Bye Hyrum

Well, we're home from Park City. I just got back from taking Hyrum to the airport - he had a 9:45 pm flight back to San Diego.

He'll be there for 5 weeks, then back home for a few days before going up to BYU-I. School starts up there on Sept 3rd. Bye Hyrum! We'll miss you!

I went bouldering after taking Hyrum to the airport. Corey and Lily were going to meet up with me there, but something happened to the garage? Corey ended up bringing Lily and she was with me for the last 30 min before it closed at 10. Today was a pretty busy day getting things kinda ready for tomorrow. Joseph and Eliza are here, Ethan and Bella are still up at Park City with most of the Wrides. We were going to have Mary's baby blessing tomorrow at 9:30 at our church, but Joseph changed it to noon at our house so that the people at Park City have time to check out and get back down. 

For our final day at Park City, K made it memorable by peeing her pants last night. She was drinking a ton of her water bottle right before bed, so I kinda saw it coming, but I didn't have a diaper. I took off her wet clothes at 3 am and then wrapped her in a towel and she went back to sleep. She was a bit upset in the morning to find that she did not have on any clothes. 

I was able to wash and try them before she woke up, so we put them right on after she was awake.  We enjoyed time with Mary and Alvie. Hyrum holding Alvie, Natalie with Mary.

Natalie doing magic tricks while she held Mary as we waited for breakfast to start. Mary was amazed!

But Mary's always amazed. If she's awake, her eyebrows are wide and in awe. I did most of the packing up while Corey sat in the sauna. I cooked up all our sausage and 3 quarts of eggs. We checked out of the lock off and J&E out of their room across the hall, they put their carts in our room, we went to eat, then we headed down to load up the cars with bags and bikes. We headed home around noon. Abi and Owen were boating with Mel and Christian's family. I drove the van home with H, Eliza and Mary and LSPK. Joseph drove Corey's car with Natalie and Daniel. Corey stayed in Park City a bit longer to help load up Eliza's dad's bikes after Mel got back. They boated until noon, they came back to Park City, then they came home. Hyrum helped me fix the furniture in the house while Joseph managed unloading the cars. Natalie was his best helper and earned herself some ice cream. Corey went by Costco for a few things. We mowed and edged the lawn this evening, found a few monarch eggs (21 eggs and two babies!), I cut back some bushes in the front yard and tried to clear out some of the morning glory. It was a good busy day, and it was a good week at Park City. 

Deer Valley

We did the bike haul at Deer Valley today. Original plan was to do that on Tuesday, but everything got shifted, and I wasn't sure if we'd be able to make it happen, but today we made it out! Corey wanted to bring Katharine, I discouraged that, and she didn't want to come anyway. After we got there, when Corey was buying tickets, he learned that they don't allow shotgun seat, so yay, that was the right choice to leave her. Owen and Daniel came along with us without too much pressure. We weren't very prepared with them. Owen didn't have running shoes, so he was going to wear his blue crocs. I let him wear my black biking shoes which are tight on me (we basically wear the same size!!!) and I took my running shoes which are bigger and roomy-er. Daniel had velcro sandals (like Tevas) with his socks and did ok with those on. Lots of sunblock, biking gloves, helmets and yay we're ready to go. On the lift. 

We don't really know this resort, so it was good to figure it out without too many kids to manage. We went up the Silver Lake Express...then were going to go over to the Sterling Express, where we saw people going up last year, but that lift and mountain was all closed to biking and hiking because of construction. Darn! That was one we were a little familiar with, so that was too bad.... we went to the Homestake Express and that took us up to a little trail called "Secret to My Success". It was pretty good for Owen and Daniel, and super slow for us. Corey said "So my impression of Deer Valley is that it's pleasant, but not hard core. Yeah, pleasant but pampered." haha! Then he articulated his thought again as we sat on the lift for our second time "Deer Valley is a little bit like fine dining: small portions." haha that made me laugh too, and I think he hit it right on the nose. We'll see if Corey and I come back another time and try the blue trails or anything else, or maybe next year when Bald Mountain is open. Then we'll have more to judge if it's a good bike park or not. We were ok to go slow for the boys cause we're thinking long term - trying to get these two boys into biking. We did that three times, then Owen was ready for something more, so we took Ripple, and that was still a green trail, but it was so long for Daniel that it put him over the edge. 

He was struggling. It felt pretty long cause we were going so slow, but I get it, they're new to the downhill and they don't have great shocks on their bikes. 

Daniel was done and never wants to go again, but we got ice cream after and are hoping that seals it as an ok memory. Daniel was hiding behind a towel as he ate his ice cream, but here's Owen enjoying his. He had a good attitude.

Owen and I went out again at 4:30 and had to hurry to make it before the lifts closed at 5pm. We got on the Silver Lake Express at 4:40 and made it to the Homestake Express at  4:58 for the last chair!

We did Ripple again. From the top, Owen noticed Jordanelle where we were yesterday!

Owen was surprised at how fast this second ride seemed to go. We were done at 5:50 and headed back to the Marriott for the family bbq. Joseph brought Eliza's dad's bikes down from Idaho, and wanted to go on a ride together, and we were down to our last evening, so I went on one more ride today with him. For a 8:43 sunset, I knew we were leaving too late. We left at 8:02, were just going to go to Dawn's. It was Corey, Me, Joseph and Ethan. Joseph and I were in front and waited a bit to see how Ethan and Corey were doing (E hasn't done much cardio and Corey overate at dinner). Corey and Ethan made it to the bottom on King Con express and then they turned around and went back down on Armstrong (which is an uphill only trail) Joseph and I continued on to Dawns, which I haven't done for a few years so I wasn't sure of how long we still had to go. I kept thinking we were going to be able to connect to Seldom Seen, but then it just kept going and we kept climbing. Joseph wanted to turn around but I told him the fastest way down was ahead. We finally did made it to the Spiro connect to Seldom Seen, and it was super dark. We took that for a few, and then bailed out down the service road cause it was too dark. We finished at 9:20pm. But we almost got in 5 miles, not bad. I haven't gone on as many rides as I would have liked, but it's ok, I haven't felt the desire to get up and going in the mornings, cause we've been up late almost every night. It will be back to reality soon. School starts in a week and a half. We'll be heading home tomorrow after the family brunch. Joseph across the hall and Abi Sophi Natalie in the lock off next to our room all have a 10am checkout, our main room got a late check out, so we have until 11, yay. It will be a busy day tomorrow, getting the house put back together and doing some food prep for Mary's baby blessing on Sunday. 

Jordanelle

Corey and I didn't go on a ride today. We were ok to rest our legs after our big climb last night. Corey got up early and left with Mel to go to Jordanelle (to get Mark's truck) and then they drove up to Layton (to fill the truck with stuff) and then to Bountiful to pick up Christian and his family's boat. I slept in and then got the kids breakfast. After our SpongeBob wake up call, one by one different groups headed out to Jordanelle. Joseph took him and Eliza & Mary, Sophi, Natalie, Owen, Daniel, Peter in Corey's car. Hyrum, Abi, Lily and Katharine went with Wayne. There wasn't room for me (well, Hyrum would have stayed but he said he didn't care either way, and I'd rather stay at the hotel than be at the beach, so he went for me, and I waited until Ethan & Bella were ready to go. I got there at lunch time. People were playing a card game. Christian had a group of kids out on the water. K was hanging around the food. I took her down to the pavilion and gave her a bowl of peanut MnM's, which she was working on in this pic -

Then she wanted my hat. It looks cuter on you, Katharine.

Group one coming back from fun on the water.

Joseph holding the boat while kids unload. Joseph came and swapped out with Eliza. Ethan holding the boat while group 2 loads up.

Those of us at the pavilion took turns helping with the babies. Little Mary looking so comfy snuggled up to her Uncle Hyrum.

Corey was holding Alvie, and I was down below on a beach chair and really loved my view of him.

Loving those cheeks! 

And that chin and neck!!! Oh my gosh Alvie you're so stinkin' cute!

It was a good day at Jordanelle, even though it was quite windy. I'll share pics of from the boat if Abi or Natalie or anybody took some. Sophi and Natalie got pretty burnt. They were out for both trips and they didn't put any sunblock on for some stupid reason. The boy did good protecting themselves. It's also too bad that the beach where we were at this time was all rocks. That made it hard to make a sand castle. I took Katharine to the bathroom like 4 times, but she wasn't able to go/relax. Around 4pm K was ready to be done, so she and I and Peter headed back with Nancy. Cousin Rhyan holding up K's head in the car after she started to nod off...

I headed back early so I could get started making dinner. We did Asian rice bowls, with potstickers, Spring rolls, and lots of veggies topped with teriyaki sauce. I had brought up shrimp, but I wasn't able to do it all by myself, but that's ok, we had enough for everyone, plus some of Joseph's friends (Talmage, Scotty Ben, and Spencer and their wives and kids who came up to swim and hang out. Katharine was happy to have a new friend in Annie (Scotty's cute little girl). Everyone went swimming, I stayed in the room with kids and cleaned up a little bit. It was a good day. I'm hoping we're able to go biking at Deer Valley tomorrow. We had planned to do that on Tuesday, cause the river was going to be on Monday, but then Monday turned into a hotel day and Tuesday was Provo River. It's been a full week, and tomorrow was supposed to be a hotel day before the family bbq. So we'll see what we do. 

Tie-Dye

Eliza had a fun idea for everyone to do tie dye shirts while we were up here at Park City. We did it today. Katharine applying some sun block while she waited as we started to set up.

She's been quite generous with the sunblock on herself. She does a decent job at applying it though. 

This was my first time every tie dying a shirt. Here's how we did it:

Step 1 - get a shirt. 

Step 2 - soak it (I brought some empty laundry buckets from home, which came in handy for that step.)

Step 3 - twist it up in desired shape (there was a paper to show us different techniques for the desired patterns). 

Step 4 - wrap it with rubber bands. 

Step 5 - apply dye. 

Oh, and Step 4.5 - put on gloves to protect your hands. Ethan skipped that step cause he thought it would wash off, but it didn't, and so his hands are currently very blue. The Marriott management was anxious about us staining the pool deck, and thus so was I, but we were vigilant and finished without making any stains on the deck or their wood tables. I was on high alert when the dyes came out, so I didn't get any pics of that, but Nancy did, I'll see if I can get those from her. We'll see how they turn out!

After finishing shirts, Corey and I went on a ride. On Monday, Corey made plans for us to take a long ride with Kyle, and maybe some of the older kids, and to have Hyrum film us a bit with his drone. The plan was to leave at 11:30 today, but that got pushed back to 12:30 cause Kyle was with a client, then it was too late for Kyle cause he had to be back in SL at 4, and it was also too late for Christian, who had a work call at 3. So then it was just Corey and me but we waited until after Christian was done. He came but said he'd rather RUN it than bike it. Um, wow. We left at 4:40, giving us a 15 min start ahead of Christian. So he ran over 11 miles up the mountain side like it was nothing. He followed the trail we were biking on (Armstrong) and with our head start, he caught up to us before we reached Midmountain. And we were going hard, like we were being chased. We chatted for a minute at the midmountain > pinecone connect, and then he ran ahead. Riding Pinecone was brutal. I got a PR, but I was dying. I would have been cursing if I was a cursing person. Instead I was just yelling and grunting. My legs were burning so bad. I probably should have put on music, but instead Corey and I were enjoying the sounds of nature and talking, or trying to talk when I wasn't yelling. It was a long and merciless climb. Christian got to Guardsman about 15 minutes before us where he met Hyrum, who brought him a bike and brought us some water (I sent a few messages pleading for aid, cause again, I was dying). Hyrum got a little bit of drone footage (we could hear it overhead) and after more water and a pic - 

...we biked back to the top of pinecone, aka up puke hill, ugh, I walked it. 22.09 miles, total, 3783 ft elevation gain. Moving time 3:45:51, my strava cut out before the decent, so those were from Corey's strava stats. My strava for the climb to the top of Puke Hill said I got 18 achievements, one of which was "3rd best elevation gain" at 3,237 (Corey's said we got 3,783 which included Puke Hill, which would have been a new PR - my previous PRs were when I rode up to Alta, which was 3696 elevation, and more recent PR when we biked from Park City to Millcreek (Jul 8 was 3697 elevation - haha just one foot more than Alta.) One segment on Pinecone was called "Pain Cave". That was probably one of the parts I hated. 1.57 miles, PR at 28 min and 34 seconds, ugh! We got back at 9, barely made it with visibility. 2 laps (4 lengths) in the pool. Cousins enjoying the babies - Alix with Alvie, and Rhyan getting a smile from Mary!

They have been starting to give us little grins and smiles, it is so cute. Babies are magic. 

Carpets Cleaned!

We went to bed at midnight last night (cause we're at the kids mercy up here.) I woke up at 6 to wake up Abi so she could drive down to Sandy to take a math test. She took the van. I laid back down after that, then woke up for good around 8, Corey and Joseph &Eliza, Hyrum, and Seth went on a ride. Mel was going to go, but when she saw Mary being watched by Sophi and Natalie, she decided to stay back and help with that. Joseph to Mel "I see where your priorities are..." I don't blame her, Mary sooo sooo cute! After the bikers left, I felt free to leave. I took Mel's car. So they left for a ride and I left for home before our 1:00 carpet cleaning appointment. I left Park City around 9, took my RS Presidency meeting call as I drove. We were done at 9:30 so I pulled into Momentum for a quick climb before I went home for the carpets to be cleaned. Did 40 boulders, 22 attempts, 18 sent. 

I said this in Monday's post, but I texted the carpet guy yesterday to see if we could change from Wed to today, cause Corey arranged for a bike ride with Kyle tomorrow at 11 and wanted me to come, cause we're going to revisit dead tree, and Hyrum is going to come to get some drone footage. So thankfully the carpet guy still had an opening today from 1-2-ish (I knew the openings he had from quite a bit of texting back and forth last week, and I checked with Corey several times that Wednesday was good, so then it was just kinda funny that he arranged the ride right when I needed to be in SL for the carpet cleaning. Today he texted around 11:30 to ask if he could come at noon, and I had things ready on the main floor so that worked out great. I didn't see Abi. After her test, she headed straight back up to get there in time for the river. I was vacuuming the carpet and picking up legos and earrings and moving furniture ahead of him.  I got the main floor ready and he took care of that while I finished prepping the upstairs, moving a few more things from the bedrooms into the laundry room and bathrooms. 

Before pic - you can see the high traffic areas there.

And the after pic - all clean. Ahh, I can breathe!

I really love the Roto clean carpet brush that the Aspen Carpet guy uses. He does a great job too. It is so nice to see them clean. Now we just need to move out of this house so we never get them dirty haha.  I went to Costco after the carpets were done and got a lot of food. Corey wanted more peaches. I picked up peaches for him plus other stuff for our stir fry/rice bowls meal on Thursday. Now I am down here blogging for a bit more, while I wait for Abi to tell me what she wants to do for dinner on Thursday (she said she'll be in charge of it). I need to know if I'm bringing up chicken or shrimp, and if she wants fresh veggies or fried? I got enough for both. Whatever we don't use at Park City we can have on Sunday when people come over for Mary's baby blessing. So I'm blogging while I wait, and I'm enjoying the quiet. The furniture is all in the kitchen piled around me. I finished three more December posts, yay, just need to do two more! Dec 22 and 23. And I need to do the ward RS Newsletter, which needs to be ready to send out Friday morning. We'll let the carpets dry and maybe I'll bring Hyrum down early on Saturday to help me put things back together before everyone gets home from Park City. 

Everyone else floated the Provo River today. Last year was my first time, and it was fun. It would have been fun to go again, but I was also ok to miss it cause cleaning the carpets was my #1 priority. Corey said he didn't get any pics, cause his hands were full. He had Katharine with him and she was scared and said "I don't want to be brave..." He said it made him think of how it must be in his own relationship with God and the trials he is facing in life, hoping that God has him and won't let him drown. 

I'm back up at Park City now. Daniel played his sax with the blues band tonight, his first public performance!

Joseph Mel Ethan and Hyrum were in charge of dinner. We took the group pic today because Seth and Isaac are leaving for Chile tomorrow. 

I'm going to keep blogging. I guess I'm not making it on a ride today, that's ok. I'm not training for the Olympics, so it's good for me to stick around. 

SpiderMan and Blog

Hello! We are up at the Wride reunion enjoying our first day at Park City. Corey and I went on a ride this morning, up Armstrong then down HAM, which was a nice and pleasant ride for us. We came back to kids watching Sponge Bob, as per the decades long Park City tradition, and eating cereal. (My plans for oatmeal did not materialize, cause I didn't want to cook it.) The activity for today (per the Wride Park City calendar) was to go float the Provo River. But then as we were all checking in yesterday, we saw on the hotel's activity calendar in the elevator that Spider Man was coming on Monday from 3-5. The river was scheduled for 1 o'clock. I wondered to Corey about moving the river to earlier? He said Mark had work. That's ok, I just won't tell Peter about the Spider Man visit, but then last night everyone else told him, so then we were stuck. Peter didn't want to miss it. Mark was tired anyway, so we decided to postpone the river day until tomorrow. Today we've been hanging around the hotel and Peter has come into the room to announce to me how many hours left until Spider Man came. After plenty of swimming, video games, and time in the Mine, the appointed time with Spider-Man was at hand. Peter must have been first in line, cause Corey had already sent a pic as I was leaving our room to go see. 

It was a dream come true for Peter. The poor Spider Man guy was scheduled to be here for two hours though. Around 3:30 there wasn't much going on, other than him talking to little kids who wanted him to swing up to the 3rd floor balcony by his spider webs. Ethan, slightly disappointed, asked "This is why we rescheduled river day?" Well, we also rescheduled because Mark was tired, Rhyan couldn't make it, and cause Lily had an online class to finish. Ethan took a pic of the guys' backside and showed it to us compared it with a pic of Tom Holland in his skin tight Spidey suit, followed by a gif from Elf with Buddy the elf "He's a fake!!" haha. Yeah, we know, but that's ok. It made Peter's day. We took a few more pics. It was all Peter had hoped for. 

I thought the guy did a decent job. It would be hard to pull off Spider Man. This guy didn't have a gut, so I say it's good. Katharine posed with him. She would have prob have been more excited to see Belle or Cinderella. That's ok. 

The older kids weren't interested in pics with Spider Man.

So then people went back to swim and do whatever, and I have spent most of my time today in the room today blogging. Around 4pm I had finished three posts from December, I kept working and now I've finished 5. I'm almost done, just 5 more then I'll finally be done with 2024. I've let June and July fall behind, ugh I'm also behind with March April May, oh well, I'll keep chipping away at it. Nancy had dinner tonight. As predicted, it was taco bowls with rice, chicken, and all the fixings. 

Our older kids are on for dinner tomorrow, they're doing Italian, Mark is on Wednesday (I'm saying he'll prob do ravioli and ceasar salad) and we have Thursday. We're doing something Asian. Friday is a BBQ by the pool day. Part of me feels I should be interacting more with everyone while we are all here together, but I'm also feeling (like Corey was two weeks ago at Bear Lake) that it is an opportune time to get stuff done when I know that the kids are all well and having fun and being entertained. So I'll try to crank out blog posts while I can. I rescheduled the carpets to be cleaned tomorrow instead of Wednesday, cause Corey scheduled the ride with Kyle on Wednesday on accident after I already had the carpet appt at 2. The carpet guy was flexible, which is nice. So I'll head down tomorrow for that, yay, I'm excited to have them cleaned! Hasn't been done since covid! 

Early Present

So we're back from bear lake. Kids have been enjoying their toys. I've been doing a bit of work on a new stretching program, and listening to podcasts (Diary of a CEO episode on sunlight and dementia, which was clickbait for my eye cause of spending time with Hibberts this weekend and our concerns of our parents. My mom's mom had dementia, and we're seeing a bit of short term memory loss in my mom. Remembering Neal Barnard's TED talk on that - 40 min walk 3x a week. Looks like sunlight is good too. Just keep trying to do all the things! Corey and I went to Momentum today and did toprope. It was fun. 

The girls are at Stake camp. I drove them up to Heber Valley Camp for that yesterday morning. I knew I was taking them at 7:30, so I did a ride to the ruins at 5:30 so I could be back in time to take them. They will get back tomorrow. We are going to Park City  next year, and Owen's birthday is Sunday. Since he probably shouldn't take his present up there cause he could lose the legos, I decided to give it to him today so he has a few days to play with it before his birthday on Sunday. I put it in a bag and we sang to him. 

He knew what it was going to be, and he was happy. 

A knock off lego brand ship for $45 bucks, yeah. And then they got to work. 

They've been busy all day. It's felt pretty easy to just have the little kiddos at home. Although it seems like the teenagers shouldn't add that much work, cause they should be good helpers (and they are...) but I think they do add a lot of work via their requests and desires. So yeah, it's felt easy and pretty chill yesterday and today. 

Boulder Hike and Stuff

Mel stopped home late last night on her way home from being with Christina and his fam in Bountiful. We visited and didn't go to bed until after midnight, but even though it was late, I asked her if she wanted to go on a hike. Yes, we'll probably both need a nap... I'm glad she took me up on it. We got up at 6 and went up Bell Canyon. I showed her my secret trail that goes along the Little Cottonwood Canyon's glacier's left lateral moraine. We have claimed a big boulder for the queen, er, ourselves. It is our secret spot and is hereby named pride rock (cause it looks like a Lion king rock from on top of it). Then we hiked back down to the main trial and walked to the reservoir then through the trees to the creek bridge and continued our exploration on the south side of the canyon. We found more boulders and some were HUGE!!! I felt like we stumbled upon a giant's toys where he left his blocks and legos. 

Mel, you're so tiny! There was another private spot that looked like a damn had been made for a baptismal font or something. I almost wanted to sit in it and soak up some cold therapy healing. Instead we climbed and checked out on top of this big boulder on the right.

The right side of it slopes down so we were able to walk on it, we didn't have to climb up that ledge. We continued on until we found another rock that I wanted to find and lay down on that I first discovered March 25 this past spring. Finally found it. Ahhhh...

It was at an incline, so Mel said she couldn't sleep on that one, but maybe someday we'll go camp out on pride rock. That would be fun. So we dilly dallied around the canyon for 2 plus hours and then went back home. Fed the kids, tried to take a nap, Mel went to the temple, Abi and Lily are working on their online classes (to fix grades). After Lily worked for a bit she and I went climbing at Momentum, ODPK are playing legos with their legos still. Daniel is working on a lego minecraft world, and Peter has a little house. Mostly Owen and Peter and working on Pirate ships though. These pics from yesterday ~

Owen's ship is a work of art that he started a year ago and is always fine tuning. Peter follow suit and has made his ship this past week. Katharine will play the role of the beautiful captains daughter. Yesterday was the first day that she did not have any potty accidents!!! She had a slight one today, but yesterday she was about to #2 her pants... she was in my room at the window playing with her legos when I walked in to get some laundry. She turned and saw me and said "Mom, can you leave?" Oh! I know what that means! I was glad she said that and I quickly sat her down. She hadn't started so that was her first successful #2 with no mess at all, and there were no pee accidents either, happy day. 

And today is Natalie's Happy Birthday! Hopefully they are doing something fun up there to celebrate her. She and Sophi get back tomorrow at noon, so we'll have cake and ice cream then and sing to her. I sent up a bday bag for her with our Stake leaders, which I'm positive she wasn't expecting. I think that will be a fun surprise. I sent up a lot of junk food, so she should be happy. And a cute little unicorn pinata that I hope they don't kill, it was cute! Here's most of the stuff I sent up that I got ready for her last night. 

I had everyone sign a big card for her. Happy Birthday Natalie. We're thinking of you even though we can't call and sing to you or anything! I'm sure it will make her 12th be a memorable birthday by having it up at Oakcrest. 

And - exciting news - I was in our bedroom when I saw a monarch in the backyard landing on milkweed! I went out and looked around and found 12 eggs. I'm going to give them all away, cause we have reunions for the next few weeks so I just don't want to worry about it. But I'm glad they made their appearance. It's a little late, just a week later than usual. But we're glad they made their appearance again this year and that they're not extinct yet.

8pm - just found 4 more. :) yay!

Epic Ride

I had an epic bike ride this morning with Corey and his friend Eric. 

We left the Park City and rode over the mountain to Corey's Dad's house, so from the Park City Summit Watch on Main street to Holladay via Armstrong, Midmountain, Pinecone, then Wasatch Crest and Pipeline. 32.65 miles, 4 hours 51 minutes moving time (6:04 elapsed time). It was our longest and most elevation packed ride ever. I got 44 achievements, Park City to Crest in 2 hours 51 min. Our previous time (8/29/24) was 2 hours 13 min to the top. Slower, but that's ok, we were conserving energy cause we knew we had more climb ahead. We ran out of water and were glad to find some snow still on Pinecone and at the beginning of Crest. 

We were able to refill our water bottles and had nice slushy cold water for the rest of the way down. Wildflowers were beautiful as well. 

We left Park City at 6:44 am and arrived in Holladay at 12:45. It was fun, and then we've just been relaxing and recovering for most of the day. Mel and Abi did a great job packing up the kids and checking out of the hotel. Abi had a flute lesson at noon. We haven't had any trumpet or violin lessons so far this summer. They girls have been doing ok at practicing and Owen's been doing great. We'll get back to it in the fall. So yeah, that was the big news of the day, our longest ride, it was fun. Prob just a once a year feat, but I'm glad we did it! 

Chill Sunday

Nice to have a lazy day at home. I hid outside in the backyard and did a little reading and napping on the grass. The older kids tried to nap inside, but if you do that, little kids are around to prevent sleep. Katharine was by Lily playing with a little plastic helicopter toy that Daniel got at the 4th of July carnival. K did pretty good spinning it at Lily...

Then she'd jump over (or on) Lily to go pick it up so she could try again. 

Katharine smirking and loving being a tease.

Daniel came and started playing with her. It helped keep her from bugging the napping teen, but mostly he was just trying to get his toy back.

Looks like K just killed Daniel.

Ethan and Bella stopped by. Little Buddha Alvie!!

Bella let me get him out, even though I had a policy to never wake a sleeping infant. That was for my own children, ha, not for grandbabies! Bella showed us some pictures that the took of Alvie at church today - 

They were putting Bella's rings on his face as he slept. 

And he did sleep right through it all - 

Haha, so cute. 

Katharine washed her hands and then they let her hold her nephew.

Alvie is a lot bigger and heavier for Katharine to hold than Mary was!

Quick potty training update (cause I know all future historians are anxious to know...) - Katharine didn't have a #1 accident today, yay! I even had enough confidence in her that I let her wear underwear to church. I was helping sub in a youth Sunday school class and Corey texted "Katharine just went pee, Sister Eakins came and got me" and from that it wasn't clear to me if she had an accident in the nursery room or if Sis Eakins came and got Corey because K said she needed to go before she went, and they had made it to the bathroom? I asked him "Hopefully not on the nursery floor?" He said it was in the bathroom, yay! Good job Kat. At home I caught her in the act of #2, little bit of a mess but not too bad. I sat her on the big toilet with her training seat, she sat there and was curious about the toilet paper as she spun it a bit to let the tp down. Then she said something about "George" that I didn't understand. I left her some privacy and when I came back, she had unrolled the full roll of tp onto the floor, piled up like a big white ribbon. "Ugh, Katharine, don't do that..." Then she said with some introspection: "George can do that, Katharine can't do that..." That's when I realized she was talking about Curious George! haha, oh it's ok, you can be curious if you want. You keep exploring the world. It's easy enough for me to use this tp off the floor. She's a cutie, and I'm proud that she's getting the hang of it. 

While E and Bella were here, Ethan talking about another person's kid in the lobby at church today, that he thought was being a bit naughty and needed to be disciplined... "they just gotta put that kid in the hold" Bella commented "Doesn’t that cause trauma?" Ethan "Well yeah! if it didn’t cause trauma then it wouldn’t have been effective!" Ethan asked Corey "Where did you learn the hold?" "I made it up." Ethan "You made it up!?!?" Then with awe and respect "...Genius!" They said a lot of other things that were making me laugh, but I couldn't record it fast enough, it was funny though. E&B came over for like 2 hours just to chat and do nothing with us before they went over to Bella's sibling's house for dinner. Natalie made a cake and Ethan took a generous helping, the girls were kinda freaking out - He's a big eater so they were worried but it was fine, there was still plenty for all of them. Ethan and Bella are staying with Corey's dad for a little bit, in between reunions, so that's fun for us to have them closer and hopefully see them a bit more! We're excited for the Hibbert and Wride reunions coming up soon.

Tonight we finished the book "Consider the Blessings" by President Monson. It was a great experience. Most nights, we read scriptures downstairs, with some Daily Dose of Internet first to draw everyone in, sometimes a news update or current event by Corey, and then scriptures up on the screen. Other times like tonight, I'll have the kids just come upstairs and I'll read a few stories from this book as they brush teeth and finish playing while we wait for Corey. So it's been several months of reading these stories now and then in the evening, but when we've done it, the kids will ask for one more, then one more again. They are short and captivating, and there have been tears shed a few times. Biggest tear jerker was the story from pages 62-66 titled "I do not know how I can go on" - it's a story that President Monson shared in his General Conference April 2009 message titled "Be of Good Cheer". It is a true story recounted by Ezra Taft Benson after his postwar tour of Europe in March 1946. I was crying, Daniel was too, and we were in awe at the trials some people face. That same night the next story was about how Pres Monson, as a boy (we were guessing maybe 12 years old, cause he said it was during the depression. He was born in 1927, and the depression lasted from 1929 - 1941, so if it was in the last year or two of that, he would have only been 12 or 13. The kids were so impressed by this - he and his family were getting ready for a thanksgiving feast, and a neighbor Charlie came by, Thomas asked him what he was having for his Thanksgiving dinner. There was silence, then he said "Nothing." Then Thomas went and got his beautiful New Zealand white rabbits, which he said were the pride of his life, and he gave them to Charlie for them to eat for dinner!!! My children were in awe at his selflessness. My kids ideas were to tell his mom to invite their family over, not to give them your pet to kill. President Monson was pretty amazing even as a child. We loved reading these stories and I recommend this book to you. Maybe we'll read through it again.