Animal Parade and Choir Magic
Monday evening I had a photo session for another family from Bosnia, the mom, Selma is a first generation refugee. She was unable to get newborn photos of her 5 month old per COVID anxiety. Her 2 year old, Aria, was quite the two year old. She fought me tooth and nail, we are lucky we got the few poses with her. Poor Selma was so stressed out.
Tuesday was a busy, busy day. The morning was filled with Nina for Phillip and Evelyn. Then photo editing and laundry until 2 pm. Amelia stayed home until 11:30, so she could sleep in and finish her Biology project. Sara and I rode scooters over to the Elementary school to watch Josie and Oliver sing with Mrs Beneschiek in their “Animal Parade” performance. Josie carefully chose an outfit with animals on it, her “Dog Vader” dress. Josie got to use a bee puppet for one of the songs. Now I am singing “An Austrian Went Yodeling” over and over in my head! She was so cute and animated with her actions and words. Oliver looked darling pounding his drum. I had a few minutes to hem Mia’s new choir dress. Her original dress was 6 inches off the floor. The new dress was 6 inches too long and a size too big. I tried sewing a dart at the shoulder to keep the bodice from gaping but that created a wrinkle on top of the sleeve. I picked that out because Mia hated it, instead I sewed two seams in the back to cinch the chest area in. Hopefully, I don’t get in too much trouble because the dresses are school property. Then off to run Mia to school, Evelyn to dance. Home to make dinner and off again. I was hoping Justin could take Phillip to drums and get Evelyn from activity day girls but he parked himself on the couch. Sara saved the day again taking Phillip to drums. Evelyn caught a ride home with Ophelia. Josie and I went to Amelia’s Festival preview concert. After each choir performed a professor of choral conducting from Boise State critiqued their performance. He was quite entertaining! The performance was almost two hours with the extra feedback. Josie was a good sport. Her main motivation was getting ice cream with Amelia to celebrate their excellent singing skills. After the concert the HS kids met at Freddy’s. Josie was immediately scared to go, she was afraid the restaurant was scary like Freddy, from 5 Nights of Freddy. I told her she could have a dish of ice cream with gummy worms and Oreos, that made it all better. She was relieved the spot was not remotely scary or Freddy-ish. We did not get home until after 9:30.
Mia was stressed to the max with end of semester stuff, missing another day of school, her choir trip on Thursday, and packing for a week in Utah. I called a YCL camp meeting right before the joint activity at 6:30. I found an informative podcast on Leading Saints (Kurt Francom) with Vivian Bishop-Cook about how she leads Girl’s Camp after 16 summers of experience. I was so inspired with her experience and ideas leading Stake Girl’s Camp. We decided to use her 3 F’s ideas (Faith, Friends, Fun) idea to focus the purpose of camp. We talked about our purpose and scope for camp this year. Then planned the camp kick-off. The YCLs were given assignments and an “F” to manage. After the meeting Mia went home with me to pack her stuff. I missed Mom and Me time last week so was on call to spend time with the girls. Evelyn and I played AG Dolls. I was an American living in Australia with an ice cream truck. Evelyn was a world traveler who somehow scored free plane tickets for herself and two horses without regular job. I was intrigued how that worked! Josie and I played Llamanoes and researched Aurora Borealis for her Great Brain project. Amelia was crying in her room by this time. She quickly recovered once I helped confirm her outfit choices and make sure nothing was left behind. We got a second suitcase packed for Utah since most of her choir trip choices were not comfortable and school-themed. All better! I got her an embroidery project prepped to pass the boring hours spent traveling. She was off to the bus at 6:50 am! The boys caught a ride with me in order to avoid the bus ride. Justin was at work until 10 pm on Thursday. Some SEC stuff was blowing up for the QR this term.
We spent an hour after school packing our suitcases for Utah. Phillip had two hours to pack, rather he sat in a chair listening to Dragonwatch. He had the nerve to freak out because he was not packed by the time I had to leave. The RS dinner was at 6:30 pm, I was asked to play Emma Smith as part of the entertainment. Before I left I gave the kids with the assignment to clean up their chores, eat dinner, and for Phillip to finish packing. The dinner was lovely, we had catered Olive Garden soup and salad. The theme was “purses.” We brought our purses, weighed them, then the game was to compare our purse contents with Sister LeAnn Sayer. My purse had my wallet (tiny) and three bandaids. The dinner theme was cute with the purses, we even sang a purse themed version of Count Your Many Blessings (Purses). The entertainment was a panel of sisters playing the first few Presidents of the RS (Emma, Eliza Snow (Eliza Finch), Zina Young (Patty Hill), Bathsheba Smith ( Joann Jones), and Emaline Well (Sara) with Sister Cosette Rasmussen narrating. The presentation was information and lovely. I quite enjoyed learning about the early RS leaders. Their advice still applies today, their struggles similar to our in spite of all the advancements. I raced home after the activity to find only the dishes done, Phillip lounging in the floor with all the chores incomplete except the dishes and Evelyn’s chore (excellent job Evelyn) and Phillip still not packed up. We stayed up until 10 pm cleaning. Justin was still not home by 10, he was trashed with the work and residual sick hang over. Phillip almost had to wear the Luchador mask to school for wasting my time. It’s my new punishment inspiration in addition to wedgies.
Friday Josie’s class earned a PJ party and could take a stuffed animal to school. Josie was thrilled to take Jellybean (aka Destroyer of Worlds) and of course Ellie. Pjs are Josie’s jam! Justin was not packed and slammed with work. We decided to leave for Utah Saturday morning instead. That gave me time to pick up Evelyn’s new antibiotics for strep, give her 24 hours to kill those contagious germs. I decided to donate a pile of stuff in the garage as an excuse to go thrifting at DI. I went with a purpose to find a couple new DVDs to watch during the trip and find some embroidery cloth. In addition to DVDs I found ice skates that fit both Phillip and I, new shoes for Phillip (he already busted out the sides of his shoes after 2 months), an embroidery bag, and another egg decorating thing. I was thrilled. I also went to the Asian store for ingredients to make spoon sushi at Miekka’s home. At Fred Meyer I found Clearly Canadian mineral soda. James introduced me to the drink 30ish years ago, I bought 4 flavors just to try it out again. Yep! Still delicious. The strawberry was the best flavor out of the batch. I quite enjoyed the shopping trip, it’s been months since I went thrifting. My last errand was dropping off my camera to a local guy to clean the inside of my main camera body and two of my workhorse lenses. I’ve never had my “new” body cleaned, it’s been over 4 years since I bought my new Mark IV.
Evelyn was distraught when I arrived home. She was disappointed we were not going to Utah that afternoon. On top of that she had an emotional time at school with her best friend Leila moving away. Leila is the friend at school who Evelyn loves to play with. Her parents rent went up to $3000 per month for a 3 bedroom home?! They are moving in with his parents. Evelyn made sure to give her a card with my phone number and our address. I hope the girls can keep in touch. Phillip and Everett had a few things to tie off for the end of semester. Phillip pulled his D in Math up to an A just by turning in his homework…amazing. He pulled up his Social Studies grade to an A as well! He now has almost straight A’s. Everett had one F for not putting his name on a quiz, he never checked Powerschool even though his teacher asked the class 5-6 times. He still has straight A’s in spite of the missing quiz. Amelia once again pulled off straight A’s! Good job kids. Now to enjoy the end of semester with Spring Break. Justin finally finished all his meetings and spreadsheets at 8 pm. I worked to get his laundry folded and sorted. Lagoon did not open due to snow on Saturday! The travelers went with plan B a visit to the aquarium. I scrambled to make alternate plans for Amelia to get picked up in case we did not make it to Draper by 12:15 pm. Mom agreed to pick up Mia if we needed her too.
We all needed an extra night sleeping in our own beds after such a crazy week. We took our time leaving for Utah, my plan to leave at 7:30 happened at 10 am. Ha ha. Mom and Mia successfully connected at In-and-Out before the choir bus headed back to Boise. Let’s get vacation on!
A few weeks ago ( 25 Feb) I was chatting with my brother Joe. We were talking about our bad habits and it came up that I was drinking about a gallon of Coke Zero a Day, 3-4 cans and than an extra large refill at the gas station I would drink half of that down than refill it again! I drink a lot of water to compensate but still my habit weighs heavily on my mind. Plus the inflation is steep, a 24 pack of soda was costing about $13 dollars a week plus $15 in refills (on Tuesday Evelyn and Phillip always get a treat when I stop for a refill). Just my consumption alone was costing about $100-$120 per month. We are trying save money so I finally made the decision (again) to kick the habit. All the kids and Justin scoffed at my determination. Sara was excited and like a bulldog…willing to pester me about progress. I’ve stopped all the soda, a few times each week I do drink a water with a drink powder and a bit of caffeine, that has 60% less caffeine than soda. I just don’t want this habit holding our finances and my brain back anymore. It’s been extra hard to get up and go to the gym after the funeral trip and daylight savings the same weekend. Then all the emotional trauma of last week. Once Spring Break is over that will start up again. Let my system catch up with all the changes.
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