August 2023 Randoms

MY BIRTHDAY: 

I had to work all day on my birthday this year...which may be a first for me. I honestly don't remember the last time I worked on my birthday. I was NOT looking forward to spending the whole day at Saveway pharmacy, but thankfully there were some fun surprises that made my day more joyful. My friend Whitney texted me from Florida that morning saying that she had a gift waiting for me at the Coffee Shop. I stopped by before work, and picked up a drink, a gift card, and a sticker that she'd gotten for me. It was so thoughtful! I went out to lunch with Gina and had a great time, and she gifted me a jar of chocolates that I love, too. Josh brought me some flowers, which were beautiful and brightened my day! And Camille had a flower bouquet and a restaurant gift card delivered, which was a fun surprise. When I got home from work, Josh had my favorite dinner ready of roast, funeral potatoes, and strawberry rhubarb pie--complete with a singing candle in it! My mom sent me a birthday package of some fun little gifts and homemade treasures and a little painted stone with the word "HOPE" which I adored! And the day ended in a happy way, with a joint phone call with Elder Tolman of the North and Elder Tolman of the South. 

HURTING and HEALING:

Apparently, Josh and I are now to the age when we have ailing bodies and multiple doctor appointments. In August, Josh and I both had several appointments. He went to a pain doctor and had to schedule an MRI for his neck, to see what the exact cause of the shooting pains down his arms were from. I had my throat scoped at the beginning of August to see if there had been any change to my vocal cord nodules and scarred larynx in the past 3 months, which there wasn't--so the doctor confirmed the damage to both was permanent. I had a scare in mid-August that appeared to be a stroke, with slurred speech, and my vision and head were affected. I went to the hospital, and they ran some tests and did an EKG, but everything came back normal thankfully. I also had numerous appointments with a dermatologist for some pre-cancerous spots on my scalp in August. He froze a few spots, but the rest were pretty deep, so I had to have a different appointment where they applied a laser light therapy to my scalp that burned the layers of irregular cells. That appointment was a few days after my birthday. In order to make it a more fun day, I met up with my friend Val for lunch in Idaho Falls at the Snake Bite restaurant. She had also just been to the dermatologist, to have a suspicious spot removed from her leg. As we ate, we were commiserating about the procedures we'd just had done to our skin! The food was great, and we had a fun time together. We decided to do some shopping and walk around to some of the nearby stores afterwards. I bought a few things in one of the shops to include in my boys' birthday packages that I was mailing that day to their missions. Then we walked back to our cars and said goodbye. It was a lovely addition to my day of doctors--(I had one more doctor appointment that afternoon at EIRMC). 

When I got home to Salmon that evening, there was a rectangular-shaped puncture in the front side of my house, one of the glass bottle trees was laying on the ground, and there were bits of glass all over the driveway and in the landscaped rock beds in front of our home. I couldn't figure out what had happened. It looked like maybe someone had backed into the bottle tree, which fell into the house. There was a bag full of broken glass inside our garbage can, so clearly somebody had done something and tried to clean it up. There were only 2 options: Kanyon or Josh. When Kanyon got home from work, I questioned him about it, but he knew nothing. Josh had a meeting that night, so he didn't get home until late. When I asked him what happened, he said his dad had been driving by our house on a 4-wheeler with a trailer that he hadn't attached properly, and after he went over a bump, the trailer came loose, rolled backwards, hit the glass bottle tree, and it impaled our house, breaking all the glass bottles on the tree in the process. His dad had informed Josh about the incident, but nobody had told me. So when Josh got home from work that afternoon, he cleaned up as much glass as he could, before having to leave to go back into the meeting that evening. I couldn't believe his dad wouldn't try to clean up the mess he made himself! When I confronted him about the incident, inquiring about why he left a mess for his son to clean up, he blew up at me and didn't speak to me for several months afterward! Josh fixed the hole in the house to the best he could the next week, and he also fixed the bent glass bottle tree. We also added more bottles to the tree to replace all the ones that had broken, and it's almost like the incident never happened. Except, Josh's dad ended up building a new roadway that circumvents our driveway in order to avoid driving by our house anymore, because apparently that's easier than cleaning up after making a mess in one's driveway!

This cute sign was in one of the shops Val and I 
went in. It's exactly how I feel about Val!
We're both a little weird, but because of that,
we understand each other! 

The glass bottle tree is the black, limbed rebar
laying on its side in the rocks.

COLORFUL SKIES:

JOSH'S MOTORBIKE RIDE:

Josh went on another dirt bike ride and saw some new trails. He drove down river past North Fork, then unloaded the dirt bike at the Indian Creek turnoff. From there, he rode along Indian Creek to the Divide Trail and then to Spring Creek. It was a big loop, and once he made it back to the River Road, he drove back to his truck, loaded up his bike, and headed home. 

BACK TO SCHOOL:

Kanyon started his Junior Year at Salmon High School at the end of August. He took his obligatory "back to school" photo next to his daily ride--he started off the year by driving Great Grandpa's old Chevy truck to school. Midway through September, he learned how to drive stick-shift and started taking our Scion to school and work instead. Micah used to drive this truck and Jonah used to drive the Scion, but after the boys went on their missions, Kanyon initially felt more comfortable driving the truck. However, once he learned how to drive stick-shift, he actually preferred driving the Scion because it's more gas efficient (the boys are responsible for paying for their own gas since we cover the cost of car insurance).  After a couple of weeks, Kanyon shared his opinion about his new class schedule. He really likes strength and conditioning. He has friends in many of his classes: seminary, English, and band. He thinks Mr. Born is funny, and he hates chemistry with Ms. Lewis.

We also sold Ammon's college car in August to another local young man who would be driving it to college over in Dillon, Montana. 

Springs, Stairs, Swims, & Sunburns

We went on our first (and only) family vacation of the summer just one week before it ended and Kanyon had to go back to school! Our vacation plan was to go to Bear Lake since Kanyon likes hanging out in water and on the beach, and we hadn't been there in years. But since Josh and I had so many weekend trips to hot springs planned all summer long, our family vacation didn't happen until the end of August.  

We knew it wouldn't be very fun for Kanyon to just hang out with just me and Josh, so we told him he could invite a friend. He invited his friend Sam, and he and his parents agreed that he could join us. However, he ended up going with another friend Jesse to Boise the day before we left, because he thought our trip was a different weekend. So last minute, Kanyon invited his friend Evan Dobson to come with us instead. We left on Saturday August 19th and drove to Montpelier. On our way, we stopped in Soda Springs as we were passing through because the timing was just right to watch the Soda Springs Geyser (it bursts every hour on the hour). 

We made it to Montpelier and checked into our hotel, then went to the Minnetonka Cave to take a tour. Our reservation was for the last tour of the day. You go down 444 steps while in the cave, and then at the end, you have to turn around and go back up the same steps. None of us had been there before, but it was an interesting cave tour that lasted a little over an hour. We were surprised at the people in our group who brought babies a/o toddlers and had to carry them the whole way! It wasn't easy going over the steps that were built out of natural materials 80 years ago! 

Walking on the boardwalk to get to the cave entrance

The cave entrance is behind/to the left of Kanyon

Some of the stairs inside

This formation looked like a pope gnome to me!

Don't worry--this formation was already ruined,
so the guide said people could touch it.

Afterwards, we stopped and got pizza in Montpelier. That night, the boys hung out at the hotel gaming and swimming in the hotel pool, and I persuaded Josh to go see the Barbie movie with me in the theater (I loved it and he hated it).  

On Sunday morning, we drove to the North Beach of Bear Lake on the Idaho side. It wasn't too busy, and the weather wasn't too hot, due to the sun being behind cloud cover. We soaked in the Bear Lake Hot Springs that are near the beach first (another one to cross off our list!). There are two warm pools there varying in temperature, and the smell of Sulphur was prevalent, so the boys didn't soak with us long because they couldn't stand the smell. I thought the location was quite pleasant and peaceful, with the view of the lake in the distance. We were the only ones soaking for a few minutes before a large adult family came and joined us. The facilities are dated, but sufficient with dressing rooms and bathrooms. I've been researching this particular hot springs for years--the ownership changed hands in the past few years and I wasn't even sure it was still open, so I was glad it to see it was! 

After that, we hung out on the sand and in the shallow water of Bear Lake for about 6 hours. It was very relaxing. We mostly used our paddle boards to play on the water with. Since it wasn't too sunny, Kanyon chose to not wear sunscreen, but since he was laying a lot on the paddle boards in the water, and the water reflects the light more intensely, he got super sunburned on his chest, shoulders, and back. We left around 4:00 that afternoon and stopped in Logan at a store to get some sunburn relief gel which I applied multiple times that night and the next day. He was pretty miserable! We spent the night at my parents' house in Providence. Grandma made dinner for us when we arrived, and then we hung out all evening talking, watching TV, reading, and doing puzzles. Kanyon and Evan walked down to Walmart that night, which was a 2 mile walk, and it was 11:00 when they got back.

On Monday morning, Grandma made us breakfast and then we drove to Ogden to Amanda and Ryan's house. Amanda trimmed mine and Kanyon's hair. We were there for about an hour. After that, we drove north and stopped in Pocatello to do some school shopping and have lunch before driving the rest of the way home.  It was a pretty short vacation, but it was nice to do some sight-seeing and have some down time with Kanyon before the summer's end.