Together, Apart, Together

We bought a Blackstone grill because food cooked outside tastes better. We made chicken and smashburgers right away but I wanted to do breakfast so one evening when only Erica was home for dinner, we made French toast. It turned out great and tasted better than kitchen French toast.

One Saturday night I took James and Erica to the little park on the end of our street to watch Springville's Art City Day's fireworks. We packed a few snacks and games and rode our bikes. Totally low key compared to what we have to go through for Mapleton's fireworks in July. I even went home to grab a jacket, it's that simple. It's fun to see neighbors and friends even if the fireworks are pretty mid.

 

 

After the fireworks ended we noticed Henry and his friends were sitting not too far behind us so of course I had to give him a big hug in the dark and announce loudly, "Henry! Hi Henry! It's your mom!" He loooved that. His friend gave me a fist-bump so I think it went over well.

I've been telling Erica for a year that I would take her to get a savings account now that she gets letter grades and our bank pays $1 for every A, every term. I also told her she needed to have $20 since our bank will match up to a $20 initial deposit. Well all year long she'd get $20 but then I didn't take her and then she spent the money and so we'd wait. On and on. Well finally the stars aligned. She got paid $25 for watering a neighbors planters for a week so the very next day we went to the bank. With grades and their match, she had $68 when we walked out. She's pretty stoked.

Sometimes I get an idea and I can't shake it and I just have to do it. One afternoon I ordered new outdoor lights for the backside of the house, in brown so they go with the brick and new paint better. But that got me thinking that the lights in the front should also be brown. Should I buy a new one for the porch? No, it's perfectly fine and I like the style. Let's just paint it. What paint do I have? No paint but I do have rub n buff in gold. So I rubbed it gold but that looked too garish. Yikes. I can't go to the store, I got to make dinner in like 20 minutes. What do I have at home? Craft paint. I went over it lightly with chocolate brown paint and it turned out kind of coppery. I like it. From the time I got the idea to when I finished it was like 40 minutes. And it was like 90 degrees out there but I was in the shade. I'm going to have to go over it with some sort of sealant or plan on redoing it since $0.59 craft paint probably isn't meant for outdoors but sometimes.  

Add in some decorative planters and voila! We are such fancy people. Still toying with the idea of painting the door a faux wood finish. We'll see if I get brave enough or finally concede the white door has served it's time.

Sarah made this Declaration of Independence in a font that's readable for me. I found a digital download on Etsy that I liked, but why pay money when I have tech savvy kids? Then Justin got it printed for me at work on their large printers and this frame was a wedding present. Free-ninety-nine. 

As I drive to Reams I observe the demolition of our high school. Kind of sad but I get it. It smelled weird and was old 25 years ago when I was there. I wish I captured a photo of the "cool steps" standing in the midst of rubble. So metaphorical of high school social strata. You can see the new high school in the background. Where the old high school is I think is going to be parking lot and practice fields.

James watching and waiting for the priest quorum to come over before they head out for camp.

Utah is on fire and it's affecting our skies. It's felt like an eclipse for days. Look how crazy the sunshine shining through the trees looks.

This week Justin and Henry have been at camp and Sarah at FSY in Logan so it's just been the littles and I. I've been trying to find fun things to do but it being hot and smoky has made it difficult. Tuesday evening we went to see The Sheep Detectives and to Chick-fil-a. On Wednesday we went to the paleontology museum at BYU.

 

It was small but packed full of cool fossils. I wish I could have seen these animals in real life. I think it's time to watch 1997 Jurassic Park again.

They said skeptical things like "How do they know that's what they looked like? What if they had fur?" and it cracked me up. I am super skeptical about dino details and it's rubbing off on them. Every time in the news when they say things like "this dinosaur ate a vegetarian diet even though we always thought it was a carnivore but now that we've found this tiny tooth in a fraction of a jaw we now know so much." I roll my eyes. But I can be skeptical because 1. I don't care about the particulars or timeline of dinosaurs and 2. It doesn't matter to paleontologists what I think.

This is for Justin. Could you imagine hunting something with these antlers?

We only spent like 20 minutes in the museum since it was small and I had promised Brick Oven so they were anxious to move on. 

We haven't been here for years even though the kids love it. I find the food to be average but we can go if only half of us go so it costs half as much.

 

My only Amazon prime week purchase was a roll of wallpaper. Guys, this is adorable. I should have done this years ago. I've been mulling it over forever and I guess a savings of $8 was all I needed to finally do it. And how cozy does it look from the outside?

Before: This space is mainly used for Amazon purgatory after Christmas and storing a music stand and cello stand.

And after:

 

I had enough to do the small desk in the kitchen and I love it there too.

Thursday the kids played with friends and ran around. That evening after dinner I took them to Culver's for ice cream and then we watched the 1992 classic Beethoven and the first 20 minutes of Little Rascals before I sent them to bed.

Friday I took them and a couple of friends to the rec center to go swimming. 

Meanwhile, Justin and Henry had a great time at camp. Justin and the priests went to Wyoming on Monday, Henry and the rest of the young men went Tuesday. They've done some river rafting on the Snake River and hiking in Grand Teton.

Sarah at FSY at USU with Kyleigh. She created a shared album for me so I got picture updates every day, a couple of texts and no phone calls. She's growing up!

 

The boys came home from camp early Saturday morning. And by early I mean 2:30am.  A storm was coming in so instead of sleeping through the rain and packing up in the rain, they decided to pack up that night after dinner and drive the 5 hours home overnight.

Sarah came home Saturday afternoon after doing baptisms in the Logan temple and having lunch with my brother and his family (including my new great-nephew!)

Remember when I wondered if I was done with exterior changes to the house? I'm so funny that way. Here are the lights I ordered before Justin left and he was so kind to put them up for me last night. I helped. Before.....

After. Welcome my exterior to the 21st century. Not only are these lights not 38 years old and reminiscent of a fishbowl, they are motion sensored (not a word, spellcheck? I'm using it). Welcome my exterior to the 21st century.

And thus ends June. Please be kind to me, July, and have a few rainstorms so I don't die.

Justin's 18th Father's Day

We love father's day because Justin doesn't have any meetings! We spent the morning watching him open presents. There were 6 gifts and after he opened one, he had to guess who it was from. If he got it right, the giver had to share their favorite memory of Justin. If Justin got it wrong, then he had to share his favorite memory of them. Most of them had to do with camping and hunting. 

Erica wrote him a hilarious story and this was her face as he read it aloud.

James made him this candy bar poster at his primary activity.

 It ended with "from your Goober" and it was perfect because Justin calls him Goober.

He got a Blackstone cover and grilling tools, shorts, trailmix, handlebar protectors for his dirtbike if when he crashes, and Chums so he doesn't lose a third pair of $300 sunglasses at ym camp this week.

And then we rushed to get ready for church. Justin went a little early with Henry so he could prepare the sacrament so we didn't get to take a picture until after church.

We didn't get to make him breakfast in the morning because of time and because I was too stressed about speaking in sacrament meeting that day. But after pictures we pulled the Blackstone around to the shade and made breakfast sandwiches. So good. So fun. He got a kick out of us grilling for him (it's never happened before) and took this picture. I wish I got a picture back of him sitting in a camp chair and Erica sitting on his motorcycle next to him. James was out front in the tree.

Then he taught the kids to play Pinochle. Sarah had learned before so helped the other kids learn. They all loved it and Justin declared this the most successful Father's Day ever. (For the record, I do not like Pinochle and won't play.)

Then my parents came over and we had steak that Justin and Henry grilled, homemade mac n cheese, creamed cauliflower, green beans and sweetwater for dinner. Then we had coconut cream pie and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. I sent around this sign-up sheet and the kids did a great job.

We sure love this guy and can't get enough of him. He has a lot on his plate and is spread very thin but we all know and feel that he likes us the most. His favorite part about being a dad is seeing his kids get good at stuff and figuring out what they like to do. And doing the stuff he likes with them. It's better with  you, he says.

He's the best.

New paint reveal

The day I've been waiting for 5 years finally arrived. The house is getting painted. Look how the color has faded. This is what was under the downspout.

When Justin and I got back from our anniversary trip, the windows were all covered in plastic. They got started the day we left and it took a couple of days to power wash the stucco and begin protecting the windows.

I did not like the feeling of being closed off from the outside. I couldn't see out unless I opened the front door and even that became off limits eventually. Sarah said it felt like a haunted house.

Because of the weather (of course we would paint the house the only week we had stormy weather for weeks before and after) it took several days longer than we were all planning and hoping for but progress was noticeable.

Here's a reminder of what things looked like before:

Like way before. Here's the house in 2021 when we first saw it.

I still remember the morning I rage painted the front door white.

2022 When I created this flower bed and planted all these shrubs.

The back yard with the old cracked uneven patio.

June 2023 New patio.

Old windows, old paint. We added a rain chain to solve the flooding basement problem.

Every side of the house was a slightly different shade of the same faded blue color. Some places it didn't even look blue at all. 

New windows last winter!

And now new paint!

We also replaced the garage door in November but I don't think I ever mentioned it.

James and I put up this swing as a finishing touch. The front yard has the best shade all day long but nowhere to sit. Until now.

Does this conclude the exterior makeover of the house?

Most of the time the painter was here, Justin was out of town. First for work and then for man camp with his friends. While he was working and exploring beautiful areas of Nevada....

I too advantage of some extra free time and taught myself to paint with watercolors. And by teach myself I mean pause Youtube tutorials every 3 seconds to follow along. This is what I made one evening when I would have been making dinner if he were home.

I also stayed up late at the kitchen counter painting instead of going to bed because going to bed all by myself is the worst.

Justin came home Saturday afternoon and sadly declared this cooler had seen it's last trip. The hinges have broken before and we fixed it but they broke again. It was time to say goodbye to our wedding present cooler. It lasted 20 years and that's pretty good. Sad day.

We took the kids to Winco because sometimes it's fun to see a different grocery store. They were impressed with the bulk candy just like we thought they would be.

We let them each pick out a couple of kinds for them to snack on while they read. We'll see if that's really when they get eaten. Each of the kids has made a summer reading goal. The reward is a fancy dinner on Labor Day.