Reckless Bricks

I got a facetime call today from Hyrum. I was confused as to what he wanted and why, but soon figured out he and Wes are in Tuscon AZ, where they took a spur of the moment trip so they could go to Reckless Bricks. They saw something on Instagram about it or whatever so they drove all night to go. 

Are they open yet??

They got there early cause they thought there would be a line. There wasn't, lol.

But lucky them, they got a photo with Reckless Ben, who wasn't going to be there, they were flying out, but came back to the store cause someone in his group left something at the store. So these boys got lucky, and their siblings were jealous. 

And one from this angle.

Hyrum called me asking if I want a lego set signed by Reckless Ben. I didn't think we needed to pay extra for his signature on the box - the kids wouldn't really appreciate it, they just want the toys. But I did ask him for a "We Steal From Old People" shirt, which I think will make a pretty good gift for one of the girls maybe for Christmas (girls, pretend you didn't read that)

So that is fun that they're able to do spontaneous adventures like that, but... Wes what are you doing down there?!?! Today is the first day of classes for you!  

Getting breakfast or lunch at Denny's? Not sure if this was before or after the store. 

And now they're doing the long drive back. I guess it's fun to be young and free and single. We shared the photos with Abi and she was jealous. She will be calling on Mondays now - today was her first pday in Panama! Fun to touch base with her after her first week in the mission field. Well, first 5 days. She is smiling, so that's good. 

She is with a Spanish speaking trainer, who speaks about as much English as Abi speaks Spanish, so that will be a good experience for both of them. Her trainer is from Guatemala. This pic from last week after she arrived, with her comp there on the left.

They don't use fb messenger in so she called us on whatsapp. We got the rest of the kids on the call later when she called again around 4 when kids were home. She wished she had been able to go to Reckless Bricks, but she's doing more important work. I left the kids visiting with Abi via my computer and went for an afternoon ride. I love our canyon. I puttered around at the ruins for a bit. 

After I got home, I put away my bike and drove straight over to my parents' house where Corey was helping with a technical issue on my mom's computer.

I guess I went over for moral support cause I didn't contribute anything, other than document the moment in time.

They are almost retired and my dad and mom have hopes of turning her office into an art studio after work is all done. That will be so great for her! 

I'm sure it will be a bit of work to make the transformation from office to art, and we siblings have been talking about we can best help with the process, so we'll see. 

Last great news of the day - I have a few fall roses out - and they are BIG and have pink! I'm so happy. These are the kinds that I'm used to seeing before the bushes got too much attention from Wesley. I have been cutting them and bringing them inside to enjoy. SO SO SO pretty.

Kat had a scheduled playdate this morning. They get together Mondays from 9-11. As soon as I dropped her off, I got a call from the elementary school. It was Daniel. He forgot to take his medicine before he left, doh. So the first 20 min of my 2 hours to get stuff done, I had to ride a bike down there to administer his medicine, then I came back home and tried to blog. I did catch up, yay, and Katharine had fun playing with her friends. 

She's the 2nd oldest in the cute little group. 

Favorite Spot & Weird Kids

I spent my Sabbath morning in the mountains again, it was blissful. One of my favorite spots by the creek here below, where I have this little kinda hidden spot by the main trail, tucked behind two fallen logs. 

I could fit a blow up mattress here. I'd love to sleep here by the creek!

I was up here last night too, in another favorite spot in the middle of the techy "Pooh Corner" or Hogum Fork area, it has a lot of different names. I have a little secluded spot by a pine tree. It's nice and soft cause of all the pinecone flakes that the squirrels have dropped. I bring walnuts sometimes as a peace offering for the squirrels.

Fall leaves are here!

The colors starting in the mountains, I love it. So last night Sophi was hanging out with friends, and called me to ask if she could get her ears double pierced. I said not tonight, and that we'd need to have a discussion. Corey got home from work, I told him of our call, he texted Sophi: "No piercings." Today after church we had a talk about it. Corey drew two dots on a paper, which represented her birth and where we are now. The last dot, her death as a righteous woman of God, was across the room on the window. Corey said we're trying to get her over there, so we're calculating, aiming, planning on the next dot along that line, trying to focus on things that will land her at that end point in the distance. And piercings are off the line. We talked about why she wants that and what she's trying to communicate. We also said not while she's living here, and if she wants we can make it part of the $1000 dollar deal, since the kissing one is kinda unnecessary cause we've learned that kids these days don't know how to date, so we can change it to $500 for no kissing before 18 years and $500 for no double piercings before 18 years. When she's 18, then she's an adult and can do what she wants, but while she's here we have rules to keep things in order, cause there are younger siblings watching and we need to run a tight ship. As we were having this discussion on what we want them to do cause we want them to be ready for life and what we're trying to avoid, creative Natalie comes in dressed up as the perfect visual representation of the latter. 

She had given herself a full emo makeover. 

It was perfect comedic timing, and a little disturbing, but we knew she was just playing a part. That was about the end of what I heard of the discussion, and I went to take care of kids and share with the college kids the pics of Natalie. She's been very creative lately, almost dressing up and painting something on herself every other night - 

She might be a little strange? This pic from last Monday...

I sent that to the college kids to guess the kid. They guessed Natalie, but Owen got a vote too. It does look like Owen. Here's another one from this week - trying a spiderman mask.

She's very creative and practicing expressing herself artistically. She's creative and weird. They're all weird. (It's in our name). Yesterday, as the kids were playing dress up in a big unicorn onesie, they stuffed with pillows and blankets to make it very fat. Topping it off with a batman mask, haha. 

Kids are all varying levels of weird and strange. 

I missed the temple this past Tuesday morning, cause Corey was still on his way back from California, so I knew he wasn't going and I thought we could make it up and go together for date night. That didn't happen cause he ended up having a long day Friday and he wasn't up for it, so I went to the temple yesterday evening, just for initiatories. It was good, and had to stop on my way out to take a picture of this BEAUTIFUL rose. 

 

Yesterday we also has soccer games, Daniel first at 9 then Owen at 10:15. I didn't get out to exercise in the morning, but I got to the temple and later I went out on a hike to read my scriptures in the mountains, by the squirrel walnut tree. 

Tonight Mel and Christian came by, they made some magic with vegetables to top off the potatoes and pork we had prepared. Katharine scolded Sophi for eating potatoes first. "You are eating the wrong order! Vegetables first!" haha.  

I'm glad we're brainwashing her into eating her veggies. Peter tried, then snuck under the table to come alt let me know that the vegetables were gross. 

Then Katharine had something to say too and she whisptered "I love you!" 

I told Peter to go eat his veggies anyway. Just do it with more potatoes. He thought he'd get creative on how the food on the fork reached his mouth. 

Yep, they are weird kids.

Elementary Fun Run

I went over to the fun run to support Daniel and Peter. I think this is my first time ever going to the fun run. I've been set photos in the past by other moms who have gone over and sent me the pic of my kid with their kids, but I can't find any on the blog, so maybe not... Yay for me for going over and supporting my kids and the school this year (though I didn't donate any $).

Katharine is sad cause they don't have enough cupcakes for her to have one. Only the students and teachers. She'll survive. Go Peter Go!

Katharine and I stood by the sideline to give Peter a high 5 each time he passed. Here he comes!

They did two grades at a time. 2nd and 3rd grade were at 10:15. 3rd grade ran first while 2nd grade had cupcakes, then 2nd grade ran. K and I went to play on the slide after they were done.

Then we went back over for the 11:00 fun run time slot for the 4th and 5th graders. Same thing - older grade ran first, so Daniel went to have a cupcake. His teacher was so nice, and said she wasn't going to eat one, but went and asked for her cupcake so she could give it to Katharine. So nice! Lucky girl.

Giving Daniel high fives on his run by laps. 

After it was done, Daniel let me know that it wasn't actually "fun"... it was more like the worst. 

Haha I agree, "I don't care how hard life gets, I'm not getting into running." (We love David De Pierro! Very funny, and he should have been cast at Flynn Ryder in the Rapunzel life action)

So after that 2 hours of my life, Kat and I loaded up for the bike ride back home. 

The trailer is handy, I'm glad we have it for when I need it, since I don't have a car during the days. After we got home, Katharine ran in to change her clothes, she is now dressed as "America Girl"  

Very cute Kat. Granite was opened in 1976, so they had a Bicentennial theme going on along the America 250 lines. I didn't know Granite as as old as I am! So she was America Girl for the rest of the day. Actually maybe it was also because of 9/11? The kids didn't mention that they talked about that at all at school, so maybe not. Peter recently read a book about 9/11 and another on about the Titanic. In his bedroom I saw that he had made some legos about it to help him process what he had read.

I thought it was cute, but also left me a bit uncomfortable. The Titanic was a tragedy, but it was an accident really, hence a movie about it and other stuff, and we can learn lessons from it without feeling guilty. But 9/11 was terror and murder brought about on purpose, an act of hatred and war, so it's a different kind of tragedy. We didn't talk with our kids about it, but maybe we will soon. I watched this video giving a summary of the events that day. This video was also good as it showed how it happened live, capturing how we all felt that day - confusion as we tried to understand what was happening. So yeah, sobering stuff. 

A few things from yesterday - Wes headed off to Idaho. I sent him with gifts of Kodiak Cakes, and 10 lbs of rice and beans. That will save him a little bit of $ and should give him some good fiber. I'll miss you Wes! We didn't finish the basement, but we got started and I'll try to pick up where we left off and get things done next week. Daniel stayed home sick yesterday with swollen lymph nodes. I called the doctor and was able to take him in at 11. His left jaw is swollen and he said the left side of his stomach also hurts. Swollen lymph nodes seems to happen to him quite a bit. Last I have recorded here is Aug 2022. Also I have Jan 2022 and May 2021. Not sure if it has only been three times? It seems like more than that, but maybe those were just the times I took him in or blogged about. I do remember once or twice I just had him take Children's Tylenol to help with the pain and I let his body fight it. Playing while we waited.

There was a little baby there that was the spittin' image of baby Owen, really really cute little toe head with big blue eyes. I showed his mom some photos of Owen and said they could have been twins. So the doctors called us in, checked Daniel out, gave us a prescription, and then we headed out. After trying to capture a sucker photo for a future matching game. 

Picked up his medicine at 3, cause it wasn't ready when we went by after the doctor. I dropped off a book "Glucose Revolution" at the library yesterday. It was renewed 3 times and I still didn't read it. Though I did read one chapter yesterday. Take away: eat your veggies first. I didn't get into the mountains yesterday, I made it for a ride today though. Corey was in Provo all day. I was watching him on Life360 and debating what to do. Usually when I'm pacing the floor over if I have time for a ride, that is a good time to blog, cause I'm in hustle mode. So I blogged for a bit while I debated if I should go. I did 3 August posts yesterday and finished off with one more today to officially finish August, yay. I'm in September! After that I got dressed and hurried out at 4:45, as it looked very likely that date night was going to be delayed. Lily dropped me off part way up the road. I was able to take some time sitting at the ruins by the creek. These shortened mornings and evenings are killing me, I'm trying to brace myself for winter. 7:44pm sunset today. Corey and I went to Bandits for date night around 8, I got the Farmers harvest salad with dressings on the side, skipped the shrimp this time. Corey got the cedar plank salmon. Bread pudding for dessert. 

Abi in Panama

Abi has made it to Panama! 

She left at 5am this morning, so I'm sure it's been a long day. They don't use fb messenger in her mission, so she called us with Google Meet, and she can also use Whatsapp if she wants. She called us and it was good to see her face. She's still smiling! She shared her location with us on Google Maps. 

Hmm, let's zoom out on that to see where you actually are.... Ok, I see, south side...

Let's keep going and zoom out some more...

Ok! Very good, that is exciting! And she's a mere 2,945 miles away. Now we can watch her every move. First time being able to do that with a missionary. This will be a fun new feature. 

Katharine went over to play with Scarlett today. Corey took her on his way out, so she was over there from noon until 2:30 when Meghan brought her back. So nice of her, and I'm so glad Katharine has her little friends to play with. I've ordered a few toys for her for Christmas, of for an emergency if one comes up. I was dressed and ready for a ride around 3 but wasn't able to get out until 4:15. I left, the girls were her to watch the kids. S&N left at 5:45 for a YW thrift fashion show activity. Lily watched the kids until she went on a date at 6. 

I wasn't as fast on my ride as I needed to be to get home before girls left, cause I kept pausing to write notes down on my phone. I was listening to the Follow Him podcast for this week with guest Andrew Miller and there were so many nuggets of wisdom that were shared, it was great (other than I had to keep stopping!) Right off the bat, like at minute 3, Hank Smith shared a quote by a friend Natalie Norton "Happiness in life is how your manage loss, how you deal with loss." Elizabeth Bishop "Life is the art of losing. Children grown The world's a moving target. One thing is guaranteed, everything that arises passes away." Our religion requires us to lose our life in order to save it. I loved that thought - we need to learn to expect loss and be happy with trust in Christ in spite of those losses. I was thinking of my mom, trying to cope with loss of memory, of my sister Jersh and my friend Nicole, both coping with the loss of marriage and the fallout that comes because of that (moving, new home, new schools for kids). Corey often says that frustration is just a failure to meet expectations, SO if we can just keep our expectations as "I am going to lose this one day" then maybe that will help us? Just enjoy the day that we have now, take time to behold and smell the roses, and know that it will pass.

BUT, even though joys may slip away from us day by day, CHRIST has overcome all things, he holds all things in his hand, and he will restore to us our desires. So do good, love, serve, and those things eventually will be ours for ever and won't be lost to us again.