May, You Be Wild

Guys soccer is over. 

I have a lot of feelings about it. Lots of contradictory feelings. 

Thank goodness for Lindsay. Thank goodness for our forest loop. That's who and where I dump all my insides about it all. It's a lot of little things that start adding up. 

I miss these girls, I am so glad I don't have to spend my afternoon out there with these girls. 

I feel like I am a great coach, I feel like I have so much to learn about coaching.

I wonder what I could have done different to make our season more successful, I know middle school girls don't care a ton about being successful. 

All of it. 

I have a lot of selfies from them stealing my phone,

and I have a lot of BeReals with them. Any time the alert went off during soccer, I made sure to stop everything and get the closest child in the picture with me.

This Marcella is one of my top favorites. She's a dark horse. Look out for her in the future. 

Quiet, doesn't demand attention, goes anywhere on the field I ask her to without complaining: goalie, defense, mid field. 

One game I had a lot of girls gone for Ranger tryouts, so I asked her to be center mid. She was the whole engine of the team and did amazing. 

Mother's Day

There's a lot to say about motherhood here in the teen zone when things have really picked up speed. 

 I really truly didn't know I was going to ever get to this phase. This was for older moms. 

It's so fun, and so nervy, and confusing. But also kind of easier? More fun, more annoying. You get more disappointed when they act like fools because they should know better! Like, why would you put the hand towel on the toilet after drying your hands? Little stuff like that. Forgivable for preschoolers, by why would a high schooler do such a thing? 

That just happened today, so it's the only thing I can think of. haha.  

I squint my eyes at them and wonder if they are going to make it in the real world. 

Haha luckily they still have time to figure it all out. 

I gave a lesson in relief society on mother's day. One of the things we talked about is how AMBIGUOUS it is being a mom. Starting with EVE and her decision. She had to use all her discerning powers to come up with the realization that there was more to life than the garden of eden. She had an innate ability to be in tune with God's purposes. 

Because it's impossible to sum up motherhood in any other way - the comparison to Eve will have to do. 

I say "I don't know" on the daily. Because there is no knowing. Both answers are right, both answers are wrong. 

You just have to use that God given gift to see beyond the literal into the divine. 

Good luck everyone!

Bea and Avery RANDOMLY got the appointment to get their braces off at the same time same place!

They both did not like their teeth once the braces were off. I can't totally figure out why. 

But they have come around. 

I think they look amazing. 

HIKES!

The weather this month has been perfecto. It's like summer, and we take all the summer we can get around here. Don't miss a sunny day. 

Lair of the Bear. 

We put our bare(bear?) feet in the water while Jim and Joe mountain biked. 

Prettiest light. 

Fragrance Lake. First lake jump in of the summer. 

Canoe up Dreyton Harbor.

The water was like glass because of slack tide. 

Whoopsie Woodle overlook. 

And yesterday Bob's Trail while Jim and Vance mountain biked. 

Hammock season!

First dock jump!

Still soccer season for Andrew. 

This stupid picture of Juno and Koda in a cone is fully loaded. 

This weekend, the Dicksons officially moved out of the neighborhood. The new people and new car are parked in the Dickson house. 

We are not ok.

We had Bea and Gus and Juno stay with us for a few nights while they are transitioning to the new house - homeless for a week. 

First of all, Juno and Koda cannot figure out who the dominant dog is. They both want to be Alpha, neither can back down. So we had a giant dog fight in our yard the other day. Koda got 5 staples, Juno had some puncture wounds, and Jim got a bite to the arm while trying to break it up. 

So dumb. Then the next day when we all got home from school, they got into it AGAIN. This time Evan broke it up by grabbing Koda's butt and Bea grabbed Juno's butt. 

Koda's cone sliced Juno's leg. So then Juno was also in a cone. 

Oh yes, and we have Scout for a few days and SHE HAS A CONE because of a hot spot. 

SO IF YOU'RE KEEPING TRACK: Three shepherds all wearing cones of shame. 

haha it's hilarious and I'm also crying. 

It's too much mostly because Lindsay is gone. 

So many times the past few days I was gonna ask her to do a loop with me in OUR FOREST WE CREATED TOGETHER but she's not there. She's not there. 

Lindsay is the friend who listens to me the most. Because we are out there walking our dogs every day, she is there for the EVERY DAY mundane. The every day stuff about school and sports and kid dynamics. The every little gripe and every little stage of growing children. 

We don't save up for the big conversations because EVERY DAY it's the little conversations. 

(but also we have had some BIG conversations)

I can't explain why the fact that we graduated the same school year and were influenced by all the same pop culture and wore the same baggy plaided grunge clothes makes her click in my brain as though she's been my friend my whole life.  

And then we have kids at the same stages of life, so she pretty much showed me how to be the best mom I could be. She takes all the ambiguity and filters out the nonsense. 

Since Avery was in 1st grade we have been talking it all through. She is my mom mentor. 

And don't forget the stupid covid years. MY COHORT. 

That is the best dang description of her - my cohort. 

I know it's nothing new to have a friend move away. It's also nothing new that IT'S HARD. 

I don't like it. 

She moved five minutes down the road, so it's not the end of the world. 

And we promised we would still take dogs for walks on the regular. So. 

Plus she's co-owner of the forest, so. 

Mom and Dad: 50 Years

50 years! Wild.

We had a few hours to kill between our temple session and when mom picked us up from the airport. 

We ate gross rice and chicken at Chipotle one hundred percent because I kinda had loose tummy issues and I was worried about sitting through a session and needing to use the bathroom if you know what I mean. So I was on a last ditch effort BRAT diet. 

We stopped in for some shopping at Nordstrum Rack, and got some nostalgic Bon Bons from World Market, and changed from travel wear into temple clothes in the truck. The back of that truck was pure chaos. hah. 

It's hard having a little reunion inside the temple when you need to be quiet but also you are seeing family for the first time in a while. Lots of waving and whispering stuff on the sly. 

Mary Sinnet was the temple workers who led me through the veil. She looked the same as she has my whole entire life. Same hair. 

I always get shushed in the dressing room at my temple. It's just too fun being with my people in this place. They didn't shush us in the Reno Temple though, so that means I was able to keep it contained. 

Also I made it all the way through the sesh without using the bathroom. 

Aunt Carmen was there by coincidence. She took our front of the temple picture for us. She even got down on her bad knees to get the steeple in the shot. 

She makes me laugh. We all said "Erma!" instead of "cheese!"

Even in the Reno I feel the long arms of home and place and roots. I have such long tangled roots of a family history. I am so thankful. I belong to so many people and circles. 

Jamie and Carmen took this selfie and sent it to Abe, Carmen's son. 

Jamie said, "whenever I text Abe, he always texts back 'who is this?'" and Carmen said, "he does that to me too!"

haha

Then we went and ate at Ruby River. 

Finally I could chat out loud with all my people. Nice and loud. 

We had such a lovely time of sitting around, wandering around, puzzling, eating, watching the coronation.

All the Fallon things of catching up and reminiscing. 

While on a walk around the fields, we came upon this funny/sad roadkill.

Later we showed it to dad, and he said "that was actually in the middle of the road, so I went with my loader and used the bucket to scrape it off, and ended up scraping that top half off, leaving the bottom half stuck to the road."

haha I swear I love that. 

We drove out to the flats to see how much water runoff is being pumped into the desert. What a fun problem it is to have too much water. 

The desert was in full bloom. 

I forgot to pack pants, so I went to Walmart to get some.

We shopped at Big R. We ate at The Slanted Porch (I hid behind Emily when I saw some old classmates one hundred percent so that I didn't have to small talk. I really liked those boys, but I just hate the small talk. Read my blog if you want to catch up on my life. haha.)

Sunday we had cake and dinner and sang "happy anniversary to you".

We sat around and talked and me and Annie sang Champagne Problems while she played the piano. 

We remembered games we played while out waiting for the bus. 

Robbie proved that he could still do the ditch run around thing. 

He's still brave and agile. 

About 15 minutes before mom took us back to the airport on Monday afternoon, I asked about her wedding book. 

She brought it out and wow. Why didn't we have it out all weekend? It was amazing. 

It's so funny how kids don't fully appreciate the fact that their mom and dad chose each other. 

There was a romantic dating period and a wedding. 

Mom showed me a card she had written to dad, and it was so great. I guess my mom was a twenty year old once who flirted and said things like "sexy mustache". I cannot tell you what a treasure it is. 

And the poem he wrote her:

Roses are red 

and sometimes a mess

If Martha keeps it up, 

she's gonna be M. S. 

I love this one the most because their body language is so "young and in love".

I've only ever known them to be wise and responsible and in charge, 

but here they are on the threshold before children, which changes everything. They are smitten and enchanted. 

It's so good.