Update

So here's an update on everyone:

Bella - She's as ornery as ever! And as cute as ever. We are all excited for when she gets old and looks like her "cousin" Bruno:

I mean, how cute is he!? Ha. (This was a prize-winning photo my sis entered in at some work contest, I think.)

Brigham - He turned 5 this past Friday! We didn't do pupcakes or anything awesome like that. :( Boo us. But the kids did buy him a pig's ear and rope-toy, so he was pretty pleased. Plus, he got fish juice on his dinner and so that must have been awesome. Both dogs are still in to the chickens, but a little less so.

He's my awesome biking buddy. And running buddy. He's pretty much the best. 

Lucy - She started going to gym on Mondays and Wednesdays now. She loves the new gym! She was a trooper and agreed to go hiking early on Wednesday so we could be back in time for her 12:30 gym class. She wasn't to worn-out for gym she said and so that was good. She's got a plant-watering job for the next couple of weeks so she'll be able to earn some money like her siblings - though not quite as much. :)

Emmy - She started gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays; she loves it, too! She was super-sore after her first day - she said they had to do a ton of conditioning before each event. But she was super happy. One of her really good friends from school is there and so Emmy was thrilled to see her again.  

Lovely picture, huh?! Ha, the girls had a book club at their friend's house and the friend had an inflatable hot tub. The girls had a blast. Even with mascara (yes, sometimes Emmy wears it) running down her face. :)

The girls made masks (from old socks) for their American Dolls. Ha.

Emmy was super excited to tell me about her back handspring on the beam! Wahoo. She told me she stuck a lot of them after the video was taken. :)

Jonas - He finally got his motor kit for his bicycle. He put it together by himself on Wednesday night. He had to call his friend Jesse a few times. Then Jesse came over the next day and they rode around town together - having to stop now and then to fix something on Jonas' bike. Then it stopped working the next day. Then today Jonas and his friend Aiden somehow fixed it - Jonas doesn't really know how. Ha. So that's the bike saga. Jonas loves it and is super excited about it.

Miles - He worked three shifts this week, from 4p-9p. He really likes his job. He still is assembling the patties, plus learning how to make the fries. Fun for him. He just told me he's working four shifts next week. Plus the boys are mowing lawns. Plus he has classes he is working on - although I haven't seen him to do much of school work . . . He, too, bought a motor kit to put on a bike. He needs to work on the brakes of his car.

Me - I worked Thursday and Friday this week. I enjoy my work and am so happy and grateful I have the job I have. Plus, I love being in an air-conditioned building all day - yay! But, really, I work with great people and doctors and I enjoy the patients. My therapy for the week was getting the kids out with me on a hike - the Ouray Perimeter trail. It was pretty much the ideal hike! I loved it so much and it totally rejuvenated me - until the world crushed it again, ha. But the hike was amazing. We had to leave by 6:30am so that we would be back in time for Lucy's gymnastics. It was actually great getting up and out early. The hike had it all - uphill, downhill, waterfalls, streams, bridges, tunnels, etc. The kids really enjoyed it, too.

Argh, here are the pictures of the hike. I say argh because my new computer just jumbles them all up - instead on putting them in chronological order. And working with blogger is sometimes annoying in fixing it . . . so my pictures will just stay scrambled. Lame.

 Cool bridge and waterfall.

 The hike literally walks you around the Perimeter of Ouray - hence the name, duh. :) It's such a cute town; I wish I could live there or at least own a cabin there!

 Lucy and her cool shades.

 At the end of the hike, we walked on a road full of houses/cabins. Jonas spotted this sign. Ha.

 The Uncompahgre gorge. Beautiful.

 Emmy was a little weary of this bridge . . . Hence her face.

 Another cool bridge - this one was way high over Box Canyon falls. It was impressive! Plus it led to a tunnel - how cool.

 Cascades falls - this was the first waterfall we came to - actually, this was hiking away from it.

 One of Lucy's pictures. :)

 Coming upon Cascade falls. It was quite misty and cool.

 The girls in the tunnell!

 A cool ledge in the beginning of the hike. I am glad I didn't bring the dogs - for many reasons and this is one of them.

 At the end of the hike, walking to the trailhead. Taken by Lucy.

 This was the last waterfall we saw.

 This spot is called Baby Bathtubs. Little pools of water from little waterfalls over the rocks. We've done this section of the hike before.

 Another cool bridge . . .

Almost done with the hike!

Ben - He's busy with work and projects. He is finishing up our pergola/shelter thing in the back of our house. It's looking good, but still has a lot of work to do. Hmmmm, not sure what else to say about him? Work, projects. That's pretty much it. Watering the garden. Eating my dinners. I think that's all. :) Ohhhh, I now remembered something: we got back his bike! Remember my long saga from last week? Well, in an unrelated incident, the boys were riding bikes around town and saw Ben's bike at some house. Miles called police and told them. As this was a well-known house to the police (they have recovered many a stolen item from there), they believed it was our bike and brought it back to us. So cool!

Covid Week 11

Maybe this will be my last official "Covid" week whatever post . . . Now we've just moved on to summer, I guess. Maybe I no longer need weekly updates and will just post when/if we do anything post-worthy. :) Maybe. Because it does give me something to do at least, so we'll see . . .

Sunday Home Church.

On Monday the girls, Ben, and myself rode our bikes to Riverbottom park. There we played some pickle ball. It was really fun and the girls loved it - even though they aren't super good. But neither am I . . . :)

 This was probably the most exciting thing this week: Miles started his first job! At Crash Burger. He assembles the burgers. Awesome. I think he likes it. He talks about the people who work there and seems to enjoy it! Yay.
 

 We hired a friend/ward member to build this roof/shelter off the back of our house. We had an old one that we tore down a while ago and so it's nice to be getting something put back up. We'll put a see-through corrugated plastic over the top to provide shelter. It's looking great.

 So is our garden! Ben's done a great job of being a Farmer so far. :)

Lucy became enamored with tea sets one week. So she found one online that she could buy and ordered it. Then she would check its shipping and tracking status like All. The. Time. It finally arrived this week and she's thrilled with it. I think this was colored water to look like tea. Ha.

 We spent a couple of afternoon at Taviwach (the pond) with the kids and their friends and our paddle boards. The kids all love it. Unfortunately, my camera sucks at zoomed-in photos so I don't really take many pictures there. But I did grab this on! Why you ask!? Well, just as we were leaving the girls came running to me to tell me there was a man riding Ben's bike (which was stolen a few weeks ago from the hospital)! Sure enough, they were right. I snapped a picture and then confronted the man. I asked him where he got it, that it was actually my husband's bike that was stolen one morning when he had gotten called in on a case, etc. Supposedly this man traded in a "really nice" item for it from some guy name Randy. Anyways, to make a long story not so long, but sort-of long . . .

I ended up telling him (after he said this was kind of an awkward situation, he didn't know what to do, etc.) to go talk with the police about this Randy guy and that if he were to get his traded item back, to give the bike back to the police. Don't worry, I wasn't counting on that to happen. I just didn't have any other solution to offer. I mean, maybe he wasn't the guy who stole it and so I wouldn't feel right taking it from him. We had to go as Miles had work, but on my way home I called the police (there is already a police report on the stolen bicycle) and told them the bike was at Taviwach. Unfortunately, the bike and man were gone by the time the police got there. Anyways, Emmy was really excited that she almost got Ben's bike back! Ha. It was kind of a funny story. And, actually, the guy might not have been lying - the footage from the hospital's security cameras, though very fuzzy, show an unshaved, short-hair man taking the bike (so says the officer). No way this guy could have grown his hair that much in that short of time . . . I'm not saying he didn't know it was stolen, but whatever. It's not about the bike. It's about stealing. There is a big bike-theft operation going on here in Montrose! (Ha, what a long story I made this out to be. Surprise, surprise.)

Sometimes Bella's lips get caught and it's hilarious.

 Emmy might fill in for Miles a bit now and then on the mowing business - not much, just a little. This was actually her first time ever mowing! Ben took her and just the two of them mowed and trimmed this small yard. Emmy was super excited about.

My "Unofficial Black Canyon Ascent" race ended this week. So I got the "swag bags" all ready. They each had a shirt (except for the 2 that didn't order one), a medal, a gift-card prize (to Colorado Boy, Crash Burger, Sonic, or Looney Bean. Or Amazing Glaze for the girls. The 1st place winners in a group got a $25 gift card . . . down to $5 gift cards.). Plus, we raffled a few items, too. Fun stuff. :)

The cheap, but fun, medals I made. My sister gave me the link to these plastic medals you can get on Amazon and then design it however. I loved how the back said "CHINA" on it. You know, the whole Covid-thing? Ha.

The shirt. The picture isn't great, but I think they turned out really awesome! "Just For the Run Of It." I ordered them from the same place we ordered my family's reunion shirts back in 2017. They are super comfy, great fit, etc.

Emmy babysit for 5 1/2 hours today (Saturday). Go her! She had a good time. Then Lucy was off to a birthday party - mainly outside, except for when it rained and almost-hailed like crazy! After the storm, Emmy came with me and we drove all over town dropping off the swag bags to all the runners. I had 20 sign up - but 6 were my own family. :) It took us 2 hours to deliver them - but, hey, it was something to do out of the house!

Oh, another thing we did was go mountain biking on Friday. I wanted to do this bigger loop but wasn't sure the girls could do it all. Jonas just wanted to ride down. So I dropped Jonas off with the girls up top. Then Miles and I drove to the bottom, rode up, then rode down. We all met at the truck. Miles, with minimum of a 25-minute delayed start (counting the drive back down and then the bike ride back up) ended up passing his younger siblings. That crazy kid. The girls hated the ride, ha. As I began the descent down Lower Spring Creek, I thought, "Yeah, I think this was probably too much for the girls." And it was! But, ahem, it was nice I wasn't with them and could actually have a good ride without having to hear Lucy cry or Emmy get mad. Truth. I do love riding with them, really, but I don't love having to deal with fits. Jonas was told if he was rude or did/said anything mean to his sisters while riding down with them, that he wouldn't be able to hang-out with his friends all weekend. Apparently it worked.

Alright, May's almost over! Now on to June . . . Much of the same stuff, probably. Oh, except the girls begin gymnastics at their new gym!!

Covid Week 10

Well things are getting real boring around here . . . not sure how I/we am/are supposed to survive another 3 months of school break - or more? I feel like we are at an awkward phase in the quarantine - things are quite closed but I still feel a little restrictive. Like, oh, I want to grab this at the store - but should I? I am trying to be a good girl in some respects, while not in others. Ha. Actually, I do think I am being good in all respects . . . it's just that people's definition of "good" differs, especially during such divisive times.

I had a good couple of days at work. Ben had two days off and so that was nice for him. It's his last week of getting paid for 30 hours (no matter if you work less - if more, you get paid for more), so he and his co-worker decided to use it to their advantage this week. :)

Miles took four finals this week. We have a friend who is the principal at one of our local elementary schools - and he let Miles go there on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to take his finals and that was super helpful! Miles did well and ended up with all A's and A-'s, again. Awesome.

Jonas, after spending a couple of weeks obsessing about buying either a dirt bike (no) or a truck (whatever, but dumb to do so right now . . .), saw a friend's cruiser bike that has a motor on it and decided that will appease him for now. He and his friends (including Miles) are going to form the Crusty Cruiser Crew. Jonas bought a kit and is now waiting to put it on his bike (or, rather, Ben's old cruiser). The boys hung out with friends this week and that was good. They watched some scary movie at their friends - The Invite. Sounds awful.

The girls had a little "private lesson" at their new gym. You can sign up for them - which I don't plan on doing regularly, but wanted to get them in the gym and just have something to look forward to and do. They LOVED it.

We got 2 new paddle boards and they are awesome! We took them out to Taviwach on Friday afternoon and the kids (plus 2 extras) had a blast. The only bummer? A paddle sank! What? Who makes sinking paddles? Weird. I have called customer service and am waiting to hear back . . .

I didn't get many pictures from this week, but here we go:

Emmy's first-try at cake-pops! So delicious! We'll have to figure out how to make them look prettier on the bottoms, but she did them all herself and they turned out pretty great.

We decided Thursday would be our Last of the Last Day of School. Emmy and Jonas' last day in-building was March 11th and Lucy was March 12th. Then they each had a different "last" day in turning in their remote assignments, iPads, etc. But Thursday was Miles' last final and so we declared it our Last Day. So, of course, I made their candy-grams: 

And, of course, they jumped off the porch in celebration. :)

 I didn't get many pictures of our paddle boards - but here is one. Both paddle boards look exactly alike. The girls are out in the middle on one. Fun times then and to come on those, for sure.

COVID week 9

So I don't feel like we are totally in quarantine anymore (because we're not), so I will stop calling it quarantine weeks . . . However, things are still not normal and so I will probably continue my weekly updates and call them COVID.

School finished up for my three youngest this week. Emmy turned in her online assignments and iPad (at her school) on Monday. She did well - getting mostly A's and some "Passes." If you didn't get a 90% or above, then you just got a pass. Online wasn't the easiest to navigate, but she worked hard and did really well. Jonas turned in his online assignments and iPad on Wednesday. He probably had his best quarter ever - getting all A's and A-'s. So that was cool. Lucy turned in her packet and chromebook to her school on Friday. She got her long-awaited desk items: writing work, art projects, folders, etc. Miles will finish up all his finals this coming week. The boys are somewhat "busy" with their lawn care - they've added aerating to their services and have done a decent number of them. It's hard with Miles still doing school, but will get much easier when he's not working on school all day long. Ben helps them about 25% of the time - if it's a new job, etc. But for the most part, the boys are getting independent with it - so cool.

Oh, HUGE news that is bittersweet: the girls are going to a new gymnastics place. It's a long story and I won't go all in to it, but it was the right time to make this transition. I think having time out of the gym and away from Coach Kirk, helped them to take this new path. Lucy was in tears the first day I brought up the idea of trying the new gym. Then she became excited. Then she and Emmy had an "evaluation" at the gym and they both loved it! Both girls got in to the levels they were hoping for - Emmy in "Gold" and Lucy in "Silver." Emmy has a couple really close friends in that gym and so she's super excited. They start up on June 1st. The really crummy thing? Because of COVID, the gym is operating at 10% capacity. Classes are spread out, etc. So Lucy will be going Mondays and Wednesdays and Emmy on Tues/Thursdays. But, whatever, it should be great for them. The gym (Black Canyon Gymnastics) has a big team of girls, they compete during competition season, etc. I am really excited for them. But it was hard telling Coach. We've been with him forever. But sometimes change is hard, but for the best - and that's what we're hoping.

Picture time:
Our Tuesday night activity was chosen by our YW Class President. She wanted to do a fashion show with "themes" chosen by the leaders. So we choose 4 themes:

Prom.

80s.

Tourist.

Nerd.

We gave the themes out a few hours before the activity so the girls could figure out their outfits. Then we met on Zoom and picked a theme, the girls changed in to their outfits, and then modeled them for us all. It was cute and the girls really had fun.

Lucy taking back her stuff to school. Sniff, sniff.

Kids were asked to wear a mask when they returned their iPads (oh, and picked up their yearbooks - fun!) at the school. So Jonas wore his ski mask.

The middle school's band teacher, Mr. Lund, is retiring - after teaching at the school for 33 years. He's strict, but awesome and does a fantastic job of teaching band and jazz band to his students. The school did a drive-by parade for him on Friday night - it was a surprise and turned out pretty great, I think. I came up with the idea of making a mustache for Miles' car (which we drove in for the parade). Mr. Lund has a mustache (that honestly looks a lot like what Jonas and Ben ended up making - I found the amazing fabric on my grocery trip to Walmart) and the kids often wear mustaches on their last performance. Mr. Lund and his wife got a HUGE kick out of it - as well as the other parade-goers. We saw so many pointing and laughing and so that was fun. :)

I am trying to introduce my kids to some of the good ol' classic movies. Friday night: JAWS. My kids literally were scared during it. It was perfect.

I organized an unofficial race - the Black Canyon Ascent. It was canceled, of course, due to COVID. But I got 20 (6 from my own family) to register. We have 2 weeks to do - starting on May 16th and going until May 29th. Lucy helped me mark the start and finish - the start line was already gone by the time we came down from the finish spot. No worries, I had tied a ribbon to a post and it was still there.

Since cars couldn't drive here, the finish decor held for today at least. :)

A little after 7, my family (minus Jonas who will run it with a friend next week) and neighbor, Heather, started out. Heather and I were the only runners - although Emmy decided to try and run the first mile and just run/walk the rest (spoiler alert: she ran the WHOLE thing). I felt great those first couple of miles and took a sizable lead in my group. :) Poor Heather is suffering from a new diagnosis of Chrone's/Inflammatory Bowel Disease and had a few stomach issues during the run. But she did and did it well. Brigham was my running partner and besides barking at the cows, did pretty awesome. In fact, maybe he helped me shave 3 minutes off my time?! The four times I have run it (I walked/ran it last year with Jonas), I was always at 72 minutes and whatever seconds. Today I did it in 69:02. Yeah! I was hoping to PR. :)

 After I finished, I started walking back to cheer on Heather and meet up with my family. I cheered on Heather and then not too long afterwards, I see this cute girl. She told, "I have run the whole thing!" I was so amazed and impressed. This is seriously the hardest race I do - way harder than a 1/2 marathon.

She sure knows how to push herself. By the time she came to running down to the finish line, she said, "I can't do it." She was like literally 20 feet away and finally running downhill - that's how hard this race is. It makes you want to quite when you're that close. :) Her time: 1:24:17. So great!

 We got our chocolate milks from the car and started heading down the road to find the rest of the crew.

  There they are! They did a great job, too. I mean, it was obviously fairly easy (while still challenging) for Ben and Miles, and pretty challenging for Lucy. But she didn't complain and finished strong. What cool people.

Heather, me, and Emmy. Why is everyone so much cuter than me? Sigh. :)

And that's a wrap for our week. We're all pretty tired, but continued with mowing, chores, car-cleaning, etc., today. Emmy gave her first go at Cake Pops. We'll try them out after dinner tonight - YUMMY, I'm betting.

Bye!

Mothers' Day

Mothers' Day was nice - for church, we had a great talk given by President Nelson (then Elder? It was from 1989!) on Woman - of Infinite Worth.

The girls and I spent a couple hours working on our Covid-Parody. I had come up with it one day  - with a line or two help from Ben - and the girls were excited to do it (not the boys - any of them, ha.). So we practiced it, took many videos, then the girls added their extra videos, and I added the lyrics. It was a little scary to put it online b/c my voice is so awful, but it's not like I think it's good . . . The girls were excited to have it online and even Emmy's friends have commented about it to her - so that was fun. Here is the link to it if you haven't listened to it: https://youtu.be/a3xqIAHzQzA

Ben asked the kids Mothers' Day questions and got it on video. I love my kids and their answers! Except Emmy's answer on my like hating my kids or something. Whoops, that's a mom-fail if I make her think that . . . :)

I had decided to let the kids choose and make a part of Mothers' Day dinner. Miles ended up with "side dish," Jonas with "dessert," Emmy with "main course," and Lucy with "bread."

 So we had our pastrami chicken casserole, with french bread and creamed leeks - with oreo cream pie for dessert. It was delicious and all well-made! What a great idea for dinner . . . the kids are already talking about doing it for Fathers' day. :)

2020 Family 5K

Well since life is shut down, there was not GOTR race this year. So, we did our own. Nothing fancy, unless you count post-race skittles. :) Emmy and I ran once a week together, and then Emmy would usually do another shorter run or 2 during the week. Jonas "trained" sporadically for it with Aiden. Miles decided to run it the night before - without ever having run more than 2 miles (and that was back in the 8th grade).

And Miles took 1st. Of course. That's how life usually works, right?! It was great, though, and everyone did awesome. I was proud of Miles, Jonas, and Emmy. Lucy and Ben were our cheerleaders - they rode their bikes and would cheer for us at various points on the route. (We did the same GOTR route they always do.)

 Ready to go . . .

Jonas running over the bridge - maybe about the half-way mark?

 Emmy and I on it. Miles had already passed this point a minute or to before.

 Go, go Miles!

 All done! Awesome! It was a beautiful morning for it. Official times: Miles - 24:52, Jonas - 26:15, Emmy - 26:25, Me - 27:00. (Emmy and I pretty much ran the whole thing together. And I was pushing Emmy - myself, too - because I knew she wanted a better time than our last "training" run. On the way back over the bridge I encouraged her to "push it" and she kicked it up a notch. I was already pushing it and so I stay a bit behind . . . :) )

A Fun Family Five-K.