High School Cheer Tryouts and Yellow Fork Canyon Trail

Thursday May 14th was cheer tryouts at our high school. Utah has moved to "Yellow" concerning coronavirus which means we're still 6 foot social distancing (Except you can obviously see in the picture below that I haven't exactly been following that all the time) but we can get gather in groups of up to 50 now and restaurants and stores can open. So for cheer tryouts, they staggered the times when the girls would come try out that evening, they set up tumbling mats 6 feet apart, and they did not do any stunting. The four of us cheer moms made this fun balloon arch for tryouts. It was our first time making one and I thought we did a pretty good job. You can learn how to do anything on YouTube. 

And Shauna joined us at the end; the arch ended up only taking us an hour to make when we thought it was going to take much longer.  

  

The following morning we found this sign in our yard. Yay Elisabeth! She had a great tryout and even landed her full during her tumbling pass, and of course her standing back tucks. Her full she lands some of the time, so she was happy about that. 

One of the blessings of covid19 is having the family around more. We visit, we play games, we work together. I've put each child in charge of dinner one night each week. This has been fabulous. I love that they pick the dinner (that's one of the hardest parts for me about making dinner; just deciding what to have), I shop for the ingredients at the beginning of the week, and then on their day to cook they are home and in the kitchen with me by 5pm so we can make dinner together....sometimes the older kids do it all on their own so I'm just home and available if they have any questions. We have a rule that you can't make the same thing twice in a row so that they're not just making the same thing all the time. 

Our Grand Canyon group has started started hiking again on the weekends. We have two groups going to Grand Canyon this September (if everything's open with covid19 etc) so one will start on the North end and the other on the South end so that neither group has to pack all their overnight clothes, but rather just the food and water they need that day, and the other group will bring our things to the opposite end of the Canyon for us to get there. My friend from cheer Shauna, who got me to do this Grand Canyon hike last year at the last second, is the leader of one of the groups. She is an amazing pace setter,  we hike at a very brisk pace, and she's a knowledgeable trail guide. She studies the maps on the All Trails app and seems to know just where to go and the beautiful spots to see. 

 Even though I'd hiked parts of the Yellow Fork Canyon Trail many times before with my family, I didn't know how beautiful one particular turn off was coming back down the mountain. We had hiked up 4 miles and were on our way down and we turned down a path that had a soft dirt path (no hard rocks here) and green all around us; it reminded me a little of home, in Washington where I'm from. 

  Once I got back from my Saturday morning hike, I did some little cleaning projects around the house including getting the torn up trampoline spring cover off and into the garbage and walking around the yard picking up any garbage or other items we didn't want a dog to be chewing on. Our Puppy Penny would be arriving in a few days and that torn cover always ends up dropping small plastic pieces on the grass around the trampoline and we didn't want Penny eating those. 

While I worked on that, Scott and Charles worked on the shed getting all four walls framed, and Elisabeth worked on her SCO (student class officer) video. They voted on the officers that week. 24 applied and only 4 were chosen; all 4 were guys, so she did not end up making it. But I think she'll try again next year, for SBO. 

 The kids always have Saturday morning chores (deep clean bedroom and bathrooms, besides the master, plus another room we assign) and then they get to play. Nora and Emery set up their toys in our backyard and played house. I loved their clothes line they set up by the hose. 

 And this is gross, but here's the update on my hurt big toenail from when I was doing a handstand and fell out of it and hit the wall coming down. The toenail was very loose for a month or so now and it finally came off. It didn't hurt at all; it only hurt during that first week when I injured it. My new toenail was already beginning to grow underneath; it's very short, only about half the length of my normal toenail, but it'll grow back. 

A Wonderful Mothers Day

Before Mother's Day, I mentioned to Scott a couple of things that would make Mother's Day special. One: if he would make my green smoothie for breakfast. I even sent him the recipe. He was happy to have been given the idea, taking out any guess work. I also said I'd like to have time to read and work on my family blog. All of those things happened, plus we got a walk in, so it was pretty much my perfect day. 

The girls brought me my green smoothie in bed as I was working on my blog. 

All the kids made me Mother's Day cards with thoughtful notes and Scott got a couple of my favorite treats and a Basil plant. Annabelle had heard me mention, the week before, wanting to get some Cold Stone ice cream and in her Mother's Day card was a gift card.

I told the kids my Mother's Day wish was to have a picture together. They all obliged(this is one of the only ways I can get Charles in a picture).

Later that day we played Azul.

And look at the difference in these two pictures. The one on the left was taken a year ago; 14 months to be exact. He's grown quite a bit since then. We wondered at what age he'd pass up my 5'6" frame....it was months before he turned 14. He's 5'8" now, his voice is deepening, he shaves on occasion and he outgrows clothes and shoes faster than I can keep up with.

I am so grateful for my mom and for Scott's mom. Being a mother, I know now how much they sacrificed for us over the years in order to raise us to the best of their abilities. I love them for teaching us the gospel of Jesus Christ, and for their unconditional love. 

Mom's Birthday

Mom would have turned 72 this past week, on May 8th. Mom was my rock. Besides Jesus, she had the greatest influence for good throughout my life. Because it was her birthday week, and because it's the first without her, I thought about her a lot during that week, sometimes laughing to myself remembering her fun, sometimes silly and free-spirited nature, and sometimes I found myself crying because I missed her, or as I remembered the hard things she went through. She never complained of the hard times, but sometimes there are scars left behind, or you gather stories from others, from journals or from things you've seen and heard because you lived in the same house. 

I am so grateful for her influence, love and Christlike example, even through the hard times. I hope to honor her with the way I live my life, giving and serving as she did, always putting family and Christ first. As I read to my girls each night in bed and talk with the kids one-on-one, I know she would be pleased and feel the impact she left behind.

I'm SO grateful for all the little mom-daughter long weekend trips I made over the past few years as I cherish those memories. 

This picture is actually from a Mexico trip we made (Becca was there too), for Stephany's wedding in the Mexico City Temple. Such a neat experience for all of us. 

Mom flew out for BYU education week a couple of times over the past couple of  years.

Mom loved ferry rides, and so did I .

During one of our trips we took a cooking class and make Gnocchi.

Our last weekend trip together was so special. A couple of months before she passed, I flew out (in august) and we went to one of her favorite spots, even though she'd had a fever during the day. I drove while she slept, because she really wanted to go. A place of peace. We took the ferry to the San Juan Island. We stayed overnight. We saw Orcas near a lighthouse,

we went thrift shopping, and stopped by A Mermaid store where she got the painting she'd been wanting for some time. She gifted the painting to me before I left for home.

We celebrated her life by enjoying some of her favorite foods, music and places (the great outdoors), and through sharing memories.

 I also learned that Elisabeth and my mom share a love of Fritos. I don't know very many people that love to eat Fritos, and even less who eat it without a dip of some sort, but my mom loved to eat them. So when I bought some for the family this weekend and Elisabeth was enjoying them, she informed me that she eats a bag at lunch every day at high school and that her friends also think it's strange that that's the chips she chooses each day.

We all enjoyed the Banana Cream Pie and a couple of us enjoyed the carrot cake. She likes it thickly frosted, like me.

New Orleans Beignets, and Getting Ready For A Puppy

This week I listened to a Lauren Daigle podcast where she talked about Beignets (think Scones dusted with powdered sugar) in New Orleans. Then yesterday Elisabeth mentioned how much she loved the Beignets at Disneyland and how she wished she could go there and have them again. Two mentions was enough for me and so on a Sunday afternoon, Elisabeth and I made some Beignets for the family to enjoy (they were gone in minutes!) once we'd finished fasting. 

Mother Theresa once said, "Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier." And another similar thought from Dieter F Uchtdorf says, "God will use you to make the lives of others better."

There are certain people in my life who exemplify this and I love them dearly. In the past when I've thought of developing this Christlike attribute it has been in terms of friends, neighbors and people in the community. But lately (perhaps a coronavirus/quarantine blessing) I've been thinking about my little family and how I have been given lots of opportunities lately to put this into action with them, if I so choose. Making Beignets together was a small thing that broght joy, and for sure it doesn't have to be about food, but it was today. Often it's a kind word, or a thoughtful text (yes we still sometimes text each other even when we're in the house together...don't judge), reading with a little one, jumping on the trampoline together or going for a walk in the neighborhood. It's the little things.

We pick up our puppy on Tuesday this week! We are SO excited! When Annabelle saw me taking this picture she said, "if you post this, make sure you let people know that I was NOT playing in the dog crate, but helping you set it up." And that's the truth! We've had to buy SO many things for our new dog (mostly through amazon.com) since we had nothing. I bought a couple of books on dog training as well, and while reading each of those books I realized I should probably get a couple other items that they mentioned using or really liking (dog treats or harnesses or toys etc).

These are the two books I read in preparation for the arrival of our new dog. One is by Cesar Millan and we love his national geographic show called The Dog Whisperer. I loved both books. Both teach you how to train a dog in a positive way, but were written in very different ways...Victoria Stilwell's is more like a glossary/index where you can look up how to teach and train different things and she'll walk you through it...Cesar's starts at the beginning of puppyhood and takes you through what to teach in the order it would naturally come up, using both personal experiences, his own thoughts and advice from other professional breeders and dog trainers. Both were super insightful. They also helped me get over some of my fear of dogs, just by giving me more understanding of the psychology of a dog, and I feel a little more prepared for our puppy to arrive. 

Quarantine Real Life: House Projects, School, and Thursday Throwback Movie Night

Being in quarantine, we have more time for house projects. Charles wanted to earn some money and we wanted our garage painted, so we worked out a deal.

We have a third car now (I flew back to Seattle and picked up  my mom's) and would like to keep it in our third car garage which is currently full of bikes and yard tools. So we decided to build a shed. We had someone come clear the ground and put concrete down for the foundation. 

Scott ordered supplies through Home Depot (they have a shed building page which will tell you what supplies to buy etc) and he and Charles are building the shed. This past Saturday we got the four walls framed. 

Here's another real life quarantine picture of Jane and Nora doing school work in the living room. It takes them a couple of hours to get the required items done each day...they haven't been staying on top of the optional items. Required is Math, Reading and Spelling. 

I'm trying to have healthy snacks around, but it's mostly Scott and I eating them. That's not completely true, my kids will eat the fruit we have out for snacks. 

I also often reward myself around 3pm each day (just for making it through another homeschooling day) with a walk and a La Croix. Lime is my favorite. No sweeteners here, just sparkling water.

Thursday nights, after Jane and Nora go to bed, we've been having a Thursday Throwback movie night. So far we've watched a few Jane Austen movies and Back to the Future. I'm hoping we'll soon watch Hot Shots and Pure Luck. They'll also seen a few other oldies in the past, because we own them like Pollyanna, Sound of Music, Jurassic Park, 3 Amigos, Music Man etc.

She's still driving. I'm feeling a lot more comfortable with her at the wheel, but that doesn't mean that we don't have incidents every once and awhile which reminds me that we still need to be cautious and aware because she is still a very new driver. She should be starting online driver's ed at the beginning of June (in a couple of weeks), and by the end of June or in early July she'll get to do ranges and roads with a teacher.

I signed up for a live event (well, virtual live) with Rachel Hollis and other motivational speakers. It was on a Saturday. It took most of the day and was a good experience. She does regular live events that normally cost much more, so this was a good way to see what she does at a much cheaper cost and without the inconvenience of flying somewhere else and staying overnight. I'm glad to see entrepreneurs getting creative and still figuring out ways to work and get business.