2014
Sunday, October 25, 2020
School Pictures 2020-21
An Update
Well life continues pretty much as it has been - with work, school, extracurriculars, etc. Ben is getting closer to participating in his monthly "drills" with his Army unit. At least we think . . . He did go up to Fort Carson in Colorado Springs a couple weeks ago and got his Army get-up. It just made me laugh seeing him in it, but it is pretty neat. Lucy had to take a picture of him in his camo and share it with her friends and teacher. :)
Work and life is good for me. I don't love having all the three kids home all day (Emmy is at school every other week, so then it's two kids home all day). It's just hard to work on things, etc. with them all home and around the house. I feel if I work on something, I am distracting to them and their schoolwork. I help Emmy a lot with her assignments and homework.
Miles and Jonas have finished their mountain biking season. Well, the riding part. There is some "gathering" happening next week - although I am not sure that's allowed from Gov. Polis at this point, so we'll have to see . . . Miles has started two college classes: College Algebra and College Biology. He's doing Spanish as well and all seems good with him. He works once a week (10a-4p) at Crash Burger and that's good for him.
The boys have been going climbing at the Rec. about once a week. It's pretty limited and so it's good they can do it once a week. A neighbor/friend/ward member was kind and took our 2 boys, plus their friend Aiden, to a cool outdoor climbing area in Ridgway yesterday. Alex, the gentleman who took our boys, taught them how to lead-climb. My boys were super-excited about it. Jonas is doing okay with his schooling - although online learning is not for him, really. He's set to begin the public high school come next semester in January. He's doing pretty good, though. He drives his car in the church's parking lot and does great with the stick-shift.
We are remodeling their basement room and they are super excited about - especially Jonas. The man we hired, a gentleman named Phil, is really nice and is working fast. I spend the past few days staining and sanding 50 12-feet boards for their room. I hope the idea/plan I have will turn in to a cool room!
The girls are fine. Emmy likes being in-person, but also doesn't totally hate her at-home weeks. Although it is way more boring for her. I do allow one of her best-friends to come over on Wednesdays and they do their school and such together. Emmy babysat for our friends yesterday for almost 6 hours! The mom is out of town with their middle child, Aidrey, so Emmy babysat Milo (5) and Trent (1). I may have had to come over and help Trent go take his nap . . . he was quite screaming. :) It was their dad who took our boys climbing, and so I had offered Emmy to babysit. She loves that family - as we all do, really. The parents are awesome and the kids are adorable.
Lucy continues to be happy (except when she's crying) and loves school. She's doing great at gymnastics and both girls love it a lot. I had our parent-teacher conference this past week and it was all glowing reports for Lucy. :) I choose not to do Emmy's conferences as it was all Zoom and I am way over Zoom. Plus, they are for 5-minute time-slots. As Emmy's home every other week, I feel I actually know what's going on with her and schooling anyways.
Brigham had audible farts yesterday. Ha. The dogs go wild foraging in our garden and it's all fun and games until they have diarrhea, toots, and the such. :) Bella continues to be her spunky self.
Pictures: (Totally out of order)
I didn't take any pictures of our day in the pumpkin patch in Junction. Luckily, others took a few. These are of Miles and Aiden on the pedal carts. Ha.
Oh! Miles' Onewheel! Long story . . . he had been looking for one. We found one . . . sent the specs to Uncle Derek who approved of the Onewheel. Only problem? It was in Utah and my people (i.e., parents) who always pick-up items for us, were away in St. George. The seller wouldn't hold it and had someone coming to look at it on Friday. So, I was able to get my Uncle Randy to check it out and buy it on Thursday. Yay. Then my dad picked it up on the Monday they got back. On Tuesday, my dad and I met in Green River and I got the Onewheel and surprised Miles with it. It was fun. Miles paid for it all and loves it. He rides it all around, to seminary sometimes, etc. So cool.
Jonas and I spray-painted some lockers yellow at first and Jonas sprayed one of our garden flowers. Lovely.
Jonas climbing the Ridgway Dike Wall.
The boys' demolished room.
How one looks going to school during Covid, cool weather, and the month of Halloween.
Emmy likes to do make-up art, specifically wounds. Some are really amazing and totally look real!
A fat Jonas made by Instagram.
The girls love taking pictures of themselves . . .
Emmy's newest hair-color: purple.
Peace selfie.
Coach Kirk had to sell all of his gym stuff because his building was sold (have I mentioned this before?). So we ended up buying these lockers. We painted them yellow at first and I hated it. So we went with white and I like them! They are pretty bulky, but I'm getting used to them. They are handy to hide all the kids' coats, backpacks, etc. So that's nice.
We are doing drywall on the top half (plus a few inches more) and then will be doing wood planking for the bottom section of the boys' room. In multi-colors! I stained the wood brown, white, gray, blue, and green. The stacked pile on the right were all the ones I had sanded at that point. I finished them all Saturday night. Jonas helped with staining about 1/4 of them - he would have done more, but had to go mowing. He was quite helpful when he was around and it went so much faster with the two of us. I was bummed he had to go mow . . . as was he. Ha.
Emmy and Trent at the pumpkin patch.
Miles way up high (scary!) - lead-climbing. I guess Jonas and Aiden were pretty nervous, but Miles just went and did it. Alex didn't trust the boys to belay him, so he didn't climb. Ha.
And our favorite video. I don't know why we all love it. I mean, it's so weird, yet funny for some reason.
Thursday, October 08, 2020
B&E's Backpacking Adventure
After Red Castle Lakes had thwarted me twice on my attempts to backpack there (due to snow both times!), I was more determined than ever to do it. So when Ben had to make a trip to Utah to take a certifying exam for his RNFA, I decided, and then convinced Ben to agree, that we were going to do it together - without kids! Whoa. It was a bit long for my girls and so I just thought it would be a neat adventure for just Ben and I.
Our original plans included taking Jonas and leaving him with my parents, while Ben and I backpacked. We didn't think Jonas could contribute to a "happy home" while we were gone . . . Then we decided to take all the kids with us as they only had a 4-day school week . . . Ben was going to take the train up on Tuesday night and the kids and I were going to meet Ben and my dad on Thursday morning - with Ben coming with me and the kids going with my dad . . . But the train was ridiculously late (arriving in Provo at like 2am) and so our plans started evolving with Ben driving up Wednesday morning, as his test was at noon in Lindon. Then . . . we just decided to leave all the kids home alone and I would ride up with Ben on Wednesday.
It was scary, in some ways, to leave the kids. Yet, I really felt they would be totally okay and the biggest threat was going to be themselves against each other. Which was pretty accurate in the end. They ended up having a pretty good time and overall did well. Jonas disrupted things a bit and wasn't as involved with their activities, but they were all breathing and what-not when we got home and so we were pretty pleased. :)
So back to our trip . . . Ben rocked his exam and is now the first *Certified* RNFA in Montrose. He's cool. I did some thrift-shopping (what else was I to do in Utah County?!) and found some awesome finds for me. :) Then we made our way up to Midway and had a great evening with my parents - including going out for dinner. Yummy and fun!
Ben and I headed out for the trailhead Thursday morning. The weather was looking good - mostly sunny, 60s-70s for the day and upper 30s for the night. The only thing I didn't like about the forecast was the wind: predicted to have windy conditions with gusts up to 35MPH. Which happened. It was especially annoying at nighttime! It was some incredible wind. Luckily, it wasn't too bad hiking in it and so it wasn't too terrible.
We headed out on the trail by around 1:00 on Thursday. We made it to the Red Castle Lake area by around 5:30; but we weren't at the official Red Castle Lake and so we continued up a steep climb and found the lake. It was big and beautiful - but also very open and extremely windy there (with no trees to break the wind . . .). So we trekked back down and found a lovely campsite for the night.
We were snuggled in our tents by 9:00 when other campers came tromping through! They couldn't see us as it was dark. Ben said something like, "Hellllo?" and they replied, "Oh sorry!" Ha. We heard some really, really strange breathing as well - which, as Ben guessed, was llamas. We visited with them (well, not the llamas, but their owners) briefly the next day as we were all hiking out. Ben and I were using our boys' sleeping bags and so we slept so toasty! Too toasty for me - I kept having to take off my socks, my jacket, etc.
Friday was our day to attempt Wilson Peak. Utah doesn't have 14ers like Colorado, but it does have 13ers. Wilson Peak is one and so we thought we'd give it a go. It was some cool hiking - very different from what I usually do and like. But it was cool! A lot of rock scrambling. I got nervous the higher we got because it was getting a little sketchy. I didn't mind climbing up the rocks on all-fours, but I was worried about having to go down. But we kept pushing it . . . until I wouldn't do anymore. We were probably about 1/5 of a mile to the Peak - but we had made the ridge and it was honestly probably at 13,000 feet so I think we did well. :) I didn't want to leave my kids as orphans trying to summit Wilson Peak, ha.
We hiked back down to our campsite and enjoyed a lunch and a lovely rest. Then we decided to hike out a bit so we wouldn't have to do all 10-miles the next day. (We hiked in 10 miles on Thursday. The day-hiking thus far on Friday was about 8 miles.) So we packed up and loaded our backs again and started back down the trail. Well I really messed it up by missing the spot we'd seen on our way up . . . We had spotted an area that looked like an awesome place for our 2nd night. . . Yet when we passed it on Friday I thought we had to keep going a little more . . . Ben thought it was it . . . I did suggest we turn around after 15 minutes of hiking and not seeing the spot . . . But Ben said that we should just keep going. So we kept going . . . and going . . . and going. Ha! There weren't very many great camping sites. I think we probably hiked 7 more miles (so almost 15 total that day) until we found a great spot to settle down. I felt so badly because Ben had all sorts of ideas of a peaceful evening at our campsite. But it all worked out and we finally found a spot, ate dinner (although we didn't even eat our planned dinner as we weren't hungry - just some hot cocoa and a Luna Bar), and then climbed in to our tent.
The darn wind drove me crazy as I kept thinking it was animals near our tent! I didn't sleep well that night, ha. I finally would make myself listen really carefully for any breathing . . . when I didn't hear the breathing I knew it was just the wind. But still, it was annoying and loud and unsettling for me. :)
Saturday morning we got up, ate a little bit, and then headed on our way back to the trailhead. It took us maybe 1 1/2 hours as we had hiked so much the day before. At the trailhead there were at least a couple dozen others getting ready to head out on the hike. Mostly 20-something year-olds. We were practically alone on our trip - which is cool (especially for Ben) and scary (for me). All in all, it was an awesome trip!
At the trailhead all eager and ready to go!
The view from the ridge was impressive.
Just another pretty spot on our way down from the lake to our campsite. I just adored all the happy yellow colors!
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