The Pollard Place: June: Mouse Funerals and Pie Contests

It was time for hair cuts for all of the kids! Henry gets his hair cut really often, but Della rarely does. She was so excited to be able to get a hair cut- and it was Amelia's first hair cut! My little baby is growing up so fast! She felt so proud of herself in her chair. She is so cute.

Ashton Gardens was doing a special exhibit/activity where they brought full size dinosaur robots. They could move a little bit and the speakers would give loud screeches or grunts. They called it Dinosaur Island and one morning while I was watching the Barton kids I took everyone here. The older four kids really did have a great time! They ran from dinosaur to dinosaur wanting to see it and read all of the facts. Amelia was less excited about it, and was always really wary of each one.

We took a break about halfway through and the kids just played on the grounds. They found rolly pollies and... a whole bunch of rat skulls. Those skulls really took over their imaginations for a while and that was all they wanted to do. In fact, they all snuck some home in their pockets haha.

Jessica and I met up and went up Bells Canyon on a hike. It was really fun to get to go out just the two of us and to talk. At the end there was a beautiful waterfall and we got to just sit and watch it for a little while. We saw a rattlesnake on the way out!

I took the kids to the Provo Rec Center and we had a great time! We met McKayla and Lizzie there and it was really fun. It's so nice to be able to get in the water in the warm weather!

A tired little lady

Another day that I was watching the Barton kids I took them to Gardner Village for the Fairy Parade. I told my kids about it and Della was so excited, Henry was not that psyched. But they all came along and had a good time. We participated in the fairy parade, did the fairy alphabet hunt and got some pizza.

They had an impromptu dance party!

And a visit from a unicorn!

Rusty and I had a chance to escape and go mountain biking together. We rode for a little while and then got to a pretty spot and got off and just sat. We were able to talk about how things were going. The past few months- well year- has been really difficult with Rusty's job. He set out on his own and started ERC with some people. It has been very successful, but this is the first time that we are able to kind of take a breath. I will always remember sitting next to my husband and talking about how we can finally take a breather. We have been waiting a long time for this, and being able to just sit and talk about the future being easier was really great.

Rusty went mountain biking with Steve!

Orem Summerfest came and went again- one of my favorite parts of summer in Orem. Rusty had to work so I took the kids on my own to get their balloons and ride some rides. They are getting old enough now that they are really liking the bigger rides at fairs and things like this.

Amelia was really sad that she wasn't big enough for almost every single ride. Poor thing

She finally got to go on a ride!

This was Della's favorite ride!

After we had ridden most of the rides we sat down to watch a magic show. Henry got picked from the crowd to go up and help and he was absolutely out of his mind excited. It was really funny- the magician kept bringing wands out to him to hold and they got bigger and bigger until eventually the last one was huge!

Last year Della was able to be in the summerfest parade with her dance group, and so this year I tried to get Henry into something. He said he wanted to do the pie contest so I applied for him and he got in! He was one of the youngest ones up there and he finished second! He was so proud of himself!

After the pie contest we watched the reptile show and then went into the reptile tent. And we also watched the hot dog eating competition- which was weird and impressive at the same time. One guy just brought out some Tupperware and started loading it up with the hot dogs. He also brought some ketchup and mustard and started using it on the ones he wanted to eat haha.

The next day Rusty was able to take the older kids to the car show! They went last year and had such a fun time they were begging to go back this time. Amelia wasn't feeling super great so she and I stayed home.

The day finally came that we were able to go back to Fish Lake- and this time with our new trailer! It was wonderful. That place is really special for us and we were all excited to go back. We drove down there and found a good spot and got set up. Then we went for a little bike ride around the loop. Della is just getting the hang of her bike and we had a bit of an incident. She got going down the little hill and she couldn't stop. Her eyes were just wide and so afraid that I felt so bad and scared for her. I was down at the bottom with Amelia luckily and when I saw her racing down I stepped out in front of her and by some miracle grabbed her off of the bike and stayed out of the way of the bike. She was terrified of her bike after that, which was really sad.

I sent this picture to Jessica and she sent me these screenshots zoomed in on my beautiful children in all of their glory.

We had s'mores and then got ready for bed! Amelia had a really bad diaper rash. I'm not sure what happened, but it came on really quickly and got really bad. I was so grateful that we had the trailer with a little tub because I just filled it up with some warm water and put her in a tub. She was crying so hard and didn't want me to put her down so I got in the tiny tub with her haha.

On Saturday we all got up and went out on the yacht to go fishing. It became very difficult for all of us to fit in the boat. We tried our best to squish in there.

Amelia's bum was still pretty bad so we stuck around the campsite and played games. I got some kitchen utensils out for the kiddos and they made some cool soups and concoctions!

Sunday morning the boys went fishing and the girls went for a walk around the lake. We all met up when they were finished and had a great walk.

Amelia carried this yellow sand toy on the whole walk using it like a steering wheel.

We went over and had dinner at Bartons when we got back from Fish Lake! The kids all ran around like wild animals and we had some good food.

I signed Henry up for a soccer camp this month! He has really settled into this sport and is willing to put in some work. He had a great time at his camp- each of the three days!

I wanted to take a picture of Henry here and Amelia was adamant that she got one too

She didn't even want to get out of Della's picture haha

Della has been working hard on her Upstart school work and this month she had her graduation! She was so excited and proud of herself! We are too!

For Father's Day we made Rusty breakfast in bed and then went to church. For dinner we had delicious charcuterie board and watched a show!

As the month came to a close, the stress about moving to Puerto Rico, moving to Midway or staying in Orem kept rising. It got to a breaking point and I just couldn't think anymore. I didn't know what we were supposed to do and I was tired of feeling stuck. One day I just packed up the kids and took them to South Fork Park and I felt so peaceful up there. I came away with a little bit more clarity but mostly I had a chance to relax and calm down about all of the giant changes going on.

We spent a weekend in Mendon and had fun staying up there. The kids played in the pool, rode scooters around, and played with some of my old toys I had when I was little!

These poses kill me

Rocky at Rusty's work had tickets to a Real soccer game that he wasn't going to be able to use. He gave them to us and we took Henry for a special date. He loved watching professional soccer players!

We walked through a house in Midway that we are looking at. It's a disaster because it is only framed, but the land is just beautiful! I fell in love with it as soon as we walked the property and we started working on putting an offer in on the house!

At the end of the month I went to Girls Camp with the young women. It was fun and really crazy all at once. I haven't been to Girls Camp since I was in Young Womens, so this was really surreal for me. We went to Mia Shalom and it was beautiful in that area! I truly fell in love with it.

Dyonasis

Ari

One of the fun things that we got to do up there was archery!

We also went geocaching! I took a group of girls out all on my own and we ran into some problems because the paper we were following was way off. Like we would have to walk forever to get to the numbers it was saying. We ended up just following a trail for a while and then heading back and our 1 mile hike turned into 3. I didn't mind because it was beautiful, but some of my girls did haha!

We also had a day to play at the lake! We caught salamanders and went out in the kayaks and played games. It was really cold but we powered through haha!

One of my favorite things of the trip was when it was our night for a skit. Each of the wards got a different Disney movie and ours was Mulan. For our skit I was Mulan's father, and McKayla and I had beautiful facial hair drawn on haha.

Another highlight, well not a happy highlight I guess but it ended up being hilarious, was that one morning we came out to the water bucket by the fireplace and saw a mouse that had drowned at the bottom. It was perfectly still and had its little front paws together so it looked like it was praying. Basia and Haley found it and immediately went to work burying it. Not only that, but they did a whole funeral service.

We painted rocks for one of my activities and Sister Minson painted these for each ward with a hidden Mickey.

Our last night we played some more ward games and then the Bishopric came up and we had pizza and testimony meeting! Girls Camp carries a very special spirit with it- that has not changed.

The final day Rusty was amazing and drove up really early to meet me at the camp so that he could pull the truck down with the trailer. Sister Minson drove my van home and I got to go with the family to go fishing. Henry went over to a special area and has so happy to be out fishing! I had missed everyone so much I was so excited to spend time with them!

Rusty had meetings he couldn't get out of one day so Bryndee took the kids to a park and let them play.

Henry’s Highlights:

We were driving and he says “I don’t know why, but I was just thinking about outer space. When we send an astronaut into outer space it hurts the atmosphere. What if we put rockets on an astronaut on their suits and they could go into space like that, and that would hurt the atmosphere less”
We we’re in the car listening to Deja Vu. He says, “This song is about them breaking up and it just came to mind that I don’t know how to know who I want to date or how to ask them to date me and that is embarrassing”
A bug landed on his head when we were camping. He said, “A bug just landed on my head. Now it smells like sulfur. I think I got that disease from the bug that makes it so you smell sulfur for the rest of your life.” One time, two years ago, we talked about a woman who had Covid and smelled sulfur all the time hahaha. Never talked about it since then!
The kids were watching Dora the Explorer while we were driving to Fish Lake. The map sings the song: “I’m the map, I’m the map, I’m the map, I’m the map, I’m the map!” And Henry says under his breath, “Ok I get it, you’re the map.”
Della is singing Moana and Henry’s annoyed because she sings all the time. She says the line about not knowing how far the ocean goes and Henry says, “IT COVERS THE WHOLE EARTH.”
Our sweet neighbor Sharon got cancer and passed away. The day I told them Henry said, “I just don’t feel like I can be happy today. I just feel sad no matter what.”
Henry got diarrhea and said, “I just had diarrhea again. That is five times. I don’t want to go to church, I’m making that very clear for you!”

Adeline’s Adventures:

“Henry! We're having psgetti!” He says, “It’s not psgetti, it’s PAsgetti.” She yells, “I KNOW ITS PASGETTI!”
For her preschool graduation she picked out a special dress and then asked me, “Can you call me graduation girl cuz I graduated?”
We found out this month that Aaron has cancer. She has been having a really hard time coping with it and understanding what that means, so when we play with the doll house the mom always has cancer and the kids always ask a ton of questions about it.

Amelia’s Updates:

When Amelia naps or sleeps she loves to be touching you.
Say “um ums” when she wants a snack, follows me making chomping sounds
Calls Henry Mimi
First haircut!
Pooped in our pool. I took her diaper off and she was walking through the pool. I took probably five minutes before I got her back and she had already pooped haha.