Week 36

{September 5 - 11)

Monday was Labor Day. Josh had made the most of the last 3-day weekend of Summer by taking the older 3 boys backpacking/hiking/and camping in the backcountry of the Bighorn Crags. They'd had a great time on their adventure to see a different part of the area, exploring new trails, and seeing new lakes. They'd hiked over 7 miles on Saturday to get into the spot where they set up their camp. On Sunday, they hiked about 5 miles to see Heart Lake, Terrace Lakes, and Barking Fox Lake and then 5 miles back to their campsite. They were tired after going 10 miles that day, and decided to rest up and stay one more night and return home on Monday morning. But that evening, a major stormfront blew in, and it was too late to leave because they wouldn't have been able to make it back to the trailhead before it got dark, so they stuck it out overnight. It was cold, wet, and miserable. They weren't quite prepared for what they woke up to: several inches of snow. The boys slept in hammocks on this trip instead of bringing a tent, and Josh couldn't sleep very well in the hammock, so he slept on the ground the second night instead. Where they slept, they had tree cover to protect them from most of the snow, but not from the damp drippings or from the cold temperatures. The boys were freezing and wet and none of them slept very well. Josh got up earlier than them that morning to make a fire, and as they woke up, they tried to warm themselves by it. Micah was so weak, that he actually passed out once he walked over near the fire. That was kind of scary. After he came to, Josh made the boys keep talking to him as he started packing up their wet things. They ate breakfast, and started the journey out. Despite the snow, they were much faster coming out than they were going in. When they arrived at the trailhead, there was a man there who'd spent the last month walking through the entire forest from the west end to the east, and he needed a ride, so Josh gave him one back to Salmon. I'm so glad they arrived home safely! I was worried about them all night! The boys dried out all their belongings that afternoon and took much needed naps. It was an experience they'll never forget!! On Monday night, we had a family testimony meeting and Josh offered to give the boys priesthood blessings before they started school the next day. It was a wonderful Family Home Evening.

In the early morning light, you can see the hammocks in the trees

The view of Welcome Lake that morning from their campsite

Trying to warm up after freezing all night!

Cold boys on the journey back home.
Before they left, Josh asked them if they'd all
brought rain jackets, which they said they did,
but not all of them did.
Nobody had coats or snow boots, either. 

They spotted these bear tracks on the trail back

Tuesday was the first day of school. Ammon is a junior in high school, Jonah and Micah are in 7th grade, and Kanyon is in the 4th grade with Mrs. Clarke as his teacher. My schedule this year is similar to last year: I am in the Kindergarten class in the morning working as a one-on-one aide for one of the boys in the class, and am an aide in the 4-year-old Developmental Preschool in the afternoon. Josh is driving route 5 bus this year, which he enjoys. I loved the first day of school! It was a positive experience for me, and after dreading going back all summer, I was quite relieved to remember WHY I am going to college to become a teacher: because I love it so much!! My favorite part of the day, though, was seeing Josh after we'd both come home from work: we embraced, and he gave me the tightest hug, and I felt so loved and grateful to see him after being apart all day!

Jonah - 7th grade

Micah - 7th grade

Kanyon - 4th grade

Ammon - 11th grade

Back-to-School 2016

And we're off!!

Wednesday is always a busy day for us during the school year: after school there's scouts for Kanyon, piano lesson for me, XC practice for the older 3 boys, and on this day I also took Kanyon to pick the driving range at the golf course after scouts too, before coming home to make dinner, do homework, have a family meeting, and go to bed!


We were all relieved to have just a 3-day week to start our school year! I was pooped by Thursday! I went into town that evening with Josh. It was a nice night, so we rode the motorcycle. I dropped off some clothing at the LDS church for their clothing fair, then I went with Josh to the golf course. He needed to fertilize the greens, and I just rode around with him, relaxing and enjoying the scenery after a tiring work week!

On Friday, the boys had a XC meet in Idaho Falls. Kanyon wasn't feeling good (he was already getting sick after just 3 days in school!), so he decided not to go with me. Since we normally mow the lawn on Friday, and it was good weather that morning, I had him mow the lawn that morning since I knew he would just be laying around the rest of the day while I was gone to the XC race. Then I decided to make him lunch too since I knew he probably wouldn't feel like making himself lunch (he doesn't even remember to feed himself when he's healthy let alone when he's sick). As a result, I left the house much later than I'd anticipated, and hurried as fast as I could to get to the race on time. When I reached Freeman Park, the High School boys race had JUST started. I watched the boys run by the parking lot just as I was driving to a parking spot. I was glad I'd made it in time!! It was a SUPER hot afternoon, and the boys ran their heart out, and were all exhausted afterwards because of it. All 3 of them ran great races, and I was so proud of them! Ammon was 39th out of 88 runners in his division, was our varsity team's 3rd runner, and ran with a time of 19:30. Micah was the 5th runner from our team, earning 32nd place (it's a HUGE race) with a time of 10:12. Jonah had a fabulous race, and was our team's 7th runner with a time of 10:38. Josh hung out with me during the races, and then I left as soon as they were done running to do a bit of shopping and drive back home before it got dark. Josh watched the award ceremony with the teams: our middle school boys got first!

This was the last part of the race to the finish. He was in
a lot of pain, as evidenced by the grimace on his face.

Some of his biggest fans at the finish ;)

Micah racing his heart out at the finish

Jonah racing alongside another runner at the finish

The champion Middle School Boys team

On Saturday, we worked on projects around the house, and I went in to the church to volunteer at the end of the Clothing Drive. I worked on my college class for a while that afternoon, too, and decided I needed a break, so we took Ammon on his monthly date. I had to talk him into it, though, because he was feeling overwhelmed with his AP English assignment, and didn't want to take the time off to go out for dinner. We decided to go to the newly-opened Josephine's (but it has a new name now) Pizza Place in North Fork, and we picked up Hannah and took her with us, too. I'd been craving the Vic's Special: a pizza with chicken, red potatoes, and bacon. It's SOOO good! We had a great double date together!

On Sunday after church, we quickly did family photos. I'd been thinking about doing it all week long, and knew EXACTLY what I'd wanted. I'd had in mind to take a photo on the road below our house, in the section with the large trees in between Edward's fields. I decided to have everyone wear mono-chromatic black and white, because I'd wanted to use the red couch in the picture. Sunday was the best day to do it, because everyone was already showered and looking nice and the weather was decent right then (a few hours later it was super windy). Everyone complained (as usual), but they all went along with it. We put the couch on the flatbed trailer, and drove down to the spot I'd envisioned, and unloaded it in the exact spot that I thought would look the best. We did a couple rounds with the timer on the camera on the tri-pod; I wished we could've done a few more poses, because none of them were exactly perfect, but a car was coming up the road, and since we had to move the couch for the car, the boys said they were officially done with pictures and didn't want to move it back. The photos turned out pretty well. That evening, I wanted to make another round of raspberry jam with some of the raspberries I'd been picking all week from our raspberry patch, but I was about 1 cup short of what I needed. I got some from Camille, but it wasn't enough, so I called Gina to ask for a little bit more. Josh had a church youth meeting in town, so I thought he could just pick them up from the Hobbs' house when he was done, but then they needed to leave their house before he got there, so they tried to take them to the church to drop off with him, but he'd already left the church and drove to their house not knowing that they were bringing it to him. Ultimately, they took it with them to their destination: the cemetery, which is where I sent Josh to go get them from. We both felt bad about that, and I wasn't so excited about making this batch of raspberry freezer jam after that because I felt so guilty for what Josh had to go through to get them; people should be able to visit their loved ones in the cemetery without being interrupted to pick up produce! Sorry, Gina!!