Start The Day

I got up early yesterday to help Wes get out the door. Today I got up all by myself! Go me! I won't count my chickens before they've hatched, but maybe I'm out of my 8 month slump. I went for a short bike ride, and stopped to take in a big whiff of these lovely flowers. 

They smell soooo lovely.

And after that warm up I went to the gym to life weights. More lovely flowers by the entrance there - orange lilies. 

Admiring lovely flowers is a good way to start the day. The kids did great at their school work today. It was really fun to help them and I also love watching them help each other. Natalie is a good teacher.

We haven't done it everyday yet, but we're getting better. 

I took the kids swimming tonight for like 90 minutes. It was pretty chilly in the water, and it was very windy too, which made it feel even more cold. Poor Peter had purple lips. 

 

At 7:30 I decided he could be done and I got him dressed and helped him warm up by laying him down on the warm cement. Back at home, I loved watching him look through a book in the corner of his room. Those little toes!

Yes, this is a book that he has ripped from it's hard cover. 

I tried to hot glue it back together, but he ripped it out again or dropped it or something and it's in two pieces now, but still functional. And two pieces is better than 20 (second pic). He's adorable. I haven't share these pictures yet from last Friday, June 4th, when Peter came with me to the Capitol for a 1:45 appointment at the Lieutenant Governor's office to get Ethan's birth certificate "apostilled" as part of his visa application. 

It's fun to run around in a big echo-y building!

And he liked the lions outside on the stairs. 

It was very hot when we went walking back outside, so we stopped for a break in the shade of the bench but P wanted to go back to the lions. We'll come back again someday. There is a fun path around the capitol that I thought would be fun for the kids to ride bikes on, maybe, so we'll see if we come back for a little family bike ride sometime and you can show your siblings the lions. I've got a few more pictures from last Friday that I didn't share either (that post was fully consumed with documenting our need for help at home and Wesley's poor school performance) - Peter being adorable when Corey took them to his parent's house. They like to have summer popsicles at Grandmas!

Corey took kids over there because Abi was going over to hang out at a friends house, so Corey took her and a few kids and worked over there until she was done. She only wanted to stay for a little bit so she could come home for date night. I guess I'm pleased that the family date night tradition has enough pull that she sometimes chooses it over friends. I helped get kids ready to go with Corey, which is sometimes a hurdle he can't bear. Daniel was looking sweet as I put on his shoes. After I got them on, I told him I wanted a picture of his sweetness. 

This was a little forced rather than the natural sweetness he had as I was putting on his shoes, but it still made me smile. 

They came home and then Corey and I and Hyurm left to meet Corey's parents at the California Pizza kitchen for a date night celebration. They don't take reservations, so we walked around the mall for a bit until they were ready to seat us. 

Sadly, the Shanghi Bowl is no longer there, which is a bit tragic cause that was amazing. I was very pleased with the warm roasted vegetable salad with shrimp, it was quite excellent. 

It was nice to go out to eat with Hyrum to celebrate his graduation, since we weren't able to on graduation night since it got out too late. Hyrum is a good kid. We never have taken him to the Roof, which was a tradition we wanted to keep with our adult kids (here are Joseph, Melodie, and Ethan's Roof date nights) Hopefully it will open up before he leaves on his mission in September! Oh darn... I just looked it up - it's closed because of renovation projects and won't be opening until 2023!! I guess we'll have to take Hyrum after he gets home from his mission! Ok, well, I think that was all the photos and events that I had to catch up on from last weekend. I hope it was a good day and hopefully a good start to a good week. I want to take advantage of this summer and make it awesome for my kids, for Corey, and for me.