was a knee brace was really another ankle brace. But really I didn't need the knee brace. My knee has been doing really well lately and even on this hike it was doing fine.  

Johnny had been using his phone to track Danny throughout the hike so we knew the rest of our group was somewhere near the summit. Around 1:10 we started getting texts with pictures of our group at the summit.

Here's Danny, Lindsey, and Emily at the summit. We both said something like, "good for them." followed by another, "I'm so glad we turned around!"

Later I would see more pictures from their adventures. 

They saw mountain goats at the lake. Back when we did this hike as teenagers we'd thought the goats were polar bears when we first saw them from far away. Lindsey said, "I was really happy to see how fluffy these were because it meant we weren't complete idiots as kids."

They also ran into John and Angie after those two had summitted. Here's the group picture. Johnny and I had been looking out for John and Angie, but pretty much every hiker looked the same so I didn't think I'd recognize them. But sure enough they came down the trail while we were still hanging out on the ledge. I've met Angie like twice so I did recognize her. I was like "hey, you made it!"

Here they are crossing the boulder field. (This is what would have been impossible for me.)

And looking back over the boulder field. 

Here they are at the saddle looking at what was still to come. They had to follow the trail around behind the rock plateau, go up more switch backs, and then walk the ridgeline to the summit. I later asked Lindsey if this was the start of the trail would she have done this. Her answer was "heck yes."  Apparently this was the "easy part."

Here are Emily and Lindsey in the little building at the top of the mountain. 

And here is the view down to the lake. 

Everyone - including the 12 year old girl summitted. So that's pretty awesome. 

Anyway, back to me and Johnny way down on the rock ledge. We knew it would be hours until our group was back down. So we were in no hurry to keep going. 

Two girls came up the trail and took a break with us on the rocks. One of them was really struggling and they were deciding whether or not to keep going. They ultimately decided to turn around and try again another day. (It was really late in the day to be going up the mountain.)  We had a nice time talking with them until they went back down. 

Most people didn't want to stop at the rocks. I'd offer a seat to anyone coming down the mountain. Most declined. One guy said, "I want to sit in my car!"

Johnny and I were talking about my Aunt Vera who was the one who took us up this mountain. Johnny was talking about how she used to do 100 mile trail running. I said, "And then that got too easy so she decided to challenge herself by taking 5 kids up Timpanogos. 

Really it's awesome that Vera took us up this mountain. She was continuing a tradition of climbing this mountain. My grandpa had taken the kids up this mountain nearly every year. Johnny said he was 5 the first time he climbed it. I asked him if he knew why my grandpa loved Timp. He didn't know. So I later asked my dad. He said it was because my grandpa's dad took him hiking up this mountain. 

I wish I'd taken a picture of us at that ledge seating area, but I didn't think of it while we were there. 

After a long time we decided we'd rested enough to at least make it down to the second waterfall. I was not looking forward to that awful switchback. I'm glad we rested a lot before trying it again. I made it through it okay, but I was wondering why I ever went up it in the first place. I was so young and innocent in the morning. 

Johnny fell asleep again at the second waterfall. He'd had a cough for most of the day and I'd developed one too. We called it "Hiker's Lung."

Here I am with the waterfall. I should have taken a picture with Johnny, but I didn't want to ask since he wasn't feeling well.

Here are the pretty fall colors. 

I still had my energy drink with me and I was debating whether or not I should drink it. It was about 2:30 and normally my cut off for drinking one is 2:00. But I thought about all the things I still needed to do that day; get down the trail, wait for the group, go eat dinner, drive back to Layton, and check into a hotel and I realized that I would need that energy. So I drank it. 

And then immediately regretted it because I'd forgotten that those things make me need to pee within 30 minutes. 

Johnny woke back up and we talked about what to do next. We could keep hanging out all the waterfall for a lot longer. Or we could go hang out at the first waterfall. Or we could just hike all the way down and at be done. 

We picked option 3. We just wanted to know we were done hiking. 

So we headed back down to the first waterfall. Here's a picture of Johnny and his awesome poncho - he got so many complements on it. He told me its actually a serape because it doesn't have sleeves. He bought it in Mexico in 1996.

Here's the waterfall with a view of the area where we had been. Wow, what a climb. 

Then we kept going. As we hiked down that last bit of trail we both agreed that the trail was completely different that we remembered. Johnny's memories were also of it being wider, and paved. 

The last 10 minutes or so I was looking for the bathroom the whole way. I was really happy to see that. 

Then we found a picnic table and hung out there for a really long time. Johnny stretched out on the bench and fell asleep for probably the longest time. 

I took stock of my water again. I'd drunk through the Gatorade bottle, the energy drink, and 8 water bottles. I had two water bottles left. 

Here I am chilling out with my backpack and blanket. I never did get that book out though. 

I'd only had to pee on the trail twice, but once we were off the trail all the water was working it's way out of me. I peed three times in the first two hours. One of the times I was standing in line at the bathroom doing a little potty dance. Someone asked me if I just got off the mountain. I was like, "No, I've been down for two hours, but all the water I drank on the trail is coming out of me now."

Johnny had been tracking Danny but his phone died so we had to just kind of guess after a while. Around 6:00 we figured everyone would be coming down the trail soon so we went to wait at the trailhead. We said, "They should be showing up ANY minute." We said that for an hour. It didn't help that Emily had called me from the first waterfall and said that she and Danny would see us in about 15 minutes. 

It took them 30 minutes. Her knee had completely seized up and she limped down the last stretch of trail. Johnny and I were ready to jump into action as the well rested (in his case) and caffeinated (in my case) support crew.  Johnny took the car keys and went to get Emily's van. I supplied her with ibuprofen and aspercream. 

Lindsey and Molly showed up about 15 minutes after them. Lindsey wanted to sit so badly that she just sat with her back to the bathroom wall and didn't care at all. She had done amazing - especially when you consider that she came from Sea Level on Thursday. 

Johnny had told me that one reason he came was so he could help everyone up the trail since he's climbed it several times before. He was a little worried about everyone being up there on their own. I told him, "Don't worry, Lindsey is up there. She is the most competent person and can do ANYTHING. They will be fine."  

Then I quoted a line from Oceans 12 to him. There's a part where Linus askes the team "When you have a problem who do you go to?"  And everyone answers in unison, "Rusty!"  I told Johnny, "If you asked my siblings, "when you have a problem who do you go to?"  Every single one of us would answer, "Lindsey."" 

The last group to come down was the other Emily and her 12 year old daughter. They were about 40 minutes behind Lindsey. While we waited for them we passed 7:30 PM I said, "We've been here for 14 hours."   A little after that Emily and her daughter showed up. 

My Emily couldn't drive because it was her right knee that was hurt so Johnny drove down the mountain. He's used to his electric cars with regenerative braking so he wasn't used to the old technology of actually using the brake. We had to remind him that he was going REALLY fast down the canyon. 

We went to JCW's in American Fork. I had a small hamberger and fries. I'd felt mostly fine all day, but now I was feeling a little sick so I didn't want to eat anything too big. Lindsey got a shake for the three of us to share. 

Then Johnny drove us back to Layton. That drive felt like it took forever. When we passed Lagoon I was like, "Were only here!"

We went back to Emily's house where everyone had left their cars. My stuff was already in the car so Lindsey came into my car. Emily had to grab a few things from her house. I felt so bad for her when she had to climb up her steps into her house. She got her things and then followed us in her van. (Her knee was okay enough for the short distance to the hotel.)

I'd been the one to suggest the hotel. I'd realized that I wouldn't want to sleep on a couch after climbing a mountain. And I was really really looking forward to the hot tub. I'd probably talked about the hot tub at least once an hour on that trail.  

We checked into the hotel at 10:05 and I was worried the hot tub would be closed. But it was open to 11:00. So we showered really fast and then put on swimming suits and went to the hot tub. That warm water felt so good on my tired muscles. 

At 11:00 we went back to our hotel room and took longer showers. I'd brought a big tote full of comfort items. I always joke with my sisters when we do our camping trips and hikes and other outdoor things by saying, "Why can't we just go to a spa?"  So I wanted to have a little bit of a spa feel. 

I brought fake plants and soft blankets from home. I'd bought facial headbands and fuzzy socks for each of us. I'd brought things like essential oils and candy. It was really nice to have those things. 

Lindsey was pretty certain she'd reserved a room with two queen beds, but somehow we only had one king. But we were so tired we didn't care. Back when we kids we used to share a bed so this was a nice call back. 

We all tried the facemasks that I brought and here's a picture with us with the headbands. 

We stayed up until about 12:30 talking. Then we all fell asleep. 

My body hurt, but I'd taken such good care of my knees and ankles that they were doing really well. Nothing was swelling. And I could walk without pain. But when I laid down I realized that my hips were hurting. There was really nothing to do but fall asleep though. 

In the morning I tried to stretch them out and that seemed to help a bit. 

It would have been awesome to sleep until like 10:00, but we were all awake around 7:30. Around 8:30 we went downstairs for breakfast. Then we packed up and checked out. Emily was going to take Lindsey down to my parents, but we figured she needed to be with her family more. (And yes, her knee started feeling better with no long term problems.)

So I took Lindsey down to my parents and we told them all about going up Timpanogos. That was fun. 

Then Lindsey caught an Uber to the Provo Airport and I started driving back home. 

I had my seat warmers on high for the drive. Those helped my poor little hips. 

I thought I'd stop and take a nap on the way home, but I just drove straight home. I was pretty sore by the time I got there. I went inside and sat on the couch. I had the kids go out to the car and bring things in for me. 

I was pretty out of it the rest of the day. I still had my hiking cough and I was feeling so achy. I was pretty certain I'd caught whatever Johnny had had. Around 7:00 I went to bed. I took Nyquil and got the best nights sleep I'd had in like 4 nights. It helped that my bed is so comfy. I laid down and was like, "Wait, my hips don't hurt."  Our mattress supported them perfectly.

I woke up feeling a lot better. And that's good because I ended up with jury duty on Tuesday.  But that's a story for another post. 

It's funny because when I was on the mountain I was like "I will NEVER climb this again."  But since coming down I've been like, "Hmmm, I wonder . . . . . . "

I'm fairly certain I could get as far as I got again. And if I actually trained could I make it farther. And what if I tried the Timpanoke way? There's no bounder field on that route. Could I make it to the top?

So that's why I've titled this Timpanogos 2025, because maybe, just maybe, there will be a Timpanogos 2026 or 27. 

The lead up to Timpanogos

I'm in kind of a difficult spot. I haven't written about our trip to North Idaho. That's a big post - or possibly several big posts. And now I need to write about my experience climbing Timpanogos on Saturday. Which is also a big post. 

And I don't even feel like writing at all. 

So this post is an attempt to get the writing juices flowing again. (Though the fact that it took me three tries to spell attempt is not a good sign.)

I'm going to write about Monday Sept 8 to Friday Sept 12 in this post. And then write about the Timp climb in another post and then tackle the North Idaho Trip. So we'll see how this goes. 

Really this week was pretty simple. I'm struggling to think of anything of note that happened. Actually, that's not true. Charlie Kirk was killed in Utah on Wednesday of this week. But we will NOT be talking about that. Maybe that's why I don't remember much because I was trying to process that for half the week. 

Anyway, Veronica had theatre on Monday. I can't remember if it was Monday or Wednesday, but one of those days I was driving her to theatre and she was talking about how she didn't really like her part. They have the kids divided up into Jocks, Brainiacs, Drama kids, and Cheerleaders. I thought they'd have Veronica as a jock because she is so tall. But she's a theatre kid. She was saying she didn't like her part. But when I picked her up they'd worked on another song and the theatre kids got to do some fun stuff and she was SO EXCITED about being a theatre kid. I've just kind of learned that she will always be in a bad mood pre rehearsal, but will be in the best mood ever after rehearsal.

Here's a picture I took of the kids lego things down in the basement.  

 

Tuesday was a VERY big day for Derrick. He has been eagerly waiting for Jurassic World Rebirth to be released on DVD. Brandon picked him up from school and then they went to Walmart to buy the DVD. They also found Jurassic World Dominion in the $5 bin so they bought that too. 

Here's Derrick posing with the DVD's. 

And the backs. 

I spent the afternoon cutting down sun flowers in the bed in front of the fire pit area. One sunflower had literally fallen over while we had people over on Saturday and I'd been like, "Yeah, I think those are done."  So I cut them off at the roots. I left the roots in because it's supposed to help the soil health to leave the roots in because the microbes around them.  

Then I mixed in the old wood chips that were on top of the soil. I threw down some wild flower seeds that I'd picked from flowers in the front yard and then covered the whole thing with the new wood chips.  

The whole thing looks really nice now. 

That evening after dinner Brandon had rehearsal. The kids and I watched Jurassic World Rebirth. It was a fun movie. It was REALLY dumb and convenient in some places. But overall really fun. Derrick had watched it over the summer and he was so excited for all of us to finally see it. 

On Wednesday I moved the last of the wood chips as soon as I was done with dropping kids off in the morning. I didn't really have a spot for them so I put them in a pile in the back yard next to the plum tree. It was good to get the driveway clear again. 

Then I took a shower and was ready for scripture study by 10:00. We had our biggest turn out all year. Five people including me. 

After that was over I worked on auditing exponent stuff. I'm all caught up from the summer. 

Thursday was the last day of school for the week. Friday would be a teacher work day. So after school I met Veronica in the parking lot of the middle school so we could put her string bass in the van. 

But we didn't go home right away. We had a meeting with her whole SPED team and many of her gen ed teacher. It was a REALLY REALLY REALLY good meeting. Honestly, if we'd had a meeting like that at the end of 5th grade or before school started a lot of my concerns would have been addressed. 

The end result of the meeting was to move Veronica back into the hybrid reading class. But this time I everyone - including me and Veronica - agreed that was the best choice. 

When it was all over I emailed the team and told them that I was really impressed by them. I told them it felt like a completely different school than when Derrick was there only two years ago. 

One of the biggest changes is they have a SPED director for the school now. Back when Derrick was here they had a SPED reading and a SPED math teacher. And the math teacher also took care of all the paperwork. She was really overworked and both teachers were burned out. They retired at the end of the year. 

Now they have new SPED reading and SPED math teachers, and also a whole separate person who is the director who takes care of a lot of the paperwork. That right there makes a huge difference.

I'm feeling better about SPED at that school than I have in a long time. 

That meeting was good but also DRAINING. I came home and just kind of melted into a puddle of sighs for like two hours after that. 

But then I had to pull myself together and pack for the weekend. I packed my backpack with things I'd need for hiking Timp. Things like my heavy duty ankle brace and a blanket. I also packed a suitcase with things I'd need the rest of the weekend. 

And then I packed a tote with lots of supplies to help me and my sisters relax and recover after the hike. At first we'd planned to just go to Emily's house after the hike, but I realized I was over 40 and would want to do sleep in a real bed and not a couch after hiking all day. I was also really interested in a hot tub.

So Lindsey booked a hotel for the three of us. I wanted to make the hotel really calming so I packed a lot of things like fuzzy blankets, fake plants, and my essential oils diffuser. 

I went to walmart and bought things like fuzzy socks, spa head bands, chapstick, and flavored water. 

It was really fun to pack all that. I think I was more excited for the hotel than I was for the mountain. 

On Friday the kids didn't have school so I didn't have to worry about all the drop off and pick ups. But I decided to just sleep in a little bit rather than going to work early. I went to work for about two hours and then came home. 

Brandon had been going into work an hour early all week so he could get off early on Friday. He was home around the same time I was. 

I finished packing up my stuff and then drove down to Utah. I hadn't slept well that night so I was so tired on the way down. I had to pull over and take 15 minute naps twice on the way down. 

I arrived at Emily's around 3:00. Lindsey had flown in from Houston the night before. It was so good to see her. We talked all afternoon. 

Emily made pizza for dinner. Then we went to Winco and bought lots of good food for our hike. Back at home Lindsey made ham and cheese sandwiches on cheese bagels with cream cheese. I divided up the things like grapes, cookies, and chips into baggies. That way we would each have our own food if we got separated. (This was very smart.) 

We were planning to leave at 3:30 the next morning so we were hoping to be in bed pretty early. So David slept on one of the couches and let me and Lindsey and Emily share the bed room. Lindsey and I got the bed and Emily slept on my air mattress on the floor. 

I was so tired - and I did sleep - but it wasn't as well as I'd hoped. But I didn't feel super tired the next morning. In fact, I woke up on my own at 2:45 because I guess my body was excited for the hike. 

And that's the story of my next post.  

The Summer of Burnout is Over

You all may recall that I started the summer feeling incredibly burned out. And it NEVER got better. There were little temporary reprieves, but over all I just dragged through the summer. 

I'm happy to say that the burned out feeling is finally over. School starting was the biggest help. (Which is ironic because I burned out BECAUSE of school in May.) But somehow having a routine again has been really nice.

The other thing that helped was I slept A LOT on Monday. Like so much. 

It was Labor Day so we were all home from work and school. And I took full advantage of that. I think I was in bed until 11:00 and then I got up and just laid on the couch. My arms felt so heavy and it was like my whole body was saying, "Nope."

I did eventually go outside and work on the garden bed in front of the house. The bed was full of chamomile which is a nice enough flower, but I was tired of it. So I pulled all of it out. I also saved seed from the poppies and flax that also grow in that bed. 

And then I went back inside and laid on the couch some more.

Lydia talked me into taking her to Hobby Lobby. She drove there. She wanted to make a fall dress that she'd been envisioning. She picked out the fabric and paid for it. Then she drove home. I was more there for adult support than anything. 

Charlotte had been having a much more productive day than me. She'd been working on her lego model of the McCalisters house from Home Alone. 

Here it is. I love how everything opens up. 

Here it is from the back. There is even a zipline to the tree house. 

Here's the kitchen. 

There are so many cute details all through the house. 

It was worth the $300. 

I think I went to bed early on Monday. I was JUST.SO.TIRED. 

But guess what?  I was NOT tired on Tuesday. Like at all. 

Instead I was in planning mode. 
 

Over the course of the day I would:

1. Invite a bunch of people over to our house for a fire gathering on Saturday night. (The weather was supposed to cool off and the patio was still all clean from the progressive dinner so it made perfect sense to have another party.)

2. Plan a camping trip to Bruneau Dunes with Jori - and a bunch of other people.  Jori, Olyvia and I had been talking about planning a trip to Bruneau Dunes "sometime" that fall at church on Sunday. And so I RAN with that and picked a weekend that worked for us. It also worked for Jori. I booked a campsite and then told all our mutual friends to also book campsites if they wanted to. This is the image I sent out so we could try to be in the same area. My family is in site #39. Jori's family will be in #40. So far three other families are just coming out for the day/evening and not staying for the night. But there are a bunch of maybes. It's going to be really fun.

 

3. I bought early bird tickets for the Harry Potter Experience in Rupert. I asked my kids what they wanted to do this fall and that was one of the first things they all mentioned. So we are going back for a 4th time. 

And all that was BEFORE I went to work. 

Oh and I also took Veronica to the dentist at 8:30. Derrick came along and when Veronica's appointment was over we dropped him off at school and then dropped Veronica off at her school. 

She was a little nervous to go to school late because she didn't know what period it was. I told her, "Kerri will tell you."  I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be friends with the school attendance secretary. 

Then I came home and watered my yard, and did all the planning, and did some billing stuff for Castle Therapy. Around noon I went to Aspen Grove and did a bunch there. 

Here's a bee on a cosmos flower. I took this picture while I was watering. 

Lydia had started working her fall dress. That meant the dress form was back in the family room. And that meant I was startled by it every time I went downstairs. 

In the evening Brandon had Sweeny Todd rehearsals. I went outside and started digging into my compost ring. This is about 6 months of compost layers. 

I would here it is as I dug down. 

I sifted all the big clumps through a wire mesh into my wheel barrow. It was such beautiful compost. 

And then I dumped it in the garden bed that had previously been overgrown with chamomile. 

I was really happy with how this was turning out. I ended up super dirty. 

On Wednesday I had my scripture study group at 10:00 I was cleaning the living room and then had to take Marcia outside. The weather was so nice out there I was like, "forget the house."  So we had scripture study on the patio. It was really nice. 

Since I'd taken Monday off I needed to go to work on Wednesday afternoon. I was about to leave when I got a notification that I was going to get a chip drop soon. I'd signed up for one about a week earlier so I was really surprised I was getting one so quick. And sure enough within a few minutes a guy with a trailer full of wood chips showed up. So I couldn't get out of my driveway until he'd dropped that off. 

Then I regretfully went to work. I would have so much rather played with all those wood chips.  

That afternoon Veronica had her first day of theatre this fall. She was so happy to go there. My friend Jeanette has a daughter in the same cast as Veronica. She texted me to tell me that Kate had been a little scared to go in until she saw Veronica. Then she was really excited. 

When I picked Veronica up she told me, "We were supposed to find someone we didn't know to talk to, but I already know everybody."

That's not entirely true. But she does know a lot of the cast. Finn N and Finn J are in the cast. Finn J's sister Nora is too. Our friend Kylie is also there. Then there's Kate. Then some people she knows from Matilda and Willy Wonka. So she is very happy. 

She asked me, "Are there any outcasts in theatre?"  I told her EVERYONE in theatre is an outcast. That's why they do theatre. She didn't really understand that. 

She was done at 6:00 and we had dinner. Then at 7:00 I took the girls to the church for young womens. (The young men are currently suffering from poor planning and communication so they didn't have an activity. But that's a whole different story.)

I came home and started moving wood chips. The side yard didn't have a lot of wood chips because the ones I put there last year were mixed in with the dirt when we dug the trench for the sprinkler line. Here's the before picture. 

And here's the after. 

Thursday was another wildly productive day. I was able to work on things for all three of my companies - Castle Therapy, Gaining Perspective, and Aspen Grove. I also watered, took a few things to DI, bought lunch stuff for the girls lunches, and met up with Brandon for lunch at Burger King. 

It was my pay day so we were celebrating that I got a raise. Back in January I was given a raise with the understanding that I would get another $3 raise later in the year if the company continued to bring in a certain amount of money per month. Well we did that so I got the raise. I now make $5 more per hour than Brandon does. (I've also been with this company for 5 years longer than he's been with his company.)

Brandon was out at CSI that evening so I took care of getting Derrick from school after I picked up the twins from the high school. 

That night I really really really wanted to play with the bark chip piles. But I had something just as good - bunco!  We were all so busy in August that we just pushed it to the first week of September. Natalie hosted in her back yard. It was really fun to see everyone. 

I wasn't very lucky until the very end when I had 6 wins in a row. 

I hurried home as soon as it was over because I wasn't sure if Brandon was going straight to Sweeny Rehearsal after CSI. He had gone there, but he was back. We both made sure the kids went to bed. 

Ever since I got the chip drop on Wednesday I'd been thinking about taking Friday morning off from work to move wood chips while it was still cool outside. But then I remembered that Charlotte and Lydia had dentist appointments at 8:00 so that was a never mind. 

It was quite a production to get their dentist appointments to work out. Kaymie took Veronica to school so I didn't have to worry about her. But Derrick came with to the appointment (again.)  When it was over we took the girls to the High School and dropped them off. They were only about 40 minutes late. Then I took Derrick to his school. He was only about 10 minutes late. 

And then I went to work. I made myself stay there for 3 hours. There was a lot of little odd billing things to take care of. Most of our billing goes through insurance companies, but there are some 3rd parties that we also go through. One is a local organization that covers the cost of therapy for people that need it. So I sent them invoices. 

Another 3rd party payer is Idaho's Department of Health and Welfare. We don't bill Medicaid at Aspen Grove, but occasionally we contract directly with Health and Welfare for specific cases. So they need invoices. 

Another 3rd party payer is what's called Idaho Crime Victim Compensation. They will cover therapy for victims of crimes. The claims are sent to insurance first and then Idaho crimes covers what's left after that. I have to send them copies of the Insurance Explanation of Benefits and a copy of the claim. And then they take their sweet time paying. It's kind of a paperwork nightmare, but I love that it's an option for clients so I deal with the paperwork. 

So that's the kind of stuff I was working on on Friday. 

Afterwork I came home and took a wonderful nap. Then I got up and went to Winco and did the grocery shopping. I put all the frozen stuff into my make shift cooler (AKA a tote with blankets.) I picked up the twins on the way home from the store. 

We hurried to put everything away and then I folded down the back seat of the van and drove over to the middle school to pick up Veronica and her string bass. I went in to help her get it. The band teacher was helping her pack it up in the case. The band teacher used to be the music teacher at the elementary school when the kids were all there. He taught Veronica in Kindergarten. And now he was helping her pack up her instrument in 6th grade. 

I helped her get it out to the car and we drove it home. Then we left it in the car because Veronica still needed to clean her room to make room for it. Brandon helped take out the small arm chair that has been in her room. There was a ton of junk under it so it's probably good that Veronica wanted it out of her room. She got everything cleaned up and could bring the bass in. 

She got it out so she could play it in the front room. This made me so happy. I truly loved playing the string bass and so to have Veronica decide to play it too is really special. 

Charlotte and Lydia had also brought home their instruments so they got theirs out too. We got another rare Lydia smile in this picture. 

It was so fun to hear them all playing. (Not together, just playing whatever they each wanted.)

On Sunday afternoon when Brandon took the twins driving Veronica and I had some actual practice time. I went over the names of the strings with her and showed her finger positions on the D and G strings. She was like, "I'm so glad you know all this!"  It was fun to teach her. 

Back to Friday night. We were having home made pizza so I picked some of our green peppers from the garden. They look so good! I've never had luck with peppers before so I'm loving that they worked this year. 

And here's a fun sunflower plant. It fell over but put out a bunch of little flowers. I love it. 

I spent the evening moving wood chips. When it got too dark for that I went inside and just watched silly videos on my phone. I got sucked down a rabbit hole of watching the little songs and dances that the Savannah Banana's baseball team does. They are so fun and so joyful. I was smiling all evening. 

I basically spent all Saturday outside and it was lovely. First I sifted the last of the compost. When I was done with that I put a bunch of bark chips down in this area. The compost ring will be in this spot all fall and winter. One reason I moved it and took a bunch of compost out is so there will be room to dump fall leaves in it. Then in the spring I'll take the black ring off and move it back to the open area. I'll sift out the fine compost and put the bigger pieces back in to break down some more. There's probably a more efficient process to do this, but right now moving it twice a year works really well for me. 

I also moved bark chips into the front flower bed that I'd been working on all week. 

It looks so good!

And here's one of the established beds. I love that black eyed susan. 

Here's the other bed. It has the most color right now. 

And here's the remaining chips. I still need to fill in some other paths, but I had other projects to do so that had to wait. 

Lydia had been working on her fall dress. Here it is. (I'm told it's not done yet so she wouldn't let me put this one instagram.)

Jori had a baby shower at 1:00 and her husband had to work so she bought her kids over. They had fun helping me in the garden for a minute. (I'd promised one of them she could pull an onion when it was ready and she was so happy to finally do that.)

They also helped with a few little patio things in preparation for the party. Then they went and watched K-Pop Demon Hunters and I went back to bigger jobs. I planted spinach in a garden bed where the peas hadn't done well. My theory is that there is too much nitrogen in the soil from growing peas there like 3 years in a row. So hopefully the spinach will like that nitrogen. 

At 2:00 I had to be done with the garden because my feet needed a break. I took a quick shower and then sat on the couch until 3:00. Then I made corn bread for that night. We were doing chili and corn bread and everything else would be pot luck. 

At 4:00 Jori was back and we took her girls and Derrick and Veronica to Mary Alice Park. I felt like a bad friend because I'd never taken Jori or her kids there. The park was celebrating it's 19th anniversary. So there was a big reception of sorts. There were a lot of older people from the Magic Valley Arts Council. They liked seeing Jori's cute little girls run around and enjoy the park. 

Jori was in HEAVEN. There is a colorful piano set up right at the entrance and Jori didn't even make it past that. She had her camera out and was taking pictures of it from every angle. Then she walked around the rest of the park and admired the heck out of everything. 

Derrick and Veronica played chess with the big chess set. 

Here they are from another angle. 

Then I played with one of Jori's girls. After that Derrick was ready to go so we went home to get ready for the party. Jori and her girls stayed and ended up getting cake and ice cream. 

Brandon had started getting the patio ready by the time I was home. But I helped with a lot of last minute stuff too. Here's the patio. 

And the garden. I put blankets out in case anyone wanted to sit on them while they ate. 

Here's Brandon lighting the fire. I hadn't planned on lighting it until about 7:30, but Derrick said he wanted to cook hot dogs for his dinner. So we lit it at about 5:45. It was so HOT. And then Derrick changed his mind and said he wasn't hungry. 

Here's Lydia's almost finished mural. She'd finished the mountains on Tuesday evening. It's so pretty. And as the evening got darker it really felt like we were looking at mountains. 

Jori and her kids arrived again around 6:00. Then Rachel and Ethan and their son came. After that we had more people streaming in. Cort and Chandler were their with their 4 kids. Brad came with his four. (His wife was out of town.) Jeff and Lindsey were there with their four kids. (I sometimes refer to our group of friends as the 4 kids club because so many have four kids.) Carol didn't have her kids this weekend but she still came and hung out. Tim came when he was done with work. 

Here's a bunch of the adults down in the fire pit. 

Here it is from a different angle. This was such a fun group. 

And here are the roving bands of unsupervised kids having the time of their life in the backyard. 

We all had a great time. Some people started leaving as it got dark around 8:30, but we were still going really strong around 9:15. Then more left to put their kids to bed. Most of Jori's kids ended up in the house watching a movie with Derrick. Jori's oldest girl played Ghost in the Graveyard with all three of my girls. 

Jori and Tim left around 9:40 and my girls pulled Derrick outside and played Ghost in the Graveyard until 10:30. 

One of my friends sent me this text later: "Hey I just wanted to tell you how grateful I am for you. I now it might not seem like much to you, but I've been really struggling lately. I have felt very, very lonely and depressed. I am so grateful for your friendship and for providing somewhere for me to go where I can feel a part of something and just not be alone. A lot of wards I have been in the past I didn't really feel like I fit in anywhere. And I really struggle to be outgoing and make friends. Thank you so much I really appreciate you."

This really made my day because I'm always trying to be the person to reach out to the people that seem on the sidelines and pull them in. 

As everyone left I reminded them that we will be doing a Halloween Party to. It's fun to already have that to look forward to. 

And now we've made it to Sunday. I'm so glad our church starts at noon. There was plenty of time to sleep in and then still have time to work on Exponent Guest post things. 

We recently had a few permablogger spots open up so I'd mass emailed all the guest post authors from the last few months to see if anyone was interested. This might have been a mistake. 

Twelve people got back to me. Twelve! And at best we had room for three. 

Fortunately, 5 of them were people saying they were interested but couldn't commit at the moment. 

Five more were people that had only submitted one guest post so far. The rule is they have to have two published before they are considered for a permablogger position. So I emailed them and said we could talk more after their second post was published. 

And that left 2 that were ready for the next step. 

Although later in the day I checked the email and there were two more who had already submitted two posts who were interested. 

So yeah, I'm not sure what we are doing about that. But worst case scenario is that I give up my regular morning posting slot for someone. I have a plan for a blog series that I want to do next year, but it might be more appropriate for an afternoon slot anyway. So I think we'll have room for four more permabloggers. 

And actually this growth and interest is WONDERFUL. About 2 years ago it felt like the blog was in a state of entropy. But my bloggy friend Abby was convinced the problem was that we didn't have an presence on Instagram. I agreed with her, but I didn't have time to take the steps she did. She hunted down the person who last had access to the blog's instagram account and got access and then started posting twice a day every day. Every blog post went up as an instagram post a day later. She posted comments. She posted videos. And gradually the account grew. It now has 5000 followers.

And those followers are engaging with the website. And they are starting to write guest posts. Last year we would get like one guest post a month. This year it's more like three a week. The lady who had the guest post coordinator position was so overwhelmed that she asked for help and that's when I stepped in. Then she became the co-editor of freaking Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought and I told her that she didn't need to worry about Exponent guest posts while doing that.  

So now I spend my Sunday mornings coordinating guest posts and loving every minute of it. I think of it as my Sabbath Devotional time. 

Church was okay. I spent most of it in the foyer. Derrick was in a weird mood and didn't want to pass the sacrament or really be at church. So we spent Sacrament meeting in the foyer. And then Sunday School too. 

Back at home I took a nap. Then I cleaned the kitchen and cooked baked potatoes for dinner. (We had them with leftover chili.)

I had a bunch of jalopenio peppers in the garden. So I cut them up and mixed them with cheese and 4 oz of cream cheese and rolled the filling up in tortillas to make little jalopeno pinwheels. They were good. 

The other 4 oz of cream cheese went toward making raspberry danishs. I'd bought puff pastry dough and then added sweetened cream cheese and raspberries. These turned out super cute. But I think next time I need to roll the raspberries in sugar because they were a little tart. 

And that gets us caught up again. And I know I've been promising this for weeks. But this week really might be the week I go back and write about the North Idaho Trip. Or at least a day of that trip. 

Thanks for reading.