The Mountainside's All Watermelon Red

Daniel was sick today - he threw up twice, both times in a bowl, so yay! Not bad for a 5 year old. I was proud of him, and grateful I didn't have to clean up the couch or scrub any carpets. Natalie went to school today but then came home feeling ill. She was crying this morning because she didn't want to go to ballet today, and it was a battle of wills, but since she played the sick card at school, I guess she wins this one. So they've been resting and playing Starfall on the computer. I texted Corey to let him know that "I might go biking... there is limited time left". He was working over at his parent's house and waiting for Lily to be done at her clarinet lesson. He said he could come too, but with Lily not being done with her lesson until 5, then the drive back home from downtown, they wouldn't be able to join me until 6... But then we'd only have like an hour. Wes stayed after school for orchestra, and after I picked him up, I let Corey know I was going to sneak away for a bit, they were welcome to come out and join me if they were able. 

I've put together a new "bike ride" playlist for myself, and one that I've been loving is Sleepwalker on the Killers new Pressure Machine album, cause he's singing about the Utah mountains in fall!!  "...the first autumn whisper mid-September brings And the glowy excitement that it builds?" and "Come out and see the leaves The mountainside's all watermelon red Soon enough, they're gonna rust and fall Leave the mountainside cold and bare But when the longer days of sun appear They'll be rising like an answered prayer" I was surrounded by watermelon red leaves today - 

These beauties were on my way up Canyon Hollow right after the Silica Pit and before taking one last loop down the Rush trail - I love these fall leaves! The camera doesn't capture both together, but the leaves all around me looked like that - 

and as the sun began to set, the sky turned orange and pink - So it was lovely.

Corey had gone to the gym in the morning, and I hadn't done anything all day, so I can live with myself for being selfish and leaving. If they were able to come out, I said we could explore Little Valley. But Corey replied that he was glad that I like to go biking and that he'd stay at home with the kids. My time stats for this are on my exercise log blog. When the sun was setting and the sky was lit up with pink and orange, it just filled my cup with joy.

Hey, sleepwalker, don't you miss the way

Wildflowers paint the western hills?

Or the first autumn whisper mid-September brings

And the glowy excitement that it builds?

Everyone is afraid of something

Even the strongest man alive

Hеy, sleepwalker, we went walking in thе western hills

And we picked you wildflowers

You gotta open your eyes

Hey, dreamcatcher, come out and see the leaves

The mountainside's all watermelon red

Soon enough, they're gonna rust and fall

Leave the mountainside cold and bare

But when the longer days of sun appear

They'll be rising like an answered prayer and I know that

Everyone is afraid of losing

Even the ones that always win

Hey sleepwalker, when the mountain comes back to life

It doesn't come from without

It comes from within

The hills are barren, but we look for what's to come

Sweeter skies and longer days of sun

When you wake up, I'll be standing in the line

To kiss your eyes and wipe the tears from mine

'Cause everyone is afraid of something

Even the strongest man alive

Hey, sleepwalker

Western bluebells and painted cups are getting ready to rise

It's time to begin

It doesn't come from without

It comes from within

Hyrum's Final Departure

Lily stayed home from school today because she was feeling a little unwell. And around 9 am I realized - "Hey! I can leave! I am going biking!" so I loaded up my bike, left Lily in charge, and headed out to Corner Canyon. When I was in the car on my way, I got a text from Hyrum, letting us know he was on the frontrunner train and leaving his MTC experience behind. It was around 10:30. I had thought it might be fun to go see him, and since he texted giving us an update, I thought maybe he wished we might? I was on my way south though... maybe I can go by the South Jordan station and wave to him... Corey was up in Logan but on his way back from a meeting he had up there. I thought of what was the correct thing to do as I continued to drive toward my bike ride in the beautiful fall mountains. Then I pulled over into a church parking lot. Sigh. Ok, what are we going to do... This is my last chance to see Hyrum for two years, or I can go biking. I really wanted to go biking, as the fall colors have been yelling at me "HURRY!! BEFORE WE'RE GONE!" but seeing H was also a one and only opportunity. Corey called and we talked about what to do. I figured out what train Hyrum was on - leaving Provo Central at 10:53. That would put him down town at the North Temple Station at 12:02. He was supposed to get off there and then take the green line trax to the airport. I sent Corey the link of North Temple Station. Corey could get there at 11:55, and I could too. Ok, let's do it. I turned around and was back home at 11. I changed out of my exercise clothes and told Lily my new plan. She didn't mind if I took D&P but she didn't think she should go, she was feeling really light headed. D&P didn't want to go, so fine, I got them lunch and then left them in Lily's charge again. Corey and I arrived at North Temple station at the same time, found a place to park, and walked over to the frontrunner drop off. At 12:02 the train came. Hyrum had mentioned that there were like 20 missionaries on the train with him. I looked for a big group of sharp looking young men in suits. There were some sisters with them too, but it's the white shirts and ties that stand out more. I saw missionaries unloading from the train and then I saw him!! This will be fun to surprise him. He's the blue mask on the left -

I walked up to him - "Hi Elder! Can we help you with your luggage?" Hyrum said "What the!?!? How did you get here?!?! How did you find me!?!" Corey said "We're always watching..." We helped him take the elevator up to the green line. I got another match - another missionary on an escalator!

(Joseph and Ethan's departing missionaries on escalator pic are there - someday I'm going to make a memory matching game with different-but-alike family pictures) Group selfie - 

Visiting briefly as we wait for the green line trax

And then he was boarding through the yellow doors - 

Our "last" photo of Hyrum!! Bye Hyrum! We love you!!

And then we watched the train until it was out of sight. He texted from the airport "I loved seeing you guys, That was a tender mercy" so that made me happy about the missionary>biking choice. Corey and I headed to lunch at Blue Lemon and ran into our brother in law Jared, Jerusha's husband, and had a quick visit with him. At Blue Lemon, Corey got street tacos and I had the beet salad, yummy, and a side of sweet potato fries. Then he went to work and I went to Churchill to pick up Abi early from school, take her home so she could practice before her 3:15 online flute lesson, and then I left to get my biking fix, yay - my happy place - It was so gorgeous ~

I parked at the Coyote Trailhead and did one 9 minute loop past the silica pit and down rush, then I went up the Potato Hill trail then east on Anns, down Ghost Falls, Canyon Hollow, then Rush and one more 9 minute loop. 

Everything about it was lovely - 

The cool breeze, the leaves falling all around and piled up in the trail -

I listened to the killers album "Imploding the Mirage" ~ the lyrics from Caution were so appropriate "Tonight, the winds of change are blowing wild and free"

I headed for home at 4:30 and got back in time to take Wes to Hockey and Abi to soccer. Then back home to try and feed kids and clean up and get them working, then back to pick up A&W.  When we were getting ready for scriptures tonight at 8:40, Hyrum texted that he was alive and could call if we were available. He had arrived safely in San Diego and is in a trio companionship where he'll be for the next few weeks.

His p-days are Tuesdays, so we've got three missionaries with three different p-days - we'll be talking to Eth on Mondays, Hyrum on Tuesdays, and Mel on Wednesdays. Fun fun! And one last picture of beautiful Peter sleeping this morning. He's started sleeping on our floor, like most of our two year olds have, and sometimes he sneaks into the bed with us before morning. He is a precious little boy.

In a few blinks he'll be all grown up and leaving to serve a mission out in the big world, time goes by quickly, try to savor the little fleeting moments.

Beginning Another Week

Hello. The fall mountains have been calling to me. 

They are absolutely amazing. I took those pictures yesterday on a drive. I was coming back from the aquarium. I had called and left a message to see if they had found any ipod pros in a black silicone case, cause I had no idea where mine were, but I knew I had them at the aquiarium on Friday when I went with SNODP, and miracle of miracles, they were left there and someone had turned found them and turned them in. So I went and picked those up with a very grateful heart for honest people in the world. UNLIKE the people who stole Joseph's motorcycle sometime between Thursday night and Friday morning. Very rude. Honest people rule, robbers and thieves stink and need to repent. We had a good lesson yesterday at church about chastening and trials - from Elder Wakolo's talk "God Loves His Children" and in part 3 of how God shows his loves, it is by chastening. Part of the definition of chastening: to prune. And I thought of my yard. I don't love it enough to work in it, so it's just doing what it wants and it doesn't look great. Kinda how my life would be without God pruning it. Pruning and weeding is a sign of care and attention! If God didn't love us, we'd be ignored, like my yard - overgrown with grass, weeds, and sprouting trees. 

So I don't know if I'll work on my yard any time soon, but if/when God works on me and the yard of my life, I'll take it as a sign of him caring about me and wanting me to be beautiful and reach my potential. 

We had a walkabout tonight, and that was fun. The kids enjoyed it. 

Peter liked the swing! It was a really long (and thus high!) swing.

Back at home, I saw Peter cutting some paper with scissors and I thought it was cute. 

Other parents might see a toddler with scissors and go take the scissors away. I hope my saying "Aww!" isn't bad. Today we had our early Monday hockey morning - leaving home at 4:45 am. Yay. Wesley drives on most mornings to hockey or early morning seminary. He has his permit for another 3 months. He can get his license sometime after Christmas.

He wakes up, goes to hockey in his pj's, suits up, plays and gets crazy sweaty, comes home, takes a shower, and gets ready. Corey takes him to school, cause I'm taking jr. high carpool, and Wes is usually a little bit tardy. Today was a little slower paced, which was nice. Violin was cancelled because our teachers' son is feeling sick, and a kid at his school got covid, so they're playing it safe, which is appreciated. Peter painting at home.

We talked to E and H. It's Hyrum's last day in the Provo MTC. He flies out to San Diego tomorrow.

I took some kids with me to play at the park while we waited for Sophi at her soccer practice. I talked to Joseph on the phone most of the time. His motorcycle got stolen last week! It was a small bike and pretty light, and he had noticed a trailer the night before over by where he had it parked, so he thinks someone just picked it up and took it. Pretty rude, but Joseph is handling it very well. He said "All things work together for our good! So maybe I was going to get in an accident, so this is actually a blessing..." Still, pretty mean for people to take things that aren't theirs. 

The mountains are looking beautiful, but my mornings are full of driving to school, my days are full of two cute toddler boys who don't want to go in the trailer, and the evenings are full of my quiver of blessings. Peter and Daniel fell asleep in my arms during scriptures tonight. They are precious. Life is busy, but it's good and wonderful. 

Goodnight.

BYU Game

After watching the BYU vs Utah game two weeks ago, Corey thought he would try to get the kids a bit more invested in BYU by going and watching a game in person, so he got tickets and today was the big game. 

Corey went and bought some blue face makeup so that they could up their BYU-fan-ness

GO COUGS!!!

Corey had 6 tickets and so he took ALSNO with him and they had a great time. (I stayed home and then quickly left Wes and Peter and I went on a bike ride, and I had a great time too. Here are some pictures I took of the fall leaves!!🍂🍁) And here is cute Peter reading his book to himself. He's so sweet.

Today was Hyrum's pday at the MTC, so before the game, they had planned to go by and hold up some signs for him - 

(Here they are from Hyrum's point of view) 

Corey (and Abi) took lots of pictures of the game. I'll share a few - they met up with Joseph and his friend Amber - 

It looks like Corey fed them while they were there - 

And they cheered for the team - 

BYU won against the South Florida Bulls 35-27

The kids loved it and love BYU even more now. 

Good job Corey. Your master plan of Cougar indoctrination is working. 

Aquarium and 4 Things

The elementary kids didn't have school this morning, so after getting all the older kids off, I went on a bike ride. I parked at Potato Hill and explored Ann's West and Little Valley. It was great and beautiful! I'm excited to bring the kids to Little Valley to practice, now that I know what and where it is. They might not like the uphill but it's seriously not bad, hopefully they can hack it. I went along Ann's until I got to Maple Hollow, which I thought looked like a quick way to start to head back, and I guess it would have been since it was a black diamond, but instead I turned around and headed back to the car. It was a nice fall ride.

After I got home, Corey went to work and I took the elementary kids to the Aquarium. Peter admiring the python and piranhas.

Sophi invited her friend Kesly to come. A pic of all the kids by the big river monsters tank - 

And a pic on the orcas.

Owen surfing.

Other things that happened today:

1) Joseph's bike was stolen last night from his apartment parking lot. He saw a trailer parked next to it last night, and then this morning it was gone. He's going to report it to the police, but assuming it's gone forever, he's handled it remarkably well. "Well... all things work together for our good (Romans 8:28) so, maybe I was going to crash and die, and now I won't! So that's good!"

2) Joseph works at the Missionary Training Center as a training area specialist, and today he went there and was able to say hi to Hyrum. Lucky guy, he got the last hug.

He became a specialist in February. "What's a specialist?" you might ask? I'll let Joseph tell you: "I basically help things run smoothly and do whatever tasks my supervisor needs me to do. Kinda like a secretary but I'm not waiting around all day to do stuff. Some of my tasks include going through applications of people who want to be new teachers and setting up interviews with them if they meet a certain criteria, updating our area information on the MTC training website, sending out info of new districts to new teachers and creating their Google calendar, training on technology for new teachers such as canvas or zoom, formatting teacher logs for teachers to track each shift, and making surveys to collect different information from teachers about the area."

3) Wes and I both got an email today from the BYU Independent Study that they are granting his petition and are going to give him an extension on his Math class! But they are only giving him 10 days. He needs to take two zoom classes and his final and be finished by October 4th. He says he can do it, yay, so it's go go time! The two zoom classes were only offered on Mondays but he's going to email the teacher and figure it out how to get them both in this next Monday and then he'll study and try to take the final before General Conference. Good stuff, go Wes! Get it done.

And 4) as for the rest of the daily run around - when Lily got home, she went to babysit for the Clarks from 1-5. Natalie had dance from 2-4, but I decided to not have her go cause I was frazzled thinking of all the what to do's around who was going to go to Lagoon. Corey had gotten some texts from our nephew, Issac, and Corey wanted to make it happen cause it was discount tickets and cause we should take people up on things when they invite us, but the kids had so many other things going on that I was a bit overwhelmed thinking about it and getting the kids to decide. It was eventually decided that Wes, Abi, and Natalie would go, Corey's sister would give them a ride up with Rhyan, so I had to have them at Corey's parents house at 4 to go, so I ended up letting Natalie skip dance today. Natalie hasn't been liking it lately, so I'm leaning towards letting her quit and she start something else. WA&N went to Lagoon with their cousins Isaac and Rhyan and Aunt Chalane. Sophi stayed home to go to a birthday party that was from 2-6, and Lily didn't go cause she was babysitting, so maybe we have to make that up to her somehow. Sophi chose to miss out, so we don't owe her. Natalie said after riding a roller coaster "I've never felt so alive!!!" I left ODP home alone watching a movie when I took WN to Nancy's for Lagoon. Corey was already there with Abi. It's probably not a very responsible thing to do, to leave a 6 year old in charge, but it was one of those days. Later tonight, Lily babysat for us and we went out to eat for date night at Blue Lemon. There's the daily report.

Family Ride in Draper

We had Parent Teacher Conferences today at the elementary school. They had cute pictures of all the kids by their classrooms, holding signs that said what is special about them. 

Sophi is important because she is Sophi! Natalie is important because Jesus made her and he loves her!

Owen likes his family and friends. His teacher Mrs. Petersen has a portrait by her door that Abi made in 2015. Mrs. Petersen has been the first grade teacher for Ethan, Hyrum, Abi, Lily, Sophi, Natalie and now Owen.

Owen's little biography and a self portrait. I know he looks like a bug with many legs, but he is actually just wearing a fuzzy sweater, ha!

I also loved the clues he gave about himself. His favorite color is red, his favorite food is "toost," he likes to play with friends, he is good at ST Math, and at home he is good at helping. All true statements, well done Owen. After conferences, we went to the book fair. Corey had taken the kids there on Monday and they sent me a list of aalll the things they wanted. I didn't want to buy anything, I almost hate the bookfair and the pressure I feel from my kids because of it. Corey said to give them a $10 budget and then they can choose. Natalie almost got a stupid "chocolate" calculator for $4, but when I told her I can get a calculator at the dollar tree, she decided to go with a small book instead. Good. I told Daniel this book was too expensive. It was $1 over his budget. But he wasn't taking that for an answer. He's not letting the book go...

"I will be walking out of here with this book..." his toddler glare seemed to be saying. And he did. And I hate the book fair and resent it every time I buy something from there. Sigh, what else. We had Sophi skip soccer practice tonight and we went on a family bike ride in Draper along the Porter Rockwell trail. It's a bit of a process getting all the bikes on and off of the rack. Kids climbed a tree as they waited for us to finish the work. 

Wesley helped us unload. Abi stayed home to practice flute and clean, cause 1) we didn't have a bike for her and 2) cause she wanted to butter us up so she can hang out with friends tomorrow. 

This trail is paved and is also totally not steep at all, but most of the kids couldn't handle the "uphill" slope and they were sure to let us know. I didn't get any pictures of the ride because it was "all parental hands on deck" just keeping the group together, but overall I think it was fun. We biked out to the overpass with Highland Drive and then turned around and came back to the Draper City park where the kids played on the swings and playsets - 

...and Corey and Wes played a little bit of street hockey on the basketball court. 

We stayed until it was very late and dark, but it was good and was a nice family outing. I was totally fine with Sophi missing soccer. I'm on a bit of extracurricular activities burn out, so it was nice to say no and spend some time together. I mailed the packages to Ethan (&collar shirts) and Hyrum, and also birthday cards to Dennis (b-day card) and Eric. Camilla and Eric's divorce decree came today. We sent some polos to each other on the Hibb Sib channel. She has primary physical custody so that is good, and she has a month to find a place and move out. I know they never thought this would happen when they bot married, so in that way it is sad, but hopefully they'll be able to start healing and creating their new lives.