Week 37

{September 12 - 18}

I don't remember a single thing about Monday. I'm sure we just did the usual: work/school, homework, dinner, Family Home Evening...it was apparently so mundane it completely escaped my mind.


On Tuesday evening, we began cutting and picking pumpkins from the patch. We decided to do one section at a time/one day at a time this year. We began with the bottom section that had the larger pumpkins. We used the flatbed trailer (pulled behind the suburban) to put the pumpkins on. Josh and Kanyon cut and carried the pumpkins to the fence, and I loaded them onto the trailer, which was parked in the driveway. When the trailer was nearly full, we drove it up by our house and emptied the pumpkins onto pallets in our garage. Ever since we opened the pumpkin patch 8 years ago, I've been wishing for a garage to store the pumpkins in, and my wish finally came true this year on the last year of growing a pumpkin patch!! As we were walking into the house after unloading the trailer, we noticed how beautiful the sky was. Josh and I both admired the sunset for several minutes, from different locations in the yard.

Wednesdays are hectic, and this one was no exception. After school, the 3 older boys had XC practice (like they do every weekday this month), Kanyon had scouts, and I taught a piano lesson. Then I picked up Kanyon about 5:15 and took him to the golf course to do his job of picking the driving range. I had a college class webinar at 6:00, so after helping him for a few minutes, I left him there to continue working on the job and came home to attend my class. Josh had a golf course meeting in town that evening at 6:00, so after he was done driving his daily bus route, he went into town to attend the meeting. He planned on picking Kanyon up about 7:00 at the golf course after his meeting ended. Kanyon got done before then, so he just hung out at the clubhouse until Josh arrived. I'm so grateful for Josh's help, especially on evenings like this!


Jonah and Micah's birthday is on the 22nd, but they will be in Boise the weekend right after their birthday, and they had a XC meet in Challis this Saturday, so we decided the best time to have their friend birthday party was on Thursday night. They chose to have a sleepover party (their first one ever!) and each got to invite two boys. Since they had practice after school, we decided to start the party at 6:30 that night at Dave's Pizza in town. Usually, their XC practice gets done around 6:00 each day, and we thought if we started at 6:30, then we could meet up with the boys after practice and then get their stuff and be able to meet at a central location to pick them up from. I came home after school to teach a piano lesson and to get supplies for a relief society lesson I was giving at the RS Activity at 6:30. I got a phone call from the boys at 5:30 saying they got done with XC practice early that day (unfortunately Ammon was NOT at practice that day, so it made things even more stressful). I was in the middle of making dinner for Ammon and Kanyon when the twins called, and Josh had just barely walked in the door from finishing his bus route. I knew I wouldn't have time to run in, pick them up, come back home, and then go back in again--but I also couldn't drop everything right then to go pick them up because I still had some things I had to get done before their party and the RS activity. Thankfully, Erik's dad picked them up and said he would just meet up with us at Dave's Pizza at 6:30 because he was going to bring Erik to that anyways. That helped me so much! Josh and I drove separate cars in at 6:00. He went straight to Dave's Pizza, and I went to the church to drop off all my supplies and set up a display table before meeting him at Dave's. Erik's dad also brought Nathan, so the four of them were ready to order when I arrived. Their other friend Peyton had football practice until 7:00 and we didn't think he would be able to join us at the dinner portion of the party, but Heber didn't show up and we didn't know why. I texted and called his mom every 15 minutes, with no response. Finally, an hour later, Heber's sister answered his mom's phone and said "my mom is taking a shower". When I asked to talk to her dad instead, she said "my dad is taking a shower, too". Ummmmm.....that made me giggle. I found out later that Heber's sister had actually taken his mom's phone to play on, and didn't want her to find out she was playing on it because that would've cut into her play time, so she elected to come up with that story instead so she could keep playing!!! So it was just the four boys at Dave's for dinner--and Josh, too. I paid for the meal, went back to the church to teach the lesson on digital photo books, and then went back to Dave's as soon as my presentation was done. Josh and the boys were just leaving as I walked in. The next stop for their party was the new arcade Zoom that was just across the street. I gave each of the boys $5 to purchase tokens with, and they played for about an hour and half. Peyton showed up not longer after we did, and Heber FINALLY came the last half hour! They all had a fabulous time--it was the first time all of them (except for Peyton) had been inside the new place, and they all were very impressed and really enjoyed it. When they'd run out of all their tokens, it was time to take them back to our house for the sleepover. Heber wasn't able to come, so I drove him back home as Josh took the others to our house. We set up the DVD player in the boys' room, and got them a whole bunch of snacks, and they basically hung out in there all night with their friends. It was such an easy sleepover!!

I made breakfast for the boys on Friday morning (my pancakes were awful--I always leave that meal to Josh but he had already left for work!). The boys played both inside and out all morning long: Madden on the XBox, on the giant strides, on the rope swings, hide & seek in the yard (so glad it was a nice day), and they played on the new badminton set that Josh had purchased and I set up in the yard for them. I made the boys lunch, and after that I drove their friends home and the twins went into town to mow lawns with Ammon. After I returned home from dropping the boys off, Kanyon and I cut all the mini pumpkins out of the pumpkin patch. There was a variety of them this year, which was fun to discover, and we filled two complete wheelbarrows of them. The boys and I made a menu for camping for the following day, and I went shopping at the store that evening to purchase all the items we'd need to stock the trailer with in the morning. 

Saturday was the Challis XC meet, at one of our very favorite locations: Challis Hot Springs. Josh opted to not drive the bus for the meet; instead he worked that morning at the golf course, then he drove Kanyon and I in our truck and camping trailer down to it. It was our last camping trip of the year. The 3 older boys went on the school bus to it, but after the meet, they stayed overnight with us at the campground. The school's rule is that if a student misses school the day prior to a sporting event, they're not allowed to participate. Unfortunately, Ammon woke up on Thursday morning (our last day of school for the week) with the flu. He had the pukes and the poops and he felt lousy. When I first found out he was planning on staying home, I said "But you have to go, otherwise you won't be able to run at the Challis meet". He was already very aware of the consequences, but he told me the amount of times he'd already thrown up in the past couple of hours, and I knew he was doing the right thing by staying home. We were both sad that he was unable to compete at the Saturday meet, especially because he was feeling better by then! Instead, he ran in the Coach's Race, which is a fun run after the competitive runs are finished. Jonah and Micah both ran an amazing race! Micah got 5th place--and barely lost to teammate Eli by one tenth of a second!!! His time was 9:42.10. Jonah was not far behind him: he got 10th place and medaled with a time of 9:53. Our Salmon Middle School boys won the meet, with a perfect score!!! In fact all but one runner in the top 10 medalists were from Salmon! Ammon got 4th place in the coach's race, and had a good run. We were so proud of all of our boys! The kids and Josh went soaking in to the hot pools afterwards, along with many of the runners from other schools. Ammon and I opted to wait until later to go swimming. When they came back from swimming, they rode bikes and read books, and then Kanyon wanted to go swimming again. I went with him back to the pool, and we swam for a while with just one other family in the pool. We took a break for dinner, and he wanted to go swimming AGAIN. This time, I watched from the sidelines as he played with Scottlyn (one of his little "girl" friends from Salmon). We were all pretty pooped that night, and went to bed after sitting around by the fire for only just a little while. 

The middle school boys team ready to run!

My handsome man waiting in the grass to photograph
the runners as they came through the water crossing

Battling it out for 4th place

This photo of Jonah cracks me up!

They both medaled!!!

Josh cheering Ammon on at the finish

Ammon and Hannah--two of our favorite HS runners

Kanyon playing with Scottlyn and sister Cherish, who's also a XC runner

Sunday we laid around our campsite that morning: reading, riding bikes, playing SuperNintendo (this is the ONE camping spot we go to each year with electrical outlets!), and being lazy. We soaked in the hot springs and pool for a couple hours before packing up and heading home. It was a wonderful last camping trip of the season--and we were all super glad to have a break from life for a day. 

Ammon's working on an AP English assignment at the table

Jonah was so enthralled with his book, that he opted to not go swimming with
the rest of us on Sunday. We basically had the pool to ourselves.

BomberMan on the SuperNintendo is a novelty when
you only play it once a year!!

This is the view of a nearby farm as we drove away from the Hot Springs.
I don't know why, but the view of haybales scattered in the field is one of
my MOST favorite sights every summer. It makes my heart happy!
I made Josh stop driving so I could capture this image. Love it!