Dotting the Americas

I had a lovely ride at Corner Canyon this morning. 

I was pretty tired from yesterdays ride (I went up the trail twice) but I gave it a go since I thought it worked good logistically: Wake up at 4:45, Corey to airport at 5, and that would mean I could get in Draper at 6, which is perfect. 

No point in going home and going to back to bed, right? So I had a nice ride until 8 and then went home and traded vehicles (my bike in the van, took the van to the shop, and biked home) because since Corey is gone and I can use his car, it was a good time to get the van fixed before school starts. I was nervous about it after our drive home after Tahoe. When I was coming down out of the mountains there from Tahoe to Reno on the freeway, braking made the van shake so bad. I was nervous about driving home from Park City, which is another reason why I stayed up there all week (and to bike in the mornings 😎). But I drove slowly home from PC and we made it back safe and so yeah, that's in the shop. It was also making a weird kinda rattling sound, and it needed an oil change. I went to the Draper Temple for an endowment session at noon, and when I came back out I saw that they had called me. It's going to be $1500 to get everything fixed (rattling sound was the timing belt and that's going to be $900, darn) but car repairs seems like a risky one to be cheap about. So that's too bad that it's going to be so expensive, esp since Corey is still looking for another contract project.

I was glad I got up and saw the blue sky and exercised morning, because the rest of the day we were in a very smoky valley. When I first started smelling it, I thought maybe there was a fire close by in the Cottonwood Canyons or something. I searched the news and it was from California. We couldn't see the sky and could hardly make out the mountains. It was bad air. My sister sent an index that showed Salt Lake was worse air quality than Santiago, and I thought "Yeah, this does kinda remind me of Santiago!" So that was one reason why I was thinking of Latin America today - Chile... that was a good time, good memories. We were also thinking about Latin America because Melodie was headed to Brazil. She had a good 24 hours of travel and we got an email this afternoon that she arrived safely in João Pessoa today.

And thinking about Latin America because Ethan is in the Dominican Republic...

Ethan has been there for almost a month. We got our first pictures last night of Wes in Guatemala. He and his cousin went on splits with the missionaries. The Elders texted us and said "Tuvimos una cita con nuestro investigador Juan, y Wesly and Seth compartieron su testimonio."

They are having a good experience! I'll be a little less nervous since Corey is joining them... but yeah, it seems like our family is all spread out everywhere! Joseph and Hyrum aren't international but they're far enough away that it feels like it. Joseph sent me a cute voice message today from a lady he met - Phyllis! Actually Philomena, but her friends call her Phyllis.

She invited me to come over for coffee if I'm ever in the neighborhood and gave me her address. She said she was so impressed with what a nice young man Joseph is that she would like to know me too. Super sweet message that we'll treasure. Joseph is going to be going down to Guatemala too like on the 10th or something to join Wes and Seth. Corey's joining them was a last minute idea that Corey had in Park City, but Joseph has been planning on going down for months. It will be good that Corey is there too, since Corey promised him we'd take him back to see his mission again since he had to come home from his mission early. I don't have any pictures of Hyrum, but Corey did send me this chat he had with him: 

H - "Ugh. From my last paycheck, I earned 1800 but now I have 1000 from it after rent, tithing, and taxes."

C - "sounds about right"

H - "That's not fair"

C - "life is not fair"

H - "I frickin worked my tail off for that"

C - "if life were fair, you'd be living in poverty with most of the rest of the world"

H - "I'm gonna end up with like 6000 at the end of the summer or less"

$6000 is really good, but he had pretty high expectations at the beginning before he started. He did a month with almost no sales, then he switched positions to being an assistant technician, so he's working more hours and making less per hour, but it's still really good. He's doing great and we're proud of him. 

Also yesterday, Junior and Mario headed back to St. George and they will be back in Guatemala soon and are going to take Corey and Wes to a volcano I think. Junior's dad is picking up Corey from the airport tonight. It was fun having them here. 

Wes is texting me that they are wondering why they haven't seen Corey yet. Corey texted me at 7pm that he had arrived, I'm sure it's all good. So yeah, adventures all around, and our kids are dotting the earth just like temples are. Well, not the whole earth I guess, but atleast the American continent. This picture of the Draper temple from my bike ride yesterday morning. 

We've got kids who have flown from the nest but a lot still left at home. I miss my big kids and miss not having everyone here together, and I'm glad I knew it was a gift and a blessing when we did all have that month together. But we're still super lucky because we get to do it all over again with our up and coming toddlers! School starts soon, I got the jr high and high school kids registered today, but lucky me, I still have 2 little boys at home with me all day where we can play! I am so lucky, grateful, and happy to be a mom and wife. Life is good.