Night Lights & Concerts

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!