K's Shoes

I found quite a few photos on my phone tonight. Most were of Katharine's shoes yesterday at church during Sacrament meeting.

These are her "slippers". Here you can see how amazing they are compared to the footwear of her sisters boring brown sandals and black shoes. These slippers have glitter and diamond and pink and gold and bows and just wow. 

She makes me smile.

Melodie said that she has a whole album titled "Katharine's feet". Today K took a few photos as well. One was of the scratch on her foot, which was a pretty big deal when it happened on Saturday. She's coping with it well. Next to the robot cat which Natalie got from her friend Lani May for K. It meow's at us in the dark and startles us sometimes.

Katharine's baby zebra in his bed...

And what was I, her mother, doing while K was taking photographs? She took a photo of that too. 

That's me taking a quick nap on the floor. I think I gave her my phone in exchange for her giving me a few minutes to sleep. Not much to report. No violin today, cause their teacher is in Italy with a violin group. Sophi and Natalie have kinda been slacking with violin. They don't really have a goal with it, and unlike with jazz, there's no live in parent who knows a lot about it.  I haven't done much since K was born almost 3 years ago. Violin is so competitive too, I'm not sure what the plan is with it. Other than just to develop a skill that they can use the rest of their life to bless others? Even if they don't ever make it into Lyceum or tour Italy, it is a good thing and a good way to spend their time. Sophi's been distracted with Duolingo until recently. Last Wednesday I encouraged her to give it up, after talking to Wes last Monday where mentioned how he quit it and has been glad to have that time to put somewhere else. He warned that Duolingo doesn't let you leave peacefully. They'll send you some emails saying stuff like "so do you give up on all your goals??" or "I was going to send that to you in French, but then you wouldn't understand..." They really get you by trying to have you keep a streak and there are some other gimicks... It's so stupid though, cause Sophi was using it FOR ENGLISH just to keep her streak. So dumb. To quote Sophi from last Wednesday, when she deleted the app: 

"Duolingo is like kind of evil, yeah. I hate it. I just do it, because like they have the freaking scoreboard. I’m in the diamond league and I’m like 50,000 XP away from being first place. It’s so stupid, and it’s always so stressful. I have a 63 day streak and I’m like really stressing about this because, also, they do like after I finish one of the like quests like the daily quest they give me XP for tomorrow so then right when I open the app the next day like the XP starts going and I can’t pause it so I have to do it right then." 

I don't really understand what most of that means. Sounds like they got her trapped in a game that they made up. Sophi agreed to let it go and walk away from it all. She opened her phone to delete the app. 

Me: I bet you’re gonna feel freedom. 

Sophi: I’m already feeling it. Gasp - it's gone! Yay! 

Now with all her free time, she can focus on violin! or reading her scriptures in prep for receiving her patriarchal blessing. A little more on Sophi and Natalie. They both broke their phones a while ago, and then both worked to save money to get new Gabb phones. Sophi used her birthday money, and Natalie read all 4 of the Saints volumes to earn money (I said I'd pay $25 for each one). Natalie read and also sometimes played it on audio and followed along in her book. She did it pretty quickly, I was impressed with her focus. That's our little go getter. I have been trying to take away their phones on Sundays, to give their brains a rest and prevent brain rot. Lily doens't have a phone. She hasn't had one since fall. Hers broke and she hasn't cared enough to earn money to buy one. Sophi's broke when it was in her pocket and she was getting in the car and closed the door on her jacket pocket, and thus her phone. Natalie's screen was good, but something else broke on it when it fell from her top bunk bed after she changed beds to the top. I can't remember how Lily's broke. 

After I gave Sophi her phone back Sunday night, she saw that she had gotten a text from a boy, and they mutually like each other (gave each other Christmas presents) and Sunday night he texted her to ask her to be his girlfriend. She replied that she can't have a boyfriend, and she can't date until she's 16. Good girl Soph. It was funny cause Natalie has PE with the boy and she was being a mediator, telling him that Corey is strict so it's not Sophi's fault, and that Sophi likes him, and that it's nothing personal, but she can't be his girl right now. Corey and Mel talking to Sophi in her bed - laughing about stuff. Corey is sorry that she broke his heart. 

Mel also gave advice that she's glad that she didn't date or get serious with boys in jr high or high school. It's not the time for that. Save it for college. But Sophi didn't want to hurt his feelings. Natalie at Sophi's desk, prob texting the guy. That reminds me of a meme Corey shared last week: 

Our girls are often talking about trying to figure out boys, and Corey tells them that males aren't  very complicated. So that meme seemed to send the message. Lily said to him "these memes are getting personal!"

Also, speaking about boyfriends, Mel came up last night to hang out. She left this morning. Christian is in Chile visiting his mission with his little brother. So since she had time on her hands, Mel and brought some dough, and for some reason made a muscular kangaroo out of bread. Dough ready to go in the oven.

Fresh out of the oven. Kangaroo with a tiny head.

Primary Activity

Owen and Daniel had their first soccer games today! They were very excited. First games were supposed to be last week but they got cancelled cause of snow. Today was still pretty cold, but they layered up so it was good. Corey took them to their games while I went to Momentum to meet up with some neighbors who we invited to use our guest passes for March. Corey met up with us after dropping off the boys. We were glad they took us up on our invite to come. They did great and it will be fun if they join. If they don't, though, we still like sharing the experience with others and it makes us feel a bit like we're getting our money's worth if we use our two guest passes each month. We helped them climb for about an hour, then Corey went to pick up the boys and I headed home to take Peter to a stake activity. It was way cute! They had focused the activities on service and also had a "wizard of oz" theme, using that to symbolize the "covenant path". I was way impressed. Having done a thing like that once on my mission (we did a replica of Lehi's dream) I know the work that was put into this, and it turned out so cute. They had three other activities that the kids all rotated through. One of which was putting together gift bags for school children. Peter holding the little gift bag he put together. He chose lots of green things: green pad of paper, green playdoh, a green toothbrush.

At a different station they got to decorate a heart cookie - 

This one was for him to eat, then they gave him some pre-packaged cookies to share with someone. After he got home he shared it with Lily and Katharine, and one for himself. Anyway, super impressed. Very cute. Last night Corey and I went out to eat at Bandits, then changed clothes to go climbing at Momentum. We are trying to go Friday nights rather than sneak away again Saturday morning. Cause Friday nights the kids don't want us there anyway. It was a bit late, cause of Lily's band in American Fork. so we didn't leave to eat until 8 (Corey was finishing up some work) and then we climbed 9-11. Joseph called while Corey was about to climb, and he thought "sweet, I can do two things at once..." but it was hard for him to climb and talk at the same time. So we can't do that again. Climbing takes a little bit of focus. Corey also got a pic of me doing the red V2 boulder. I got it for the first time this week. I was able to get it again tonight, yay. It's a tough one.

We don't do great staying up that late though, so maybe we'll have to adjust things a bit more so we can get to bed on time. 

Natalie had a friend b-day party tonight. She doesn't have any money, but I took her out to get something for her friend last night, but I was not willing to buy a $20 water bottle or a $16 necklace and several other things she thought she might like to get. We are giving the girls money for reading books, but maybe we should find other ways for them to earn some cash. They feel a bit trapped by their lack of finances, but we do too, so yeah, that's just the reality of things right now. Natalie couldn't decide, so I gave her 5 more minutes to finalize her sale, which she couldn't do, so then I settled it and headed to the check out with some Wet n wild mascara and lip gloss and candy and teddy bear. That was all yesterday before our date. Then Corey took K to McDonald's today and Natalie went with them and I think she sweet talked Corey into taking her to get a few more things for her friend. Then he took them with him to his dad's house to do some work. Abi slept over at a friends house and when she got home, the boys were all gone playing at friends' houses so it was just Abi Lily and Sophi and I here and we were all a bit surprised with how quiet it was. ALS went over to Wayne's house too, to support him on JeNeal's birthday, so I've been here in a quiet house most of the evening and am actually blogging, yay.

Corey's Car Back for Real

Good news, we got Corey's car back today! Thank you Freeway Transmissions for fixing it, and for only taking two weeks to get the job done! Corey said it runs like it used to before we took it to Tanner, so that's good. When we took in into Tanner back in November, we actually didn't notice anything wrong with how it drove at all. The only problem was that the car told us there was a problem. Kinda sad to think it could have been nothing serious, but we'll never know. Well, in the next life maybe we can ask God what were the other options that could have played out. But this has been good for us somehow, I'm sure. Corey joked recently "It's a good thing we didn't get ski passes this year, cause we couldn't have gone anyway!" (without his 4 wheel drive) Followed by a thought of "Instead of paying for ski passes, we paid for a transmission." Yaaay.... (This year we should get the ski passes!) After taking Corey to pick up his car at 9, he went to Liberty park for a jog with a friend, and K and I went to Burt Brothers to get an oil change for the van. Instead of waiting in the car shop, K and I walked across the street to go to a park that was close by. 

It was at the Sandy Splash pad, minus the water. Unfortunately the little playground next to it didn't have a slide or swing. So we just sat on the step of some pretty lame climbing and step hopping area, then wandered around while she ate her apple. 

We looked at ants, played with our shadows, made a pile of pinecones, and picked a daffodil.

Then we went into the Senior Center where they were having a thrift sale. I found something for K, but when we went to the checkout, they didn't take venmo. Only cash or checks, which I didn't have either of. But the free fruit snacks that they had were enough for her to walk away from the pretty tea cup and saucer I was going to buy, and then we went on our way back to the car shop, where we had hot chocolate while they finished up the car. 

Then to Costco, then home for lunch and a nap, then i went to pick up Abi and Lily from school, then I came home and made potato salad, then I went on a ride and was gone for 3 hours. Left around 5, went from home to Hidden Valley, along BST, climb to Ghost Falls, then took Ghost falls down! Yay, it wasn't gated off, woo!

I had a moment of meditation and happiness at the Ghost falls waterfall. It was quite full and flowing with water. It was pretty, I took a sip from the stream and enjoyed being outside. Then down the hill for a bit of fun. There were quite a few bike teams and solo bikers out in the canyon. I was able to also connect to lower rush! It was fun and good to be back on the hill. When I came out of Rush, I took limelight in a moment of weakness. There was a group of people blocking the way I would have gone (to BST) so I just kept going straight on limelight. As soon as I got on I was like "drat! I didn't want to do this!" but I was stuck, and knew I'd have to climb back up to get on BST, or take the road home instead of the trail. I decided to go back up the trail. I was tired, legs were burning, but made it back up to BST, then climbed BST until I was on my way north back to Hidden Valley. I went 16.59 miles, not bad. Was gone too long. Corey was on his way home when I was done, so he came and picked me up in the car. Nice that he has his bike rack back with his car, yay. We just finished scriptures. Corey wanted us to watch something before scriptures, it was called the Blue Vase. "It shall be done." Here's the first part of it. Not sure what was the link to the whole film Corey showed. Anyway, kinda silly, but it's old, so it gets a pass. good message to be an optimist and to be determined, to be a Do-er! Now going to bed. 

Exploring Bell & Lily in Payson

I went on a hike tonight. The weather was really really nice, and it's getting colder later this week, so I took advantage of it. After dropping the boys (Owen and Daniel) off for activity days at the church, I walked to the Bell Canyon trailhead and I explored the south part of the trail, south of the Bells Canyon Creek. And I'm looking on a map right now - it says "Bell"Canyon, "Bell" Canyon waterfall, Bell Canyon Trailhead, but then it says "Bells" Canyon creek. So I don't know if it's Bell or Bells, and apparently neither does Google. I guess I'll lean toward the singular usage. Ok, so on the south side of "Bell canyon creek I was able to explore a trail and it was really nice and lovely and fed my soul. 

I sat by a tree for 20 minutes and just closed my eyes and listened to the creek... Then I took a selfie, just in case I got killed by a cougar, to leave some record of my last moments...

Then I prayed again that there weren't any mountain lions around who were about to pounce on me. There were no other hikers. After an hour by myself, there was one couple that came by me. They were bush whacking more than I had been. There were plenty of people on the north side of the trail. I took the north trail on my way out. I explored a few new parts, and I have plans to blaze a few new small paths to get to the top of the two ridges. I made a list of things to put in my future hiking backpack: branch clippers/pruners, small picket knife, water bottle, sun visor or a hat, sunglasses, head lamp, hair tie, change of socks in case I get my current pair wet or dirty as I go barefoot. I took a few pics of spots so I can remember where I want to go. This is at the top of the north ridge. 

And at this non-readable mile marker, I take 80 paces east and then there will be a small trail on the right. That is where we are all going to go explore! 

I told Corey that I think we should all get a few books and pack a lunch and go spend the day in Bell Canyon. It would be fun! We're going to do it this summer.

I also told the girls that I want them to come with me and help me create a path to the top of the ridges. They are game. I think I'd just need each of them to help me once or twice. The girls had a fun Young Women activity tonight. It was a clothing swap! Lily didn't have school yesterday because it was the ACT test for the juniors, so we took her to the frontrunner train on Monday night and she spent Mon night and last night with Ethan and Bella. She came back today with Abi from Lyceum. Lily missed today too so she could hang out a little longer with Ethan and Bella. Tuesday is the day that E&B don't have much school wise, so that is their "date" night, and they took Lily with them to Payson to go explore some Wride family history site. First stop was the theater where JeNeal and Wayne used to work. JeNeal in the ticket booth many decades ago...

...and Lily and Ethan in the booth! If you look for patters in the rock wall, you can see that the rocks are still the same, very cool! 

Then they went to some movie theater place that was closed or not thriving, business wise... there was no one there...

but they walked around.

And took pictures...

of random things.

Then they went by Corey's mom's parent's house, which is still there. This is where Reid and Trelma raised their family, and where JeNeal grew up.

And Helen and Wayne's house. There used to be a lot of apples trees on that grass. 

Then they went by the Payson cemetery and looked for headstones.

This is a great thing Ethan and Bella are doing for our family. 

(...while still being a big brother, ha.)

They found the Wrides and Curtis'

and they also looked for a long time to find Daniel Stark's grave. Ethan was on the phone with Corey and Wayne asking for help to locate the plot. 

He came over on the Ship Brooklyn. So pretty cool that they all got to hang out together and do fun things. Ethan said Lily was great, and a lot easier than the boys. Abi, Sophi, and Katharine are the three left waiting their turn to hang out with E&B. Fun.

Rearranging Books

Today Abi took the ACT. She's had the van most every day the past two weeks, cause she's had ACT prep classes before school and after school. It was nice having her home early after the test was over. I had her take a load of stuff to donate to the DI. I had been looking for shelves on fb marketplace, but never had the car even if I had found something. So I just went and bought them new from Ikea on Saturday. Then I was sad when I realized I'd bought 3x4 shelves instead of 4x4. I could live with 3x4 for the boys room and Abi and Lily's room, but I needed 4x4 for the music room. I had plans that I could go to Ikea to exchange the 3x4 shelf for a 4x4 after she got home. Last night though, Sophi started to put together a 3x4 for Abi and Lily, and as she started to do that, it was obvious there were too many small shelves. That's when I learned I did buy one 4x4 shelf! I got one 4x4 and two 3x4 shelves. So it wasn't Ikea's fault for telling me the wrong location, as I originally thought. It was my fault - I took two shelves from bin 6 instead of 7, cause they were right next to each other. It wasn't their bad, it was mine for not paying attention. So yay, this will work out! Now I didn't need to go exchange anything. Yesterday after that mystery was discovered that we did have a 4x4 and I wouldn't need to go exchange, I was mentally ready to get up and going right after the boys got off to school.  I was glad I could get started putting it all together and rearrange things. One hiccup from yesterday - Katharine was playing "house" in the cubbies again, and opened one of them like it was a swing door, but since it had pegs in it, it snapped the pegs. Instead of dealing with it last night on Abi's shelf, I traded out the shelf for one in my 4x4 unit, and today it was NOT going together very easily. We did eventually get it to close up and I'm hoping it won't come loose - and I'm actually not sure where that shelf with the broken pegs is now, cause we turned it around and over a few times and I lost track of where I put it. But I think it is up and down, so that should help. If it was side to side and got weighted with books it would probably slip out. 

So Lily went to sleep over in Provo with Ethan and Bella last night. Abi worked on the room by herself  today and I think it will be a nice surprise for Lily when she gets back. Lily's side is on the left, Abi on the right. 

They each get 6 cubbies on the new shelf. Lily's are harder to reach, but she also has that 2x2 unit, so I think that it evens out. Lily has the bottom left four square and 1 cubby on row 1 and 2 on the left. Abi has cubbies 2&3 and 5&6 on the right, plus the bottom right of the 3rd and 4th row. I rearranged the color coordinated books. I used to have the printed blog books on the top shelf, but I've moved them into the music room. I also used to have the prophet books on the second shelf down, but I moved the red books up there, and added to the colors with all the books I had upstairs in the laundry room and my room. 

So that's the front room east shelf, and on the west shelf there is a shelf each of white, black, and brown books. Then the seasonal bins underneath. And in the music room, I present the new shelves for my too many books ~

...all the things I wish I had time to read about and study. I moved most of the prophet books over here. There are still some religious books among the colored books. I'm also hoping that I'll be better organized now to read my scriptures and work on my Simple Abundance book. I'm behind blogging, and I'm behind on Simple Abundance too. But it's ok, cause I'm working on organizing myself! And I'll get there. Prepare every needful thing. I'm preparing a house of learning, glory, order, God (D&C 88:119)

Classic & Bike Ride To Alta

Corey took Owen and Peter to Classic Fun Center today. 

The elementary boys didn't have school, and so when Corey was leaving for work and saw them all still at home, he decided to take them out for fun. He sent me a text saying "It's hard for me to work if I think there is a need at home, ...or an opportunity." So Corey worked at a skating rink side table and Owen and Peter had fun with the scooter, rollerblades, and hoverboard. Daniel opted to go play with a neighbor instead. He was a little sad later when he learned they had pizza. 

The girls did not have violin today, and the weather was so nice, so I took a bike ride. (Also knowing also that tomorrow I'll be running kids to soccer practice). After the girls were home I left, and I knew I had time, and so after making to the ruin, via the road, I kept going. I was zoned out just listening to the Follow Him podcast with Morgan Pearson. My goal was originally to make it to Snowbird. It was a long ride, but again, I just listened to the podcast and didn't think about the distance. I made it to entry 1. I couldn't remember which one Corey did. So then I went to entry 2, 3, and I wasn't at the Cliff Lodge yet and I was like "Wait... there are FOUR entrances???" Kept going, and yes there are 4. And at that point, a comment Corey made yesterday came to mind. Corey took a ride up to the ruins on Saturday and a neighbor saw him. "Did you make it to Snowbird?" Corey said no, it started to hail on him.  I said "Someday we'll go to Alta!" He said "Well, Alta is just a little bit more from Snowbird..." Oh. So it's not a big dead. Well, I made it to Snowbird, guess I might as well finish this off while I have the time! (And maybe so I don't have to do it again for a while.) So I went to Alta. I took me 2 hours and 43 minutes to bike up the canyon to Alta. Like I said, I took it pretty chill, but I was very proud of myself and took a few selfies to pat myself on the back and brag to my siblings and parents. 

I got my longest distance, biggest climb, biggest elevation gain (3696) and a few other achievements. Woot woot. I was proud I got past 3000 elevation. And over 22 miles, yee haw. Not bad for my first big ride of the 2025! 

Ethan is 23!!

Happy happy birthday Ethan! We had a fun weekend celebrating with him and Bella. Today they came up for cake and ice cream. Unfortunately we could not find where I put the birthday candles (in my recent de-junking of the kitchen) but we had a match. Ethan held it for a quick pic - 

...then blew it out. Hooray! Ok, let's have cake and ice cream. 

Yesterday we drove down to Orem with Wayne (Peter and Katharine came along). We went by Costco to get some Tucano's gift cards, $80 for 4 $25 gift cards, which is a good deal, and then we took E&B (and Mel and Christian too) out to eat at Tucanos. Peter and Katharine got to come along cause 6 and under are free. 

Ethan took Katharine to the buffet. She saw the fried platanos and said she wanted a meatball. Ethan: "Those aren't meatballs". K insisted on having one. Rather than have a confrontation at the buffet, Ethan gave it to her. Back at the table, Ethan cut it open and she saw that it was in fact not a meatball, then she was mad at Ethan for ruining her meatball. She also gave Corey a very sour face when he got himself a plate of melons and fruit, brought it back and placed it in front of himself, then K wanted it, so he put it in front of her, and then he had the audacity to take a piece of the melon, and she was ticked about that. "You take my food!"

And we just laughed and took pictures of her for being so cute. Playing with Ethan a bit earlier. 

Ethan said "Katharine has experienced every emotion at this meal." Wayne drove us down in his car cause Abi was gone with the van and we didn't want to take Eliza's car if we didn't have to. So Corey sat in the front with his dad and I sat in back with Peter and Katharine, and I took a little nap on the drive back. After getting home, I went out to Costco again to get the cake for today. While I was gone, Corey took K to play on the slide at McDonald's. 

Lucky girl! She got to go out to eat twice in one day. I made it to Costco before it closed at 6, and then... I did a quick swing by Ikea to get some Kallax shelves. I've been looking for these on fb marketplace for a few weeks, but I haven't had the van to go get any, and I don't know if they'd fit in the van when they were put together anyway, but I've really wanted some cause I think we need them in the music room - there are too many music books and things than will fit in the hutch. Plus it might be good for me to get my books out of our bedroom and out of the laundry room and put them all in one place. So that's what I want these shelves for. I had squirreled away a bit of cash to cover most of it. I asked for help and went to Isle 1 bin 7 for the 4x4 shelves. I got three sets, two boxes each. I bought 3 4x4 shelf units. I'm excited. The girls started top put one together today. Thats when I learned I got 3x4 shelves. So I am bummed about that... I might need to go exchange the two that are still boxed up. Unless I change plans and think we're ok with these. Natalie and Sophi put this one together. Katharine wanted to help with every part of it. If we told her no, she got sad...

Aww, she's so cute. 

She and Peter liked climbing in all the holes. "This is my house."

So since I messed up and only got 3x4 cubbies, we moved the 4x4 that was in the boys room into Soph and Natalie's room, cause they don't have a lot of storage space in their tiny room. And the boys got the new 3x4 shelf. 

And I guess we can keep the second 3x4 shelf for them and have it go along their whole wall... I'll rearrange things tomorrow and figure out what to do. But Abi will have the van cause she'll take the girls to violin, so if I go exchange this I'll need to do it Thursday. Sophi and Natalie are glad to have the 16 square shelf in their room. The boys rearranged things well in their room too. 

I've been glad to have some time to blog today. It was stake Conference. Corey and I had an early leadership meeting at 7:30 (him for being in the EQ, me for the RS). It went longer than planned, so I texted Abi if she could get everyone up and starting to get ready for conference at 10. Daniel had to be their early to sing. I took all the little kids with me when I took D, and we saved a row for our family. Peter and Katharine went up to singing with the Stake Primary choir too. Haha, well Katharine didn't do much singing, she was just there to be cute. 

I love her. Peter in the blue shirt. Daniel behind K in a suit coat.