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.)

Emmy's First Day as a Teen

 Okay, so technically Emmy didn't turn a teenager until about 10:30pm . . . but whatever.

Lucy and Jonas both had their first day of school (I'll post on that later). Miles was off work for a change and spent most of the day working on some classwork. 

So Emmy had the whole day sort of to herself! We walked Lucy to school. Then we took Bella for a walk. Then we made her special ice cream (we were doing that instead of a cake) - cookie dough ice cream. That was pretty fun. Then it was on to making donuts . . . 

Emmy had asked one of her coaches if she could make donuts for all the team girls and was told yes. So make donuts she did - 3 dozen of them! I helped a bit with her first batch. Then we took a break and got some lunch at the bagel shop. Then Emmy worked on the second batch by herself. She was pretty excited about how awesome they were looking. :)

Emmy had gym that evening from 5:20-7:50. The boys are also gone at that time for mountain biking. So when everyone got back we had dinner (Frank 'n beans) and then Emmy finally opened her gifts. She loved them all and was excited about everything, so that was fun. We ate "cake" (leftover donut holes) and her ice cream. Yum. We watched a Middle and then it was time for bed . . . (We had her dinner choice of Broccoli Bowtie Pasta and a movie on Friday night to celebrate more. The movie was Clueless and was a bit raunchy . . . but I think the kids enjoyed it, whoops.)

Making the ice cream . . . 

Working on the donuts . . . 

Looking amazing!

Hummus on bagels with a mango smoothie - delicious.

So cute! Emmy was really excited about them and excited to hand them out at gym!

Emmy enjoying Miles' gift to her: bluetooth headphones. He took the girls to Walmart when school was over and Emmy picked these one out. Awesome.

Emmy's friend has a Caboodle and Emmy thought they were awesome and wanted one too. Done. She loves it and has all her make-up (!), scrunchies, lotions, etc. in there all organized and re-organized daily. :) I am pretty sure my sister and I had Caboodles growing up . . . I had no idea they were still around!

Happy birthday beautiful Teenage Emmy! Happy birthday to you . . . 

Dear Teenage Emmy,

Happy birthday teenager! Although you've been "practicing" being a teenager for years, today you are officially one. :)

It's been quite the year - or at least quite the last five months. You turned 12, life was good and normal and then BAM. Covid came. BOOOOO. You were rocking being a 12-year old: loving middle school, making a lot of new and good friends at school, doing well in all of your classes, staying fit through gymnastics and ski club and running with me, etc. Then it all sort of fell apart and it was so sad (it's actually making me tear up as I write this :( ). You handled it all pretty well, considering it was a major shock to your life.

You were super bummed and super mad about school getting canceled. You had a really good friend-group that you loved hanging out with at school. You missed them most of all. But after the shock wore off a bit, you rocked our little "homeschool" plan - which was extremely basic: math (via Academy), reading (whatever book you chose), some science, and PE. PE was fun - I really miss our bike rides, pickballing on our drive way, seeing you girls jump-rope, running with you, and more. You and Lucy were such great "home students" and loved my little schedule and stuck to it beautifully. Then your middle school decided after 5 weeks to throw together a school plan and so we did that. You did okay with it - but it was such a mess. So what an interesting end to your first year of middle school!

You continue to be quite a little runner - even if your brothers beat you at our races. We ran the GOTR 5K as a family since there was not an official race due to covid of course. We practiced together and I love running with you! The boys still beat us (you beat me as you sprinted at the end - yay), but your time was great! Then I organized a Black Canyon Ascent run for friends and family. I didn't run with you as I thought you would run for a bit and then end up walking with Dad, Miles, and Lucy. But run you did - the entire 6 awful miles. You amazed me! You are a strong and determined young lady.

You continue to love gymnastics and are enjoying your new gym a lot. It was so hard to leave Coach Kirk and Snow Shadow as it was practically a second-home to you, but the change has been good and you truly love it and are learning new and awesome skills all the time. You continue to be such a beautiful gymnast. You and Lucy create these "routines" (more like yoga routines) all the time and they are so fun and creative and athletic. 

You love the Young Women's program at church and excelled in completing the Personal Progress program - which was its last year.  You were self-motivated and worked really hard on each value. I loved watching you mark up your scriptures for "faith," work on an embroidery for "integrity," make donuts for "good works," and more. Your strength and determination are also manifested in your desire to do good and be good.

You are in this almost in-between stage of still loving to play, yet also wanting to be older and hang-out with the boys' friends (which makes Jonas mad; Miles just welcomes you). You and your friends will get together and play these cute and silly games and it's fun to watch. Then the next day you put on make-up and such and I see that you are actually growing and maturing. And it's fun to watch, too. I love the childhood innocence and freedom; yet also love the getting-older experiences, too.

You continue to crush on and love boys - but make sure your dad is always #1 on that list. Which I think he is . . . Continue to strive to be a better human every day and every year and you'll blossom into a lovely woman. I will enjoy watching you do so.

I love you.

love,

mom

Our 5+ months of Summer is Just about Over . . .

 Well I guess this past week was our last week of summer . . . kind of . . . and until the kids get out of school again because of Covid . . . Haha. But not really haha - there will be lots of crying (from the girls) and complaining (from girls and boys). But we are also prepared for a shutdown this time around, so hopefully it won't be quite as painful when/if it happens again.

This past week was pretty busy! We got back from backpacking and celebrated Lucy's birthday on Sunday. On Monday we had a pool party (from 4:30-8:30) with about 50 of us - we all chipped in and reserved the pool. We brought our own meat and then potluck items. The kids had a blast and it was fun chatting with the other moms and adults. (I let Ben stay home as he had a long day from work and I knew he didn't really want to come anyways . . . ) There was gymnastics, babysitting, and putting in sod on Tuesday. On Wednesday we had our big End of Summer youth activity at Taviwach and it was awesome. We had 30 youth show up. I rented 4 paddle boards and we brought pizzas, etc. The kids had a great time! Friday afternoon we headed up to Junction for Old Navy back-to-school shopping. The kids, girls especially, greatly enjoyed it. Miles got a jean-jacket that he is thrilled about. Jonas found nothing in his size and to his liking . . . so he'll try online shopping and see if that's any better. On Saturday Emmy went back to Junction and to the mall, Olive Garden, Starbucks, etc. It was one of her friend's birthday party and Emmy loved it. Anyways, it was a good and busy week to end our summer with.

Yay, grass in our backyard! Soooo exciting. Ben's work didn't have any cases on Tuesday, so Ben took the day off and he and Jonas worked all day - in the awful smokey heat - and got our sod in. It's looks awesome.

Come Follow Me happening in our backyard. . . 

It's harvest time for most of our garden. We canned a bunch of tomato sauce and pizza sauce yesterday. Ben is drying some corn (on our pergola's roof . . . haha) to make into corn meal. Soon we'll have the smell of fermented cabbage in our house, too, perhaps . . . 

School. So here is the plan - as of right now, seeing as things change all the time! Lucy: she will attend 4th grade in-person, full-time. Emmy and Jonas and Miles are on a 1-week in-person and 1-week remote plan for schooling. Too many families opted for in-person learning that the district had to divide the kids in to two groups to house them all together. So Cohort A goes in-person one week while Cohort B is doing remote - and then the next week if flip-flops.

Jonas' high school schedule came out and looked like this:

OH MY! How ridiculous of a schedule is that?! I don't even know why they are still doing study hall when they are only doing four classes. This schedule had one real class for Jonas that quarter. Jonas looked at it and said, "This is so stupid." So long story short, Jonas (who is totally fine and accepting of this plan) is going to be doing BYU classes like Miles. And, like Miles, he will still take one class at the high school. Jonas will be taking creative writing this block and then PE next block. Miles will be in ceramics II this block and PE next block. 

Oh, and seminary is happening every day and in-person. Yay! The boys are super thrilled about this as well. And, unlike the high school, it will be every week in-person. Super cool.

Lucy starts school this Thursday. Jonas has orientation at the high school on Thursday as well and so he'll go to that. Emmy has her orientation day on Friday. Miles on the following Monday. Then it's real wacky for the rest of the week, until we fall in to a routine of every-other-week, etc. for the middle and high schoolers. 

So we'll see how this school year turns out . . . We are excited to give it a go!

Lucy's Backpacking Birthday!

 So Lucy decided that it would be fun to go camping for her birthday - car-camping, specifically. So I found an awesome campsite (Brittany mentioned it once to me and so I wanted to try it - Oh Be Joyful in Crested Butte). Well, Covid ruins a lot of things and it ruined this, too. :( I could get online 2 weeks before the day to register for a campsite. I was on a few minutes before 8am - when registration opened. I tried at 7:57, 7:58, and 7:59 - but it was too early. I tried again at 8:00:01 - and all 7 open campsites were taken in that nanosecond. :( BOOHOO. With nothing open but the great outdoors, everyone is getting out!

So we decided for plan B: to go backpacking. I didn't want to take a chance in a "first-come first-serve" site . . . so I really felt backpacking would be our safest option. Plus, some of our good friends decided to come with us - they have 2 girls Emmy's and Lucy's age and it would be their first time backpacking (the mom's, too!). Ben was on-call Friday night to Saturday morning at 7am (and he got called in and had to work from 11pm - 3am!), so we decided to leave Saturday and come back on Sunday. With still being given the option of doing home-church and sacrament, we thought it would be cool to do church outdoors.

So we met our friends, the Coon family (they have 2 younger kids they left with friends), on Saturday morning and drove to the Highland Mary Lakes trailhead - about 2 hours away. The girls rode with the Coons and had a great time.

We headed out after eating lunch at the trailhead and had a good, yet also hard because backpacking is always hard (!), hike to our campsite. We found a perfectly delightful spot to set-up camp - and the girls (Miles is too old to do it without a license and we didn't have one; Jonas did it once) had a delightful time fishing! The girls each caught 2 fish, and Jonas 1 - so 9 fish total. All beautiful trout. 

We ate dinner, played some games, ate PopTarts, got cold, all went in to the girls' tent for more games, then called it bedtime. The boys slept outside and were warm and cozy all night, even with frost on their sleeping bags in the morning. Ben and I slept miserably, but expectedly, all night - it was cold, etc. Heather and Aaron (the other parents) slept probably similar to us. The girls slept together in a tent ("It's like a sleepover!" My girls were beyond thrilled . . .) and had quite the night. They fell asleep around 10:30. Awoke and chatted at around midnight. Then again around 3am (I heard them this time). Then they were up by 5:45 or so. At 5:55 (close to Lucy's actual birth-time), they had a count-down and then shouted, "Happy Birthday Lucy!" They were so loud, but it was also cute. I think they tried to start a fire, but it was tricky as we were above treeline. :) Then they went back to bed and woke up close to 8am. Haha. They had a horrible, but also fun, night in the tent. They sisters ended up getting into each others' sleeping bags for added warmth. :) Cute.

We got up, packed up, ate breakfast, and then had a sacrament meeting. Heather and I each shared a little thought and we had the sacrament. It was pretty great. Then we hiked out. We made it a loop, which made it a little more challenging as we had a bunch more climbing to do (as opposed to just heading straight back down the trail), but it's always nice to not go back the way you hike in. The kids did great, even though it was exhausting. The worst part was the steep and slippery and downhill switch-backs near the end - I hated it! I much prefer going up steep climbs than descending . . .  We got back to the trailhead and then drove home . . . 

And Lucy was finally able to open her gifts! Yay! She got her much-requested Polly Pocket house and was pleasantly excited that it was so much bigger than she expected. She also got adorable clothes, cash, an art set, a whole bunch of cute unicorn stuff from Emmy, 11#s of candy from the boys, etc. 

We had her dinner request of tilapia, rice, and green beans. Then we watched her movie-choice: Smurfs. We ate homemade avocado ice cream (delicious, my family LOVES it). Plus, later on had some cake. It turned out cute, but wasn't really that yummy . . . Haha. Anyways, it was quite an adventurous birthday!

The backpacking chicks. :)

The backpacking Maxwells.

The cool rocky section!

Fishing time! This was the magic rock - 8 out of the 9 fish were caught while standing on this rock. :)

Pretty and vibrant flowers near our campsite.

Our grassy meadow campsite. 

Good morning and Happy Birthday Lucy! (Lucy had mentioned a day or two before that she was sad not to have crepe paper on her door on her birthday, so . . . )

The boys as snug as bugs.

The Rocky Mountains are impressive.

Cute friends: Lila and Lucy.

10 years ago this little wonder was brought into this world. Lucky world.

Lucy did a fashion show of the clothes she got - adorable.

The boys were going to buy Lucy a pinata (after she saw how fun her cousin's Ollie's was). But there weren't any good ones, I guess. So the boys bought 11 pounds of candy from the Mexican store. Then put it in a box. Then put a picture of Jojo Siwa on it. The kids all "hate" her (she is quite weird and creepy) and thought it would be fun to whack her picture . . . awesome? It was a good gift from brothers, I guess! :)

What do you do when you love Unicorns and Harry Potter? You look it up on Pinterest and find this cake and ask your mom to make it. :) The funny thing is that I had to make it on Friday (because we'd be gone and getting back later on her birthday). When we left, the frosting (marshmallow fondant) was all smooth. By the time we came back, it had slumped - but totally looked like the Sorting Hat! It was perfect!

Happy Birthday Ms. Lucy!