Homecoming and Conference

I'm trying to remember anything of note that happened between Veronica's birthday on Monday September 24th and Saturday the 29th.  But nothing is coming to mind.  It was a pretty run of the mill week.  My calendar says that we had dance and ukulele on Tuesday and behavioral therapy on Wednesday and Thursday.  

There was something notable about Friday.  It was my last day of work for 5 weeks.  My job description is literally "Temporary Deputy Treasurer" and every 5 months that temporary part kicks in.  I get laid off for a month, and then I'm brought back for another 5 months. There are some draw backs to this schedule, but overall I LOVE it.  I like having a month off to take care of things that I don't have time to do when I'm working. Case in point, I've promised to make the girls their baptism dresses.  This is something I definitely wouldn't do if I was working. 

Anyway, we'll talk more about my time off throughout this post.  

Right now we should talk about September 29th.  This was Homecoming for Idaho State University.  Our wonderful adopted Alma Mater. 

The aviation maintenance department had a float in the parade again.  At first we didn't hear anything about riding on the float this year, but a few days before the parade the club told Brandon they were planning on all of us riding on the float.  Brandon drove the Honda up to the end of the parade route and then rode his bike down to the beginning of the route.  The kids and I walked the 5 or so blocks from our house over to the start of the route.

We passed this fun little pop up park on Main Street. 

And we went though the tunnel under the train tracks.

These are the things that I find so cool about Pocatello.  There wasn't anything like this near my home while I was growing up.

We made it to first street and walked past floats as we tried to find the one for Aviation Maintenance. We passed the truck that was all decked out for my boss Jennifer and her campaign for County Treasurer. I could have walked with this group.  But I was pretty certain my leg wouldn't do too well on the long, uphill parade route.   Technically I shouldn't have even walked over to the start of the parade since I wasn't wearing my brace, but my brace had been driving me crazy for a few days and I didn't feel like wearing it in the parade.  It kept slipping and I didn't see a point in wearing it while I walked over to the parade.   

Jokes on me.  I happened to walk right past the float for my Physical Therapy office on the way to Brandon's float. The receptionist was like, "Oh Hi, How are you?"  And I was like, "don't tell anyone I'm not wearing my brace."

Brandon's float was pretty awesome.  Last year they'd had two engines on the trailer.  This year they put a helicopter up there.  They'd even painted it in ISU's orange and black for the parade.

Here we are posing with the helicopter.

The kids kept saying, "This is the closest we've ever been to a Helicopter."  And I had to keep reminding them that we used to live on Fort Rucker which was the home of Army Aviation.  There were statues and real helicopters everywhere.  Also the kids have seen the particular helicopter at the hanger all the time.  But I guess it's hard to remember all that when you are standing next to a helicopter.

I wanted to check out all the other entries so I went on a little walk to look at everything.  There were so many entries.  There were two long lines streatching all the way to Terry Street.

We weren't even halfway back.

The parade started a little after 9:30.  It was so much fun to turn the corner and see crowds of people lining the street.  We had fun waving to everyone.  This year we knew a lot of people in the crowd.  In particular, we saw Charlotte's Dance teacher, Lydia's Ukulele teacher, Derrick's kindergarten and first grade teachers, and one of the day care teachers.  We also saw lots of the kids friends from school and many friends from church. 

Most importantly, we saw my parents.  Who, even through they have admitted to hating parades, came out to see us.  

After we were done with the parade Brandon walked back the parade route with the girls.  Derrick had a bit of a bathroom emergency so he and I went back to the car (which was blessedly parked near the end of the route.)  I always keep an extra change of clothes for each of the kids in the car so Derrick was good as new within a short amount of time.  

He wasn't interested in the parade anymore and needed to be near a bathroom anyway so he and I spent a lot of time wandering around the physical fitness building.  This is where Derrick and the twins took swimming lessons all summer long.  Derrick showed me the pool. 

Then we discovered the bleachers above the basket ball court.

And then we found the bleachers above the pool. 

We went back to the car and soon Brandon and the girls came up to us with all their candy and other prizes. We went home and the kids spread out their haul on the floor and basically ate candy the rest of the day.

We'd tentatively planned to go on a belated trip to the Idaho Falls zoo after the parade, but once again we were just too tired.  Plus half the kids weren't feeling too well.  Oh I just remembered something that had happened during the week.  Charlotte and Lydia were sick on Wednesday.  They'd woken up and each had thrown up so they'd stayed home from school.  Normally this would have been a HUGE problem, but now that my parents live here I didn't have to stress over who would watch the kids while I was at work.  Charlotte and Lydia spent the day at my parents.  And by Thursday they were feeling much better and could go back to school. 

Brandon had the same bug the girls did, only he didn't get to stay home and rest.  He had to go to school and had to talk himself out of throwing up several times.  Poor guy.  He didn't feel well for days.  I never had it bad, but I did get a little sick.  And Derrick caught it by Saturday. 

So yeah, we didn't feel well enough for the zoo on Saturday.  Instead we stayed home and ate insane amounts of candy which did nothing to help our gastrointestinal problems.

By Sunday Veronica had the bug and I wasn't sure who was better and who was sick.  I didn't want to play a vomit/diarrhea version of Russian Roulette at church so they kids and I stayed home while Brandon went to church.  In the afternoon I went to Sacrament meeting with my parents.

At some point Veronica and I drew this picture of our family reunion in Lava Hot Springs. She drew all the people.   

On Monday all the kids were better which was good because I really wanted them to all go to school.  This was my first day off and I had a lot to do.  One of the things I made sure to take care of during my months off is doctor's appointments.  I had my physical therapy appointment and then I picked up Veronica from preschool and we went to the doctor for her 5 year old check up.

She was hoping around in the waiting room and jumped up on a little toy they have there.  She slipped off it and started crying.  She'd re-hurt the ankle she'd hurt at the birthday party at Geronimo's.  I kind of laughed and said, "well at least we are already at the doctor's."

When the nurse called us back, Veronica limped back to the examining room and we made sure to tell the nurse what happened.  When the doctor came in she looked at the swollen ankle and told us it was a minor sprain.  She said to just keep it stable with an ace bandage and if it didn't get better we could come back for an x-ray. 

Poor Veronica was so sad. She'd looked forward to this visit, but this had ruined the fun. She was quiet and shy during the whole thing.  I felt bad for her. So when we were done we went to Burger King and bought two cheese burgers.  We went through the drive through which I'm not sure I've ever done with Veronica.  I think she was super intrigued by the whole thing.  We parked and she came up into the front seat to eat her cheese burger.  That simple thing changed the whole day around for her and she was much happier again.

On Tuesday Veronica was home with me because she doesn't have day care that day.  Since I have so many other days to take care of things we didn't have to run any errands at all.  It was really nice to just hang out together at home.  We made sure all the laundry in the house got washed.

When the older kids came home from school I had the help me put away their laundry.  They complain a lot about this but honestly they are really good at helping with the laundry.  We pile all the clean laundry on the dryer and a table next to the dryer.  The kids help me go through the pile and find their clothes.  Everyone has a laundry basket that they put their clothes into.  (Even me.)  Then we take the laundry baskets into their rooms and they put the clothes away in their dressers.  For years we've kept underwear the the top drawers, shirts in the next, pants in the next, and pajamas in the bottom. The kids know to put their clothes into the correct drawers.  I help Derrick and Veronica sort out their clothes, but they are pretty good at putting them away.  Charlotte and Lydia can do everything on their own (when they aren't whining about it.)  We don't fold in this house so the drawer can look a little messy, but the laundry is put away and that's what matters.

After the laundry was put away the kids they said they wanted to go to the park.  So we walked over there.  It feels like forever since I was able to walk and so it's nice that I can say yes to simple things like walks to the park again.  I totally took my mobility for granted before I got hit by a car. 

Derrick brought his dog Shelby along. 

Charlotte brought her Yellowstone Wolf, Jack (or sometimes Sarah)

Lydia brought her bird.

And Veronica brought her bunny frosting.

After the park we came home and dropped off Lydia with Brandon who was home from school by this point.  I took Derrick and Veronica along to Charlotte's Dance lesson.  We dropped her off and then went to Fred Meyer to pick up the family pictures I'd finally had printed.  We'd done this the week before and bought a pumpkin for Derrick.  (We'd grown three that the girls had all claimed so we had to buy one for Derrick.)  We got back to the rec center just as Charlotte's class was ending.  It worked out pretty well.

I made dinner when we got back to the house and it was ready by the time Brandon and Lydia got back from ukulele.  Lydia is learning a lot.  When she played me her song I was impressed by how comfortable she is getting with the chords.

On Wednesday I went to buy fabric for the girls baptism dresses.  I invited my mom along.  But we were sad to discover that the pattern was sold out.  So we just looked at fabric and got ideas.  I ordered the patter online later. Hopefully it comes in time for me to still have a lot of time to make the dresses.

Derrick was supposed to have therapy, but it got canceled at the last minute. Brandon had stopped by a bike store on his way home from work and bought bolts to attached Veronica's bike training wheels.  Veronica had asked for a Rainbow Bike for her birthday. We'd found the bike at DI for $10 and Brandon had tuned it up.  He'd actually taken it all apart and painted a rainbow on it.  Then he put it back together and it just needed the training wheels attached.  Veronica was so excited!

After a quick dinner we went on a bike ride.  Well I walked because I was pretty sure Veronica still needed some ground support. I was right.  She knows how to pedal, but she's still really new to concepts like going down hill and braking.  So the older kids rode ahead (way ahead) with Brandon and Veronica and I worked on technique. 

She kept saying, "we have four bikes now!"  And "I have a BIKE!"  She was so excited to be like one of the big kids.

The kids were off school for Parent Teacher Conference on Thursday.  The daycare had a movie scheduled for the afternoon so I planned to drop them all off for that, but I kept them home in the morning.  I'd been going through the kids toys on Wednesday and I'd set aside two baby dolls that I was sure the kids were done with but I wanted to check first.  Derrick and Veronica latched onto the dolls.  Derrick was especially interested in the baby.  He wanted it to have a bed with a pillow and a blanket.  He also wanted it to have clothes.  I didn't think the baby facination would last long so I just dressed the babies in dish cloths.  Derrick told me his baby was named Vance and Veronica named her's Walter.  Those are their cousins names.  I felt bad that these boy dolls were dressed in basically pink dresses. 

Derrick wanted to take Baby Vance to the library in the wagon.  So that's what we did.  At the library Derrick forgot all about Vance when it was time to play on the I-pads.  But he remembered him again when we left.  (Oh and yes, that's Lydia dressed like a bat. We were rocking this no-school thing hard that morning.)

Derrick really wanted to bring Baby Vance to the day care, but I didn't see that playing out well at all so Vance stayed home and "took a nap."

I dropped all the kids off at the daycare a little before 1:00.  They all watched the movie Halloween Town. Meanwhile I stopped off at work to talk to Jen about some social media stuff, and then went home to take a nap.  (One of my goals for this month off is to take a nap every day.)

When I woke up I went back to the day care and picked up Charlotte and Lydia for their parent teacher conference.  I had planned to just leave them there, but their teachers had mentioned that they should come.  I really didn't want to bring Derrick, but at first I couldn't figure out how to pick up Charlotte and Lydia without him noticing.  Then I remembered it was one of his therapy days.  So I just asked his therapist to take Derrick on a walk around 3:00.  I was able to get in and out of there without being spotted by Derrick or Veronica.  These are the things they don't cover in parenting classes.

I'd scheduled the conferences after Brandon was done with class for the day.  He's never come to parent teacher conference before because at Fort Rucker it was never during a time he could make it and last year I just never thought he'd want to come.  But he's been coming to Derrick's IEP meetings and he said he'd like to come to PTC so I scheduled it at a time good for him.

Charlotte and Lydia's teachers had glowing reports.  Lydia is liking science this year. She is continuing to do well in reading and math.  Charlotte is a completely different learner than last year.  Last year she didn't seem to care that much about school.  This year she is very focused.  She even won the Learner of the Week award for second grade last week. She won it because she did such a good job at self starting on a story about visiting a pumpkin patch.  She actually came home and continued the story and is now on page 7.  Looks like Lydia and I aren't the only writers in the family.

I went into Derrick's PTC meeting with a little bit a trepidation.  His teacher and I have already spoken on the phone twice this year and we e-mail at least every other day.  But a lot of the communication isn't about good things. I was worried we'd hear a lot of horror stories about what a hard student Derrick is.  Instead we learned several good things.  For example, Derrick can do math.  He did this paper with his special ed teacher keeping him on track.  She did the first problem and Derrick did the rest.  I could have cried. 

Derrick's teacher says, "I feel like I'm unlocking a puzzle box, but I have no idea what the combination is. But it is unlocking." 

I was really happy with the meeting.  We came away with some good ideas of how we can support the teacher and help Derrick. 

Also it appears we own one brown cat and one black cat. I think something got lost in translation here.

Brandon took Charlotte in the Jeep and I took Lydia in the Honda.  We drove back home.  Lydia told me about a boy she likes and made me promise not to tell Charlotte.  "She'll make fun of me."  Lydia said.

Brandon and Charlotte dropped off the Jeep at home and joined us in the Honda.  We went to the day care and picked up Derrick and Veronica.  Then we went to the Doctors office where I'd scheduled all the kids to get their flu shots.  This was another first for Brandon.  Usually I just take the kids two at a time, but I just wanted to get it all over with this year.  So Brandon took two kids and I took two.  The nurse did Derrick and Charlotte first and we could hear Charlotte crying.  Then the nurse came in our room. Lydia went first.  I held her to keep her calm.  But she cried anyway.  Veronica wanted to see what was going on and so she WATCHED the needle go into Lydia's arm and then CRIED because she knew she was next.  It was pretty traumatic for everyone.  But I kept telling the kids that I'd rather them get shots than get the flu.  Last year I was the only one that didn't get the flu shot and I got the flu in January and it was the WORST. 

After that we went to Burger King for dinner and ice cream as a way of saying Thanks for good reports at Parent Teacher Conference and sorry about the flu shots.

We got home kind of late which was fine because Friday was another day off of school for the kids.  The kids got to sleep in a little bit, but not long because we had to be at the day care by 8:30.  The school age kids were going on a field trip to Swore Farms for a pumpkin patch and corn maze.  Plus I had Physical Therapy at 9:00.

So I hurried and dropped the kids off at the day care, then hurried to physical therapy.  When that was over at 10:10 I rushed up to Swore Farms in Chubbuck to pick up Derrick for his appointment with an Audiologist.  We stopped at a McDonalds drive through to grab an Egg McMuffin so Derrick wouldn't be hangry during his screening. We made it to the audiology clinic at ISU just in time for the 11:00 appointment.  That lasted until 12:00 and then we picked up the other three kids from Day Care. 

It had been a CRAZY morning, but we had the rest of the afternoon to do what we wanted.  And what we wanted to was finally go to the Idaho Falls Zoo.

Brandon gets out of class at noon on Friday's and since we were all free I decided this was the best opportunity to go to the zoo.  Brandon met up with us at home, packed us a snacky-dinner.  And we were off.  This was the first time we've left Pocatello since we went to Bear Lake on August 21st.  I think that's some sort of record for us.

The older kids went the Idaho Falls Zoo with Adventure Camp in June.  But Veronica, Brandon, and I had never been here.  Charlotte, Lydia, and Derrick had fun showing us around.   Here are the lemurs.

And the otters.

And penguins.

And ducks.  (Derrick had told me about these, and made them sound like the most exotic animal in the zoo.  He's say "we see DUCKS!!!!!!!!")

And pelicans.

Derrick was really excited to look at things on the map and then go find them.

He loved the pig of course.  He keeps asking for a pig.

The kids all liked the goat area.  Derrick showed all the goats the spot on his leg where, "I got hurt at doctors."

Derrick also liked brushing the goats.  (I don't know why I seemed to take so many pictures of Derrick compared to the other kids.  I think I was just excited to see him interacting and not freaking out.)

Lydia's zebra coat matched this exhibit well.

Brandon in a field research tent.

Monkey things.

I loved this picture of a lion peeking at the kids while they drank out of a lion shaped drinking fountain.  It was almost like the drinking fountain was a trap.

The kids looking at a animal that resembled a cheetah, but was not a cheetah, but I don't care to look up its name right now.

Brandon asked me if I liked the zoo and I said I did, but my problem was that we'd gone to the Waco Zoo which is the best zoo in the world and no other zoo lives up to it in my mind. But this one did a decent job.  I liked the decorations and things that were added to give each part of the zoo character.

Here's some camels.

As you can tell I'm pretty ho-hum when it comes to animals.  My kids like them, but I don't care much.  That is until we came to the area with a Red Panda.  I'd never seen a Red Panda before this trip, but as soon as I saw this I was in love.  If I had to name a favorite animal I'd say it's a fox.  But a Red Panda is like a fox and a teddy bear had a baby.  It's like a fuzzy fox.  I thought it was so cute and suddenly I turned into a little kid.  I was squealing, and cooing, and wishing that the other red panda would come out of its den. I was rocking on my feet with excitement.  Brandon was laughing at me.  In 12 years together this was only the third time he'd seen me get excited about an animal.  One time was a duck in Yellowstone.  (yes with all the animals in Yellowstone I got excited for a duck.) An other time was a fox, and now the red panda.   Look at it, it's adorable. 

We went to see the tiger.  She was sleeping. 

So we had fun with her statue.  Her's Charlotte.

Lydia

Rose

Derrick

And Veronica.

All three girls.

And the best we could do with all four kids.

Another area of the zoo was Australian themed.  As you can see by the signs on the restrooms.

We liked these crazy birds.

We made it through the zoo in a little less than an hour.  Then we wandered around through some of our favorite areas.  Here are the lions again.

We play with the coin spiny thing.

Here's the otter again. Someone said this was the zoo's best babysitter.

Flamingos, also known as Fing-a-mingos in our family.

 

monkeys.

And finally a stop at the penny presser.

After we were done with the zoo we drove over to a fun playground.  The kids who had been "so hungry and so tired" just minutes before played for an hour on the playground before they remembered they wanted dinner.  We busted out the food and had dinner.  Then we headed back home.

On Saturday we did a much needed round of the cleaning game and then went to the farmers market to use a coupon to buy donuts as a reward for getting the house clean.  I didn't take any pictures at the farmers market, but I did take a picture of this RV in the parking lot.  Sometimes the randomest things make me homesick.  This isn't quite like our RV, but it's close. Actually this one looks like it has a bedroom in the back.  IF, and that's a big if, we ever do the RV thing again, I want one with a bedroom in the back.  We'd put two bunk beds back there for the kids.  And then Brandon and I would sleep in the loft. 

We made it back home in time to turn on General Conference and hear the end of the second song.  Then we heard President Nelson announce that beginning in 2019 church will only be 2 hours long.  It's going to be amazing!

The kids got out the Lincoln Logs and train sets and had a great time playing while listening to conference.

Here's a house Charlotte built.

Derrick playing with his trains.

Charlotte and Lydia's village.

Derrick looks like he's really interested in Conference here, but really he was anxiously waiting for the end of the closing prayer so he could go down stairs and watch a Free Willy movie.  He was gone as soon as they said Amen.

During the afternoon session the kids made skeletons out of Que-tips.

On Saturday night I took Charlotte and Lydia with me to the first ever General Women Session held during conference weekend.  I don't think they understood what a historic event they were witnessing.  But they did like being there.  Technically the meeting was for girls and women ages 8 and up, but I figured the girls were close enough.

On Sunday morning we all happily slept in and then lounged about all morning.  Brandon and I made donuts during the morning session of conference and we ate them for lunch.

Oh they were so good.

Half of us napped during the afternoon session, but we were all awake to hear the announcement of 12 new temples.  Wow.  And then conference was over again.  When I was a kid Conference seemed to last forever, but now it goes by so quick. 

My parents came over for dinner and we had a nice visit with them. 

And then it was time to start thinking about the fact that the next day was Monday.  After 4 days off of school it's going to be hard for the kids to get back into the swing of things tomorrow.  I'm glad that I still have four more weeks off of work. 

That's it for now.  Thanks for reading.