2nd Week of June, 2020

 I worked out 5x again that week.  But looking at my pictures, you'd never know it :p

After getting the new kitchen table, we were excited (and thankfully had the money to spend) so we decided to look for a few pieces of furniture that we were missing.  Monday, we spent looking for desks for our Master bedroom upstairs.  Especially after hubby having to work from home, we thought A) it would take up some of that extra space and B) it might be nice to have.  

For my birthday, I told hubby I wanted a place to display my tea cup collection.  I know!  It's a ridiculous thing to collect since I don't drink tea.  But they are so pretty!  And I can drink hot chocolate or milk or anything else out of them.  I thought it might be a $200 gift.  But, of course, the one I found and fell in love with was over $700!!  Hubby convinced me that I was worth it and we went ahead and ordered it.  We ordered it from Amazon, and it was delivered in a few short days on Monday.  However, the delivery guy called me.  He said "You the one with the cabinet?"  I said yes.  He said "It's broken.  I want you to refuse delivery, and we will take it back to the warehouse and you can order a new one."  I was very appreciative of his honesty (though, of course, it was not his fault, but the guy who loaded it onto the truck).  I contacted Amazon who confirmed that refusal of delivery would eventually result in a refund and the ability to reorder.  Sure enough, when he got to the door, the cabinet, which is mostly made of glass, was broken!

We didn't know at the time, but I can tell you from the future, that it took almost a year for another cabinet to come into stock!

Tuesday was my birthday!  I blogged with Kelsey and Pixie keeping me company. 

And took a nap (my favorite way to celebrate anything!).  I introduced Kaitlyn to Austenland from my bed.  Seriously, I love how over the top ridiculous that movie is.  And we skyped with Jonathan in his new place that afternoon.  That night, we ate Hibachi Express for dinner, and I was able to use my new drink markers.  See, not only do I collect tea cups that I will never use, but I also collect fancy wine glasses, etc (mostly from the dollar store) that I use for milk, soda, anything!  And, when we have people over for parties, we bust out the drink markers to make sure everyone knows whose drink belongs to whom.  I already  had bought myself a few different kinds previously, but for my birthday I got a new set from my good friends.

They hang on the side of your glass!  You just have to find your guy!

And, I think they add nicely to my set!  

That night, we watched Captain America: Civil War.

Wednesday was slow for me.  I hadn't slept well the night before :(  We still looked for desks a bit, and I worked on the blog.  And hubby wrastled with the dogs a bit.  I like it when she get them all riled up!

Thursday we spent quite a bit of time upstairs in my bedroom.  First, we played with the dogs hair:

Then, the kids played games with the new diving toys that we got.  Again, a lot of time at home, and in the pool....  So we invested in a few things!

I have several videos of all them missing trying to throw these rings onto each other.

Except for  Kari.  Who seemed to be able to consistently make it every time!

Friday was family dinner...  I am not sure why it was a memorable gathering, but I always love to see these smiling faces!

Saturday morning, Kari called hubby and I together to talk with us about some struggles that she was having.  I am pleased that she felt comfortable in confiding in us.  And while it was not what we wanted to hear (no one wants to hear that their child is struggling) we did our best to show love and support.  

That afternoon, hubby and I went out looking for desks still.  We didn't find anything impressive at Big Lots or Office Depot.  We did, however, have fun throwing axes!!  And, if I do say so myself, we weren't all that bad!

We were there long enough, or we progressed well enough, that the guy working there brought us over a full sized ax to try throwing.  It took a bit more strength (for me), but seemed to stick more often.

We got some pizza on the way home for dinner, and had a family swim that evening!

Sunday I dropped some food off at the church for a funeral the following day, and we drove Karen around for a bit to make sure she was in good working order to meet the Ashcrafts "in the middle" the following day.

1st Week of June, 2020

 This week was apparently not very interesting.  I literally have zero pictures.

I kept up with my routine so far and worked out 5 times that week.

Monday evening we watched Thor: Darkworld.

Tuesday I finished reading the investment book that hubby asked me to read so that we could figure out what to do with some extra income that we have.  I worked on the blog a bit, and then we did a quick clean of the bottom of the house.  Matt had been promoted to Major at work, and we had the Hills and the Woods over to celebrate (since the Woods had moved onto base, and it was locked down).  That night we watched Captain America: Winter Soldier.

Wednesday and Thursday I blogged.

Friday I blogged some more.  We ate pizza for dinner and watched Guardians of the Galaxy.

Saturday we were going to celebrate my birthday a little early, but Amanda had to go to her PawPaw's funeral :(

Sunday was Ward Conference and the Age of Ultron.

Super boring week apparently, with nothing worth visually recording.

4th Week of May, 2020

 Monday led us out with Memorial Day!  Hubby didn't have to work, and the kids and I were already done with school.  We spent some time in the morning cleaning up the plant beds in the back from all the weeds.  And we had to clean the pool of course. I also started picking back up on the blog writing at this point.  If you look, last summer I caught up on over 200 blogs, and over a years worth of being behind. I'd like to catch up completely this summer, and then maybe just do one blog post a week to stay up to date.  That evening, Joe and Abel came over to hang out and swim for Memorial Day.  Amanda didn't come, though I can't quite remember why not...  I think her parents were in town and she didn't want to leave them alone.  Which, I get.  But Joe came over because they had MOVED into town, and therefore were no longer special visitors.  Plus, they had told him it was ok to come.  Also, at some point that day, I had apparently hurt my knuckle.  I am good like that.

On Tuesday, we were slow in the morning, and hung out in the bedroom a bit with a lazy dog and sassy child.

During the day, poor Kari was introduced to scammers on Craigslist while looking for cars.  That night, Kaitlyn (and the younger youth) had a virtual activity.  We had a few show up.  We tried to repeat the activity the following night for the older class and had no one show up!  That night, we watched Ironman 2 with Kaitlyn.

On Wednesday, I gave Mr. Boyband a haircut.  It isn't professional level by any means!  But, since we weren't going anywhere, or seeing anybody, it was acceptable.

That day the kids also swam in the pool.

And Kelsey had an accident with the hose.  She was trying to put it away, and pulled it up.  But it swung around and hit her in the ear!  It looks pretty painful :(

That night we watched half of Thor.

Thursday, the kids washed Jack for me.  I blogged and the kids swam.  We finished Thor that night.

Friday, hubby had an appointment at the nuero to get botox injections for his migraines.  We feel like botox does a decent job at helping, but that it wears off faster than what we can get the next dose.  Then, we drove around a little bit looking for cars for Kari.  And I picked up groceries from Walmart again.  This time they gave me a whole bunch of extra stuff!  I would guess it was a vegetarian order based on the tofu and number of Naked Juices.  That day, I also picked up some donuts for Kelsey.  We had been trying to work on her nail biting habit.  If she didn't bite her nails for 2 weeks, then I would buy her donuts!

This was her order: (one plain and one cream filled)

We finished Thor that night.

Jack also hit a milestone!

Saturday, hubby's head wasn't doing all that well, but he made himself feel better by playing with the dogs.

I blogged during the day, and we looked for cars for Kari.  That night we watched Avengers.

Sunday we didn't have Ward Council, so I got to sleep in a bit!  Hubby still needed some canine comfort.

And, somehow, he ended up in a baby headband while stretching out his back.

We rounded out the week with Ironman 3.

New Table, Who Dis?

 When we moved from the old house, we brought our old table.  We knew it wasn't a permanent piece of furniture in the house, but it was what we had at the time.  We didn't think it matched the grey undertones of the house (it being more yellow/red).  And we had outgrown it.  It could pretty comfortably seat 6 in its extended position.  But that meant whenever we had guests, it was a bit close.

We had worked on designing a new table that hubby would build for us.  It was a really cool design!  It was based on a table we saw at the furniture store, but with larger proportions.  I wanted a square table that began with sitting 8 (2 on each side).  However, it would fold out to a circle.  By folding out to a circle, you could sit someone at each previous corner, now a complete circle, and sit 12 instead of 8!  The version we saw in the store went from 4 to 8 people.  With 6 of us on a regular basis, the store table of 4 ain't gon' cut it!  We had drawn up some measurements, and some leg designs and were pretty happy with it.  However, the more we thought about it in THIS house, the more we realized that it didn't really fit into THIS house plan.  The square table didn't fit very well into the rectangular eat-in kitchen.  Neither would the circle.  So, we decided to look for other options.  The cool square/circle table is still cool.  Just not for this house.

We also decided that having hubby make it would take a long time.  He had just accepted a new position at work, and was technically working both his old job and the new position at the same time.  So, we looked around to see if we could find something on sale.  Low and behold, we found something online!  We ordered it, and it was delivered in multiple packages.  We started putting it together that night.  It was a family affair!  We went from this lovely table, that was a gift from Nana and Pop when we moved into our first house:

To this beaut!

The grey-ish color matches the house better, and the rectangle fits the shape of the room.  And, unextended, it fits 6 comfortably, and up to 8.  With the leaf in, it can fit 8 comfortably, and even go up to 10!  I do miss the built in butterfly leaf of the previous table.  But it has been very nice to have gatherings with space!  I especially like the cool leg design.

A few other comparison pictures:

And I promise, I didn't change any filters on my phone.  But the pictures look very different to me.  One looks yellow, one looks blue/grey.

After the first day, however, we decided that the color blended in with the grey a little too well.  And that we needed some separation.  On Saturday, we headed out to look for rugs.  And we kinda lucked out with finding one at Home Depot that we liked!  In the past, that decision has taken forever!  Sienna decided to make it her own when we brought it home.

And, it looks much better and more complete with the rug!

As for the old table, it hung out in the entry way for a while.  And then moved to the garage before it was pressed into service for at home school.

3rd Week of May, 2020

 This week I started Beta for T25.  It was at week 7 instead of week 5, but I don't feel like that is all that bad since I continued to work out gently when I hurt my back.

This week hubby also went back to working in the office after being at home for 7 weeks.  In actuality, he had already returned to travelling occasionally for work, since the job site was in Florida, and that never shut down.  But he went back to the office on Monday!  

It was the kids first official day of "summer" so we started to do regular chores and having to earn screen time again.  Dylan also stepped down a level of grounding in his room, and started to have to earn his way out of his room with the points system again.

We played with the dogs a lot while we were at home.  Pixie sounds so vicious, but she really isn't.

And sometimes I think she is part cat sometimes.

And it is always funny to me when the get the zoomies.  Sienna loves to jump up on the bed.  And Pixie knows she is small and uses that to her advantage to hide under things.

And, because we spent so much time in my bedroom that morning, Kaitlyn and I had some fun with slo-mo.

Kaitlyn requested a fancy hair do that day, even though we weren't going anywhere or doing anything.

When you play hard, you have to rest hard too.  Sienna is large and lanky, but sometimes, when she goes to sleep, she rolls up into a tiny ball!

On Tuesday of that week, hubby drove out of town to PCB.  We had to drop off Dylan and Kelsey's chromebook and text books, as well as pick up their yearbooks.  Then we headed to the orthodontist for Kari, Kaitlyn, and Dylan.  Kari was just getting her bands changed.  But it was the last appointment for Kaitlyn before she was getting her braces on.  And it was to keep an eye on Dylan.  He'll need braces too.  His crowding issues are worse than Kari.  But we have to get all his teeth out, and all his teeth in before we can straighten them out!  Kelsey also worked on some Legos that day.

Over night that night, I tried a new function on my Christmas present, the fabulous instant pot that hubby got for me.  It is a 12 hour thing, and we dehydrated some strawberries.  It was a decent amount of cutting for not a ton of results.  Personally, I would probably prefer plain ol' strawberries, but it is kinda a fun function that the instant pot has.

On Wednesday Kari drove us up to the gas station, and then onto school for her drop off/pick up of text books, chromebooks and year books.  And, when we got her report card, we were super proud of her grades!  She still had straight A's for the year (even though she had gotten her first B for a 9 weeks) and was listed as #6 in her class!

On Thursday, we all wallowed in bed a bit.  Kaitlyn even fell back a sleep and took a nap!

The new table was also delivered that day. (Separate Post)

Friday, we started watching the Marvel movies.  We decided that was something we wanted to introduce Kaitlyn to, so she could watch them all in order.  Even though she wasn't 13 yet, she was close, and she is pretty mature for her age.  So, we started with the first in the series: Captain America.

Saturday, I had my first grocery pick up set up, and was excited about it.  Unfortunately, Walmart screwed it up, and I was missing several things!  As in, my entire cooler order: everything from the fridge or freezer.  It took them a long time to confirm that it was missing.  And I still had to go back in and get all the things I was missing.  It was an unnecessarily long and frustrating.  In the end, they gave me a gift card with money for my trouble and refunded everything I didn't pick up.  

We also "invested" in a green felt top to play official BlackJack with.  With our official chips and everything!

Hubby also got his beard trimmed.  Originally he said he was just going to grow the beard while he was working from home.  But when he went back to the office, no one really said anything about it, so he figured he would keep growing it!  Then he thought about making it a "yeard" (a beard grown for a year).

That night, we watched the 2nd movie in the series with Kaitlyn: Ironman.

Sunday was Ward Council again.  And hubby and Kari spent some time looking for cars.

2nd Week of May, 2020

 This week was seriously winding down and finishing for school!  I had to turn in papers and do some actual final presentations.  But by Wednesday I was basically done!  Dylan started the week still in his room.

Gratuitous picture of Sienna waking hubby up.

On Tuesday, I had one of my first virtual events. I didn't realize, at the time, how much more common these would become.  Sometimes it was nice and convenient.  Sometimes it was boring and monotonous and awful.  Tuesday's event was my student teaching orientation put on by the Education department at CSU (not the UTeach department).  Mostly, I found it to be very unhelpful.  They gave out basic/generic information, but nothing specific.  Partially because they just didn't have it.  At that point in time, no one really knew what to expect for the upcoming school year, and how COVID would affect it.  And partially, I came to learn, because they were poor communicators and planners, and they were not particularly helpful most of the time.  However, after the orientation that day I did register to take the Biology GACE.  Technically, the degree that I graduated with was a Bachelors in Biology, with a minor in secondary education.  But, in order to qualify to teach, I had to pass a content knowledge test: the GACE.  You can take the GACE in anything you think you can pass in, and then you are qualified to teach!  I knew I needed to pass in Biology, and ended up taking a few more later on.  I wanted to try to take the test during the summer so that I wouldn't have to take a day off student teaching (and have to make it up).  Especially if I didn't pass the test the first time (which was a possibility).  

That day we also picked up the track bad that we had ordered for Kaitlyn and her year book from school.

That night, the kids helped with dinner, and made Hawaiian Haystacks.  They wanted to dye it, because they thought it would be fun.  They tried purple, but it just kind of ended up looking grey and weird.

Enjoy some random pictures of the dogs sleeping.  At first, I felt really guilty that they spent so much time in the crates while we were gone.  However, being home for as long as we were, I soon discovered that they really just sleep all day, so it doesn't really matter if it was in the crate, or in the corner of the kitchen (which looks super uncomfortable), or against random walls, etc.

On Wednesday, Kelsey came up to do school while hubby and I worked in the bedroom.

And I was pretty much done with all my papers and presentations and what not.  So I was in a good mood and took a few pictures with the girls.

Kelsey and started to really enjoy my morning walks.  I built up to the point of walking 3-4 laps a day (1.5-2 miles).  Kelsey usually rode her bike with me for several, if not all of the laps.  That Thursday morning I was able to wake up early enough, and convince hubby to walk a few laps with us!  Kelsey also had her final Drama Kids via zoom.  Until this point, the kids practice for a play most of the year, and then put it on at the end of the year.  This year, they could not.  And they didn't think doing it virtually was the best idea either (I agree).  So, the kids scrounged up costumes from home, introduced themselves and then said their favorite line.  Disappointing (as were many things related to COVID), but the best we could do.  Dylan also had to write a small paper for his science teacher that was turned in (but no grade was given).  So he wrote the paper in his best handwriting, and I took a picture and sent it to his teacher.

Random Thursday night family dinner

Kari surprised me by deciding that she wanted to try out for drum major.  As a rising sophomore, it would have been a bit of a stretch, but the current drum major had encouraged her, so she did!  I think she did a great job, but the position was given to a junior and senior (not particularly surprising).  I am so proud of her for being willing to try new things, and not being embarrassed or discouraged from trying new things like I was!

Friday was the kids last day of school!!!  It was also Kari's last day of her first year of seminary!  While it was a sacrifice for all of us to have to get up in the morning, including her parents who had to drive her, I am also proud of her desire to finish!  It is a sacrifice of time and sleep, and they were able to continue doing it over zoom (like several other things) when the world shut down.

Being home all the time, but still being busy, meant that the kids were becoming more responsible for their own meals.  The kids started learning and becoming more comfortable with some basic cooking.  On Saturday morning, Kelsey scrambled her own eggs!

Later that day, Kelsey had her Drama Kids Awards, which ended up being a drive thru thing.  She got a trophy, which she was very proud of.

Even though we had less responsibilities, and certainly felt a sense of accomplishment because we had done some pretty decently different and hard things, things weren't about to completely let up.  We grabbed Taco Bell on the way home for lunch for the fam, and then had a family pool swim!  I also spent some time writing letters to the YW that I would send snail mail.  At that point, I had sent texts, emails and used the church application to write little notes.  I rarely got any responses, and the youth weren't exactly thrilled about the virtual activities.  But I still wanted them to know I was trying.

Sunday morning was virtual Ward Council for me.  And mostly hanging around the house.  Sienna was happy to try to help wake everyone up.