Enjoying a Bit of Normal While We Can

Hello, hello. Our schools haven't been closed down yet, or even moved to a hybrid schedule. None of our kids have even been quarantined, which is really surprising. They talk about how sometimes half of their classes are missing, and as few as 5-10 students are in them due to being quarantined. I'm afraid to say anything for fear of jinxing us. I know it will happen at some point, but we are sure enjoying feeling like life is moving forward, even if it's hobbling along. 

Swim team is crazy busy for Addie. This girl went from zero to 100. They have 6 am weights/yoga, and practice after school every day. This last Friday night, they had a swim marathon, where they swam 200 laps between 10 pm-midnight. She seems to be enjoying it, which is really awesome. 

We got permanent Christmas lights on our house! Nils installed them himself in order to do a video, but the company we got them from installs them for not that much more, relatively speaking. Anyway, this is exciting stuff. Nils is so happy to never have to do it again, and the lights are totally customizable via their app. We can have lights for any occasion. Sa-weeeet! 

The Saratoga Springs temple is coming along! It's just about a mile away from our house. Watching it progress gives me hope for all the things. Can't wait to be able to go to the temple again. 

I had my foot hanging off the bed during Come Follow Me, so the girls had to turn it into a team spirit thing. I do love my girlies. They love each other and are really good to each other. 

Sometimes when we go to my mom's house for dinner on Sundays, things get a little weird. :) I bought her this flag to be funny, because she's become a fanatic. Our neice-in-law, Emily, came upstairs wearing this shark costume and it was just a perfect setup. My mom has grandkids living with her, so that spices up her life a bit. 

Work on the trailer continues. Nils has got a lot of it stripped down, and it looks a lot tidier. We've thrown so much away. It's like therapy for him. When he's frustrated with the kids, or his job, he can go out there and work for an hour. He comes back in the house in a good mood. There's a pool noodle on that cabinet, because of head bonking. It's placed really poorly. Nils bonked his head a few times, and one day I hit my head incredibly hard. I was bleeding, and I cried like a baby. It hurt so much! It was tender for weeks. Anyway, we'll need to revisit that whole setup so no one else cracks their head. 

Oh Pip. She's getting worse and worse when it comes to cutting her hair and nails. I have pills that are supposed to put her to sleep, but all they do is make her a sloppy, angry drunk. She has this special duck-bill muzzle she gets to wear as well. She sure is an adventure. Look at those sleepy, angry eyes. 

Sometimes I have to put notes like these on the bedroom door. 

Ava got to cheer and perform at half time for one of the high school games. They did a great job, and were pretty darn cute. She's having a lot of fun with cheer. It keeps her busy a couple days a week and is giving her new opportunities. 

Anders is working about 27 hours a week, in addition to school, so he's pretty busy. He's starting to think about the future and what it's going to take to tackle life. We broke down some expenses for him so he has a little better idea of what he's in for. It will be interesting to see where he is and what he's doing a year from now. We really have no idea, and neither does he. We see signs of promise and are holding tight to those. :) 

Aani is doing well in school, enjoys playing the violin in orchestra, and hanging out with her friends as much as possible. She's experienced a lot of drama with the friend group she hung out with all summer, so some adjustments have had to be made there. 

Big news around here: we decided it's time to take the plunge, and do YouTube full time. Nils gave notice at his job, and I go back and forth between being ready/excited, and terrified. He will work until the beginning of November. It seems totally crazy to quit a good job during the pandemic, but we've been planning for this for a long time and are ready. It's still terrifying, though. Our hope is that a year from now, we look back and wonder why we waited so long. Nils is so very ready. We are very, very thankful for good jobs for the last few years that have helped set us up financially so we can do this. So, there it is! The dream is coming true. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

School started, fun with $9000, and other adventures!

SCHOOL: Let's all just say our prayers of gratitude that school started in person. The kids are required to wear masks, and the schedule has been adjusted for shorter days by an hour, and lunch is after school at the middle and high school. Elementary kids are eating outside, and when the weather gets cold, they'll be scattered around the school instead of in the lunch room. 

The kids are really happy to be in school. I am also really happy they are in school. Here's hoping it lasts! 

Addie got a major hair cut! She said she wanted a pixie, and I wondered how that would turn out. I love it! Addie loves it because it's so much easier to do. She had one side by her ear shaved, so it's a little edgy but not crazy. Addie's doing swim team at school, so that's wonderful. I swam in high school, so I'm a little excited. :)

10th Grade 

Aani is in 8th and becoming a real big kid.  She's doing her hair like a pro these days.

5th for the Flave. She was so, so ready for school to start. 

Ava and Brinley

Anders is in 12th. He's going to MTEC in the mornings and doing a web development course, with regular school for the last 2 periods. So far it's going well. 

One Sunday, the girls all dressed up like "Southerners". Do we need to work on our stereotypes? It was pretty funny anyway.

This picture was posted on FB of our high school commons. Someone was trying to stir the pot- this is the reality of our schools, and everyone is doing the best they can. Look at all the kiddos wearing their masks! We're all so happy they can be back and be around each other. They sure need it. 

CARS: I wrote a couple months ago about how we weren't getting a Telluride...

We got a Telluride. Not the one we ordered originally, but I found one on KSL that was totaled with 178 miles on it. It was repaired and being sold as a salvaged vehicle. We jumped on it. It's basically everything we wanted, just significantly less money and with a branded title. We love it. It has so many fun features!

We also got a Toyota Tundra for Nils a couple of months ago- also a branded title. We're big fans of the salvaged vehicles. So far they've worked out great for us. We've had 4 in the last few years. Anyway, we're enjoying these new to us vehicles! As a result, we had to sell the minivan, and Nils' car. 

Enter our adventures with a phat stack of cash. You never know what you're going to get by posting stuff on KSL classifieds. Long story short, 6 men in turbans showed up at our house to look at the Honda Accord. After they all did a thorough inspection/driving test on it, they paid for it with $9000 in cash. We've never seen that much cash in real life, so we had some real good times with it before taking it to the bank. 

That's a lot of turbans for Saratoga Springs. They were all very nice and had stacks of cash, so it was just great. 

SALT FLATS: Nils and I went to the Salt Flats for his birthday. We had never been there before! Too many places to go and things to see. We had fun driving fast and experiencing the amazing scenery.  

You're welcome for this picture.

We had to take the new wheels! 

That's a lot of salt

On the way to the Salt Flats. Funny. 

OUR CHEERLEADER: Ava cheered in her first football game yesterday. They were cute and did a great job! They've been practicing hard for the last couple of months! They stood out in the heat and sun for over 2 hours cheering. 

She was pooped!

IT'S A BEAUT!: We decided a couple of weeks ago that it might be a fun adventure to renovate an old camper trailer. Well, these puppies sell like hot cakes on KSL. Every time we saw one we were interested in, it would sell before we could even go look at it. We were able to snag this beauty for $500. It's a real piece, but we figure it's like finishing a teeny tiny basement. Pssshh, ain't no thang. Stay tuned for how this goes. Maybe this will make camping fun! 

 

Timpanogos Summit

For a couple of months, I had a little craving to go hiking. On a Wednesday, I had this really stupid idea to hike Mount Timpanogos. I told my idea to Nils, and he was all in. We decided to do the hike 2 days later on a Friday night/Saturday morning. Nils has hiked it many times with friends. I've hiked it once before, with Nils, when we were 19 years old. I remember a few things: It was incredibly beautiful, it was incredibly long on the way down, and my toes hurt really bad on the way down. I also remember not being able to walk down stairs the next day. That's it- I was obviously a different person back then; nicer, more patient, someone who liked nature, and clearly very, very forgetful. 

I fancy myself somewhat fit, so I thought this would be challenging, but not totally killer. I'm an idiot.

We invited the kids to come along, and Ava was the only one who wanted to. We were kind of worried about her, and let her know it was going to be really, really long and really hard, but she wanted to do it.

Nils likes to do this hike in the middle of the night, so that the heat isn't an issue, crowds aren't an issue, and he's home by the early afternoon. We started hiking at 1:00 in the morning. We went up the Aspen Grove side, which is steeper but about a mile shorter than the Timpooneke trail. It is indeed steep, and kind of gnarly. You have to cross several waterfalls (which is not very enchanting in the middle of the night), scramble up rocks, there are cliffs off the side of the trail, etc. Anyway, the point I feel I need to make is that this hike is a beast. Once we reached the basin before the saddle after roughly 4.5 hours of hiking, we had to cross a snow field that was about a mile long. This broke my spirit. It was so hard. It was icy, slippery, steep, and after not getting any sleep for 24 hours, because I never went to bed, I was cooked. I was cursing the hike and calling it names, but I only said one swear word, in spite of thinking all of them constantly. 

We reached the saddle, which you may think is close to the summit. No no, you still have what feels like 20 more miles of rocks to scramble up (it's actually a mile to 2 miles. Let's call it 1.5 miles. I don't know. It's eternal). I can't believe more people don't die on this hike. It is treacherous! Cliffs everywhere! Why don't I remember this from when I was 19?? Why did we take our 10 year old? Why don't people on the internet talk about how hard and potentially dangerous this hike is? I have so many questions born out of my trauma. 

Anyway, I didn't want to continue to the summit, because I had views for days and I was fully angry at the internet for making this hike seem like a walk in the park. Ava was crying, probably because she was feeling like I was, and we discovered she would start crying whenever she had to pee. Nils put her on his back to go up to the summit, but then I was scared they were both going to die, so I followed. We reached the summit, where there were tons of people taking selfies and being happy. Ava was still in tears, because she still had to pee. (She drank a lot of Gatorade.) We had about 15 seconds of not being surrounded by people, so she just had to pee off the summit, and then she was much happier. #nature

The thing about reaching the summit, is that you have to turn around and do it again in order to get home. We decided to go down Timpooneke, and avoid that snow field. Not sure if that was a good idea or not. It is definitely not as steep, but it is so, so long. Soooooo looooong. I don't have words to convey how long it is. We kept passing people on their way up who were really perky and full of energy, and we looked like POW's. 

We finally, finally, finally reached the trail head, after what was an eternity. Sweet, sweet, gravel parking lot. Nils hitched a ride to the Aspen Grove trailhead to get the truck, and Ava and I laid in what shade we could find on the ground and let our legs cramp up. It was bliss. Once Nils made it back to us, we drove to McDonald's and ordered Coke, ice cream, salty fries, and whatever the heck else we wanted. Trauma, I'm telling you. 

Pros of going up at night: No crowds, no heat. Cons: You don't get to enjoy the scenery, and if you're like me and don't do well on no sleep, you will hate everything. It's a shame that on the way down, when it's daylight, you just want it to end. Thus, the incredible vistas are of no use to you. If you do well on no sleep, then this is all probably not applicable. Or, you could just hike it during the day and deal with the heat. I don't know what's worse. 

Anway, we did it. We were super proud of Ava. Even though she had some emotional moments, brought on by pee, she did so great. Nils had her on his back for about 1 minute of the entire hike. She did it all. She kicked butt. On the way down, when we were feeling hopeless due to chafing, exhaustion, running out of liquid, and just not knowing when the trail would end (having not gone up that way), I would pray out loud, "Give us strength!", and we just kept shufflin'. 

Our entire way up, we were tailed by a funny married couple, who we like to call "Mary and Babe". They were really friendly. The husband kept saying, "Mary, I'm so proud of you. You're doing great, Mary! Mary! Look at how good we're doing!" Mary would say, "Babe! This is crazy! Babe! Look at that! Babe, I'm feeling tired. Babe!" Mary and Babe definitely made the way up more interesting. 😂 

Too many steps for one day

Soon after we began, and right before we were passed by a bull moose! We had to jump off the trail.

                Heber Valley

The dreaded snow field, with Babe in front of me

The summit- Nils brought LRN2DIY stickers.

Meditating on the way down in a meadow of wildflowers

Phat Phingers