I have a lot of things to write about this month! This will be my last blog entry before we are FINALLY back to school! Everyone is crossing their fingers that school will start as planned this Wednesday and Covid won't rear its ugly head and mess anything up!
We are one of the few school districts that is opening up, planning for a full in-school return this fall. The nearby town of Idaho Falls is opening, but with an adjusted schedule where they have every Monday off. I think Rigby, Sugar City, and Ashton are opening as a full in-school return. Bigger cities in Idaho like Boise, Twin Falls, and others are planning things online. I know in Wisconsin they were planning to let Kindergarten through 5th grade go back in-person about a month ago, but then the Covid cases flared up and they changed it to only 2 days per week in-person and the rest online. My mom is hoping it doesn't change this week to ALL online. I am planning to just use the first week of school to get my students very familiar with Schoology (a new online program we have) in the event that we go back online. The problem is, I found out this week that we don't have enough Chromebooks for every student. We only have enough for about half! (You would think that with this big push for online learning, our schools would've gotten more laptops, but apparently not.)
I am stressing to get everything prepared for a crazy year. Was it a good time to become a teacher? Probably not. I am kind of rethinking my life choices right now. lol But we will make the best of it! Here is how we have spent the past month:
Family pictures
My friend, Claire, took our family pictures again this year. We tried something slightly different and went out towards the sand dunes to get some "sage brush" background pictures. Last year we went to the sand dunes, but we had the actual sand as our background. Here are some of our best ones.
Gabe got his braces off
Gabe was able to get his braces off in time for his freshmen year of high school to start! He had them on from April of 2019 to August of 2020. The last two months were basically just getting him to wear his rubber bands to adjust his bite. Here is a picture of Gabe in front of the orthodontist's office:
Lava Hot Spring
Lava Hot Springs is actually the name of a town, but they have a big swimming pool there with an outdoor pool, indoor pool, and some hot pools. The hot pools are fed from the mountains where they actually have hot springs that flow down. We didn't go into any of those, but we did spend most of the day taking turns jumping off the high dives and into the pools. The kids all pushed their limits and jumped off things that were higher than they've ever done before. Avery jumped off the low diving board first and then even did the "high" diving board. Then, even higher than the "high diving board" there was a separate structure that had three levels of diving platforms. The boys (including Josh) had all gone off the low and the middle platforms. I had been watching this all afternoon and was asking Gabe when it was just he and I laying on the towels, "Do you think you're brave enough to go off the highest one?" Gabe said "No way!" and I said, "Will you do it if I do it?" He looked at me and just laughed. Keep in mind, I had not gonna off a single diving board at all at this point. He just said, "You won't do it." I replied, "Sure I will. I'll do it right now," and started walking over to the table where you signed the waiver and got a special wrist band.
At the waiver table, the teenage boy working said to me, "Okay, you're all set! Just start at the lowest platform and work your way up!" I replied, "No, I think I'll just go to the highest one." He looked at me (kind of scared) and said, "Oh, okay then!" and off we went. Gabe was trailing behind me, I think questioning my sanity, as I charged up the spiral staircase to the first level. I didn't stop. I continued marching up to the second level...Gabe looked at me, hoping I would stop...then the third. When we got to the very top level, we saw there were a couple of kids waiting there. I laughed and looked at Gabe and said, "If these kids can do it, we can do it!" So, we waited until both of the kids had taken their jumps and then the lifeguard sitting down below held up a paddle with the number 3 on it. It was my turn to jump! I honestly had kind of hung back from the edge of the platform this whole time so that I wouldn't look down and lose my nerve. When she held up the 3, I just marched about 5 steps forward and without even thinking about it for another second, jumped off. I had that split second thought after I jumped where I was falling for a good five seconds and just thinking, "This was a bad idea," but it was too late! Then, before I knew it, I was splashing into the water!
I had spotted Josh, Caleb, and Avery swimming down below right before I jumped and then yelled, "Josh!!" so they could see we were up there. He said he would've taken a picture but we went too fast! So there is no documentation, but we did it! Gabe went after I did. There was no turning back! Here are some pictures of Avery jumping off the high dive and Caleb and Gabe off the middle platform.
Huckleberry Picking
This year, we went out picking huckleberries with the Summers family. This was the same family that we went on our cruise with. We went out on a Sunday afternoon, on July 26 (I always have to document this because the huckleberries are only on for about two weeks and it varies slightly every year.) We went up to Kelly canyon and this time we followed the Summers to their spot. It was only a little bit past where we usually go. We were able to find lots of berries. We stayed for about two hours and then drove back home where Josh did his usually washing and freezing of the berries. He puts them in Ziploc bags in the freezer and rations then for ice cream and pancakes for the next year! Here are some pictures of huckleberry picking!
Camping at Colt's property
The kids were itching to go camping before school starts, but the typical camping places like Yellowstone and Grand Teton have been CRAZY packed with people. It's been their busiest summer in years because of the pandemic. People are taking "stay-cations" and driving to national parks instead of getting on airplanes and flying to other faraway places. So the parks have been overrun with people from Oregon, Washington, California, and Utah. It's been practically impossible to find a campsite (from what we have heard from friends) and so we decided to just take the kids to someplace close by. Josh has a friend that owns some property near Warm Slough where we always float down the river in tubes. So one night, we did our usually float down the river and then set up a tent just down the road. We cooked hot dogs and smores on the campfire and slept in the tent with the rain guard off so we could see the stars. We heard coyotes in the middle of the night (which was a little scary) and cows mooing in the morning. I was grateful to get back to my bed the next night.
Caleb's football Jamboree and One Last Float with Friends
Caleb's grid kid football season has officially begun! They started practicing about two weeks ago and they had their "jamboree" yesterday. They meet up with teams from all over the surrounding areas and play brief, 20-minute games just to kind of size up the competition. Then they make the game schedule. So we did that on Saturday in Idaho Falls. Then we went floating Warm Slough with the Summers, the Munns, and the Benefields. These are all Caleb's football friends' families (Colter, Colton, and Kai). We had the jamboree from about 10am-12pm, then we floated from about 2:30pm-5:00pm, then we ditched the kids at the Munns' house and the adults went out to dinner at Costa Vida. (Don't worry, we got the kids pizza.) As we were floating, we pulled off to the banks for a little while and let the kids play in the sand. The boys buried Kai and then made inappropriate boobs on him out of sand. Boys will be boys.
New Car
For the past year, we have been toying with the idea of getting a second car. I have my Buick Enclave which I love and plan to drive until it dies. Josh just got a new police SUV because he had to give the K9 one to the new K9 officer. Now he has a newer Dodge Durango that doesn't have a kennel in it. The new vehicle that we decided to buy as a second car is a 2005 Toyota Camry. We decided to buy this so that we have something when we have soccer games in one place and football games in another place this fall. Josh can't drive his police vehicle out of the county, so we really needed something else in case they have games out of town. Plus, we knew that Gabe will be taking driver's ed (scary!) in the next year and will need something to drive. So here is the new, white Camry we bought!
New Dog
Last but not least, Josh surprised the family with a new dog on Friday! When Josh had to give up Drax, he was really sad and we planned on getting something else. Josh was hoping that Drax would get this other lady dog pregnant and had even arranged "play dates" but it didn't pan out. The lady dog never got pregnant. So about a week after he found out that the lady dog was NOT pregnant, he received the text message from this lady who works at the animal shelter in Idaho Falls. Apparently, there was this dog there that they were having a hard time adopting out because it needed someone with some police background to adopt it. It had been owned by someone who had been teaching it special commands and the shelter had a policy not to adopt a dog out to anyone that didn't have certification in bite-dog training. She asked if Josh knew of anyone who would be looking for a dog like this. I wasn't there when Josh got the text, but I can only imagine the look on Josh's face when he saw the text. I'm picturing like pure joy and excitement. He quickly texted her back and said he wanted to come to meet this dog. That was on Monday. On Tuesday, he drove to Idaho Falls (unbeknownst to me) and met this dog, Zeus. He didn't even tell me about any of this until Wednesday night. He told me he met this dog and was planning on getting it. That was basically it. I would like to stress that he did NOT ask. He told me. I was like, "Oh really?" and he insisted that they had bonded. So then on Friday afternoon, he drove to Idaho Falls with Gabe and brought Zeus home. I have to admit, he is a nice dog. It still makes me a little nervous to have a new, big dog that could eat me, but he seems okay so far. He knows the basic commands like sit, lie down, and this funny one where he comes in the middle of your legs. Caleb and Gabe already like him because he listens to them when they give the commands and not just to Josh. (Drax would only ever listen to Josh.) Here are some pictures of Zeus.
I think I have covered all of the exciting changes and things going on for us! The only other thing is that fires have been raging in California and our air quality is awful. Hopefully, we can get some rain and clear the air a little! Gabe has a sore throat right now and a cough but I asked him if he wanted to get a Covid test and he said, "No way." He realizes that a positive result would mean that our whole family wouldn't be starting school on Wednesday! So, we are just going to see if it passes!
Here are two final pictures I didn't really have a category for! It's Avery and Caleb eating cotton candy at the local carousel and then Gabe, Caleb, and Colton (their friend) jumping off a bridge!
Happy end of summer 2020!! It's been a weird one and at times required masks, but we still had some fun!
