Summer Calendar

I had plans to go to Walmart today to get a big desk calendar, so I could cut it up and put it on the wall as our summer calendar. I did that for the first time in summer 2023, and kept it up until December 2025, when I decided to just do a monthly paper calendar on the wall instead of making that poster every other month. But I liked having the whole summer in one glance, so it would be worth it to get the desk calendar just for that. But then I decided to save the $, save the gas, save the time of the trip and instead spend time being creative. I got out the permanent markers and went to work.  

Corey and I went over our calendars and wrote down everything we had in there for everyone to see. We've got a week in Park City, ALSN have a few days in Lake Powell with the youth in our neighborhood, Abi has a senior trip, L&S have FSY, a vacation to Newport, another trip to Park City, and birthdays birthdays birthdays! These kids are not deprived. And school will start on August 12!! That's sounds so early. It's for the high school and jr high crew. Peter and Daniel will start on Aug 17. Our week at Park City is a week later than it has been in the past, so school will start on that Wednesday after Park City is done. 

So Corey and I were there on the top landing so we could talk with the kids, who were in their rooms, about their calendars. Lily esp had been nagging us to go over the summer calendar, so we did it and she was a mild participant. Katharine was being real cute and chatting away about everything. She said to Corey "Let me tell you what an opinion is. You can only have ONE."

Katharine to Wes "Wes... do you want to cuddle on my bunk bed? Cuddle means snuggle." 

We went through every day and I wrote it all down. Now to tape it up. We are going with the outside of the pantry door this time, in hopes that that will encourage the children to keep the pantry closed. 

Seeing it on the wall here, you can see that I measured it by mostly eyeballing the lines, hence there is a slightly too far to the left vertical line between Monday and Tuesday. That one is the most noticeable to me but it's fine. I'm glad it's up and all before our eyes. Children, this is your summer, and now Corey and I have part 1 of our summer plan of attack: THE mostly overall CALENAR OF EVENTS

Part 2 is for me to get a good "system" in place. Wes is borrowing my "Atomic Habits" book and during the few weeks that he was with us, he talked to us about systems, and it became apparent that we have a lot of poor systems, like drop your backpack on the floor wherever you want and take off your shoes as soon as you come inside and leave them there. I've been working on some good "systems" in my head and am slightly basing it on what I saw when we cleaned the Draper Temple on the night of May 7. I noticed that they clean some things by area (like the bathrooms) but a lot of things they organize by task! Like dusting or vacuuming - you dust/vacuum everything everywhere until it's all done. So for us here at home that would be good, cause then kids vacuum or sweep all the rooms, not just the one area they were "assigned" so yeah, I'm working on a new approach. It's gonna be good! I'm also going to order some lanyards like they had - all organized by color for what chores need to be done on that day of the week. 

I had planned/hoped for today to be a big clean up day, cause bulk clean up is coming on Tuesday. We did a little bit but not as much as needs to be done. I'm glad we have one more day on Monday to do some more. It helped to have Wes here this weekend. He finished his FSY training and is off next week, so he and Hyrum have something fun planned up in Rexburg with their cousin Seth (and possibly Owen!), and then Wes will be back next week before he starts his first week as a counselor. It's great having him at home, he's a great helper and is good at getting his siblings to help too. Natalie was his best worker in the backyard this evening.

Last thing to record for today - Corey and I both woke up really early today for some reason (4:30!)? We talked for a moment, each of us wondering why the other was up, and then we went on an early ride in corner canyon. We did the corner Canyon Loop, and we did it correctly in the neighborhood (so it counted this time) and guess what - I got a cup! 

Hooray for an emoji trophy! I feel so validated, thank you thank you! I got 3rd place overall when compared to all women who have ever done that route (and recorded it on Strava). Not bad!

In case you didn't know, the Corner Canyon loop is a pretty big loop. 

It's not as bad/intense as doing Pinecone from Park City, but it's pretty long. We even started from the cycle park today (not by the temple at coyote hollow). So yeah that made me even more impressed with us. It was good, I'm glad we woke up early and started our day off doing that! That was a big win!