A Happy Swirl of Chaos

I've mentioned here on the blog a few times recently, that life has been in a bit of chaos mode the last few months.   It's not that anything is wrong, it's just that we are long on things to do on our calendar and short on routine and spare time.  As part of that happy swirl of chaos,  in the last month we've had the following houseguests stay with us:  

💗Cami and her family 

💗My cousin, Aaron,  and 2 of his kiddos

💗Cami's sister-in-law, Marissa, and her 2 kiddos

💗My sister-in-law, Mika, and my niece, McKenzie, who was just heading into the Provo MTC

💗Adam, who is in between 2 apartment contracts (#byuhomelessweek)


Honestly, we love hosting people and being able to host is one of my favorite parts about living in Utah.   In addition to the bonus it is to live in a crossroads area, where so many people come and go, we also enjoy having a house with enough beds that we can even host more than one group of people at once, which happened a couple times this summer.  

I didn't take any pics of Aaron or Marissa while they were here, but below you will find pictures galore that show a glimpse of the fun we've had over the last few weeks!  

🐔  One of Lucie's dreams before arriving to Utah was to hold one of our chickens.   We aren't quite sure how that particular activity made it onto her bucket list, but she talked about it incessantly after arriving and we decided that was a dream that was easy to help come true, so we brought her out to the chicken coop bright and early the morning after they arrived.   When it came down to it, she was a little too nervous about actually holding one, but I think sitting close to a chicken and being able to touch it more than satisfied her chicken holding dreams.    Finding the eggs in the nesting box sealed the deal and she was happy as a clam about it all!   

🐴  Lucie's other big Utah dream was to ride a pony.  I had taken her to the farm at Thanksgiving Point a year or two ago, and apparently it was a core memory for her, because she still remembers many of the details of it.   She happily got on the pony and was feeling pretty confident about the whole experience, but about 30 seconds into the ride, we had a little hiccup when one of the ponies got spooked and they all stopped suddenly...  

🐴They took everyone off the ponies and let them chill for a bit without any riders, then allowed them everyone back on again...only this time she was very nervous.   We eventually convinced her to get back on (a different pony) and with her Mom at her side, she was able to overcome her fear and try again.  

🏡We also enjoyed frequent visits from Adam, Emma, Heather, and Rosy-Nanna while Cam was here.   I loved loved loved having the sights and sounds of having a houseful again!   

😣I am so kicking myself that Glen and I didn't hop into these photos my sister, Heather, took while she was visiting one day.   We are still missing Ellie on her mission and Garrett, who hadn't arrived yet, but it was an almost full crew otherwise.  I think it had a good chance of becoming our Christmas card photo this year, but now we will have to see.   I'm thinking a collage...

🍛The night after my cousin, Aaron, and his two boys stayed here, we hosted a YSA dinner at our home.  We loved having the extra sets of hands, with Cam here, to help with the cleaning and prep.    Glen smoked a brisket and we served brisket tacos, roasted corn salad, watermelon, and lemon strawberry shortcake.  The food was VERY well-received and we loved having the YSAs in our home for an evening! 

👶Oliver is at a delightful stage of life (around 18-months-old) and I very much enjoyed watching him learn and grow right before our eyes. He's only been walking for a month or two, but he's quite the adventurer now and I loved hearing him try to say new words.  He was obsessed with our toy cars and he ended up adopting one of the few teddy bears we still had left in the house, after hew grew pretty attached to it during his time here.  He is a sweetie pie!   

👸I also really enjoyed my interactions with Little Miss Sassy Lucie!   She'll be four in a couple months and she is a girl who knows what she wants in life...which is made-up stories, dress-up clothes, all the good food, and no naps!   When she's slept well, she's fun, talkative, and silly.  When she's fighting bedtime or skipping her naps, she can be quite the grump, but she's still pretty darn sweet even when she's grumpy! 

👪Some adventures we went on together included, early morning walks to my Dad's grave and the neighborhood farm where we saw peacocks, camels, horses, cows, etc , Thanksgiving Point to see the butterflies and ride the ponies, meals out on the deck, holding the chickens, a visit to our YSA ward... 

🚗And a  visit to Midway to hang out with Cami's sisters-in-law and Lucie and Oliver's cousins.  We visited the Ballerina Farm Store, where we got some good food.  Then we mostly just window shopped at several cute boutiques.     Marissa, Annie Grace, and Jack stayed with us one of those nights too.  

🌄Cami and Adam hiked Kyhv Peak together.  Spence started out with them, but ended up turning back before they reached the top.  I think they both really enjoyed the sunset hike together.  

😐After a few days, Cami and her family took off for a B family reunion at Sundance.  It was sad knowing they were so close, yet mostly out of reach, but we tried to embrace sharing them like the mature adults we are (most of the time).  We did join them for a dinner one night in the canyon, which was fun, because we love Garrett's family and it was fun to be able to spend a little bonus time with them!   (a couple of these photos are from the evening in the canyon, but, sadly, I did not take many).  

💕Then Mika and McKenzie came to stay with us for a few days!   McKenzie had just finished Home MTC and was heading to Provo MTC before her mission to Gilbert, AZ.  It was delightful to have a missionary in our home again for a bit and I very much enjoyed the time to catch up with my sister-in-law, Mika!   We miss living close to them!   Sadly, they just missed seeing Cami and kids, as McKenzie's drop-off time was at the exact time Cami had a couple hours back here at home before we  drove them to the airport.   

👴👵As per usual, we loved the opportunity to be Gigi and Papa in real life.   It's fun to send postcards and do Facetimes with them  when they are far away, but there's nothing quite like the snuggles, giggles, and  general silliness that come with spending time together in the same house

💗💗💗

Wrapping Up Summer

 Ahhhhh, summertime!  After the long, cold winter we had,  my body and brain have been drinking in these warm, lazy summer days like a parched traveler in Death Valley. I am not exaggerating at all that summertime was exactly what the doctor ordered for me, you know along with the "apple a day" mantra.  I'll be honest, though,  it's right about this point in the summer that I really start to miss the routine and schedule of a school year, but since I know my time with Ellie at home is fleeting,  I'm trying not to wish away these days too much. 

This summer has included a trip to DC to see our tribe, Trek with Ellie, trips to Alabama to get as much Cami/Garrett/Lucie time in as possible, some gardening, Glen starting a new job, our trip to Thailand, a Thailand reunion at our house, and lots of long walks.      All in all, a great summer! 

The days have definitely started to feel a little shorter lately  though and I am feeling the approach of fall/winter sneaking up on us more quickly than I'd like to acknowledge.  Ellie starts at BYU-Idaho in a couple weeks and my days as an empty-nester will begin in earnest.   Don't ask me how I feel about that, because my swirl of emotions would take hours to describe!

In the meantime, I'm trying to drink in these days as much as possible.  Here are a few things we've done since getting home from Thailand....

We walked on over to the Alpine Days Parade for Ellie to get some free Built Bars.   And we got some other goodies too!  Man, if your kids or grandkids ever need a candy fix, come to this parade.   We picked up only some of what the kids around us left on the ground and still went home with armfuls to mostly save for next time nieces and nephews come to town! 

We also recently headed down to Saint George to get our teeth cleaned (since Glen is now working for a dentist) and to check out his new digs....

We took a beautiful walk in the 95* evening weather....

And stopped for a little ice cream afterward, which apparently had gluten in it, because my body was a hot mess for 3 days after eating it. 

Denali took a little time to warm up to the Saint George place, but got comfortable pretty quickly...

We saw "Beautiful" at Tuacahn Theater!   It was filled with fun music and, in my opinion, was Broadway quality, so  I highly recommend it if you ever get the chance to see it.

We enjoyed a gorgeous Southern Utah sunset...

Had a great conversation with our missionary (in 2 parts)...

And I got home and sent my first postcards of the summer (besides the postcards I sent from Thailand).  Don't laugh, but sending postcards is relaxing to me and it made me very happy to do something that felt "normal" after a wonderful summer of being out of routine. 

Now it's time to get back to help Ellie get ready for college life...

Wish me luck!  😑

 

The Garden of Neglect

Gardening is something I've always had a desire to do, but, for  multitudinous reasons, we were never very successful at it in Virginia. I'll blame it in equal parts on our hilly, shady backyard, the deer that frequented our front yard, and the five kids that kept me hopping.  In any case, we were very excited when we bought our house here in Utah, to discover that we would have a bunch of raised garden beds in our flat, sunny backyard, without us having to do anything to create them! 

Last year we were too absorbed by moving in and did nothing to maintain our gardens.  Much to our delight, though, we still got to  enjoy a few perennial items that just come back every year without expending effort.  We had plums, raspberries, eggs, and grapes.  

 Raspberries happen to be my favorite fruit in the universe and we were quite happy with our no-work garden yield, but definitely still daydreamed of bigger/better harvests in years to come.    

This year could have been the year, but things got a little derailed when our summer unexpectedly turned  out very differently than what we expected.    It wasn't until late-June/early-July {literally right before my Dad passed} before we finally planted anything.  As you might imagine, maintenance was minimal.  

Fast forward a few months of  zero weeding and the occasional watering, we're amazingly enough getting a harvest!   Apparently we planted the robust version of everything but the cucumbers and zucchini, which both withered and died shortly after planting.  Almost everything else is producing like crazy.  

This was our yield in just one day last week.    And we have lots more to come.   

We've made homemade tomato soup,

roasted veggie pasta sauce,

 fresh salsa, panzanella salad,

and Spence recently made us some delicious jalapeno poppers.   

That in addition to getting to put fresh tomatoes on everything and me eating the freshest tastiest raspberries around.

Was it as grand of a harvest as it could have been?  
Probably not. 
 
Will it be any better in future years?  
If I'm being honest, probably not. 

Have we thoroughly enjoyed fresh, organic produce right from our backyard! 
100%!

We are definitely calling the garden of 2022 a success and hope that future years will be as fruitful!    

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Adam's Summer as an FSY Counselor

 JUNE - JULY 2022

When Adam told me that he wanted to be an FSY counselor this past summer, I was pretty skeptical for three big reasons. 

 #1--it would delay his availability for his mission,
 #2--it would mean that he'd spend the summer away from home in the weeks leading up to his mission
#3--the mandatory training session was scheduled for the week we were in Hawaii, meaning he'd have to miss all but a day or so of our family vacation.  

I thought that all of these reservations on my part (especially my stress about him mostly missing our trip to Hawaii--our first trip all together in years) might cause him to reconsider, but he felt strongly enough about it that I realized quickly that I needed to stop trying to dissuade him. I tried to embrace the idea of him only being in Hawaii with us for a day and a half, and then him being away from home for most of the summer.   I didn't like it, but who am I to argue when my son has a spiritual impression to do something good like this?   

 Instead I started encouraging him to petition the planners to create an alternate training week.  The planners left us hanging for a long time, but eventually they did add a second week of training.  This meant that instead of only being able to come for a day and a half, that he would be with us all week and just miss a day and a half.   It still wasn't my ideal, but it was a much better outcome than the original plan!  

 Here are a few facts from his time as a counselor: 

1.  He spent six weeks as a FSY counselor
2. The first two weeks were held at California State University at Fresno--the second week got decimated when a bunch of the counselors (including Adam's "Co") tested positive for COVID.  He ended up having to take a double group of kids and had ZERO breaks.  
3. The third week was at BYU in Provo
4.   He had a week in the middle off and spent it at home.  He slept A LOT that week! 
5.  He spent his last three weeks at Snow College in Ephraim.
6.  He preferred weeks when his kids were a little on the older side.
7.  Even when he had a "Co" and regular breaks, it was exhausting work.
8.  It was the best kind of mission prep he could have ever asked for--he learned how to work with his "Co" each week and they taught gospel principles all week long
9.  He was a very young counselor--the only pre-mission male counselor he knew of.  Some of his kids were leaving on their missions before he was.  
10.  He came home at the end of the six weeks totally exhausted, but beaming.  It was clearly a wonderful experience for him and I'm grateful that he followed the prompting to go forward with it.  

Adam is now on his mission and is not here to tell me about any of his pictures, so here is a completely random assortment of photos taken from the FSY photo album in our iPhotos.   When I say, they're random, I mean that I have no idea which locations these were taken at, nor which weeks they were.   Hopefully they'll be a fun memory for him to look back on someday though, which is why I'm blogging about it.   😃

I believe these were two of his "Cos"