Happy Birthday to our princess!! I sang her happy birthday after she was awake, she liked that.
And singing her a song was about it for my birthday contribution, so there ya go, K! Hope you liked it. She acted like I was being so weird and silly!
She's a pretty happy baby in the mornings.
Even though I'm a party pooper, K had grandmas that come through for her. My mom came over and brought K some cute new clothes and a swimsuit and a fun dog guitar.
Ok, Katharine, now YOU'RE the one being weird and silly!
Did you know that Katharine and my mom share a birthday? That is part of why Katharine's middle name is Ann - cause that is my mom's middle name too! Taking a selfie with the birthday girls before my mom headed out -
Katharine's sisters are sad that they missed her party, so we might have another one after they get back next week. Tonight they arrived in Puerto Barrios after a long 8 hour bus ride.
I think a girls vacay is a good idea. Next year we'll let Corey stay home and Katharine and I will join them.
Today was the last of school stuff for me - carpool one more time, but lucky me, turns out no one needed a ride, so yesterday was actually my last day. Hip hip hooray we've survived the school year. After Beka's help yesterday, I felt like I had wind in my sails and so I didn't exercise this morning and instead I was cleaning and sorting. I cleaned the girls (LSN) room, I cleaned up in Abi's room, which was already clean, except for some little boy found the green aloe vera gel and put little quirts of it all over her room - on her hair brush, on her fake plants, in a jar she had there, all over her pile of clean clothes and her Big Joe chair and her socks. Wesley texted me pics of that last night after he discovered it. Oh, also a squirt on his computer. So that was what I started doing first thing this morning and it got the ball rolling for a good cleaning day. But I didn't get a ride in this morning, but I did just go for a quick ride tonight - took the car to the parking lot and just did a 60 min ride. Now it's time for baths and to wrap up the day. Happy Birthday sweet Katharine. We are so glad you came into our life exactly one year ago! (I know that cause I keep stats and I know times and dates... I'm finishing this up at 8:30 pm!) :)
I think I've still been recovering from the late night drive on Saturday night/Sunday morning. I've been trying different things to help me get through. Wes and I had bribed them to go to bed early on Sunday night by saying we could get up early to play video games, and that backfired a bit, cause yesterday I let them play for too long and now they've been asking for more today, which is a bit tiring. A good thing I've done is I signed up for a two week pass at Momentum. I went last night and today and that's been great. I really like bouldering. I've been trying to keep up my arm strength by doing pull ups and monkey bars when I have the chance, but my palms and forearms are definitely sore from climbing. It apparently works muscles that monkey bars don't. While I went climbing, I left K with my niece, then brought Rhyan to our house. She helped watch kids while I took my final exam for my Life Coach certification course. I got 100% on my final, but it was super easy, exact same questions as were on the weekly quizzes. Maybe it was just easy cause I was over prepared? I did take 37 pages of notes over the past 6 weeks as I did the reading assignments. Still, as I wondered if it was just an easy test, I remembered that I had a free sample test that in my inbox that I got from the International Association of Coaching. So I took that too and I got most of those right, even though it was asking questions about their system, the 9 Mastery Keys, which I hadn't heard of before. I didn't finish that test though cause it reset twice when I was almost done, and then I didn't bother starting over again the third time. But I think the IAP test was easy, but then again maybe being a life coach is just easy? I'm glad I took a step to be certified though, even if it was just jumping through a hoop.
So, today I was feeling quite stressed. I sent a polo to my sisters and SIL's and Beka saw it, reached out, and came over and helped me. We both cleaned a bit and now the front room, side room, and kitchen are clean, plus vacuumed stairs and cleaned upstairs bathroom, and bagged two leaf bags of pine needles. She took the kids outside while I finished up vacuuming. Katharine earlier - she hasn't been giving me a free moment.
Peter has been coughing a lot and coughed so much he threw up so I bought him popsicles. I bought popsicles to help his sore throat. I got some Michoacana variety pack and quickly consumed the coconut popsicles on the drive home. Stress eating, perhaps? Yes. And then I hurried home and then loaded up the kids to go pick up carpool. I was feeling kinda mad at myself for most of the day, for turning to food when I know better and that it was my emotions running wild, but then, later tonight on a drive out to Momentum, I listened to my sweet SIL's podcast "Hyprocite vs. Human" and it made me feel so much better. I am a human, and IT IS OK for me to BE HUMAN and have human moments. It's understandable, and it's ok. And I will get through this week. And it's totally ok for me to stress eat if I want. This is a hard week with the girls gone. (Sorry Corey, but I do miss their help the most! But of course I do miss you :-* too!) I also took a ride up the canyon this morning. I made it to the Lisa Falls parking lot and then took the road up to Maybird. I was going for Snowbird, but checked my phone to see how much further I had to go, and I had been gone for 75 minutes and I was still 3 miles from Snowbird, so I called it good. BeReal from that ride -
So I'm glad I've gotten exercise in even though once I'm home I can't get a darn thing done, although I did finally finish loading the dishwasher around noon. Wes has been good with watching the K and boys in the mornings while I take a ride.
She's a cutie.
But everything is harder with K at my feet. When I try loading the dishwasher she's either grabbing dirty dishes and standing on the door with dirty water, or if I'm putting away the clean dishes, she's grabbing those about to throw the glass plates on the floor. I'm grateful that Beka came over to save me today, thank you Beka!!
Hi. Here are Katharine with Corey yesterday morning. Safe in her father's arms.
She looked so peaceful and beautiful! What a pretty baby.
Now it is Sunday and today truly was a day of temporal rest. I came home after church and took a nap with Katharine from 12-4, with a few interruptions from kids, but it was good and I think I've recovered. I needed recovery because I was up driving home from Las Vegas yesterday and arrived very late last night early this morning at 3AM. This is how that happened. Yesterday Abi didn't have GMS and the boys didn't have soccer, so it started off with the feeling of being a low key Memorial Day weekend. Other people had plans, but not me. But Corey was one of those others who did... a few days ago he finalized plans to go to Guatemala with Mel, Abi, Lily, Sophi, and Natalie. It's something he's wanted to do for over two years (and why we got current passports for Abi and Lily in 2021). Mel texted Corey earlier this week asking about it, and it seemed like a good opportunity to make it happen. But before they left, Lily had an audition, so CMALSN and I took P&K with us and we all went down together to Lily's audition. O&D were at a friends house. I waited in the car with kids, and then we were going to drop them off at the airport for their flight to Las Vegas, where they had a connecting flight to Miami, and then a day long layover there, aka all day today, until they fly to Guatemala in the early Monday morning hours. So, on our way to GMS, Corey got a text or email saying that the flight to Las Vegas as overbooked, and it offered a $250 travel voucher to anyone who rescheduled. Corey saw this as a chance to fund their next adventure, especially since he had gotten a great deal on that flight (less than $200 for the 6 of them! This was an opportunity to come out with a $1500 profit!) so he was texting someone as we drove to GMS, he looked for a rental car so they could drive to Las Vegas, I took him to the airport to get he rental car while Lily finished up her GMS application, then I went back to GMS to get the girls and bring them out to Corey so they could quickly be on their way and I could be done... but then Corey said there was a very very long line at the airport car rental place.
He made NO progress moving closer in the 40 minutes that I was driving back and forth to save them time. They needed to leave really soon if they were going to make the drive in time to catch their flight. His back was against the wall now cause he had cancelled their flights and there was a 3 hour wait for the car rental he had booked. And I'm also sad to report that he didn't actually end getting the voucher money either, cause he pushed the wrong button, so he just got refunded his $200. So that was unfortunate. I had the girls all with me, and still Peter and Katharine too, and we were waiting for Corey at the passenger pick up parking lot. I checked in with him.
"I don't know what to do..." I called to see if Joseph could maybe drive them down. He and I talked, I called Corey again, I told him we'd come get him and start to head out and figure out what to do as we drove. Then it was decided: I would drive them to Las Vegas, Joseph would watch all the kids - Joseph was at Corey's parent's house helping his cousin with math, so he went back home to get Owen and Daniel, we hurried by there to drop off Peter and Katharine, and Joseph got to play "dad" for the next 12 hours while I went along to bring back our car after dropping them off. The girls were lovely and pleasant on the drive down.
Corey drove and I tried to sleep but didn't get much rest. I slept briefly until Santaquin. We listened to the High School Musical "Don't Stare at the Sun" and then followed that with all the Star Wars Bad Lip reading songs, which are legit awesome music with absolutely ridiculous lyrics. And then killed another hour of the drive listening to Nate Bargatze Full Time Magic Comedy Special, that was funny. The girls took advantage of the chance to play pranks on sleeping Abi -
I got another few minutes of rest between Mesquite to Vegas. Then we were soon arriving in Las Vegas and dropping them off.
We got to Vegas at 9 and I was on my way back, will take me 6 hours and 2 minutes to get home. Take a deep breath, I got this. Corey filled up the car before they left, and I filled up a little more in Fillmore. Singing my heart out to Brandon Flowers and the Greatest Showman kept me awake. Plus a dozen phone calls with Corey and my parents. My mom checked in with me every 30-50 minutes. I arrived home at 3:01 am, feeling very ready to nurse Katharine. I would have stopped to rest had I not been a nursing mother. My body was letting me know that it had been well over 15 hours since I fed my baby. I got home, texted my mom that I was safe (she was watching me on Life 360 the whole time too) and then brushed my teeth, put in my retainer, drank some water, woke up K and let her relieve me. I've been recovering from the stress of that drive, I still feel very tense in my shoulders, going to try and stretch. I digressed to old habits and ate too much today. I am going to go on a bike ride tomorrow morning. I am glad I arrived safely home and would like to thank my mother and Corey and the girls for their prayers. They all agreed that if I crashed and died, they would all feel really bad. I'll probably be recovering from that all week. I'm going to try and do thought work and coach myself, it was kinda stressful and crazy. But things are good. Wes woke me up today asking for a little help preparing for his talk today (he was speaking in church), but then I didn't actually help him much. He helped get the boys ready and out the door. I thought the hair was a bit irreverent for church, but Wesley insisted.
It was brotherly bonding, so I had to let him do their hair. (They need haircuts. I was going to do that yesterday, but did the Vegas drive instead)
All done. Wesley said this up and voluminous poofy look is what is cool right now. So, ya gotta do it.
But Peter in a mowhawk spike... Hmm. I didn't have the will to fight on it today, so, that's fine, whatever. We checked in with people this evening. I missed most of the conversation, talking about dating sorrows and stuff. E is feeling sad, Joseph's been through the rigmarole and sounded like Corey did to J in the advice J was giving to E. Mel offered to try to interpret what the girls' thoughts might be, but women are confusing, so who knows.
Corey and Mel from Miami, J in Provo, E in North Caroline, and Wes and I here at home. It's been a crazy busy Maycember, I'm still glad it's almost over and will be relieved when it actually is.
Corey is headed to Guatemala tomorrow with the girls. I felt like I needed a breather this morning as I prep my soul to be on my own, so this morning Corey went for a ride and I went for a walk. Bells Canyon was lovely - I put all the pics I took here on my nature blog, and here's just one for here -
And as I was walking I checked in on him on Life 360 - and he went all the way up to freaking SNOWBIRD! Ugh! That is so far up there! He has set the bar high. Maybe I'll try to do that while he's gone.
Owen at the bus stop as I walked home - Just one more week for him -
And today was the last day for all the girls, since they'll be gone in Guatemala. Enjoy your last day of school, Sophi and Natalie! Last day at Granite for Sophi since she's moving onto jr. high in the fall.
So they're missing the last week of school - I'm not sure if that means they are lucky or unlucky? Abi and Lily are a little sad to miss yearbook signing.
This afternoon Corey, Melodie and I went up to Bountiful to join family with Seth as he went to the temple for the first time to receive his endowment.
I took that pic - then got myself in it -
There were some storm clouds moving in, and it started to rain a little, so we hurried to the car. And then poor JeNeal was ahead of us and accidentally drove her scooter off the curb! It was painted yellow for most of it, but then a section of it was not painted, and it kinda was marked like it was the slope down to the road, but it was a curb and she drove right off it. She fell over on her left side and I'm worried about her arm and hip. I remember once at Park City, I was in front of her and she was following me out to the pool, and I tried to kick the door open far enough that she could hurry through behind me, and she went for it but the door swung back and hit her arm and she got really bruised and cut. As we get older we just get banged up so much easier... I hope she's ok! She and Wayne headed back home after that accident and the rest of us went out to eat at Rumbi Island Grill. Joseph wasn't able to make it to the temple with us, cause he was taking the MCAT. He came and joined us for the meal afterwards and he felt it went well!
He seemed so relieved to have that test done! He's been studying and preparing for it for months. Good job Joseph! He should have his score back in about a month, but he feels it went well and he's pleased and feels good, he trusts that he will get a decent score. So that's all the stuff from today - busy day. The temple and Rumbi Grill counted as our date tonight cause Corey and the girls need to get ready for their trip tomorrow. Busy busy, but it's great, life is good.
Took a ride with Corey to 3rd bridge this morning. I was able to bike over the big pipe again! I know how to do it now, yay. Low gear, low seat, and go fast. Today 9.56 miles, 1 hour 15 min. PR for power plant to 2nd river crossing and back to Power plant, 39:39. And 3rd fastest time for LC Descent, lower half, 8:07. Also did the fish tail tonight with my silver bike from last year. I wanted to see if I could go faster since that has 3 gears, and I DID - Got a PR for church to Wasatch of.... 1:58! I was pushing hard, standing up the whole time, I was breathing super hard and kinda have a sore throat now. I also got a PR for the approach hill!! 4:58, woot go me! I'm not going to try and beat those times again until the season has ended and we're doing our final rides in the fall, after a full summer of conditioning. I'm looking forward to a full summer of bike rides every morning! Natalie is a summer birthday girl, so today her school class celebrated her and they had a party.
I sent in some treats, the took pics, probably sang to her.
We all love Natalie! She is going to be on safety patrol next year. She's excited about that. Natalie is fun. She left us this special note on the toilet paper.
And I think she's also the one who wrote these profound words of wisdom.
Appropriately capturing the encouraging words of her father given to teenagers and college kids when they say life is hard.
It's not THAT bleak, Natalie. There are happy moments too. But let's keep expectations low - it IS going to be hard, but the challenges are good and it's worth it. For example, Corey is taking the girls on a trip to Guatemala this weekend. He had most of it arranged except for the flight down, since he had to wait last minute to book that so he could use their Frontier "fly for free" tickets. Looks like they are going to make it. They are flying on Saturday at 3-ish from SLC to Las Vegas, then leave Las Vegas at 11pm for Miami, then to Guatemala City. Now that traveling and flying is going to make for a lot of hard work for your dad. I'm glad to not be traveling with you guys (cause I'd probably have K and all the other little ones). It's hard, I dare say it sucks, and yes, we will die before we know it, so it sucks and then you die, but I'm sure you'll have a fun time in Guatemala at the beach and other lovely places. Part of the suck part of life is trying to pay for it. I asked Corey how much he anticipates this trip costing. He replied with the following screen shot of his trip spreadsheet:
Flights (taxes, fees, 1 bag): $647.78
Interval week: $229.00
Hotel in Las Vegas on way back: $125.86
2 Hotel rooms in Miami Florida: $61.00
Bus to/from Puerto Barrios: $192.00
Hotel in Guate on the way back: $?
Tours: $?
Impressions on young minds: Priceless
Yes, I'm sure there will be priceless impressions made. Good job sweetie. And again, I'm glad it's you, not me. I'll be home with the little ones. I'm bracing myself for things to be a little harder than usual since he's taking all my daughters... All my good sitters will be gone. I hope I can still get out biking. If I get my morning fix I might be able to cope. Katharine, I hope you go easy on me.
She fell asleep on her face today - we all got a laugh out of that.
I had to take Lily to jazz band today, so Corey did the bike ride without me, sniff. But summer is in the air! Soon I won't have carpool or any morning commitments, so yay, we're almost free (for a few months). Today Daniel and some friends had a little party at Molly's house, before Avery moves away. They enjoyed snowcones and fun playing together on the tire swing and zip line. (Molly has a sweet back yard).
And at our house, we broke out ice cream cones too - My mom brought them by. Mini Blue Bunny cones.
Perfect size for toddlers.
Cute little tongue.
Digging the last of the chocolate out of the bottom of the cone...
It was cute seeing Katharine in her swimsuit! She's so pretty.
I got her a few suits at Kid to kid, in prep for summer fun. It's just around the corner! Swimming and more biking and hiking in the mountains - here's Joseph on a hike with a friend named Rachel on a hike (Bridal Veil Falls?) She is really great and we're hoping for the best for each of them.
I also changed the flourescent light bulbs in the laundry room today - they've been out for a while. Yay we can see.
Hello Monday! It's almost time for bed, there is only one Monday left of the school year. I am glad that we are coming closer to the end of the academic calendar. Things are good, and I'm looking forward to a break. A few things - Corey booked me a flight to Indiana for next month for when my sister gets married. I am going to be traveling ALONE (maybe...) well, definitely alone as in I will be the only adult, so that means I'm going to have to pay attention to stuff instead of just following Corey around. I am debating whether or not to bring Katharine. I don't want to stop nursing yet, but I do not want to haul her and her carseat and her diapers on the taxis and planes with me... so we'll see. I'm thinking about it. My current ticket has a layover which means I'll basically be spending a night in Las Vegas (arriving at 9pm) and then leaving for Indiana at 5 am... I'm already a little stressed about that, but "I'm a strong independent woman" blah. I hope I can handle it. I think Vegas is the biggest stress hurdle I have... I don't want to take Katharine for that, but I also don't want to leave her for 3 days (I'll be leaving Wednesday June 28 and coming back on Saturday July 1) ugh, I guess I'll figure out what I'm doing by June 28th.
We went up to our nephew's mission farewell yesterday. Seth got his call on Valentine's day to serve in Santiago Chile, and now the time is here! Corey served in Santiago as well, and so he is especially excited for Seth. Seth starts the MTC next week. We went up for a social gathering at their house after church. Katharine making herself at home - welcoming guests inside?
She's a little short to reach the doorknob and open it, so we just left it open and let her sit there and smile. Haha, she's a cutie. I taught the lesson yesterday on Matthew 21–23; Mark 11; Luke 19–20; John 12 (a lot of chapters to cover!). My BeReal on Saturday was me trying to study a bit more before class., after soccer games the kids wanted to play at the park -
Yesterday the discussion was mostly about how the Lord looks on and knows our hearts. I feel like examining our hearts and changing the inner man has been a theme this year as we've studied the New Testament. And I love that cause it goes along with what I'm trying to apply from life coaching. Good stuff. I took a bike ride to the top of the quarry trail this morning - 11.25 miles, moving time 1:39:53 - not great time, but pretty good. I got 14 emoji medals, yay. A PR of Quarry up and down with Techy 1:22:19, and temple quarry to mushroom land 41:10 and Power plant down 2:16 :) I did the avalanche area well (which I've done pretty consistently), and I did the under the branch part before the 2nd bridge! AND I did the big pipe after the 3rd bridge! That's the first time I've ever done that problem! Biking is fun. I like it (Still miss climbing though). BeReal was at violin today, so nothing special. Just a head shot of me and a blurry pic of Peter, since he posed briefly and then moved to come to see the picture as it took the picture. Time for scriptures and bed.
Today was a crazy busy day and yesterday was too. Yesterday was made a bit more chaotic cause of my insisting that we seize an opportunity that presented itself - We went to Toelle for the first time ever cause we were invited by a neighbor yesterday to come see the Night Lights Lantern Festival with them and they hooked us up with a dozen complimentary tickets even! This was a bucket list event for me, so I was glad to take her up on her offer to get this checked off with $0 out of pocket expense for our whole family to attend. It was fun to set sail to some of our own "floating lights" (to use Tangled speech).
It was pretty cool and I'm so glad that we went! It was also really fun to be there with neighbors. It made for a long day yesterday, but I was mentally prepared. Katharine, you ready for a long evening?
She was feeding this toy sloth with the lid of a pen. She's already a little mother! Yesterday, Corey and I went on an early morning ride, the kids had school, late start for Abi, I had carpool, early out for LSNODP, pick up safety patrol, go pick up Mel from frontrunner, and I tried to prepare for my lesson that I'm teaching tomorrow with any spare moment I had (I was hauling a bag of books around with me all day). At 4:30 Sophi and Natalie had a violin group class and rehearsal before their concert which was today. Katharine fell asleep on the drive to violin, so I stayed in the car with her and did lesson prep and then nursed her after she woke up, since I hadn't had a chance since before lunch with all the run around... At violin, Mel took the kids inside the church to play. I took MSNODPK to violin and we headed to the Lantern Festival from there. The lantern festival was in Toelle at the Utah Motorsports Campus. I have never been to Toelle before, so that was cool to see a part of Utah that I've never seen. We turned into event parking when I remembered that we hadn't had dinner, and there was no outside food allowed, and I didn't want to buy individual dishes for everyone, so we headed for the exit and took a 8 min drive to get Little Caesars pizza. Kids were all happy with that. I announced to the children "This is the first time that we have EVER driven on this road!!" They were impressed, ha. I liked seeing a different mountain skyline to the east, and it was also cool knowing that these are the mountains that we see everyday, just now we're on the other side of them! I want to go hike them and explore all over and see what they have to offer. I want more biking trails in Utah. That would be fun.
My sister Beka and her husband Matt came out last night too, and I was glad that someone else took advantage of the free tickets offer. On my drive out there, I was on the phone with Abi, cause Lily was asleep, Corey wouldn't let Abi wake Lily up, and Corey wanted Lily to practice, so I was worried that they were going to miss it and was feeling a bit frustrated. I called to see if Beka could give Abi a ride, but they were already half way to Toelle. Other neighbors had already left too. Abi, Corey, and Lily were all frustrated with each other too. Thankfully, Lily woke up, practiced enough to please Corey, and then they were on their way. We got back to the Sports Campus, got our chairs and blanket and walked in. Natalie pulling Katharine in the stroller, cause it was too hard to push her on the rocks, and Daniel walking in as a pirate.
It's the last week of school for Daniel so they've done something fun every day - whacky hair day, teddy bear picnic... Today was Pirate day.
We sat with Beka and Matt for a few minutes, but then I found my friend who had got us the free tickets and I felt like we should sit by them so the kids could play and to show our appreciation, so we moved up closer to the stage.
Katharine enjoyed playing with the rocks. Video here.
We were glad when Corey and Abi and Lily showed up, yay. They arrived with daylight to spare. Corey gave Mel a hug. She just got back on Thursday from a trip to Spain so it was the first time we've seen her this month.
I've been happy to have Mel home for the weekend and to have her help watch the kids last night and today during the run around and while I try to get ready for my lesson. She doesn't seem to mind either, so that's a plus.
Back to last night - the girls got to work decorating their lanterns.
I studied a bit more until it got too dark. Then we put on jackets. It wasn't too cold, but there were a lot of mosquitos.
Soon it was time to light the lanterns! It would have been fun if Corey and I only had ourselves to worry about - then we might have actually been able to light the lanterns correctly and enjoy seeing pirs and all the other lights float away. And there was a brief moment of that magic, but most of the next 30 minutes was us trying to help kids light their lanterns while ALSO not letting them start a fire on themselves or send a fire off to land on someone else.
From what I can tell, it was successful - I didn't hear any ambulances, so if there was a uncontrolled fire, it got put out and no one got hurt or died.
The kids loved it - video of K here. So it was a bit chaotic but it was good. Our friends who invited us are seasoned lantern festival folks, so they knew the best location, which was south by the stage, cause the evening wind blew northward, and that way all the lanterns float away and you don't have anyone else's failed lantern falling on your party.
Although, truth be told, I'm not sure we'll ever go to it again, atleast not with little kids. It was a long drive out, a little chaotic there counting head (not too bad though, and no one ever got lost), we got home late, and today has been so busy that it was a bad day to be running on low fuel, but that's ok! It was a one time thing, we checked it off, it was fun, but yeah, I don't think we'll do it again. Corey and I need to be in bed at 10:30 if we're going to survive raising these kids. As Corey has said before, going to bed at a decent hour is his super power. We've been going to bed at 10:30 for like a year now! I'm not sure when or how it started, that we started to go to bed "early", but yeah, it's been a game changer. Katharine asleep as we walked toward our car in the crowded parking lot.
She slept through the transfer from stroller to car and from car to home. We got home a little before midnight, so that was good. When we were walking through the bumper to bumper cars in the parking lot, I thought we'd be there for an hour, but since we were some of the last cars in, we were close to the entrance, and I was able to turn on the car and be out the exit within a minute, I was so glad! Felt a little bad for maybe cutting in line, but my line only had one car in it, so maybe I wasn't cutting in line. I gave myself a pass cause I have little kids. We had to get back home before our 9 AM soccer games! Plus Abi had GMS, so I took her to catch the bus at 8 for the last time this school year, then came home to pick up Owen and Daniel, who both had games. I took them, Corey and I didn't go on a bike ride today, Corey took kids to go help his dad move dirt, I stayed at soccer for both games and while they had team pictures taken. Both games started at 9, I ran over to see the last of Owen's game, cause they play a little longer than Daniel's age teams, and Daniel got pics taken, then Owen got his pics taken while Daniel and I had a rock stacking contest.
I got 7 and Daniel got 5!
Then we went home, CMLSNPK were home shortly after that cause Lily had to leave for a rehearsal and then recital, Abi had GMS and then a concert and then Chamberpalooza, so she was gone all day. I took Sophi and Natalie to their Violin spring solo concert, they both did lovely.
It was a Suzuki Book review, they all played the twinkles together, then one by one they performed all the pieces in books 1 & 2, and parts of books 3 & 4. Sophi played Allegretto, Natalie Minuet 3.
And then at the end, they all did Tzena together, and Natalie led that which I thought was so cute! She did great - you can see her in the front right corner facing all of the performers.
I came back home and Corey had been holding down the fort. I felt like I hadn't seen Katharine all day! She was eating an apple, which was so cute.
Trying to get her tiny mouth on that big circle - lots of little chew marks from her cute little teeth!
And so... we have survived the second to last weekend of Maycember, only one more to go. Corey and I were both in a need from a break tonight, so we left Mel in charge and took off for a quick evening ride in the canyon. We only went to the 2nd bridge, cause it was too dark by then. It was good to let off some of the tension from the day. Daniel's last day of kindergarten is on Monday, the elementary kids will be out next Friday, and Jr. High and high school will be out June 2nd. Tomorrow is church, I'm teaching about the Triumphal entry, the fig tree, Parables of the two sons, wicked husbandmen, and the wedding of the kings son. I'll be getting up early tomorrow morning, then straight from church to our nephew's farewell (Seth is going to Santiago, Chile!) and then Wesley's Seminary graduation at 4. Phew! Almost there... we're ready for the summer break!
