Week of 6-3-18

SHARING TIME
I followed the outline in the Sharing Time manual exactly.  And things went really well.  I was surprised.  It was nice to have the kids listening and showing some respect this week.  Not sure where it came from but it was nice.  I will say WHY DO I ALWAYS HAVE TO GET THE CRAMPS OF DEATH WHILE I'M TEACHING SHARING TIME????  UGH!  There.  I'm done.  6-3-18

PRESIDENT NELSON'S FIRESIDE
Charity, Kelly and Bradley all went to the Stake Center to watch the broadcast, Luke chose to stay home and watch it on the TV with me.  What an AWESOME fireside that was!!  I was just on pins and needles the entire time anxious to hear what he was going to say!  I love his idea to "Enlist in the Lord's Youth Battalion in helping to Gather Israel!"  So cool!  We are going to work on his five things together.  I love that he gave practical things for them to apply to their lives!  Just really awesome!!  6-3-18

PLANNING
I was talking with the kids Sunday night about how we would like to implement some more youth lead in our home considering there isn't going to be as much of it at church anymore.  They were all really excited about some of the ideas they came up with.  I only was wishing Nate was there so that we could solidify some of it.  I thought they got really creative, wanting to turn our family into a city and everyone has different responsibilities, kinda cute.  We'll see what ends up happening.  I think it's cool that they are bummed about the youth lead fizzling out a little and anxious to do more here.  Makes me happy.  6-3-18

BASKETBALL CAMP FOR LUKE AND BRAD
Brad and Luke went to their first basketball camp on Monday.  Including the funny line to pay and the weird lady who thought she deserved special treatment and could skip the line-- I'd say the first day was a success!  I sat and watched them do a dribbling drill before I left them there.  Looked pretty serious.  Then when I picked them up, Luke came running out to the car, couldn't even wait for Brad, just jumped in and the first thing he said, with a big huge smile, "That coach is so... weird!"  Then he proceeded to tell me how the coach had them choose who they thought would win the final round of lightning and if they chose right they would get a Gatorade. "I thought he was joking so I just picked the side that didn't have very many people, and HE WON!  So I got a Gatorade!  It was so funny!"  Such a fun, cute kid.  I loved hearing about it all- they really had a fun time!  I was so glad.  Not like Brad's experience last year where he didn't know anyone really.  It's nice that they have each other.  On Tuesday, I went early to pick them up and watched them play for a little while- that was fun.  They were on opposing teams when I first got there.  Kinda crazy to watch them play against each other.  But fun still too.  They are both so good!  I'm so proud of all the hard work they've put into this skill and how they've magnified their talents!  Fun stuff.  6-4-18

FIRST DAY OF SUMMER
So I think today was a good sign of how great this summer is going to be!  It was awesome!  I loved sleeping in a little, lazying around.  I did get TONS of laundry done, and everyone had to have jobs done before they could do anything (which meant Jack moped around for a few hours before finally deciding playing with Will was worth vacuuming the stairs- his new job), so it wasn't completely unproductive.  Kelly and I managed to squeeze in about three hours of Sequence.  Yes, the board game.  It was fun.  Everyone just kind of ran around with friends playing on trampolines, water balloons (Luke and Clint rode bikes all the way from his house to ours to get our balloons and took them back to Clint's!).  Bradley went fishing (this should have been first since he got up at 5:00 in the morning! to go fishing before Basketball camp!).  Noah and his friends played Bigger or Better (much to my dismay).  Charity had to work, so that was rough, but most of it was fun stuff!  6-4-18

VISITING BECKY IN THE HOSPITAL
Becky had her surgery to remove the tumor and basically a hysterectomy on Friday.  Things didn't go so well, so she was still there on Monday.  There was a lot more to be done I guess.  We went to visit her and she seemed to be doing better than we'd heard the days before so that was good.  She was fun to talk to, as always.  The kids were a little sleepy from the drive, so less than entertaining on our end, but all was well.  Jen showed up just before we left and livened things up a bit for us :).  It was nice to spend that time with them.  Hopefully, Becky will be able to keep her oxygen up and get out of there soon.  Or at least be feeling better.  6-4-18

MOTHER DAUGHTER LUAU
Erika and I got to spend the evening together for her Activity Days Mother/Daughter party.  This was a lot of fun!  Something I haven't done in a long time!  We had a lot of fun guessing the baby pictures.  Erika's was so the cutest!  Just had to throw that out there.  Then we ate Hawaiian Haystacks.  Then we played the "That's my mom" game.  Then we had floats and it was time to go.  I am pretty proud of my Erika.  She's such a good girl and so fun to be with!  I wish we could do that more often!  6-5-18

PRESIDENTIAL FITNESS
So.  I'm a little annoyed right now.  I probably should just get over this, but I am struggling.  I emailed Mrs. Gorze, the PE teacher asking if there could have been a mistake with Luke's scores and politely asked for his scores.  She responded saying she had triple checked everything, but didn't give the scores, so then I replied asking for the scores and she hasn't responded at all.  I realize school is out, maybe she's on vacation, but I'm a little irritated.  I know Luke is unusually obsessed with the whole thing, but what is wrong with telling us what she has down for his scores??  I am hoping she has something wrong and we can clear it up and he can still get his certificate that he wants, but that doesn't have to happen.  And if we had his scores, we would know where he went wrong if he did.  She was really dismissive with her "'they' don't do that award anymore", which bugs me and I really wish "they" would have told the kids they weren't going to do the three year one.  I think I'm just going to go ask Mr. Denhalter about it next week.  If I'm not over it by then I guess.  I just feel like Luke deserves it and I'm the only one who is going to fight for it for him.  6-5-18

SECRETARY
I just got a text reminding me about the meeting for the DGL Parent board tonight and couldn't go and then later in the thread (at 10:30 at night), they asked me if I'd be the secretary so I said, "sure!"  So I guess we'll see what that means?!  I'm a little nervous, but I'm also feeling pretty good about it.  It can't be as bad as PTA President and I survived that?? 6-5-18

GRANDMA HATCH'S 60TH BIRTHDAY
I'm a little bugged at myself for not giving myself more time to make her cake that day.  I put it off til later, since it was an easier one and I had made it even easier by buying the actual cake part, but of course, since I thought it looked easy, I ran into a bunch of problems at the last minute.  Kind of annoying.  I will say that I was able to get the color of the flower pot just perfectly!  Too bad she never got to see it.  We will have to try harder next time.  But anyway!  Simon treated us all to dinner at Golden Corral.  That ended up being a lot of fun!  I think my most favorite part of the evening was when I looked down the buffet towards our private room and saw cute little Jack there, standing at the chocolate fountain with a skewer of something he was drowning in chocolate, along with a plate covered in skewers of chocolate covered who knows whats :).  He was taking the "eat whatever you want" very seriously :).  It was SO CUTE!!  I loved it.  And I loved the cotton candy :).  It was fun to see Heidi and John and Porter and of course Steve was very entertaining so that was good :).  I'm trying to remember what it was that he ate to earn my dollar.  Something gross probably.  We all went around the room and told either something we love about Grandma or a favorite memory.  I shared about our sleepover we had a decade or so ago when we lived in Eagle Mountain and we were doing Yoga in the middle of the night.  Lots of fun.  Nate and the older four had to leave early for Mutual.  And Noah had missed it for a cool hike with the scouts.  6-6-18

SONS OF UTAH PIONEERS TAKE TWO
So two years ago Nate did a catering job for Emily's Dad's SUP group, and what do you know, he asked Nate to do it again this year!  Nate's been very anxious and (I think) excited for this.  Lots of planning and preparation goes into it for weeks before.  I had the privilege of making the potato salad.  Last time it was for 132 people, this time it was 105, so a little less, but not much.  Still took about four hours to make all the potato salad.  Which is kinda nuts!  We worked our little butts off that morning/afternoon (well past the 12:00 departure time we'd given ourselves for Bear Lake, unfortunately).  But we got all the food over to Jeff (who was going to serve it all) by 5:00.  It ended up going pretty well from what Jeff said.  That was a huge relief!  You could feel the relief as Nate was talking to him (while he was driving) on the way to Bear Lake.  Time to get ready for the ward pool party food!  6-7-18