School's Out for the Summer!

Well, my last post was in January and now it's Memorial Day weekend. This is literally the first free moment I have had in the past few months where I haven't had to be thinking about lesson planning or anything with the house! That doesn't mean the house is done, by any means, but it just means I feel a bit more relaxed now that school is out for the summer!

So, where do I even start? The winter months were cold and long. To be honest, I can probably count on two hands (so, less than 10) the number of truly NICE days we have had since last fall. If the temperature does happen to hit above 65, the wind has been so bad this spring that it doesn't even feel warm most days! Josh and Gabe have started to do the siding on the house and it's been so hard! One day, Gabe went to bend down and pick up a piece of siding and the wind just blew it into his face and cut his lip! He had blood and dirt all over! So yeah, it's been challenging. Luckily, I am to the point where my work is on the inside! We are starting to paint! Josh's sister, Shannon, and I spent a lot of time on Saturday putting the first coat of primer on all the drywall. 

But let me quickly recap the last few months! We went swimming at the Summerfield pool on a lot of weekends with the Milners. Even though neither of us live there anymore, we typically borrow a key to the clubhouse from the Moores. Our time would be balanced between doing things at the house, school, work for Josh, and then swimming in the evenings when we had a chance.

I also went to the Gravity Factory with Avery one Saturday when Josh and the boys were busy with something at the house. I have a couple pictures of that. In February, we went to the ice castle with Avery and the Milners. Gabe and Caleb were often either at school or with friends. Gabe went to his very first school dance, which was the prom, with a girl named Shaylynn. It was mostly a date with a big group of his friends, so I don't think he and Shaylynn are anything too serious. Also, for Gabe's 16th birthday, he and I went to Utah and went indoor skydiving! We also went shopping for a lot of house stuff. He LOVED helping me pick out tile! haha Caleb did spring wrestling, which was pretty casual, and Gabe helped out Josh at the house a lot. 

Once the house was all framed, one of the big things that Josh and Gabe helped with was electrical. We had Jeff Wayment, our former neighbor in Summerfield, come and help, but he mostly just told Josh and Gabe what to do and then came back and checked. We also had a guy who was a friend of a friend do the plumbing, and I honestly kind of regret that. He took SOOOO LONG and I felt like we were constantly running around to get him more supplies. I don't even know that we saved that much money! It was super frustrating. We paid a company to do the HVAC and that went pretty fast and smooth, however, they did lose our fireplace. It seems like there's honestly a hiccup at EVERY step. Like, if something even goes completely problem-free, I'm liked SHOCKED. That actually hasn't really happened. Our roofers were fast, but they still haven't come back to finish the steel sections over the bump-outs and it's been 3 months! Our windows were mostly okay, but they sent the wrong patio door and we still haven't gotten the correct one. Our interior doors just arrived and they have silver hinges instead of the black that I wanted. We realized we forgot to wire for a light outside the front door. I hired a tile guy and he's ready to lay tile tomorrow we realized our plumber didn't put in a hole for the bathtub drain. So yeah. Things are going well obviously!

I'll just say it's a good thing that school is out right now because the end of the year couldn't come fast enough. I will probably be out there almost every day doing stuff for the next few weeks. We are hoping to go to Wisconsin for a visit at the end of June, but there are a LOT of things we need to cross off our list first! Paint, trim, finish siding, etc. 

Here are a collection of pictures for the last five months!

(Caleb wrestling, Easter egg hunt at our new homes with Milners, celebrating Gabe's 16th birthday at Da Pineapple Grill, me and Gabe's trip to Utah for his birthday and indoor skydiving and shopping, Josh and my trip to McCall for a police convention, more house building stuff, Avery and I at the zoo and Gravity Factory, Gabe's prom with Shaylynn, and more!)

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, House Updates!

You know you're behind when the title of your blog post includes like, three major holidays that have gone by since the last time you wrote! I'm really slacking. Ever since gramps passed away, it's kind of hard to find the motivation to update this. But I will persevere for the sake of our family journals! Here's the brief recap since September:

Ground-Breaking Day!

We officially broke ground on our house on September 23, 2021. We had signed the documents to close on our loan with Beehive on September 20th, and the excavator was there a few days later. Then within about two weeks, the foundation was all poured and the well was in the ground. Things moved pretty fast in October. We got the flooring system in place by the end of October and then Josh and Gabe (and a little bit Caleb) started on the walls. Here is a picture of Gabe on October 23. I remember thinking what an accomplishment it was that they got that floor done! haha (Lots still to come though...) 

Family Pictures

Typically, I would make a whole post just about family pictures, but here we are. We got our family pictures taken in the fall (I think late September) and they turned out great! this time, we used a girl named Britt Hendrickson and we went to Twin Bridges in Archer. Caleb was just about three inches shorter than Josh in these. I think by next year, he will have passed up Josh because now it is January and they are super close. Gabe and Josh are very close, but Gabe thinks he may even be an inch or so taller. It's hard to tell. Avery and Caleb both still have braces on in these, but Caleb got his off about two weeks after these were taken. Two kids done with braces forever! YAY!! 

Fall Fun and Halloween

We didn't have a TON of fun for fall activities this year because Josh and the boys were out at the house trying to get framing done every chance they could get. By the end of October, they had just a few of the exterior walls built. Then in November, they were basically able to finish up the exterior and interior walls. We managed to get out to the Treehouse Nursery in Hibbard one day and watch the pumpkin cannon, play on the big slide, and eat scones. For Halloween, Caleb wore his Ironman helmet and a red sweatshirt and walked about Summerfield with Benson (the marshmallow guy from Ghostbusters) for a little bit. Then, he and Benson and Cole came back here and watched a movie in the basement until about 11:00. Avery (who decided to be some fortune-telling girl, based on the fact that she liked the purple dress) of course went trick-or-treating with us in Summerfield. Kendalin's family (The Milners) I THINK were just barely moved out by then. They sold their house and are now renting at the Meadows near us. Their foundation is in right now (they just barely got it in before the snow came) and they are waiting to start framing. Anyways, back to October. We went around Summerfield with Avery and came home and relaxed afterward. Gabe decided to go out with some friends (Porter, Amos, Devin, Connor) and drive to the Haunted Mill. This was the first year he's actually gone someplace with friends (like, in a car, far away) and hasn't been with us on Halloween. I guess he's growing up! He came home and said it was a really fun night.

Caleb finished football season and started wrestling

I think football season ended sometime in mid-October if I remember correctly. It was the worst year they've ever had with his team. They didn't win one single game. They had been bumped up to the A-league because they did so well last year, but then like half their team got hurt in the first game and it was a losing battle from there. But still, Caleb loves his team and it was still fun. 

Then, one day while he was watching a girls' 8th-grade basketball game in the junior high (and I had taken off that day to go pick out cabinets) apparently a couple boys from the football team came and found Caleb and said, "Caleb! We need you! We have a wrestling meet starting right now and we don't have a heavyweight guy! (I guess he quit.) Will you come sit on the bench and just ACT like you are on the team so we don't have to forfeit? Don't worry, we don't think the other team has a heavyweight guy, so you won't have to actually wrestle." So of course, Caleb puts on the spandex singlet and sits on that bench! I remember him calling me and telling me he was doing this at about 4:00, and I said, "Well Caleb, I hope you don't actually have to wrestle!" (Since he's NEVER done that before.) He assured me he wouldn't have to. Well.... guess what. The other team had not one... but TWO heavyweight guys!! He ended up having to wrestle. Twice. Apparently, he didn't beat the first one, but it was a decent fight. Then he DID beat the second one! 

It was enough to impress the coach, Aaron Petersen, and he was calling Josh for the next three nights to try and convince him to let Caleb join the wrestling team. Caleb DID end up joining and having a very successful season. There were about 3 guys in the area of southeast Idaho (two from Idaho Falls and one from Rigby) that gave him a hard time, and he actually DID end up beating the one from Rigby once in a home dual. The two from Idaho Falls consistently took 1st and 2nd at the tournaments and were VERY good. Other than that, I think he would typically beat about 8 of the other heavyweights from around the area. Not bad for never having wrestled before! Here are some pictures of football and wrestling. Wrestling ended mid-December and Caleb took 4th overall (out of about 10 boys) in the district. He was SO close to getting 3rd!

Thanksgiving and the House Framing Continues

By Thanksgiving, the walls of the house were pretty much all framed. It was a really beautiful fall and it really only snowed a couple of times before mid-December at it wasn't the kind of snow that even stuck to the ground. We really lucked out! Brittaini and Jay Milner (our former and future neighbors) even convinced their contractor to pour their foundation like the first week of December! 

For Thanksgiving, we went to the church in Rigby with all of the Rhodes side of the family and sat with Charm and Devin's family as we ate. Canon is just getting ready to leave for his mission to Africa! Gabe said as we left, "I really hope I don't get called to Africa." lol I'm hoping for Hawaii for him! That way we can go visit!

Here are a couple more house progress pictures before the snow came...

Christmas Fun

In the month of December, the house basically just sat there for a few weeks while we waited on our trusses. We ordered them mid-October, but building a house in 2021-2022 means waiting on a lot of things. Our country is still trying to claw its way back since the Covid peak and many businesses are still short-staffed and there's a real supply chain issue. Plus sleepy Joe Biden keeps trying to dig us further into the ground with more lockdowns, so yeah... it's going well. We finally did get our trusses on January 3rd, but let's talk about Christmas first!

In the days leading up to our Christmas break, I somehow got roped into competing against another teacher in the school's "Wish Assembly." The principal was going to do it, but then at the last minute, he confided in me that he may have to fire this other teacher at the end of this school year, so he didn't want to get all cutesy with this situation and do the wish assembly. So on December 21st, the day before we got out for Christmas break, I ended up having to compete in this big thing in front of the whole Junior High. It involved digging in a tub of food to find a paintbrush, painting a picture with my mouth using Hershey's syrup, hopping on one leg, balancing books on my head, doing a handstand, and stuffing 30 Sour Patch Kids into my mouth. It was quite the experience. But I WON! Yay! I took down Mr. Donkin. Poor guy. He was pretty sour about it. He's even been trying to get a rematch to happen and I told the administration, "I have NO desire for a rematch." lol 

Also at the Wish Assembly, Caleb had filled out a "wish request" to pie me in the face! I told the student council that I would allow that, as long as I ALSO got a pie. Then, another student of mine named Ace ALSO wanted to get in on that, so we ended up having this 3-way pie fest where we all pied each other. I got sooo messy that day. I immediately showered right when I got home. 

Then, we had a lovely break from school from December 22 - January 2. We went ice skating, made gingerbread houses, played Ticket to Ride, watched movies, ate lots of food, had Christmas morning at home, and then went to see the new Spider-man Movie ("No Way Home") on the afternoon of Christmas Day. 

Avery got lots of toys, including L.O.L. dolls, Hatchimals, Polly Pockets, and Beanie Boos. Gabe is very hard to shop for because he says he doesn't need anything, so he got some clothes, gift cards, and cash. (Santa literally brought him a $50 bill this year. How sad. lol) Caleb got a bunch of random stuff, mostly having to do with the PlayStation. He also decided he wanted to go snowboarding a lot this year with his friends, so we got him a season rental from Al's for a snowboard and all the gear and we paid for a few lift passes for him. 

January House Updates

Now it is January! I am officially writing this on Saturday, January 15th. The current status of the house is that we got the trusses (Josh and his dad drove to Montana with two trucks to get them) and Josh has hired Blake Garner and his crew to help put them up. I think probably within two weeks, the trusses will all be on and the roof guy will be starting the shingles at the beginning of February. That's the plan anyway!

School started up after the break and it's been going pretty well, but there seems to be a lot of sickness going around. Everyone is so sick of even talking about Covid, but part of it is maybe related to Covid/Omnicron variant (whatever we are calling it these days) and part of it is just the general colds and cases of flu that happen in the winter. We actually got quite the surprise on Thursday because right after we dismissed school, the superintendent sent out an email basically saying, "Due to staff shortages, there will be no school on Friday, January 14th." The teachers had NO idea this was happening! I was totally telling my students as they left, "Study for your stems quiz tomorrow!" The plan was to have MONDAY, January 17th off for Martin Luther King Jr. day, but not to have FRIDAY off too! Not that I'm complaining...but... it was unexpected. I didn't think that many teachers were out sick, but the truth is we just don't have enough subs. Our sub list is so tiny that like five teachers take off and there's not enough subs. I often get asked to cover classes for other teachers during my prep hour because there's such a shortage. It's a crazy world we are living in these days! No one wants to work anymore so the ones that do get stretched REALLY thin. 

So that's the update! I am trying to pick out lots of things right now: siding, shingles, stone, cabinet colors... all the things! And once you order them, you have to wait for months, so you REALLY hope you make the right choices! Maybe by the next time I write, it will be summer! haha I will try to update a little more often. Here are some last pictures of the current status of the house on January 15th. We have most of the trusses up, but there are still a few more to do and then they will put the sheeting on. Avery is standing in her bedroom in the last one! ;)

Till We Meet Again, Gramps...

This is such a hard post to write. I think partly because for the past 13 years that I've kept this blog, I have always written it with one particular reader in mind. That person was my Grandpa Bestor. He would check this page regularly and he would let me know if it had been a while and I needed to post an update so he could see what was going on in our lives! I knew that he was always looking at it and loved seeing the news with our family. When we moved back to Idaho after living in Wisconsin from 2007-2010, I knew this would be a way that he could see pictures of the boys (and then Avery) and feel like he was in the loop. A lot of times when I was writing, I felt like I was writing for him. Part of me feels like I should just stop this blog now, but I know that's not what he would want me to do. I love having these as a journal for my family if nothing else.

The past month was cruising right along. We enjoyed the last few weeks of summer vacation by going to Rexburg Rapids where Gabe was working as a lifeguard, floating Warm Slough a couple of times with our friends, and Caleb was starting to have football practices. 

On August 19th, it was the first day that I had to go "back to work" with our first teacher inservice. It was also my and Josh's 17th anniversary. Of course, my grandpa had sent us a card with some money in it and it had arrived the day before. I called him in the early evening when we were on our way to take Caleb to football practice to let him know we got the card and to say thank you for the money. He asked how we were planning to spend our anniversary and I had told him, "Well, we are dropping Caleb off at football and we are going to quick go get some dinner together and then go pick him back up!" It was a nice conversation and at the end of it, he asked me to text him our new address when we hung up because he didn't have it yet and he had sent the card to the old address (luckily I had the forwarding set up, so it still got to us.) I ended up texting him our address and he responded with, "Thanks Tiffany, Wishing you many more Happy, Healthy Years Ahead. Love you all, Gramps." (I loved how he always "signed" his name at the bottom of text messages.) I responded with "Thanks Grandpa! Love you! Hope you get feeling better!" He had told me in a conversation (I can't remember if it was that night or a few days earlier) that he just hadn't been feeling that great the past few weeks. He had said really all summer that he had felt kind of sick, like his body was just "worn out." He had lost some weight and he felt like he got sick when he ate too much of anything. I remember hanging up and thinking, "I wonder if his life is coming to a close soon." It turns out that my premonitions were correct.

Only four days later, on Monday, August 23 at about 2pm, he suffered a major stroke. Nancy had been trying to call him all morning and he wouldn't answer. She eventually went over to his house and knocked on the door, but he didn't answer. She called my dad and uncle Jim and then the police and they went over with her. They found him laying on the couch. He was still alive, but barely able to move and only able to speak a little bit. They ended up taking him first to Agnesian, where my mom saw him at about 4:00, and then taking him by helicopter to Theda Care in Neenah. He spent about the next week there. At times, they thought maybe he would improve enough to go into a rehab center. Then, he seemed to go downhill. He had been talking for a couple of days in short sentences, but it seemed like his brain wasn't what it used to be and his whole left side was mostly paralyzed. 

In the midst of all this going on, my kids and I started school on Wednesday, August 25th. There were days where it seemed like maybe he would get better and we kept waiting to hear every day how he was doing or if we should book flights to come home. My dad and Melissa and my uncle Jim had all flown to Wisconsin the day after his stroke to be with him. Both of my parents just kept telling me to wait, and not book any flights yet, and that, "It could go either way." There was some discrepancy about just how bad his condition was, depending on who you talked to, but eventually, the decision was made to NOT move him into any hospice care and simply just take him back home.

On Wednesday, September 1st, they transported him back home. My uncle Jim said as they moved him off the ambulance and were wheeling him on the stretcher into the house, he seemed to turn his face up to the sun and smile so they asked him, "Do you want to pause here for a minute?" He gave them a thumbs up and they paused for a minute in the sunlight before heading inside. Then, they moved him into his living room in the house and got him comfortable. Everyone said he seemed happy to be at home. 

The next day, at about 3:00 in the afternoon, he passed away peacefully with all four of his kids, Melissa, and Rachel by his side. My mom was telling me that Rachel had told them about the moment he passed away. She said each of the four kids had kind of been coming and going all day, but it got to be about 3:00 and finally, everyone was there again in the same room. She said that Nancy, Jim, and my dad had gone up to him and said, "It's ok to let go, dad. We know mom's waiting for you. You can go ahead," but he still just seemed like he was fighting it. They said, "Karen, you need to tell him it's ok to go." Karen is the one who has probably been the most reliant upon him in her life and probably the one he was most worried to leave behind. But she went up to him and told him, "It's okay, dad. I will be fine. You need to let go. It'll be okay." I guess he had been kind of taking these short breaths and it seemed like he was fighting to hang on, but after she said that, he started to breathe a little less often and it seemed like he was slowly letting go. Then, in the final moments, he had had his eyes closed this whole time, but my sister said he suddenly opened his eyes, looked up at the ceiling, and just smiled. Then he closed his eyes and he was gone. It makes me wonder what he was able to see in those final seconds. Was it as if the veil was lifting, like a curtain at the opening of a stage show, and all of a sudden he could see his wife and his siblings and his parents just standing there welcoming him? I don't know. I hope so.

I feel like, for the past 20 years, my grandpa has been looking forward to the day he would leave this earth and see my grandma again. I'm so happy for him and I know he's happy now, but it's just sad knowing that he's no longer on this earth anymore. I can't just call him and chat whenever I feel like it. My kids won't get any more cheesy, musical ecards with dancing penguins for their birthdays. When we go to Wisconsin to visit, we won't get to meet up with grandpa at Lakeside park and ride the train or go to McDonald's or Culvers. I'm so glad that my kids got to know him for as long as they did, but it's definitely going to leave an empty void in all of our hearts now. 

When he passed away on September 2, it was a Thursday and it was coming up on Labor Day weekend. They called the funeral home and were told that the soonest they could do the memorial service would be the next Thursday. So I went to school on Tuesday after the students came back after Labor Day, but then I flew out of Idaho Falls early Wednesday morning. I arrived in Madison at about 2pm. We decided that only I would go because the kids had school and Caleb had football and it was move-in week for the BYUI students and Josh was super short-staffed with the police department. My brother was just going by himself too, so it seemed like it was best if I just went. 

I stayed at my grandma Dahlke's house, which was nice because I got to spend some time with her. My brother stayed at my mom's house, which was already pretty full with Rachel, Jasmine, and Brayden. We had the funeral on Thursday and then we went out to the cemetery and scattered his ashes on my grandma's grave. My grandpa always wanted to just do what was cheapest and most simple, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that he wanted to be cremated, but it was still a little weird. I had never been to a funeral for someone that wasn't in a casket before. It was kind of weird not even being able to see him one last time. They had two of his hats - a Packers one and a Wisconsin one - sitting on a table next to the little box that had his ashes in them. My sister and Nancy had worked to make all of these poster boards with photos on them to display all over the front of the room, which was really nice. It was a LOT of photos. The service was small, with only about 30 people there, but that's what he had wanted. It was only his four kids and their spouses, my mom, the grandkids (me, Aaron, Rachel, and the four Davies boys), Jasmine, Brayden, Anna, his brother, Don (the last remaining sibling of all 15 kids!), a few neighbors, my uncle Joe (who was married to grandma's sister, Millie), and a few others. They played some songs, Jasmine and I read a couple scripture passages, but mostly it was open for anyone to come up and share their favorite memories of gramps. It was really nice and so fun to hear about these stories of my grandpa. It really did seem like a "celebration of life" rather than a sad funeral. We were laughing at times even. Everyone seemed to remember the common themes of his kindness, generosity, service for others, and his sense of humor. He took care of many lawns, played lots of practical jokes, always remembered birthdays, anniversaries, and more, and just brought light to everyone he knew. He will be missed by so many. 

I flew back home on Friday afternoon, which just so happened to also be my grandpa's 92 birthday. I finally arrived back home at about 1am. It's crazy to think that just two years ago on this very same day, I was flying home to surprise my grandpa for his 90th birthday party. As the plane landed and I was sitting on the runway, I had the immediate thought, "I better text my grandpa and tell him I made it back safely...." (he always wanted me to do that) and then I remembered. I guess he probably already knew I had made it home safely this time. I feel like my grandpa was always kind of intimidating when I was a kid. It wasn't until after my grandma died that I feel like I got to know him as he truly was. He still had his sarcastic sense of humor and swore occasionally, but I feel like he lived each day, trying to be a better person for my grandma. I know that he's with her now and that he's so happy. 

I have looked at TONS of pictures in the past week and added so many to the family tree app. So, I will only post a couple of my favorites here. I also got to bring back home with me all of the Christmas books that I had made for my grandpa over the past 15 years. My aunt Karen and my dad already had copies, so I asked if I could take them. I also took one of his Wisconsin Badgers baseball caps to remember him by. I can't think of anything else that would best represent him. He wore hats all the time. I wonder who is getting his rollerblades... I should've asked about that! 

The other things that have been going on are - we closed on the purchase of the new land that we are actually building on. We hope to break ground in the next two weeks. The kids are all in school. Gabe is officially at the high school, Caleb is with me in 8th grade at the junior high, and Avery is in her final year (4th grade) at Burton elementary. Life just keeps moving on. It will just be a little bit empty now without our gramps in it. Till we meet again, Gramps!