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. 

May's Getaways

Amidst all the craziness and overly-scheduled events on our calendar that happened in May, we were actually lucky enough to break away a few times for some much-needed rest and relaxation. Josh and I realized that we've never really taken time for ourselves in May, because he's usually so busy at the golf course on top of everything else, but since he works for the City of Salmon now, it was actually feasible this year! In the middle of the month, we had 5 consecutive days of no work, which is so unheard of for us in May! We made a giant loop of Idaho in that time: Day 1: Thursday was Kanyon's district track & field in Idaho Falls, Day 2: Friday we drove all day to Moscow, Day 3: Saturday we witnessed Ammon's U of I graduation, Day 4: Sunday we drove to Cambridge, Idaho (less than 2 hours north of Boise), and Day 5: Monday we watched Jonah's state golf in Kuna then drove back home to Salmon. Okay...so our trip around Idaho was really focused on all the kids and THEIR events, but we did take ONE day for ourselves on that trip: Sunday.

On Sunday morning, we ate breakfast with Ammon and Micah at Shari's Cafe before saying goodbye to Ammon and leaving Moscow. Along our drive south, we made a few stops. The first stop was west of McCall. We explored the Last Chance campground area, where I'd recently discovered online that there was a hot springs located. We were successful in finding it after a short walk, and were pleased to find we were the only ones there! Logistically, we weren't prepared with our swimsuits, so we just soaked with our feet in the beautiful, serene water, and then explored the area a bit further and enjoyed the nearby waterfall and rolling river. It was lovely! Then we continued our drive onto Hwy 95 South, which neither Josh nor I have travelled on before. We stopped at Council and ate dinner at the 7 Devils Cafe. We made it there right before closing, which was lucky for us! It was quiet and we were grateful for the hot meal. Our final destination for the day was to Mundo Hot Springs outside of Cambridge. I'd rented a room in the Pool House, which is adjacent to the main warm pool and hot tub, and you have access to it all night, even after the public open swim times end. Josh and I soaked during the evening public swimming time, and only one other couple was in the water, so it was very quiet, which was wonderful. A lunar eclipse was happening in the celestial skies that night, so after public swimming ended, I went back to the pool and soaked alone, trying to find it. The event started after 9, and the total lunar eclipse was scheduled for after 10, but I never could see the moon! It wasn't a cloudy night, so I was baffled. Apparently, the moon was low on the east horizon that night, and some nearby hills and a mountain blocked my view. Nevertheless, it was relaxing being able to soak after dark, and I enjoyed having the pool all to myself! 

Krigbaum, aka Last Chance, Hot Springs

The view looking out from the hot springs

Mundo Hot Springs

The house we stayed in is the mobile home seen here.

Micah worked on homework and listened to a broadcast inside
as we soaked that evening. 

On Memorial Day weekend, after we watched the Shrek musical at West J on Friday night, Kanyon spent the night at his friend Jaxson Van Eps' home, and Josh and I drove to Rigby to stay at a Bed & Breakfast called the Blue Heron Inn. It was quiet and very homey. Our room was decorated in a western theme, which Josh liked. The next morning, the owners served a beautiful, large breakfast in the spacious dining room. It was a nice place, and I loved the feeling there!

Breakfast--I'm a sucker for grilled potatoes!

From the breakfast room, you could see out to the Snake River.

We drove back to Salmon on Saturday, and picked up Kanyon from his friend's house on the way. Shortly after getting back to town, we met up with our friends Phil and Darcy and drove over to Butte, Montana to watch a Jeff Crosby concert with them. We ate dinner at the Highlander's restaurant, a company that is expanding their business to Salmon (they purchased the old King's building). Dinner was SO good! I can't wait until their restaurant opens in Salmon! Afterwards, we drove to the location for the concert. It was supposed to be at a bar, but the owner canceled the venue last minute, so the concert was changed to the Union Hall instead. Surprisingly, it wasn't very well attended (we don't know if that was a result of the holiday weekend or poor advertising), but as a result, it was a very intimate concert. The opening act was great and they played some unique instruments; their music had an interesting jive, and we liked it. The music that Jeff Crosby's group presented that night was magical. It was incredible to be so up close and personal with their group, and to know that they still have a high-caliber show, regardless of the number of people attending the concert! There were a few crazies in attendance, but for the most part, the audience was just as into their music as we were. It was definitely a night we'll remember for a long time, and we are so grateful we got to be there, and with our friends, too! 

I like that when Jeff sings the song "One More Round for Randy",
he's able to play the guitar, play the harmonica, AND sing!
It's awe-inspiring to behold!