Summer Vacation 2026 - Week 10 - Seussical Week 5 - Hair Camp

Hey here we go with another quick recap. This one covers the last week of July from Monday July 27-Sunday August 2. As with most of these weeks, Seussical rehearsals dominated most of what we did. 

Monday I had work and then I came home a little before 11:00 for my very last Board Meeting for Idaho Parents Unlimited. This right there is one reason why I decided to get off the board. The meetings are only 4 times a year and three of them are over zoom so you'd think they don't take up much time, but it is disruptive to have to stop working and make sure I'm in that zoom meeting. 

Back in April I'd informed the Executive Director Angela that I would step down before the October meeting. This was actually the first of the many things I started to cut from my life. And I did it BEFORE the hives and BEFORE things went nuts with the Curtain Call Awards. I was already feeling like I needed to manage some of the stressors in my life. 

So I still attended the April meeting and this July meeting. The meeting was good, but towards the end I realized I was getting out of there right on time. Usually we have an in person board meeting in October. I like that meeting because I get to stay in a hotel room and veg out after the meeting. It's always been like a mini vacation. But this time they were talking about NOT having the October meeting in person and instead doing an all day zoom meeting. I was like, "Oh HECK NO!" They did change it to a half day zoom meeting, but wow, I got off that board just in time. (They are planning to meet in person in the spring so I guess it would have been fine, but I'm still thrilled to get off that board.)

I got off the zoom meeting and was like, "FREEDOM!"

Outside the house I took after pictures for a comparison of what our backyard looked like two years ago. 

The pictures are a little odd because we had A LOT of smoke in the air. But I took them anyway. 

My fern bushes were blooming.

In the garage Charlotte and Lydia started painting the set pieces for Seussical. They had some reference drawings and they freehanded them onto the wood and then started painting. 

Veronica was painting in the house. She found a frizbe and put a Jurassic World Logo on it. 

The back had claw marks. 

That night we went to Seussical rehearsal and learned the choreography for the opening number, "Oh the things you can think." This is a really fun song because it's one of the only parts where the whole cast in on stage together. In other parts we are separated by Jungle Citizens and Who Citizens but in this song the story isn't fully formed yet so we are just all mixed up. 

Our audition song had, had part of this choreography. There's been a move that I'd nicknamed the "Knee Breaker" because it required jumping to the left on our left legs.  Andrea and I both have bad knees and we'd both hated that move in the audition dance. Sara, our Choreographer assigned a small group of people to do the part with the Knee Breaker. I told Andrea, "YAY we don't have to do it."  And then Sara was like, "And the rest of you will follow along with this move."

I immediately put my hand up and asked, "What about the over 40 crowd?" Sara said we could fake the jumping. 

Aside from The Knee Breaker the choreography is really fun. Veronica and I are together most of the time. Charlotte and Lydia are all over the place. Sometimes they are with the group and other times they are moving around doing random things. 

On Tuesday we did a small adventure. Two weeks earlier when we'd gone to the Perrine Waterfall Jori had asked me if this was the "Twin Falls" I was like, "No, that's east of town. Wait, have you never been there?"  So this week we planned to go to the very poorly named Twin Falls park. It's poorly named because there aren't Twin Falls anymore. Back in like 1905 the settlers of the area dammed up one waterfall to make a hydroelectric plant. So it's really lone falls. AND the area is really in Kimberly - not Twin Falls. 

It was kind of the perfect activity for that day because the air quality was so terrible we really couldn't do much hiking. So we parked and walked to the viewpoint and looked at the waterfall. 

We did walk down a small hill and back up, so we did a little hiking, but it wasn't terrible. 

Here are other pictures of the air quality. Everything was really yellow and the air smelled like a camp fire. 

But look at how pretty this Rose of Sharron is anyway. 

I had to go into work for Admin meeting and to do the things I hadn't done on Monday because of the zoom board meeting. 

Charlotte and Lydia worked on painting more of the Whoville set. They'd gone through and added black outlines to everything and it all just POPPED. This picture doesn't do it justice. The colors came out a little muted on my camera. But the color scheme is from "Oh the Places You'll Go."

I sent the picture to the group chat for the set. Our assistant director Nate replied back, "Oh My God. It's incredible."

Brandon was at CSI and we didn't have rehearsal that evening. I think I spent a lot of time reading Harry Potter 5 to Veronica.

On Wednesday the kids worked at the berry farm. Well, Lydia didn't. She'd hurt her leg somehow and had been limping around. So she stayed home. But Derrick and Charlotte went. 

I went to work and got a lot done. 

In the afternoon we were all really excited to have my sister Hillary come visit with her kids Walter and Penny. They were there for 2 reasons. Walter had been asking to do some scouting things. So he came to go to a simple, "Uncle Brandon Camp." Walter had a list of things he wanted to learn and Brandon took him in the background and showed him how to do them. It was things like starting a fire, tying knots, and shooting our little bow and arrow. Walter loved it. 

The other reason was that we needed Hillary to hold a "Hair Camp" for us girls. The four of us needed some new hair skills for the play. I needed to know how to do a 60's flip for my hair. Charlotte and Lydia needed big full curls. And Veronica needed high pigtails that didn't fall out during dancing. 

And Hillary knew how to do all of that!  I called her a hair wizard. She knew all the tricks and the products that we'd need. I was keeping a list of everything that we needed to buy. I kept saying, "this is probably stuff we should have had anyway in a house with 4 girls."

That evening the Young Men and Young Women were going boating for their activity. I'd given our stage manager a heads up that my kids wouldn't be at rehearsal so that they could go. Brandon didn't want to go boating so he stayed home and did Uncle Brandon Camp with Walter. 

I went to rehearsal. We ran through all the choreo for all the songs that have been choreographed so far. It was fun to see the show coming together. 

Hillary was staying in a hotel and planned to be back at my house around 9:30 in the morning on Thursday. So I worked from home so I didn't have to worry about spending a lot of time at work that day. We'd had a problem with one of our electronic remittance advice things so I did have to go in later and put that in manually. 

Hillary LOVES to take my blond hair even blonder so I casually mentioned it and she was like, "YES!"  And so the first part of the day was her cutting the damaged ends off my hair and then bleaching and toning my hair. Here's a picture I took about a week later. I LOVE it. 

 Hillary showed me how to do Veronica's high pigtails. The trick was to use zip-ties to keep them in place. Veronica looked ADORABLE with the pigtails, but she kind of hates looking adorable so we had to give her a lot of pep talks about how this is her character. We are all a little cartoony in this play so the pigtails make her look like a cartoon. 

While all the hair camp stuff was going on, the kids were playing with Walter and Penny. Walter had LOVED the dragon puppets the girls made. He wanted to make his own. So Charlotte and Lydia helped him and Penny make their own little dragon puppets - well Penny's was a unicorn. Those two kids had so much fun!

It was really fun to have Walter and Penny here again. It's been too long between visits. Penny liked feeding the chickens with Charlotte and she also loved exploring my yard. I let her fill up my little fountain. She liked that. 

They were staying in a hotel with a pool so in the evening they left to go swimming at their pool. 

Charlotte and Lydia went to work on the next set piece and Veronica and I had rehearsal. We were going through the Here on Who song. We couldn't meet on the 3rd floor of the theatre because Newsies had another show that night. So we were at the new Ovation Building on Blue Lakes. 

We were going over the song, "Here on Who."  We've worked on singing half the song a few weeks ago, but we've never finished it. We've been mumble singing it as we've going through the choreography so it was nice to finally get some of the words down. When we got to the last few pages I was like, "Oh THESE are the words!"  And also, "Oh what's the just Mayors singing there. I've been singing that part - oops."

On Friday I went into work in the morning and then came home after a few hours so I could attend the last day of hair camp with Hillary. She showed me how to use velcro rollers to get volume and curl into my hair. Both things are hard so I was impressed with the results. 

She also spent a lot of time teaching the girls how to curl each other's hair into big loose curls. She even took them to DI and found a really good curling iron for like $3. 

For some reason I didn't get after pictures of my hair or the twins hair. The Twins Hair looked so good. It's a shame I didn't think to get a picture of them. 

I think I was just super tired. I'd doubled my hair knowledge in three days. It was a lot to take in. 

Brandon was also tired. He came home from work and wandered around the kitchen and decided it was a Little Caesars Pizza night. So he picked that up.  

Hillary and her kids left. It was sad to say goodbye to them, but I'm so glad they came to visit. 

I think Brandon and the kids watched a movie that night. I was pooped to I just read in my room. 

My friend Candice had asked if Charlotte could take care of her farm animals that weekend while they went out of town for a wedding. They'd forgot to ask one of their neighbors. 

So Charlotte and Brandon went out to Filer in the evening and took care of the goats, chickens, lama, dogs and cats. They also went in the morning on Saturday. 

I went grocery shopping in the morning. Normally I would have done that on Thursday, but Hair Camp had been more important. I'd gone shopping on Wednesday and picked up enough food to get us through to Saturday. 

The main goal for the day was more progress on the set. Here's where Charlotte and Lydia were with the Jungle of Nool at the beginning of the day. 

Around noon I went to the Amazing Grace Church's annual $1 clothing sale. I got some really cute things including like two new shirts that are quickly becoming my favorites. 

A few weeks ago I'd ordered spice racks - FINALLY. They were magnetic on the back so rather than hang them straight on the wall, Brandon got a piece of metal, painted it to match the wall, hung that on the wall, and then put the spice racks on it. 

Charlotte and Lydia made good progress on the Jungle of Nool. 

We were all just hanging around the house not really doing anything special. I was scrolling facebook and started to see things about a shooting at the new In and Out Burger in town. 

A minute or two later Jared put a message in a big group chat with our close theatre friends asking everyone to check in and say they were fine. This is when I started to realize that this wasn't a "normal" shooting. There have been shootings in Twin Falls before. But they are usually limited to one or two people and happen at night. 

This one was different. It happened on a busy Saturday in one of the busiest areas of town. So many people were affected even if they weren't at In and Out Burger. Whole shopping complexes went into lock down. I didn't know anyone who was actually at In and Out, but I would find out that a lot of people were stuck in Costco, the mall, and other areas around there. Half the Orpheum staff got stuck at Ross which is super close to In and Out. That's one reason Jared was so concerned. 

I'll admit, my first feelings were annoyance. I was annoyed that my Facebook feed was suddenly full of people sharing rumors and half truths. I was like, "We aren't going to know the whole story for a while. So just cool it with sharing things."

This wasn't my first mass shooting. When we lived on Fort Hood there had been a shooting on the other side of the post that shut everything down. I'd watched how there had been no real news at first and how in the days that passed the initial rumors had been shown to be false. Was it a tragedy? Yes. But as someone who has a more analytical than emotional brain I was just annoyed at the rumors. 

I know that I'm super lucky that my first feelings could be annoyance. My family was all home. We hadn't planned to go anywhere near that area. I didn't have to worry about my kids. 

A week later the police department released a report of compiled video footage. That's when I finally felt fear. When I saw the images of the gunman shooting into In and Out, when I saw the employees crawling over eachother to get out. When I saw the gunman casually walk to Blue Lakes and start shooting at random cars. When I saw him at the visitor center and on the walking trail. That's when I let myself feel fear. This had happened in my town in places that I loved. In places that I went. What if we had decided to drive over the bridge to Jerome that day? Or taken a walk on the canyon trail? Would we have been there?

But that day I didn't feel that so we carried on with our day. I'd been on the fence about going to see Newsies that night. I hadn't really been excited about it. I felt like I already knew it because I'd seen the movie so much. But Derrick's friend Finn N was in it as Crutchy, and I love watching Finn on stage. But one of my goals for the weekend was to not have to be anywhere at a specific time. So I didn't want to have tickets and have to go on Saturday. 

It was actually kind of a relief when Ovation announced they were cancelling that night's Newsie's show. I was like, "Oh now I don't feel bad about not going."

Instead we went to Dierkies lake which had been the main plan anyway. The kids played in the water, Brandon napped, and I read. I've been reading through Personal History by Katharine Graham. She owned the Washington Post and is most well known for owning it during the Nixon years. The Post was instrumental in stories about the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. But I had to read like 450 pages before we even got to the things she was most well known for. This women led a FASINATING life. I've loved this book. 

We came home and everyone took showers so that we didn't have to worry about that in the morning. Charlotte and Brandon went out to the farm in Filer one last time.  

On Sunday Ovation announced that Saturdays show would be rescheduled for that day at 2:00. They said that this would be an important way to show the strength of our community. Jared put in the group chat that the performers were worried that they would have a smaller audience. I knew I had to go. So I bought a ticket. 

Brandon took the kids to church and I went to the theatre. I'm so glad I was there. The place wasn't sold out, but it was packed. And the audience was ready to cheer those kids on. The first couple numbers had very long applause breaks. 

I was surprised by some of the differences between the movie and the stage play. Crutchy is elevated to be Jack's best friend and the show starts with them singing Santa Fe together. 

Then things really get going with Carrying the Banner. I was so impressed by the whole cast. They sang and danced their hearts out. 

Jack was played by the same actor who had been Orpheus last year in Hadestown and who had been Toby in Sweeny Todd. Everyone had been raveing about his performance, but I'd been like, "Really?" He was good in those roles, but he'd seemed young and kind of sweet in both those rolls. I just couldn't believe he could have the swagger to play Jack. Well I was wrong. That kid had STAGE PRESENCE. He was commanding. He was a leader. I was like, "OHHHHH this is what everyone has been raving about."

And Finn as Crutchy was just the best. After I saw him in Prince of Egypt I told his mom that he's one of my favorite kids to watch on stage because he just glows. You can tell he loves it.

We all gave the kids a well deserved standing ovation at the end of the show. I'm so glad I went to see it. 

Back at home my parents called. They had heard about the shooting. I assured them we were fine.  

Meanwhile, Veronica had been working on a silly dinosaur thing. It was like Lady and the Tramp, but with dinosaurs. There were two raptors at a table, sharing a human for a meal. 

That night we watched the movie the Sheep Detectives. It was delightful. I highly recommend it. And after a weekend that had felt really heavy it was a fun way to finish off the week.

And that's that week. Thanks for reading. 

Summer Vacation 2026 - Week 9 - Seussical Week 4 - Brandon in Minnesota

The big event this week was that Brandon was at a work training in Minnesota. He was in Minneapolis. That's where his dad lived for about 8 years from the time he was 5 to about 13. So when Brandon found out he was going to be in Minneapolis he invited his dad along on the trip. His dad just had to pay for his flight and his meals. Brandon would already have the hotel and the rental car. His dad thought that sounded fun so he made sure to come. 

So Brandon went to training during the day and then drove around Minneapolis with his dad. His dad showed him many of the houses he'd lived in and the parks he'd played at. They had a great time. 

And what kind of training was this?  Well this is the type of thing that illustrates why I'm still kind of fuzzy on what Brandon actually does at the hospital. Here's how he explained it to me?

Brandon: So you know what an endoscope is?

Me: No.

Brandon: Is the little tube with a camera that they use for colonoscopies. 

Me: You learned how to fix those?

Brandon: No, if they break we return them to the manufacturer for repair.  But they need to be cleaned . . . 

Me: So you learned how to clean them?

Brandon: No, I learned how to fix the machine that cleans them. 

Me: Okay

See why it's so hard to know what he does? In a lot of cases the things he repairs are not very close to the patient. They are like three steps removed. 

So anyway, that's what he was doing all week. He left Monday morning and came home Saturday morning. 

The kids and I had a good week. It's been a long time since Brandon was gone this long. The kids have grown up a lot. I was struck by how much more helpful they are these days. 

Like when I saw a mouse outside the house I went and found Charlotte and she took care of setting the traps. I told her I'd pay her $1 per dead mouse. She caught 3 the first night and two more later. 

Or how Derrick told me at 8:00 PM, "Mom, I'm going to mow the lawn."  When I told him it was too hot he told me it was only 80 degrees. And then mowed the front and back lawns. 

One thing I didn't anticipate was how LONG the days would be without Brandon. He usually gets home around 4:00 and I didn't know how much we all relied on his arrival to break up the afternoon. Without him the days just stretched on and on without any really delineation. 

Anyway, let's do this recap thing. this will cover from Monday July 20 to Sunday July 26

Monday started out with Brandon leaving early. Soon after he left Charlotte also left. She was working an extra shift at the berry farm. That's because the berry farm is really also a garlic farm. The garlic has been harvested, but it needs to be cleaned for storage. So they offer extra shifts for kids to come clean garlic. 

Brandon took the blue van because it was the most reliable car we had and he had a 2 hour drive to the Boise airport. Charlotte took the grey van. And that left me with the pilot. I alternated between driving the pilot and the grey van through the week. 

I went to work and got a lot done. I recently decided that I need to aim for 4 hour shifts on Mondays and Fridays. So I worked from about 8 to 12. 

In the afternoon I took Derrick to the pool. He likes to go to the very deepest part of the pool and then push himself all the way to the bottom. He does this over and over again for like 40 minutes. 

I go in the shallower part of the deep end and do little foot strengthening things. Mostly its just jumping up and down using different parts of my feet. But I also do some stretching. It's really good for my feet.

That evening the kids were called for rehearsal, but I wasn't. I stayed home with Derrick. I think I mostly just worked on blog stuff. 

At rehearsal the kids were working on the fish scene. Jojo imagines that the bath tub is a pond and imagines fish swimming in it. The kids in the cast come out with fish and do a little dance. Charlotte and Lydia's job is to bring the bath tub on and off the stage. They do a lot of prop moving. We joke they are the Thing 1 and Thing 2 Furniture Moving Company.

The fish are supposed to be done by all the kids 12 and under. So Veronica is in that. Two of the fish kids were out of town so Charlotte and Lydia ended up learning the dance. At the end the director filmed the dance and put it in our Band group. The kids who were gone could watch the dance and see what they needed to do by watching Charlotte and Lydia. 

They all had a really fun time. 

Tuesday was my day off. It started off with watering as usual. The yard is looking so pretty. 

I'm really happy with the fire pit area. The plants around it are coming in nicely.

Charlotte and Lydia both worked at the berry farm that morning. When they got back we went on our adventure for the day. We went out to Lake Walcott. The only time I've ever been here was when we stayed in a tiny cabin here in February of 2021. I've always kind of known there was a swim beach there, but I never knew what it was like. So I decided it was time to find out. 

I'd invited Jori to come too. She and her family went out earlier in the morning. She texted me and let me know the beach was great!

The kids were all hungry so as soon as we got there we had lunch. 

Here's Derrick with the water behind him. 

Here I am. 

Then we played in the shallow water for a long time. It was fun to just stand in the water and talk with Jori and Tim. The kids were telling them all their throw up stories. Great bonding time. 

We left around 3:00 and drove home. We'd taken the grey van for two reasons. 1. The pilot sounds like a tin can when you drive it. And I didn't want to listen to that for an hour. And 2. The grey van was so close to 300,000 miles. When we got home we were within 25 miles. 

That night I realized that we are at the point of summer where boredom strikes no matter what. We'd had a lovely time at the lake that day. And yet in the evening we were all super bored. 

Also we missed Brandon.

Veronica and I didn't have rehearsal. We weren't sure about Charlotte and Lydia. So they went to the theatre and hung around until Nate decided that he didn't need them in that scene. And then as soon as he sent them home he thought of something funny they could do. 

Wednesday all three kids had their normal shift at the berry farm. I did my own weeding in my yard while they were gone. It's been kind of humid lately and even though it was 8:00 AM it was already like 74 degrees and I was sweating. 

I went to work in the afternoon. Veronica had an orthodontist appointment at 2:00. Any other summer I would have had to rearrange my whole day for that. But this summer I HAVE TWINS WHO CAN DRIVE. So Charlotte took her to the appointment and I just stayed at work. It was just to repair a broken bracket so I didn't really need to be there for anything. It was great!

We'd ordered off brand high tops from Amazon for the kids Seussical Costumes/School shoes. Those arrived in the mail. 

The grey van had been driven to and from the theatre on Tuesday night and to and from the berry farm on Wednesday morning and then to and from the orthodontist so it was now within 7 miles of the 300.000 mile mark. 

I didn't want it to happen when we were unprepared. So I had the kids all get in the car and we went for a little drive to go over 300,000. We drove east out of town and then turned into a fancy neighborhood in Kimberly. Here's the link to the video. 

And here is the still picture. 

Then we went to McDonalds and got hot fudge sundays to celebrate. 

And here's the van at home. What a good van!

One notable thing was NOT happening this week - Derrick wasn't at Boys Camp. That's because our stake leaders completely failed him. 

Months ago one of the stake young men leaders sent out an email letting us know the boys would be doing a stake level boys camp. I replied to the email and let him know that my son had autism and I'd like to know what kind of support would be in place for my son. I didn't say this, but I imagined something like inviting Brandon to attend the camp as a cook or something so he could be there if Derrick needed him. 

I figured I could bring that suggestion up when the leader replied to my email. 

But instead I heard nothing. 

Near the beginning of the summer Brandon tried emailing members of the Stake Young Mens presidency. By this point our main priority was just trying to get some sort of itinerary for the camp. It was being called something like, "Army of Helaman Camp." I've heard that name used for a camp that was more of a missionary training thing than a camping trip thing. I was worried that it would be full of "sit down and listen to a speaker" type activities that would be super boring for Derrick. Brandon and I were trying to find out if the camp would be a good fit. 

No one replied to Brandon. 

No one was replying to anyone actually. Our bishopric knew NOTHING about the camp. The stake leaders were in charge of it and had said they didn't need help from ward leaders. This also made me nervous. I didn't feel comfortable sending to a camp run by people neither he nor I knew.  

On June 29th we got a text message from our ward leaders asking for a head count for the boys who would be attending the camp on July 22. I replied that we were still trying to get an idea of if the camp was going to be a good fit for Derrick. 

Our bishop called the Stake Young Mens president and FINALLY got the itinerary. He called me and read it off to me. I knew it wouldn't be a good fit. The second day had "free time and games."  I was like, "And that's where they all lose Derrick."

The bishop agreed. He said that maybe they could get Brandon approved to go on the camp. I was like, "Sorry that's not possible. Brandon has a work trip that week."  Also he doesn't exactly have a job he can just take time off of with three weeks notice. 

So Derrick wasn't going. He was pretty okay with that, but I was annoyed. He could have gone if ANYONE had spent ANY time doing preplanning. It was just a massive fail. 

Later my friend Cort offered to take Derrick up for a day. Cort was helping drive boys up on Wednesday and was going to stay overnight and then come home. He would have been happy to bring Derrick along. And I would have been happy to let him. But I told him, "I don't want the Stake to be able to count him. If they didn't go to any effort to include him I don't want them taking credit if he does attend camp."

So that was that and it was fine. (But I'm still a little mad about it.)

That night at rehearsal we worked on blocking some of the Whoville scenes. I'm in the "Here on Who" number, but then it goes into the bathtub/fish scene which I'm not in. I brought a book and read that when we were done with Here on Who.

Thursday was a busy day with watering and then grocery shopping. Followed by a quick shower and then meeting with Andrea at Chattertown and then going to work at Aspen Grove. 

Derrick had been asking to make spaghetti hot dogs. I thought he wanted to just make spaghetti with like chopped up hot dogs in it. That sounded terrible. But then he showed me the youtube video of how to do it. I realized this would be a fun project for him. So we spent about an hour doing this. 

First we had to stick dry spaghetti into an uncooked hot dog. 

Then we boiled both of those in a pan on the stove. When the hot dog was cooked and the noodles were soft we used tongs to get them out of the water and put them on a cutting board with wax paper. Derrick spread sauce on the noodle and then added cheese. 

Then we rolled it up and put it in a bun. The first time we did this we didn't cook the noodles long enough and they were still brittle and broke when we tried to roll them. But it worked the second time. 

Our third try was the best. the video told us to butter a bun and cook the whole thing in the oven for a few minutes. So we did that with the third one. Derrick said it was delicious. 

Rehearsal was supposed to be a music rehearsal for the other half of how to sing Here on Who. But we had some conflicts. Newsies was opening that night. The third floor practice room shares a wall with the balcony of the theater. And it's not a sound proof wall. 

So we were going to have to do the singing practice in the small classroom on the second floor. But the Air conditioner was out. And putting 20 people in a tiny room without air-conditioning while temps were near the 100's was not a good plan. 

So rehearsal was cancelled. Instead I took the girls to find the two make up things they would need for the show. They were going to have their make up done for the promo poster on Friday. Alexandra was going to do all their make up and provide most of the supplies, but we needed to buy black eyeliner and red lipstick. So we went to target for that. 

When we came home we watched Men in Black. We've been watching space movies this summer and that one fits the theme. The kids have seen it before, but not recently. And some of the kids had never seen it all the way through. It was really fun to watch. 

On Friday I went to work for the morning. While I was there I texted Laura to see if she needed anything for the costumes ahead of the promo shoot that night. 

She replied back that she still needed to get red shirts for the girls. So after work we went to Hobby Lobby and bought two red shirts. 

I was fine with this because my other plan for the afternoon had been cleaning the house and I didn't really have my heart set on that. 

But part of me was a little annoyed because we've been talking about those red shirts forever and here I was buying them at the last minute. Laura had been saying that she was going to look for them at thrift stores - which is fine. But they really only cost like $8. It would have been fine for me to pick those up earlier. 

I'm started to realize that nearly everyone in theatre has ADHD and they LOVE doing things last minute because that's how their brains thrive. Meanwhile I have anxiety and I LOVE doing things ahead of time so I don't have to worry about them. It's kind of a stressful combo. (For me - the ADHD people are fine with their dumpster fire lives.) 

At 4:00 we went to the theatre and met up with the other promo shoot people. Andrea's daughter Capri is Jojo so they were there. Alexandra started with Jojo's make up. She had a very specific plan for the Whos. Capri was SO CUTE. She looked like a little cartoon character. It made me an Andrea excited for our own Who make up. 

Then Alexandra started working on the twins. Lydia went first and then Charlotte. Laura had finished panic sewing the outfits and the girls changed into those. Andrea had made the headbands. The final result was so cute!

The only thing missing was tights. The girls were supposed to be in red and blue stiped leggings. But Laura forgot to send me the link and I forgot to follow up on getting it from her. So they were in their Cinderella tights. They'll have the real tights for the show.

I'm going to share the pictures, but understand that I'm really not supposed to share these until the official poster comes out. I'm banking on the fact that only a few people read this blog these days. Please don't reshare these pictures. (DAD I'M TALKING TO YOU!)

 Here's Charlotte

And here is Lydia. 

And here they are together. 

Our friend Ian took the official pictures. He also took pictures of Jojo, The Cat in the Hat, and Horton. They will all be on the poster. 

We are all pretty excited to have family members on the poster. This is the first time. 

When we got back home Veronica had made pizza for dinner. Bless that girl. 

We all watched Men in Black 2. 

Then at 9:00 we went to the pool for another "midnight swim."  There were lots of people there. The kids all played in the deep deep end. I stayed on the other side of the deep end and did all my little foot hopping things. There was fun music playing and the sky had really pretty clouds lit up with the sun set. It was a lovely evening. 

We planned to stay about an hour. But at the 40 minute mark the life guards blew their whistles and ordered everyone out of the pool. They had seen lightning. 

But they didn't really make that clear at first. So everyone was just kind of standing on the grass waiting to be let back in. I knew it was probably because of lightning and Charlotte had seen it. So I told the kids, "Let's go before everyone starts leaving."  So we grabbed our stuff. As we were leaving the building the staff came over the loud speaker and said something like, "Sorry we are closed for lightning. If you paid for admission tonight please come to the desk for a complementary wristband for free entry on Saturday or Sunday." I was like, "Yep, we left just in time."

Brandon's plane arrived in Boise late Friday night. He'd planned to drive home after landing, but he was super tired. So he stopped at a rest stop and slept until the sun rose and woke him up around 6:00. 

So he didn't get home until about 8 on Saturday morning. I was already up and watering. 

Here are my pretty Rose of Sharron blooms. 

and look at this fun Cosmos. 

Brandon came home and told me all about his trip. Then he took a shower and fell asleep. I finished watering and then started packing up drinks for my work BBQ. We were having a casual get together for work. The admin team was in charge of main dishes and everyone else was just in charge of side dishes. I'd volunteered for drinks because Brandon was out of town and I'm don't love cooking for a crowd. 

I had pink lemonaid in my 5 gallon water cooler. I had a bunch of water bottles in a cooler with ice. And I had 48 sodas in our electric cooler. Brandon and the kids helped me load everything up and then we drove to the park. And then when I realized that park was the wrong park, we drove to the right park. 

The BBQ was really fun. I was the second employee so I know everyone. But a lot of the employees don't know each other. So it's important that we do things like this. Sure we all work together, but therapy is kind of a lonely profession so it's important that people feel like they know their coworkers. 

We had a fun time talking. I felt like I did a good job of asking people questions about themselves and starting conversations among people that way. 

When that was over we came home and watched Men in Black 3. I really like that one. And then we all just relaxed the rest of the day. Brandon slept a lot. I worked on my Habakkuk blog. (And learned how to spell Habakkuk correctly.)

Veronica was making more dinosaur lego things. She did a silly thing with a "Lady and the Tramp" style dinner. Two raptors were at dinner with a human on the platter. A T-Rex played a guitar. A Pteranodon played the accordion. We all thought this was hilarious. And Veronica has a weird imagination.

On Sunday we drove down to Utah for our nephew/cousin Weston's mission home coming. Two years ago we missed his farewell because of a flat tire. This time the drive was uneventful. 

Here are the kids on the couch before we went into the chapel. 

Derrick was having a hard morning and the chapel felt loud and chaotic so he and I went back into the foyer and talked it over. Then we just stayed there because it was so calm. We both ended up sleeping through most of the meeting. When we woke back up Derrick was in a much better mood. 

Here I am after my little nap. 

Then we went to Melanie's and had a wonderful time talking and laughing with everyone. It was a really good visit. 

Around 5:00 we left and drove back home to Twin Falls. When we got back the city was super smoky from wild fire smoke in Oregon. 

We all went to bed pretty quick. Brandon fell asleep almost as soon as we got home. 

And that's another week. 

Thanks for reading. 

Summer Vacation 2026 - Week 8 - Seussical Week 3 - The week I finally went to therapy

Hey, look at me. I'm staying mostly caught up. We had another fairly simple week. So this recap should be quick. The biggest news is that I FINALLY made it into therapy. That was a big deal. So let's recap this will cover from Monday July 13 to Sunday July 19. 

Monday started out like normal with work in the morning. I was really on a roll getting things done and would have liked to work until 12:00 or later, but I had to leave a little before 11:00. Veronica and Derrick both had orthodontist appointments at 11:30. Also we were still helping with Kori's dogs. I'd woken up Veronica to take them out at 7:00 that morning. Now we needed to take them in the house before the day became too hot. 

So I made it home by 11:00 and was surprised when the door was still locked to the house. I usually lock it behind me when I leave for work and the kids are still sleeping. But usually at least someone gets up, takes Marcia out, and leaves the door unlocked. 

But it was locked, and no one was awake in the house. I thought, "Oh I am so waking you all up early when I'm not at work tomorrow!"

Anyway, Derrick and Veronica got up and got dressed quick and we went to let the dogs back in and then I took Derrick and Veronica to the orthodontist. 

Derrick's was a check up on his retainers. Both the top and bottom had broken during the 6 weeks that he'd had to wear them night and day. We'd just had the top replaced the week before and I'd told Derrick he just needed to wear them at night because I didn't want to risk them getting broken again. 

The orthodontist checked everything and said that Derrick was good to wear them just at night. 

Veronica was there to get her wire changed and she had a broken bracket. She was feeling bad about the broken bracket. I had to explain to her that they didn't cost anything extra. Broken brackets are expected and are part of the price. She's feeling a little bad about the money thing because she's the only braces we have to pay for. The other three kids had such bad bites that Medicaid covered their braces as medically necessary. But Veronica's bite isn't that bad so hers are just considered cosmetic. And we don't qualify for Medicaid anymore anyway. (Derrick is on a different type of Medicaid that doesn't depend on income.) So we are paying for Veronica's braces and she feels a little bad about it. But I keep telling her - "hey 1 out of 4 isn't bad!"

We went back home and I took care of computer things. 

And then at 4:00 it was time for my therapy appointment. I've felt the need for therapy for a while, but just never really had time to make it a priority. And then the whole never ending hives breakout happened and I was like, "Oh I should probably go to therapy about this."

It took Jori bugging me about it regularly for me to finally make it happen though. She also suggested I try ART. That's not art therapy as in drawing and painting art. It's an acronym for Advanced Resolution Therapy. I already knew about it before Jori suggested it because a lot of the therapists I work with are certified in it. There was actually a funny moment in one of our team meetings about a year ago where I had to be like, "Guys, what is ART therapy?"  And everyone was like, "Are you joking?"  And I was like, "No, I don't have a clue what you are doing in session, I just care about the CPT codes."

Back in that team meeting my coworkers explained that ART is used to treat trauma. It's kind of like EMDR where they use signals to the persons brain to help them process the trauma. They told me it can be really helpful for people who had a one time event like a car accident to help them process that. And I was like, "cool cool cool" and didn't give it another thought until Jori was like you should try ART.  

So then I had to find someone who I DIDN'T work with who could do ART. That was actually pretty easy. I've been following another clinic on social media and they started advertising that they provided ART. And so I got online and requested an appointment. 

And I had an appointment and everything, but it was scheduled the week of the 4th of July and the clinician was going on vacation and my appointment was cancelled. 

And because I'm terrible at making appointments for myself I just kind of left that cancelled until the receptionist emailed me and we rescheduled via email. 

So now it was finally happening on July 13th. 

I went to the office and checked in and then a very nice lady named Melissa (who happens to be the clinic OWNER - I have no idea how I was paired up with her) brought me into her office. 

We talked for a little bit and then got to the reason for why I was there. I was like, "I've always been an anxious person, but something happened in April and really stressed me out and I broke out in hives. And I've been having hives breakouts ever since then."

I told her that even with Hydroxyzine I'm still breaking out. And she was like, "Oh yes ART can definitely help with that."  

The nice thing about ART is that you don't actually have to talk about the traumatic event. That's nice because everything that triggered my outbreak happened when the Curtain Call Awards ended abruptly. And everyone involved in that still lives here. And Twin Falls is a small town. I didn't want to be airing the theatre communities dirty secrets to a therapist. 

Instead she just did a little hand waving in front of my eyes. I was supposed to follow her hand with my eyes while thinking about the event. Then we'd talk about what emotions, thoughts, images, etc came up. 

Then Melissa would do more hand waving while having me think about the event in a different way or to picture myself removing the uncomfortable feelings from my body. 

Scientifically we were working to get my hypocalimus to refile the memories around that event away as non threatening instead as something that I should be reliving. 

Afterward I thought of a scene in the TV show the West Wing where Josh needs therapy. His therapist tells him, "We need to get you to remember the accident without reliving it." I realized that's what we were doing. 

But aside from logic and science the whole thing kind of felt like witch craft. Because I went into that session still feeling the stress I'd been carrying since April and I came out still able to remember the events - but I couldn't FEEL them any more. 

I have two analogies for what it's like. 

1. It's like when you remember Christmas. You can remember that it was fun and exciting and that you felt happy. But you don't actually FEEL the feelings anymore - just the memories. That's how looking back at the Curtain Call Awards feels now. I can remember feeling sad and anxious and somehow responsible when they abruptly ended. But I don't relive those feelings now. 

2. It's like the event was in a big mess all over my room. I was tripping over everything daily. But now it's all packed up nicely in a box and the box is in the shelf. I can still go to the box and look through it, but it's not impacting my daily life anymore. 

Yep, witchcraft. 

Also it physically affected me. Every so often Melissa had me check in with how my body felt. I could feel it relaxing. The craziest part was when the back of my head relaxed. I carry a lot of stress there and actually currently had a hive back there. And then at one point the whole area RELAXED. Like how?

My body also started feeling like I was made of noodles. I couldn't quite sit up in the chair. I was slumping to the side. Melissa had told me that I would feel tired after the session as my brain rewired the mental connections. And that was true. I just went and laid on my bed for a while. 

When we'd started the session Melissa had me gauge how I felt about the event. I put it at an 8 out of ten. When we were done I was shocked that it felt like a 3. Melissa told me to check in with how I felt about it when I woke up the next morning. She said it would be a 0. And SHE WAS RIGHT. 

Yep, witchcraft. 

But good witchcraft. I HIGHLY recommend it. If you are interested in knowing more about ART check out the website. 

I'm scheduled for some more sessions because while the April event is now nicely packed away some of the images that came up made me realize that there's more to this. Melissa validated that. She said, "This is like an onion. There are layers to this."

But gosh it felt good to have that part of my mental space cleaned up. 

I wish I could say that all the hives immediately disappeared. But I had a breakout on Thursday. So this wasn't a complete miracle cure. But I think the hives are definitely on the down swing now. 

Meanwhile Brandon was over at Kori's house trying to get the Blue Van to start. It had died on Thursday and had been sitting in front of their house all weekend. He was able to get the starter out and found that it was cracked. So he replaced that. 

At 6:30 I took Veronica over to let the dogs out again. Brandon had replaced the starter, but the van still wouldn't start. He was watching a youtube tutorial to see if he'd missed any steps. 

That evening none of us were called for Seussical. I still went to the theatre to pick up fabric from Laura. We were going to have me make Charlotte and Lydia's outfits. 

When I came home I saw the red pilot in front of the house. I thought. "Oh Brandon must have come home to take a break or get a tool or something."  And then I turned into the driveway and saw the Blue van in its spot in the carport. I let out and audible, "OH!"

He'd got it working. Brandon is the best. 

On Tuesday I got up and started watering at 6:00. I didn't get the kids up that early, but I did plan to go hiking with them that morning. So I woke them up around 8:30. 

At 9:30 we met up with Jori and her kids at the trailhead for the Perrine Coulee. I'd been worried it would be too hot at 9:30, but the day was overcast and so it was actually perfect weather. 

And the hike isn't that long anyway. 

We are so spoiled to have this waterfall in our town. I do not appreciate it enough. 

Look at this fun little moss. 

Here's the waterfall shooting over the top.

And hitting the bottom. 

The kids were exploring every little side trail. 

The kids found this little shady area. 

Look how huge this waterfall is. Those little colorful dots are mine and Jori's kids walking behind the waterfall.. 

We had to leave by 10:30 because I needed to get home, take a shower, and be at work for Admin meeting at 12:00. 

After the meeting I stayed about another hour to take care of some of the things I didn't get to on Monday. 

Then I came home and worked on Charlotte and Lydia's costumes. I cut out the material and immediately HATED it. I was not seeing any of Laura's vision. The material was cute, but I didn't think it worked on the skirt.

But Laura still had a vision so she took the project back from Doubting Valerie.

Tuesday was kind of a disappointing day all around for Seussical. We were all called for rehearsal, but maybe we shouldn't have been. We were doing the Trial of Horton. This is the BIG scene where Judge Yertle the Turtle declares that the speck should be boiled in Beezel Nut oil. The Jungle animals are all singing Boil It Boil It. And the Whos are all yelling "We are here, We are here."  That part was fun. 

But there was like 45 minutes of rehearsal before we made to to the "We are here" part. And so the Who's were all just sitting there bored. And no one really knew where the Things were in this part so Charlotte and Lydia didn't seem to be needed. 

Mostly we just sat and sat and sat. 

When we were done with that part we moved onto a song where our entire lines consisted of YOPP and "An Elephant Bird!"  So more sitting and sitting and sitting. 

It was disheartening, but we also understood that things like this happen sometimes. When we ALL need to be on stage there are a lot of other people who have important parts while some of us are just hanging out. 

The best part of the night was when a handsome man in a blue shirt came up the stairs. I thought, "Oh who is this? Oh it's BRANDON!"  He was there to talk to Nate about some plans for the set pieces. He'd just come from teaching at CSI so he was still in his nice work clothes.

And then he left and me and the girls were like, "PLEASE TAKE US WITH YOU!"

Wednesday started out with the kids at the Berry Farm. Lydia was still not confident in finding the way there from our house. (It's kind of an odd route to get there.) So she drove the kids minivan and followed me as I drove the Blue van. 

After the kids were dropped off I went home for a bit. Then at 9:00 I was out in Filer to work on the Jump Bookkeeping. We nearly had all the things finished after Prince of Egypt. There was like one mystery transaction receipt remaining at the end of my time there. 

Derrick and Veronica had been paid for dog sitting Kori's dogs. Derrick had ordered another Dinosaur Lego set from Walmart and it was ready for pick up. So I stopped there and got that. Then I ran inside and bought a little treat to share at my work potluck. 

At work we had our monthly team meeting/potluck. Some people really go all out with the food they bring. I was like, "Here's my think bought 10 minutes ago."

I did a little training during that meeting. And then I stayed and worked in my office until 3:00. 

When I got home it felt like I'd been gone a really long time - because I had been. But the kids were like, "Oh hi." 

Derrick's new legos had a T-Rex. Veronica made this funny set up with a T-Rex rider. 

That night rehearsal was a lot better. I'd looked over the music we were working on and decided that the Twins were not needed. So they didn't come. Veronica and I went and we worked on Egg, Nest, and Tree when Horton is sold to the circus. 

Brandon and Derrick went to a barbeque for young mens. The priests were in charge so for once Brandon didn't have to do anything. 

Thursday morning started out with watering. I don't like doing the sprinker part, but I do like the time I spend hand watering because I get to look at all the parts of my yard. 

I was happy to see my rose of sharron blooming. 

And I had lots of ripe tomatoes. 

And backberries as big as my thumb. 

And lots of raspberries. 

I was also happy to see that the salvia transplant had worked. They weren't dead!

Another person had asked my kids to help with a pet. My friend Stephanie just needed someone to come spend time with her dog while she was out of town. The dog had a doggie door and wasn't going to eat all his foot at the same time so Veronica didn't really need to do any care. Just hanging out with the dog. 

So I dropped Veronica off there on my way to the grocery store and I picked her up on the way back. 

I had a meeting with Andrea about billing questions at 11:00 followed by Aspen Grove at 12:00. I felt like I hadn't really had a solid chunk of time at Aspen Grove all week so I stayed until nearly 4:00 and finally felt on top of things again. 

And that night rehearsal was great! We were singing in three groups, but our chairs had all been mashed together. Tonight someone set up the chairs into three distinct groups with aisles between them. That helped a lot. 

We worked a lot of the time on "Here on Who" There is A LOT going on in this song. We didn't even make it through the whole thing. 

At the end Alexandra went over make up with the Twins and with Veronica.

When we got home Brandon was gone. He was at the theatre for the weekly production meeting. 

On Friday I went to work and worked another 4 hours. It was good to get a lot done. On Friday's I work on the claims that are taking more than a month to get paid. Some of them are just slow payers, but others require a little bit of work. I call it "Solving Mysteries."  I  was able to solve a lot of mysteries. 

After work I took Veronica to take care of the dog Hunter. I didn't really have anything to do, but then I remembered I had a Lowes gift card. So I went to Lowes to look at their garden section. 

I've been watching A LOT of reels about gardening. A recent reel had talked about Agastache which is another name for hyssop. I've wanted a hyssop in my yard but haven't found one yet. Well I was so happy to see some "Hummingbird Mint Agastache."  I was like, "Oh that's hyssop!  So I bought two. 

I also recognized another plant I recognized from a reel. It's called diervilla. I've been looking for something for the corner of my side yard. I need something that can handle about 4 hours of INTENSE sun in the summer, but doesn't mind being in shade the rest of the day. And diervilla is that type of plant. But I wasn't 100% on the name and I didn't want to buy the wrong plant so I didn't get it. 

I wanted to be completely done with the week, but the girls and I had to go back to the Orpheum that evening to get headshots taken for an online promo. So instead of just being done after a long week, I took a shower and did my hair and make up cute. 

We went to the theatre and were thankfully the first people there. And Ian made the process really quick and painless. We were in and out of there so fast. 

All day the sky had been threatening rain. As soon as we walked out of the theatre the rain started falling. I was soaked by the time I got back to the car. It felt so nice. 

Brandon made hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner. We had those when we got home. 

Then I went outside and did a little bit of yard work. 

There was a beautiful rainbow. 

I pulled out another two clumps of decorative grass and planted the hyssops in those spots. I also moved the stepping stones to the back yard. 

In the house Veronica had been building a whole Jurassic world scene. She made the fence and the Jeeps from her own imagination. 

Saturday was one of the first Saturdays that we weren't prepping for or recovering from a camping trip. I told everyone we were going to get up at 7:00 and clean things before it got too hot. 

Everyone got up and we got so much done!  We cleaned out the van, we cleaned off the patio, the kids picked up dog poop, Brandon got the garage tidied up. Charlotte and Lydia also cleaned out the chicken coop. Then we came in the house and Veronica spent hours getting her room clean. Derrick and I cleaned out the fridge. Charlotte and Lydia worked on their room for a while. The kids cleaned their bathroom. 

I've wanted to wash our living room rug for at least two years so I had everyone help me with that. We took it outside and got it wet and then worked soap into it. 

The kids helped scrub it. 

We were supposed to power wash it, but our powerwasher pooped out on us. So we ended up using the hose. 

We have a big squeegee and that was fun to run across the rug. Then we left it out to dry all day. 

I mopped the kitchen floor and included the living room since the rug was out of the way. 

Brandon and I worked on getting the van title mailed to Billy and Becca so they can sign it and send it back to us so we can finally get the van officially titled in Idaho. (It has what's called a Held in County Title until January so we can get this all figured out.) Brandon was planning to just print a fedex label, but that was tricker than he thought and Fedex kept saying it would cost $250. 

So then he tried the USPS website and that was complicated too. 

So we finally just went to the post office and used the self serve kiosk and it was easy and only cost like $6.00. So now I know how to mail things to Germany.

Then we went to DI and dropped off stuff and then we went to Winco to buy a few things I'd missed on Thursday. 

Everyone took showers and then we did the reward for our day of cleaning. We went to Cloverleaf and got double scoop ice cream cones. 

Consider this a group photo. 

Cloverleaf is right next to the lego store and so all the kids had to go in there. 

I realized Legos are SUPER boring to me. I just kept looking at the prices and thinking about how many plants I could buy. 

Charlotte and Lydia decided to go in together to buy a lego set of the Jurassic Park Visitor Center. They got it for like $90. It would have been $140 on Ebay. 

By the end of the day I was so tired, but it had been such a good day. I was like, "My house is clean, and we had ice cream. What a good day!"

On Sunday I'd volunteered myself to teach 10 minutes in Sunday School about the fall of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. So I got up and worked on that in the morning. I told Jeff I'd actually need 15 minutes. And I ended up taking probably 20. But so many people told me it was informative so I think it was worth the time. 

At the very beginning I told everyone it was really important to study this because so much of the rest of the Bible happens in this time period. I said, "This lesson is like the cheat code to the second half of our year studying the Bible."

You can read my notes for the lesson here - but they aren't exactly what I said. 

The biggest thing I changed was how I approached the fall of the Southern Kingdom. I REALLY struggled with the names and relationships of Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. Add in the political maneuverings of Neco in Egpyt and Nebuchadnezzer in Babylon and my head was swimming. 

So I came up with something corny. I told the class, "I'd rather do something kind of corny and have you remember it, than just stand here and talk and have you all zone out."

I'd given 7 people pieces of paper with a different name on them. The people just had to stand in the front of the class while I talked about them. 

I'd talk about what happened with that king and then say things like, "and then this king died. Now you can sit down."

I think it was a good visual way to show the changes in power. 

It was really fun and informative and probably the lesson I'm the most proud of.

The air conditioner at our church is struggling. I joke that the chapel is the "Early Menopause Room." And our sunday school meets in the chapel. So I was dying of heat by the end of church. I came home and immediately sat in front of the fan that I have at the foot of my bed. Veronica was like, "what are you doing?" I told her, "I've been dreaming of this moment for the last hour and 45 minutes."

We watched Project Hail Mary that evening. It was really fun. 

And that was the end of another week. 

Thanks for reading.