Amelia's birthday! Aunt Jana Visits

 

We enjoyed celebrating Amelia's birthday this year with the Suapaia family! Jana drove up here on Thursday for a long weekend. We loved the cousin time and lots of downtime. Of course there had to be drama but that will come later in this week's story. 

Monday and Wednesday brought 20 kids for me to photograph for end of year school photos. Only one client actually returned from the fall sessions! Yay. Sara helped me out Monday morning since my calendared dental appointments were only showing up for Thursday. Guess I had scheduled 3 for Monday morning and school photos at the same time. Sara took the girls for their cleanings and sealants. It's nice to have a neighbor friend. Amelia helped Phillip make 9 different types of slime for his science fair project. They spent the evening making it all. The results may have been skewed since I had them use Elmer's activator instead of borax (Mia insists that works better). In the end the Elmer's All Purpose glue with the Elmer's Activator worked the best. Now Phillip just needs to enter in the results into a table and finish up his slideshow presentation. 

Everett and Mia finished up their ISAT testing last week. Amelia's ELA test took her over 2.5 hours. We are glad to have that over!  The results will be sent out towards the end of June. Evelyn is up next to take the reading exam in May. I'll tell you, it's been rough finding initiative to continue school now that testing is over. There are still 5 weeks of school left. Boo hoo...I do need to register the kids for public school next year. 

My huge project of the week was cleaning out the little girls room. That endeavor took me 8-10 hours of sorting, trashing, and organizing. I went through all bins of clothes for sizes 4-8 weeding out what the girls would not wear and reducing the excess. I ended up with 5 trash bags of clothes 2 of toys, and 3 bags of trash. I still cannot believe how much stuff accumulates over the period of 6 months. Evelyn recently moved up to the top bunk bed because the girls were waking each other up with their octopus moves on the bottom bunk bed. She made a credible snuggle palace up her in space complete with a book nook to improve her burgeoning reading skills. Justin was incredibly busy this week but still found time to take Amelia to choir on Tuesday so I could finish that task. 

Thursday was another busy, busy day. The boys and I had our dental appointments. Turns out Everett was only brushing the fronts of his teeth. Gross. Still the kids walked away members of the no-cavity club. Me? The obsessive-compulsive tooth brusher and flosser? Nope! I have a cavity. Stoopid genetics. The dentist gave me a bottle of something that will kill the bad bacteria in my mouth that could be causing my excessive cavity issues. I left the boys and Evelyn with a long list of school and cleaning tasks before my next errand. Amelia got a haircut and professional hair color! She got red lowlights with a lighter brown for highlights! It looks so pretty. Kymra also fixed up the strange layered cut Mia got 3 months ago. Yay! She's wanted fun hair for quite a while...that was an early Happy Birthday gift. Then off to gymnastics, voice, the Asian store, and back home. Jana and girls arrived while I was still out running errands. We had a yummy grilled chicken salad for dinner. Rachel was not too fond of Dog Vader. Evelyn and Hannah played American Dolls, especially with the school room for lots of hours. 

Phillip went camping with the Deacons quorum Friday to Saturday at Bruneau Sand Dunes. Phillip rode up with the boys around 5:30 pm. Justin drove up later after work and packing up his gear to meet them later on. I hear it was hard to sleep on the rocky ground. The sand dunes were a blast. I also heard about an incident with cute older girls and 12 year old boy reactions. Justin and Phillip made it back home before soccer games at 10...and before the rain. 

Friday the rest of kids and I toured Cherry Hill Orchards. We listened to a radio commentary on orchard facts while driving along a route to see all the different fruits grown there. Jana and Rachel opted to stay home. Amelia and Evelyn dressed up in their birthday dresses for orchard photos at the end of the tour. That was worth $8 to me! I made Josie dress up too but she was not excited about that. Evelyn looked so cute in her baptism dress. Amelia wore her new dress for her birthday photos. At the end of the tour we saw some farm animals and bought a box of dried cherries. The dark chocolate cherries were to die for. The best part for the kids was hanging out of all the windows and the sun roof while we drove through the trees. It was quite late so our dinner plans became hamburgers and fries from Arctic Circle. The kids snuggled on the couch watching Raya before bedtime. 

Saturday it rained. It was pouring during Evelyn's soccer game. I'm glad the sportbrella still works! That proved a worthy shelter for 3 hours of soccer games. Everett said he loved playing in the rain. It was not too cold so I did not mind the rain at all. The rest of the gang stayed dry (and bored) at home too chicken to join me. Ha ha. Amelia requested Pho for her birthday dinner. We found a local place and went there only to find it was closed for that day. Another restaurant was not very far away so we tried that out. It was soooooooo slow. I think we waited for over 45 minutes for our food. Amelia and I ordered the special Pho, it had tripe in it which Amelia had no idea what that ingredient was. She was quite upset to find out it was cow intestines after she took a bite. I ruined her fancy meal. I mostly felt bad, the tripe does give a deep flavor (you don't have to eat it). The younger kids were going stir crazy so we ran up and down the hallways outside the restaurant. I got an unexpected call from the clinic saying they had excess COVID vaccines and needed available folks to come by if possible. We were only a couple miles from the clinic so I got my second (and last) shot. I might get it again if temple admittance requires a vaccination. Jana got a whole lot of new food experiences this weekend from curry soup to sushi!

Sunday morning Amelia woke up a 14 year old! Yippee! The little girls helped me heart attack her door after church. Justin woke me up in a panic saying the plumbing backed up. There was nasty sink/sewer water spewing from the sinks and drains on the north side of our house. The spaces behind the washer were covered with nasty smelling poop water. I cleaned up the filth as best I could with the towels we had on hand. The kids were all gagging from the nasty smell. Jana retreated upstairs until the smell improved. Justin worked hard trying to clear the clog or whatever the issue was with out 15 ft drain snake, a borrowed drain snake, and a rented snake from Home Depot. The rented snake was unfortunately too large to bend down the pipes so that was a total bust. Justin thinks the issue stems from too much stuff down the garbage disposal and not enough throwing away of sink garbage. Probably right! I do throw away loads from the sink but the kids help and somethings make it though. 

Amelia wanted to make sushi for dinner but the kitchen area smelled so disgusting we almost cancelled. Esther offered up her house for use which was a great idea, except I had time to clean things up and block off the drains to contain the stink. Our kitchen sink and faucet is out of action but the rest of the house plumbing is just fine. We went ahead with Amelia's birthday dinner as planned. The Palmers came over her for sushi and potstickers. Sara bought me some tempura shrimp for sushi at Costco. Amelia and I picked up surikake, Japanese mayo, and eel sauce to fancy up our rolls. Jana made herself some fried rice! The young kids weren't thrilled about the offerings so had quesadillas as an option. Esther brought her stash of flavored syrups to add to our selection! We had yummy cream sodas for drinks. The kids ran wild after dinner for a couple hours. Rachel and Hannah loved the kid car! Kids were racing all over the street, that was a dream come true. The Ostlers joined the crowd for cheesecake and ice cream.  Esther made coconut sauce and brought macadamia nuts to dress up the cheesecake. I made raspberry compote and fresh whipped cream as an alternative! Delicious. Still hard to believe Amelia is 14 years old. She looks like a 20 year old girl ready for college most days. Justin teases her she needs to wear paper bags instead. Amelia opened up her super fancy slime from Kawaii, a new PJ set, bluetooth headphones, and a gift from the Ostlers. She looked so pretty at church in her new dress. After our guests left we watched Mia videos on my YouTube account. She's our favorite Amelia.