Eternal Summer

The eternal summer rages on. Addie tried out for summer swim team and made it. A couple of her close friends are also doing it, and we're excited that she has this opportunity! It's keeping her active and gives her something to do. Ava has cheer practice and couple times a week and is really enjoying it. Her BFF Brinley is also doing it, which adds to the fun. 

We went for an overnighter to Park City. We rode the Alpine Slide and went down the ski jump hills on tubes. 

I was concerned that my hair was flat from wearing the helmet, and Nils was like, "yeah, that's not a problem", and then I saw this picture and saw that he spoke the truth. So much hair be on my head.

We're headed to South Dakota! We're weirdly excited. Get me outta here! 

This is what grows right next to our house- we get tree sized spikey weeds. Nils took the chain saw to them a couple weeks ago, and he even found a dollar hiding in them. Big rewards.

Aani turned 13. She opened her presents at midnight, which was nice because then we didn't have to wake up early before Nils started work. She got a hammock chair for her room and some other small stuff.

 Addie was really excited about the midnight present opening sesh.

Aani had a party with the "Street Kids" (what they call themselves). I planned what I thought would be hours and hours of fun: Crazy dares, donuts on a string, a photo scavenger hunt around the neighborhood, pizza, a movie, etc. Those dang street kids blew through all of my party activities about 5 times faster than I thought they would. I thought the scavenger hunt would take at least an hour, and they all finished in a half hour. So, they had to just entertain themselves for the remaining time.

Dare #1: Pour a cup of ice water on your head. 

I took a picture of all the clean, folded laundry for posterity. This picture really doesn't convey how deep each pile is. It's a lot of clothes.

My brother and sis-in-law's dogs had puppies. They're boxers. Good grief, how cute are they? We went to see them the other night, and we all fell in love. We are not adopting any, but they sure are fun to play with and hold.

My spirit animal

Sanity Restored

We were abysmal at picture taking this month, so this is a text only post. So sowwy.

Normally, May is non-stop busy with end-of-the-school-year activities, events, concerts, etc. 2020 put the kibosh on all that, now didn't it? Fortunately, restrictions were lifted a bit on May 1, so the kids have been able to hang out with friends.

They're enjoying seeing other people more than they ever have! Our house feels like Grand Central Station most days, and I know the friends' homes are the same. Aani and Ava are running between friends' houses all day every day. Anders and Addie less so, but they still get enough friend time to make them happy. Last night I made dinner, and no one was home except Nils and me. We ate like empty nesters, but eventually a couple of kids trickled in and ate with us.

We're still sticking close to home, not venturing out much at all. Nils continues to work from home. It will be a sad day indeed when he has to go back to the office. I decided to stop working at the clinic. Things are too weird right now, and I felt that I'm better off being here for the time being. I really did like the job, and the people especially, and am thankful for the experience.

YouTube: We invested in a course a few months ago to help propel the YouTube biz. 9 years ago, we made $12 one month and couldn't believe it. Thanks to Nils' dogged persistence and drive, it's now making a little bit more than that. It's mystifying to us. Anyway, this course really gets into the nuts and bolts of how YouTube works, and it's all mostly over my head, but I'm hoping to dive a little deeper into the background. It's too much for just one person to manage, so I wanna be more helpful to the talent (Nils). :)

I signed Ava up for cheer. She's been in tumbling for about 5 years now, and I figured she could put those back tucks and handsprings to some use on a cheer team. She's excited, and we've never done anything like this before, so it should be an adventure! It will help keep her busy for the next few months. She gets frustrated sometimes when she feels like she has nothing to do during the summer, so this will fill some of that extra time.

Aani is making a quick work of becoming a teenager. Her 13th birthday is in a couple of weeks. She's always been eager to be bigger and older, so we better buckle up for this one. She loves hanging out with her friends- she's gotten close to several kids her age that live on our street- how lucky to have so many friends so close by. She's getting into clothes, makeup, and hair. It's fun and weird for me, because Addie couldn't care less about those things. Kids being different, who knew?

Addie loves playing Animal Crossing, drawing, and hanging out with her friends. She makes a single chocolate chip oatmeal cookie almost every day. She loves the Avatar the Last Airbender series, which is now on Netflix. She's watched it twice through already- it's been on Netflix for 2 weeks. She has a garden of succulents on her windowsill in her room. She listens to 40's music and show tunes regularly.

Anders has had some adventures this month. He went to the Salt Flats with some friends- they got  stuck in salt water and had to have the friend's car towed out by a crazy tow tank thing. This involved running 2 miles across the salt to the nearest road to flag someone down. He and some other friends had a campout last weekend. I feel good about these sorts of things. He's a 17 year old boy and needs to get out and experience things like getting stuck in salt water, and use those problem solving skills. His plans for his senior year are to go to high school half time, and the other half he'll go to MTEC and take a computer programming course. Please bless that it can actually happen. It will be great for him.

We've got a few little trips planned for the summer. Since everything was canceled, and I'm not working, we have lots of freedom to go places. First up is South Dakota, baby. We're going wild! Nature isn't canceled!

Couple of Things

Just recording a couple of things so I don't forget about them.

First: When Nils was in India at the end of February/beginning of March, when everyone started hoarding water bottles and toilet paper, I made the mistake of going to Walmart. I had ordered groceries online that Saturday morning, and then realized when I went to pick them up, that the world was ending. I waited for over an hour in a line of cars to get my grocery order, and then for another 30 minutes in a parking spot for them to even bring out the groceries. I didn't realize what was going on inside the store- complete mayhem. 

Aani was with me, and wanted to inside the store to get a couple of things. Oh man, scary stuff. It was insanity- empty shelves and hoards of people buying all the things. As we were exiting the store and putting our things in the back of the van, I somehow managed to forget about my purse. Luckily, I had taken my keys out of it, and had left my phone in the van. We got home, and I immediately realized I didn't have it, so I quickly went back to the store. I checked where I had put my cart back in the parking lot- nothing. Checked all the carts inside the entrance of the store, and nothing. Waited in line at customer service for 20 minutes and asked them if it had been turned in. They were beyond frazzled from the having the weirdest day ever, and looked in lost and found, but didn't see it. I went back again the next day, and they didn't have it. I called the store 3 times to check on it, and they claimed they didn't have it. 

With Nils being in India, our debit card was how he was paying for his way around, so if I canceled the card, he would be stranded financially. It was kind of stressful. We were vigilant about checking all of our accounts for fraudulent activity, and there was none, ever. It didn't make sense that someone had stolen my purse and then not done anything with the valuables. So we waited and kept a close eye on everything for the next several weeks. 

I bought a new purse, an exact replica of the one I lost, because it's the perfect purse. I was very sad about losing it. You also can't buy them anymore from the company that made it, so I found it used online somewhere. Having an exact replica helped me feel less sad, but I was also sad about not having my debit and credit cards, Costco card, temple recommend, insurance cards, driver license, etc. Bleh. I managed to get a new debit card and driver license, but that was all that I had in my tiny new wallet. (I was also very sad about losing the wallet itself.)  

Life went on, the pandemic happened, and I was resigned to never learning what happened to my perfect purse and wallet. A couple weeks ago, Nils got a FB message from the asset protection person at Walmart, saying they had something of mine. Why they found Nils and FB and not me, I know not. I went in, and low and behold, they had it the whole time. My wallet had everything in it, including the $33 in cash. The wallet and purse had been separated, so the man only gave me my wallet at first- I mentioned that I had lost my purse as well, and fortunately had my exact replica with me, so he found my purse in his bin and gave it to me. He told me that the people at customer service don't do a great job of looking through the things in lost and found, and that he goes through about once a month to see if there's anything with ID and if he can track down the owners. He hadn't been through the lost and found in a couple of months. Someone had found my purse right away and turned it in, but the customer service people didn't see it. Silver linings: I now have two perfect purses, two wallets, and two driver licenses. I also have all of my cards back, wahoo! Also, someone was honest and didn't steal my purse or anything in it, which is miraculous. #utahcounty

#twopurses

Second: We ordered a new family car in December- a Kia Telluride. It's an SUV, and we have been really excited about it. You can't buy these cars on the lot for some reason, and the factory can't crank them out fast enough. The dealership told us to expect it in May. I've never been this excited about getting a new car. Nils has been excited, the kids have been excited...I think this is what got us through a long winter, and a pandemic. We ordered a snow white one with black rims, a light grey interior, and all the features. 😭 So beautiful. 

Welp. The factory had to shut down, inevitably delaying our order even more, and then the 'Rona got us thinking about life, and money, and then we decided to refinance our mortgage to pay it off faster, and then we started feeling like we should continue to be responsible, and...we're not getting the car. 

Adulting

 3/4 of the kids are quite disappointed. Addie has major attachment issues and was really unhappy about getting rid of our Sienna, so she is not disappointed. 

Oh, life. You are not boring. 

Tales from Home

Another month of spending all kinds of quality time at home! It's going to be rough when we have to get up in the mornings and put real pants on. 

Online "learning" continues til the end of the school year, which they're cutting short 2 weeks, and grades will be liberally easy. Fine. The kids miss going to school and seeing friends, and they miss normal life. All summer camps and activities have been canceled, so it looks like lots more at-home quality time is in our future! I'm skeptical even about school starting like normal come fall. How is that going to go? We shall see. Again, we have it good in general, and staying home for us is definitely not the worst thing. Nils and I are loving it in many ways. The kids are not loving it as much as we are, which is weird, because Nils and I are so cool and fun. 

Addie finished her Personal Progress, and her last project was sewing an apron. We made it out of a dish towel, because I don't enjoy sewing and wanted to make it as simple a project as possible. Not too shabby, I say. And, good for Addie for doing Personal Progress. She did it all on her own- we didn't really even talk to her about it. That's the kind of kid Addie is.

The kids stayed up all night for April Fool's Day and moved Ava's room into the great room. They thought they were being so funny. We woke up and said, "That's funny, but now you have to move it all back." Prank's on you, suckas.

Make yourself comfortable, Pip. Pip is LOVING having her whole family home all the time. I'm surprised her tail isn't sprained from all the wagging it does.

Boredom wise, Anders is at the "put on all the hoodies and jackets and see how fat I get" phase.

The annual burning of the canal behind us. Every year the city does this, and every year we get texts asking if we're ok. It's nice that people care, but if our house was actually burning down, I don't think we'd be texting. Deep thoughts.

Look at this beautiful GF lemon bundt cake. It is amazingly delicious.

Nils is not hating working from home. It's going to be so sad when he has to go into the office again. Then who will I harass 14 times a day?

Aani took about 30 selfies on Nils' phone.

Ginormous moon one night.

Easter sidewalk chalk fun.

We got a porch swing, cuz we need more places to sit. It took poor ol' Nils all day to hang it up. Turned out to be more complicated than anticipated, dang rafters.

We done been married for 20 years! We ordered food from Cheesecake Factory, and drove up to the capitol and Ensign Peak for our big anniversary celebration. How have we made it this long? I think one of the keys to our marriage is not sweating the small stuff. We manage to have a good time doing almost anything. We're both kind of homebodies, which helps with that. We've had some seriously difficult times in our 20 years, but none of those times would have been made easier without each other. We're continually learning how to communicate effectively. Each phase of life brings new challenges and joy, so we always get to learn and improve. Yay! We like each other and we love each other. It's not too hard for us, and we know we're lucky in that way. Suffice it to say that one of the many reasons I know God loves is me is that He gave me my Nils. Plus, Nils fixes stuff, and that's PRITTY nice.

Addie decided one day she wanted a bike, because one of her friends got a bike. She made this poster board presentation to convince us. It wasn't actually full of sound arguments, but she gets points for effort and creativity. In conclusion, she can do work for us and earn money.

Bye, April. You were great, just great.

Our Quarantine

Coronavirus, amiright? 

Nils is working from home, and I volunteered to be furloughed from my job. (Patient load has decreased by a significant percentage due to fear, and non-emergent surgeries being canceled.) I need to be here while the kids are here all the time. It’s going alright, and we’re just buckling up because it’s gonna be a long one. We totally recognize that we have it pretty great considering the circumstances. I was able to buy 50 lbs of rice today from a catering company, so if you’re running low, come on over. I also scored 6 rolls of toilet paper, as well as 25 lbs of flour. We don’t go through flour like we used to, since I never cook or bake with it anymore, but we have it on hand, and I can’t find it in stores. 

Feeling fortunate that Nils still has a job and it is secure. Home is our favorite place to be anyway, but as everyone else in the entire world knows, not having options is kind of crappy. Today I took Aani and Ava with me to pick up the pantry staples I ordered, and we stopped at the gas station to get a drink. Proper distancing and sanitation practices were in place, but we still felt like criminals for leaving the house and being in a public place. What a weird time. 

Anders is still working, which is salvation for all of us. He is not doing well with solitude. The girls are fine- they have each other, and are much more easily entertained than he is. He can “hang out” with friends via Xbox, but the time must be regulated on that thing, much to his dismay. Jesus take the wheel. 

This week I started a daily schedule of sorts, with a little devotional in the morning, and things the kids need to accomplish before it becomes a free for all. School work, exercise for 30 minutes, 30 minutes outside, and music practice. Some are complying better than others. Since we have so many unknowns right now, I find myself speculating on how we'll look back on this once it's over, but that may be dangerous, haha.

Anyhoo, here is the measly amount of pictures from the last month- it feels like we've been hunkering down for weeks now, so not much to show off.

Addie had her state orchestra festival at the U of U. This was the day before school was canceled- they just made it in time. We went up to see their performance, and downtown SLC had a really weird, eerie vibe to it. It was so empty and quiet. 

I cleaned and organized the pantry. No before picture, but it was a little scary. 

Someone send help for this quarantine hair. Oh my roots. I've been trying to grow out the really light blond for awhile now. I'm not a fan of the upkeep. Well, guess what? It's happening whether I can stand it or not. Buns are my best friend, and will continue to be, unless I get super desperate and start cutting my own hair. Please bless that doesn't have to happen.

Another pre-quarantine picture. Nils was selected to have his picture on a banner at work. He's such a model! I took the kids up there on a Monday, before the crap virus hit the fan, it was a scheduled day off of school. Anyhoo, we were in the cafeteria eating lunch, and the kids saw Nils' banner. They couldn't believe it. They wouldn't stop talking about it and asking Nils embarrassing questions about it. "Why did they pick you, Dad? Is it because you're the most attractive person in I.T.?" Nils was like, "I'm going to back to my desk now, bye." It was pretty dang funny. The children happily posed next to their father's banner, while Nils walked away from us.  

Pre-furlough. I'll miss the peeps at the clinic fo' sho'. But, I'm happy and relieved to be able to be home with the kiddos during all this weirdness. 

Hang in there, people! Say your prayers and get your exercise!

Our Wee Trip to Disneyland

We went to Disneyland over President's Day weekend, and the good news is that it wasn't busy at all. 

Just kidding! Everyone on the planet was there!

It was a tad overwhelming. Go away all you people! 

This was before the park opened, because you have to be IN Disneyland before it opens in order to reserve a spot on the new Rise of the Rebellion Star Wars ride, or you have no chance. We were lucky and got a spot on the second day we were there. #worthit

So Star Wars land is like the coolest thing EVER. We were all pretty bummed about how crowded it was in the park, but when we discovered Star Wars land, it made everyone really happy. It makes the rest of Disneyland look kind of shabby, in my humble opinion. It's THE COOLEST.

We made two droids, a parents one and a kids one. That was a fun souvenir and experience for everyone.

Waiting for 8:00 am so we could attempt to reserve our spot on the Star Wars ride. They really need to figure out a better way. We were just plain lucky and got a spot, but it's crappy if you make the effort to be there before opening and don't get one. But again, the ride is really amazing.

Guardians of the Galaxy, aka Tower of Terror. I had a total blast on this one and screamed my head off.

Splash Mountain. Poor Anders and Ava got soaked, and it was 8:15 am and 55 degrees. They were not pleased. 

We did single rider whenever we could to avoid longer wait times. Here are Aani and Ava on Cars.

We shooed the children away for a couple of hours and got us some $30 ice cream. Disneyland is ridiculous.

Our first ride was Small World. I haven't been on this ride since I was about 12, so I insisted. I don't think I need to go on it again.

My review of the place is thus: It's prohibitively expensive and that's really unfortunate. I don't think Disneyland itself is worth the price you pay. The rides aren't thrilling, and the magic is lost with the crowds of people, I thought. However, as I've mentioned like 10 times, they've upped their game with Star Wars. I would go for one day and mostly do that part. But, the kids had a lot of fun and enjoyed everything. They were so little when we went last time that they didn't remember much at all. They're all at great ages now for this sort of thing. It was fun and totally exhausting. We walked 15 miles and were dead at about 6 pm both days. Anyhoo, I've been cured of Disneyland for awhile. I don't feel a desire to go back for a long time. It was truly good times (thanks to Star Wars), but I can't imagine going all the time as some people do. If that's your thing, though, that's cool.

Thanks, LA, for this lovely sunrise. Also, we stayed with Shiloh and Brian a couple of nights and they were, as always, the. best.

The trip home had to have some adventures, as per the norm of our lives. First of all was another bathroom illustration at a gas station in Las Vegas. Like, are people throwing their poopy toilet paper on the floor? What the? 

Long story short, our lug nuts were not tight enough, and three of them sheared off. About 40 minutes north of Vegas, the wheel almost came off. We sat on the side of the road for 3 hours waiting for a stupid tow through the insurance company, who proved to be totally useless. We called a mechanic in Logandale (where Nils' parents used to live), and he came and picked us up, called his tow guy, and gave us a ride into town in his truck. What a stud. He also stayed late to get us up and running. It was a 5 hour delay in total, so instead of getting home at 8 pm as planned, we rolled in at 1 am. We all had to get up for work and school the next day, and that was a little rough. But, we made it and are very thankful we didn't die.

In other news, Nils makes fun of me because I am a sucker for click bait lists, like "35 Things You Should Never Eat", or "14 Ways to Know Your Marriage is Over", etc. 

Shockingly, they're always super dumb and not useful at all, but I still read them, and when Nils is around I will read them aloud to him. He loves it. So anyway, I had to copy down some of these, "The Worst Things You can Say to Your Parents", because they were so funny. I feel like these are horrible things to say to anyone, but what do I know, I don't write these lists. 

Look, it's Addie (and Aani) reading in a restaurant!

Nils left for India yesterday for 12 days. This does not please me. I think I'll write a list about it. Maybe next month it'll be ready for publication, and I can get a job writing lists for the internets.