What Else is Going On.

It's been a while since I blogged about nonsense. 

A few months ago I invited myself to hang out with Roxanne and Vance because I hadn't seen her in a long time.

We rode bikes along the Chuckanut Interurban to Clayton Beach.

We went to Galbraith a few times, but did you know that we haven't been mountain biking much lately because GOLF is the new hobby de jour? 

That's me up there giving a talk on covenants.

I found this picture on the school's instagram account.

Andrew told me about the awesome board game they had to invent (this isn't it). 

Then they switched around with other classmates and played each other's games.

Here's Andrew's game. You go through different era's of time. 

I asked what era is the pirate era exactly? 

In Senior Year news:

We are at the stage when we should be ordering announcements. I feel too busy for that. 

They took a class picture of all the graduates of 2026,

And one of the "thirteeners" - the kids who have been at Blaine all 13 years!

This was another day when I invited myself to tag along with Vance and Roxanne.

How are they doing? I don't know. She does so much speech therapy with him. She should be a speech therapist. 

I rarely get to hang out with her. 

IT'S SPORTS SEASON!

I love spring because all of us are in sports.

Avery tennis. This was her first match of her senior year.

Andrew is doing track. This is his first meet. 

Track is scary. You have to be so brave, performing different events in front of everyone. 

Evan is in golf and is absolutely obsessed. It's the weirdest sport in the way the people get ADDICTED to it. It's so hard and frustrating and they want to do it at all times. It makes no sense.

Even often goes and does 9 holes on his own. 

This is after 4 days in a row of golf school practice. 

I have started Middle School soccer. 

I don't know my feelings about it yet. I'm frustrated because only 7! eighth graders are on the team, so we have to share our amazing 7th graders, and it's just convoluted. 

So whatever, we start games next week. I hope it goes well. 

You know how I get with puzzles and legos? 

My current "meditation" medium is these paint by number Lord of the Rings. 

I took this picture a long time ago. I am currently on my 9th painting. 

It helps me sort my thoughts - put order in the chaos. 

I like to paint while the kids are doing their teenager things - in and out of the kitchen, etc.

I sit there and paint and they tell me things. 

Galbraith day. 

You can't tell, but I have shingles. This is the picture I sent teledoc. 

SHINGLES! 

What a dumb name for a comeback virus. 

My leg and lower back were so sore in the nerves. It's still kind of weird. 

Das went through the temple a few weeks ago!

He just got his mission call to Brazil!

Spring break tradition! No matter how old the kids get! 

Eat your hot dog! hang out! Pretend it's covid days. 

They humor us moms. 

For extra credit, Avery had to tie her arm to her side and only use one arm all day.

We had to take time stamp pics to prove it. 

AND! This past weekend me and Lisa went to Les Miserables. 

We have been to Hamilton and Wicked at this same theater.

It was good, but once you have been to Hamilton, nothing compares. 

We stayed the night in a hotel so that we didn't have to drive home at midnight.

We stayed up so late because pillow talk. 

 

Day 1 :: Ten Facts

 

People people people! 

Can you believe it's been 5 years since the last time I did this? 

Five years ago the nightmare that was covid era slowly unraveled in front of us as I did this fun little internet game. 

I know it feels like five weeks ago. But it was five years. And when you click the link at the bottom "five years ago" and you go and see how little my kids were then...you won't be able to handle it. 

My kids were at the most perfect age for a stupid thing like covid to happen. 

So anyway. Fact number 1: Covid days were the salad days. But that is because my kids were at their most perfect fun time of life. Old enough, young enough.

Me and my cohort friends (Lindsay, Lisa) talk the covid days all the time. 

For such an awful situation, we made the absolute best of it. While many kids in the world were traumatized by it, our kids had such a fun time. So many "fieldtrips" and Wednesday bookmobile, and vacations to Florida. It was the BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES. 

Fact 2: These pictures are from Sunday. We went out to see if the "lake" at Intalco shooting range was frozen. It was pretty frozen. But still cracky. 

We had so much fun listening to sounds ice makes and throwing rocks and shooting arrows/bee bee guns at it. Exploring frozen places in January is a secretly super fun thing to do. Ice is WILD. 

3. I am home alone tonight because it's Wednesday and everyone is at youth activities. Jim took the boys to the church for some planning and rootbeer floats, and Avery drove herself to Kari's for some games. 

The kitchen is clean, dinner put away, Koda laying at my feet sleeping. 

It's very nice. 

4. At the end of October, Jim got major jaw surgery to fix his lower jaw and upper palette. It was more intense than we thought it would be. Full recovery is taking way longer than we thought. 

The first day when he got home from the hospital, his face was all wrapped up, laying in bed - Koda came and climbed right on top of him and laid entirely covering him, with her head on his chest. It was more than just the typical Koda cuddle, she knew he was in "distress" and she was keeping him warm. It was the coolest thing! Dogs are so so smart. (and soo soo dumb). But their instincts, and the invisible things they see that we don't see is so interesting. 

5. I literally can't think of anything more. 

facts. facts. 

Oi. Last week was finals week, and my kids were soo fried by the end of Friday. 

Friday morning Evan asked if I would help him with his Odyssey essay after school. He was almost done with it, and it was due at midnight. 

Then before he left for seminary he saw that it was due at 3:00.

Jim took him to seminary (Avery slept in),

and I opened his essay to see what it looked like: 

it was NOT GOOD at all. He was focusing on the most minor "character" ever - Argus, Odysseus's dog. 

Argus's strength is that he was loyal and stayed put for 20 years while his master was gone on a hero's journey.

Argus's weakness is that he got old and died.

So I called Jim and said "go get Evan and bring him back here, we need to work on this nightmare esssy".

So in about an hour and a half, he and I reworked the the whole thing. 

I don't want to put any moral weight on the situation (should I or should I not have helped him? I don't care). But I will say between the two of us, we turned that essay into something I am proud of. haha. 

We took the idea of the dog waiting for 20 years to highlight how Odysseus didn't have a good plan for this long journey. That was his weakness. 

6. In reworking this essay, it made me remember the days of teaching The Odyssey to Freshman back in the early aughts. That was so fun. 

I taught Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men, Julius Caesar, All Quiet on the Western Front, etc. 

Teaching is so fun. It's so hard. But so fun to see progress.

Do I miss it? No

Do I wish I still taught full time? No

Do I remember it fondly? Yes

7. On Sunday, Andrew said he didn't feel good. I didn't totally believe him because he seemed pretty normal, and he had just been to two parties all weekend. 

So I reminded him that there wasn't school Monday (in case he was setting up a scenario in which he could skip school - he's tried to fib his way out of school before). 

Then he threw up twice. 

So yeah, he was sick. 

But just like Evan's pukes, it passed within 12 hours.

8. There is nothing more horrifying in the world to Avery than someone throwing up. 

Both boys have had the pukes recently, and she locks herself in her room and rocks back and forth. 

She texts me when she hears them puking in their bathroom. She cries. 

She jumps at every sound and move. 

It's a real phobia, BUT nothing that motherhood won't cure. smiley face, winky face.

9. We are going to Disneyland in a few weeks and I am mostly excited, but a little bit nervous because that is how I get right before vacation. I get travel anxiety. Nothing too debilitating, but I always think: lets just not. Let's all just stay home. I think it's a maternal nesting instinct. 

But my brain knows that yes absolutely lets go. I know we will have so much fun.

But getting there with all the logistics in the way ties me in knots. 

10. When I push publish, I am going to read my book: Playground by Richard Powers. 

I only read two books last year! I tried many books, but quit them halfway through. 

Here are the books I quit last year:

A Court of Thorns and Roses

The Lacuna

The Frozen River 

The Book Women of Troublesome Creek

Tom Lake 

Go as a River 

Fahrenheit 451

Horse

Some of those I plan on revisiting, but there was something about last year - I couldn't commit. 

Oh yeah I also read the Book of Mormon! That's a really good book. 

All of the important spiritual stuff aside, it is a literary masterpiece. I read the annotated version and it highlights those complex connections and layerings and allusions and ancient contexts... things I would never have known about on my own.

I was listening to some interview on some podcast - a guy who used to be an Athiest was being interviewed, and he had turned Christian in recent years. He said among many reasons for his conversion, the main reason was that Atheism is so BORING. 

And that resonates with me so much. Christianity - spirituality, religion, faith - everything about it so fascinating. It's beautiful and impossible to get to the bottom of. I feel like every topic is a literal endless well. Take any topic and you cannot reach the end or summary of it. And if you do - it changes and evolves as you change and evolve. 

Sometimes our religion is basic math, and sometimes it is quantum physics. And it's both. 

It's endless and exciting! 

FIVE YEARS AGO

Roof Dinner

Last Sunday I made roast and mashed potatoes and carrots and gravy.

You know how the house smelled when we walked in the door after church. 

Bonafasio was in the addition painting trim. He would have been staring at us while we ate, which is awkward right?

So I hollered at the kids to put some blankets on the roof and grab a pot, and here we are. 

It's a little bit my favorite thing. 

But also what a weird time of life we are in right now. I swear we are so so close to moving in. 

They are in the middle of creating the shower, the carpet is coming tomorrow. 

Maybe one more week? I'm a big dummy for thinking that optimistically. 

Please please one more week. 

Last week Jim installed a new door. 

It looks awesome. We are going to add frost to the clear windows, don't worry. 

There are just so many projects going on all over this house. 

Beyond house construction, we are in the very thick of soccer season. 

Team dinner at the mall.

The other day Avery had a break away, but no goal.

She also has a mild concussion. blah blah blah, hope that is done tomorrow when she revisits the trainer to see if her brain is good to go. 

I am coaching Andrew's team. 

This is my third year with these kids, and wowee wow do you remember the first year? We lost all games by large amounts of goals.

This year we are winners. Not undefeated, but we have won half the games and almost won the other half. 

They have improved so so much. Also we are one giant team - all the talent pooled into one great whole. But then on Saturdays we split into two teams and I coach two games. It is tiring and so fun. 

This is my women's league team from the summer: Purple Reign. 

This was our last game, and I am so bummed I missed the team picture. 

I got hit directly in the face with a ball, then had to hurry off the field to pick up Andrew from something. 

We are good. Second place.

Let's see...what else. 

Mushrooms, forests. 

Avery drives herself and the kids around to things and I LOVE IT. I didn't realize how much it would up my parenting game. 

Here's the new mural painted in downtown Blaine. 

I love our little town, it is the best. The other day between activities I was walking up and down the street and it was just beautiful. It has come such a long way from when we first moved here. It used to be clap board shut and deserted. Now it is beautified and has so many great places to eat. Come visit. 

OH MY GOSH THIS! 

This is the top best thing of this fall: Evan playing in the band at home games. 

Remember he was for sure going to go to the councilor tomorrow and drop out of band? And then he didn't, and admitted "band is ok"?

Then our football team is actually winning this year, and every time they make a touchdown the band strikes up with On Wisconsin?

Me and Jim went to the last home game (first time!) and it was SUCH A BLAST. Watching Avery and Evan do their high school thing...I just had the biggest smile on my face. 

Evan is on cymbals and he's such a stud over there clashing them together right on beat and right at the correct crescendo. 

I can't believe he almost opted out of this. 

There are a few things as parents we have not allowed our children to quit. 

Avery soccer, Evan band. Both they begged us to quit. 

There was an intuition about it - our adult brains knew the benefit/consequence of letting something go - It would have changed their whole teenage experience. They would have missed out on so many opportunities and lessons. 

Also did you know Avery is a junior and she is almost done with this whole scene. Ugg. I cannot even.

Also, if they don't finish our new house soon she won't even get to enjoy her new upgraded room for very long. That keeps me up at night. lol

And lastly, this is us every night reading scriptures on my bed. 

We set a timer for 10 minutes and they read on their own. It's also my favorite. 

Remember all the ways we have tried to read scriptures together? I've read to them in the early morning, in the evening. Now we have evolved to this level. 

Koda is always smack in the middle of it all, in everyone's way and we love her.