Back to School

The kids were SO excite to be back in school! Logan is happy to have Mrs. Graham again for 5th grade (he had and loved her in 3rd grade). Dustin was excited to get Mrs. Porter for 2nd grade (Logan had her when he was in 2nd grade too). And although you can't tell from the pic, Brooklyn has been counting down the days until she started Kindergarten with Mrs. Lafferty for about a year. She was upset though that Kindergarten didn't start until the week after the boys.

Logan has really come into his own over the past year. He's learned to get along with everyone pretty well. All summer long I was impressed with him (mostly) not fighting with his siblings. He's a pretty happy kid and LOVES to read! I had to limit him on how many books he could check out at a time this summer because he had so many he started loosing them.

This picture pretty much sums up our goofy Dustin! He's a crack up and always into everything. The kids decided they wanted to design their own shirts for the first day of school. My mom commented "I get Logan and Brooklyn's choices in shirts, but what's up with Dustin's???" He told me it's because he "loves burgers and fries. They're pretty much my favorite food". When I told my mom that she responded "He did tell me about a dream he had about hamburgers and fries" What can I say? My kids are fast food deprived.

Brooklyn was over the moon excited when her first day finally came. I was a little nervous for her, because she can be extremely shy, but she did great! She came home from school and told me she made 3 new friends that love beautiful things too. Every day she tells me about the new friends she made, or worries if someone isn't in class (hoping they aren't sick).

Brooklyn's our little girly girl. She loves all things pink, sparkly, and beautiful. I have no idea where she gets if from. 

 She had a blast with all the new things at school, and on day two she was so worn out from playing so hard I found her asleep on a Luv Sac when I called everyone in for dinner. It made me smile because my parents have a picture of me napping on the couch after my first day of Kindergarten too.

We've pretty much gotten back into the swing of the school year now. Brooklyn's first week of school I had scheduled all my doctor and dentist appointments that I had missed over the past 1.5 years (corona makes it hard to get out without the kids, or even with them). But I'm hoping the second week will be more laid back.

Summer Time

This summer was BUSY! We started out with a trip to the Green River up at Flaming Gorge with my parents and most of my siblings. Dave's boss has a cabbing up there and he let us stay and borrow his 12 man raft to enjoy the river. The kids had a great time playing with their cousins.

Brooklyn and her cousin Petra were enamored with the horses that were on the land beside the cousin's hotel. They made as many trips as possible to visit and feed these guys.

This summer was crazy busy with church stuff. I'm working with our congregation's teenage girls and we had a girls camp, a youth conference, hosted a carnival for neighborhood kids, and weekly activities. It was a ton of work and I finished the summer completely exhausted and ready to ask for another job. But I hung in and am hoping that I will have more energy with everyone back in school. Hopefully after the first few weeks I'll be able to catch a few quiet moments to rejuvenate.

My friend Tenille came and visited us a few times. The kids enjoyed messing around with their bonus auntie. She always brings a million projects for them (and me) to work on.

We took Tenille to the Upper Provo Falls for an adventure. It's not a tough hike down to the water, and from there you can go up or down stream. trek through the water and enjoy several water falls.

It's a little bit of a drive, but totally worth it a few times a year. The kids loved getting wet and sharing the hike with Tenille.

The boys decided they wanted to take on sewing plushies this summer. They sewed the facial features on by hand, picked out the colors, and I sewed it all together. They each made a stuffed animal, then they made this penguin to give to our friend's baby for his first birthday.

We also hiked up to silver lake a few times. The kids love scaling every rock they can for the entire hike. They always enjoy this hike, but unfortunately the stream they usually damn up was dry due to the drought. That was very disappointing for them, but hopefully we'll get enough rain this winter that it will be back next summer.

Every summer we also go to the library to make Harry Potter crafts. This year the kids enjoyed making a time turner, golden snitch (out of chocolate), some flying keys, a notebook with a Hogwarts logo on it, and a quill. They also got to play wizard's chess with some other kids at the library. They kicked the other kid's butts! Logan's been practicing his chess and the bigger kids were a little put out that little kids were beating them.

The weekend before school started we did a 2 night campout with a family from the neighborhood. It was so nice to get away from the city and just enjoy nature. 

Right behind our camp site was a stream that the kids had a blast wading in and floating things down the river. It was the perfect temperature and we saw a few animals (squirrels, a moose, a snake...).

The kids went with me shopping to get the food for the trip and BEGGED me to get a monster tub of cheetoes puffs. They decided they tasted best roasted over the fire.

We also hiked up Doughnut falls with our friends. It was fun to hike with friends, and although Logan got stung by a wasp, it was a great adventure. It's been a bad year for wasps here! Dave also got stung, and Brooklyn had 3 stings earlier this year!

Over all it was a good summer. Busy, and over way too fast, but we had a lot of fun.

March thru June

 Since I seem to only write in my blog quarterly lately, I've decided to just go with it. So a little update of our spring! Dave's Grandfather Pete Plastow passed away from Covid 19 and we made a trip out to Moab to attend his funeral. It was good to see Suzy and the extended family and for Dave to get to be there when he was laid to rest. He was able to go through his grandpa's house and select a few items to take to remember him by. Also he was given a painting his Grandfather created that we framed. His grandfather was a western artist (some of his work is on display in the Smithsonian).

So of course while we were there we had to hit up Arches. What trip to Moab is complete without a little hiking?

The kids were great hikers and had a blast scrambling up everything we let them. We probably need to schedule some rock climbing into our busy lives.

The weather was perfect for hiking too, not too hot (like you get in the dead of the summer), and not too busy. I guess that's one thing we can thank Corona for.

We like to go on Sunday "hikes" and by hike I mean casual walks on trails unless it's over 100 degrees. But even then we will drive up the canyon and enjoy the 10-20 degree cooler weather. This pic is from a portion of the Jordon River Trail near our home. It's one of our favorite sections of the trail.

This spring we also registered the boys for a basket ball clinic. Dustin has done basketball in the past and he was excited to take another class to hone his skills.

This was Logan's first class and although he was a little nervous he got the hang of it quickly. He wanted to learn how to do basketball since our new house has a basketball hoop.

They both got pretty good and made "over 200 shots" each. Hopefully they'll continue enjoying the sport because I suspect both with end up tall.

We've enjoyed having my brother Mike's family in the neighborhood. The kids love getting together often to play at each other's house. They've become pretty good friends and get along most of the time.

At the end of a tough school year, the boys got to participate in their school fun run. Logan usually loves running, but due to corona they made the kids run in masks. And it was HOT out. So he started out running but ended walking. Can't say I blame him, I hate wearing masks and can't imagine working out in one. But he still had a good time.

Dustin also enjoyed the race. He was able to get 6th place for his grade and was quite proud of himself. He's a fast runner and made sure to wear his "sports mask" so it wouldn't be so sweaty.

They were so glad to be in person this year, and to get to see their friends. Even if things were a little different, they still were glad to be back in person. It was a tough year for all of us with all the added precautions of Social Distancing and face masks. But we made it through and are hoping for more interaction now that the vaccines are out.

4 Busy Months

 It's been a crazy few months! We obviously (in October) moved and construction has consumed all of our spare time. Finally this weekend I told Dave ENOUGH! We're taking the next two weeks off! 

I planned a semi-surprise trip for the weekend for just Dave and I as an early celebration of his Birthday. We went up to Lava Hot Springs in Idaho, and swung by Logan on the way home. We enjoyed the hot spring water, hiking around, and walking around the Logan temple. We also did our fair share of shopping/snacking at the Cheese Factory, Idle Isle chocolate shop, and all of our typical favorite road trip snacks. We had dinner with our friends the Montgomery's Saturday night (they moved to Logan a few years ago). By Sunday we were ready to head home to the kids! They had a fun weekend with Dave's parents but were ready to have us back too.

Our most recent construction project was redoing the hallway bathroom. It was a lot of work to add a shower, tile the shower walls, refinish the vanity, replace the mirror for a built in medicine cabinet, remove wallpaper and paint, but it looks great! And now I have a shower to use upstairs (this is a big deal to me, less so to everyone else in the house).

Before

After

What else did you miss over the past 4 months? We had one snow that I've had to shovel this year. As you can tell from the grass it wasn't substantial. We're going to be in serious drought this summer.

The Kids had a great Halloween even if it wasn't the typical. We had a costume parade around the church and did a little trick or treating on our old street "because we don't know our new neighbors yet" With Corona it was a little trick or treating, but in my opinion the kids got the perfect amount of candy. Not too much so I just let them have it all at once.

Dustin had his birthday in November. I can't believe how big he is! He helped decorate his "fancy birthday cake" and was SO proud of how it turned out. He's an awesome artist and such a fiercely loyal friend.

We've taken the kids swimming a few times over the winter at the Murray pool and they love it! I actually love corona regulations on swimming so much! They don't allow more than 30 people in the pool area total, and it makes for a pleasant experience. Brooklyn is our little fish. Next opportunity she has I'm putting her in swim classes. It won't take much for her to be swimming like a champ.

Since Temple square was closed to the general public this year we got to go see two different lights shows. One was a drive through lights show that we enjoyed with Dave's Mom, and the other was a walk through light show that we enjoyed with our neighbors David & Amanda. Both were fun, although we missed our annual trip to Temple Square.

Brooklyn got her first hair cut. Well, first hair cut from me. Dustin  has cut her bangs a few times and given her side burns with an electric razor.  So everything was finally long enough to even it all out. She cried that her hair wasn't long anymore, but it looks a lot better now. And I told her if she brushes it, it will grow.

Logan has had two exciting academic events in the past month. He won his class spelling bee and competed in his school spelling bee. He didn't win the school one, but he did a great job holding his own! We are so proud of him

He also competed and won his grade level Science fair this year! He was so excited to compete, although disappointed he wasn't given a prize (since it was all presented electronically). His question was "Can I make a rainbow in my house?" and after 4 different trials he was able to find the right conditions to make it work consistently!

Apparently we don't have enough Valentines decorations. The kids requested more, so we've been working on decorating for my least favorite holiday. Hopefully we'll be sufficiently ready in time.

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!