Week 25

{June 20 - 26}

On Monday, Jonah and Micah began their week of private swimming lessons. Their lessons were both at 11:00, and Kanyon's were still at 9:15-10 every morning (Mon-Thurs). So that meant an hour of waiting and finding things to do in between their lessons. On Monday in between lessons we went shopping and got them some new goggles. Jonah and Micah both took Level 5 in preparation for their upcoming scout camp, to help them learn skills necessary to pass the scout swim test. Neither one of them really loves swimming, but after the my kids pass Level 4, and I know they can swim across the deep end alone, then I tell them they can stop taking lessons until they're 12 and are getting ready for scout camp. Jonah's teacher was Jacob Wilkins, and Micah's teacher was a teenage girl (I don't know her). After swim lessons were done, we came home and I worked on my college class assignment for a while. When Josh came home, he was feeling good enough to get some projects done, so we decided it was time to take down the open shed. It was actually an addition on our old single-wide trailer house before we got our new house. We then moved it and have been using it for a 4-wheeler storage spot and shed for the past 6 years. CLICK HERE to read about that transformation! Josh and I worked together emptying the contents out. In the process, we found a live mouse nest and a dead mouse and a dead bird. EWWWW! Josh borrowed his dad's backhoe again, and thought if he pushed in the one side, that the other sides would cave in. We were all curious to see the demolition of this structure! It didn't collapse like we'd anticipated--he ended up having to cave in two of the sides, and the roof as well. Then he dragged/pulled the biggest pieces of debris to the burn pile about 25 yards away. The boys and I made several trips back and forth picking up lots of the smaller pieces. When he finally dragged away the last big piece (the floor), then he worked on scooping some of the smaller sections of debris and taking them to the burn pile. The path between the old shed and the burn pile was starting to look like the dump, so then he moved some dirt around to help make it look better. It was quite the project, and took most of the afternoon/evening, but I was so grateful to have it done! And it freed up space next to the garage for extra parking!

The open shed mostly cleaned out

The open space to the south of the garage now

The huge burn pile, and Josh moving dirt around and leveling the area as a result
of the excess dirt we had left over from the garage excavation project.  

Tuesday began with swim lessons for the 3 boys once again. In between the lessons, Kanyon hit balls on the driving range, Jonah and Micah read Harry Potter books, and I walked around the park. When we got home, we began the big project of rearranging Ammon and Kanyon's bedrooms. I'd had an idea the week before to change them up--Ammon had had the bunk bed combo in his room since we moved in, and I felt like he'd outgrown them, and Kanyon's room had the double bed, and I felt like that would be more ideal to have in Ammon's room. When I asked the boys about it, they were excited for the change. Ammon was definitely ready to graduate from the bunk bed, and Kanyon was excited about the prospect of having more drawers and nooks in his room. The 3 of us worked for several hours, cleaning, moving, and arranging items into new places. The bunkbed takes up most of the space in Kanyon's room (it's a huge piece of furniture and his room is the smallest in the house), but this will also help him keep his room clean. Ammon's room suddenly feels so big and open. Both boys LOVE the results of the transformation of their rooms! We got done earlier than I expected, and I felt like doing a project outside, so Josh helped me load up all the long extra metal pieces left over from the garage, as well as some other garbage items, and I headed to the dump. I always feel like I have more space and room and openness at home after I've been to the dump! It's a gratifying feeling to unload things there!

Kanyon's teacher let them jump off the diving board at the end of each
class time. He LOVED doing special little jumps!

Ammon's room BEFORE

Kanyon's room BEFORE

Kanyon's room AFTER

Another view of Kanyon's room AFTER

Ammon's room AFTER

Another view of Ammon's room AFTER

On Wednesday, we were all beginning to get tired of going to swimming lessons every morning! I've put Kanyon in private lessons the last two years just because it worked better for my schedule to have four half-hour lessons rather than eight 45-minute lessons. It felt like it was lasting forever since we did the regular two-week lessons this time, and the extra time in town every day waiting for the twins' lessons this week felt like a waste of time. All three boys brought books to read on this day and did so as I walked around the park loop again. After we got home, I worked on my college class assignment for several hours, and submitted the project for my Applications in Visual and Performing Arts class. Yay! That completed my last project for my last class of this 18-credit semester. What a good feeling! It was so nice to have Josh feeling better; I'm so glad the antibiotics worked! He once again came home and felt like doing a project, so he brought more gravel to the garage, and worked on leveling the floor inside it again (he'd leveled it before the garage was built but all their digging made it uneven again), as well as distributing the gravel around the outside and leveling it up to the bottom of the metal siding of the buidling. When we'd moved everything out of the open storage shed on Monday, the twins got the old 50 4-wheeler running, and the boys thought it was great fun to run around on it every night since. Kanyon instantly became interested in riding it, and even began starting it himself. It's been so fun to see him riding it around! He loves to do little tricks on it, and since it's so small, he goes around lots of places that the other motorcycles and big 4-wheelers can't: the walk bridges, the back yard, the carport, etc.

doing gravel work outside the garage

look how nice and level it is inside the garage once again!

Kanyon riding the 50 with no hands!

Riding with feet up!

Thursday was the LAST day of swim lessons! Yay!!! The boys worked on passing off skills, and all 3 boys PASSED their class requirements!! Double yay! The twins weren't sure they would: they have a lot of extra swim strokes in Level 5, and it's quite hard, and they have to tread water for 5 minutes, which is a LONG time, but they both improved and did well! Kanyon passed Level 4 with flying colors! He had a great class: only 3 boys, and his teacher Rachel was awesome! He especially aced all the diving requirements: sit down, stand up, off the side, off the diving board, it didn't matter. He amazed me (because I HATE diving, and the other boys don't like it either)! He just loved it! The construction crew was supposed to come on Thursday and finish up the garage by adding the last piece of metal siding in the back. Since I would be gone to swimming lessons for a couple hours, I left a clipboard outside the garage with the building permit paper for the inspector to sign (if he came while I was gone) and the last payment for the construction company (it was due upon completion of the project). When I got home, the clipboard was empty and there was a message on the phone saying that they needed one more piece of material to place above the window--they'd thought they'd already done it, but hadn't. He said they had to order it again, and it would be over a week before it arrived. I was sick that I'd already taken stuff to the dump, because there were several pieces that he could've used, but they were now gone. I called the crew manager and left a message, and then called again a few hours later and left another message. I was feeling desperate--I didn't want to wait another 10 days to get the project completed and signed off. Finally, he called me back and I told him I didn't even care if the extra piece was a different color, because it's on the back side of the garage and nobody sees it, but I was NOT going to wait another 10 days to get this project done that was supposedly only supposed to take 3 days to complete to begin with!! He looked around at their warehouse and said he found a piece that matched, and he would make a special run down to Salmon (they are located north of Hamilton in Montana) to finish it the following day. Furthermore, I requested that he bring the building permit back (he didn't know why his workers even took it), and I asked that he please not cash the check until the job was done (I was SO mad that the guys took the money without finishing the job!). I was so frustrated!! Jonah and Kanyon had soccer that night, and I was so happy for the social time with our friends to discuss my frustrations! I went to Water Zumba at 6:15. Josh joined us at the field, and he watched Jonah's game (I only watched the first half before I left), and he took the boys home after they were done. This was the first Water Zumba class I'd ever gone to; it was taught by Lexi Keller. It was fun! It's not as strenuous as Zumba (which I don't like), and also not as hard as Extreme Water Aerobics (which is what I've participated in the last 3 summers). There was about 15 ladies there, and the music and atmosphere were really upbeat! I can't wait to go again! When I got home, my hands were full of clothes/purse/towel and on my way out of the suburban, my hand (or purse or other possessions I was holding) accidentally pressed the "lock" button the inside of the door. I heard the car honk, but didn't really think anything of it. I shut the door and came inside. After changing my clothes inside, I realized I'd left something in the suburban so I went out to get it, and then discovered that the honking noise I'd heard was the alarm saying that my car was being locked. My keys were inside! The ONLY set of keys to the suburban. I now understood how Ammon had locked us out of the car in Rexburg back in January--his hands were also full, and on the way out, his items, or the weight of his arm had accidentally done it as well.  It was just another terrible part of the no good, very bad day! I told Josh I would take care of it (he was irritated that I'd locked them in, and rightly so). I was not about to call a locksmith late at night on this terrible, no good, very bad day. However, the ONE positive part to my day was getting the notification that the project I'd submitted the day before for my college class passed! I was so glad! So happy to be done with the amount of classes I had in this stressful semester!

Kanyon and his teacher Rachel

Kanyon doing the back stroke

Kanyon doing the front stroke (or front crawl? Idk)

Kanyon has excellent diving formation!

Another perfect dive off the diving board!

Jonah on the left, Micah on the right. 

Their lessons were both in the deep end, so they swam near each other a lot

Passing each other as they swam pool lengths in their required strokes

Micah doing the back stroke

Jonah doing the back stroke

Jonah on the left, Micah on the right

The construction manager came up on Friday morning and finished the job. What a relief it was to have it finally finished! I called the towing company mid-morning, and Bill Ricks came out and unlocked the suburban. And he charged me $65 for the job. GULP. That definitely wasn't included in my budget for the month! I went to town and made TWO more sets of the suburban keys so that this would never happen again!!!  We were hoping to pour concrete flooring Friday and Saturday, but our schedule changed due to Judson's funeral on Saturday, so we delayed that project. Josh and I both felt like working on more garage projects, though, since our mindset was still focused on it, so after he was done with work, he rented a compactor and got to work compacting the leveled gravel floor. I wanted to have a short retaining wall at the end of the carport because there's a slope and I wanted to retain as much dedicated space as possible without having all the dirt and rocks caving into it. In the old cellar that's next to our driveway, some of the cut stones have fallen from the walls that are slowly caving in, and I wanted to use those stones to build the retaining wall. But before we could get them out, I needed to clear out the brush/trees/weeds that were blocking the entrance and had overgrown in the middle of the cellar. The old door was rotted, and it took some effort to remove it and clear it out. It wasn't even opening and was blocking the way to access everything. Once I finally got it out, and taken to the burn pile, then I started cutting branches and vines and stinging nettle. It was so hot, so I only worked on it for a while; I got about halfway through the cellar. That afternoon, Kathy came up with a basket that had been set in her car with instructions to give to me. I was so surprised!! The story is...a few months ago at a Relief Society Activity, we all wrote our names on pieces of paper. At the end of the activity, they asked us to do a secret service for one of the sisters in the ward, and they had us each pull out one of the names from the basket. I avoid any kind of "secret sister" activity, because when I was in Young Women's, two out of the three stake YW camps I went to, I never received a single secret sister gift. We were all assigned one, and I made and gave special and thoughtful gifts to the girls who's names I had, and I hated that I never got anything from anyone in return. I would check those stupid ward mailboxes set up at camp over and over each day, and there was always gifts for other girls in my ward, just not me. I remember crying and feeling so sad, so unloved, so alone. It left a bitter taste in my heart for secret sister activities. I mentioned this at that Relief Society activity, and somebody remembered and brought me this basket (our Stake YW camp was this week), and I couldn't believe they would think of me and do something so nice for me. It totally made my day!! And to top it off, Josh surprised me with a new bench to put in front of the garage! I'd been looking at different options (the garage provides shade in the evening, but we have no seating on that side of the house), but I hadn't gotten anything yet because I wanted something red for the space, and he found one at ShopKo that was perfect! I was just tickled when I saw it! Josh needed to take the compactor back to the rental place before 5 that evening, so we decided to go to Couple's Golf again after that, since we were already in town. It was a fun date!

We left early on Saturday morning to head to Blackfoot for cousin Judson's funeral. It was so sad, funny, and spiritual! I loved how each of his siblings and their spouses spoke at it. It was truly a special day and the spirit was so strong. We will miss Juddy Buddy. He was a charismatic, loving, outgoing, strong boy.

Some of his lego creations, and lego candy

Kanyon loved the hard lego candy

Some of his drawings--they made me smile!

He'd gotten a puppy recently, and had drawn a picture of the dog as a thank
you to the owners. It's hard to tell from this pic, but they had that drawing
screened onto the top of his casket. It was so neat and personalized!

Josh and Ryan

The boys and Mikey

Aunt Linette gave Ayla a rose from the arrangement on
Judson's casket. Ayla just loved all the flowers!

The Franson family. We just love them! Judson's favorite color was orange,
so the grandsons all wore orange shirt. Judson named his dog Rusty,

On Sunday morning, our family did the Sacrament service at the Care Center. I always love going there! There were only 2 women in attendance, and I knew both of them: Myrtle Edwards and Katherine Stokes. We all had a part in the program: Josh conducted and played the piano, Ammon blessed the Sacrament, Jonah and Micah passed the sacrament and gave prayers, Kanyon read a scripture, and I conducted the music and gave the talk on spiritual and physical pain. It was a lovely little service. That evening, the Roylance family came over for dinner. Kanyon invited them because he really likes their son Heber. We ate barbecue chicken, and had root beer floats for dessert. It was beautiful weather, so we went outside after dinner, and the adults talked as the kids ran around playing some kind of tag game. Unfortunately, and also hilariously, both Ammon and Travis tripped over hammocks during the game. They each did it to a different hammock, and within about 10 minutes of each other. They both thought they could jump over it like a hurdle, and in both instances, they couldn't, and the hammock took them out. I've never seen that happen in our backyard, and it was so funny and shocking that it happened twice in one night!!! We had such a good time with them, and thankfully our cherry tree was full of ripening cherries, because Jason just loved eating them (glad somebody does)! That made him plumb happy! It was perfect weather later that evening to start our huge burn pile. It wasn't too windy, and the timing was right since there was water in the ditch and the neighboring hay fields had just been cut and watered, too. It got exciting for a bit when the tree that was close to it started on fire, but it didn't last, and all was well. We sat outside for the longest time watching it burn, and wetting the surrounding area. It almost felt like we were camping, which sadly we haven't done any of this month. It was relaxing and a nice way to end the day/week together.

Ammon and Travis sharing survivor stories after Travis had just fallen!

Eating root beer floats before they had to leave