Building Community

When I finished my post last week I was like, "Ooooohhhhh that's why I'm feeling so tired."  I did so much that week. And well, this week wasn't much better. We have so many projects in the works and the kids are involved in so many things. It's just a very busy season of life. 

But things actually feel slightly easier because the twins can drive now. It's so nice that I don't have to take them to school in the morning or pick them up in the afternoon. Having those two things off my to do list has somehow freed up a lot of time. 

They got to do a lot of driving this week. Here's the recap. 

On Monday there was no school. I went to work in the morning while the kids were still asleep. When they did wake up Charlotte and Lydia drove to Walmart to buy a few things they have wanted. They loved that they could just do that. 

Then they came home and picked up Derrick and Veronica and they all went down in the Canyon to Centennial Park. They were there for about 45 minutes before I met up with them after work. Here they are climbing on some lava rocks. 

We came back home and everyone worked on something creative. For years I've paid the kids for "babysitting" themselves on the days that they are home when I'm at work. But that's started to feel a little dumb now that everyone is over 12. But no one wanted to give up on the money. So we are transitioning to me paying them for them doing something creative. 

Charlotte worked on her story. Lydia drew. Derrick screwed together his bench that he'd been trying to make on Saturday. And Veronica worked on her stop motion movie that she'd started on Saturday. I showed her how to download the videos to the computer. We put Movie Maker on the computer and she started putting together her movie. It's cute. 

Brandon came home from work, had some food, and then went to the Orpheum to keep working on the Anastasia set. I think this is the day they moved it from the Curry Building to the Orpheum. But I could be wrong about that. 

On Tuesday the kids were still out of school. They had talked about going back to the canyon while I was at work, but it was a little colder so they didn't go anywhere. But they all did more creative things and each earned another dollar. 

I'd noticed that Brandon's Pilot was very overdue for an oil change. Brandon is fabulous at fixing things, but I'm the one that keeps them maintained. So I had him take the van to work so I could take the Pilot into Jiffy Lube for an oil change. 

When I drove it to Jiffy Lube it sounded terrible. When I drove it away after the oil change it sounded and drove so much better. I had fun driving it around the rest of the day. I've had some trust issues with the Pilot the last few years, but this time I was like, "Oh hey I remember you. We had some good times together didn't we?" So it was fun to drive it around again. 

I went to work for a while and then came home and took care of a bunch of small things. One thing was to message my friend Candice and let her know that Charlotte had her drivers license. Candice lives out in Filer and has lots of goats and other animals. We go out to her house every 4th of July. When we were out there last year Charlotte spent a lot of time with the goats. Candice mentioned that they are always looking for help with their animals when they go out of town. I told her Charlotte would love to help, but it wouldn't work until after she had her license. Filer was just too far for me to drive twice a day for Charlotte to take care of some animals. 

Well now that Charlotte has her license she can drive herself out to Filer. So I told Candice to keep Charlotte in mind the next time they went out of town.

Candice wrote back almost right away and said, "Uhhhh you were totally inspired! We are leaving for a family wedding this weekend. Could she do it Thursday - Sunday night?"

I replied that Charlotte would love to do that. So that evening Charlotte and I dropped Veronica off at the Orpheum at 5:30 and then drove out to Filer. 

Candice showed Charlotte how to take care of the 3 dogs, 4 cats, a guinea pig, 10 adult goats, 2 eight  month old goats, one sheep, and one llama. 

Brandon had been at the Orpheum working on the set and so when Veronica was done with her rehearsal up in the 3rd floor classroom she came downstairs and met Brandon in the main theatre. 

We all got home about the same time. Then we all watched a TV show that Charlotte and Lydia liked and wanted to share with everyone. 

On Wednesday we woke up to snow!  This is only the second or third snow storm we've had all year. I helped Charlotte and Lydia scrap off their car. They were a little nervous about driving to school in the snow since they didn't have much snow driving experience. But there was barely any snow on the roads so I wasn't too worried about them. Here they are backing out of the driveway.

I took Veronica to school and then Derrick. Then I dropped the Pilot off at Safelight to get its windshield replaced.  The windshield has been cracked forever and Brandon was just kind of living with it. We weren't sure what we were doing vehicle-wise it didn't make sense to get it replaced. But now that our vehicle situation is more solid I felt like it was time to get that fixed. So I was back at Safelight for the second time in two weeks. 

I walked home which was a little tricky because some of the side walks were icy. When I got back to my house I was happy to see how nice my yard looked with the snow covering everything. This was how it was supposed to look all winter. Instead it's been bare and neglected looking. 

There's a bunch of leaves in this bed that look untidy. But you can't tell with the snow on them. 

Same with this bed. 

I look like such a responsible home owner with the snow covering everything. 

It was a scripture study morning. We were doing the second half of Amos. I LOVED studying Amos this month, but it was a little tricky because it's one of the longer books in the 12 minor prophets. I struggled to know where to focus. But I found my footing in time for the lesson. 

In the afternoon I took a nap and then I got the call that the Pilot's windshield was done. I walked up there and picked it up. 

Then at 3:00 I met with my friend Shellien in her real estate office. Way back in 2020 Shellien was the facilitator when I took the Start your own Business self reliance course. At the time I wasn't very sure why I felt so inspired to take that course then. And when Covid happened I really wondered what I was doing in that class. But looking back I can tell you that the reason I was in that class at that time was to meet Shellien. One of the things we did in that class was find someone to be our mentor. I'd asked Shelliean if she would be my mentor, and she agreed. But nothing came of it at the time. 

She used that class as motivation as she earned her realtor license and started her business. She's become one of the best realtors in the Magic Valley. 

We've stayed friends and she's come to my birthday parties over the years. She came this year and asked me, "so what's next?"  And I told her I was going to start a billing business, but I was stuck on a name. She offered to sit down and brain storm with me sometime. So that's what we were doing on that Wednesday afternoon. 

And it was incredible. 

She had me do a SWOT analysis. This is where you write down your businesses Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. I've done these before and I usually HATE them. But Shellien made it feel so natural and easy to identify the things that I should put in the different categories. It also helped that I have a really good idea of what my business is and isn't. This wasn't just theoretical. That helped a lot. 

Then we looked at the things I'd written and just kind of talked about what it is I do. I said that I often describe my business strategy as "working for overwhelmed men who are so happy that I'm taking care of the billing so they don't have to worry about it."

We kept talking along that line and developed it to be something like, "I made complicated things seem simple."

And then with a little bit of help from ChatGPT we got a list of business names that summed up the ability to help make things simple. 

And from that list we picked Simplicity Billing. 

And all of a sudden my business had a name!

I'm still deciding if it's just Simplicity Billing or if it's Simplicity Billing and Bookkeeping. But that decision is nothing compared to how hard it was to come up with a name.  

When I got home everyone else was already there. The twins had driven themselves home, Brandon had picked up Derrick, and Veronica had walked home. It was strange to be the last person to come home. 

Brandon had to go back to the theatre again and wasn't feeling very enthusiastic about it. I was feeling pretty giddy from naming my company so I offered to come along. 

Here's one of the things Brandon has been working on - it's a train car, can't you tell?

Actually it's a very impressive train car. It's on wheels so it can spin around. It also splits apart so it can be stored off stage in the skinny little wings. 

And it also will be seating for the Ballet Scene. So this little thing does quite a bit. 

I was kind of board at the theatre and Brandon realized he'd meant to bring our ladder. So I went home and got that. 

When I came back my friend Laura was there. She's the stage manager for Anastasia. She and I looked over the schedule for the next few weeks and tried to figure out when Brandon would have time to come in and build. Later Brandon and I found Alexandra and asked her some follow up questions about availability. It's tricky because the Orpheum has some touring shows coming through the next few weekends and so the stage isn't super available on the weekends.  

It was really good I was there. Just like Brandon is good at fixing things, but not as good at staying on top of maintenance. He's really good at building things, but not so good at the big picture of when certain things need to happen. I'm excellent at big picture stuff. 

We left a little before rehearsals started at 7:00. The plan was to come back during rehearsals to see how some of the pieces were working with the actors using them. 

Brandon took Derrick to young mens. They watched Dinosaur movies at one of the leaders houses. Derrick had made a list of 5 dinosaur movies to show on youtube. Then they watched some of Jurassic Park. All the boys liked it. 

I'd been watching Veronica work on her movie on the computer. All of a sudden I got really sick to my stomach. A little later I was shaking with cold. I wasn't feeling well at all. It felt like food poisoning, but no one else in the family was sick. 

When Brandon came home he sent me to bed. I was in warm clothes and under a bunch of blankets, but I was super cold. I think I was asleep before 9:00. Brandon went back to the theatre and got feedback and also picked up a few things he needed. Then he hung around talking with people forever. 

He came home around 12:00. I woke up when he came home. I seemed to be over the worst of whatever I had because I was starting to sweat and I didn't feel cold anymore. 

On Thursday morning I was hoping that I would be 100% better, but I was super tired. By the time I was back home after dropping Derrick off at school I knew that I wasn't going to have a normal Thursday. So I texted my friend Andrea and said I'd have to cancel for the week. 

I got in bed with my computer and took care of the billing things for Ivan's business. And then I fell asleep for 2 hours. When I woke up I did some Aspen Grove stuff on my computer for about 2 hours. And that was about all I could do.

Brandon was at CSI so I was in charge of picking Derrick up from school. I went and got him and then took it easy at home for a while. Charlotte and Lydia drove out to the farm in Filer to take care of the animals. 

I took Veronica to the theatre and picked her up 90 minutes later. She's still loving rehearsals. 

I was feeling better, but I was still really happy to go to bed at 9:00. 

On Friday I was feeling so much better, because it was quite the day. 

It started at 6:15. Charlotte needed to go out to the farm to let the dogs out and feed some of the animals. It was too dark in the morning for her to drive out there so we planned on me driving her. So I got up at 6:15 and got ready. I put on my black sweat pants thinking I'd have time to change them later. 

I drove Charlotte out to the farm. It took longer than expected because we were on some narrow country roads with 50 mile per hour speed limits. I was not comfortable going 50 on those roads in the dark. We made it to the farm and Charlotte and I took care of the animals. We'd planned for about 10 minutes, but it stretched to 15. And then we still had to drive back. 

We were hoping to be back at the house by the time Lydia needed to leave at 7:40. But we'd be cutting it very close. Charlotte texted Lydia with my phone and told her that if we weren't home by 7:40 she should leave without Charlotte. 

I  decided to take the more direct roads back to Twin Falls. I was hoping we'd make up for lost time. And honestly it would have worked. But as we drove down Addison at the Curry Crossing we saw a bunch of police cars. They had closed to road right at the train tracks. I never did find out why. We had to flip around and find another way back into town. And that slowed us down. 

Charlotte told Lydia to leave without her. This was the first time Lydia would drive completely by herself. 

We made it home around 7:50. School started at 8:00. Charlotte still had to eat breakfast so she did that. Lydia had woken Derrick and Veronica up so they were up and getting ready. I ate breakfast too and made my lunch really fast. At 8:05-ish I drove Charlotte to the high school and dropped her off. Then I went to get gas because as all this was happening this morning I'd been getting closer and closer to empty. 

I came home and picked up Derrick and Veronica who were ready for school. I dropped off Veronica and then drove back across town and dropped off Derrick. And then I went to work- still wearing my sweat pants that I'd never had a chance to change out of.

After that crazy morning I was quite happy to get to work where things are pretty simple and uncomplicated. 

I was at work for 5 hours. I had a lot of catch up from since I'd been gone on Thursday and honestly, I was procrastinating going grocery shopping after work. I was not in the mood for grocery shopping. 

When I finally did leave work I just went to the store and bought cheese, pepperoni, and English muffins so we could have personal pizzas that night. I'd worry about the rest of it later. 

Back at home I cleaned out the fridge (that was another reason I didn't want to go grocery shopping yet, I wanted a chance to clean the fridge out.) I also did all the dishes that had piled up on Thursday when I wasn't feeling well.  

I picked up Veronica after school so she could bring her string bass home. When we got home everyone started making their personal pizzas. And then we all split up to run different errands. 

Charlotte and Veronica took the silver van out to Filer to take care of the animals. 

Brandon and Lydia took the pilot and went to Lowes so Brandon could buy more wood to make things for the Anastasia set. 

And Derrick and I took the blue van and went to DI to buy him more pants and more pajamas for all the kids. 

Having three cars and 4 drivers is crazy. 

We were all back home around 6:00. Brandon and I drove over to the library for their annual Mocktails and trivia night. We went to their first Mocktails night 4 years ago and have come back every year. We also went to their first trivia night about 3 and a half years ago. The next year they combined it with the mocktails night.

We love this every year. It's so fun!

This year the three options were a spiced pear bellini, a long island green tea, and the mulled tart cherry. The pear one didn't have much of a flavor. Brandon and I both liked the long island green tea. But my favorite was the mulled tart cherry. 

Here's the mulled cherry and the pear one.  

And here we are. 

We were split into groups of three or four. A lady named Mallory joined our team. We called ourselves "Insert something clever here." It was just shortened to clever. 

There were three rounds of trivia. We did really well through all three rounds. Brandon and I are actually really good trivia partners. I know a TON of random facts, but I have some holes in my knowledge. Brandon usually fills in those gaps pretty well. And Mallory was a big help too. One of the questions was "what city is Abbott Elementary set in?"  Brandon and I had no clue, but she knew it was Philadelphia.

By the end of the three rounds we were willing with 18.5 points.  

I was super nervous going into the final round. This is where it always goes wrong for me and Brandon. They have you guess your points and we always either bet it all and then loose it all or bet nothing and then loose because everyone else bet it all. Or we don't bet enough. What ever we do, it's always wrong. 

They gave the prompt as "Winter Olympics."  I didn't feel confident about that category at all.  Neither did Brandon or Mallory. We decided to not bet anything. 

And then they gave the prompt and I knew we'd done the wrong things AGAIN. The prompt was something like, "The United States has hosted the winter olympics 4 times in 3 cities. Name at least two of the cities."  I knew Lake Placid and Salt Lake City. And Mallory knew Squaw Valley. And that meant we had the answer completely right. Yet we would get no points. 

So once again, we messed up the point betting part and lost. But it had been a really fun night anyway. 

Brandon and I left the library and went to Winco to finally get that grocery shopping done. We brought the food home and the kids helped us put it all away. 

On Saturday we were super busy. But it was all good stuff. 

Charlotte was the first one up. She got up around 7:30 to drive out to the farm to take care of the animals. I think this was the first time she'd ever driven somewhere by herself. Both she and Lydia had said it was really peaceful to be driving alone. I was like, "Was that your first time being alone - like ever?" It probably was. 

Brandon and I got up at 8:00. He spent the morning making a table for Anastasia. In one scene it will be a table with 3 type writers on it. In another scene its a bar table and a lady has to stand on it. So he had to make it really strong.  

I spent the morning doing my annual deep clean of my bathroom. I have a lot of peeling paint on my ceiling so I got that scrapped off. I wanted to put something over it, but I really really really didn't want to deal with paint brushes. So I was happy when I googled and found out that there's a spray paint primer for bathrooms. I went to Lowes and bought that right away and got it sprayed on the ceiling. It's not a long term solution, but it made the ceiling look better for now. 

I put everything back in the bathroom and then took a quick shower. 

At 12:15 my friend Amy Toft came to pick me up. She'd invited me to come see Momma Mia at Twin Falls High School. It was a sing along Matinee and I'd been looking forward to it for like 3 weeks. Amy Toft is currently my ministering sister. Her companion is my friend Amanda and she came too. Another friend Colleen also came. Colleen was the oldest of our group. We thought she would know ABBA the best, but she didn't know them at all. She said, "Well I had young kids in the 70's I wasn't paying attention to pop music."

Amy was a teenager in the 70s so she was familiar with the music. And Amanda loved the Momma Mia movie so she knew the music too. But I was hands down the ABBA expert. I'd read a book about them last summer, Baconsale had done an ABBA episode a few years ago, and I've been listening to ABBA since 2004. I also have the not so secret dream to be in Momma Mia if the Orpheum ever does it. 

The play was really fun to watch, but it was even more fun to sing along with. They had the words projected on the screens on either side of the stage at the Roper. So it was easy to sing along. I probably could have done it without the screens through. 

Amanda is autistic and doesn't read social cues very well. So when it was time to sing, she was SINGING. She sang so loud. And that was great because then I was like, "Hey I'm going to sing loud too!"  It was so fun to sit next to her and belt out song after song. 

My favorite ABBA song is Thank you for the music. But really I love them all. I was hoarse by the end. 

The show ends with a sing along curtain call. They sing Dancing Queen, Momma Mia, and then finish with Waterloo. I was really looking forward to Waterloo. It's so fun. The cast was in the audience dancing in the aisles it was fun to watch them dance and sing with their friends who had come to the show. 

Brandon spent the afternoon playing DND with some of the guys in our ward. Our friend Derrick had set up the group. It was his first time as a Dungeon Master and it was the first time for some of the guys (including Brandon), but they had a great time. 

He was still there when I got home from Momma Mia. I made dinner for the kids and made sure to look them all in the eyes. That's our joke on busy days like this. I'm always like, "Hey let me make sure to look you in the eyes today so we know that we've at least seen each other."

Charlotte went back out to the farm to take care of the animals again. She was loving all the time with the goats. 

I went to my friend Karin's birthday party. She and Chris live in Jerome -basically on the golf course. Which makes sense because they LOVE golf. Karin was turning 50. Which kind of blew my mind because I'm 41. I consider her a lot older than me because she has collage aged kids. But then I realized that in 9 years I will also have college aged kids. 

She was really leaning into the "old age" part of being 50. She had an old lady wig on and was wearing and old fashioned house dress. She also had two pairs of glasses on her head. She was so funny. 

There were other theatre people at the party so we had fun talking together. 

Then I left that party and drove straight to the church for another party. Our ward was having an adults only social. There was fun food and people sat and talked. Then my friend Kori had everyone write down two facts about themselves. They were put in a big pile and we took turns reading the facts and trying to guess who they were about. This was hilarious. 

A lot of it was funny in a "you had to be there" kind of way. I can't recreate the magic in writing, but we found out who had played ice hockey on frozen dairy ponds full of cow poop (Tyson), who had spent a Christmas in jail (Cort), and who could fit quarters up their nose (Surprisingly this wasn't Brandon. It was a guy who I can't remember his name right now.)

Some things immediately made us start scrutinizing each other like when someone said they'd had brain surgery we started looking for scars. And when someone said that they'd had a finger ripped and crushed as a child we made everyone hold up their hands to see who was missing a finger. That turned out to be Carl who still had all 10 of his fingers thanks to some skilled doctors.

And my brain that is really good at holding trivia facts also is really good at holding facts about people. So when one fact was, "I've flown super sonic." I knew that was about Randy because I've listened to him talk about it at the Veterans Day activities. Or when one clue was about someone secretly wanting to be an Opera Singer I knew it was about Brad because his wife Olyvia has told me.

And I got to learn a lot of cool new things about a lot of people. We had a lot of different ages represented at the activity and so it was fun to hear about different things. Like one person said they'd met Paul Harvey and some people had to google who that was. (I knew who he was because my drivers ed teacher had listened to Paul Harvey in the car when we'd go driving in high school.)

Anyway, it was a super fun activity. When it was over Allison got up and joked, "Okay, what happened at the ward activity stays at the ward activity." 

We went home and we were super tired. It was almost 9:00 and I got ready for bed right away. But first I took some selfies because I'd liked how I looked all day. 

It had been such a good day. 

I thought I'd sleep in on Sunday, but I was wide awake at like 5:00. So I got up and worked on some Exponent Guest Posts and then worked on my Amos post that will be published at the end of February. 

At 10:00 I went back to Jerome for part 2 of the party at Chris and Karin's. Actually this time it was for the Curtain Call Awards. Chris and I are both on the committee to count the votes. Another lady named Heather was there. I hadn't met her yet, but I'd seen her husband in The Play that Goes Wrong. 

We carefully went over all the votes for the Curtain Call Awards. It was quite the process. But it was really enjoyable too. 

I'm not going to say anything about them here until after the ceremony on April 2nd. If anyone askes I'm just telling them that Hadestown won. (They were a teen group so they aren't even part of the Curtain Call Awards, but they were so good they were on par with the adult shows.)

But I will talk about how much I treasure my friendship with Chris and Karin. I've been fans of theirs since before I knew who they were. They are the ones who made The Play that Goes Wrong happen at the Orpheum. I remember reading in the program that it was considered a play that couldn't be done on the Orpheum stage because it's so small. Then Chris and Karin drew up the plans for how to make the stage work in the small space. The play wouldn't have happened without them. 

Several years later the Wilson Theatre in Rupert did The Play that Goes Wrong and I took my family to see it. We ended up sitting right behind Chris and Karin. I didn't recognize them, but I did recognize their son Kaden who had been in the play in Twin Falls. At intermission they turned around and said that they loved hearing our kids laugh loudly at the show. That's how we found out we were all connected to the Orpheum. 

A year later Chris built the set for Cinderella and Lydia discovered her ability to paint sets while helping on that set. Karin and Kaden were in the play and Chris was the stage manager.

And here we were a year later. Even closer friends after both helping back stage at Shakespeare and attending 4th Wall Nights. I'm so happy they are in my life. 

And that's one reason I keep doing all these things. I love the people I meet along the way. 

I made it to church after counting the votes. (1:30 church means you can live like 3 lives and still make it to church on time.) Part of our relief society lesson was about making friends with people you don't know very well. I talked about how I moved a lot as an adult and basically had to rebuilt my whole community every other year. I said a lot of it is just getting used to talking to people. To say, "I haven't met you yet. What is your name?" I didn't say this part, but even though I haven't moved in 6 and a half years I'm still building my community. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger. And it's through just talking to people and asking who they are. 

And it's incredible to see how it plays out over the years. I met Shellien in 2020. And in 2026 she helped name my business. Candice was Charlotte and Lydia's girls activity leader in 2019 and now Charlotte is driving out to her farm to help with her animals. I kept bumping into Chris and Karin through the theatre and now I've been to their house and helped myself to leftovers from their fridge. 

Anyway, it's just wonderful to be part of such a great community of people. I'm so happy we decided to settle down in Twin Falls. 

After church I had high hopes for taking the kids on a walk along the canyon, but I was pooped. I took a nap on the patio which was amazing. 

Charlotte went out to the farm one last time. Later Candice venmod me the money to pay her. That made it all worth it for Charlotte. 

And that gets us caught up for the week. 

Thanks for reading!  

Valentines Day Week

There are lots of great things to talk about this week. But we need to start off with the picture from last week. This is the picture of the Sliced Pepper jack Stake Sandwich that I had at Idaho Joes on Friday night. I'd forgot that I'd taken this picture with Brandon's phone. It was such a good sandwich.  

 

Lydia has been crocheting a lot lately. She made a bunch of sea turtles and a cow. This is her posing with all her stuffed animals. 

Brandon and I spent some time on Sunday night officially submitting our votes for the Curtain Call Awards. We'd talked about the plays and picked our favorites when we went out to eat at Idaho Joes. But now it was time to log our votes. 

We had to submit ticket stubs for the shows that we saw or play bills for the shows we were in. I'd gathered all those and so it was easy to get those submitted. Of the nine shows that happened last season we saw 8 of them. (And we were involved with at least 4.) Then we started doing our votes. We went back over our notes together and then put our votes in on our own laptops. It was really fun. 

I'm one of 4 people who will count the votes and determine the winners. Then Chris Ayers will get the trophies ordered. We are hoping to have enough time to have the winners names engraved on the trophies this year. I'm also in charge of the back stage table with the trophies. I'm going to have to cover the winners names with tape. It's going to be kind of difficult, but I love it. 

The big news on Monday was that Charlotte and Lydia got their drivers licenses! We went to County West when they were done with school. We only had to wait in line for a little bit. We were helped by two employees this time. Charlotte was on one side and Lydia was on the other. I stood in the middle and signed things and paid yet another fee. 

And then the employees were handing the girls their paper licenses. The hard copies will come in the mail in a few weeks. 

Honestly, it felt kind of anti climactic. I was like, "there needs to be a bell to ring or something."

And for those of you keeping score at home, yes that was my third trip to County West in as many weeks. Visit #1 was to register the van. Visit #2 was for the written tests. And Visit #3 was to get the licenses. 

Lydia drove home. Charlotte was able to be in the passenger seat.  I sat in the middle row. 

We stopped at smiths to buy ice cream to celebrate. That made it feel a little bit more real. 

Derrick also got something that he's been dreaming of for a long time. He and Brandon were able to pay for Jurassic World Evolution 3 and download it to the computer. Derrick has been looking forward to playing this game for over 6 months. 

Here is the computer tower. He put a raptor sticker on it. 

And here he is playing the game. Mostly he just builds habitats for different dinosaurs and makes sure that they have the right food and shelter. He loves it so much. 

Brandon went out to the Curry Building to work on the set for Anastasia. He'd bought a lot of wood at Lowes for the set. Our friends Kelly and Hunter met him there.  They helped get wood cut to the right sizes and started putting together the train. They got a lot done. Brandon was happy for the help. 

At some point on Monday I opened an email newsletter from the Exponent. I was surprised to see that my auditing work got a shout out. 

On Tuesday Derrick had a dentist appointment first thing in the morning. I got everyone else dropped off at school and then he and I went to the dentist. He ended up having his first ever cavity. He's a little nervous about getting that filled - mostly because his knowledge of dental procedures is all based on Mr Bean and Three Stooges skits. But we talked about it and he'd mostly okay with it. 

I dropped Derrick off at school and then went back home and caught up on some things for Castle Therapy and Gaining Perspectives. 

Then I went to work at Aspen Grove. I'd had trouble accessing the remit info for the week before and this week. I was getting a little worried about it because this was a payroll week so I needed to get those remits entered. I was able to get ahold of someone at Provider Relations on Monday. They put in an IT ticket and I had access again on Tuesday. So I spent a lot of Tuesday entering two weeks worth of Blue Cross of Idaho Payments. That was a big job.  

Brandon was stuck in work at a meeting so I had to get Derrick. Charlotte and Lydia were staying after school for yarn club so I didn't have to get them yet. So I just went to get Derrick. Then later I picked Charlotte and Lydia up after yarn club. They were still a little nervous about driving to school by themselves. I told them, "If you drive yourselves you don't have to wait for me to come get you when you are done with yarn club."

Brandon was out at the Curry Building again that evening. I took Veronica to her first class for the Alice in Wonderland play. When I picked her up she seemed really sad. I was about to ask her what was wrong. Then she broke into a big grin and said, "It was WONDERFUL!"  She was so happy to be in another play. 

I'll probably forget to write about it later so I'll put this here. On Friday she had to take a test in Reading about different drama things. It had questions like, "What is an Act?" "What is a scene?"  She got a perfect score. She was like, "I KNOW all about drama stuff."

I had been so tired all day and I was really looking forward to bed. But right at 9:00 I got an email from my friend Katie. Katie and I write together for the Exponent. She was asking for my contact info to give to someone who has noticed my 12 minor prophet series. The person is interested in including me on a project. I can't really talk about it yet because nothing is set in stone. But I was NOT tired after getting that email. I was so excited at all the prospects!

On Wednesday I longingly thought about back when Wednesday was considered my day off. Instead I spent the morning in Filer doing more Jump Company Bookkeeping. I still feel pretty dumb as I learn the system. But I am sort of getting it. 

Then in the afternoon I got to feel like the expert again. I went out to my friend Andrea's house in Kimberly to help her with some extra billing questions that were coming up for her husband's Speech Therapy company. We got a lot of things figured out. 

I drove back to Twin and picked up the girls at the high school. I was ready for them to start driving themselves. I told them, "If you drive yourselves tomorrow you don't have to go with me to pick up Derrick and his friend Max after school. You can just drive straight home. That did the trick. They decided they were ready to drive themselves. 

That night Brandon took all the kids to the church. (The girls can't drive at night until they are 16 otherwise they would have driven themselves.) The girls stayed at the church and made bracelets. Derrick and Brandon went with the Young Men to St Lukes to see the rescue helicopter. Our bishop flies the helicopter and he wanted everyone to come out for a tour. 

Here are the boys in front of the helicopter. 

Brandon had fun sharing what he knew about helicopters with some of the people around him. 

I picked the girls up from the church and Brandon brought Derrick home. 

On Thursday the girls drove to school for the first time. I was a little nervous for them. I was very glad they texted me, "We didn't die" when they got to school. 

It was a busy work day. I have a report I run for each of my billing clients on Thursdays so I have to check in with all my clients on Thursdays to run that report. It's a big day. It was nice that I had about an extra 30 minutes because I didn't have to pick up Charlotte and Lydia after school. Instead I was able to go right to Derrick's school. 

Derrick's friend Max came home with him. They went right downstairs and spent the next hour and half playing Jurassic World Evolution together. They had so much fun. 

Brandon was at CSI that night so we didn't see him until much later. 

I took Veronica to and from the theatre. She had another great time. When she came home I read her Harry Potter. We're on the third book. It's one of my favorites in the series. 

On Friday I had a lot of work in the morning. Then I went grocery shopping. My first stop was target. I bought a little throw blanket for my friend Kerri for her birthday. I also found jewelry on clearance for all three girls. 

Then I went shopping at Winco and then came home and put away the perishable groceries. I hurried and put Kerri's gift in a gift bag and then went to the Middle School. 

I was picking Veronica up early so we could do our annual Valentine's Day table for the older kids. But I was also able to drop off Kerri's birthday present since she is the attendance secretary at the middle school. 

Veronica started setting things on the table while I hurried to frost the cake. We'd made the cake on Thursday night. 

Here's the table. 

We had quite a few things on it this year. 

I wanted to take a picture of Veronica, and she said I should be in it too. 

Here's the heart cake. We wanted to do a heart cake because we'd had a heart cake the first time we did this a decade ago. (By the way, this is just a square cake and a circle cake. You cut the circle cake and put the halves on two of the square cake sides. It's really easy, but it looks hard. Brandon told me I did a good job. I was like, "I know things."

Charlotte and Lydia drove themselves home so I didn't have to worry about getting them. (It's WONDERFUL to have them driving.) Derrick and Brandon came home right after them. They were all excited to see the table. 

Then we had fun eating treats and talking. 

The kids were all really excited because this was the start of a four day weekend for them. 

Here are me and Brandon. 

Brandon made heart shaped pizzas. 

They were yummy. 

Veronica was invited to her friend Hadley's house for a Valentines Day party. They had pizza, treats, and watched A Cinderella Story. 

On Saturday I had lots of plans for lots of yardwork that needed to be done. First we got the house cleaned up. Then we worked togther to clean up the garage. We hadn't done anything with it after my party. So we went out there and moved the tables around, put the puzzle away, moved the bikes back in  and basically got it back to being a garage and not a party space. 

Veronica set up a table with a bunch of scenery and toys. She spent pretty much the rest of the day making a stop motion movie out there. 

And I spent the rest of the day happily doing yard work. 

I started with pruning the fruit trees. Brandon sharpened one of my big clippers so they were really sharp. Then he helped me as we looked over the trees and decided which branches should be pruned. It was good to have a second opinion. Personally I HATE pruning anything. I just want everything to grow and I hate taking off the trees hard work. But I know that it's good for the tree to get pruned. So I do it. 

Then we trimmed up the weeping birch in the front yard so it was a little less weepy.

Brandon took Derrick to Lowes and they bought more wood for more set things. They took it out to the Curry Building.  

I went to work on the raspberries. I did probably the best pruning job on them I've ever done. Every year I don't prune enough and then the new starts come up from the ground and there are so many and things are over crowded. So this year I remembered that and really cut back at lot of the existing stalks.  

Then I wanted to use my Christmas Present grass trimmer to trim up the ornamental grass in the front yard. But I realized that it needed to charge. So I needed to find something to do for two hours while it charged. 

I wanted to spray my fruit trees, but I usually do that last because the handle of my sprayer is cracked and I always end up getting oily water all over me as it leaks out the crack. So I do it last so I can take a shower when I'm done. 

But this time Brandon was around and relatively free. I showed him the handle of my sprayer and asked if he could figure out how to fix it. He told me he could fix it with UV Resin that is sold at Hobby Lobby. So we went to Hobby Lobby and bought that. It's basically glue that you cure with a UV light. 

When we got back my trimmer was charged so I went to work trimming the grass while Brandon fixed the handle. It was really fun to trim the grass with the trimmer. 

When I was done with the grass, Brandon had fixed the handle and it was all dry and ready to get hooked up to the sprayer. I went to work spraying the trees. It was the first time in YEARS that I didn't end up wet. That was probably the best Valentine's Day present ever.  

As I finished the last few trees the kids and Brandon started a fire in the fire pit. We had hot dogs for dinner. That was really fun. 

Here I am after my long day of yard work. 

Derrick was suddenly stuck by whatever spirit led to him getting the "most creative builder" award last school year. He wanted to make a bench and was gathering wood and tools and trying to assemble his "bench" in the dark with a flashlight. I finally convinced him that he could work on it later with Brandon when it was light. 

It was still February so it was dark by 7:00. It was also cold. We didn't feel like staying out there much longer so we went inside. I read Harry Potter to Veronica for like an hour and half. 

It was really nice to sleep in on Sunday. I normally work on guest posts for the Exponent on Sunday mornings. But the guest post submission form is broken right now. People can email my guest post account and some people are doing that. But it's harder to find where to send things so I haven't had as many submissions. 

I was actually fighting off a low grade panic attack for unknown reasons. At first I thought I was just hungry, but I didn't calm down even after Brandon made me an amazing omelet. I ended up going on a long walk to get my jitters out. That helped a lot. 

Church was good. I was kind of dreading Sunday School. I was not a fan of how the Come Follow Me Curriculum was basically like, "Noah was a prophet. The people should have listened to him. How can we listen to our modern day prophets."  I was like, "There is PLEANTY of material in the Old Testament. We DONT need to waste time with talking about modern prophets."

I was feeling kind of petty so I set the stop watch on my phone to start counting as soon as the opening prayer was said. I wanted to see how long it took until someone tried to shoe-horn modern prophets into the discussion. 

But it NEVER happened. Instead we had a pretty awesome lesson on Zion. I was even able to bring up some references to Amos. (If Zion has no poor than the people of Israel in the time of Amos were the anti-zion because their specific sin was that they were exploiting the poor.) 

After church Jori dropped her kids off at my house and then we went together to the Lamphouse theatre where Indivisible Twin Falls was putting together Whistle Kits. We've both been really bothered by the way ICE is detaining people. Jori has been having nightmares about it even. So when I saw the whistle kit event on Facebook I thought, "Jori needs to DO something to feel like she can help."  So I told her we should go. 

It was the BEST thing for both of us. There were about 25 people there.  We helped put whistles on lanyards. When the lanyards were used up we helped make more out of para-cord. Some people were cutting the cord. I was in charge of burning the ends so they didn't fray. Jori spent a lot of time putting the whistles into baggies with instructions on how to use the whistles to communicate. 

These kits will be given out at events and other places. I took some home to give to my neighbor who is also anti-ice. It felt really good to be involved with other people doing something. 

And that gets us caught up for another week. 

Birthday/Drivers License Week

This was a really good week. But it was also another week full of lots of things. I felt like I was on a different side quest every day. It all culminated with two things. 1. My birthday. 2. Charlotte and Lydia completing everything they needed to get their drivers licenses. 

So let's go through this recap.

On Sunday night we watched Groundhog Day. I joked that on Monday, which was really Groundhog Day I would wake the kids up my playing "I got your babe."  But I didn't really do that. It was a funny joke at 9:00 PM. It was not so funny at 7:00 AM.

Monday started off with an appointment with my dermatologist to see if Opzelora is doing anything for the vitiligo. It's not. But the doctor wasn't ready to give up on it yet. So we'll follow up again in a few months. 

Then I went to work and did lots of important things. But none of them are interesting enough to talk about. I love my job, but it's really not that interesting for blog content. 

Brandon's work day was a little more interesting. It was his first day as a St Luke's employee. He's worked for St Luke's for a year, but he was employed through a 3rd party agency. At the end of 2025 they started taking the steps to make him an official St Luke's employee. It was all finalized and he officially started on February 4th. It was kind of funny because he still had to attend an 8 hour employee orientation on Monday - even though he's worked there for a year. 

I picked up the twins when they were done with school. We drove over and picked up Derrick from his school. Then we went home and dropped off Derrick and the twins got a snack. Then we drove back across town to the County West complex where the Drivers License office is located. 

We were there so Charlotte and Lydia could take their written drivers tests. We waited in line for a few minute. It was NOTHING like the lines when we were trying to get their Learners Permits at the same time as the Star Card deadline. 

For a minute it looked like we'd be helped by the same lady who helped us when the girls got their permits. I wasn't really looking forward to that. She was okay, but she was really no nonsense and didn't do much to make it feel like a special occasion to get a learners permit.  But then we ended up being helped by a man. And he made it so much fun!

He gently teases the girls throughout the process. Like he had to make sure there weren't any holds or something that meant they couldn't get licenses. He was like, "Uh oh, I see two problems. You haven't taken your written or skills test." And that was funny because they were they for their written tests. He also called them Dingus One and Dingus Two. His teasing and jokes helped take away some of the nerves they were feeling. 

The written test was $5. After that was paid and all the paperwork was verified he took them into the testing room. They each sat at a computer. They had to answer 40 multiple choice questions. They could get 6 wrong. If they answered the 6th one wrong the test would kick them out. They would have to wait three days and pay the $5 again. 

I'd told both girls that I was planning on them failing and coming back to take the test. It wasn't because I thought they wouldn't pass, but I wanted them to know that it was perfectly normal to not pass the test on the first try and that I wouldn't have a problem with coming back. 

Both girls had been studying a list of questions from the DMV website. Charlotte had even made a Blooket of the questions that the two of them used to study. 

But they were still both pretty nervous. 

I waited on some chairs in the big room. There was another mom there waiting for her daughter. 

Lydia was done first. I heard the DMV worker say something like, "Okay you can now take your skills test. Here is a list of testers you can call to scheduled that."  So I knew she had passed. 

She came and sat by me and we celebrated. 

Then I heard the DMV worker talking to the next person who was done with their test. They said, "The next time you can retake this test is Thursday."  I thought, "Oh no, Charlotte didn't pass."  I was all prepared to comfort her, but then the other teenage girl walked out from behind the partition. I was like, "Yay, Charlotte is still in it!"

That girl went and sat with her mom and talked about what went wrong on the test. Then Charlotte suddenly showed up and said she'd passed. I was so happy for her. But I hurried us out of the room so we didn't celebrate in front of that other girl who hadn't passed her test. 

I'd been fully prepared to come back for retakes, but I was so happy that we didn't have to.

When we got home I called one of the people on the list of people who could administer they Skills test. I left a message saying I had twins ready to take their skills test.   

On Tuesday I had an appointment at 11:30 to meet with my accountant about taxes. That meant I had to get all my documents together. I spent the morning doing some quick accounting for Twin Falls RV guy and my assortment of billing clients. Then I took everything to Dave's office. I always like him, but I'm also always nervous. Taxes are like getting graded as an adult.

Then I went to work and realized that I couldn't access the Blue Cross of Idaho remit information. That was a BIG problem since Blue Cross is our biggest payer. They could still pay us, but I had no idea which clients the payments were for. That would be something I'd try to get access to for the rest of the week. 

At home I worked on cleaning off the patio a little bit. The weather was a wonderful 50 degrees every day of the week. We were still planning to have my party in the garage, but I knew some people would want to be outside. 

At 5:30 I took Veronica to the Orpheum for her audition for Alice in Wonderland. I could hear her audition and she did amazing. She was so happy after that. She ended up not getting a big part, but that's okay, she's happy to be part of the show. 

Later that night Brandon went to the Orpheum for an Anastasia production meeting. He also talked to Jared and was officially put in charge of all the big set pieces that the Orpheum has. He's going to be basically the set librarian. He'll help people know what set pieces are available for different shows. They already have someone doing this for props and another someone doing it for costumes. But until now they haven't had anyone in charge of sets pieces.  So this is a big deal. 

On Wednesday I had an appointment to replace the windshield on the new van. It had a big crack across the top. The skills test requires you to use your own vehicle and one of the requirements was to have an unobstructed windshield free of big cracks. So I needed that replaced before the girls could take their skills test. 

I dropped the kids off at school and then went to Safelight and dropped off the van. Safelight is like a mile from our house so I just walked home after dropping it off. This is the same thing I'd done after buying the grey van. It had also needed a windshield replacement. But there were two things different this time. 

1. The windshield for the grey van had been over $500. That had been such a terrible price. I was happy when this one was *only* $300. At least something has gone down in price in the last 3 years. 

2. My feet had been in so much pain when I walked home after dropping off the grey van. I vividly remember how much my feet hurt while I walked. That was actually what made me realize that I needed to go get them checked out. I'd realized that I'd immediately taken care of the windshield on a van I bought for $1000. But I'd been neglecting my feet on my one and only precious body. I decided I needed to take care of myself as well as I took care of my vehicles. That was a big wake up call.  

This time I was able to walk home with no pain in my feet. 

When I got home I hurried to get ready for my bible study group. We are studying Amos this week. I'd prepped the lesson plan on Sunday night and had been looking forward to the study all week. Like so much. I even listened to a podcast about 1 Kings 12 so I could be prepared to talk about why Amos was speaking out about Bethel. I joked, "I think I need a hobby."

The lesson went so well. Like so well. Jori, Rachel, and my friend Debbie were there. We had some really great discussions about specific verses. Sometimes we all have to be done by 11:00 or sometimes 11:30. But this time we were still talking at 11:40. I was so happy with how much all my prep work paid off. 

Veronica had therapy at 1:00 and I needed to pick her up at 12:45. When I made the appointment for the van's windshield I hadn't been sure there would be enough time to go back and pick up the van in time for her appointment. So for a minute I'd considered rescheduling the appointment or asking someone to give me a ride to Safelight. And then I was like, "Oh duh, I have two vans!"  So I just drove the grey van to pick up Veronica from the school and take her to therapy. 

Her therapy appointment went well. She talked me into letting her stay home from school since it was already late in the school day. We went home and dropped off the grey van. She and I walked to Safelight and picked up the blue van. She felt like this was the longest walk ever. 

After we had the van we drove to Walmart so we could buy Valentines Day candies and things for the party that we always do for the other kids. That was fun. 

Then we picked up the twins from the high school. 

When Brandon came home from picking Derrick up he had a lot of errands to run. He asked if any of the kids wanted to go with him, but no one did. I was like, "I'll go. I want to hang out with you." It was kind of fun to pal around with him on a week day. 

First we went to the dump to drop off the last of the junk from the garage. We pulled into the bay next to a guy with a trailer on the truck. That guy was like, "Hey Brandon!" We realized it was our friend Cort. He asked, "What are you guys doing here."  Brandon didn't miss a beat. He replied, "Dropping off this car!"  It was so funny. 

Then we went home and put a bunch of old doors into the car. All the kids rooms have closets with big heavy sliding doors. We took them off years ago and never missed them. We thought about donating them to habitat for humanity. But Brandon asked Jared if he wanted them and Jared said yes. So we took them out to the Currry building. 

This was a fun place to visit. There are a lot of good memories in all the set pieces stored in that building. Here are the lockers from High School Musical. 

Lydia's Much Ado panels are all stacked up over here. 

These are the book cases from She Loves Me and the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. 

Here are the stairs from Cinderella

In the corner is one of the spools from Godspell. 

That's a library cart from Music Man. 

These are the desks from High School Musical. The kids had hauled these on and off for the classroom scenes. 

I'm so glad Brandon's in charge of all of this. 

That evening Derrick and Brandon went to the church for the teachers quorum activity. The girls were meeting at CSI for a yoga activity. I took them there. There was also game going on so parking was terrible. I ended up just dropping them off at the front of the building. My friend Amanda is in the presidency and she met them there and got them to the right spot. 

I went home and had a little meeting with two Relief Society Presidency members who came over to give me a present for my birthday. And then I went back and picked up the girls. 

  

Thursday was one of my big work days. It was a four client day. I did things for Castle Therapy, Gaining Perspective, Chattertown, and Aspen Grove. I was pretty pooped by the end. 

Thursday was a really big day for Derrick. It was the day his computer tower arrived. He'd diligently saved up $120 dollars for a tower. I'd told him if he saved $120 Brandon and I would help with the rest of the money for a computer tower. 

Well computers are pretty expensive.  He wanted the computer so he could play the game Jurassic World Evolution. And a computer that could run that kind of program was more money than I really wanted to spend. Even with Derrick's $120 added in.

We ended up going a different route with payment. We still had money on the empowering parents grant that helps pay for educational things. And computers are one of the things they will cover. So we ordered a computer through the grant. The stipulation is that this is the FAMILY'S computer. If one of the girls needs it to write a paper or to use photoshop or autocad they can use the computer too. 

Derrick's money that he saved would go toward paying for the Jurassic World Evolution Game. 

We ordered the computer on Sunday night and it said that it would arrive by Thursday. On Monday I got an email saying the funding had been approved by the grant, but I never got any sort of shipping email. So I wasn't so sure about Derrick getting his computer on Thursday. I'd been preparing him for the computer to take a while to ship. 

So we were both shocked when we drove up to the house after school and there was a computer box on the porch. I was like, "Derrick Derrick, LOOK."

What made it even better was Derrick's best friend Max had come home with us. So he was there to experience Derrick's joy. Both boys unpacked it and then took the computer tower downstairs and hooked it up to Derrick's monitor and key board. They turned it on and were fully prepared to get it all running. 

Except they only had me to help. Brandon was at CSI that night. And I got stuck pretty quick. The computer wanted to connect to our wifi and I was like, "Um I have no clue what our password is."

(Also I knew it was only going to get more complicated with microsoft passwords and the like so I was in no hurry to figure out the wifi password.)

So the boys had to leave the computer and do other things.  When Brandon finally did get home he helped Derrick with a few things and the computer started downloading updates and things. Derrick was so excited with even that little bit of progress. 

On Friday I was getting concerned that we hadn't heard back from anyone about skills tests. I'd called another person on the list and her voicemail had directed me to text her to schedule appointments. I'd done that, but hadn't heard anything back. 

I needed help from mom's who had done this before. So I texted my friends Amanda and Kaymie and asked them for advise. Amanda replied with the name of the tester she'd gone through and said he was a very responsive texter. So I texted him and within about an hour he'd texted me back and we had the twins skills tests scheduled for Saturday morning. Thank goodness for mom friends. 

I went to work, but I planned to stay for only 2 hours tops. I've worked for Aspen Grove for 6 years and every year I take my birthday off of work. This year my birthday is on a Saturday, but I still wanted a little birthday break. So I went to work long enough to take care of a few things and then I was out of there after an hour and 15 minutes. 

I went to DI and did another birthday tradition. I think I've done this every year for 6 years too, but I might have skipped it a bit during the covid years. I do a big clothes shopping trip. I load up a cart full of clothes to try on. Then I take the cart into the dressing room. (In blatant disregard for the posted signs) and try everything on. This year I kept about half of what I tried on. I got a lot of new shirts, a pair of jeans, two pairs of sweat pants, shorts to sleep in (long pants are too hot), and a pair of dress pants. It was a good trip. 

Then I went to Winco and did the weekly grocery shopping and bought a lot of things for my party the next day. 

I came home and put everything away and put my new clothes in the wash. I also did a little bit more to set up for my party. I moved the bikes from the garage out to the patio and put the patio table and chairs into the garage.  

I picked up the twins from school and then went to get Veronica so I could bring her bass home. But she didn't bring it home because the music room was locked. (The last period of the day had a substitute who hadn't realized she needed to leave the room open for kids to get their instruments.)

Back at home Brandon had picked up Costco pizza after getting Derrick from school. So we had pizza. Brandon and I didn't eat much because we planned to go out for dinner on a date later in the night. 

At 6:00 I took Charlotte and Lydia to Dairy Queen to meet up with the Young Women President and her first counselor. I'd met with Mary and Angela last week and told them that Charlotte and Lydia were feeling like they didn't quite belong in Young Women's. Mary and Angela offered to take them out for ice cream so they could get to know them better. 

I sent both ladies some conversation ideas. Most people just know that Charlotte and Lydia are good at art. They don't know much else beyond that. So I wanted the leaders to have other things to talk about. For Charlotte I suggested asking about her chickens, the goat she wants, or about any of her lego creations. For Lydia I suggested they ask for her opinions about stick vs wire welding (She prefers wire), or to hear the story of her and Brandon hitchhiking in Yellowstone. 

I kind of felt like I was dropping the girls off at nursery or daycare. I was like, "I'll wait about 5-10 minutes and then leave when they are comfortable."  Within moments the girls were laughing and chatting, but I still hung around for about 10 minutes and then left. 

I came home and picked up Brandon and we went to Idaho Joes for dinner. I'd been here last March with the Cinderella cast. My friend Sara had ordered a Slicked Pepper Jack Stake Sandwich. When I saw it I was like, "That is AMAZING. I need to come back here and get that."  And I was finally doing that. 

The sandwich is described as "Hand-cut sirloin steak charbroiled then sliced. Served on a warmed French roll with lots of melted pepper jack cheese, sautéed onions and tomato."  It was everything I wanted it to be. Later I joked that if I needed a happy thought like in Petter Pan that sandwich would be my happy thought. 

But really the whole evening would make a pretty good happy thought. Brandon and I are both voting members of the Curtain Call Committee. So while we were at the restaurant we went through the lists of nominations and talked about the shows and who we would be voting for. There were 9 shows in the adult theatre groups. We saw/were in 8 of them. (We'd also seen 5 of the teenage/youth shows, but those weren't part of the voting.) It was quite the season. It was really fun to look back over the 2025 season and talk about all the amazing shows.  

When we came home Charlotte and Lydia were there. They'd had a great time with their leaders. Mary texted me and told me, "Valerie, that was the best thing I've done with week. Thank you for opening the door to us getting to know Charlotte and Lydia. I loved everything about that."  She also said, "I whole new world just unlocked in my mind." Angela added. "Me too! They are amazing!"

I was so glad that everything went well with that get together. Hopefully this will help the girls feel more connected in young womens. 

Brandon started cooking my birthday cakes and I helped make some raspberry sauce to flavor the frosting. I also got a few things ready in the garage. 

Saturday was my birthday! We slept in for a little bit and then got to work. Lydia gave me a present right away. It was a hat that she had embroidered flowers on. I loved it and told her I would wear it all day. She said, "That's why I gave it to you in the morning."

Brandon made frosting and frosted two cakes. I'm not sure what I was up to. Mostly I was nervous for the twins test. They were a little nervous too. The test wasn't scheduled until 10:30, but we left around 10:10. 

We drove to D&B and waited for the tester named Robert to arrive. He'd said he would be in a white ford truck with Oregon plates. So we were scrutinizing every white truck the drove by. Finally he arrived and we walked over to his truck. 

The girls gave him their permits and I gave him the registration and insurance information. I venmoed him $57.00 ($28.50 each). Then he told Lydia to go get into the van and start it. 

Charlotte and I went into D&B and bought chicken food. Then we wandered around and looked at things. After about 20 minutes we went outside and Lydia pulled up soon after. She had a smile on her face. Robert said, "Congratulations you passed."  I breathed a sigh of relief. 

I put the chicken feed in the back of the van and told Charlotte, "Here's your lucky Chicken Feed."  Lydia got out of the car and Charlotte got in. Lydia and I went back into D&B to window shop while we waited for Charlotte. 

Lydia told me the test had been super easy. We'd pictured scary things like 3 point turns and driving on the interstate, but really it was just driving around the roads near D&B. 

After another 20 minutes we went outside and soon Charlotte arrived. I couldn't read her expression so I was happy when Robert said she passed too.  

He gave us sealed enveloped with their results. And that was that. 

They are officially ready for their licenses. I'll take them to County West on Monday and we'll get them issues. I feel so much relief at all of this. It's finally done. We've been working on this since last May and now we are done. 

I dropped the girls off and then went to run some errands. I picked up a prescription at Smiths. I went to my friend Annette's house and picked up some puzzles she was giving away. And then I went to the library and dropped off a book and picked up some books and DVDs.

When I came home I did some creative parking. I wanted the car port to be open so that people could walk through it to our garage. I figured I could fit all four of our vehicles on the side driveway. So I moved the garbage and recycling cans that were between the Jeep and the grey van. Then I pulled the grey van up so it was almost touching the jeep. Then I moved the Pilot right behind the grey van. And that left me with enough room to fit the blue van behind the Pilot. 

There was even room behind the blue van. If the jeep had been closer to the garage I probably could have fit a fifth vehicle behind the blue van. Sometimes I forget just how big our property around this house is, and then I do things like this. 

By this point it was about 12:00 and my party started at 2:00. For the next two hours I just kind of ran around and did random things. I was going to make a veggie tray, but Brandon took care of that. Instead I was arranging the food on the food table in the garage. Setting up the fancy drink stand. Setting things on my give away table. Yes I had a give away table. Brandon had a few things from the garage, the kids had a few toys that they were ready to part with, and I had several books. Rather than take it all to DI we just set up a table in our carport so people could take things as they left. It worked really well and most of the things were taken. 

At about 1:45 everything was ready. I opened up one of the puzzles that I'd picked up from Annette. I wanted to have a puzzle going because that had been so fun at Kami's puzzle party in November. It was a really nice introvert activity. We could do the puzzle without having to make eye contact. So I had a whole table just for the puzzle. Brandon and I started flipping over pieces as we waited for 2:00

Right at 2:00 our friend Avery showed up. She was followed by Amy Toft. And then Kerri and Payton. And then Shellian. I felt like I was able to make conversation with all of them. But then more and more people arrived. 

Sara, Rachel and her daughter Lydia, other Rachel, Jori and Tim and their four girls, Ivan and Trish.

Around this point I remembered I hadn't taken any pictures. Here's the food table. The 7 layer dip was halfway gone. Thankfully we had a second one waiting.  

We'd cut the cakes so people could have them. Look how cute Brandon decorated the simple cakes. 

Peyton didn't want Ivan to steal her chips so she built a barricade in the toy area. 

Here's a view of the tables. 

And here I am. I had the had Lydia made me and a new Baconsale Hoodie. 

The funniest moment of the afternoon was when Avery was complaining that her boyfriend Mathieu is a better singer than her. Ivan was teasing her and saying, "I have no idea what that's like. I don't have a boyfriend that sings better than me."  Ivan's wife teased him and said, "What about Tyler? He sings better than you."  Tyler is Ivan's best friend. They starred in White Christmas together. It was so funny to have Trish insinuate that Tyler was Ivan's boyfriend. Everyone laughed so hard. 

Some people left but more arrived. My friend Marianne arrived with her daughter Lainey. She said they were only staying for a bit. They ended up staying for at least an hour and a half. Cameron and Laura and their daughter Lily came. Laura is the somewhat self appointed creative director for all the plays done by Magic Valley Rep. She will help all the creative teams get connected to the right resources for their shows. So she was talking to a lot of the theatre people about that. It felt like there was basically a production meeting happening. 

Chris and Karin came. They had thought they were going out of town and would have to miss my party. But they decided to leave later so that they could come to the party. I was so happy to see them. They've become some really special people to me over the last year. 

They sat down at the puzzle table and took over where Jori and Tim had left off. Charlotte joined them. It was fun to watch the three of them work together. 

My neighbor Jennifer came over with her daughter Diantha. 

My friend Renea came and I gave her a tour of the year since we both love low water gardening. While we were in the front yard Carol and Kelly arrived. 

When I was back in the garage Susie came. And then Hanah and then Megan and Joe. 

I think that's everyone who came, but I might have forgot someone. Wow it was so much fun to see so many amazing people 

The puzzle was finished around 5:30. Chris jokingly put the last piece into Brandon's pocket so Brandon had the honor of putting in the last piece. 

I'd thought Cameron, Laura, and Sara had left an hour earlier so I was shocked to walk outside and find them all still talking on the patio. That was funny. And honestly an honor. I loved that they felt so comfortable hanging around. They didn't leave until about 6:30.

I started moving a few things into the house. I'd told people not to worry about gifts, but some people still brought them anyway. I was shocked that four different people brought me flowers. Kerri and Peyton brought the blue orchid. Sara brought the small vase of flowers. Karin brought me a whole bouquet of yellow roses. And someone else brought me the Gerber daisies but I'm embarrassed to say I don't remember who.  Maybe it was Amy Toft? I can't remember. I was feeling like the star of a play with those flowers. 

I also had a bunch of cards. Renea included seeds in hers. Jori also gave me a mug with earings in it and Ivan made me some sort of wooden creature. And Amy Toft gave me a face mask. Shellian gave me a gift card. I was overwhelmed by their generosity.  

Brandon and I had been invited to a Super Bowl party on Sunday. We'd planned to bring any leftovers, but we didn't have any. So we went to the store and bought chips and salsa to bring with us. 

Then we came home and I laid on my bed. It was only about 8:00 by this point, but I was exhausted. So I put on my pajamas and got into bed to read. I was asleep by 8:30. 

It had been such a great day. 

On Sunday we slept in. Gradually we got up and everyone took showers. Around 12:00 Brandon took Charlotte to the church and she was called as second counselor in the older young women's class. (We just have two classes - an older class and a younger class. 

At church they read the name of the presidency in Sacrament meeting and then she and the other presidency members were set apart in class. Brandon and I went to that. 

After church Brandon and I went out to Danica and Hunter's house in Filer for a Super bowl party. A lot of the people from my party were there as well as a few others. Everyone was connected to the theatre in some way. No one was really interested in the game. We just ate food and talked. It was great. 

Danica was really only hosting so that Kerri didn't have to. She was joking, "Super bowl what? How much salad can it hold?"

Avery had a bunch of silly flavored sodas. Like dirt flavor or birthday cake flavor. She poured out a little bit for about 12 brave people to try. Brandon was one of them. It was fun to watch people's reactions. 

After that was over we left so we could spend the rest of the evening with the kids. And that gets us caught up. 

This next week the big focus is the Anastasia set. The show opens in a month so it's time for Brandon to buckle down and get the set ready. 

Thanks for reading. 

Put your head down and get through the week

This week was such a survival week. Nothing extremely special happened this week. I spent a lot of time working. And a lot of my free time was spent doing really boring stuff with the new van. Case in point, I took more pictures of the new van's title than I did of anything we did this week. 

But there were little important and fun things that happened so we are still going to do a recap. 

On Monday my friend Andrea came to watch me at work at Aspen Grove. I'm helping her learn how to do the billing at her husband's speech therapy practice. She was starting to seem really overwhelmed so I invited her to see what it looks like when everything is going smoothly. 

So she came to my office and spent about 90 minutes watching me and asking questions. It was really informative.  

At 11:00 I logged out of work, but stayed in my office and attending the IPUL board meeting over zoom. It was a good meeting. Kind of boring at points, but overall really good. 

Then at 1:00 I logged back into work and tried to get everything done in the last hour before I had to leave to get the twins. I was mostly caught up. 

Lydia needed special plyers for her welding class. Brandon was going to take her to Norco for them, but he was busy at the verizon store trying to figure out some phone stuff. So Lydia and I just went together. She drove. At Norco she found the plyers we needed and the employee who was helping us said, "You can either get these, or these that are half the price and are pretty much the same." He also gave us a student discount. I told Lydia, "That's why small businesses are the best in these situations."

At home I had one job planned for the new Honda for each day. The job for Monday was to get the Bill of Sale and the Title figured out. Since we'd bought the car from my brother we'd kind of skipped those steps on Saturday. 

On Tuesday I spent about and hour and a half finishing cleaning out the files in Ivan's office. It took a long time because I was trying to keep everything organized. He told me, "I was just expecting you to just dump all this into this box."  I told him, "Well, I was tempted to do that. But then I figured that was making more work for someone down the road if we ever needed to go through these things."  So I took a lot of time to group the files by insurance company and by 6 month period.  

When I was done at Ivan's I went home and picked up the blue van. I took it to the Sherriff's office for a vin check. This is something that Brandon and I learned about with the silver van. In Pocatello the DMV would do the VIN check for us at their office, but in Twin Falls, the DMV employees don't do that. We'd shown up at the Twin Falls DMV with the silver van and they were like, "Did you get a Vin check?" And I'd been like "don't you do that?"  And then they told us to go to the Sherriff's office downtown.  So this time around I knew that I needed to get that done before went to the DMV.  

It was really quick and I went back home to switch vans. Then I went to work at Aspen Grove. We had a really productive admin meeting which was good. But the downside was that was another hour that I didn't actually get work done. I was feeling very behind by the time I was back at my desk. And even with two more hours of work I felt very behind. 

I picked up the twins and took them home. Then I drove over to County West and met up with Brandon who had just picked up Derrick from school a few blocks away from County West. Derrick had been talking about just taking the license plates off the old van and putting them on the new van so I figured it would be a good learning experience to have him come along to see how to really register a vehicle. 

I had the title and the vin check paperwork all ready. The lady was super helpful, but as she was looking up things with the title she informed us that there was a newer title than the one we had. We had one from 2019. There was another one from 2023 that we needed. I was like, "I'm so glad I bought this from my brother so I can get ahold of him easily about this."  

In the meantime we were able to get a 1 year "held at county title." So we were still able to register the van. And now we have a year to get the title figured out. Which shouldn't be hard since Billy has already ordered a replacement. 

For dinner on Tuesday we went to some sort of fundraising dinner at Kimberly High School. My boss had 5 tickets that he got because his son was part of the national honors society. My bosses family couldn't make it so he offered the tickets to anyone who wanted them. I LOVED the idea of not cooking dinner so I asked for the tickets. 

The dinner had spare ribs, baked potatoes, green beans, and a cinnamon roll. I wasn't worried about only having 5 tickets because I knew that not all 4 of my kids liked each of those things. Basically the kids just ate their cinnamon rolls. Some of them had baked potatoes. Brandon went home with a whole bunch of ribs. 

 We'd driven in two different cars because Brandon had a meeting at the church at 6:00. So he went there after we left the high school. He was called to be a Teachers Quorum Advisor. 

I went home and then left a little while later. I had Bunco at my friend Shaylee's house. I went and sat on her couch and was like, "I think this is the first time I've truly sat down all day."

I was so happy that Shaylee was hosting. No one had signed up for January. A few weeks earlier I'd texted everyone in the bunco group chat and been like, "Hey is anyone hosting this month. I'm dying from work and need something fun to look forward to."  Shaylee offered to host. 

I had a terrible loosing streak. I lost something like 10 times in a row. But the people sitting to the right and left of me were having AMAZING luck. It's like my luck was deflecting onto them. Like they were rolling bunco's right out the gate or having really lucky streaks. Later I got some luck back and did have some wins. I ended the night with 14 loses and 10 wins. 

Wednesday was the snowyest day we've had all winter - which isn't really saying anything, but we did get about 2 inches. 

After I dropped all the kids off I went out to Filer to continue learning the bookkeeping for Jump Company. It's making a little more sense - but I still feel like and idiot in front of Chris Ayers. 

Then I drove back to Twin Falls on very snowy roads. I was still driving the old van and it's old tires were not doing well in the snow. 

When I got back home I started the car related task of the day. I called our insurance and added the van to our insurance. 

That was going to be it for the day, but the snowy roads made me not want to drive the old van around when it was time to pick up the kids. So I decided to do Thursday's task. So I drove the Blue Van over to Jiffy Lube for an oil change. Thanks to the snow there was no one else there so the techs got right to work and I was in and out of there in about 15 minutes. 

Normally I have them put High Milage Synthetic Oil into my Hondas. But this van is still under 200,000 so it didn't need High Milage Synthetic. I was like, "WHAT?"

I went back home and unceremoniously moved the old van into an uncovered part of our driveway and then parked the new van in the place of honor under the carport. The Blue van had just become my main van. 

When I picked up Charlotte and Lydia from school they were very excited to see the Blue Van.  Brandon had a doctors appointment after work so I picked up Derrick since Brandon couldn't do it. He was also excited about the Blue Van. 

That night none of my girls wanted to go to Young Womens. Derrick did want to go to Young Mens so Brandon took him. I stayed home and read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to Veronica. We read for two hours and finished the book. 

On Thursday I was still feeling behind from all the not work I'd done earlier in the week so I started out my day at Aspen Grove. I took a little break at 11:00 to go to Chattertown and help with their billing and then I was back at Aspen Grove. 

I finally felt on top of things again. 

That night Veronica was able to attend the dress rehearsal for the third and final cast for High School Musical. She had another wonderful night. I went to the church after I dropped Veronica off. I was meeting with the Young Women President and one of her counselors. I've recently discovered the power of a face to face meeting and I wanted to bring up the fact that my girls weren't feeling like they belonged at Young Womens. We had a really good meeting. Basically the leaders had been unsure of how to approach Charlotte and Lydia and so they were erroring on the side of not reaching out. And My girls were feeling like no one cared because they weren't reaching out. And so I was there to say, "hey everyone wants to be friends. How do we make that happen?"  

The plan is for the two leaders to take Charlotte and Lydia out for ice cream. That way they can get to know each other on neutral territory. It's a good plan.  

I went home for a minute and then had to pick up Veronica. Charlotte came with and drove there. When we came back home she had just earned her final 15 minutes of the required 50 hours of driving practice. That was a big deal. 

Veronica had another amazing night watching the cast. She loved it again. 

On Friday I went to work - again. I made myself stay for 4 hours so I don't start next week behind after a whole week of trying to catch up. 

I would have gone grocery shopping, but I knew we needed a bunch of things and so I wanted to go on Saturday when I could bring a kid along to help. 

I went home and worked on making invoices for all my billing clients. I still need to name my business, but it felt good to make invoices and send them out.  

That night Brandon and I went on a date to see the Buhl Drama kids put on Seussical. I was going because my friend Jennifer teaches at the Buhl middle school or maybe high school or maybe both and this was her drama department's musical. 

Jennifer had been in the Complete Works of William Shakespeare and we became friends through that. She's had a lot of health challenges lately so I wanted to go support her. 

Brandon was going because he's on the creative team for Seussical at the Orpheum this fall. He's in charge of the set. The whole creative team was going so they could take notes. 

So we drove out there and met up with a bunch of Orpheum friends. Mathieu is the director, Nate is the Assistant Director, Cameron is the Music Director, and Laura is costumes. Chris and Karin were also there because they'd done Seussical when they were in Germany and wanted to see these kids do it. 

The play is really cute. It's based on Dr Seuss books. The Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2 are in it, but most of the plot is Horton Hears a Who - with a little bit of Horton Hatches and Egg thrown in. 

The kids did great and there were some really solid kids in roles. But it was also very much a middle school production. But overall very worth the time. 

After it was over I thought we'd go home, but then the creative team wanted to go out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Buhl. I was like, "Oh right, what is theatre without going out to eat."  So we went out to dinner with everyone. Brandon and I split an amazing plate of beef nachos.

It was fun to talk about all the things we liked about the play and how people imagine interpreting it at the Orpheum. I love hanging out with such creative people. 

On Saturday I woke up and started thinking about all the things I needed to do that morning like getting up and getting the kids to school. And then I realized it was Saturday. I've never been happier for Saturday. 

Brandon and I slept in and then we got up and started going about our days. Veronica and I went grocery shopping. The store had recently - like within the last 7 days - been reorganized. So it was quite the adventure to find everything. But it was also a fun bonding experience with the other shoppers. One guy was like, "I'm not crazy right? This is different than it used to be?"  And I joked with another lady, "At least we have a good excuse if we forget something this time."

Back at home Brandon worked on making new shelves for the garage. He'd already bought the wood earlier in the week. Here's the new bank of shelves to go with the two that he built several years ago. 

I vacuumed out the vans. I started with Billy's van and I was a little snobby about it. I was like, "Oh look at these cracker crumbs under the seats - you can totally tell they had little kids in this car."

And then I moved to my old van and I was like, "Oh wait, this is disgusting. I had nothing to complain about with Billy's van."  My van had like sand and dirt all over the carpet.  I'm not sure the last time I vacuumed it out well. 

Then I moved all my stuff from the old van to the new van. Things like the totes with the travel pillows and blankets. A garbage pail, a basket with water bottles, and my sunglasses. One very important thing was this friendship bracelet that my friend Erin made me like 15 years ago. I've had it hanging from the rear view mirror in every vehicle. The Jeep, the Pilot, the old van, and now this van. 

I took out the 8th seat from the new van so that the back seats are more accessible. Then I put the other 8th seat back in the old van. I folded down the 3rd row in the old van. That way it's more like a 5 seater with a big trunk. It's all ready to be Charlotte and Lydia's vehicle. 

Back in the house I helped Charlotte and Lydia go through the toys downstairs. We threw a way a few things and put others in a pile to give away. Here's what has survived. These are things the kids are okay with kids who visit us can play with. There are other toys that are more special that are stored other places. 

Brandon has a TV set up in the garage. He and Charlotte and Lydia have been watching Season 3 of Stranger Things out there. They watched that while Veronica, Derrick and I watched the 2002 Spiderman inside. 

And that gets us to Sunday. We were able to sleep in again today. Then we had a relaxing moment. 

Brandon took Lydia around town to get the last hour or so of driving time that she needed. 

Derrick remembered the church movie "On the Way Home" and so we watched that. It was kind of like playing 20 questions to figure out what he was talking about at first. He was telling me about a movie with the mom and dad fighting and a little girl who catches a fish. And a basket ball. I'm still surprised I figured out that he was talking about "On the Way Home." It's been at least 4 years since we watched that. 

Around 11:30 Veronica came downstairs and was like, "Um are we going to church?' I had to remind her that we didn't even need to leave for church until after 1:00. She was like oh right. 

Church was good. I actually went to Sunday school and actually made a comment. But I also spent a lot of time prepping things for my study of Amos. 

And that gets us caught up. This week revolved around getting the van registered and ready to drive. Next week revolves around the Twin's driver's licenses. They are going to take their written tests tomorrow after school. And if they pass those we'll schedule their driving skills tests. 

I'll update you all about it next week. 

Thanks for reading.