Gangsta's Paradise

 We've been unpacking and getting organized over the past two and a half weeks. It's seemed like longer, but it's only been a short amount of time we've lived in our new house. We discovered we lost the cushions for our large couch somewhere in moving them to the storage unit, so we'll be in the market for a new couch soon.

The first week in our new home was tough! We knew prior to moving in that we needed some plumbing work done, so we scheduled it for Monday of the first week. The plumbers came in, started their thing, and came up a few hours later with very bad news. But after a half hour of calling managers, owners, etc they were able to come up with a work around and get the job done in two days within the same budget as originally quoted. So we no longer have a rotting out main sewer line and should be good for years to come!

Then we decided to patch the holes in the walls all over the house, one of which was caused by someone tearing the heater off the wall of the living room. So Dave decided to replace the thermostat while we were at it with a smart one. This caused us to accidentally blow the furnace's fuse (I was unaware furnaces could have fuses). So we were without heat for 24 hours but it didn't get too cold in that time period.

Next came putting back together the laundry room. We replaced the flooring to cover the hole made by the plumbers, lugged the washer and drier over to their spots, and plugged everything in. I started a load of laundry and discovered the drier didn't work! A lot of assessing, cutting holes into walls, removing cabinets, flipping breakers, were involved in discovering the power to the washer was stolen at one point in the history of the house to create an upstairs washer and drier. It took 3 days to figure out where the power really should come from, and get everything back to working (there was a day where we accidentally disconnected the oven's power in there somewhere). Couldn't have gotten all that figured out without the help of Dave's Dad, Bill! He was over every day until we got it all done.

On top of all the house issues we've been working like crazy to unpack all the boxes. I focused first on the kid's bedrooms and the kitchen. Then I moved to the living room and dining room so we didn't feel like we were living in a storage unit. Then I decided we needed to rebuild the master closet so we could unpack Dave's and my clothes/room. It's not 100% finished (Dave's building two more shelves for his stuff), but I'm happy with it!

Speaking of building my closet, it wouldn't be done without the help of my friend Tenille! She came down Tuesday or Wednesday (the week was a blur and I can't remember). She was a SAINT!!! She kidnapped my kids and helped with unpacking and building my closet. She just left this morning and there is no way I would have gotten so much done this week without her! 

Holy cow that woman is amazing!!! AND she kept me in Chocolate and treats since I have yet to find my stash since the move. We ate Mexican treats, Krispy Kreams (twice), and tons of Chocolate. Plus she made us dinner one night and bought us pizza another. 

Dave's main focus has been getting the garage organized and unpacked so we can park in the garage, and we're close! Hopefully we can park in it soon since it's freezing out and I don't want to have to scrape my car off every day.

This morning we woke to large puffs of snow coming down! It was beautiful and the kids snook out in it before Church and built a snow man after church. They were so happy I had already unpacked the snow gear! I am pretty glad we found it too.

Other than unpacking I've been giving away and selling stuff that doesn't fit in our new home on Facebook Marketplace. It's been a lot of work, but it's nice to have less stuff in the house. I'll be glad when we've unpacked everything and have finally settled in. Hopefully it doesn't take too long!

Moving

I know I've been saying this all summer, but the last month has gone by in a whir-wind of events! The biggest news is we are moving! Not far, just a few streets south of us. We weren't even looking to buy, but my brother Mike was, so I've been watching for good homes in our neighborhood for him. I mentioned it to my friend Lori, and she texted me on a Thursday as we were heading out of town. We looked at the pictures online and fell in LOVE (sorry Mike)! So I called the owner's son (both he and the owner we know from Church), and told them we wanted to look at it when we got back into town.

He said absolutely, and didn't let anyone see the house until we got back into town. This is huge because the market is insane in Utah right now! To give you an idea, we had two offers on our home within 10 hours of listing our house. When we got back we saw the home, agreed that it just felt right for our family, and told the owner's son we would make them an offer. They accepted and we've been crazy busy ever since!

We were able to get our home on the market in 1.5 weeks. I've never worked so hard in my life as we did to get the house ready. Nothing major was wrong with it, but removing furniture for the stagers, getting everything deep cleaned, and all the little things around the house that we've been meaning to get to was a ton of work. We've had non-stop viewings, an open house, and multiple offers until we accepted one. My neighbor was working on his swamp cooler on his roof and said the second the realtor hammered the open house sign into our yard, swarms of people descended on our home and didn't stop until it was over. We've had tons of cars just sitting in front of our house starring. It's pretty creepy, but I pretend we don't see them.

With all these showings I had to get creative on how to keep the house clean and the kids excited to be excited to get out of the house at a moment's notice. I declared every time we had to get out of the home for a showing we would get ice cream (one a day max). Also if the kids had their room cleaned daily I would give them a dime a day. If they kept it clean all week long then they would get a bonus so they had a dollar for the week. Totally worked and worth the $3. I think we might keep this one up even after we move!

Friday night we went over to visit Dave's Mom, made her dinner, ate our daily ice cream, and watched a movie with her. It was a good visit and we were happy to not have to be wandering around the neighborhood for a 4 hour chunk.

Saturday we decided to just get out and into nature! We drive up to the Provo River Falls, had a picnic lunch and hiked up it until it was time to head back.

The kids had a blast! They didn't want to leave so we promised we would return another weekend.

The weather was in the 80's which was perfect for hiking through water.

Brooklyn had a hard time with how messy hiking is. She got upset a few times because "My hair is getting wet!" or "My beautiful shoes are getting muddy!" I don't know where she gets this from because I'm not that way, but eventually she was able to accept the mess and really enjoy herself.

When we got home we had 6 solid offers on the house. Dave and I showered while our agent got more information from the other agents about the potential buyers, verified their pre-qualification, etc. We reviewed the offers and felt good selecting one as our buyer. So we accepted their offer and got to enjoy a quiet rest of Labor Day weekend.

Sunday was pretty casual. After so much chaos we needed it! We hung around the house, played outside, went on a walk, had a family movie, took a nap and I boxed up a few things. Monday we made another fun one. We went swimming, got pizza, had a movie night and ate junk food. The kids were happy to hear when you move you get to try to eat up all the food in the pantry so you don't have to move it.

End of Summer & Start of School

We had a lot of fun at the end of the summer! I tried to squeeze in as much as possible such it had been a very different summer. Logan and Brooklyn both celebrated birthdays at the beginning of August. Logan turned 9 and Brooklyn turned 4. She is so proud she is a "big girl" now and tells everyone "I'm almost 5 now". Brooklyn has been obsessed with Elsa and Frozen, so many of her gifts were Frozen related. One of which was an Anna dress-up. She was so excited! She put it on and for the first time she exclaimed "I'm Anna, you be Elsa! My hair is the perfect color to be Anna!" She's had some major hair envy recently. She constantly will lament "I wish my hair was blond like Elsa!" But there's no way I was going to bleach a 3 year old's hair so wigs have been our placebo.

We also squeezed in my niece Rea's second sewing lesson. She wanted to make a skirt for her baby sister in the exact same pattern as hers, so we got to repeat that (hopefully) cementing those skills in place. For her next lesson she wants to do a pair of leggings. This will be more challenging because the material will be stretchy, but I'm sure she will do a great job.

The boys were so excited to go back to school a few weeks ago! They happily wear their masks to school if if means they get to see their friends. Brooklyn is so excited that she gets to do internet pre-school daily, although she is devastated that her brothers leave every day. If we run errands after dropping the boys off she will worriedly exclaim "Mom! I'm going to be late for internet pre-school!"

The Friday after school started we went on our late summer vacation with my parents. Dave's co-worker had a home outside of Flaming Gorge and he was kind enough to let us borrow it for a long weekend.

It was just the break we needed! The first day we explored the lake, paddled around, checked out some islands, talked to fishermen and just had a casual day of fun.

The second day we went river rafting. It was a BLAST! We wish we could have done it more than one day and decided we definitely need to do this again.

The temperature was perfect and the sky was overcast! We weren't too warm, and if we did get warm we just stuck a foot off the side of the raft. It was the perfect adventure! Not too rapid for the kids, but enough to keep us all excited.

If the water was "boring" for too long I would start bouncing up and down and exclaim "look out! rapids!" My mom christened those "White Girl Rapids". Eventually the kids caught on, but it was fun for them for a while.

Our roma and cherry tomatoes have been doing well this year. Brooklyn and Logan are tomato fiends and I will catch both of them sneaking tomatoes from the garden and chowing down. We love that they love fresh produce!

Lots of Sewing and Youth Conference

 

It's been such a busy summer! Well, the last few weeks have flown by and I can't believe it's almost time for school to start again. The kids are planning to go back to school in person in the fall. They will be required to wear masks and remain socially distant, but they are very excited to see their friends again. We're scrambling to get all the stuff they need to go back, plus extra sanitization supplies for their teachers.

Dustin created a picture in hopes that it will be chosen to be the yearbook cover this year. It's adorable and he's really hopeful. Brooklyn is super jealous that the boys get to go to school so I've been prepping some home pre-school stuff to keep her busy in the fall. She loves practicing and will tell you that's she's going to kindergarten this year (she's not). Logan's just excited to go back, learn, and see his friends. It's been a LONG 7 months at home.

Two weeks ago we met up with Logan's friend's family at a park and they played like crazy. The park had a merry go round which the kids begged me to push them around on. They all fell off at least once. At one point I was pushing them around and Brooklyn screamed so I knew she was going to fall. I whipped around mid-run and caught her. In the process I pulled or tore something in my calf and limped around for 1-2 weeks. It's still sore but doing a lot better. 

I've been squeezing in a lot of sewing for Brooklyn lately. She discovered my box of "beautiful material" ie things I've been collecting for dress ups. As soon as I'm done with one dress she is BEGGING me to make the next skirt out of the next beautiful material. It's exhausting because the material isn't easy to sew on, but she's so happy after, I can't help myself!

My friend Tenille also helped me learn how to design on my Cricut so I've gone a little crazy designing shirts for the kids and myself. I ordered some Heat Transfer Vynal off Amazon and as soon as it arrives Tuesday, we'll be in business! I'm so excited!

A few weeks ago we tried to pick up some Harry Potter crafts from the library but they were so popular that they "sold out" in an hour. We stopped by 3 branches before giving up. The last one promised they would make up more bags and call us to come pick them up. This helped appease three devastated kids and I promptly forgot about it. They called this week with make your own wand kits. The kids had a blast designing and bejeweling them. 

Last weekend we got to go to a picknic lunch to celebrate Sara's baptism. We couldn't attend because of corona, but we still got to enjoy family at the park. While we were there Rea asked if I would teach her how to sew clothes. I was excited to oblige her and this Thursday we had her first lesson. She was able to complete a skirt and was so proud of herself!

Half way through she decided she only wanted two tiers rather than the 3 the pattern called for because that was the length she prefered her skirts. So we finished with a little material to spare (she plans to make a dress for her American Girl doll out of the leftovers). Next week she requested sewing a skirt for Elizabeth. So I've pulled out some pink floral material to make a skirt with the same pattern.

The last week and a half have been very busy for me. I headed up an electronic Youth Conference with the Teenagers in our church congregation. The youth got to participate in a socially distant water fight for the whole conference. Each day they could earn a new life in the game by doing a spiritual activity (read a scripture, do a service, take a selfie with the temple, do some family history, etc). They had a blast and had some spiritual experiences too. 

We ended with a Testimony meeting on the front lawn of the church and it was a fabulous experience. The spirit was strong and we all walked away uplifted and ready to take on more tough times. I hope we can keep the momentum going because life has just been so tough lately! But I know God loves us and is just itching to bless us if we turn to him. I hope the Youth were able to see the blessings of remembering him daily.

July Flies By!

July has just passed us by in the blink of an eye! With how slow the year has moved so far, that's a great thing. The boys rediscovered their legos over the past two weeks. When the lockdown hit in March Grandma Sheila & Papa Mike bought the kids a Legos kid that had bags of all colored legos that they could make anything with. So they've been creating and creating all kinds of cool things! They love coming up with their own designs.

Brooklyn has really embraced her inner girly-ness lately! She's obsessed with unicorns and princesses. She loves to dress up. She will even put a skirt on over her shorts every day. Since I'm not a girly girl this is new territory for us, but she sure makes it fun!

Along with her love of Princesses she is neck deep in a love for Elsa and Frozen. She dresses up like her daily. She pretends she's Elsa and I'm Anna constantly. She has spent months lamenting that her hair isn't blond like Elsa's "I'm so tired of looking like Anna! When will my hair be blond like Elsa's?!?" She was so excited when last week a surprise blond wig arrived in the mail for her from Papa Mike. She wears it daily and if she can get away with it, she sneaks it out of the house and to the park or to the library to pick up books. The boys have told her several times that although her wig is pretty, they like her better just the way she is (what amazing brothers they are!).

We received information last week on what School should look like next year. The governor is requiring masks, and since our district is planning to allow kids back in the classrooms, that means I've been sewing masks like crazy. I want the boys to have a mask for each day they're in school, one for church on Sunday (which is canceled right now, but eventually it will probably be back), and an extra just incase we need one more. That's 7 masks per boy and a few more for Brooklyn, Dave and I. The pattern I'm using right now isn't hard or time consuming, so they go fast.

I've also started collecting supplies to send the boys back to school with. I've been able to find 4 packs of Chlorox wipes, 2 cans of disinfecting spray, two bottles of hand sanitizer and tissues. Plus the basic markers, notebooks, crayons, glue, etc. I've never spent so much on school supplies, and we haven't even received lists from the school of what they want us to bring. But I want the kids to be able to go back to school in a safe environment. They learn far better in a classroom, so I'll do whatever I can to help facilitate the process.

Dustin and Brooklyn have dove head first into cooking with me! They love to help out in the kitchen and have been fighting over who gets to add what ingredient and who gets to stand by me. When the fighting is at a minimum it's fun to teach them to cook.

We got to have a picnic dinner at our favorite park last Sunday with my brother Mike and his family along with Alison's sister Becky and her family. The kids loved playing together and the adults enjoyed sitting in the shade and talking. It was HOT out, but we still managed to have a good time. Corona has been so hard on all of us because we miss our socialization. It's a strange summer not having people over for BBQs and family dinners but I think meeting up at a park is a nice compromise.

Thursday of this week Dave's friend Darren invited us to go camping with him and his daughter. So we threw together a last minute trip to the mountains! We had so much fun hiking and enjoying the outdoors. Thursday amid the hurricane of preparation, we drove up Big Cottonwood canyon to a few campsites in hopes to get a walk up campsite for the weekend. I've been trying to reserve a campsite since January and things have been completely full.

With everyone trying to get out in nature it's been a completely booked year. Unfortunately we weren't able to get one close by, but we got a great hike in and got to explore Moss Ledge Waterfall for our efforts.

It was a difficult hike for the kids, but they had fun. Dustin was a little daredevil, as always. He wanted to climb to the top of every mountain and see everything he could.  Brooklyn always wants to be right with him, and it was hard for her to learn she can't keep up with him all the time.

By the end of the hike we were worn out, scratched up, and ready to head home! I was glad we had dinner waiting for us in the Crock Pot when we got there.

Friday morning the kids and I headed over to our Bishop's house to cut down some tree stumps for them. The kids helpfully enjoyed someone else's yard while I cut the stumps as close to the ground as I could and talked with Anna (Bishop's wife). It was nice to catch up, since I haven't seen her in a while. Gave me a good workout too, with sore arms to prove it.

When we got home I packed up the car with everything I thought we would need for a two night camping trip. We didn't know where we would end up, so I packed for a HOT weekend. We tried a few sites and were turned away before we found Redbanks Campground. It was exactly what we needed! It had huge trees for shade and wasn't far away from Tony Lake.

We hiked around Tony Lake Friday before returning to camp to make foil dinners and s'mores. It was stressful not knowing if we would find a camping site, but very restful once we got settled in. My favorite part of the area were the alpine wildflowers. They were everywhere! Brooklyn had a hay day collecting them and is hoping if she plants them in our yard, flowers will grow. The kids said their favorite part was the water and having friends with us.

The weather was perfect. It was in the 80's during the day and probably down to 50 at night. Nobody was overly hot or cold, although there were many mosquitoes to deal with. Saturday we made a big breakfast and headed out to Bear Lake for a day of swimming. We picnicked on the beach and had milkshakes for a late afternoon snack.

We tried two beaches. One we christened the Mud Beach and the other the Rock Beach. The kids LOVED the Mud Beach! They sunk into the mud up to their knees and the mud dyed their legs orange. Dave and I liked the Rock beach better. The water was clear and the swimming at Rock Beach was perfect. We were worn out from swimming all day and Brooklyn fell asleep on the ride back to camp. We roasted hotdogs over the fire and again had s'mores after dinner.

Saturday was our night of injury. It started with Darren cutting his finger open with a knife. It was pretty deep but we were able to patch it up pretty well with alcohol wipes, gauze, Neosporin, butterfly closure and duct tape.

Then Dustin tripped and sliced his head open on the corner of the picnic table. He has a huge, swolen bruise and got a pretty deep cut. He begged me not to take him in to get stitches while still crying from the initial pain. I promised if he could stop bleeding quickly I would not take him in. It did stop very quickly so we cleaned up his wound, bandaged it with the same supplies we used to clean up Darren earlier (glad we already knew exactly where everything was), and he asked if he could go to sleep for the night.

This experience made me realize how much my car first aid kit is lacking, so we'll be updating that as soon as possible.

Sunday morning we woke up, ate, packed up and headed to a hike. It lead us to Polygamist Cave which was used to house the Polygamists hiding from the law back in the late 1800's. It was a fun cave to explore.

We got about halfway in and you had to climb down a narrow tunnel into the next cavern when Brooklyn decided she had enough. She is scared of the dark and wanted nothing to do with climbing in a dark hole in the ground at the bottom of the cave! Logan decided to head back with us, so we slowly headed out while Dave, Dustin, Darren and Amree climbed deeper to get to see the cave bacon and other Stalactites.

As we were climbing out Logan and Brooklyn decided to hide in a small offshoot cave and surprise everyone else when they came out of the cave. They were so well hidden Dave and Dustin couldn't find them. I had to point out the cave to them.

The hiking in was long and strenuous, but the hiking out/down was a nightmare! The trail was pretty steep and by the last decent Dave carried Brooklyn, Dustin and I just slid down on feet while squatting and Logan slid down on his butt, crying the whole way from pain of hitting the rocks. Fortunately that last decent was just feet from the edge of the lake, so we stopped for a swimming break and picnic lunch. Logan discovered if you stood really still in the lake the fish would nibble/tickle your feet. The boys were fascinated with this.

By this point we were exhausted and decided to head home. The kids were asleep within minutes of leaving the parking lot, and slept the whole 2 hour drive home. We ate dinner, showered and everyone went to bed early.

This morning it was hard to get up, but with 4 loads of laundry, unpacking to do, dishes to wash and a house to clean we did and got to work. It's always busy getting back from a trip, but we needed the break so it was worth it.