Salmon Tolman Fam: Week 35

{August 29 - September 4}

This was the last full week of our summer vacation, and it was a very busy one, too! Monday was nothing out of the ordinary, though--Josh and Ammon went to work, I worked on stuff around the house, and we had Family Home Evening that night. However, I did take Kanyon to Saveway that afternoon to get his last ice cream cone of the summer for completing the final reading chart, so that was pretty special! He didn't earn any of the rewards last year because he didn't feel like reading in the summer, but this summer he filled up all 3 month's of reading charts sponsored by the grocery store/school partnership program and he also completed and exceeded his reading goal with the city library's summer reading program!

We read The Twits, Esio Trot, and The BFG all
by Roald Dahl this summer. He also read several
books from the Haunted Library series when he
visited my mom in Tremonton for a week. Lastly, we
began reading the Harry Potter series in mid-August.

I found this nest in the apple tree while looking
for apples to pick. See the baby bird in the center?

I used up some leftover fruit in the fridge to make some fruit shakes that afternoon. Jonah and Micah picked some fresh raspberries to add to it, but apparently they'd never picked raspberries before, which really surprised me! So I gave them a few pointers to help them know which fruit was ready to pick and they did a great job! The banana/strawberry/blueberry/red raspberry/golden raspberry shakes were delicious!

Bright and early on Tuesday morning, I took the 3 younger boys to Idaho Falls for dentist appointments. I made the appointments at the beginning of August and it was the only day that I could get all 3 in at the same time. Unfortunately, about a week before the appointment date, I found out that our school district all-staff meeting was going to be that same morning. Originally, I'd hoped that Josh could join me for the dentist/shopping day, but when I found out about our district meeting, we had to decide WHICH of us would be going to Idaho Falls, and which was staying in Salmon to go to the meeting. Ultimately, Josh decided to stay and go to the meeting. The twins have a different dentist than Kanyon (because when Kanyon started going to the dentist, he was very young and having lots of difficulties so I took him to a pediatric dentist), and the dentists are on opposite sides of town. All 3 of their appointments were at 10am, so I took Kanyon inside to his dentist and then dropped him off a little early, drove the twins across town to their dentist, filled out papers inside, dropped them off, went back and picked up Kanyon and spoke to the nurse, and then drove back and picked up the twins. All 3 boys were cavity-free! Yay! Afterwards, I took them school shopping (and birthday shopping for the twins, too) at Wal-Mart and Ross and we got everything we needed. We were famished by the time we were done shopping, so we headed to Chuck-A-Rama for lunch, because nobody could decide on what to eat and where to go, and it turned out to be a special treat for them (because we never really go to buffet restaurants). I was going to head to Utah to do my belated birthday trip after we were done in Idaho Falls, but the boys needed to go back to Salmon because the twins had a Cross Country race on Thursday and they had to practice with their team before the meet, and Kanyon had school orientation on Thursday, tool so Josh drove down and met me halfway between Salmon and Idaho Falls (he actually got a head start, so he met me at Sign City instead of Kauffman Creek). When we met up, we talked for a few minutes about what had transpired that day while we transferred the shopping bags to his car--all that I'd done with the boys on my end , and what had happened at the District Meeting on his end. We'd discovered that morning when Josh picked up my packet for me that I'd been placed in the Title Program at the school, instead of being a SPED para like I'd thought I would be since last spring. He texted me a photo of what my packet said that morning, and I'd spent a lot of time on the phone with teachers and staff that day, trying to get it all figured out. There was a special meeting held on my behalf that afternoon, and by the time I'd met back up with Josh to switch the kids around, we discussed what I'd found out throughout the day about what was happening. I'd begun to realize there may be an issue when one of my supervising teachers called me the previous night, but I didn't realize the full extent of what was going on until that day. It was very stressful to not be in Salmon talking with people face-to-face as it all went down, but thankfully that evening I was notified that I'd been moved back into the position that I thought I originally was going to be in. After meeting up with Josh, I drove alone down to my parents house in Tremonton to spend the night. Except, when I arrived, my parents weren't home--they were at the E.R. because my dad had been having some symptoms that appeared to be a heart attack. I got to the E.R. just as my dad was getting released. He didn't have a heart attack, but the doctor was unsure what was causing the symptoms. It had been a long, yet productive, day!

Kanyon with just ONE of his desserts after lunch;
because the choice is yours at Chuck-A-Rama!

Wednesday was the day I'd planned for my birthday trip. The plans for the trip began when I purchased tickets with my sister to see Coldplay in concert in SLC that night. I'd originally asked Josh to go with me, but since he went to the 21 Pilots concert with Ammon already that summer, and since he doesn't really care for Coldplay, he said he'd rather not join me. The more I thought about going to Utah alone to see the concert with my sister, the more I realized I would have free time to do what I wanted, and I decided to try and get my goal of attending 6 temples this year while I was on my trip. I've only been once so far, and because college has been super stressful and time-consuming, I haven't been able to go very much this year, and I knew I wouldn't have any more time this fall to go, either. Utah has a lot of temples, too, so it was the perfect opportunity to go! I asked my mom if she wanted to go with me, and finally she agreed to (she's a home-body so she took some time to think about it before committing herself). I decided to go to all the temples between Tremonton and SLC as I made my way south to go to the concert that night. I took some family names of people that live in Salmon, and we did ordinances at each temple. We started in Brigham City, and my dad joined us to perform baptisms and confirmations. He and my mom did the baptisms and he and I did the confirmations. Then I continued on with my mom to the Ogden temple where we did initiatories. Next stop was Bountiful, where we participated in endowments. We had a quick lunch at the cafeteria in the temple basement, then left for SLC. We had thought about doing endowments there as well, but we were running out of time, so we did sealings instead. It was such a great experience doing all the temple work with my mom and going to 4 temples in one day! That was a first for me! We met up at the Bohemian Restaurant with my sisters that live in the area for dinner. Tawna's husband Bryce came after he got off work, too. It was a delicious meal--I got the French Onion soup and it was SOOO good! We tried some appetizers and desserts all together, and had a great time. After dinner, Bryce and Tawna took mom with them to spend the night at their house, and I went with Tabbi to go to the concert at the Vivint Arena (formerly known as the Delta Center). We had seats in the Suite owned by Zion's Bank (which is where Tabbi works), and the view of the stage was great! I'm used to being way up in the seats closest to the ceiling ;). Coldplay was FANTASTIC!!! They had these wristbands that everyone could get when they entered the arena doors, and the wristbands were connected to a computer somewhere that powered them when to light up, how fast to blink, and what color to display. They were so amazing! During the "yellow" song, everyone's wristbands were yellow, during the "waterfall" song, they were all blue, and during the "stars" song they were silver, but they also turned green, red, and purple. They didn't turn on for every song, and sometimes they would all beat together, and sometimes they would pulsate differently, depending on the song and the effect that was desired. The members of Coldplay were fabulous performers, and I enjoyed every second of their show! Tabbi and I rode the Trax to get back to her car, which was parked at her work the Zions Bank Building across from the Joseph Smith building. It was my first time riding Trax, and was so convenient! Then we drove to her house to spend the night.

Brigham City

Ogden

Bountiful

SLC

Thursday was the 3rd day in a row that I had an early start to my day. I'm not a morning person, so in the summer, I prefer to sleep in instead of waking up during the 6:00 hour like I'd done almost every day this particular week! I drove down to do a morning endowment session at the Oquirrh Mountain temple with my mom. Tawna lives in Daybreak, which is about a mile from the temple, so she dropped mom off there on her way to work, and I met up with her there at 8am. I'd never been inside this temple; it was so beautiful and I was in awe the whole time. I'm glad we went there, even though the experience ended horribly...as I was getting dressed to leave, I accidentally hit a woman in the head with my temple suitcase when it fell off the lockers as I was trying to get it down (I'm short and the lockers were tall and I lost my grip on it). My locker was the last one in the row, and on the other side was a bench, where some women were sitting and unfortunately it hit her; she was older (probably in her 80's), and I felt awful, apologized multiple times, and just wanted to get out of there and go home! We drove back to Mom's house in Tremonton where I dropped her off, and continued on my way. Meanwhile, Josh and Ammon worked that morning at the golf course, Ammon went home to pick up Kanyon and take him to his orientation and got the twins to go to Cross Country, too. Josh met Kanyon at the school to attend the class meeting and meet the new teacher. He needed to drive the XC bus to go to Mud Lake after orientation ended, so Kathy offered to take Kanyon home for him because she was working at the school that day, too. I drove to Mud Lake after I left my parents house (it's about 3 hours north of Tremonton) on my way home to watch the boys' Cross Country meet which started at 4:00. The high school girls ran first, then the high school boys. Ammon had a good race, and got 15th place out of 85 runners with a time of 19:52. Then it was the junior high races--girls first, then boys again. Micah has had a great season so far, and was the 5th runner on our time to cross the finish line. He got 21st place with a time of 11:18. Jonah ran a great race too and was the 6th runner to finish from our team; he got 38th place (out of 164 runners!) with a time of 11:51. As soon as the middle school boys race was done, it started to downpour, and everyone cleared out pretty fast! I got to Salmon about 8:30 that night, and was so glad to be home again! The boys chose to come home on the bus with Josh, and they arrived after 9:00.

Ammon is the 2nd runner from Salmon at the start of the race seen here

Micah on the left at the start of the race

Jonah in the crowd of boys at the start of the race

Jonah bought new shoes when we went shopping on Tuesday: the yellow ones
on the left. Micah uses Ammon's old running shoes: the oranges ones on the right.

It stopped raining after I left Mud Lake; the sky was so beautiful near Sign City!

After Leadore, it was obvious there was a forest fire nearby.
Apparently a lightning strike had just started a fire that very afternoon.

Hazy Sky and a Pink Sun near Baker--smoke from fires
does make for some pretty skies!

On Friday, I worked on my college math class most of the day. Kanyon and I also got the lawn mowed and errands done. Josh worked all morning, and Ammon took the twins mowing with him. They all met up that afternoon at the grocery store before heading home, and Josh took them shopping for supplies for their camping trip into the Bighorn Crags that would begin the following day.

Josh went into work for a few hours on Saturday morning before leaving mid-morning with the boys to the Crags for their hiking/backpacking/camping trip. I took a test for my college class that morning, and then worked on cleaning the house and updating my blog as I waited to hear back from my college mentors to see if I could schedule the final exam. Since it was a holiday weekend, nobody was answering my emails and my phone requests, and finally about 3:30, I was approved to take the final. I really wanted to take it before school started on Tuesday, and since the Library would be closed on Monday (that's where I've been taking my proctored tests lately; I can't take them at home because our internet is so bad, and I used to take them at the school, but they changed locks in March, and I was never given a new key so I can't get into the building during non-school hours now which is when I have to take the test because others can't be in the room with me when I do it), I knew I needed to take it on Saturday. The library closes at 5:00 on Saturday, so I hurried and drove in as soon I was approved, but then there was a problem with my computer and my proctor couldn't hear me, so we kept trying to get connected. After a half hour, I told my technician that I would try to use the library's computer instead of my personal laptop, but then there was a firewall blocking the proctor that I couldn't figure out. We FINALLY got it all figured out, and I was able to start the test, but by this time it was 4:40, and I only had 20 minutes until the library closed to complete 55 problems. I frantically hurried through the test, but at 5:05, the library employee told me he wouldn't wait for me and I needed to exit the test. I still had about 8 unanswered questions, but I had no choice other than to end the test. I felt awful. I came home, looked up my results, and miraculously I just BARELY had a passing score; I scored a 67%, and the required passing score was 65%. Meanwhile, Josh and the boys were having a wonderful afternoon hiking, seeing lakes, and setting up camp in their new hammocks.

Ready to go to one of his favorite places on Earth!

The boys at the trailhead. This was Ammon's first time into the Crags.
Josh and the twins went for the first time last summer.

Welcome Lake

Kanyon and I went to church alone on Sunday. Malachi and Molly were visiting that weekend, so we got to chat with them after church when we ate at Ed & Kathy's house. Josh and the boys hiked into Heart Lake, Terrace Lakes, and Barking Fox Lake that morning and afternoon. They were beat from all the hiking, and took a rest late in the afternoon. They contemplated coming home, but ultimately decided to stay--not realizing that a storm was coming in, and by the time they found that out, it was too late to hike out because it takes so many hours to get in, that they would've been hiking out in the dark. It got very stormy that evening--lots of heavy rain, thunder and lightning, and wind, and I kept expecting them to come home, but by 10:00, I knew they wouldn't be. They were freezing that night--and it ended up being a very memorable experience for them (more on that in the next post).