Week 18

{May 2 - 8}

On Monday night for Family Home Evening, we had family testimony meeting. We ate leftover cookies from the Hobbs' and Martha Nyborg that had been brought the previous day. :)

On Tuesday, I woke up early to cut up fruits and make creamy dip as a treat for the teachers in our school for Teacher Appreciation week. If you know me, than you know I am most definitely NOT a morning person! Getting out of bed early was a special gift of love in itself! The fruit was yummy, though, and the teachers were so appreciative!

Ammon had a golf tournament at Rire on Tuesday, and Josh drove the bus for it. They left in the morning. Ammon played really well: he shot an 84 and got 2nd place overall!

Kanyon had a music concert on Tuesday night at the elementary school. This is the first one I've been to since my music teaching job was taken away from me 2 years ago. It was painful to watch. Kanyon's class sang one song by themselves ("You've Got a Friend in Me")--and they were given sheets of papers with the lyrics AND the vocals were played on the accompaniment track. It was a ridiculously easy song--in fact, when I taught music in the past, I had the 3rd grade students sing the same song one year (in my Disney program) and they learned it in a SINGLE DAY! They are capable of SO.Much.MORE!!!

Then the other two 3rd grade classes performed one song each, then all 3 classes joined together in singing one song. Which was a cappella!!! It was awful! It's the same song that plays every morning at 5am on the Salmon radio station "The River of No Return". If it plays every morning--why not record it so they can have some sort of accompaniment. She had to stop them after a few measures and restart them because they were off cue--but never gave them any opportunity to start on cue!

Then the 3rd graders sat down and the 4th graders stood up, and they did the same routine. At the very end, all the 3rd graders and 4th graders joined together in singing one song. I don't have any good photos of Kanyon, though, because all the 3rd graders were just standing on the floor and it was impossible to get a good glimpse of him behind all the other students. I don't understand why they couldn't perform on the stage so that we could've had a better view of them! I don't understand why the teacher didn't even tape up the basketball hoop or decorate at the very least! The whole program was terrible. I miss my music teaching job {that's the understatement of the year}.

On Wednesday, Jonah and Micah had a field trip to the Museum of Idaho in Idaho Falls. They drove down for 3 hours, visited the museum for 2 hours, and rode the bus for 3 hours back home in order to get back to the school when it got out. They said they had a fun time. They were placed into different groups to tour the museum and find the answers to a questionnaire. I got a massive headache halfway through the day, and it turned into a migraine. I was basically immobilized all night because of it. It sucked.

Kanyon had his 3rd grade field trip on Thursday. They went to the Yankee Fork in Challis. I've never been on this field trip before, and really wanted to go. Thankfully, I found a substitute for the day, and I drove my own car behind the bus. All 3 classes went, and when we arrived, students from Challis and Mackay were there, too. They had four stations for the kids to rotate among, so they split up our 3 classes into 2 [very large] groups. Mr. Lund and I were in charge of a group of 28 kids! The theme of the field trip was a celebration of archaeology, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the National Preservation of Historic Places Act.

I've never seen this mascot of the Forest Service before!
I'm only familiar with Smokey the Bear

In Kanyon's group's first station, they were each given a ball of clay, and shown a map of the old historic townsite of Bayhorse. They were to make something that could potentially be found by archaeologists under/around any of the buildings there.

Kanyon made a hammer that could be found by the blacksmith's shop.
He painted it, too--I know it's not the best color choice for this shape, though.

The second stop for their group was to learn about how Indians used every part of the buffalo. I failed to take a photo of that, though. Then the kids had a lunch break. After lunch, our group walked down the trail to the Buffalo Jump--a cliff believed to have been the site where Indians cornered the buffalo to catch them. It was hot and the kids were struggling to listen at this point--they need more interactive things to keep their mind and body focused.

The last stop was learning about hieroglyphics. This was more on their level, and the instructor was fabulous! He was energetic, knowledgeable, and spoke on the kids' level of understanding. Then he gave all the kids a piece of dried clay and a nail and had them tell a story by carving a picture into it. Unfortunately, we were the last group to go to this station, and all the good clay chips were almost all gone. So several of our kids received clay that wasn't completely dried yet, and it didn't scratch up so well. Kanyon had one of them, and it frustrated him terribly.

a dried chip I found that was left from the previous group

The kids got to run around outside for a bit and let out some energy before they loaded the bus to head back to Salmon. I was glad I'd had the chance to go with Kanyon (there were only 3 parent chaperones that went); this might be the last time I go on a field trip with him during his elementary years.

Micah's district track meet was on Friday at Ririe. The meet started at 1:00, but they were doing the field events first, and the track events wouldn't start until 3:00. Josh and I left about 9 that morning to go do some errands in Idaho Falls before we went to the meet. We had just sat down to lunch, and had one shopping spot left to go when we got a phone call from Micah's coach saying they were starting the running events at 1;00 because it was such bad weather, and they didn't want to elongate the meet. So Josh and I rushed to Ririe after lunch, and got there at 1:30. There had been a rain delay right after she called (but we didn't know that), and running events were just barely starting as we arrived. None of Micah's events are at the beginning of the race, so we regretted that we didn't go shopping at our last spot WalMart before heading to Ririe. The weather was cold and rainy, and the meet was SO disorganized and slow! It took them forever to time each of the sprint races. Josh and i sat on the bleachers for hours. Micah's first race, the 800 meter run, didn't even happen until about 3:30. We would've had plenty of time to finish our shopping beforehand! He ran the 800 in 2:58. He's been pretty consistent all season: 2:55, 2:54, and 2:58.

Josh and I sat in the car to warm up in between races. After 5:00, he ran his next race, the mile. He had a good race--but it's always harder for him to run the mile last rather than before the 800 race. He passed several runners throughout the race and battled out with a West Jefferson runner at the end and beat him. His time was 6:38, his second fastest time of the season (he also ran it in 6:55, 6:29, and 6:44). 

starting line just after the gun went off

1st lap around

2nd lap around

3rd lap--he had the same pace as the West J runner

3rd lap--from Josh's view

4th and final lap--sprinting hard to the finish

Josh's view of the approach--he passed the other runner!

He was disappointed with himself, but I was super proud! I enjoy watching him run and I appreciate that he gives it all he's got. He gets discouraged because he's always towards the back of the pack during the races. I had the talk with him all year about him being younger than the other runners; I kept telling him that he will grow and mature a lot in a year or two and will be at the front of the pack soon enough.  After the races, we went back to Idaho Falls to finish shopping at Wal-Mart, then I dropped Josh off at the Peterbilt company to pick up a bus that they'd had in their shop. He drove it home, and I drove Micah home. I convinced Micah to go to a Chinese restaurant with me for dinner--he's a little unsure about going out to new places he's never tried before. He very carefully looked over the menu and asked lots of questions, and finally ordered the pork potstickers and pork dumplings. When we got our fortune cookies at the end of the meal, he opened up his and immediately smiled. I said "did it tell you that you will be a fast runner very soon?" and he replied "sort of". I loved that he got this fortune:

He mostly slept on the drive home. I tried catching up to Josh in the bus (since we stopped to eat, I knew we'd be considerably behind him), but I never succeeded. He got to Salmon about 20 minutes before me. As we were coming up on Leadore, I saw the most amazing cloud--it was completely dark and the sun had gone down, but there was a cloud that was radiating light. It was incredible! I was so sad I didn't bring my camera--I'd forgotten it on the counter that morning. My cell phone camera really does no justice to the cloud:

Then when I got close to Lemhi, there were two clouds that had the similar light emanating from them, and they looked like the shape of eyes. It was awe-inspiring! I wanted to pull over to get a better photo, but I couldn't find a pull-out fast enough, and I was being followed closely by another car so I never could.

On Saturday afternoon, Josh took me on a motorbike ride down to Wagonhammer to work on a gentleman's golf cart. It was a gorgeous day, and I always feel better when I'm riding with Josh! As he worked, I looked around the cute store there and picked out some fun jewelry for his mom for Mother's Day. It was a very relaxing afternoon!

I love all the lilacs on our lane!
The air smelled so divine on our ride
due to all the blossoms and lilacs in bloom!

On Saturday evening, I volunteered at the Dance Recital by taking money at the front door. I roped Darcy into helping me. We were a great team! After we'd been there about 4 hours, our job was done, and I took her out to eat at the Bistro! We both ordered rice bowls (my favorite thing lately!) and had a fun conversation! I love spending time with her!

Today (Sunday) was Mother's Day. While I was gone last night, Josh planted and purchased more flowers to put in the pots in front and back. I was delighted when I got home and saw them!!

I got these plants at WalMart.

Josh picked out the white flowers and the tall red ones in the middle

I woke up this morning in a funky slump. I was supposed to have completed a college class this past week; and when I woke up and realized the first week of May had passed and that particular college class was not finished, I instantly felt overwhelmed. Then when I went to go get dressed for church, I tried on 5 different outfits because nothing fit right. Since I stopped running every day the 2nd week of April, I've gained 5 pounds. That just made me downright depressed. I didn't even feel like going to church after that. When we got to church, we couldn't sit in our usual spot because everything was full--there were a lot of visitors. So we sat on the left side (we usually sit on the right), and the boys went up to do the sacrament. As other people kept coming in, most of our row got taken up and I knew we wouldn't be able to fit the boys when they were done with their duties. The primary sang at the beginning of the program, so I got up to go play the piano just as the 3 older boys were coming down the aisle to sit. We basically traded places. After I played the piano, I just went out to the foyer to sit alone. The program wasn't that great, and I was glad for the chance to be by myself in my sullen state. My attitude changed in primary, though. Camille did a super fun singing time where she gave the kids clues about one of their mothers, and they had to guess who's it was. She had photos of all the moms, and the kids came up to the front and pointed out their moms after Camille spoke about each one. I really enjoyed it! After church, the boys gave me their cards and little gifts. 

I'd taken the 3 younger boys with me to town on Saturday,
and they each planted flowers for me while I shopped at King's.

Micah's homemade card. I loved it!

Kanyon's card, bookmark, and magnetic clips he made at school.
It made me happy that he did it all in my favorite color blue!

Ammon's kind card with the package of lifesavers and
Lindt balls (those are my absolute favorite chocolates!)