End of Summer, Family Pics, New Dog, New Car

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!

Wisconsin trip!

Back in January, shortly after we got home from our cruise and before Covid-19 started affecting everything, I decided to do something crazy and buy flights for us to go to Wisconsin as a family this summer. I spent about $350 (each) on three of the tickets and then used about 45,000 skymiles to buy the other two. We were planning to go on July 14th. Then Covid happened.... flights started getting cancelled in late March and then in April and then in May... pretty soon we were starting to wonder what would happen with our flight in July. Then one day in June, we got the email from Delta that said, "Your flight has been changed." Technically they hadn't "cancelled" our flight, but it had gone from being a nice direct flight from SLC to Madison, to being a flight through Denver and then Detroit and at inconvenient times. So after calling the airlines and going through a few hoops to talk to managers, I was able to just get them all cancelled and fully refunded to my card and get the miles back.

Then we had to decide if we would still go or not. We didn't go last summer and even though there is a world-wide pandemic going on, my mom was calling and asking, "So you're still going to come right? You didn't come last year!" We decided to play it by ear and see what happened in June and July. We decided to go and picked out the day we would leave about a week in advance!

We left early on Sunday morning, July 12th, and decided to take the "scenic route" through Grand Teton and then eastern Wyoming. Then we got into western South Dakota and stopped to see Mount Rushmore. I remember seeing it when i was 18 and on my way to BYUI with my parents, but I wasn't too excited to be stopping a lot. I just wanted to get to college ASAP. So I don't even think we got out of the car at Mt. Rushmore. We pulled to the side of the road, said, "There it is," and then drove away. So this time, we actually parked, paid the $10, and walked up to the viewing area. We were able to see the stage where Donald Trump was for the 4th of July just a week earlier. Then we walked the "Presidential Trail" to get a little closer. There is also a small museum that we walked through. We were only there about an hour and then we had seen all there was to see! Then we drove to our hotel in the nearby Rapid City, let the kids swim for a little bit, and went to sleep.

The next day, we drove the rest of the way to Fond du Lac. Our second day had to be about twelve hours of driving because our first day was only about nine because of stopping in Rapid City. So it was a looong day of driving. We also lose an hour driving there because of the time change. We rolled into my mom's house at about 9pm on Monday night.

My mom had a brown-eyed Susan cake for me (my request) waiting for us to celebrate my birthday with (a couple of days late.) Brayden was even crazier than we remembered! We chatted for about and hour and then headed back to my grandma Dahlke's house where we would spend the week. Josh is always especially grateful to have a quiet and cool place to sleep when we are in Wisconsin. Gabe sleeps upstairs in the spare bedroom/office and the rest of us sleep in the basement.

The next day, Tuesday, we went to the Fondy Aqua Park. The weather was a little overcast in the morning, but it was still hot and then the sun came out around noon and we had a perfect day! The kids LOVE this place. There's even more inflatables than the last time we were there. They have also added a zip-line, paddle boards, and this giant swing thing as well as other new inflatables. When we went on our cruise to Cozumel, we had planned on going to this resort that had inflatables on the ocean, but then it was so windy that they had to pull them in. We had told our kids, "When we go to Wisconsin, we will go to the Fondy Aqua Park!" This did not disappoint. It's funny that you can find such a cool thing in Fond du Lac! We stayed there from about 11am until about 4:30pm and then we finally dragged the kids away.

Wednesday was a rainy day so we all went up to the Oshkosh outlets to go shopping. It seems like every store is getting more strict about masks lately, but when we were there the only store that REQUIRED a mask to come in was Bath and Body, which was really silly because the first thing everyone does in Bath and Body is move their mask down so they can smell the lotions and soaps! The other stores like Old Navy, Carters, and Oshkosh weren't requiring masks. Some people did have them on but I would say the majority didn't. We got some clothes for Avery and me and I think Josh bought Caleb a shirt. Gabe just mostly followed us around. Then Josh took Caleb and they left to go visit with his old co-worker, Clint, and some of the Winnebago police department people. At about 4:00, we headed back to Fondy and had dinner at Gini and Drake's house. They are all settled into their house in Whispering Springs now (they bought it last spring I think). Gini just had baby Abe in March so we got to see him, along with Lou, June, and Grace. It was fun to get together with them and let our kids play and chat about life. The boys went out with Lou on the golf cart around the neighborhood and the little girls played together.

Thursday was out day to go to Wisconsin Dells. We went to my mom's house for breakfast and then we loaded up and drove to the Dells. We got there at about 11am and got some sandwiches from Jimmy John's and then got checked into the Kalahari. It was sunny and hot and we spent the afternoon doing all of the outdoor water park things. Josh and I took turns with Avery since she didn't want to go on any of the big water slides. I don't know why! She really needs to start doing those things. The boys did all of the waterslides. Caleb also went inside a few times and did the flow rider. That night we went out to Culver's drive-thru (after a little episode attempting to eat at Cracker Barrel and then a Rachel meltdown moment) and then we did a couple of things at the indoor game area.

Friday morning I totally could've spent more time outside, but we had to check-out at 11 and everyone wanted to just do the indoor stuff. This included the go-carts, the ferris wheel, other rides, the ropes course, the mini-golf, and the laser tag. We did everything we could and then left around 2:00. Friday night we met. up with my grandpa for dinner at the Pizza Ranch. It was a little tricky finding a place where we could go in and sit down. The Pizza Ranch was one of the few, but we couldn't all sit at one table (eye roll.) Jasmine had to go to Carlos's house that night for the weekend so my mom took her there and then we went to Kohl's for about an hour to do some power shopping before they closed.

Saturday was Avery's 8th birthday! We started off with breakfast at my mom's house and then we went to the Fond du Lac County Fair. Typically, the fair has lots of rides and food booths and the 4-H animals that you can walk around in the barns and see. But because of the stupid Covid-19, they cancelled almost everything. The good news was, the tickets were free and there was hardly anyone there! The main thing that we went for was the sea lion show at 10:15. That was what Avery was most excited about. It actually turned out to be really cute! It lasted about 20 minutes and the sea lions were really impressive! Brayden even got called up on stage to help out with part of it. Afterwards, we got Avery's picture taken with the sea lion and walked around to see everything else (which took about 10 minutes) and then we left.

We called up my grandpa and told him we were heading to Lakeside Park and he met us there. He apparently keeps a stash of tickets on hand for the rides at Lakeside, so that was nice! We played on the playground, we rode the train, the kids rode the carousel and the Whip. (The only two kids that could ride the Whip were Avery and Brayden.) Then we did lunch at Culver's. In the afternoon, we hit up Goodwill and St. Vinnie's (yes, those are thrift stores) and I scored this awesome Packer's zip-up and Caleb got an XBOX game. Then we went back to my grandma's house to clean up a little and do laundry.

That night we celebrated Avery's birthday at my mom's house with rainbow chip cake and a cookout. My grandma Dahlke and Grandpa Bestor came over and she got lots of presents. I had mine shipped there from Amazon so I didn't have to do anything but wrap them when we got there. She got lots of stuffed toys and little Hatchimals and things like that. We stayed there until about 9:30 and then went back to my grandma's.

Sunday morning we slept in a little and it was wonderful. My mom and Jesse had gone to the church for a "trial run" of how church would go with the new Covid restrictions. Our churches here in Idaho haven't even opened up yet. There are so many people that share our building every Sunday that it would just be really hard to sanitize everything in between. Who knows when we will get back to church! So we had breakfast at my grandma's (Caleb made us omelets with an omelet maker he found in grandma's basement lol). Then we met my grandpa for lunch at Gille's where we were able to sit outside and eat on the picnic tables. At about 4:00, we got ready and headed over to the church for Avery's baptism! It was a small and simple baptism day, but it was great! The only people there were out family, my mom and Jesse, Rachel, Brayden, and Jasmine, Grandma Dahlke, Grandpa Bestor, and then Norb and Heidi Schmidt and Gini and Abe. Oh, and the bishop of the ward came too. I gave a talk about baptism ("The three bears of baptism" in which she got three new Beanie Boo bears) and my mom gave a talk about the Holy Ghost. Josh did the baptism and confirmation. We had some sub sandwiches, grapes, and cookies for people to eat afterwards. Then she opened a couple of gifts and it that was it! The whole thing only lasted about forty five minutes.

After the baptism, we went back to my grandma Dahlke's house for a little bit and packed up our car as much as we could. We just left out our clothes for in the morning. My grandpa Bestor came over to say good-bye. It's always so nice seeing him! I wish it could be more often! Then we went back over to my mom's house for a couple hours. It's kind of hard being over there for too long because it's just nonstop with Brayden. You leave there and you just feel like you need to sit down in a quiet room for a while. I don't know how my mom does it everyday, honestly. He's a good kid, but he's a A LOT to handle. It will be interesting to see what the next five years brings in the lives of Rachel, Jasmine, my mom, and Jesse.

The next morning (Monday), we loaded up and said our goodbyes to my grandma, my mom, Rachel, Jasmine, and Brayden. We were on the road by 7:30am and headed back to Idaho! We made it all the way to Rapid City again (so about twelve hours in the car on day one!) We even did the little scenic road through Badlands National Park in South Dakota. The kids loved seeing the prairie dogs everywhere and they wanted to climb up on every little mountain. I was worried about someone falling and breaking their head open in the middle of nowhere, so I kept telling them,"Don't go up there! Be careful!" I'm sure they would've loved to spend more time climbing around and exploring because it really is cool, but it was 6:00 by the time were were there and I was eager to get the Rapid City and eat dinner and go to sleep at a hotel.

The next day (Tuesday) we drove the rest of the way home and got there at about 6:30pm. The car was so trashed that I had it professionally detailed two days later. The kids had a lot of fun and we were just going nonstop I felt like! It was so good to see my mom and my grandparents. I'm glad we went, but I always feel like I deserve a, "I survived my Wisconsin Road Trip" t-shirt by the time we get home! It's a big undertaking! I think we will try to convince my mom to come out here next summer and plan for Wisconsin again in 2022! But we will see what happens! With the world going like it is in 2020, we've all learned to just take what life throws at us one day at a time!