Katharine is 2!

Happy Birthday to Katharine! My favorite photo of her from the day was as she was blowing out her candles. 

Oh she's so pretty! It's been a perfect toddler b-day. I love that two year olds have no expectations. She came downstairs this morning all dolled up and ready for her special day (thanks to Natalie for dressing her up).

Natalie gave her fresh pigtails. They were a little droopy, but K didn't seem to mind. She'll just be a little lop rabbit.  

She also looks like Shirley Temple wearing this short dress. It's short on her because it's for a 6 month old, and K is two, so makes sense. Grandpa Wride came by and brought her cupcakes and some presents! Hey, this is fun!

She got a fun lady bug from Wayne that she loves. Owen teaching her to open gifts and eat treats - yeah! This is what we do on birthdays!

Today is my mom's birthday too, so Corey and I took my mom and out to Aubergine for lunch and that was also our date night.

The kids thought my mom was coming with cake so they frowned when we left with them to go out for lunch. After we were done, my mom and dad went back home to wrap things for K. We had a visit from Eliza's parents and her little brother Thomas right when we got home. It was so nice to meet them! We talked a little bit about wedding stuff. They are down here for the Utah Valley Marathon tomorrow so it was nice of them stop by. We were super impressed by them, they are so great. It made us feel even better about Joseph and Eliza! Then my mom go the ok to come back over. The kids had been itching for sugar for a few hours by now so I dished up ice cream I had bought while we waited for the birthday lady's arrival. K had done a pretty good job keeping her dress mostly clean, until the ice cream... little chocolate face about to drip on her dress... 

 I had spruced up her pigtails by then. Cute little cheesy grin.

Soon my mom came by and K knew the routine by then. She was happy to receive new play food, lots of cute clothes, an Elsa doll and a Bingo stuffed toy. 

Katharine was very tender with the Elsa and rubbed her back as we clipped her out of the packaging. Katharine will be having fun soon feeding all her dolls at the table in her room. The kids did great this past week doing their chores and stuff - Lily reading to Daniel earlier this morning~

So I had to go on a date tonight, but Corey and I had already gone to eat, and he had to get work done, so Hyrum went out with me and we went climbing. Tonight I did this hard/stupid green boulder route. Hyrum attempting it - 

Then I tried it repeating what he had done hooking his heel and I was able to bit by bit get it for my first time! This has been the only V2 I haven't been able to do, so I was really proud to get that checked off. I also did this hot pink V3 and didn't mind showing my young and strong college boy how it was done. He said he's not ashamed to be beat by his mom, haha!

Good stuff. It was a good day, felt like a Saturday, but I'm glad we have a Saturday tomorrow. Corey and I are going to go on a ride in the morning. We're already enjoying the first weekend of summer. 

Last Day of Elementary

It's the last day of school for the elementary kids. I stayed home from morning exercise yesterday to get them all covered in sunblock for field day, but today I left Hyrum and Abi in charge for one last time and Corey and I went on a ride up the canyon. We drove to the trailhead, had a great ride and my greatest feeling of accomplishment came from doing the two last obstacles before the ruins - the rock step and the last pipe! I don't think I've ever done either of them but today I did BOTH! And Techy is so fun. I'm excited for summer rides in the morning without the school alarms going off or dumping on Hyrum. Now kids can just sleep in, although I'm sure Owen will still get up early, cause he's got this internal clock that is set and will keep him on a tight schedule. School got out early and the kids came home soaked because the school had a fire truck there to spray them. So fun. Natalie turned right around to go to a "Bye to 5th grade" pool party with her whole class at someone's house. So fun. 

We are totally spoiled to live in such an awesome area with so many generous and fun neighbors. Natalie carpooled off to that with 5th grade friends from the neighborhood, and Owen and Daniel went to the circle for the traditional celebratory ice cream party and to throw colored chalk in the air. Daniel was all blue after that. We sure love where we live! Hooray that summer vacation is here!

Teddy Bear

I got a big smile from seeing Natalie and Katharine this morning when I went to wake up N for school - haha...

Natalie took my licking for me! She is such a good big sister. I don't mind K kicking my back, but I don't do feet in my face or legs around my neck. Katharine, Natalie really loves you!

On Monday morning up at Park City, Corey was in the sauna and I was snuggling with Katharine and not really feeling like getting out of bed. I enjoy snuggling with her. She has been sleeping well, so I slept fine, and I was a little worried she'd wake up if I moved, so I had to be careful... She likes to be tucked under my arm kinda in my armpit... I took a quick picture.

She's my little teddy bear. Then I was able to put a rice bag behind her in place of my arm, and then I rolled over and put a pillow on her head... I made my escape and she kept sleeping, so we went on our ride on Mother Urban. Repeated that yesterday and she was asleep until 9:30 am yesterday and was jus waking up as we got back from our ride! Quick note about our ride yesterday - I thought we could do that again but Corey said let's try something new, but we couldn't decide and then I just said let's do Armstrong, cause the Park City Trails Map said it was open. So we did that - went up Armstrong and then did HAM - there was some snow blocking the trail on both of those, but it was good, and THEN we took a new trail - instead of turning left for Spiro, we went up a little bit to Seldom Seen, and we didn't know what to expect but figured it was just more of the normal Park City trails, but THIS TRAIL was so fun! It was like Rush! So so fun, wow!  It is a new trail as of last year. I don't think I even noticed the sign last year, I'm surprised we hadn't heard anything about it from anyone. It was awesome. I'm excited to do it again when we come to Park City, we'll have to make sure Joseph comes on it. We loved it. Only bad news was that Corey's air pod case fell out of his pocket somewhere on the trail, I'm guessing on Seldom Seen cause there were lots of hills and rolls and someday we'll be able to do the jumps, ha, but for now, we were just going fast and yeah, he lost his case. Doh. He was glad the car keys didn't fall out. I posted on a mountain biking facebook group and maybe someone will spot them. So after we got back, some kids were playing foosball, others were watching Sponge Bob, then we hurried and packed and came home. Kids were all lazy most of the day here but we all eventually kicked it in gearI took NOD to school late (around lunch time) and by evening LSNODP all got Blue's, Abi didn't finish her stuff, we need to not allow her to not do it. Little kids had a water fun field day today and then school is out on tomorrow, then we'll make our plan of attack for summer. We'll have to change some things on the list, but I think we'll keep it at 12 things (probably up reading from 20 min to 45 or an hour, have them do extra chores, like 10 min in basement, in place of homework. 

Park City - Memorial Day

We had a nice Memorial Day up in Park City. I've never visited graves on Memorial Day. Corey's sister and dad went by JeNeal's grave and drank V8s and ate Kit Kats. Corey said that he has lots of memories with JeNeal up here at Park City, so he felt this was an appropriate way to remember her. If I had thought of it, I would have brought Lorna Doone cookies for today. Those shortbread cookies remind me of JeNeal, she always had them around (and I was happy to munch on them). I don't have any recollection of going by cemetery's with my parents when I was growing up, or any Memorial Day activities. We should probably start doing better at that though, cause that is the purpose of Memorial Day, right? Not just a day off from school or a time to have bbq's. But, since we did have a day off from school, Corey and I took advantage of it by going on a morning ride. Two moose were at the gate of the path Corey wanted to take. 

Can you see them? We only had to wait for a minute and then they moved down the hill. Corey had eyed this trail on our way back to the hotel after our ride on Saturday - Mother Urban. It was a new trail for us and it was really nice! Had a few snow patches to drag our bikes through and a few fallen avalanche trees to climb over, but it was really good! I'm excited to do it again in July. Took us a little over an hour and a half, 7.82 miles, and then we were back at the room. The kids were all swimming (thanks Abi and Hyrum!) I joined them, Corey went to the lobby to work, and then at noon they had a free Memorial day cookout! Yay, the whole hotel came out for hot dogs, chips, lemonade and a cookie. Yay, processed food. I had three apples, and gave my hot dog to Katharine. She liked that - doing her cheesy grin real hard in this picture, silly girl.

We decided to come eat in the lobby rather than in the sun outside or on the pool deck. 

Then we played some Shuffle board. Katharine wanted a turn. She's cute.

Ethan and Bella came up today. They were ready to chill at the hotel, but we'd done a lot of chilling already, so we gave them a heads up that we actually all wanted to go on a ride after they got here - to leverage their arrival by forcing a group outing. We loaded the bikes and drove over to Deer Valley and just did a few loops on the paved path there around Deer Pond. 

Good job us, we got the kids out of the hotel - ✓ . I rode around with K riding shotgun on my bike. She likes bike riding, it was cute. We bribed the kids with smores if there was no complaining on the outing, and they all did good, so Ethan went and picked up that on the way back to the hotel affter the forced outing. Then we said they could be lazy in the pool for the rest of the day if they wanted. We all went out - even Corey and I.

And even LILY, who has been working on writing an epic story or something. 

When she become a famous published author, I hope she'll forgive us for any grief we gave her. We're just trying to make sure her passion is bridled and balanced with some sunshine and physical activity! She has been using my orange lobster neck thing cause she's been developing a bit of a tech neck from all her drawing and writing. I feel like I hunch over too - we all could improve our posture. I just sat up straighter as I type this. Maybe I'll get a posture corrector, hmm. After hot tubbing, the kids roasted smore, then back to the room for one more family bonding activity. We looked through trailers for a while. We wanted something new, but shows kept getting vetoed. Finally we settled on a recommendation from Bella and we all watched "Hunt for the Wilderpeople"

Well, they are still watching it. Corey and I are tapping out - it's 11pm. We had to ditch the fun cause we are going to go on one more ride in the morning before we check out. Corey asked for a late check out, so we have until 11. That's plenty of time for a ride! Yay. 

Exploring & Enjoying

It was a good day at Park City. Corey and I took a morning ride and had fun exploring new trails. We were gone for an hour and a half. We took the city "rail trail" east as if we were going to go to Round top, but then turned south along Freemason and turned again on a trail called "Hang Time" (cause we didn't know what we were doing...) and that was a BLACK, ugh, but it was ok cause that led us to Lost Prospector, which was fun, then Mellow Mountain, Gamble Oak, and then we were at the top of April Mountain! It was really fun to see Park City from a new vantage point! 

Then we took Solamere connector down into Deer Valley, onto the road and back to the Marriott. Got in 9.5 miles. Fun stuff. Kids did fine while we were gone, yay. Spent good time at the pool. It's their favorite. 

And I think we've taken a bit of a step up, cause there was a little less Sponge Bob and we watched Bluey instead. Bluey is really cute. 

We made the kids get outside for a ride with us in the afternoon. After playing on the luggage carts...

Outside onto the Poison Creek Trail. I never knew that was what it was called before. Thanks Trailforks for teaching me. Corey had Katharine in the shotgun seat and went ahead with the kids - with a grand reward probably waiting at the end of the trail (ice cream on Main Street!) I stayed with Peter, who was a trooper, but walked his bike for a bit, cause it was uphill and a little much for this cute 5 year old to handle.

Corey and the kids were finishing their ice cream when we got there. Just in time for Peter to get some victory ice cream!

Katharine was still enjoying her ice cream, which was Corey's ice cream that he shared with her, that she would not share back with him and put him in his place with a sharp "My ice cream!" Even though it was melting all over her, she didn't want help. Messy kid. 

And then it was back to the hotel for more pool time. I took a pic and then was happy to be able to come back up and blog for a bit. I love these kids and we love spending time together!

First Grade Program then Park City!

I stayed up too late last night talking to Joseph about wedding stuff and thus didn't get out early for a ride, boo. But then I figured I had to take carpool at 7 anyway so it was alright, and then Mel ended up taking carpool for me, but the opportunity already slipped away cause I had to go over to the school for Daniel's First Grade Program. And not to brag but I think he's Ms. Homer's favorite and that he's a star student smarty pants (September birthdays help with that!), cause he had the big part at the opening welcoming the parents. 

It was a super cute program and different from the "First Grade Magic" (Lily, Sophi, Natalie was covid, and Owen) not that I'm sick of the old songs, but it was cute to have it be new. This program was called "The Day the Crayons Quit!" Daniel was a blue crayon. Peter and K, proud of their big brother, pose for a picture after the program.

After school was done today, we were all excited to go to PARK CITY!! We arrived around 6pm and will be up here for a few days, just us!

I was hoping to go bike at Round Top after we got here, cause there isn't a lot of snow there, but alas, it is raining. It's supposed to rain tomorrow too. It's ok, I will try to use some of this time to catch up on the blog here. And I know we'll get some rides in. I'm glad that today was the last time driving carpool and the older kids' last day of school! Now Corey and I have freedom to ride in the mornings. The elementary kids still have one more week, but they don't have school on Monday, and so it's just three more days and I can impose on the girls to get them out the door. I'm grateful that the academic year is winding up. We survived!

May Day

It's been another good day in May. Something that is part of our usual mornings, at this current stage of our life, is "pink oatmeal". Pink oatmeal is steel cut oats cooked per instructions (sometimes longer) that we cool down with some of Costco's frozen mixed berries and some bananas. Sometimes I'll add some maple syrup. Most of the kids like it. Older kids not so much, but they can fend for themselves. Daniel Peter and Katharine like it, so it's a keeper. 

Peter sometimes only likes the blueberries. If you just use blueberries, that makes "purple oatmeal". (You'd think it would make blue!) Oh, I also put rice milk in it. 

A little while ago, Katharine was watching Barney, and on this part where they are singing the Mother Goose song "Old King Cole" they do a little jig and sing "Dance with the fiddlers, dance with the fiddlers, dance with the fiddlers three" and while they do it they dig their heels into the ground. So I saw K jump up and start digging her heels into the ground and it was so cute! So now I do that with her when the song plays. She's so cute and so smart.

Peter and Katharine were playing really cute today. I brought some toys from the basement up into her room. They liked that. 

The girls old strawberry shortcake toys. 

Hyrum has left us. He is at FSY training, sniff...

So we have to reevaluate our exercise schedule. I let Corey know I was going to go climb after the kids were home from school. He said he'd come along. So I went and picked him up at his dad's at 5 pm. We did three climbs but he wasn't feeling it. I took him back to his dad's and then I went back for a little  more bouldering (3 attempts, 16 sends). Kids were all tuckered out at scriptures tonight. Cute to see them all sleeping on top of each other. 

Oh, Peter was hanging on! He's still awake! Good job Peter. 

Goodnight, school is winding up, next Thursday is the last day for the elementary kids. We're excited for summer break. 

Marker on her Face

This morning I gave Katharine a bath. She needed a good soak to try and get off all the marker that she drew on herself (twice)...

Although, when I saw an image of a snake on her arm, that made me guess that she did not draw this by herself... I'm suspecting Peter did it.

Peter drew me a lot of papers today as I sat at the computer again. Yesterday and today I have been working on the A and B surnames for our reunion. Not as many As, but I've got a few pages of Bs to search for. I am probably taking too much upon myself? Erica didn't specifically ask me to do this, but I know it needs to be done, so I'm doing it - trying to find all the "lost eagles". We divvied up the graduating class and sent it out to people to do, but not a lot has been done, so I'm going to go through a letter of the alphabet every day and hopefully we'll have it done in a few weeks. 

Yesterday after carpool Corey and I went climbing - did 4 top rope and then we were both spent - Corey headed out and I did a little bit of bouldering - 20 attempts and sends. Today Corey and I took a ride to the ruins, we did techy on the way back ...and Techgnar AND Carpool lane (Alpenloop). I didn't really want to do those last two, but I guess Corey doesn't really want to climb but comes anyway, so this was my turn to go along anyway.

Yesterday I ran a few errands. I went to Walmart and bought a new planner for the new academic year. It's mostly where/how I keep track of blog posts, but I should try and utilize it's other features, like top 3 priorities each week and daily notes. I also bought a soccer ball and football for the boys for summer, with the strict instructions to not play kickball with it in the street. They did that with the one I just barely bought, and it's all scuffed up but it also is flat - I think it got a hole by being kicked into the rose bushes. 

Yesterday I "allowed" for the kids to do shabby work, so blah... so much for my resolve last week! But when H got home today from working for my parents, he followed up on everyone and unchecked boxes and made them do things over again. I'm going to need to learn to hold them accountable myself, cause Hyrum is leaving to be a counselor at FSY soon and he's not going to be here over the summer for me to depend on. I've been slacking again today, but the house is still clean, but it won't be if I don't make the kids work. I need to not allow them to blow things off. Abi and Lily were home all day and didn't do their stuff. GMS Gala tonight. A neighbor was there and sent a pic.

Oh, one last thing - yesterday a great mystery was revealed! I was home and I was trying to find one of the home handsets, so I could put it on Natalie's bed so that I could call and wake her up for safety patrol while Corey and I were gone climbing. WELL, when I called, I heard the phone, but then it stopped, I went toward where the sound was, called again, And when I picked up the handset, it showed my name and then said "Caller Blocked". For months, every time I call the house, I hear it ring once, then sound like someone is picking up, then a click and it's not connected. I always figured the handset was low on battery (which they usually are) so when the kids answer, it doesn't pick up. But now I learned the truth! One of the kids blocked me! And I was the ONLY number that was blocked! Like of all the people that should be able to call home and have someone answer, it's ME, the MOM. But I was the only one blocked! I was able to figure out how to unblock myself. There's a really simple way to block - a button right in the middle at the perfect distance for Katharine's thumb to press it. So I'm guessing she or Peter did it once when they were possibly pushing random buttons. Funny, and I'm glad that the mystery of "Why do my kids never answer when I call home?" is solved. 

Engagement Photos

I got a text from Joseph's fiance's mom today. Eliza's mom Amanda is a photographer and took the engagement photos for them last week, and just look at these!! 

Wow o wow! This one above is my overall vote for best of show. Many of the pictures are so lovely - Look at Eliza's hair blowing in this one with the sun shining behind it!

So pretty! And they both have such big beautiful smiles!

They are cute and darling together!

Yeah, we're super excited for them.

As Eliza's mom said: "Stunning couple!"

So that's exciting. Their announcements should be ready soon. For us here at home, I had a bit of a slow day trying to recover from our late night last night for The Wride House premier. Ethan did such good work with that, we were glad to support him, but Corey and I are too old to stay up until midnight! Well, it was also cloudy and raining, so that might have also contributed to the sleepiness of my mood. We didn't make it out on a ride cause of the rain, but that's ok. I did a few climb and cardio days last week, so we'll count one of those.

We did FHE again tonight. The games weren't my favorite. I thought we'd do Phase 10 or SkipBo, but those were a little too complex for the toddlers, so we just did Uno, and it was a bit boring imo. Then we tried Charades, and the teams were TLNP vs. ASOD but Lily didn't participate much (too busy drawing) and Natalie was sad cause we lost big time - partly cause we rarely guessed the word, and cause we kept rolling small numbers with our dice. THEN with two fails of a fun games, the kids tried one more and we played "Cap" - where you hold a bottle cap of water and have to guess a number. Corey got wet twice, I'm glad I didn't get wet. Today when we talked with Wes, I asked him what are some games he likes, and he said two that they've played out there are Codenames and Monopoly Deal, so I put those in my amazon cart and might get them. Wesley also got Peter's package today! He opened over the phone. It was fun to see Wesley's reaction. 

At the stake activity two weeks ago, Peter made a bracelet that said Peter ♥ Wes and so Wes found himself some beads and made a bracelet that says Wes ♥ Peter. 

They are BFF's. It will be fun to see how their relationship grows as Peter gets older.