Avery's 9th Birthday, Mom and Jasmine's Visit, and WE MOVED!

July was a very busy month. After the 4th of July, things really started to get stressful. Now that it's all over, I can talk about how it all happened.

At the end of June, Josh and I were talking about how homes were selling for sooo much money right now in Idaho. Nation-wide, the housing market is high, but especially in Idaho. I read one article that said Boise had the most "over-inflated home values" of any city in the U.S. right now. A big reason that Idaho is growing is because a lot of people from California, Oregon, and Washington who are conservative are fed up with their states being shut down due to Covid restrictions. They want their kids in school and their businesses to be open and are sick of wearing masks. Those people were really excited this spring to sell THEIR houses and move to Idaho! What's happening is, they're getting a lot of money for their houses and then coming to Idaho and buying up the limited number of available houses here and are paying top dollar for them! Home prices have skyrocketed here as a result. I really feel bad for the newlywed couples who have lived in Idaho their whole lives and now have to move away because they can't afford to buy a house here. Even finding a place for rent is really, really difficult. That's what had kept us from even thinking about selling our house last summer! We knew it would be hard to find anything to rent while we would build! Plus, last year was my first year teaching and I knew I would be stressed about that, so I'm soooo glad we didn't do all this last summer! But back to the story....

At the end of June, Josh and I had kind of decided, "Let's just put our house on Zillow at a crazy high price and see what happens." When you put your house on Zillow, you don't have to pay a realtor or anything and you can always just take it down if you change your mind. A couple of weeks before that, I had posted on a local Rexburg Facebook page that I was looking for recommendations for someone to draw up house plans. We ended up finding a lady and she was working on our house plans and had gotten them pretty much completed. But apparently, a lady from a past church ward we had been in saw that post and decided to message me. She wrote me on facebook and basically said, "I saw that you were looking for someone to do houseplans! Are you thinking of selling your house soon because my daughter would be interested in looking at your house!" To make a long story short, the daughter and her husband came and looked at our house that night, loved it, and said they wanted to buy it. 

The next month was a blur of moving things into a storage unit, looking for a rental, packing, celebrating me and Avery's birthdays, and hosting my mom and Jasmine at our house in the last week that we lived there! 

For Avery's 9th birthday on July 18th, I really didn't want to have a party at our house because we were in packing mode, so I took her and six friends to the Gravity Factory, an indoor trampoline park. They jumped for an hour and we had pizza and donuts. It was low-key and they had fun. Gabe and Caleb wanted to invite friends too and I said, "I'm not paying for them and I'm not driving them there, but if they happen to show up at the same time, it's a public place so I can't stop them!" So of course, two of Gabe's friends (Porter and Noah) came over (that's the joy of them being able to drive!) and Caleb's two friends, Benson and Cole, also showed up with Cole's mom! So, Avery had six friends and Gabe and Caleb each had two! Here are a few pictures...

Then from July 22 - 27, my mom and Jasmine were here. They arrived in Idaho Falls on Thursday night (the 22nd) and were here until Tuesday afternoon. We toured the BYUI campus, went ax throwing at Heber Hatchets and bowling at Fat Cats. Josh took the teenagers out to shoot guns at the shooting range, and the girls went shopping a different day. It was fun having them here and it was one last time for them to visit our house before we moved! My mom was happy to be able to see everything: our house, our new townhouse that we are going to rent, and our land for our future house.

Gabe had to leave to go to the stake youth conference/trek on Monday, so he had to say goodbye to them a little early. As the day approached for him to leave for trek, he really wasn't excited, but I made him go because he had been on the planning committee for the past two months and I felt like he really needed to be there. When he got home, he said there were some "attractive girls in his group, so it was acceptable." I got some pictures emailed to me from his trek "Ma and Pa", so here are a few pictures of that! They have a day where they dress like pioneers and pull a handcart to commemorate the Mormon Pioneers' trek to the Salt Lake Valley, so that's what that is all about! lol

Before my mom and Jasmine left, we did pack up most of my kitchen and take the dishes over to the new townhouse, but for the most part, we waited until they were gone and then we came home and packed up everything we could that night. The next day (Wednesday, July 28) we got everything in our house, including all the furniture, moved over and we slept there Wednesday night. We really didn't have time to unpack very much though because we had to go back over to the house and clean like crazy. I had even hired a cleaning guy to come help, but he turned out to be a total loser and didn't do a very good job. I was there at the house until midnight cleaning. Then we came back to the townhouse and went to sleep, surrounded by boxes basically! The next morning, Josh and I went to the title company at 9:30 to sign our closing documents. Then, we went back over to the house for a few hours to finish up the cleaning and get everything perfect. At about noon, we left our house in Summerfield for the very last time. It was pretty crazy to leave the house we've lived in for the past ten years. We've had a lot of great memories there. I remember when we moved in, it was Gabe's first day of Kindergarten. Caleb was sad because he didn't get to go. I took this picture as we were walking Gabe to school (which was right across the street) and I remember feeling so lucky and so blessed to be moving into this brand new house that was so nice and so close to the elementary school. 

There were really times that I thought, "Maybe this will be our forever home." But I think Covid made us realize that if travel is becoming more difficult and we are spending more time at home and more people are just continuing to build in our neighborhood, we really want to have a place with a little more space and a little more room around us in our yard. We LOVED our neighbors, but the houses were just really close together. When we bought that house, there were only six houses in the neighborhood and there were farm fields behind us as far as the eye could see. Now, there are over 200 houses in the neighborhood and everything just feels really crammed in there. Plus, with Gabe starting his sophomore year of high school, we were just feeling like, "If not now, when? Is it ever going to happen or should we just stay here forever?" Ultimately, Josh would definitely not have been happy there forever with that tiny lot surrounded by people. He's a country boy and he's always wanted more space. For me, it was more about having a house with a big, open kitchen and living room where I could have extended family over someday. So, we are excited for our next chapter, but it's also sad to think about leaving behind a place where our family made so many wonderful memories! Here are some pictures of us, right before we drove away from our house for the last time!

After we drove away, we drove back to our townhouse and basically threw some clothes and swimsuits into some bags, and headed to Utah for a weekend at the lake with friends! Gabe had gotten home from trek on Wednesday afternoon, helped us move, slept at the townhouse for one night, and then left again! His life was a whirlwind! lol It was fun though to get away for a few days and just have fun with our friends, Chris and Holly, and their kids. They had rented this beautiful home in Huntsville, Utah for the entire month and they would just invite different friends and family members each week to come stay a few nights and go boating. The boys did tubing and wake surfing. I mostly just watched from the boat! Avery did some tubing too. We stayed there from Thursday through Sunday, so then finally, on Sunday, August 1st, we came back home to our new townhouse rental and had to unpack. 

The boys didn't get much time to relax though, because they had to pack their bags again and leave for young men's camp the very next day! It actually was awesome because it gave the boys one last opportunity to spend time with all of their friends (from church and our old neighborhood). They went up to Island Park, Idaho and stayed there from Monday - Thursday (the first week of August). They went rafting, ziplining, went hiking, went to a play, and had a great time. 

Gabe was able to spend time with his good friends, Porter and Noah, and Caleb was able to spend time with his friend, Benson. It's going to be really hard for them to leave that ward. They've been close friends with all those boys since there were little and it'll be really different for them on Sundays and at church activities. Part of me is like, "Maybe I should see if we can keep attending that ward while we build our house..." but then the other part of me is like, "But we will be in a different ward AGAIN in a year once our house is built, so maybe it's best to just teach them resilience now..." I don't know. It will be a hard adjustment, but at least they aren't switching schools or anything! Plus, the townhome is within biking distance of our old neighborhood so they've already been back and forth with friends. Even Caleb's little friends, Tanner and Kohl (who are only like, 10 years old) showed up on our doorstep the other day! I said to Tanner, "How did you get here?" thinking maybe his mom drove him, and he replies, "I ran!" haha It was kind of funny. I don't think I would let my kid just go running off down the road to find his friend's new house, but whatever! He made it!

So now it is Friday, August 6 and we are officially moved into our townhouse and the house is officially sold and we are only two weeks away from starting school up again! As for the building of our new house, we have to wait on the county planning and zoning committee to meet and approve the lots in the new subdivision. I don't even know if I mentioned this part, but the lot we originally purchased was right next to the road and as we got thinking about it, we decided we would rather be further back. So, we have some friends that are buying our front lot and then we are going to buy one in the back. There are only six lots total and each one is 2-3 acres, so when I say "subdivision" it's really not going to feel anything like our last neighborhood! We are excited for all of the new things that will take place over the next year, but I know it's going to require a lot of patience, so I'm just trying to take it one step at a time!

Summer Fun, Caleb's Birthday, 4th of July

Summer is in full swing! I remember as the school year was ending, I was making these to-do lists about all the school-related things I was going to work on this summer. I made a bunch of copies for the new school year during the last day of school and tucked them away in my file cabinet. I started to revise some homework assignments that I thought needed some improvement. I was doing pretty good for about the first week of June. Then, I kind of slowed down the second week of June... and now I haven't looked at anything school-related for the past couple of weeks! haha I'm officially in summer mode! Having summers off is definitely the best thing about being a teacher!

Lava Hot Springs

One of the first fun things we did as a family once school let out was we went to Lava Hot Springs. It's about an hour and a half away, just south of Pocatello. We went there mid-week during the first week of June, so I think a lot of the surrounding areas weren't quite out of school yet. Rexburg got done on May 28, but a lot of other schools didn't end until about June 8th, so the pool seemed pretty empty still! It was awesome! The kids went off the diving boards, we went down water slides, and swam all day. It was HOT - like 90 degrees - and a perfect day for the pool. This spring was actually unusually nice (60s - 70s and not a lot of wind) and now this summer has been unusually hot! It's been consistently in the high 80s and 90s the whole month of June already! Here are some pictures of Lava Hot Springs!

Caleb's 13th Birthday

As I am just now typing this, I've realized I never got any pictures from Josh's phone of the boys' fishing trip. For Caleb's birthday, Josh, Gabe, and Caleb went fishing with our friends, Cody (the dad) and his sons, Colter (Caleb's friend from football) and Cayson (Colter's little brother). They took Josh's boat and floated down the lower area of the river they always go to in Ashton. They did that on Saturday, June 5th and then when they got back, Caleb had a different friend come over (Cole Ririe) for cake and ice cream and video games.  Caleb's actual birthday was on Sunday, so we got to celebrate by going to church! Yay! haha My birthday and Avery's birthday also fall on Sundays this year. I'm hoping that means they can all be low-key and I don't have to plan big parties! Avery may think otherwise though. Here are some pictures of Caleb on his birthday! He is now officially taller than me (which happened probably right before his birthday) and he weighs over 200 pounds (205? I don't know exactly!) He still has his braces on, which are totally ready to come off if he would just wear his dang rubber bands to adjust his bite! Maybe he will still have braces when he's 30!

Rexburg Rapids and Gabe's First Job

Our little local swimming pool/water park has been frequented by the Rhodes family a lot this summer! The first reason is because Avery could basically live there. She loves going swimming any chance she can get and eating the cotton candy from the snack bar! The second reason is because Gabe got a job as a lifeguard there! When he was 13 and 14 he did a "lifeguard pre-training camp" that is just a week-long class where they practice things like diving for bricks and treading water. This summer, he was actually 15 so he was old enough to officially work as a lifeguard. He had to go through this two-week-long class to get CPR certified and then he had to take both a written test and a swim test and prove he can save people! He said the class started out with over 20 teens on day one that were interested in becoming lifeguards. By the end, only 5 made it through the whole thing! Crazy! You would think they would pay more than $7.50 an hour after all that! lol I told him it's good to get a summer job when you're 15 because next year when you actually want to get a job that pays decent money, you will already have some good job experience. He usually works either a 4 or 6-hour shift and it's not too bad to go sit at the pool and hang out! They rotate around the pool at different "stations" every 15 minutes and then after 4 stations, they get a 15-minute break. So it's basically "work for an hour, then a 15-minute break." I think he especially likes the break times when he can flirt with the girl lifeguards. Here are some pictures of the pool with Avery and Gabe as a lifeguard!

Hiawatha Bike Trip

During the last week of June, we had planned on doing a Montana/northern Idaho trip where we would drive to Aaron's house and stay overnight and then continue to drive northwest to get to the Idaho Panhandle and do this Hiawatha bike trip. This was our second time doing this bike trip. We did it in June 2019 too. It ended up not working out exactly the way we had planned this time because Aaron's family had just returned from Wisconsin and apparently some giant big bit Amanda in the back while they were there! Her back was all swollen up and she was pretty sick, so Aaron called and said, "It's probably not the best time for visitors." We were super bummed not to be able to see them, but we still went ahead with our bike trip! 

We ended up leaving early Monday morning (June 28) and we drove six hours to Kellog, Idaho. We checked into the Silver Mountain Resort and we went swimming the rest of the day at their indoor waterpark. The next morning, we woke up early and did the 15-mile Hiawatha bike trail. Josh wanted to go early because the temperatures that day were going to hit over 100! Luckily, we *mostly* beat the crowds and the heat. It was still getting pretty toasty by about 1:00 when we finished up the bike ride and were getting on the bus back. We were glad we started early! The tunnels were a welcome cool break from the hot sun! I remember when we did this bike trip two years ago, it was kind of cool and rainy and I remember just FREEZING every time we rode through the tunnels. This time, it was like, "Yay! A tunnel!" haha 

Also, Avery rode her own bike this time instead of the tag-a-long bike attached to the back of Josh's! This was kind of a drama at first because we couldn't find her a bike that had the "backpedal brakes" and she wasn't comfortable with only using hand brakes. Finally, Josh found her one himself and we were able to rent it!

Back at the pool afterward, Caleb again spent a lot of time on the FlowRider practicing his surfing. He's able to stay up by himself now for at least a minute or two! The rest of us spent most of the time on the lazy river and the waterslides. We left on Wednesday morning and drove the six hours back home. It was a fun, quick trip!

Here are some pictures!

The 4th of July

I wonder if I will ever have a 4th of July where Josh DOESN'T sign up to work! It would be crazy. Yes, he is a Lieutenant now and does NOT officially have to work. But, does he volunteer and sign up anyway? Of course! Why not? I know he secretly likes riding around on the golf cart all day and talking to people and being in the middle of all the action, but he will never, ever admit that. He says it's just because of the overtime pay, but I know otherwise. He has definite FOMO (fear of missing out.) So basically, he left at about 7am and didn't get home until after midnight. 

I took the kids to the Rexburg parade on Saturday morning. Caleb was on the float for his grid kid football team and then right before the parade started, Avery somehow sweet-talked her way onto the float too! She sat there with one other little sister and waved. flags and threw footballs to the crowd and Caleb threw candy. Gabe and I found a nice spot in front of Subway at the very end of the parade route. It worked out well because as soon as their float came by, they hopped off and we got in the car and beat the rush! They were the 38th float in the parade, so they were kind of close to the end anyway I think. 

Later that afternoon, we went swimming at the Marriott hotel because our neighbor's had their grandparents in town visiting and they had pool access for the day! It was indoors, but Caleb and Avery came and swam and had fun. Gabe had to work at Rexburg Rapids from about 2pm - 6pm and he said it was packed to the point that they weren't letting any more people in! It's been such a hot summer!

That night, when fireworks started going off, Caleb, Avery, and I drove around town looking at the fireworks from different spots. We drove up by the temple and parked for a while and they watched from the roof of the car. Then we went back home and fell asleep watching a movie and Josh didn't get home from working at the Idaho Falls fireworks until about 1:00 am! 

The next day (Sunday, the actual 4th of July), we went to church in the morning and then came home and relaxed. That night, we lit off our own fireworks with our next-door neighbors, the Milners. Jay had bought all of these fancy (illegal) aerial fireworks. We figured since the police Lieutenant was sitting with us, it was okay. lol At one point though, Jay lit this one that happened to be called "The Death Ray." Apparently, it lived up to its name because it tipped over in the street and started shooting out in every direction! Luckily, no one was hurt, but it gave everyone quite a scare! 

That was our excitement on the 4th of July! Here are a few pictures!

Random pictures

I just have a few more moments to share: Gabe sharing his bed with Zeus, our kids as cartoon characters (this was done using an app that takes a picture and then makes it into a cartoon version) the Summerfield clubhouse that is actually close to finally being done (after ten years of living here and being told, "It's coming soon!"), Gabe in the backyard with Porter and Noah, the boys' first time back to the temple since March 2020, Gabe riding his skateboard while Zeus pulls him, Josh riding a bike while Zeus pulls him, and a few other random ones! ;) That last picture is of Avery doing cartwheels in front of our house with the little neighbor girl, Maddie. We've possibly got some big changes in the works, but we are just holding our breath to see what happens in the next few weeks! Wish us luck as we ride out the rest of this eventful summer!

School's Out for the Summer!

I should just get used to starting every blog post with the phrase, "I'm so behind!" It's been over six weeks since my last post, (my goal is to write once a month) but that's ok! 

We have officially finished our school year! 

Since I wrote in April, Caleb started and ended his 7-on-7 football season. This is a little group from his main football team that practices together in the spring and competes against other schools in the area. Caleb's team did really well. In fact, I found out during one of these games, that the league had decided to bump Caleb's team up to the "A league" for this fall. There have always been A, B, and C leagues for this age group, and Caleb's team has been in the B league for the past few years. We feel like it's been good because there are a lot of small boys on his team and sometimes they get up against some massive 7th graders that look like they're 17! But apparently, we won too many games this past season, so the league officials have decided to move us up to the A league! Wish us luck this fall! It's probably going to feel tougher! 

Also in April, Josh celebrated his 41st birthday with a little party at home with me and the kids. He also went fishing with Devin and some of his other boyfriends. That is always his favorite birthday activity. It has become kind of a yearly tradition that they take the boat out on its maiden voyage on Josh's birthday each year. 

In other news, the clubhouse in our neighborhood is actually getting close to being finished! When we moved into our house ten years ago, they told us, "In a year or two we will build a clubhouse!" This has been the longest two years ever! Here is the progress though... ten years later. It's going to have an indoor pool, so this is Avery sitting in the pool! I am thinking it will be open this summer because they are putting up the playground and finishing up the basketball and pickleball courts right now.

                                            

The rest of April and May were just filled with warmer days and finishing up everything at school. One of my favorite things we did all year in my class was these "How-To" demonstration speeches. Way back in March, when we were meeting as an 8th grade English teacher group, the lead teacher had told us that during the third trimester the students have always been required to do some sort of oral presentation. She said in the past, they have always just memorized a poem or something and then stood up at the front of the class and recited it. I heard that idea and was thinking to myself, "Nope. That sounds ridiculously boring. We aren't doing that." lol So I decided to have my students do a demonstration speech where they have to teach the class how to do something. I told Mr. Watson the next day that I was going to do that instead, and he says, "Ooooh, I'm gonna steal that idea!" Then, Mrs. Clark found out and said, "I'm going to do that too!" Pretty soon the fourth English teacher, Mrs. Lundin, also jumped on the bandwagon. So we all had our students do these "How-to" speeches and they turned out to be the highlight of the year. On the last day of school when I was asking my students what to keep next year and what to change, everyone said, "You have to do those again next year. Those were the best!" Each student had to spend 6-10 minutes in front of the class teaching us how to do something. Here is a list of some of my favorites so I can remember:

How to... make sushi, make ice cream, make lolliwaffles, make cookies, make fancy milkshakes and smoothies (and many other various food items), care for puppies, care for bunnies, saddle a horse, train a rat, train a dog (I think those were all the animals), change the oil in a dirt bike, prep a car for a trip, play the violin, play the ukelele, play tennis, do tricks on a scooter, do tricks on a mountain bike, play spike ball, make many various types of paper airplanes and paper origami creations, make a dreamcatcher, make friendship bracelets, paint landscapes, draw certain things, make different types of campfires (that one required videos and pictures so we didn't set the school on fire) and many, many more! It was such a fun way to end the school year!

On the last week of school, it was just a giant week of parties and field trips. Avery went to Bear World and the movie theater with her class. Gabe went to Lagoon amusement park in Utah with the freshmen class. Caleb, sadly, went nowhere. haha He was the deprived child as always. On the last day of school (Friday, May 28), the junior high ended school at 10:30, and Avery ended at 11:30, so I was able to greet her as she got home. We spent the evening taking out some dead trees in our yard and replacing them with new ones, cleaning out closets, and then watching the movie "Cruella" until 1:00am. We slept in on Saturday until 10:30. I think we are off to a great start! ;)  We don't have any big plans for the summer, but I'm sure it will fly by!