Well, I wanted to go climbing tonight, but around 9:30 I looked at the clock and realized I'd lost track of time and I missed my chance. Good news is that it was a good day, I worked hard on lots of things, we have a new lego area in the basement, and Ariel's castle is done! (pic at the end of this post). With that done I'm feeling ready to move on, which will be good. I spent a good chunk of the day in the basement. I needed help though figuring out what to do. I talked about Lily about it first - about the pros and cons for different areas in the house (I really wish we had a loft area like Grant and Steph did at their house (last pic), or their upstairs family area where we made a mess with pearler beads) but alas, our options were: master bedroom, kids bedrooms, front room, side room, music room, Corey's office, finished basement area, or unfinished basement. While I liked the main floor (front room, side room, music room, Corey's office) areas for the space they had and natural light, the main reason they wouldn't work is because they are being used for other things and cause of the air vents in the floor. Also Corey's office is really hot. So main floor is out. Bedrooms I also liked for the natural light, but they are just too crowded. It's been a hassle this week to have to move bins everytime Sophi and Natalie needed to use their clothes closet, so annoying! (j/k) And the finished side of the basement was good for carpet type, no floor vents, but I just don't like how dark it is and it would make me sad to think K was playing down there in a dark unnaturally lit place. So, the unfinished side of the basement. Lily said that she felt that it was Wride right of passage to spend time down there. She has spent many hours and days of her childhood down there. I also laughed when she said she felt it was good for her to come across a spider now and then. Like it keeps kids sobered up as to their own mortality, haha, ok, so I liked that. The main thing that I hate about the unfinished side is the lack of a real carpet and finished walls, which means I'm cleaning up legos from the corners and crack of the unfinished wall, and it's annoying trying to get all the legos up from there. BUT, if we can train the kids to NOT DUMP LEGOS ALL OVER THE FLOOR... then this could work. So then I called Sophi down. She was on board and I'm sure happy and eager to get her bedroom back. Sophi helped me figure out the arrangement - first step - clean the carpet so we can move Owen's lego mine over, so we can then move that short table to the brown carpet to put the princess castles on. Sophi helped me clean the carpet, then Natalie came and helped me with tables. Natalie changed the arrangement. She wanted two long folding tables together to make a very long princess city. Trouble with that was then it was blocking off the room. I didn't want them flush against the wall, cause I wanted them to be able to play from both sides of the table. So a bit of back and forth, and then we moved Owen's stuff again - onto a different table so we could take his short table. Now I can walk past the princess city tables. We did put two tables flush against the walls, but those are for sorting only, not for building. And I've put several big empty bins there, and shown the kids that when they are looking for a lego, they dump the bin they are searching in into the empty bin and NOT on the floor. I think it will be good if we can keep the legos off of the floor. Peter and Katharine enjoying the new set up.
And that is the part of the basement that I worked on all day. If you look at the other side behind them here....
...that is what I'll hopefully be tackling this week, since I do feel ready to move on from legos (if K will let me). Hopefully, with Katharine having a place to play, she'll have fun and be content with me in the room with her. I'm hoping to get a lot of this crap organized but preferably cleared out, as I remember one of my clutter books saying you can't organize clutter, you just gotta get rid of it. I've got a few piles of stuff to take to the DI already, I just need to get it into the car and get it out of here. Also Monday is bulk clean up, but I didn't do anything this time. No pine needles cleaned up, no branches trimmed back, nada. Oh well. But, Ariel's castle it built. Go me. Not that impressive, considering that while I was still getting up and going this morning, Christian was finishing running a marathon!
Mel was there to support him, and his mom and little sister. They came back to our house a little after 10 and cleaned up, then Corey took them to the airport - they had a flight to Los Angeles for a concert. I was surprised Corey was back at 10:30 - he took Abi Lily and Sophi with him to a Hometown Day of Service thing out in Magna. They left for that at 7:30 am, and I went to Smiths to get treats for Owen's game (he wanted donuts) then Hyrum left for Idaho ~
Owen's coach was able to bring him home, cause I had to leave to come back home to get Peter to his game. First had to pull him away from legos. Natalie was home to watch K while I took O and P to their games. I was laughing at the story line - the lego princesses were ready for a party, and the party wouldn't get messed up this time by the naughty twins Pink and Zink, cause thankfully Elsa froze them so they're stuck, so now the princesses just needed to clean the streets so they could have their party.
Natalie is such a good sister. Ok, she'll take care of Katharine, Peter let's go to your game! This was my first time watching him play, and it's pretty cute, but Owen's are a bit more enjoyable since those players know what they are doing. So for Peter's games I just need to go in with zero soccer expectation, and just let myself smile at cute 6 year olds. They were just running all around (video here). They lost like 10 to 1, and that was hard for Peter. He was frustrated and was mad at one teammate who was just playing with the net when he was the goalkeeper. Peter said "This is why I don't like versing other teams!" Peter had a turn as keep too and did a good job. They only scored on him twice. His team is mostly 1st graders, the other team looked like they were 2nd graders. And a year makes a big difference when you've only got 6 or 7 years of life under your belt. So it was sad, but he got a donut at the end.
One time when he got scored on, the coach came and gave him a pep talk, and I could tell he would be crying if he was with me, but instead he did some deep breaths, and held his hands up as if he was ready to block a shot, and it seemed like he was trying to psyche himself up for a few more minutes of the game. I gave him a big hug after the game and hope that that was enough to help him get through, cause I was not buying him a frosty.
Corey got back from the airport, I got home with Peter after his game, and the main thing I needed to do today was get food. I took Sophi and Natalie with me to Costco. It was busy.
I spent $800 bucks, doh! Came home and unloaded the car, then Corey took Owen and Daniel on a ride to Corner Canyon. They parked at Peakview parking lot and all went down Canyon Hollow to the bike park. Then Corey left O&D there and he biked up Clarks to get the car. Back at home, I worked more in the basement, and that's where I ended up spending the rest of the evening, and I didn't go climbing. :( The kids wanted to do date night, cause they didn't watch a movie last night (also didn't have pizza, but I haven't been getting pizza for over a month cause nobody is doing their chores). Abi and Lily were at friends houses near Skyline tonight, Sophi and Natalie were at Jane's, and so I turned on a movie at 9:45pm for the boys and Katharine - Incredibles 2. I heard them laughing hard from the basement so I came and joined them for the last half of the movie. It is a cute show. And now, I've recorded the day's events, yay, and I'm happy Ariel's lego castle is done. Here's the front -
and here's the inside.
Aren't you so proud of me and so impressed? I hope K is able to play next week without me and that I can start being a homemaker again, but if not, I guess I'll redo Aurora's castle, cause we need to do that with the instructions!
For me it was another sweet day home with Katharine, and another day playing legos. K was wearing her red Elana of Avalor dress earlier, until she had a potty accident (which don't happen too often). Something funny was that she pulled the straps of the dress down over her shoulders and then said kinda sheepishly "I'm Belle...." haha. After a bath, she put on her Elsa dress/pjs and then said she wanted her hair in an Elsa braid. Her hair is too short for an Elsa braid, but then I had a thought - what if I use some of Natalie's ribbons... I got 9 of them from her shoe box, tied them with an elastic, put them in K's hair, and voilà! An Elsa braid!
Katharine! You look just like Elsa on your dress! Haha, pretty fun. K felt very pretty all day with her long Elsa braid.
After a few hours doing that, Hyrum tagged me out and played legos with Katharine for a bit -
I listened to them play and was laughing... Lego Ariel got torn apart by the dragon and was dead, then K put her back together... Hyrum's lego princess Auroroa asked "Are you ok?" Lego Ariel sighs with a slight groan "Ahhh yeah... I'm just a little sick... I need to go take a rest" Yeah, if you get eaten by a dragon and torn limb from limb, you might feel a little sick. Just go take a rest and you'll feel better. And then they were able to get to the really important matters... Katharine asked "Which color dress do you want?" Hyrum in a high voice "I'll do the purple dress..." haha. I like hearing H play with her. Hyrum got relieved when Peter got home from school. Around that time I was able to sneak out for a ride up the quarry trail. Fall colors are here!
I got back at 4:30, then I got ready and we went out to eat with H at 5.
This was a belated birthday dinner date. We took him out to eat at Bandits (H had never been there before). I got my usual Farmer's Harvest Salad with an added skewer of shrimp, Hyrum got the steak salad, and Corey got the red trout, and we had a nice dinner.
We went somewhere close cause Mel and Christian were coming over. Mel texted us a few weeks ago about doing a dutch oven peach cobbler today in the mountains at 6. They knew they were going to be here this weekend (they are both staying here tonight) because Christian is running the Big Cottonwood Marathon tomorrow morning. Mel saw that we were on a date though, so told us to text when we were on our way home. They were at Brighton High for Christian's sister's soccer game. We took a vote from the kids, and majority voted for a cobbler in the kitchen oven instead of in the mountains. The kids had never had it before and it was a hit! They set up the table outside and we ate it on the backyard patio.
Topped with vanilla ice cream. Wayne came and joined us.
I was the first to share with the kids this morning that they have caught the killer of Charlie Kirk. So so sad that this whole thing has happened, but I'm grateful he's caught. It's been on everyone's mind and a main topic of discussion at school and at home since it happened on Wednesday.
Katharine and I played legos all morning today. I took a few breaks to go find legos downstairs, K didn't join me. I asked her if she wanted to put the butterfly outside (one male eclosed today). She said no, but she did agree to hold it before I let it go. On her finger in this pic ~
So yeah, just playing legos. Working on Ariel's castle (on the left there). The pic above I was using black to make Sebastian's pipe organ. I also made the mice's sewing machine for Cinderella's castle, which I put off, but since I was in the blacks I decided I would. It's been fun. K and I listen to Disney princess songs and sing while we search for legos. She's enjoying the Frozen 2 soundtrack, and yesterday I introduced her to Aladdin. She liked it.
Yesterday the Wride Nation chat was active with news about Charlie Kirk. I have seen some of his videos before, but I didn't know who he was by name. Ethan was the first to hear about it, cause he and Bella wanted to go to the event. Ethan said he followed Charlie Kirk and listened to him everyday. It's really really sad, makes me sick in my heart, and it's been on my mind a lot as I mindlessly look for legos. Yesterday I had to lay down after seeing the video of what happened, really horrible to see someone in the moment their mortality was robbed from them. The older kids came home from school and all their friends had been talking about it. Lily was with a group of friends and a boy came up and showed them all the video, without any context, she didn't know what she was seeing until she saw it, and you can't unsee it. It's sobered all of us up. She said that in books she'll read a line of someone being shot like it's nothing, but to see what it really means and what really happened is something else. It is real, a real life gone, ended, taken that didn't need to be. No one has a right to do that to another person. It's also made me think a lot about Joseph Smith, who was shot and murdered. Joseph Smith's body was working healthy and fine, blood pumping, heart beating, everything in order like it's supposed to be, and then people came and broke it and ripped it up with their bullets. I just feel really sad. I woke up early this morning and read in the Book of Mormon about Zerahemnah (Alma 44) and Amalickiah (Alma 46), it seemed to fit the mood. Hate, contention, destruction & murder are nothing new to this world. It's been going on since Cain. God knows how to deal with it, but He doesn't like it, and for our sakes we need to turn from it and turn to Him and become as he is (love, mercy, creation and life) if we want to be with Him.
Grateful for time with Katharine today, I love her. I feel so sorry that Charlie lost time with his two sweet children who it was so obvious he cherished so dearly. Time with our little ones is so beautiful, I love it. I'm also grateful for time to build and create, even if it's just silly making princess castles with legos. And I'm grateful for the miracles of life and creation! Butterflies are probably a lot less complicated than human life, but it's amazing and I'm grateful to be able to see and be awed by the process.
Owen signed up for safety patrol this year. For most of the kids, having them be on safety patrol felt like a bit of a hassle for me to have to get them there. With Owen, I knew I wouldn't have that problem, cause he's not your typical elementary kid. For example, yesterday morning, just past 8 am, as I groggily stumbled out of my room to go wake up kids, I found that Owen was not in his bed. I didn't hear him downstairs. I look out the window and there he is.
This kid woke up on his own, fed himself, got ready with backpack, bike, and helmet (prob didn't brush his teeth but that's ok) and he was outside, on his bike, ready to go. He and his friend Afton were ready 6 minutes before the neighborhood biking gang were set to walk over (at 8:10). Wow. Owen makes it pretty easy on us. If Daniel and Peter were like that, I wouldn't even have to be here in the mornings! I opened the window and called out to tell him I love him and to have a good day. I'm super impressed with that kid.
Peter was feeling sick after school, sitting on the toilet saying he couldn't go. His tummy did seem pretty tight. I put him in the tub to try and help him relax and help whatever pass that needed to pass, and he was in there for 2 hours in quite a bit of discomfort. I didn't know if it was like appendicitis and I needed to take him to the ER or if it was just a kid that was constipated. I didn't do much other than sit with him and encourage him to force down some apples. He hadn't eaten anything different than usual, so I'm not sure what was going on. The timing was a bit unfortunate cause I was up there tending to Peter when I could have been visiting with Nicole, who came by for a surprise visit.
She's in town to take her oldest daughter up to BYU Idaho this weekend. So I was mostly upstairs being Peter's moral support, but Corey was able to have a nice visit with her. I eventually texted our friend and neighbor who is our pediatrician and he made a house call, cause Peter said he was unable to stand and get dressed to go to the Urgent Care. He said I caught him just in time - he and his wife were leaving in 10 min for a flight to Italy! He came up to our room and looked at Peter, asked where it hurt more on his tummy - left side or right? Peter said it was his left. And left is good. Right side could be appendicitis, but Left side colon, so that is good. I'll keep that knowledge recorded here for my dr. self in the future. He gave me a pdf for kids with constipation and then Corey went down to Walgreens and picked up some Miralax and Exlax, one helps it go out, the other pushes it thought, so we'll see how this kid is feeling tomorrow, but he's doing better now. While Nicole and Corey talked, her daughter Daryl helped Daniel write a song that D is super excited about "I can't believe I wrote a song!!!" It's called "Enemies" I believe, I think he was inspired by Kpop Demon Hunters and how the demons were the enemies. I'll see if I can get the lyrics. Then Nicole and Daryl were off to Bountiful where they were spending the night.
I've been meaning to mention that every night when I put Peter to bed, he will say "Primary Song and help say prayer!" to remind me to say a prayer with him and then put on the primary music to help him have good dreams. Oh, I guess I had mentioned it before. That's alright, I'll say it again. Peter is a sweet and sensitive little soul. He used to wake up from nightmares for months, of scary bad guys. He doesn't wake up with those nightmares anymore. The bad dreams ended when Wesley came clean about something. We let Wes know that, because he and Peter have such a special bond, maybe Wesley's actions were affecting Peter. I think that helped Wes be even more determined to stay clean and worthy, go to the temple, do all the righteous things he's been taught to do. It will bless him and has, with the bonus that Peter is not sad and sleeps better. Keeping the commandments works!
Corey's trying to introduce classic games to the kids for FHE, like charades two weeks ago. Tonight he planned for us to do "Two Truths and a Lie". Everyone had to think of their statements, and be ready to hold a poker face when the "lie" is read outloud to everyone.
Corey -
I jumped off a large bridge into a river
I ate dog
I met the President of Chile
Tiffanie -
I once got a check for $1 million dollars
I threw up in the temple
I shook hands with the prophet
Sophi -
A guy complemented my overalls
I'm writing a tv show
I've had an energy drink before
Owen-
I went to Hobby Lobby
Liam gave me an electric scooter
I ate a cricket
Daniel -
I had a wart
I like singing
Karate is my favorite subject
Peter -
i went to the mountains with just me and mom
i saw a shark sleeping
I saw a lion at the zoo at school
I didn't get the truths and lies for ALN. I also don't remember which ones were the truths and which one the lie, so children, comment below if you remember. My lie was shaking the prophet's hand. President Hinckley was there for our seminary graduation in 1999, but I don't think I shook it? Corey says we did, so maybe mine were all truths. I put the check for $1 million dollars as a trick. I did get a check from Corey, back when we were dating. He was being funny. I didn't ever cash it to receive money, obviously, but I did get a check! A few other pics from this weekend - Kids playing Legos with Hyrum after he got here.
Everyone deep in play.
He's finished up his internship in San Diego and now we get him for a few days before he heads back up to BYUI.
Hyrum's been great doing stuff to help Wes be ready to go when he gets home from his mission. Hyrum submitted Wesley's stuff for FAFSA, which is so nice of him. He's looking out for you Wes! Also from yesterday, Owen and Daniel getting into the movie "The Prince of Egypt" - ready to make the sea come down on Pharaoh's army.
Here's a pic of a butterfly that came out today. Pretty pretty little bug.
And a pic of Bella out on a walk with Alvie! Pretty pretty little baby!
Sophi is 14 years old today! Lucky for her, I remembered to get candles at the store, so the cake properly represents her years.
She let Katharine blow out the candles with her, and then we all had chocolate cake and cookies and cream ice cream (and neapolitain and chocolate chip, cause my mom brought some over too). Three days ago I said that Abi is the child who's birth and entire life has been recorded on the blog. That is technically true, since I began this blog in 2007, but it really began in earnest after our trip to Costa Rica and Chile, and Sophia was born after we got home from that adventure and I continued with my weekly recording of events, so Sophi is really the one who has had her life most thoroughly documented since her birth. So in honor of 14 years, here are 14 posts to commemorate her life
I'll try to keep up with this tradition of sharing links, and maybe I'll even go back and add them to the various birthdays that the kids have already had this year, so that no one feels left out. But if I do that, for the record, the birthday links started with Abi and Sophi in 2025.
Today Owen and Peter had soccer games at the same time (9am) so I arranged last night for Peter to get a ride with a neighbor, and I took Corey's car with Owen to his game. Abi was gone with the van taking the ACT, and Corey was at a crops garden assignment and rode his bike there for that. Sometimes logistics get tricky with 4 different places and only 2 cars. Owen played hard and looked like he'd been drenched in a rainstorm by the time it was over.
He definitely broke a sweat! He plays hard!
Corey and I just gave Sophi cash for her birthday, so there were no toys, but she made her own toys. She and Natalie have been playing legos in their room, which made me smile.
Sophi created an AMAZING castle for Jasmine! It looks really good, especially how she did the porch at a diagonal, and the way she made it look like it has Arabian carpets/rugs inside, it is very impressive.
These kids have years of legos under the belts. I'm kinda a beginner, and I don't know all the lego techniques and skills that the kids have acquired. I shall seek to have them teach me.
Hyrum arrived home from his internship in San Diego. He left this morning and drove all day. We are excited to have him here for a week before he heads back up to Idaho for school next Saturday. Abi's friends threw her a little surprise party tonight, but with Hyrum here to help watch kids, Corey and I went climbing. Lily came and bouldered and we did a bit of toprope. We just got back, the girls were watching a "K drama" (Korean romantic drama) and I asked where K was, they said she was upstairs. I found her asleep under the lego table. She's been playing hard!
Also the partying was still going on this weekend for Abi.
Corey and I took her out to eat at Aubergine last night, and a birthday date.
And the tonight her friends had a surprise party for her.
Abi and I did a short hike tonight. I showed her my secret spot.
I had mentioned going on a walk around the block, and Abi wanted to join me for that, but then I got excited about having an interested companion and said we should do a short hike instead, and then she didn't want to go. I pressured her a little bit, and she said she would have felt guilty if she didn't come. It was short, and she did like it, but we agreed that next time time I'll give her atleast 24 hour notice. She doesn't like things being sprung on her when she's got different plans in her head of how her evening is going to go. I really like it though. It's just a quick walk there and it's a good quiet spot, and now Abi knows where to go if she needs to get away and be alone for a few minutes.
When we got back to the main trail, all of a sudden there were lots of groups of people going up or on their way back down. I joked to her under my breath "Ugh, people!"
Back at home, we just finished scriptures after tracking everyone down. Corey couldn't find Daniel and Peter. I said they were prob in our closet, and they were. That was where I had left them making the sleeping beauty dragon. They think it's pretty cool, and now Peter has a good "boy" thing to play with when he plays with Katharine. He is always excited to play with her after he gets home from school. He made his own version of Elsa's snow monster to go with our castle. He is very creative and a promising future lego master.
Wednesday evening when kids were going to bed, I went and got K from playing legos and sheepishly apologized to Sophi and Natalie for the state of their room. I thought of saying I'd fix it before they got home from school today, but I wasn't sure what expectations they would have if I said that (like if they want the legos gone from their room...) so then I told them that the room would look "better". I knew I could do that. I spent a bit of time organizing the legos, and then I moved in some small white bookshelves that had been in the laundry room. Now the bins are on the shelf instead of stacked on top of each other on the floor. I got it all picked up enough that I was able to vacuum their room. Sophi was pleased when she saw it, and didn't even seem to mind that legos were still in her room and that for the time being this is still going to be Katharine's play area. I had three bins of legos that needed to be sorted last night, and today I finished all of them. Sophi and Natalie both ended up joining Katharine in playing later. Maybe I might slowly bring up one bin from the basement at a time and see if we can get things sorted more. Just if I need to find more pieces from the basement to make the castles and stuff. I'm hoping Peter and I can do Ariel's castle this weekend.
(Aurora's castle has been destroyed and gone the way of all the earth legos, sniff.)
We have another adult in the house! Happy Birthday Abi!!
I bought cake and ice cream this morning, but I forgot candles, so we tried to fashion and "1" and "8" out of them, which didn't work, but I bet you wouldn't have even noticed had I not just pointed it out. The kids had friends over, who joined us for cake and ice cream (Peter with his arm around his friend Lucy, Owen's friend Liam didn't stand in for the pic). We had more than enough to share. For her birthday, Abi skipped Lyceum, and she didn't have to do any top rope for FHE on Monday. Corey really wanted her too, we were teasing her that in a year when she's gone she'll miss us, like Hyrum when we made him go skiing with us at Jackson Hole in Feb 2021: Hyrum "I hate this so much... I hate skiing. My ankles hurt so bad! I'm so excited to go on a mission and that Dad won't be able to make me go skiing next year..." So on Mon when I took Abi over to climb, and she begged and begged not to do it - she didn't have socks, she didn't want to climb without socks, but she didn't want to wear mine, she didn't want to "can I please not climb? For my birthday???" Well, if it gets us out of a gift... haha. So I really did want to climb, so I let her belay me and I was glad to do it. I did two overhang climbs, both 5.10c's and they were really good and challenging and I liked them, going to have Corey do those sometime. So that was one of her presents, but not really. I actually didn't give her a gift this year. For these older kids, we've changed to giving them cash, but now that Abi's an "adult" she gets what the college kids get, which is a lunch out with Mom and/or Dad. We didn't do that tonight cause she had YW (they went to the temple) so we'll do that on Friday. We maybe could have given her $50 as a farewell to childhood, but today she cashed in on her $1000 deal, so we didn't really feel inclined to give her another $50 bucks. Here's a pic of when Abi made her deal on Jan 10, 2018.
Abi had Corey pay up right away and so tonight she worked on ordering a $600 iphone with her loot. There were a few glitches on amazon, and it kept cancelling the order right after she placed it, so instead of trying a third time, we're going to wait until tomorrow and see if any charges when through, and we'll try again then.
It was fun, and also a bit harder to gather than I thought, which caused me to question if it would be a good activity for FHE or not. I think they'll be freaked out by bugs and spider webs and poky leaves. So we might change that, we'll see. I'll get Hyrum's input on what he wants to do. It's our one FHE with him before he goes up to BYU Idaho. He will be here Saturday yay. So today Corey took jr high carpool, and we planned for us to not do workouts and instead he could bring home the high school kids at 2:30, and then he and I would go climb after they got home, which we did. The red 5.11b that I can do was gone, being changed with new routes. Corey said "Good! I'm tired of doing that one!" I'm glad I finally sent it last week.
Well, as one last tribute to the end of Abi's childhood, here is a link to pics of baby Abi in 2007. She was the first baby we had after I started this blog, so she's been almost documented her whole life, although I was not too diligent the first three years. It was during our trip to Costa Rica that I started to write 5x a week. Let's see, I'm going to find 18 posts to celebrate 18 years of Abi - let's see what comes up when I search her name on the blog...
Hello. I'm up past my bedtime cause I'm waiting for the wash to be done. I need to put our biking clothes in the dryer before I go to bed cause Corey and I are going to go on a bike ride in the morning (maybe Big Mountain!) We had a fun FHE that I'll talk about in a minute, and after we got back, the kids were back at lego building in Sophi and Natalie's room. 10:30 pm and we have finished Elsa's Castle!
Peter and I finished it yesterday. It's been a good fun day of creating and recreating. This morning Corey and I went on a HIKE together! Which I loved. Very nice to go slow and chill and have time to think and talk as you walk together. It was really nice. I first took him to my secret spot. Then to the trail to walk around the reservoir and then we kept exploring so I could show him places Mel and I went - the little tide pool area and the giants boulder playground.
Oh, and my other rock too. This time something new happened - I discovered berries! I thought they looked good enough to eat, so I picked a sprig and then googled a photo of them as we walked back to the car. And lucky me, the internet said the were Oregon berries, and were edible, so I risked it, and ate them. They were sour but I liked them, and I am going to go forage for more berries later this week. We also talked about next week doing a FHE hike up there (Hyrum will be home and he suggested a hike) and we can bring vanilla ice cream and have berries and ice cream up in the mountains! That would be memorable, huh? I think they have to have powerful good stuff in them from how brightly they stained my hands (I broke one when I picked them, they hold on to their mother plant tight. When I come harvest later I'll bring kitchen shears). After coming home, Natalie made apple muffins, I thought she looked cute in her apron.
On this day off from school, most of us continued playing legos, which as I said are in Sophi and Nataeli's room. I'm not sure if they are in there temporarily or maybe permanently. (Not all of them, just girl "friends" legos.) The legos are not very organized yet, and it's actually been a big mess the past two days, but that's ok cause Sophi and Natalie were gone Friday night and most of Saturday. They have been very patient with me and my mess. This is the version of Elsa's castle that Peter and I based our castle on. We modified it slightly. He did a great job hunting for legos. We did a good job, huh Peter!!
He worked with as much focus as he had building the sand castle at Bear Lake. We had to do some building improvisations, but we did it and it looks so good! Last night when Corey called us down for scriptures, we only had to put the snowflake on top, but we couldn't find the right piece to set it in, so we called back "Coming! ...we're coming!" but we weren't cause we had to find the piece! We didn't find it, but got another piece that would do and I would look for the piece to fix it today. We brought down and presented the castle before this house of Lego masters. They said it was good! After scriptures, I went up and tried to clean up a bit and get legos off the floor in their room, but then Natalie and Sophi started making the mess! Sophi must have been inspired cause last night she began to remake Ariel's Underwater Palace 43207. She worked on it today and soon everyone was in and there was no room for me!
I'll be able to play with Katharine later this week, and maybe Ariel's castle will be done by then. The little boys have school tomorrow but ALSN have another day off tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get a system worked out and organized and that won't make anyone too unhappy. I'm weighing options like maybe trying legos in the music room? where my L desk is? Maybe I give them the L desk as their table to create on? I don't know where I'd move the books in here though. Hmm. Maybe I will keep things in Soph and Natalie's room, or my room over in the nook maybe? I'll continue to think about it. Anyway, Katharine played with it today and Natalie helped us find all the friend minifigures with the correct faces, dresses etc. Last night Natalie started working on the Lego Story books again, trying to fix them all.
So that's what me and most of the kids did today. Not Abi though, she was on a hike - she got up at 5:30 am to Willow Lake with friends, good job Abi! Corey spent a good amount of time today figuring out ski passes and rentals. He was able to get us a few tickets this year cause it's our last winter with Abi. All the kids at home plus Corey and I all got 4 days up at Park City via a sale that ended today. We also got 2 days for Wes after he comes home in January (SO EXCITED!!!!) and Hyrum and Mel & Christian might be getting some too. The marrieds with kids (JEM, aka Joseph Eliza Mary and EBA, aka Ethan Bella Alvie) are out this season. So good job Corey for working his magic and making that happen somehow. I got kids' heights and weight, and after having kids try on boots, he took a few down to ski-n-see to rent a few things we were missing. After that was done, he called and said we could do FHE now - climbing at Millcreek with his dad. Wayne met us there, brushed up on his belaying skills, and then we belayed kids for a bit, using all our guess passes on the 1st day of the month.
It was really great to be there with Wayne, and will be something that I'm sure kids will remember!
I belayed Natalie for 3 climbs, then Peter for a few. Katharine was super cute with her cute little climbing shoes again. And Katharine ran up to me and said in her adorable little voice as she motioned with her arms "I did all the way up all by myself! ...in the kids area!" Then she was swinging on the rope, which was cute, but then the staff came to let us know that is not allowed. Lily and Sophi bouldered most of the time.
Then Sophi did one toprope with Corey belaying her. But her arms were so sore because of wake boarding at Scofield on Saturday. Corey reassured her "You don't have to explain yourself! You're fine! I got all day. Belaying isn't wearing me out" and then he also teased her "This is the Sophi I used to know! Tough athlete, into sports, tom boy..." and not the girl into jewelry, fashion and fingernails that she seems to be at school. Then at 5:30, the kids all went to Wayne's house for a movie and pizza. Papa Murphey's thank you Wayne! Corey and I climbed for 30 minutes until it closed early bc of labor day at 6pm. I did three climbs with Abi belaying me earlier, cause she really really didn't want to, and then Corey and I did 3 together, so I got 6, not bad. Then we went and joined them at Wayne's. Katharine eating pizza.
It was a good FHE and a fun day full of recreating.
