Alta to Brighton Loop

I went on a hike with some friends yesterday morning, with Elasha, Jill, Steph and Jess.

We started north of Alta, took a trail up Grizzly Gulch up to the Honeycomb Cliffs where you can see Brighton and Alta on either side of the mountain peak. Brighton behind us here -

The rocks on top were really cool and I can see why they call it the Honeycomb cliffs. 

You can see the top of Milly's in this pic below (mid-bottom left), which is the top of the lift by our friends cabin. 

It was a really lovely hike. The wildflowers were amazing. 

It was a great great way to start the day. Jill shared some cheese with dried cherries and nuts with me, an organic extra sharp cheddar cheese that she got from Trader Joes. I went and bought some yesterday after I picked up Natalie from Frontrunner (she went to work for Uncle Mark in Layton). I think will be a good mid-day meal on the go next week when we're in California. After I got back home from the hike, Abi and I went to pick up Corey's car which he dropped off on Wednesday - I had to interrupt her from living her best life, playing minecraft on her phone... 

(I think it's time to get this girl out on a mission...) In her defense, she is still recovering from her wisdom teeth surgery. She's still swollen, still numb, and still has pain if she doesn't take the meds. I hope she doesn't get an infection and that the numbness heals. We will call them again for advice. They said that the roots of one of her bottom teeth were really entangled around the main nerve that goes along the jawline. So, yeah... Ok, Corey's car: it got $2500 in repairs done that we've been putting off for a while. We decided they needed to be done before our road trip. We picked up his car and left the van for an oil change and tire rotation and that was done in an hour. We're praying that they'll both do well on the trip. I also put my dollar store skills to work and I fixed Corey's side window that I broke at Park City. Before: 

After: 

Is that decent for an $8 bucks job? Better than nothing, right? Plus nothing probably isn't legal. I spent some time yesterday and today reading the 12 hour walk book. I like it, good stuff. I plan to do a 12 hour walk sometime, I think I'd like to walk from home to Park City, or from Park City to home. And after the hike yesterday I now know how to go from Guardsman to Little Cottonwood Canyon, so I think that I could do it!  

We had a lovely sunset last night: from our house - 

and from our neighbor's backyard on the ridge and looking over the valley, wow!

Corey went on a ride this morning. I took Natalie to frontrunner again and then shaped dough, baked dough, and got more dough ready to make tonight or tomorrow morning. I haven't exercised yet. 2:30 pm and kids are out jumping on the trampoline with the sprinkler going on underneath it. 

Corey and Abi were practicing their patriotic fife music for the parade tomorrow. 

They will be the first in the parade line up. Abi can't feel her lip all the way so she can't quite play properly. She's deciding what she'll do. I'm trying to get the kids packed up so we can leave right after the parade tomorrow. Tomorrow we drive to St. George, then to church in St. George or Vegas on Sunday then finish out our drive to Newport on Sunday. 

So now it's 6:30 pm. Abi and I went to buy her some temple garments so that's she's ready for next Saturday when she goes to the temple. We check out next Friday from Newport, and the plan is to drive straight home that day. She'll be going through the Jordan River temple the next day in the afternoon or evening. That gives us a little bit of a flexible window in case unexpected things come up. I've been helping kids pack and Corey is at his dad's, so I don't think date night is happening tonight. I haven't exercised yet today, so I'm going on a ride. We're kinda ready to leave tomorrow. I might stay up a little later to get other things organized, but as for right now, I need a break so I'm leaving. Hyrum just got here from Idaho, so he and Abi can be in charge. 

Really Good Day

Today was a really good day. Looking back now, I think it all started with catching the sunrise as I came out of the temple.

The sky looked amazing from over in South Jordan. It was pink across the whole valley, from the copper mine to Mt Olympus. I was soaking it in at 5:59 am after doing initiatories at the Jordan River Temple. I drove from there to the rec center, sat in the sauna for 30 min, reciting the Living Christ, then had more time alone with my thoughts as I swam for 60 minutes. 

I was just sending my evening report to Jill and Elasha (which started after our hike last week) and I had a 100% great day! I didn't have any junk today (eventhough we have ice cream and nutella in the house) I had two meals with one snack in between (bean kimchi salad for breakfast, 1 snack of sourdough, choc protein powder banana berry chia bowl) and I stopped eating at 3, finished my painting mostly/kinda (gonna put it on the wall and stare at it for a few days and see if there's anything I want to add or touch up)...

and while I painted I listened to 25 chapters of the old testament.. Then mowed the lawn this evening (it helps that tomorrow is garbage day). After Jill and Elasha told me good job, I remembered that I also went to the temple and the gym AND read a book (12 Hour Walk) for an hour! I didn't tell them those last 3 things cause I'd already tooted my horn enough, but oh yeah, it was a killer day! 

Cute Katharine this morning, coloring at the table while I ate my bean salad. 

I liked her tongue concentrating. 

She mostly colored this morning with markers, but as I was cleaning today I found this cute person she drew.

A few other things that helped today be great - Corey took Owen and Edmund biking. Abi took Natalie and Katharine thrifting, Abi face timed me to ask me a question and I took a few screen shots of her. 

She looks so cute. Her cheeks are obviously still puffy, and they are also still bruised, which hasn't happened to the other kids. 

She sent me this after, haha.

Her friends came by after she got back, and they brought her gelatto. Today I also listened to this video video by Sophie Winkelman that Corey sent while I did dishes. She talks about how kids are forgetting how to play with so much technology. Devices in school are actually hurting our youth. My thought is yes, kids need to be bored long enough to start getting creative on their own. It can be hard to not intervene during the boredom stretch before the creativity kicks in. I was pleased that, Natalie asked if she could WALK to Macey's with Daniel Peter and Katharine. I gave them by blessing. That was gonna be a long walk, but they were going to go buy ice cream for themselves with their own money. 

I was ready to sponsor this outing, but paying for yourselves is even better. They left at 5:11 and got back at 7:50. I didn't have the car or I would have gone looking for them. Instead that was when I went out to mow so I could watch for them. 

It was a long walk. I'm not sure they'll do it again, but if they do, I'll pay. It was nice to have time to paint knowing they were doing something good for their development. Now it's late (11pm). Corey just got back from taking the kids to the church to play. I've been blogging but also watching art videos. I liked this one by Ian Roberts about learning how to paint with bold brushstrokes and paint it and leave it (don't over work it). 

1) think structure BEFORE you put paint to canvas (horizon, spine, lines to focal point, focal point is sharper)
2) Mix color carefully
3) Think shapes
4) remember that confident brushwork requires a lot of attention, it doesn't happen automatically. 

I think I'll bring some paints and a canvas to Newport!! :)

HBD Wesley

Today is Wesley's happy birthday. He is at FSY in California this week. I told him to send me a photo but he said he didn't take any. The kids in his group did, he said he'll forward me one of those after he gets one. Send I'll update that here when/if he sends it. So it's Wesley's happy birthday but sadly it's his 3rd bday in a row away from home, thus we did not have ice cream or anything, cause I didn't want to. We had enough sugar on Lily's birthday and it seem like sugar and junk always just show up anyway, so no need to go intentionally invite it into our home. I am not going to buy any if I don't have to, and if Wesley's not here, I don't have to. 

I went on a morning bike ride. It rained yesterday and a little bit last night, so it smelled sooooo good. 

I loved it. Today the youth in our neighborhood went downtown for the new Salt Lake Temple visitor's center tour. 

Sophi went and walked over to the church with a friend, but Lily and Natalie were both dragging their feet about it, so when Corey took them over, the group had already left. And Abi didn't go cause she's in California, and having a fabulous time.

Taking surfing lessons. 

Today wasn't a great day but it was ok. I took a long nap that was horrible cause I was dreaming about not being able to open my eyes for an hour. When I did finally snap out of it and drag myself out of bed (lacking energy cause of anemia? Trying to figure it out...) I had some computer time - paid some bills, did some blogging, doing a little more of that now before we go to bed. At scriptures, Katharine wanted to say the prayer, as always, and she challenged everyone to an arm wrestle who thought that they should be able to say the prayer instead. 

She shut each of them down (cause we said "Let her win!") We'll stand up to this princess eventually, but not today.

Yesterday morning I went on a hike with some friends, Jill Elasha and Stephani.

We hiked from the south side of Lisa Falls, up to the ruins and up to the Tanners Flat camp ground. We had a good visit as we walked and gave each other motivation and health advice. Anemia came up - Steph says I should go get a blood panel done. Corey and I still need health insurance. I hope that doesn't come back to bite us too bad with the Affordable Care Act fines? We had a good walk and talk visit. Jill and Elasha and I are going to text each other for how good we eat, giving ourselves some grace for when we eat a treat, but we're trying to be good and eat veggies and avoid processed stuff. I sent them a pic of my current favorite breakfast - a big pinto bean salad with spring mix, onion, kimchi, and chipotle sauce. 

It is seriously so good and satisfying. Thank you Dr. Alex for getting Corey to want beans and veggies and fiber for breakfast, cause that's helping me eat it for breakfast too. 

I also took some time to paint a bit yesterday. I worked on that while Corey took Owen and Edmund on a ride down the quarry trail. 

Such a lovely canyon, I love these mountains.

It's been a month since I did anything art-y. With this one I'm going to try and do a larger painting of the Garden Tomb. Spent some time spacing it out - 

and then that was it, cause later in the evening yesterday, I took the kids with me up to Bountiful to go to Christian's sister's wedding reception.  

We stayed for the whole evening. Katharine was embraced by Christian's little sisters and friends.

The little kids all had a great time playing. Edmund and Owen were running around doing tag with the girls. They all ate a lot of ice cream and nachos. We stayed for the dance party. Christian told Owen and Daniel that he'd pay them $2 each to do the worm AND the sea lion. People were dancing, then these two little boys get everyone's attention in the circle as they do the worm - oh yeah! Cool kids! Then they start doing the sea lion and there was an awkward silence which turned into a collective groan and cringe and people squirmed in discomfort. Christian was dying with laughter, saying it was the best $4 bucks he's ever spent. The sea lion is so bad, such a stupid trend, ugh. Natalie and Sophi went to dance, they were going to do some dance to Beat It that they learned in Ballroom, but when the moment came, Sophi was behind Natalie and then Sophi abandoned Natalie and didn't dance with her, so it was just Natalie there giving it her all for a minute until she saw that Sophi had tricked her into dancing a lone. Sophi was laughing so hard at Natalie that she wet herself! Then she grabbed Natalie to be a shield behind her and sent straight to the car. So then I figured we were done. 

I went to tell Mel and Christian that we were leaving, but they were getting ready for the send off, so we got sparklers and joined in that - Peter and Katharine liked holding the sparklers.

Cute Mel with her pregnant tummy that you can't see -

And then we headed home. The kids all had fun, and I'm glad we were able to go support Christian's family. Congrats to Breeanne and Bryson! And way to go Christian's mom for pulling off another wedding this year! Wow! She's positive that this is the last one for a while, so she'll have a break and be able to catch her breath!

Lily is 17!

Corey and I went to temple this morning for a session, and picked up sushi for Lily on the way home, per her 7am text request. I forgot candles though, so we had to make due - the 1 candle is for the 1 in "17" and the 6 and the other single candle stand for 6+1 which equals 7, so =17

(Lily, I'm putting both of these photos here, you can tell me which one you prefer later.) Happy seventeenth sushi birthday Lily! Blowing out her candles.

So Lily got the day off today. I let her just read and do whatever she wanted. Her sisters figured that means they get the day off two. I didn't fight it. Like I said yesterday, I have not been doing a good job as chore enforcer lately. They are reading books 1, 2 and 3 of a series, and they are quite enjoying it and have a strict code of "don't spoil it" for each other.

I asked them if they were sitting in the correct book order, and they were not, so we rearranged. Natalie is in book 1, Lily's in 2, Sophi's in 3.

My mom came by with some crumbl cookies from my mom, which we let be her "cake" today, and my mom arrived right as I was pulling in from getting Lily's favorite ice cream, Sea Salt Carmel Truffle, so it was perfect timing. We just did 3 candles this time.

Make another birthday wish. 

She invited some friends over to watch a movie tonight, they're watching Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality and eating the rest of the ice cream and crumbl cookies. HBD Lily, I hope it was a good one. She's starting her senior year, so it's crazy that Abi is leaving soon and Lily will be gone next year! Time is going too fast. We'll try to be present and enjoy each day we have with each of these kids, and we often tell them that we'll pray for them and "worry" about them until they are safely dead. 

Creative Play

Peter and Katharine played so great with each other today. I didn't want to disrupt it. They made a beach for the barbies. Peter made a surfboard out of paper and waves out of blue blankets. 

The brown carpet was the beach where couples were enjoying sunning themselves.

Very creative Peter, I love it. Thank you for playing with your sister! Bella sent me these cute pictures of Alive playing at the Provo Rec center splash pad today.

Looks like he loved it!

And Eliza shared these pics of Joseph and Mary playing with the duplo blocks we gave to Mary for her birthday. Cute little smile. 

I love my grandbabies. They are so sweet and perfect. Their parents are so blessed to have them to love and enjoy.

Abi is off to California with her high school friends. 

Two of her friends (the one in the neck brace and the one that hurt her spine in their accident) were going to go but after the accident changed their plans, so the original 6 is now 4 people, but she's still excited and they will have fun. They are spending a week in Newport, where we are going as a family in two weeks. Have fun Abi, we'll miss you. She is got a ride to the Provo airport and they flew out from there. She'll be flying back in on Friday. After dropping her off at Tara's house, I went to walmart to buy a gift for Owen's friend Afton. He went to her house at 10:30 for boating at Jordanelle and they were gone until 6 having fun on the water. I haven't been doing great at getting the kids to do chores yet. I let Edmund and Danel go play, since Owen got to go play without doing chores. I'm telling myself that I'll have them work tomorrow. Needless to say the chore system isn't going great yet, cause I'm not doing it. Here is the girl's clothes closet.Lily and Sophi's closet.

It's good from eye level up to the ceiling, everything below eye level is pretty bad. I didn't bother trying to make order of their mess. But I cleaned the boys room by myself while they were all out. I got a new idea for the clean clothes in boys room. I cleared out Katharine's toys, moved the toy box into the boys room, and that is where the clean clothes will go so that they are not just scattered all over the floor when I bring in a clean basket. 

I dumped them in there and now I can close the lid. Brilliant!

I went on a bike ride this evening. Corey's meeting didn't go great today. There were problems with the needles on the demo he hoped to do or something, so we fasted and are still praying, but the end is not yet. It made me feel a bit exhausted and "done" with it all again (it = Corey's project/career/whatever). Speaking of that, I saw this lego today at Walmart. Maybe I'll buy it for Corey, cause it's a time machine and I bet there's a flux capacitor in it that could be a fun lego/visual representation of his work.

On the climb I listened to a BYU devotional by Jennifer Brooks titled "That the Works of God Should Be Made Manifest". There were two quotes that really hit home. "Do we view our trials as opportunities to see God's hand in our life, His power, His mercy, His love? Or do we sometime just feel afflicted and abandoned by God?" (I'm more often in the latter camp.)

She shared part of her conversion to Christ from atheism. She said her first prayers were very simple, and they sounded to me like something I could and should pray for: acknowledge that I do not know what I need to be happy, ask for clarity and peace. Ask for the right things to happen in my life, even if they aren't the things that I think I want. AND that I would eventually, in five or ten years, be able to look back and see that the right things had happened.