Communal living at its finest

Last night I told my dad I was living the dream.

He asked, "What are you dreaming of?"

For lack of a better idea I said, "A white Christmas."

I have loved being here.  It's always relaxing.  Yesterday I walked with my mom and Olivia.  We saw my uncle Joe along the way and he stopped to say hello.  

He said, "Are you out checking on the neighborhood?"

We said yes.  Just making sure everything is going well.

It is. 

Joe said whenever he comes here in the summer he wonders why anyone would not want to live here.

He said he'd mentioned that to another neighbor, Marty, and she said, "Winter."

And that's valid.  Winter's are no joke.

I helped my mom a little with her scrapbook project and we quilted at Olivia's and I worked on my degree.  I told myself I was going to take a break from it, but I'm not anyone's idea of a great vacationer.

And even though I struggle to just be lazy, I have had a very good time.  I love seeing so much of my family all throughout the day.  This view from my chair is just calming and restorative.

Even when I'm working on my degree.

Vacation (ish)

 Yesterday was such a nice day!  I walked with Marianne and my mom, then I went to Marianne's and rearranged furniture and hung pictures on the wall.  I love both things.  

And now Marianne maybe has more empathy with my children. (Although I didn't insist on trying the third dresser placement idea I had.)

I stopped at my parents' house and my mom and I looked at a little family history and she showed me some of the work she's been doing on my dad's business scrapbooks.  

I spent most of the afternoon still hooked on the family history puzzle.  I am used to looking at British records and Kansas in the 1800s was way harder.  I realized that it was during Little House in the Prairie times and that made more sense why there weren't more records.

My mom and Olivia and I quilted with Olivia a bit, which is always lovely.

In the evening we convened at Marianne's.  I walked in and Marianne and Olivia were both on the couch with their laptops and I was supposed to bring mine and I forgot!

We sat down (me on my phone) and ordered tickets for the Traditional Cowboy Artist Association big art show in Oklahoma City that we're all going to in September.  You had to put a title on the order form and Marianne and I both put Mr. and Mrs. and Olivia put things like Honorable Olivia Cobian for her and different titles for Edgar and all her children.

I told her we weren't going to walk next to her.

Working on my schoolwork is a hard habit to break.  I may look at it a little this morning before we walk.

(I am not that great at vacations maybe.)

Weekend

 We are in Starr Valley.  It's nice to be here.

After Adam got home from meetings on Sunday, we packed up and hit the road.  We talked to Emma and Mark and Braeden and Anna (and QE) while we drove.  

Last night we went to visit my parents and Olivia and Lili came and then Marianne and Hyrum and Carolina came to visit.

It's always the happening place.

Our good luck of smokeless summers has passed.  It is hazy and smoky.  Hopefully it won't get worse.

Today I have declared myself on vacation and I am planning to stay away from my course (except I'm going to meet with Braeden today over the phone to talk about my research questions.

We're going to walk soon.  

It's good to be here.

Grateful Friday

I'm grateful for adult children.  I hung out with Emma a little last night and talked to Braeden on the phone (seeking help for data analysis--why is this my life?!?).

Adult children are pretty great.

I was talking to my friend, Jenn, at the ward party and we were talking about grandchildren and she said, "They just keep getting better, the older they get, just like our kids."

I agree.  The only trouble with adult children is when they move to California.

I'm grateful for Adam.  We're planning a quick trip to Nevada, just because.  I like spending time with that kid.

I'm grateful for my teacher team.  We sent about 30 text messages yesterday about a team t-shirt.  You know, priorities.

I am looking forward to a new school year.

I'm grateful for the steady progress I'm able to make on my degree pursuit.  Chipping away, always chipping away.

And I finished the basement!  (I mean, it was finished.  I finished organizing and cleaning it.)

Crashing reality

 Last night at our ward 24th of July party, I chatted with my friend Cortney.  I said something like, "How's your summer going?"

She said, "Fast.  We only have three weeks left."

She was right!  Three weeks from today is the first day of school!

I knew that but I didn't know that!

Usually by this point in the summer, all my brain is pointed toward school and this year my thoughts have been elsewhere and it has snuck up on me.

I told Adam this morning about my dream, "I didn't have any desks.  I was at school and there were no desks.  It was after lunch and I needed to go get my class but I was doing other stuff.  I wasn't ready at all."

Adam said, "I like how you didn't notice until after lunch that you had no desks."

My point exactly.  I don't feel ready!

On the rock our mothers planted

Firm as the mountains around us,

Stalwart and brave we stand

On the rock our fathers planted

For us in this goodly land—

The rock of honor and virtue,

Of faith in the living God.

They raised his banner triumphant—

Over the desert sod.

 

Today is Pioneer Day around here and I love it.  I grew up in the Great Basin and have pioneer ancestors so the 24th of July matters to me.  (It was barely a blip for Adam growing up in the Pacific Northwest and here I thought the whole church was having parades and ward parties.)

We're having parades and ward parties in Utah County.

I appreciate my ancestors who came here and set down roots and built something that I can benefit from.  

They were strong women who did good things.

We don't have to vanquish the same kinds of dangers, but my fellow sisters in Zion are here working together vanquishing all the same.

And these are strong women who do good things.

Emails and texts are flying about school. I work with the best women.

"Come to a BBQ at my house."

"I'll provide the burgers for the BBQ!"

"I'm going to make everyone a t-shirt.  What size?"

"Could anyone use this?"

They. Are. Amazing.  I would have crossed the plains with them.

One of our neighbors, Vickie, had a baby shower last night for another neighbor who none of us had met.  If you want something done well, ask Vickie.  She dropped off a cute invitation but also texted several times:  Hope you can make it!  

She wanted us to show up for our neighbor.  Forgetting was not an option.

I had ordered a gift from Amazon, but it did not arrive on time, so I went to Walmart yesterday afternoon to buy a gift.  I ran into Terri.  She was buying stuff for Girls Camp.  She is the leader and that almost (but not quite) makes me want to go.  Everything Terri does is top-notch.

In the baby section, I was pondering what to get for someone I know zero about.  I saw Jenn there.  She's another neighbor.  I said, "Are you here for the same reason as I am?"

She said yes.  She showed me the cute pink baby clothes she had picked out.  She wished me luck on my search for a gift and showed me again what she had.  "Don't get these!" she said.

The baby shower was lovely.  All the women except a few from our street and  three from the perpendicular street were there.  We got to know the soon to be new mother and she is very sweet.  

We decided when it is cooler we will have another neighborhood BBQ.  

When Adam was growing up, he said it was hard for him to get excited about the desert sod.

I love the desert sod and especially the people who live here with me.

My notebook runneth over

 I have one of those basic 70 page spiral bound notebooks that I have been using for my coursework this summer.

Friends, I am on the last page.

As in, I need a new notebook.

I wouldn't say I'm a copious note taker, but I am a note taker.  I like to write my notes more than type them because my brain connects to my handwriting.  Sometimes if I need to figure something out, I just need to write.

Adam acknowledges that I've done a lot of work this summer, but this morning he said he was kind of surprised by how fast I was going because he was comparing it to his master's degree.

Like I told him, no one is going to mistake a master's degree from Yale with a master's degree from WGU.

Still, it's been a lot.  My notebook is full and so is my brain.  I'm getting closer plus getting closer to school starting so I feel some urgency, but it's OK.

I have other notebooks.  And maybe I have more brain power?  Somewhere?

Weekend

 I met my friend Shannon for lunch on Friday.  It was such a nice time!  Meeting friends for lunch is one of the absolute pleasures of adulthood.

Her sister and brother-in-law happened to be having lunch in the same restaurant and Shannon and I must have been having an intense conversation because her sister texted, "What are you talking about?"

Pretty much everything.

Menopause, crashed hopes and dreams, being let down by family members, church callings, some of the lovably wacky people in our ward, living in Pleasant Grove, movies we'd seen, Channing Tatum's unfortunate hairstyle in Fly Me to the Moon.

She wasn't going right home so I took her leftovers home to my fridge and she stopped by later to pick them up.  Two Shannon sightings in one day!  We commented on how fun it had been to have lunch and Shannon said, "We have to do it again.  Maybe...next summer?"

Summer is all I've got and it's nice to have friends who get it.

I worked more in the basement Friday and Saturday.  It's a whole undertaking.

Saturday morning at 8:00 AM a guy came to give us a quote on some tree removals.  We were dressed to go to the temple and I asked, "Are we the most overdressed people you've ever given a quote to for tree removal?"

He said no.

It is Utah County after all.

I wore my grandma's small pearl earrings to the temple which I have done ever since I got them.  I love taking a little memory of her with me.

The rest of Saturday was taken up with work in the basement and a call with my WGU course instructor.  Mark came over to go through all the video game stuff.  He knew and I knew that I would throw it all away if he didn't.

It's nice to have leverage.

We took Mark to dinner at Bombay House in Provo which is oh so good.  Adam and I stopped at Harmon's on the way home and found some gluten free hamburger buns that might be Mark's new favorite.  (None of them are good, but they are the least bad.)

I taught Sunday School on Sunday and after church and a few appointments for Adam, we zipped to Salt Lake to attend sacrament meeting with Emma.  She is the newly minted choir director and they were performing for the first time.  I loved everything about her church.  The actual building was amazing.  It was built in 1902 in the Avenues and surrounded by huge shady trees.  The talks were good and people were very friendly (including but not limited to Emma's bishop's wife who is a 2nd grade teachers working on her master's degree from WGU in curriculum and instruction this summer.  We compared notes!)  Also, the choir director:  top notch!

We had our kids, Liberty and Nikki, and Clarissa over for dinner.  It was a farewell to Clarissa who is moving to the East coast.  We had a lovely time.  I gave an abbreviated version of my lesson, we played Snake Oil (and I laughed until I cried) and roasted s'mores.

It was a busy, but nice, weekend and now, on to a hopefully busy, but nice, Monday!

Grateful Friday

I am feeling grateful for people today.  Three in particular.

I emailed Matt for advice with my research project.  He sent back this:

 I am coaching a soccer tournament today and tomorrow. I can call between stuff.

Sure enough, he called me.  He was very helpful like I knew he would be.  There was a certain amount of, "Wait, let me write this down!" on my part.  I'm grateful he is my principal.

In the gaps of my day yesterday, I tried to bring some civility to our basement.  (It will take more time than that!) I was sorting through some books and a bookmark fell out of a book that I must have put there decades ago.  Marianne had written on the back and I think sent it to me when she was serving as a missionary:

She is not the older sister I deserve, but I will always be grateful she is the older sister I got.

I can't imagine a more capable, exemplary and kind person to try to be like when I grow up.

And then there's Adam.  I'm always grateful for that guy.

Yesterday when he was getting ready for work, I asked, "Can I talk this over with you?"

I started talking to him about my Sunday School lesson and he said, "Oh, I thought it was going to be your research project."

He's my go to for all kinds of can-I-talk-this-over-with-you situations.  It's nice to have a smart guy around who is willing to listen.

Mixing it up

 Yesterday was a different sort of day.  I mean, it wasn't that different, but time not spent in my office in front of my computer is novel and welcome this summer.

We had all the youth over for yard games and s'mores so I went to the store for some reinforcements.  I bought a few classroom things.  

I took my laptop to the library and found a little quiet corner and worked a few hours.  I got majorly distracted by the half price book sale they were having.  I got 11 books for $4.25.  Two were for my classroom, four were for QE and the rest were for me.

Is there anything better than buying a whole armful of books for under $5?

This book set me back a quarter and those are two of the places I loved most when we went to France.  It was written in 1913 and is the author's reaction to going there.

I have no idea if it will be interesting, but I was willing to take the 25 cent risk.

It ended up being a great evening.  We had about 25 kids here and 10 adults.  We had corn hole and ladder golf and bocce ball set up.  Some kids played on the trampoline and some sat on the grass and some kids brought their own yard games to play.

People roasted s'mores and a big melted marshmallow splatted on the pavers and Adam and I didn't care at all.  There is absolutely nothing precious about our yard and I'm glad.  I was more worried about boys getting stabbed by thorns as they dove into bushes to get a frisbee than I was about the bushes.  If these bushes can withstand the deer and wild temperature swings here, they can take about anything.

I guess I don't need to tell you.  I'm back at my desk today.

Accomplishments!

 I submitted my two performance assessments for my statistics class.  They were easier than the reading material led me to believe, which is good news because I don't know how much of it I absorbed....

I felt so good hitting the submit button!  I am getting closer to completion.  The little teacher who could.

My other big accomplishment of late is that I went to my doctor appointment.  I felt like a very good girl for going to the doctor when I didn't need to.  I have to go back for more routine bloodwork today.

There was quite a wait in the doctor's office so I pulled out my phone and did some shopping on Amazon.  Prime Days!

I thought, "The longer I wait, the more this is costing me!"

But I accomplished some shopping too.  I'll add it to the list of brownie points for me!

Here's one more accomplishment.  My parents are at a Nauvoo mission reunion.  They went on a river rafting expedition.  I asked my mom, "Is it going to be white water rafting?!?"

She said, "No.  We're all old."

They went!  There are many, many things that my dad has done that no one else I know has ever done.  He built his own house, taught himself how to be a silversmith, and invents tools he needs.  This was his first time ever being in a boat though. 

Hyrum had the very good question of what he wore.  My mom sent a picture of him in a blue long sleeved button down shirt.  (I've never seen him wear anything except a long sleeved button down shirt.) My mom said he wore his hat too and someone said with his hat and mustache, he looked like the governor.  (He didn't have a mustache as a missionary.)

My parents floated down a river!  You never know what awaits you!

One of the lesser known circles of hell

It's statistics.

Maybe you already knew that.

That's the course I'm working on and it is really hard.

I did what any intelligent woman would do (although I was seriously doubting I had any intelligence at that point) and texted Braeden.

 I called him and he got a white board and marker and was explaining so enthusiastically that he woke up QE.

I took a screenshot while he went to check on her because he is so adorable.

He explained it to me and I finally understood 3% of it, which is way more than I understood previously.  

I said, "The next thing is inferential statistics."

 

He said, "I was hoping you would ask me about that!"

He said, "This is really cool, Mom!"

It wasn't.  I will never be a statistician.  I do have a smart boy though and I was his teacher through 7th grade so I'm taking the win on that one.

Also, you never met anyone with so much enthusiasm.  About anything.

Mark came over later and I wailed to him about statistics.  He said, "Wearing that Yale shirt isn't making you any smarter, huh?"

I was wearing an old t-shirt of Emma's that she got when we went to New England.  I said, "No, it's not!"

Mark then told me that it was good for me to learn hard things and even if it didn't feel super relevant right now it was making me smarter and that was what mattered.

I said, "Why are you using my words against me?!?"

He laughed.  I offered to make him a smoothie and he said yes, so I did and we chatted awhile.

I really needed the brain break.

If this is the last blog post I ever write, you will know that statistics killed me.  

Good-bye cruel world.

Weekend- headache edition

 I had a headache on Saturday and for part of Sunday.

I didn't enjoy it.

I get way fewer headaches than I used to and when I get one now, it feels like an affront.  It feels like a betrayal.

It hurts.

Adam and I went grocery shopping and I went through the mail and looked at my course a little.  Adam and the kids went swimming and we all met up for dinner at Feast.

I don't really like Feast, but they do and I like all of them.

Braeden had texted us earlier to let us know about the shooting at the Trump rally.  It was shocking and terrible.  None of us are fans of Trump, but it still felt awful and we are all grateful he is OK.

I am sad about the innocent bystander at the rally who lost his life.

I am also sad about the family of the shooter.  As a mother of adult children, I can't imagine.

Sunday I stayed home from church and spent the morning as a sad sack.  The bishop gave a shout out to people who were watching sacrament meeting at home (he said it in a more proper way, he didn't use the words shout out), but I appreciated him all the same.

Adam's Sundays are long and busy.  Mine yesterday was long and quiet.  Once I had mostly recovered from my terrible horrible no good very bad headache, I worked a little bit on my Sunday School lesson for next week.

Marie Louise is out of town, but I worked on some of her family history so I will have something to share with her next time we get together.  

I was researching one of her relatives and found this:

I couldn't read the article unless I had a subscription to a newspaper archive website, so I signed right up for a free 7-day trial.  I have watched enough British murder mysteries to feel qualified to solve the puzzle!

Turns out they had click bait in 1932 also because the title of the article was a little misleading.  It was deemed a suicide.  Maybe the puzzle was they didn't know why?  

So I didn't need to solve a murder mystery after all.

But I'm ready.

Emma didn't come over because she had ward prayer.  (I am so glad that she is getting more involved in her ward!) Mark texted he wasn't coming over because he was doing something with his roommates and I was also happy about that.  When you have these two introverts, you value times when they're being people-y.

After Adam got home, Braeden called with a FaceTime call.  I answered and QE said, "Pa-paaaaa?" in her adorable little voice.  I quickly found Papa for her.  We had a great time chatting with her.  She wanted to look around our house and I walked around with the phone, showing her things.  When I showed her Horace, she giggled.  "A goat in the house!" She said, "I memember Nana's house!"

Like I told Adam later, it's Nana's house, but she wants to know where Papa is.

Next, she wanted to see the toys so I showed her every stuffed animal.  A lot of the other toys she had played with were put away.  She said, "More toys," and I distracted her with reading to her which always works.

After three books I told her it was time for us to go eat dinner and she was a little sad to say good-bye and  that a little bit makes me glad because she likes us, but mostly makes me sad because I only ever want her to be happy.

This morning I am back at it with WGU.  

Grateful Friday

Yesterday when Adam got home, I said, "I need a pep talk."

We talked it all out.  

I told him I was burned out.  I've been working working working on this degree and it is a lot and I don't want to start the school year tired and I also want to accelerate it to pieces.

Adam listened and advised like the superstar he is.

I have come up with a new plan.

I am going to work my very hardest for the rest of July.  In August, I will slow my pace and focus on starting school and then we'll see.

(Also I'm intimidated by my research and capstone project.)

(Also, why am I even doing this?!?)

I'm grateful for Adam.

After the pep talk/counseling session, we went to Trader Joe's for the single reason that I found out they had good gluten free pizza dough and Costco has not had the GF pizza Mark likes lately.

We got a lot of good stuff, like you do at Trader Joe's and then we came home and ate a very late dinner of crumbly aged cheddar cheese and strawberry jalapeño crisps and strawberries and grapes and strawberry rhubarb hand pies.

If there was a theme, it was strawberries.

I am grateful for Trader Joe's and the flexibility of empty nester dinners and strawberries.

OK, I'm off to study curriculum and instruction!

Chipping away

We are chipping away at this heat wave.  Today is day two of temperatures around 100 degrees.  It should be a little cooler next week.  What a wonderful invention AC was!

I'm chipping away at earning my master's degree.

When I've had enough for the day, I'm chipping away at my summer to do list.

One thing I wanted to do was some doctor appointments.  Well, I didn't want to...

I am really good at going to the doctor when I'm sick.  Antibiotics?  Sign me up!

I am really terrible at the maintenance side of things.  Not interested.  Nope.  Preventative medicine is not my forte. 

I mustered my courage and called for an appointment.  The lady on the other end sort of gasped when I told her my age and the last time I'd had a physical or any of the sort of the diagnostic routine procedures you are supposed to get when you are my age.

I'm sorry.

I'm doing it now, OK?

Mark came over and assembled all the hardware/reattached the doors of the armoire.  He carried all the games upstairs and made a pile of ones he thought we should get rid of.

He said, magnanimously, "But it's up to you."

In the dictionary, under "youngest child," there's a little picture of my Markie.  He's the leading actor and the rest of us are supporting cast. 

I put everything away and this won't impress you because you didn't see the before, but just let me tell you, it was a hot mess.

I got rid of a pile of games (of my own choosing) and relocated some puzzles--which resulted in me relocating the candles.

There is a domino effect.

(Also, I dropped all the dominoes.)

The pictures on the wall were suddenly wrong (there used to be a small desk and a small bookcase there and the scale all played nicely.  Now, not so much.  I texted pictures to Fam-a-lam to get feedback and Emma was the only one to respond, but her opinion matters to me.  She thought it looked fine, but I thought the picture looked better than the reality.

I considered painting another wonky rendition of an actual artist's work, but then I remembered the Marimekko postcards Braeden and Anna gave me a while ago.

I clipped them all together and hung them up.

It was all wrong centered on the wall.  Those plants weren't doing their bit to offset it.  

When I was (I think) in junior high, I created a collage on the wall above my bed.  It was a big collage, the length of my bed and all the way to the ceiling.  I had torn pages I liked out of Seventeen magazine and tacked them up in what I considered to be a very pleasing way.

I got in trouble!

My parents did not share my vision or appreciate the many holes I put in the wood.

Regrettably, I have not changed my ways and I am not afraid to put holes in walls!

I centered it above the armoire and I'm not 100% happy about it, but it is better.

It looks like a little patchwork quilt and between that and the colorful rug, that room may give a bit of sensory overload, but I love it!  Also, I realized the top of the armoire is a whole surface I will now have at Christmas time.

Showing up

I went to Show Up for Teachers yesterday.  It was great + exhausting.  

Showing up makes you tired.

A group of us met at the park and ride and Jamie drove us.  It was so fun to see my friends.  I think there were 15 of us altogether from Bonneville.  We sat together for the key note speakers in the big session and laughed a lot and did an abbreviated what did you do this summer because we still have about three more weeks of summer so there may be more to add later.

We listened to Governor Cox and First Lady Abby Cox, who hosts the event.  I love them.  Governor Cox is one of the few politicians who has my utmost respect.

We kept getting handed stuff by vendors and it was very kind.  (And my bags got pretty heavy.)  I lost my group because I made the foolish mistake of getting in the line for the bathroom.  (There were about a million times more women than men at the event but the bathroom ratio did not reflect that!)

I found the WGU booth and I excitedly told them that I was a student and the lady kindly said, "Well...great!" in an attempt to match my enthusiasm.  I can't take me anywhere.  But she gave me a cute WGU apple shaped coaster, so there was that.

Caroline (5th grade teacher) and I got in the standby line for a free 15 minute massage.  The people who had signed up didn't show up so they let us in, but then someone did show up so I got booted out after a few minutes.

Rats.

Caroline is going to have 34 students in 5th grade though so I'm glad she got the massage.

We talked about death and dying on the drive back to Utah County.  Not exactly cheery conversation, but it just goes to show we're friends.

When I got home I first took off my shoes and secondly lay everything on the counter that was in my bags.  I didn't even know everything I had.

This sticker was maybe my favorite thing.  I'm still not over the Barbie movie.

The day left me feeling inspired and appreciated.

Red forever

 Yesterday I went to Costco with Mark to get his tire checked.  He had a flat in Nevada and we had Wells' finest repair it, but they suggested we get a second opinion.

I'm just going to say it, that didn't instill a lot of confidence.

While we were waiting for their verdict at the Costco tire shop, Mark and I shopped and then sat at one of the tables in the food court and waited.  I decided to put my purchases in the shopping bags I had brought and Mark was helping me and tipped one of those chicken taco containers over on its head.  The contents went everywhere.  Mark felt very bad about the whole situation and cleaned it all up.  Then, when we were sitting there, a Costco employee came up and said, "My supervisor saw what happened.  I'll get you a new one.  No charge."

You've gotta love Costco.

The guys at Costco said they do a different kind of plug, but they thought it would hold.

So besides the fact that they didn't have gluten free pizza, it was a good trip.

I worked on my degree and painted the armoire.

I told Emma I wanted to paint it bright red that was slightly faded because it had been sitting out in the sun for a while and she nodded her approval, knowing exactly what I meant.  

Goes to show my daughter gets me.

Mark's going to come over Wednesday and reattach all the hardware and bring all the games from downstairs upstairs.

Goes to show it's nice having a son who will do your bidding.  

Braeden called to give me the update on potty training QE (there are some parts of parenting I am grateful are in the rear view mirror and that is one of them).

I showed him my painting and he said, "I never liked that armoire.  I don't like dark wood."

Goes to show your children may never outgrow disapproving your choices.

I said, "Well, now it's red."

Braeden said, "I like red.  Because you do."

So there's that.

Today I'm going to Show Up for Teachers, which is a conference for (you'll never guess...teachers) in Salt Lake.  There are two carpools of teachers from my school going to the conference.  One group is meeting at 6:30 AM.  Jamie is driving the other carpool and she wondered what time we wanted to leave.  She said the other group was going early to check out the swag.

I said I couldn't imagine any amount of swag that would be worth meeting that early.

We're meeting at 7:45.

I'm excited to be with my friends!

Weekend

 It was a weekend of digging out from under the effects of being gone.  My plants are all doing OK.  They are not too worse for the wear.  There was a lot of mail.  There was a lot of laundry.

I pulled some stuff out of the dryer from our first trip to California.  Adam and I are completely disoriented about which trip happened when.  We've given up trying to unravel it.

We met Emma and Mark for lunch at MOD and had pizza and visited for about 90 minutes.  It was great to reconnect and spend some time together.  

Otherwise, Adam spent most his time in his office, nose to the grindstone.

Turns out that when you're already busy and unexpectedly take two trips, there's a bit of an impact.

I told him he had chosen the better part.

It will all work out.

I taught Sunday School.  I didn't feel quite as panicky as usual, just 40% panicky.  Maybe I'm improving.

Adam was gone most of the day on Sunday and I failed to accomplish much with family history.  Guess how many William Smiths were born in Berkshire, England in 1806?

A lot.

I could not figure out which William Smith on all the records was the William Smith I was after and I don't know if I ever will.

Mark was sick so Emma was our only dinner guest.  It was great being with her.  We are happy to be catching up on lost Emma time.  We had steak and corn on the cob and asparagus and strawberries.

Emma and I decided we like fall and winter main dishes better, but summer side dishes.  Delicious!

I am painting the big armoire that used to house our TV back in the day.  It's been in the basement, full of games.  I want to paint it red and I wanted it upstairs because upstairs is where we actually play games.  I was saving the task for Sunday when Adam and Mark would both be here.

Emma said she and I were basically a Mark so we did it.  Adam on one side and Emma and me on the other.

As I told Mark, I missed him every step of the way.  And Braeden.  What good are strong sons if they aren't there when you need them?

Then we played a made up version of Rummikub.  It was mostly frustrating, but we cheered ourselves up with s'mores.

Our fire pit is about perfect.  It is in the shade and we light the propane and no one gets smoky and it is just pleasant.

Summer Sundays are good Sundays.

Grateful Friday

 I'm grateful I was able to get some work done on my masters degree--while intermittently icing my knee and taking Advil and Tylenol.  

I'm a lot of fun.

I was grateful to be able to go to Olivia's and quilt for a little while with my mom and Olivia.

I was grateful we had a get together at Marianne and Robert's.  I had Robert's fresh raspberries on a s'more and it completed me.

Clockwise from tallest:  my dad, my uncle Demar, aunt Lora, Olivia, my mom, Robert, Adam and me in Marianne and Robert's lovely sunroom

Olivia's boys, Ammon and Omar, were there too, but here are the big kids:  Liliana, Jill (my cousin Lincoln's daughter), Carolina and Mark

Mark took five cousins and one second cousin to watch the fireworks in Wells.  It was less about the fireworks and more about them having fun being together.

We got pictures of the beach from Braeden (they fled the heat for the coast) and pictures from our house from Emma (she had friends over for fireworks and s'mores).

It was a good day.

And I'm grateful to be going home today.

Independence Day

 Happy 4th of July to you!  I love being an American and I'm grateful to have been born here and for all of the opportunities and advantages I have because I was born here.

Still.

I have questions.

Are those really the two best candidates?!?

For the next while we may all just be giving each other searching looks, "Are we going to be OK?"

Sigh.

Happy 4th of July anyway.  It's a dream worth believing in.

We are back in Starr Valley.  We drove this far yesterday.  It is cool and pleasant--about 30 degrees cooler than where we were.  Mark met us here and had the bugs all vacuumed and the mousetraps all gathered up by the time we'd arrived.  (No mice!)

I did some laundry at my parents' house and I came back and while the pizza was cooking, I marshaled the troops to move one of the mattresses into the blue room.  (I've named the guest rooms and bought bedspreads to match.)  Adam and Mark were moving the mattress and I was backing up out of the way and I hit the corner of a chair and had a terrific crash ending with my leg at a bad (and very painful) angle.  If QE had fallen that way, she wouldn't have noticed.

I...noticed.

So I am hobbling a bit and woke up a lot during the night--it hurts every time I move.  I am hoping it will heal quickly and I feel pretty dumb and clumsy, but what can you do?

We are having a family party later and no fireworks from the deck this year, but Emma will be there with some friends, holding down the fort and bearing witness to Utah County blowing itself up.

Heading back

 We are leaving today--going as far as Starr Valley.  Mark is going to meet us there and we will celebrate the 4th of July with our family there.

Eventually we will return home to Utah and if I still have plants alive, I will consider it a big win.

It has been so great to spend so much time with our precious QE and her parents.  Adam said that we've had a chance to be participants instead of viewers of their lives and it is true.  Braeden got sick, which is exactly what they didn't need.  He got a stomach bug of some description and so Adam and I may get it as well.  (Which may curtail our plans.)

Yesterday I went to the store to get gatorade and applesauce and bananas and peanut butter crackers for my boy.  I thought, what if we all get sick?

Then I thought of the lyrics of the Billy Joel song, Goodnight Saigon:  We said we'd all go down together.

We hadn't come this far to only come this far.

Anna had felt well enough to take QE to story time at the library (and it effectively wiped her out for the rest of the day).  I took care of Braeden and then helped give QE lunch and read to her before her nap.

I went back to the hotel and worked a little on my master's degree.  Remember that?  So much for me thinking I was going to have a boring summer, only working on my degree....

After her nap, Adam called it quits for his work day and we went and got QE.

We went to Walmart to get something for her dinner.

She said, "I yuv Walmart!" and "I have never been to Walmart before!"  (She absolutely has been to Walmart before, including that very one.  With us.)

We drew pictures and read stories and then when the sun wasn't quite as intense (thought it was over 110 degrees), we hit the pool.  Late afternoon was our pool time.  She was completely her adventurous, charming, opinionated self.  She is getting better and better at swimming.  She will purposefully put her face in the water and she loves to grab onto one of us and kick her little legs, knowing that will propel her.  She definitely has a survivor mindset.  She lunges herself into the water, never doubting she will be fine.

And we are always there to make sure she is.

I hope we will be for a long time.

We fed her pasta and grapes and blueberries and choc-o-late.  She pronounces each syllable very distinctly and it is my legacy that I introduced her to chocolate and ice cream.  We shared a cone and then we snuggled under the covers and I read to her before it was time to return her to home.

After we read a scripture verse and prayed with their little family and a few more stories were read to QE, we said good-bye to her.  I didn't want to do the morning good-bye again.  It ripped my heart out to have her crying as we left.  Maybe that is selfish of me, but there it is.

We cried and hugged and said our good-byes to our beloved Braeden and Anna.  They are both doing a lot better and I am grateful we were able to step in and help them a little.

We are bound together by covenants and love and that is the entire point of everything.

Nana and Papa's hotel

 I saw this on instagram and I felt seen....

Yesterday I went and got Braeden and QE.  I dropped Braeden off at the hotel to work alongside Adam and I took QE to Target.

I wasn't sure she would love it, but she did.  Sunday night we were prepping dinner and Adam accidentally broke some pyrex so that was the main reason for my mission, but it is also air conditioned which is pretty great when there is an excessive heat warning.

It was really easy to get along with each other since I was in no hurry, because guess who isn't ever in a hurry?  Two year olds.  We carefully looked at everything that caught her eye.  We got to the books and made a major pit stop.  I may or may not have slipped a few books in the shopping cart because how could I not?

She held my hand and took the world's tiniest steps in the Barbie aisle so she could look at everything.  

I took a side quest to the seasonal area because they were putting out school supplies and nothing like school supplies makes my heart sing.  We picked up some fat crayons.  It was maybe my favorite trip to Target ever.

After her nap, I went and got her again.  We read books and Adam was done with work for the day so we hit the pool.  She is completely fearless in the water and purposefully put her face in the water.  She loves to float and we have to always make sure we have a good grip on her because she is constantly trying something new.

She also told me she wanted to go in the filter.

That was a no.

We got her dry and changed back into her clothes and she and I snuggled in the bed and I read Cars and Trucks and Things that Go to her.  She delighted in finding the gold bug on every page.

Whenever we return her to her parents we regale them with tales of how brilliant she is like they don't know/aren't responsible for it.

I think everyone mostly thinks their grandchildren are brilliant so we feel right at home.

Weekend

June was quite a month!

We're back in California, but I'll get to that.

First, a little window into our Friday evening.

Adam brought two thin crust Papa Murphy's pizzas home (one for today, one for lunch tomorrow!).  I had the oven all heated up and waiting for him.  He set the pizzas on the counter and went to check the sprinklers.  

I opened the oven and started to slide the first pizza onto the bottom rack but accidentally touched my finger to the top rack and burned it and reflexively dropped the pizza.  (I'm calling it reflexively because clumsily and stupidly don't sound as nice.)

Friends, the pizza was face down in the bottom of a 425 degree oven.

Adam came in to my wails for help.  He went into crisis mode and got two spatulas and started scraping the toppings off the bottom of the oven.  A lot of them ended up in the little warming drawer below the oven.  Once he got the oven (mostly) cleaned he thought we should run a clean cycle.  I said no way because it would be too hot and I was, after all, hungry and I thought we should still cook the pizzas.

We closed the oven and turned it back on and started cleaning out the warming drawer.  It was stubbornly in its place and Adam kind of wrenched it to remove it so he could clean it out.  As we were putting everything back together, we realized that a piece had come off that held the drawer in place.  We were lying on the (not incredibly clean) kitchen floor, looking at the warming drawer and it was one of those times when I couldn't figure out just how we got there.

Adam was able to mostly fix it and we got up and started tidying things and I said, "Well, welcome home!"

It was in no way the most unexpected thing to happen over the weekend.

Saturday morning I needed to take my one and only proctored test for my degree.  All the other tests are basically papers to write.  I must have felt anxiety about the test because I dreamt that I had inadvertently cheated on the test.  I didn't know how I had cheated, but I had, and it was stressful.

Friday evening (post pizza debacle), Adam set me up with an external camera and helped me get things sorted for the test.

Saturday morning I studied, studied, studied and tried to be ready.  

About ten minutes before 10:00, the time of my test appointment, I got a text from Braeden.

Anna has been having some health issues.  Amy got here the day after we left and she was leaving and Braeden wanted us back.  (I had offered the day before, if they needed us.)

So I was plunged into high gear.  I talked to Adam and then I said, "But I have to take this test!"  I started a load of laundry and sat down to do the test.

When taking my test my mind would veer into planning how to make the CA trip happen and then I would try to get back to thinking about standards based grading.

Amazingly, considering where my brain was, I passed the test.  

Adam and I mulled over several options.  I could fly, I could drive with Mark, Adam and I could drive together.

We finally decided that was the option.

Adam said he needed to be undisturbed for a few minutes in his office and I kept doing laundry and packing and assessing the fridge and pantry while he got on the phone with his counselors and the stake presidency and the Elders quorum president and got everything squared away for us to be gone.  It was a 5th Sunday and Adam was going to be teaching, but now he wasn't.

I'm so grateful to our ward leaders for taking up the charge.  He finally was able to touch base with the Relief Society president as we were zooming across the salt flats and she was very kind about everything, just like everyone had been.

We were on the road in the 1:00 hour, which was kind of amazing because three hours earlier we hadn't known we were going.

We drove straight through (besides several Maverik stops).  In Wells, we pulled into the pump next to my mom and Marianne who were on their way to Salt Lake City.  Adam snapped this picture and apparently this is how I look when I don't know someone is taking my picture.  My mom's pose is very similar so maybe that is how my grandmothers stood too.  

My birthright.

I was grateful to see them briefly and give them each a hug.

We made it here by 10:30 PM.  We listened to the soundtrack of Hadestown (I cried + I love that show!).  We listened to a shared podcast and started listening to Where'd You Go Bernadette, which I've read, but Adam has not.  Adam listened to his Supreme Court podcast.  

The time passed fairly quickly and I felt grateful to be able to go help and disoriented by the entire month of June.

It felt like we'd just driven that road and we very much had.

So now we're here to help and lift and support however we can.

We're here to enjoy QE.

And that is not a hard gig at all.