May 2022 Randoms

CHAOTIC SCHEDULE

May was cray-cray this year! It felt like we were going non-stop. I used to use the wall calendar in my home to keep track of our family's schedule, but now I use the calendar app on my phone and sync it to Josh's, which is super helpful. I took a screen shot of what May looked like, as evidence of just how crazy it was! 

WOMEN'S CONFERENCE

The Stake Women's Conference was on Saturday, May 7. The Stake Relief Society President asked me at the end of March to sing a duet at the conference with Marcella Rich based on the conference theme of the transforming power of Christ in our lives. She didn't have a particular song in mind when she asked and suggested I find one, so I spent some time going through all my music in March, and came up with 3 choices that went along well with the theme. I met with Marcella the next week, and we went over all 3 songs and chose the one that we both felt good about. But shortly after that, the R.S. President came up with her own song choice and wanted to have a violinist join us, too. I knew our time was limited to practice, and I informed her that it would be difficult to learn a new song AND figure out ample practice time to meet together with 4 people's schedules (2 singers, violinist, pianist) within 3 weeks of the performance date. I told her that Marcella and I both felt really good about the song we'd chosen, but if she felt strongly about going with her song choice, that I would step down and she could find another performer. She immediately recanted her requested and said she trusted our song choice. Marcella and I met twice more together with our pianist to practice the song "Go In Peace". It's from the theatrical production "Women at the Well". I'd learned the song 25 years ago: the summer after I graduated high school, I took private vocal lessons, and it was one of the songs my teacher taught me. 

There was a guest speaker who presented at the Women's Conference, and then Marcella & I sang our musical number. It went really well, and the ladies in attendance really enjoyed the music: a lot of them said they'd never heard it before and they appreciated the message, and I was grateful to know we'd made the right decision by sticking with the inspiration we received for the song choice. Amanda was in Salmon that weekend visiting her mom for Mother's Day, and she came to the Women's Conference that morning to support me. She sat by me in the chapel, and then she sat with me at the luncheon afterwards, too. We sat by Alyssa Baldwin and had such great conversation as we ate. It was a lovely morning, and I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to share my talents, and rub shoulders with great women from our area, too. 

GAME TIME

Amanda and Ryan came over that Saturday night to play games with us. Kanyon loves playing games, and he's so good to help Ryan when Ryan's playing with us. Ryan has Muscular Dystrophy, so he can't hold his own cards. Josh and I have taken turns playing for Ryan before, in order to give Amanda a break (she's also his full-time caretaker now), but we've ended up getting in fights over it because Josh has accused me of cheating (he thinks when I'm helping Ryan, I also use strategies to help myself) and I feel that he acts smug when he helps because he's somehow better than me. Anyways...now Kanyon plays for him, and he's the best at it: he picks up Ryan's cards when it's Ryan's turn, and he does whatever Ryan says to do for him on his round of play, without offering any advice or having any bias. The card games are better for everyone that way! 

Playing Cover Your Assets

MOTHER'S DAY

It was nice to spend Mother's Day with my family this year! Usually, one of the boys and/or Josh is gone to a state sporting event. The boys were so nice to me: Josh gifted me some cool metal flowers that light up in the center through solar power (last summer I switched all my flowers in the flower pots in front of the house to metal in order to conserve water), Jonah gave me some of my favorite snacks Andes mints & Lays chips and some Diet Mtn. Dew, and Micah gave me an incredible card he made with colorful pictures and a poem he created. Also, since my love language is Quality Time, I asked the boys to play Clue with me--which nobody likes, but they were willing to play it anyway. I was so grateful (even though Josh beat me!).

WEIRD WEATHER

This spring was unusual: it was really dry, then suddenly really wet, really hot, and then really cold, and it felt like all the seasons in one!

May 9

One week later...

MISSIONARIES

We'd had missionaries over to our house nearly weekly since Decembers, as they were teaching Avery: Jonah and Micah's classmate friend. We had sister missionaries in the beginning, and then the Elders came. Avery was scheduled for a baptism this spring, but then his grandma didn't want him to go through with it. He continued to come over and meet with the missionaries, but it was only once or twice a month after that. We knew that once graduation happened, and the kids left, that Avery wouldn't be joining us anymore, so we had our last get-together at Dave's Pizza in May to celebrate the opportunity to expand our relationship with Avery and to thank the wonderful missionaries for their service.

SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT

Kanyon had a fun assignment in literature class after reading Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: the students had to write a list of traits they want in a future spouse, and one of their parents filled out the same form about what traits they think their child needs in a future spouse. I thought it was so interesting! We couldn't see what the other person wrote until after we were both done with the assignment. We wrote pretty similar things, which I thought was great.

FAREWELL, FRIENDS

Jason & Hailey Linger, our friends of over 15 years, moved at the end of May to Missouri. We were so sad to see them go. Their last weekend in Salmon was a busy one: their daughter Ella got baptized on Saturday, they had a big family party after that, and then we hosted a friend party for them in Ed & Kathy's yard on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate for our friend party. It started raining right before the party began, which was a little stressful, so we moved all the tables of food to the pavilion. Then the sun came out after the storm passed, and we spent an hour in the yard enjoying each other's company. Then we moved the party indoors to our house: we played the board game Codenames, guys vs. ladies, for old times' sake. For nearly 10 years, we've gotten together on Christmas Eve and played games, and before the Linger's left, we wanted to play one more time. We thought the ladies would actually win the round, as we were leading, but on Justin's last turn, he had 5 cards to get, (Stacie only had one card left at that point) and the guys actually got it! We couldn't believe it! We have been so blessed to raise our children alongside such good families in Salmon. Our friendships have really blossomed over the years and we love these good people so much!

Hailey, Isaac, Wyatt (on his mission in Africa),
Ella, & Jason after Ella's baptism. 

Sad: sad to see my friends go, sad that the weather wasn't great.

MEMORIAL DAY

This was Josh's first year as a Sexton on Memorial Day. He prepped for weeks leading up to it, getting the cemetery in pristine shape before the holiday. And it looked good! He's now changed his photographs of the beauty of the golf course to the beauty of the cemetery!

Over Memorial Weekend, we also went as a family to see the new movie Top Gun Maverick--which was an incredible follow-up to the original, 20 years later. We all loved it!

I also got some new shelving from Derik Linger on Memorial Day; he was rearranging the shop after taking over Linger Distributing from his brother Jason, and wanted to get rid of some shelves. Josh helped me move some things around in the garage that same day where the new shelves now are, and it's nice to have more vertical storage for some of the seasonal items and Ammon's stuff that we are currently storing.