First half of June

We made it to Thanksgiving Point- Farm Country one last time before we moved! Having to make reservations because of Covid has its drawbacks, but it certainly helps limit crowds, and I'm all for that! :)



Aunt Makenna invited us to go swimming with her at her in-laws. It was a real treat because most pools around here are still closed! We are really trying to soak up that cousin time! On the way back, we drove a way I don't normally drive and I passed this house that looked familiar. About 10 year ago, I saw a documentary on BYU-TV about "The Bread Lady" in downtown SLC who goes to stores to collect the unwanted food that is still good (but store are just going to throw away) and she brings it to her house and sets it on her porch for anybody who needs it. Lots of homeless people come to pick up food or clothes. I was so inspired watching it all those years ago.When I drove by the house, I immediately stopped, and asked around for the bread lady. I found her and, like a fan girl, asked if I could take a picture with her. She said, "I don't know why you'd want to", and I told her how much I admired what she was doing and that I just really looked up to her. She said, "Oh I'm no one special, I'm just an old lady trying to work my way into heaven!" and then she left to go unload a truck. The kids grabbed a few goodie and we left. I have been on a high ever since though. I met one of my heroes! :)


Dinner with Ben and Becca and family. It's been really awesome living only 30 minutes from them for the past 2 years, as opposed to 20 hours away. I'm going to miss our get togethers immensely!


My mom took a turn for the worse right after our Mother's Day luncheon. She started losing her vision and with it, so many other things. She was in great deal of pain and wasn't sleeping hardly at all. We were all so worried with this being the 2 year mark of her cancer diagnosis. I left Richie with the kids for the weekend and I went down to help. I made meals, cleaned, deleted thousands of duplicate photos on her computer, made sure she pushed the Dr.'s a bit and got her appointments sooner than later, helped her take new meds, took naps with her, etc. It was hard seeing her so unlike herself, but it was a truly special, even sacred weekend. So grateful I had the time (thanks Richie) to go do this.


One last trip to the Dinosaur Museum!


Lindy earned another blackout and chose breakfast date with Mom. She chose "The Black Bear Diner" and felt pretty darn special!


PODS were delivered. Moving began in earnest. Lots of selling things, lots of getting rid of things, lots of boxes to be packed.




Our 3rd offer fell through! So even though we said no more showings until we moved, we ended up doing two more. Back to Grandma and Grandpa's house! They built a really impressive network of tunnels in the sandbox. :)



Another dinner with friends! This one with Shae, Sierra, and Ashley. We've also had dinner with the Beckstroms, and the Andersons- And hosted one last cul-de-sac kickball session with neighbors! Lots of good friends.


I had promised all the kids friend birthday parties this year since we were moving. When Gwen's birthday came around, Covid had hit and we couldn't. So we postponed it till just recently! We did a color powder party. I made color powder out of cornstarch and tempera paint powder, and they got to run around in the white shirts and sunglasses throwing color powder at each other. Then we played some water games with balloons etc. It was a cute group of girls.


Miles earned a blackout and chose a movie night with friends. He had wanted to watch different movie and had to settle for another, but I think they all still had a good time. He has a few really good boy friends that I'm sad he's leaving.


Another Park Day, another cute Davy picture


One last trip to the Butterfly Biosphere. This outing had the most Covid restrictions, and therefore was a bit of a downer. Lots of hands on things were removed and you couldn't try to catch the butterflies, so there was a fair amount of whining. The upside was that we had the play structure all to ourselves, so we could tun around as we pleased and play hide and seek. :)



Other random pictures. One specifically being Lindy walking home with her friend Becksley. :) We are going to miss our neighbors the Holbrooks!

second half of May

The last little bit of school stuff hanging on. We finished mid-May. I've learned to be done with school for sure by Memorial Day, if not before. There's just no attention span from either myself or the kids after that. Pictured here us some seedling transplants the kids and I worked on. The idea was that we start all of our leftover seeds so we could use them up, and not pack them, and then we could sell the starts to help the kids earn a little extra cash. At this point, we may just put the ones that survived into our little garden spot for the new owners. I have a lot to learn about starting seeds! Also pictured is the kids giving their marine animal reports to us while we ate dinner and hung out at this fishing reservoir during yet another showing. We wrapped up our Marine Biology unit finally! Without all of the extra school stuff going on thanks to covid- we were able to really plow through our science unit.


As a reward for finishing their Marine Biology unit, we took the kids to the aquarium. We don't have a pass, and it's super expensive, but if you go on Mondays it's cheaper. Usually we try and avoid "discount nights" because the place is packed. However, with covid, you have to make reservations and they only let a certain number of people in at a time, so crowds weren't an issue. It was the best!! We had entire exhibits to ourselves to just sit and marvel without hurry.



Mother's Day Luncheon- My mom threw another Mother's Day luncheon for all of us gals on the Crosby side. The girls and I (plus Davy) made a quick trip down to participate. Richie took Miles and Benson camping with the Garner crew. It was regency era themed, so we all dressed up accordingly and had a tea party at Adrienne's. Mom taught us about proper manners of the era, and we found our regency names and beaus etc. Then we went to a "paint your own" pottery place and painted tea cups. :) Such a fun, quick visit. Grandpa spoiled us with yummy food and ice cream out on the deck every day. He and Davy got to hang out while us girls were partying and they seemed to really be chums on this trip. The only downside of the trip was that the day before we were supposed to leave, Grandma got really sick. Her occasional double vision and minor head aches (from the cancer)turned into extreme double vision, migraines, vertigo etc. We didn't see her at all on Sunday. Those symptoms are persisting and we are all a little worried and sad for Mom while she's experiencing this.



Parks finally open! Hallelujah! What a relief! We were actually able to utilize parks a little bit while we still had showings. Whew!



I turned 34! I wanted to spend some time with family, have some time to myself etc. I tried to be proactive about planning things. On Saturday we walked by the Jordan River as a family and had a nice time exploring. I also had time to go to the gym and go shopping for some needed new clothes.


The bowling place in Riverton offers free bowling to kids during the Summer, so we always try to hit that up at least once. This time was my favorite time yet because Benson is growing up enough to understand that he needs to stay near me and not constantly be running to the video games or out the door. And Davy got to stay home with Dad! So much easier!


On Memorial Day, we visit the graves of Matthew and Karl and Helen at the Bluffdale cemetery. Because of Covid, they didn't have the usual program and I really missed that. But it was nice to have quiet time at the cemetery with family. Then we went on a hike up Bell's Canyon. Beautiful, relatively easy. Win-win.


After about a year, Miles was published in "The Friend" Ha! I read his excerpt and didn't remember anything about the story, but he was very excited about that. Also some garden pictures. Even though we're moving, we're trying to keep the garden looking nice. Gwen is turning into quite the tree climber.


With an official move date (June 18th) we have started being really intentional about hanging out with friends before we go. This night it was me with the old primary presidency. I sure love these ladies. We ate and talked till our families were wondering where we were. :)



Lindy got her first blackout, on our summer bingo charts. She was so proud! As her reward she chose to have a movie night with friends. We got stuff for root beer floats and watched the new Aladdin. In my head, these types of gatherings are always going to be so easy. But I always have a hard time with them. I'm too much of a control freak! It always turns into a loud, play date, and no one ever wants to sit and watch the show. But if I turn it off so they can play, there is an outcry. ?


International Peace Garden- I have wanted to take the kids here for a few years. Going someplace you've never been before is always an adventure. As long as I kept the kids motivated and distracted by moving from one "exhibit" to the next, they forgot how muggy and hot it was.



If this is any indicator of the future, we must be in for Benson 2.0. Davy somehow climbed up into the sink in the kids bathroom while Richie and I were getting ready for church. He turned on both faucets and let them run till the entire bathroom was covered in water. We found him, laughed it off and cleaned it up. Until later, when I went downstairs and found soggy carpet and a soggy ceiling. One more thing to fix before we get out of here.



There are perks to home church, and some things I really miss about meeting in a congregation. The last few weeks have felt hard. This week however was wonderful. All the kids willingly participated, Miles created a lesson on powerpoint... It was a good memory to tuck away.



No pictures for this update, but just for the sake of posterity...Here's an update on our home selling drama. It had been on the market for 3 months, we had 3 open houses, and over 40 showings. It was...traumatic. Then a few weeks ago, we got a solid offer. Our realtor assured us they wouldn't be backing out. They did the final inspection and walk through. It was all good. Then on Richie's official last day of seminary, the day before we closed, the backed out. It was a total punch to the gut. We are possibly getting an offer from some backups...we will see. Our faith in people's promises is hanging by a thread at this point. We were promised a job for a year, and then it didn't happen. We have had 2 home offers, and they have both backed out. The doctor's keep changing their minds about my Mom's treatments and the severity of her illness...It's a lot. We are certain things will work out, and that Heavenly Father is in charge. In the meantime we are trying to figure out what we are supposed to learn through all of this, and it's exhausting.