Melodie is going to be set apart as a missionary tomorrow evening. Since today was a day off of school for her younger siblings, we thought it would be appropriate to go on "one last" family outing in her honor. She wanted to go to the Salt Flats and the Great Salt Lake. And since she is born and raised in the Salt Lake Valley, it seemed like an appropriate thing to do before she goes off into the world representing Salt Lake-ians. (None of us have ever been out there either!) It was high time for us to make a family pilgrimage. Corey has a vague memory of maybe going to the Great Salt Lake once. I've never been there or to the Salt Flats. I don't think I've ever even driven out on I-80 past the airport. Pathetic I know. Corey was smart and made sure we all actually did this activity by inviting Father David along. He was going to be at our house at 1. We had lunch, then Corey took him to show him the Granite Vault real quick while I got shoes on all the kids. Then we left for our outing.
The plan was to go to the Lake first, then those that were feeling adventurous could continue west and take the 2 hour drive to the salt flats. I followed Corey. Somewhere along 1-80 they got lost in conversation and missed the Salt Air exit. even though you could totally see it right in front of us. I kept following their lead. The kids were a little confused as to why it was taking so long, but they continued watching the movie (Minions) and I kept listening to the Talking Scriptures podcast (I LOVE IT! I finished Revelation and started on the Book of Mormon introduction and the first few sections of 1 Nephi, sooo good! The stuff he shared in 1 Ne 1-7 about the Deuteronomic Reform kinda blew me away) So I was having a podcast party by myself, and we finally arrived at the Salt Flats Rest stop. Here's one of the signature photos for the day -
It was very windy.
We tried to give Peter shelter behind a slab of cement, but it didn't help much.
Then we walked out onto the salt flats. The wind blew the salt against the kids ankles and it would sting a little bit, they didn't like that either.
But it was still cool and fun and we took lots of pictures.
Cause if we're gonna go through the hassle to drive out here, we gotta document it and make it count!
I felt like I wanted to Forrest Gump and run an not stop until I found deliverance on God's Thumb
RUN!
And just keep going and going. If I had a water bottle I would have. This would be a cool place for a long bike ride. You could get lost out there, but probably not.
We stopped running and I tried to take some photos. None of them turned out.
Wes has got the whooole family, in his hands... He's got the whole fam in his hands.
Then Mel came out and joined us and then we got a few more pics.
The wind wasn't exactly cooperating if you had your hair down
Melodie's first "last hurrah".
Mel gettin' a pic for Instagram
Lily playing Lawrence of Arabia.
And then we tried to get a jumping photo, which was really funny.
Apparently saying "1 - 2 - 3 - jump!" was beyond our capacity to execute on.
"Ready? 1 - 2 - 3..."
"Jump!"
Lily jumps, then Mel, then Abi and Sophi... all at different times...
Ha!
This one below was probably our best of the jump photo attempts. Natalie's jump looks great, and I like the hair on Mel and Lily, so we'll call this one our best picture.
Jump shot attempt 2 - that one didn't work either. I'll just share one of this set.
90+ photos and then Corey came on the salt to pick us up, how nice of him! Looks like a photo from a car magazine ad, eh?
That's Corey's new set of wheels. We all got in the back. That makes 14 people in the car.
Then we drove a little further to get gas, cause we didn't get it at the beginning of the trip, since we didn't know we were going all the way out, we just went. We were both at a quarter of a tank. We filled up and bought some gatorade and were attacked by flies, and then we started to drive back to the valley. We would put the windows all down and up again over and over as we tried to blow the flies out of the car. There were seriously a lot in the car. One of them made it all the way to the Great Salt Lake. He just was looking for a change of environment, a fresh start. I'm glad we could help him out. I'm not sure what went on in Corey's car during the drive. Wesley said he took a nap, and that they showed "The House" to Father David, who was laughing a lot, which made Corey and the kids laugh as they listened to him laugh and as they knew which part he was seeing. One other funny thing at home, Lily was telling Father David about Ethan's mockumentary, and she assured him that she did shower more than once during quarantine, and he laughed and his laugh came from very deep - like it was almost like a Santa Clause ho-ho-ho, and after Lily made him laugh a few times, Daniel started to imitate his deep laugh and Hyrum and I thought that was hilarious, and we laughed in horror of "Don't you make fun of the priest!" and Hyrum hurried Daniel outside onto the trampoline. But that still makes me laugh to think of Daniel leaning toward's Father David saying "ho-ho-ho!" Super funny. At the Great Salt Lake, $5 per vehicle and we were at the beach.
"Silver Sand Beach" might be a bit of a stretch
"What do you think Wes?"
"It stinks."
It did stink. Not horrible, just unpleasant. It smelled... fishy. But since there aren't fish here I guess it smelled seagull-y?
The girls ran ahead to scare all the birds away.
As we got closer and closer to the water, I noticed more and more all the little flies that flew away from our feet and cleared the path before us, Cleared the path as best as flies can. Sooo many flies.
These were seriously little fly mountains. Kinda nasty, but Daniel was still having fun.
I yelled at them to come for another kid group pic - with Salt Air in the background for proof - we came, we saw, we did it.
Salt Air is above Sophi's head.
Ok, thanks, I release you. Go have fun. Peter eating a treat from Wes.
Hyrum and Wes stayed clear of the smelly water. The girls went in. Abi wanted to float. It wasn't deep enough for that though.
Mel and the kids Abi through Peter all got wet and smelly.
Father David, Corey, Hyrum, and Wes on the left there, visiting, and the girls and toddlers are to the right in the water.
Peter tripped and fell.
And came to me to save him from the dirt on his hands.
It was fun. I'm glad that we did it.
Now it's checked off the bucket list and Mel can go serve her mission!
Sophi was holding her violin above because we had to go practice a musical number with a neighbor. We (Sophi, Natalie, and I) were going to play a musical number as part of Melodie's farewell mission send off. Practicing violin is not the top thing Sophi wanted to do first thing on her birthday, but she did good and toughed it out. We played "Lord Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing" (a song known as "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" Suzuki book 1) - we just had to play the first part two times to make it work. We practiced a lot yesterday.
We were kind of reluctant performers. We're just all so musical, right? But two performers, Joseph and Ethan, are gone... and Mel and Abi just did a performance at Ethan's farewell, so they couldn't do it again... Plus Mel shouldn't have to play at her own farwell, that would kinda be showing off. Hyrum didn't want to play piano, darn, and Wesley (trumpet) and Lily (sax) said their instruments weren't reverent enough for Church... so... Sophi? Natalie? They were the only options, and they needed me there for emotional musical support even though I really didn't want to participate. I was comforted by the fact that I was wearing a face mask to hide my nervousness or shame feelings, since I still feel a little silly/sheepish learning violin. I know there are lots of kids in our ward that are better than me. Like they can do vibrato. But thankfully, maybe since it's Labor Day weekend, there weren't a lot of people. Yay. We had to perform twice, since our ward has two meetings - a meeting at 11 for A-J, then K-Z at 12. So we should be going at 12, but we split ourselves up today like we did when Ethan played. My parents came to the 11:00 meeting, along with Corey's sister and her family. Corey's parents came at 12 and then came to our house afterwards to give Sophi some birthday presents.
Corey made crepes for the guests that came to hear Mel's talk. Lily enjoying crepes, we served Corey's parents too.
Back inside, Sophi opened her presents, and Lily was happy to help and lead out a lot in putting the sets together. That is ok, Sophi didn't mind. Sophi got 4 lego sets, not that we don't already have a ba-jillion legos in the basement. Good luck keeping track of your legos, Soph!
My mom and dad came back over at 5, we shared some Book Of Mormon insights (Corey's been reading a book "Echoes and Evidences" that he is loving) so we talked about that. My mom brought Sophi an ice cream cake. Happy Birthday Sophi! (I couldn't find any candles). Sophi wearing all her new twisty pet bracelets - wow! Lucky girl!
"Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to You! Happy Birthday dear Sophi! Happy Birthday to you!" Cousin Rhyan hung out over at our house today, in case you're thinking one of our kids looks unfamiliar.
So they've been playing legos all evening. I wish I did more reading today, but I feel like I do more listening lately than reading or blogging. I am loving a podcast called "Talking Scriptures" if you want to go just get excited about the gospel and Biblical history and the last days, it's awesome and I love to geek out over how cool and amazing it all is! I'm finishing up their podcasts on the Book of Revelation. I started those in Park City and am just finishing. Moral of the story: Jesus wins! so get excited!
She wanted a new photo for her facebook so it would be up to date for the post she was going to put up to let people know of her "farewell" tomorrow.
That one above is her new fb profile pic.
A few of her favorites:
She's a pretty lady!
A serious student of the scriptures...
When Mel was getting dressed today for me to take her photos, she was bummed that her mission tag still hadn't arrived. I got my old mission tags for her, cause I figured people wouldn't notice it. But she would. And then, as blessings would have it, she got the mail, and look what arrived! She puts them on - they have very cool magnets on them that make them hold through the clothes, unlike the pins and clips that I had as a missionary, very cool!
So then we went and took her photos.
Natalie intercepted us on the way to the backyard, she wanted to try on Mel's tag. A very young "Sister Wride"...
She looks a little unsure. Yeah, Natalie, you're probably too young to be a missionary yet! We want a few more years with you before you go out!
Earlier this morning we took a little drive up the canyon. Hyrum and Abi were dropped off at the top and biked down to meet us at the Quarry trail. The little boys had fun climbing on the river rocks.
Natalie kept trying to stack rocks into a tower, and Owen kept finding her rock towers and knocking them over.
She didn't like that.
So we were all there playing on the rocks, except for Mel and Wesley. They had woken up early and gone down to Provo so she could get a hair cut from one of her BYU friends. Wesley went with her cause they get along well and Wes likes hanging out with her and driving together and listening to music together. He is going to miss her. They went to Krispy Kreme and ordered a dozen donuts, and then realized why the line was so long - it was buy one dozen get a dozen free! So they came home and shared some with us. So thoughtful of them! Wes feeling super cool with his new shirt, shades, and eating a sweet donut
Wesley confessed that they hadn't planned to get any for us, it was just cause of the special that they brought some to share. They had eaten 8 donuts on the way home and were hiding the last 4 for themselves to enjoy later.
A few pictures and events from yesterday - of little boys being sweet to each otheor
Peter's little ears are so cute
And Mel took this photo of Peter on me -
We were in our room talking and Peter crawled up on me and I stroked his hair and he fell asleep, aww...
Happy Birthday to Abi! It's different having your birthday fall on a school day. It also is different when you are not a little kid anymore and the parents don't feel as much pressure to make it a surprise or make it magical. Right? Cause we're at the point where I'm like "I'll just take you shopping or give you money, then you can buy what you want, rather than me guessing. Poor Abi today, I didn't decorate the window for her before school, and I didn't have a wrapped present waiting on the table for her (but I did just give one to her - a cool Adidas sweatshirt that I was pretty positive she'd like, and she did, she wore it to school.) During the day, she texted and asked if she could go to her cousin's house. I said sure, it's you're special day, you get to choose. So she went to Alix's house and then by Corey's parent's (they live close to each other), and she hung out there for a while. They took her out to In N Out for dinner, then she was back home at like 7:00. Yes, kids, it's finally time for cake. (The toddlers were being very patient).
My mom had brought by the cake and her presents while she was at school. Her cousins stayed for cake - Happy birthday Abi!
I didn't get ice cream, sorry Abi. I didn't mean to not make the day magical. But you just had a full meal at In N Out, you prob had a shake too huh? You don't need ice cream, and these little kids can deal with it.
I'm going to take Abi shopping tomorrow to try and redeem myself for being so low key. The jr high and high school kids don't have school on Fridays. It's also one of my last few times to take advantage of Mel being at home as my live in babysitter. It's been great having her here, cause I also have an extra hand to keep Daniel and Peter happy and quiet while I sneak Owen off to the bus. Daniel was a little sad that first day, so we're trying to avoid repeating that as much as possible. But the bus stop is still pretty far, so I'm not sure how I'll do this when Mel's gone. I have my phone alarms set up to make sure Owen has his lunch (45 min before bus pick up)...
And then a 20 min to bus departure alarm set off, I snooze that once and then I walk him down. Cute little kids getting on the bus.
Owen is on the younger side. Today one of the mom's was making small talk with him and said "Owen! How do you like kindergarten?" And he said "Because I want to go to school." And I was like "Haha, he's young, he's a July birthday... and he didn't go to preschool... " as I tried to reason on his poor answer to her question. Her daughter is almost 6 and speaking a lot better, but I know that Owen is fine and will catch up soon. He has already been singing the Addams family song "Days of the week *snap*snap* days of the week *snap*snap*" But it has been interesting with my kids - like my older kids so often seem to be slower and reading or talking than the younger kid. Abi struggled with spelling, and Lily caught on real quick. Natalie seemed to be speaking better than Sophi when they were beginning school. For both of them it worked our okay cause they (Abi and Sophi) were able to catch up a little cause they had an extra year cause they were both September birthdays. And now Abi and Lily are in grades right next to each other (7th and 6th) and it's the same with Sophi and Natalie (3rd and 2nd grade). With O and D it's going to be switched around, cause Owen and Daniel speak about the same level, but Owen is starting cause he's a summer birthday, and poor Daniel is going to have to wait two more years until he can go to kindergarten! Poor thing. Daniel and Owen are just 14 months apart, but they will be 2 years apart in school. That darn September deadline keeps getting us. Owen and Daniel will be as far in school grades as Daniel and Peter will be.
Peter. you think you're big, but you're just little. He can reach the peddles but only if he's not sitting on the seat.
It was a nice afternoon, Peter and I sat outside and just enjoyed the evening shade.
I took a video of Daniel driving the pink car down the driveway, it was cute. I'll upload it later.
We're in our second week of school and it's going good. Yesterday and today have been nice and productive. I've made a checklist of twenty one to-do's and I'm pleased that I've checked off more than half. I finally ordered glass to cover out new kitchen table. It should take three weeks for them to make it. The table hasn't been stained yet, but close. I did rub off some of the varnish once getting off some pink that stained it from a florescent paper flyer from school that got left on the table and had water accidentally spilled on it. I swear that happens every time we have a florescent flyer. We also had a close call once with some turmeric coloring from a curry. But I got both of those stains off, and if I keep the tablecloth on it with the plastic cover taped on the table, I have hopes that we might make it through three more weeks. Yesterday I did the monthly Relief Society newsletter, I updated Ethan's blog, today Hyrum Wes and Abi had their dentist check ups (Wes has a cavity, H needs his wisdom teeth out...) and then I also had easy stuff on my list, like make my bed, read, practice violin.... The kids came home from school and got right to work, love it.
I scheduled a time to take stuff to the DI (with covid, you have to make an appointment now), and hug the kids (something I need to conscientiously tell myself to do cause it doesn't come naturally for the older kids, or I'm just too affection spent from the toddlers?) I get a good dose of joy just watching Peter eat his oatmeal for breakfast...
And eating his mac and cheese later for dinner.
Yes, he wore his pajamas all day yesterday.
I did give him a bath last night, so he was in clean clothes this morning. Eating a nutrigrain bar with a fork. I love how he holds his utinsels. It's so fun having these little people in our lives.
Peter snuggling with Mel today. He likes looking at videos of himself.
She's outta here in one more week and will be starting her mission!
She's getting her Peter time while she still can. We spent some time outside today. The fall weather is nice and cool. Daniel loves riding this little kid go kart that my sister Jerusha gifted to us.
Daniel was showing me how he turns the car around - up the driveway just a little bit, then relax on the brake and let it fall in reverse and swoop around.
Repeat. We are so lucky to live on a dead end street!
Daniel looks so much like Ethan did, they are little twins.
