Just a Few Odds and Ends

All is well here. Another week or two has gone by. Lucy continues to love school and is so happy to be back. Emmy loved her in-person week at schoo; her remote-week, while not perfect, was much-improved. Jonas is doing well with his BYU classes - but online learning is definitely not his style. He cruises through the lessons a little too quickly . . . maybe not absorbing all the learning he could. But he's doing well in his classes, likes seminary, and enjoys his probable pot-smoking HS teacher for his one class he takes there. Miles is finishing up a couple of classes (one my fault and the other - english - his fault for not finishing up yet) and then will begin his other BYU classes next week - including College Algebra and College Biology. 

Ben and I are planning on doing my snow-fated/ruined backpacking trip to Red Castle lakes this week! I am so excited! I check the weather every day and, so far, it's looking good . . . I sure hope so. I don't know why this lake has such a pull on me, but it does. It better be worth it! :) Ben has to head up to Utah this Tuesday to take an exam - the Certified First Assist in the OR - on Wednesday. He had the day off on Thursday to travel home, so my mind started scheming . . . Ben was eventually able to get Friday off and as the kids are off on Friday, too. So I will drive up with them very early on Thursday, we'll meet my Dad and Ben near our trailhead, Ben and kids will swap places, thus Ben and I head to our trip and the kids will go and stay with my parents for a couple of days. Sounds awesome, right?!

Miles' fancy chalk-art on our counter. Pretty cool.

Miles' awesome rhino-flute he made in Ceramics. He painted it (although I couldn't tell any difference . . .) and it's now getting fired. When it's all finished, I will record him playing a few notes on it. What an awesome talent he has!

I styled Emmy's hair pretty darn cute one day for gym. :) A rarity. She loved it, as well as everybody else at the gym. I had to do it again for her AND Lucy the next day. They both looked adorable.

So blogger stinks and I can't ever upload videos anymore . . . I'll need to look in to it more and see what's going on. I had a few to share, but it's not uploading . . .

My Backpacking Trip . . . Plan B

 Well Mother Nature can be quite a menace to deal with . . . She has foiled my backpacking trip to Red Castle Lakes twice now. Darn her. 

We had gotten about a half-dozen ladies to go on a backpacking trip early in September. All was looking good until that week a freak-storm came through and dropped almost a foot of snow on our plans. Luckily, we came up with a Plan B and had a great outdoor trip with some great ladies (and a couple of adult children that came along as well).

Most of us left on Wednesday, drove to Lyman, Wyoming, and stayed that night at a motel. On Thursday, plans were changed, but we still headed for the High Uinta Wilderness in Utah - just the area that didn't have snow at the moment. We backpacked in on a somewhat cool and cloudy day about 6 miles and set-up camp. It was so cold that evening - it even snowed on us, but it didn't stick much to the ground - that we were in our tents by 6pm (the breeze made it super cold outside of our tent). We chatted and had a jolly time before calling it a day. Four of us were in one tent - while Sherri and her daughter slept in their tent. Most of us were pretty warm that night - even though I am sure it got in the 30s. I had used some birthday money and bought a new sleeping pad; plus I used one of the boys' super-nice sleeping bag. I had never slept so well camping as I did this trip. Yay!

On Friday, after missing our rock-sign and stick-arrow, Heather and her son finally found us. :) We went on a 5+ loop hike from our camp. It took us to about 5-6 beautiful alpine lakes. It was a sunny and gorgeous day. We were able to stay out of our tent until a whopping 7:30, which was when the sun went down and became freezing again!

Saturday we got up, ate, and then headed back to the trailhead. It was a great trip and super fun because of the awesome gals that came along. Lucky me!

This was taken a few miles in to our hike - we took a little path down to a lake and had dropped our packs. From front to back: Kandace, me, Sarah, Heather, Tayler, and Sherri.

Chilling (almost literally) at our campsite. Unfortunately we were not able to have fires. So sad.

Heather and Sarah near our campsite - pretty, both them and the scenery!

The next pictures were all taken from our loop-hike we did on Friday:

Gorgeous Uintas!

Here we all are getting ready to head out! From left to right: Tayler (Sherri's daughter), Sherri, Kandace, Tanner (Heather's son), Heather O., me, Sarah, and Heather C. Awesome humans. :)

We made it! We ladies at the end of our hike - it never takes us long to get our packs off!

Heather O. and her son Tanner headed back to Logan, where Heather's daughter had her first baby - and Heather's first grandbaby. Crazy! Tayler headed back to BYU-I. Sherri headed to Grand Junction (Sherri moved from Colorado almost a year ago, now living in California. Her parents live in Junction.). The rest of us - myself, Heather C., Sarah, and Kandace drove to my parent's home,  which was just about an hour away. We did all stop in Kamas and get some lunch!

My dad took us gals on a fun drive in his side-by-side - after we had all showered, of course. :) My parents took us out to dinner in Midway and it was super fun and delicious. That evening we all watched one of my now-favorite movies, The Hundred-Foot Journey. (In fact, I loved it so much that when I got home on Sunday, I made my whole family watch it - they loved it, too.) We drove home on Sunday and that was that!

Another Week

 Gosh I'm posting a lot - ever since this pandemic I think I've had a weekly post. And it's not like a lot is going on . . . but oh well. It makes for good documentation if nothing else. 

Lucy had a great week going to school every day. Lucky girl. Emmy had remote classes all week and it was pathetic to say it nicely. It was the first week of the school doing remote so I will give them another week to make it better - or I will say something. :) It was lame - she has to "check-in" for assignments and attendance for each of her classes. So she signs-in and then the teacher talks to the remote kids for maybe 5 minutes (the teachers are in-person every week - lame). Then Emmy works on the assignments - but most of them took like 2-20 minutes. Then she sat around waiting to sign-in for the next class . . . It was annoying and a waste of her days. But I am still grateful to the schools and teachers for doing something, I really am! The boys had their BYU classes and then each had a class to attend on Tuesday and Friday this week and so that was good. They are enjoying seminary!

Okay, let's look at pictures from this past week:

I gathered a whole bunch of tomatoes from Ben's garden (credit given where credit due) and realized I had enough to make a batch of my Grandmother's Chili Sauce. Oh the house smelled amazing and just like Grandma's sauce - and, when I was finally all done, it tasted just like it, too. My kids LOVE it. Yay!

Ben's Indian corn is amazing (not to eat, but to look at)! We'll have to get a really cool and artistic shot of them all - they are beautiful and will make some lovely fall decoration for our table!

Ben's cabbages did pretty decently! A bunch of them have been shredded (16 pounds worth) and are now sitting in brine for a few weeks to make sauerkraut. Fun!

(The video here is not working, so here is the link to it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Zj08ZML2Hv8)

We went to Open Gym on Friday night and the kids had a lot of fun. Jonas had told Emmy on multiple occasions that fly-aways (a dismount from the bar where you release and do a black flip and then land) was so easy to do/try. (Emmy was needing a spot for quite a while - but this week she has gotten them down beautifully on her own.) So we were excited for Jonas to prove it, ha! So . . . his first attempt was actually decent; it was quite shocking. Csilla and I were watching and thought there was no way he could pull it off - but he did so decently. Unfortunately no one got that on video . . . But I did get his second attempt on video - and it was a scary mess! Jonas luckily didn't get hurt and thought it was pretty funny. I thought it was good that he realized it's not as simple nor easy as it looks . . . :)

Emmy plan and organized a Friend day on Saturday. She and two other girls (plus Lucy and Lila), spent a couple hours at each of their houses . . . First was our house and the three older girls made Emmy's signature dessert: Chocolate Lava Cake. Then all the girls went to Holly's house and they played Secret Hitler and other games. Then it was to Reese's house where they played in their pond, etc. It was a fun day and I am glad my girls have sweet, good friends!

Ha, this is all the girls watching Jonas' fly-away video. :)

Eating the fruit of their labor - yum!

Firsts

 

Well we are back at school . . . at least for the time-being! We are hopeful it will be as normal as possible and not-canceled permanently!

Lucy had her first day on Thursday - Emmy's birthday. She found out her teacher the day before, Mr. Stammler. I do not really know any of the 4th-grade teachers (none of them were there when the other 3 were in 4th-grade), but Lucy really wanted him and so was, of course, thrilled to get him. Some of her best-friends are not in her class, so that's a bummer. But she still LOVED school so much. So much! Only the 5th-graders are required to wear masks at school, so Lucy only wears one when she gets her temperature taken prior to entering the building (which is required). Apparently quite a few other kids followed her mask-less-ness when they saw her. Lucy stated that a girl at her table asked her if they had to wear masks. Lucy replied no, which is correct. So, per Lucy, the girl took her's down and quite a few (most per Lucy) of the other students followed . . . For better or for worse. I am definitely on the "for better" camp. :) I don't think her teacher was referring to this incident, but he did message me that afternoon telling me that Lucy did awesome that day and was a natural class leader. Ha. Lucy does wash her hands every hour. They do almost all their work on iPads. But other than that, Lucy loved it and thought it seemed pretty normal.

Jonas had his 9th-grade orientation that Thursday as well. 

As mentioned previously, Jonas will be taking one class at the high school (creative writing this quarter, PE next). But he still attended orientation and actually loved it. I think he's a little bummed now that he won't be at the high school more, but I still think it's good given his absurd schedule. I did tell him he could switch to the high school come next semester (if they have space for him . . . ). So he's not too upset about it. Plus, I reminded him 1. Everyone is home half the time anyways and 2. It won't be fun as orientation day when everyone is together, attending outdoor assemblies, etc. He ate lunch with friends at Subway - which I also have told him he can meet up with friends for lunch. He came home for a bit (while the others were at their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd period classes). He went back for 4th period as that is when creative writing is. He was the only student there that day - because he is the only freshman in that class. Huh, who knew it was for all grade levels!? So Jonas is actually excited that there will be 10th, 11th, and 12th graders in his class. He loved his teacher - a sort of hippy of a guy. :)

Emmy's first day of school (which was really more of an orientation day as well) was on Friday.

What an adorable 7th-grader. She, too, had a really good day. School turned out to not be as strict and restrictive as we thought - kids are changing classes, there is some variety in your classmates in each class, etc. She was happy about school and so glad to be back. This week she is remote - which we aren't really sure what that will look like. Her teachers are teaching every week - so it's like they check-in with the remote kids for 10-minutes, then they are to work on their assignments. We'l see how that goes . . . it sounds actually kind of lame and pathetic. Even some teachers (and the principal whom we spoke with as we dropped off Emmy) were less-than-excited about their remote teaching. But whatever! We'll take what we can get and are so grateful they are trying to do something!

So Miles had his 11th-grade orientation at the high school, so we'll count that as his first day of school. :) He is finishing up some summer courses he had to take, then we'll start next week on his full-load of 11th-grade classes from BYU. He's taking Ceramics and PE at the high school these next two quarters. 

Yay, seminary! Jonas' first year! The boys have the same teacher - the same one who Miles had last year. She's fantastic. They will take Miles' car once a week, but other than that, they will ride their bikes. It's good for their body and mind and uses way less gas. :)

Here's off to a great year, we hope! (We'll even take a good year, ha.)