Wow I need to play a serious game of catch up!
In the past six weeks since my last blog post, my good friend, Sam, had her baby boy, we have taken a trip to Wisconsin, witnessed the first complete solar eclipse in North America since 1979, had some end of summer fun, Caleb started his first football season with pads, and all three kids started back up at school! Also, another fun note, I FINALLY got realized from my calling as the Cubmaster!! Whoohoo! Celebrate! Caleb was sad to hear that news, but don't worry I told him, I will still attend his Pack meetings. Just this time as a mom instead of the Cubmaster!
We had our last Pack night that I was in charge of the day of my last post, July 19th. It was a crazy 48 hours to say the least because starting with the evening of the 17th, I was up late getting Avery's mermaid birthday party ready. Then the party went on basically the whole next day and then the next day, the 19th, I had to do that outdoor water day Pack night for the boys.
Then that night, which was Wednesday night, I was on the phone with my friend, Sam (and neighbor), and she said "I hate to tell you this but I haven't been feeling well today. I may call you tonight if we need to go to the hospital and have you come stay with my kids…" And I was thinking "Oh gosh please no… she's not even due for two more weeks… please at least wait until morning to go into labor and then call me… I am SOOO tired…" I even said a prayer that she would just hold off labor for another day so I could get my sleep. Funny story, then after my prayer I opened my scriptures and this was the exact verse I read:
Romans chapter 13, verse 10:
Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep
Hahaha! So I texted her back after I read that and told her about it and I said "So I guess I will put my ringer on just in case." Sure enough, at about 1:30am her husband called me and told me her water had broke and they needed me to come over and stay with their kids so they could go to the hospital. So I ended up sleeping (kind of) from about 3am to 7am and then her kids started to wake up. Then I got them dressed and ready and we came back over to my house where Josh had left for work and Gabe was left in charge! So I was a mom to five kids that day until we had to leave for Caleb and Gabe's last soccer games at about 5:30 and then Danny (Sam's husband) came and got them. It was quite exhausting. That night I think I went to bed at about 8:00. But baby Max arrived safe and healthy and all was well.
On that Saturday we made this drive out to Northern Idaho/Southern Montana (about an hour and a half) and found the beautiful place called Wade Lake. I have to post some pictures of that! The water was soooo clear and we had borrowed some little kid kayaks to play around on. The kids had a blast!
I have to make note of the fact that we also went huckleberry picking on July 23rd. Every year it varies a bit but the huckleberries were just coming on and we found some good ones at Kelly Canyon!
The just a couples days later, on Wednesday, July 25th, we left for Wisconsin! We drove to Bismarck the first day and stayed in a hotel there. Then we arrived in Wisconsin on Thursday night and met up at Culvers with Grandma Sue, Grandma Dahlke, Rachel, Brayden, and Jasmine! We quickly realized that Brayden is still a human tornado but as least he doesn't randomly bite people in the butt when he sees them anymore. So that's an improvement. Avery and Brayden actually got along a LOT better this year than they did last year!
While we were in Wisconsin the first day I did a lame craft fair (or should I say tax write-off opportunity lol) where I tried to sell my awesome woodland animal dolls! I did sell one and I guess considering there were about 10 people there that's not too shabby. haha But it actually work out well because then when we got back home to Idaho a local boutique wanted to buy them all to sell in their shop. So I was able to sell all of them in one shot and now I can just use our trip as a nice "business expense."
Other fun things we did included the Fondy aqua park (like a giant inflatable obstacle course on a pond), Mount Olympus in Wisconsin Dells, swimming at the city pool, family pictures with the whole crew (that was an adventure), eating a LOT of food (so much that I actually think I ended up with a case of food poisoning or something. I don't know but my stomach FREAKED out and then the last few days of the trip I ended up on a chicken soup only diet. It was so sad. I wanted to eat so much more Wisconsin junk food while I was there… lol) What else? We went to the zoo in Madison, we went to Kohler Beach one day and swam and played in the sand… it was a really busy fun week. We tried to have something planned for every day. One thing we had wanted to do but never ended up happening was the Packer's training camp, so maybe next year that will happen. Our last day there was Sunday morning (so we were there for about 9 days) and we left at about 7am. It's always fun to go there and do all the fun little day trips we do as a family but I'm always ready to get home too.
This year, once we got home it was time to get into football/eclipse/back to school prep mode. Everyone in the U.S. probably heard about the eclipse that was happening on August 21, 2017. But we had found out about a year ago that Rexburg was in the "path of totality" meaning one of the few cities in the U.S. that would get to see the TOTAL eclipse, where the sun was completely blocked out by the moon for approximately 2 and a half minutes. So we were all told by city officials to stock up on food, prepare for power outages, gas shortages, and so on! So I went and filled a couple extra little 5 gallon gas tanks and I had to do some grocery shopping anyways (since I left my pantry and fridge pretty much empty when we left for wisconsin) but I didn't go toooo crazy! Well guess what, everyone was exaggerating a crazy amount. There were some extra people in town but I wouldn't say it was any worse than the first week of the college semester when all of the families are dropping off their freshmen. It wasn't too bad. Traffic got jammed up on the highway in the few hours right after the eclipse but that was about it.
But I have to say, seeing the eclipse WAS pretty awesome. We went over to the school across the street and watched it from the big empty field on the east side of the building. It happened at about 11:30am and it had been about 70 degrees, but it dropped down to about 50 degrees as the sun got blocked out in a matter of minutes! Avery was like, "I'm cold!!! Let's go home!!" haha We all had out little eclipse glasses on so we could look up and see it in the couple of hours before it was "totality" and then in that two minutes of "night time" we were able to take the glasses off and run around crazy for a minute! It was a really cool experience! If anything it just made me really grateful for the sun and for the warmth it provides! lol
Then after the eclipse it was back to school time! I feel like it really snuck up on me this year. I didn't even do much shopping for the kids except for a few pairs of pants! School started on Wednesday, August 23rd. Gabe is in sixth grade and this is his second year at the middle school. The big excitement for sixth grade is getting lockers and then switching classes on your own little individual schedule (in fifth grade they rotated classrooms, but as a whole class, not individually mixed up) But when Gabe cam home he was upset about getting a bottom locker and underneath a kid that was kind of rude and had BO. haha I told him to be a big boy and talk to his teacher about it the next day before school and just see if he could switch. Then next day he came home happy because we was able to switch to a different (higher) locker. ;) I'm glad he's getting to the age where he's old enough that I can tell him to handle his own problems. I would've called for him and talked to his teacher probably two years ago. But he's a big boy now! Time to handle it yourself, kid!
Caleb is in fourth grade at Burton, the oldest grade at the elementary school across the street. I can't believe he's this old! He has a teacher he requested, Mrs. Bargabos, and a couple of friends in his class. No complaints so far! He also is super busy with football. Josh got roped into helping coach on the first day so those two have been gone almost every weeknight from about 5:30-7:30 for the past couple of weeks since we returned from Wisconsin! It's very time cosuming, but hopefully it teaches him about hard work and maybe gets him into better shape too. haha He's the biggest kid on his team and I guess if you weigh more than 95 pounds you have to have an X which means you can't run the ball. So I mostly watch him just run into other kids and knock them down at every game.
Avery started Kindergarten this year! I can't believe the day is actually here! She is in the afternoon class with Mrs. Williams. So far she seems to like it! She has a few friends that are in her class that live in our neighborhood. I feel like the drama is already starting with Avery because she is super happy one second and then gets mad at someone a second later. Then usually they make up pretty fast. But it's exhausting trying to handle all of her many emotions! Her best friends are Sailor, Adrie, and Ashlin.
So that is the update for the past month! I am pretty happy to get into routine! While I will miss the outdoor fun of Summer and the waking up late, I felt ready for this Fall and the school year to start! :) Here's to having all three kids in school!!! It felt like it would never come but here it is!! Whohooo!!!
