8/7/21 - 309

The big kids were still at Youth Conference in Darby, so we took the lower half to Ammon Days.

We try and alternate Ammon Days and the Fair every other year because of cost and because it is fun to switch it up.  They didn't do the free pancake breakfast this year, so Nathan made German Pancakes and we headed to the school to help out Mrs. Hart with something and then went straight to McCowin.

The thing I love most about Ammon Days is the community.

All of the local businesses have a booth, drawings, and prizes or treats.

The kids really like going on their own, and it is fun to let them do that.

The kids always come home with crap, and I try to limit the amount of crap in the house but what can you do when there is this much joy in a free hat?!?

There are mascots, dunk tanks, car shows, talent shows, musical performances, the whole gamut of carnival activities, except rides.

Below was my district's tent.  It was hilarious because the Superintendent who knows us well, asked Juliet if she had read over the summer and she paused and then he said, that better be a YES with your mom going back to the Library. HAHA She was embarrassed, but I laughed.

One of our bucket list food items was the fried cheese and snickers.

So, here it goes...

Pretty impressive

 Mason had fun with his friend Wyatt who is younger than him but taller than Scarlett. HAHA

He came back just in time to try the snickers.

10/10

After our 2 hours at Ammon Days we went to Old Navy, Lowe's, and Sam's.

We decided to FINALLY buy Bridget a new bed.  She has been asking for months since hers was so uncomfortable.  She was sleeping on a box spring, and two twin tops, like Princess and the Pea. HAHA

And, if we bought her a mattress, that meant it was time to redo her room.

So we added the shelves, artwork, and bed frame, rearranged her room, and gave her new bedding.

She came home from camp with a CLEAN new room. She was ELATED!!!

And, because if you give Valerie a project, chances are she will have 10 more to follow...

We gutted the basement

Cleaned out J & S's room

Did tons of Laundry

Made 4 bags of DI

Took out 6 piles of dump stuff

and organized and set up Dad's office

The kids were exhausted so we just had Hot Dogs and Chips for dinner and sent everyone to bed at 7:30.

Lucas went to a PPV WFC game with the Football team and got home at 11.

I know with camp and all of the work we put in today everyone should sleep until at least 7am.  7:30 if I'm lucky.  Lucas complained that I have ruined them all by setting their internal clocks to wake up at 6:00am, but I think that is just ridiculous. He means I have set them up for life for making their internal clocks wake up that early.  Little does know, mine is set to 4:00am EVERYDAY, no matter what time I go to bed, if I do at all. LOL

8/6/21 - 309

 After talking with my BFF Katie D last night, I realized that I had not school shopped at all yet. HAHA

We decided not to buy school clothes this year and wait until the winter so I thought I was good until it hit me that they needed school supplies. Whoops!  The Olympics has really thrown me off, I guess.

Well, I had Lucas be my chauffeur and Juliet and I hit the ground running.  We went to Target, grabbed 90% of what we needed, then went to Walmart for the rest. Then we went to Snake River Landing, but realized it was only 9am, so we drove back to Kohl's which was right by Target. (eyeroll)  They didn't open until 10 either, so I treated the two to Chick-Fil-A while we waited.  We went into Kohl's and they said they couldn't accept my Amazon return, so we walked over to Shoe Carnival to get Juliet new shoes. Then we went to the UPS store to return my stuff, and off to Snake River Landing to check for football gear.  No luck. So back to the house.  It was fun to spend time with the two and get all of that done.  The last person who needs shoes is Bridget, and then I am DONE!

Lucas and Bridget left for Youth Conference at 2:30, and then the younger 3 and Nathan joined me at the school to set a few things up before football.

We dropped off Mason at football, picked up Subway for dinner and then went to James and the Giant Peach the musical at Thunder Ridge.  It was so cute!

We moved seats after the second song so Mason could see better.

Below, is Melanie Hansen, our neighbor and a girl I tutored last year.  Lucas babysits for them often.

Ally (below)

This is the Middlemas clan.  Amberly is my friend, Ally is Scarlett's friend, and Evan (right) is Juliet and Mason's age and friend.  Max is in Kinder and such a hoot.

Hey look! We were there! LOL

It was nice to take the littles out. I used to take Lucas and Bridget to plays all of the time, but with them being gone for the weekend, it was nice to treat SJM to something fun.  I forget that my littles aren't so little anymore. 

8/5/21 -309

We had it on the calendar to camp today and tomorrow, but I was just too worried about how things would go if there was an issue and we were stuck in the wilderness. So, Nathan kept his day off and we took the kids and Hailey Bateman to Rigby Lake.  The kids love this place and the entry fee is only $6.  We spent a good part of the afternoon here.

Nathan loved the sound of the rain on the pop-up so much he passed out. HAHA

Before we left for Rigby Lake, Lucas had a HUGE window job. They had almost 100 windows!  I cut Mason's hair because he was starting to look like Peter Pan. That is usually my indicator that it is time to cut their hair. HAHA

I put dinner in a crockpot so it would be ready to eat when we got home and the kids were SO excited to have "camping chicken." We ate early so Mason could go to practice full, but that didn't work out because they called to have him come switch out his gear right before practice. So he had a protein bar in the car and headed out for practice.  

Since we ate early, the kids got a big dessert so they wouldn't be hungry before bed.  I am noticing that Mason isn't used to "hard physical work" because he comes home exhausted.  This is good for him, I think.  He usually skirts by on cuteness and charm and I hope that this will help him "grow up" a bit.  He is going into the 4th grade and needs more stamina in all the things, especially schoolwork. His new teacher this year doesn't mess around with jokesters and cuties.  She has had all of the kids except Scarlett. It will be interesting to hear how she does with him.  She fixed Lucas emotionally, Bridget academically, Juliet socially, so we will see how Mason comes out of this. HAHAHA. I have already warned her that Mason is NOT like my other kids. She said she is ready for the challenge.  It is weird to think that he is in uppergrades now.  We separate things at school by K-3 and 4-6 so he really is a big boy now. Hopefully this will mature him a little. :)

8/4/21 - 307

 What a boring uneventful day.  I had a blow out appointment.  My hair has gotten so curly as I have gotten "older" so I got a treatment so It would be a little tamer.  I wish I would have trimmed it up.  Oh well.

I got to talk to one of my favorite past YW, who does my hair and she is hilarious and fun.

On my way home there were so many cars at the school and I saw Kristy Wood (the favorite 2nd grade teachers car there) and pulled in to visit for a bit.  I loved working with her when I taught 2nd grade and my kids adore her.  She is one of my teacher BFFs. We laughed, we snooped on the painters, and then I showed her my huge library project which she thought was SO cool. (because it is) hahaha.

I came home and immediately everyone wanted lunch, so we had that, cleaned up a bit and everyone departed to friends houses. (I try to not let them go before lunch time)  Bridget is lost without her friend Claire who is vacationing in San Diego right now.  We lovingly call her my 4th daughter. Lucas went to practice, and then no one could hang out so he was annoyed and bored all day.

Mason had football this evening and loved every second.

Nathan and I went to Costco to check some stuff out which was stupid on my part because from the parking lot to the back of the bakery I was totally winded.  I thought I was fine, but I'm not even a week out of surgery and didn't realize long walks would make me so tired.  I was having some soreness, so we walked slower and then headed to check out.  

On the way home, I got a text from Dana who is Aiden the Eagle Candidate's mom.  She told me we raised over the expected amount for his Eagle Project and my bookshelves will be built soon.  Never underestimate the power of social media.  His fund-drive was only 4 days and we got over $900.  I am so excited.  Our district quoted me $4000 in October and Aiden has gone to businesses and vendors to get donations and help and got the price down.  This is a big project. They will be 7feet tall by 50 feet wide. The entire length of my back wall.  I can't even believe this is a GO!!!

We had mini Meatball Subs and Salad for dinner, and then our RS president came over so we could go visit a new lady in the ward.  She asked me to be her companion because I am her new Ministering Sister and it was the RS President's DIL.  What a fun visit. We were there for 2 hours and laughed and talked.  She reminded me of newly married Valerie but WAY cooler.  We have so many similar interests and hobbies, it was really neat. One thing that killed me was her new calling is YSA embassador.  Kami and her husband are over the YSA's in our ward and she is to try and get them to a YSA branch.  And the weirdest thing is that in Idaho, NO ONE WANTS TO GO TO THE YSA!  What?!?!?  I LOVED the YSA wards.

She said that kids here would rather go to their parent's ward.  I think that would be horrible to be 19-22 and be a Primary teacher and feel invisible.  I would have loved to go with peers and have callings and run a ward without children.  In fact, I did!  I thought about it the whole ride home, and talked with Nathan at length about this, this evening.  Crazy.

8/3/21 - 309

Today was another great day for me in the healing department. I was able to do more and my energy is through the roof. I almost feel like I'm back in my 20s! JK

Lucas had bonding practice, but before that I had a Walmart grocery pick up, so he drove me there, then I treated him to McD's for breakfast.  Nothing beats a McDonalds breakfast.  After that I dropped him off and unloaded the car. At pick up we went to pick up Crumbl because today was the last day for the frozen yogurt mango cookie.  Lucas ate a whole one on the way to pick up Scarlett from fiddle lessons.

He would rate this one 8/10.  It didn't have the mango flavor he was looking for. Haha.

The rest of the kids did penalty chores until 3pm.  I had a dermatologist appointment where the Doctor complimented my skin 3x. I felt pretty great that she kept saying "why are you here? your skin in flawless"

I just went in for a check and left feeling dang good.

Juliet rollerbladed a lot of the day.  This is her new favorite thing.  She also played with her BFF Abbi.

Mason rode his new bike over to Brody's and then I picked them both up for football.

Dinner was YOYO night because Mason had football and a parent meeting.  This is a household favorite with the teens.  

After dinner, Alisha and I snuck out to look at some in construction homes. This is my favorite pastime.

We like to go and nitpick every single detail about a new build and say how we could never live there because of X. Hilarious and so much fun.

I love these random days sometimes.  It makes the crazy busy ones seem not as hard when they are sandwiched in like this.

8/2/21 - 310

I am feeling amazing.  No medicine, and walking and bending okay. Wahoo.  When the Dr. called me he was amazed but I wasn't because I have a really high pain tolerance and I recover pretty quickly.   I mean, I walked right out of the hospital after C-Sections. Haha.

SYNCHRO was on today, USA did an amazing job on Free Swim. Free swim was always my favorite to swim because it was about musicality and having fun. Technical is tomorrow and all they are looking at is figures. It is really hard to know that the judges are nitpicking every figure and transition and not how hard you are working to smile and stay in synch. But, I am going to love watching it anyway.  USA is like 14th or something right now.  They held on to 8th for quite sometime.

Bridget had her nance taken out and we scheduled her braces placement for September.  We were both VERY excited to get those scheduled.  Two in braces is more expensive than two in diapers, just sayin. :)

Lucas had an early morning "bonding work-out" with the Varsity team today at the Sand Dunes.  He is counting down the days until he can drive solo. 14 more days until he gets his license!!!

Scarlett watched Andy, the Nestler's Dog today, she has earned over $200 this summer weeding, and dog sitting, and another $200 babysitting.

Juliet and Mason had swim team today 12-1, Nathan took them because I had a football meeting. We are planning a huge fundraiser for the 14th.

Mason also had his first day of football practice where it rained so heavily *yay* that he came home drenched.

Bridget had a night practice for cheerleading in the next town over so that took sometime.

And last but not least, dinner came together quickly because Scarlett made Red Beef Enchiladas, which were good, but the kids still preferred the green chicken ones that they are used to.

We had such a busy day, but it is just par for the course for what is to come in the fall. GAAAH!!!

8/1/21 Randoms (315)

I had a hysterectomy on July 30th.  

I had been having really strange cycles, and some other strange symptoms and with only one ovary, it made the most sense to just get rid of everything. LOL.  It was decided at the beginning of July that we would remove everything, and after appointment after appointment, and blood work, and fibroid removal - I was ready to have it all done.

I feel sore, but actually I'm walking pretty well.  The weirdest thing is how FULL I feel. Like, the top of the abdomen is rock hard, which will eventually go down.  Being down for 6 weeks will be the death of me since I have start prepping the Library, and school, and football, and everything else.

The Olympics has been, meh. The coverage sucks.  The actual athletes and the watching has been amazing.  I just hate that it is so far ahead of us that spoilers are everywhere.

Today's bulletin quote was so good.  (I'm still doing the bulletin...going on 4 years. LOL)

Therefore,

let the

morrow

take thought

for the

things of

itself

 

Doctrine and covenants 84:84

 

Tomorrow we will handle the things that need to be handled tomorrow.  Plan what you can, and then give the rest to God.  Because either way, worrying will do no good.    -C.Black

I love this so much.  It really hit home this week.