August: Moving to Midway

This month brought so many changes! Changes can be difficult, but we were very ready to make this one. Well, Rusty and I were. And Amelia and Bailey. And kind of half of Della. But not Henry. He did not want to move and was very clear about that. He was nervous to leave his friends and start over. Henry is an old soul and gets very sentimental about things. This move was really hard on him, but we made it through and now a few months later I can definitely see that this was the best move for us.

We had someone come and take pictures of our house, and I have to say that we definitely improved it! Haha! When I first walked the house (the day we moved in) I started crying because it was so bad. Sadly, we don't have any pictures because we bought it sight unseen (YIKES) and the only thing we could see was a youtube video of them walking through the house. Needless to say, this house has made a lot of improvements since that video!

Moving is always a nightmare, but for some reason this time felt more chaotic and more stressful than others, which is crazy because we even hired movers haha. They were pretty awful and just threw a bunch of stuff in boxes, didn't label anything, and didn't do a good job. I knew where nothing was at all, which became a problem because we had a work event to go to that I thought I needed to be fancy for. Turns out, it was outside and I wore jeans haha. But still! I looked all over those dumb boxes.

The tape ate me

Phyllis and Kirk came out to visit before Phyllis started working again, and I don't remember the exact dates but it was right after our move. It was a bit of a nightmare, but they were great with helping with the kids so I could get some unpacking done. Henry really was having a hard time with the move. He was yelling at me and hitting me- things that are totally out of his nature. Rusty was gone at work all the time and I was overwhelmed. Henry decided to run away one night, and he went and hid on the other side of the van. Then he went down to the sidewalk by the road. It was awful. I was stressed with unpacking and then really worried about Henry, and feeling a lot of guilt about if I was doing things right or not. While Kirk and Phyllis were here I just lost it one night at dinner and just started sobbing haha. I'm sure it was quite the scene! Kirk took Henry on a little outing just them to play mini golf at the Zermatt, and he also fixed about a million things that were broken in the house.

My parents took the kids for a night while we were unpacking so that we could get some stuff done. It was awesome! And the kids had a blast too!

The house is making a lot of progress! These pictures are from all of the times we visited it during the month. We talked to Jason about the cabinet layouts, and we decided to completely change the girls' bedroom. It had blocked off a huge area and had beams going through it, and they cleared it all up and doubled the space! And they added a beautiful window! The more we looked through the house the more we found things that were done incorrectly and needed to be fixed. Like pretty much the whole house. But we are taking everything down and taking the time to do it right!

The new view!

New view

Even though I had already moved, we had an activity planned where Jessica was going to take us to rappell Battle Creek Falls. It was really fun, and awesome to get the girls to stretch. At the end of the night is when I told the girls that I was moving and they had a new presidency coming. It was really sad and a few of them cried which was awful to see, but also good to know that I made a difference. This was a very difficult calling but I really did love these girls! After the activity I sat on Haley's front yard for a while and talked about things. I'm going to miss these girls!

We went out to dinner with McKayla and Tanner and the kids were so chaotic I had no idea what was happening. Usually they are actually really good in restaurants, but today for some reason all bets were off and they were little crazies. I gave them my phone to take pictures and got all of these as a result.

Rusty and I got to go see Singing in the Rain at the Hale Theater and it was outstanding. All of the actors really were spectacular and the effects that they did were really cool! For the song "Singing in the Rain" they made it rain on the cast! After that it was intermission so he could get dressed again. It was simply wonderful. I love going to see musicals.

I was super spoiled this month because we also got to go see Cinderella at Sundance. WHO KNEW THAT THEY DID THAT. I DID NOT AND MY LIFE HAS BEEN CHANGED. I WANT TO SEE EVERYTHING THAT THEY DO HERE. Okay I'll settle down now. But this truly was such a magical experience. We went up the mountain a little ways and had dinner outside at some picnic tables. Then we got to go over to our saved seating and see the play. This was my first time seeing Cinderella, and it was so impressive. I loved all of the songs! And once again, I was really impressed by the cast.

Us with Shane and Angie

We got settled in enough that we had our first movie night in our new house! Every Sunday we pick a show (alternating turns) and we watch it. Tonight we watched The Reluctant Dragon, mostly because we didn't have internet. (spoiler alert- we didn't get internet for a very long time) While we watching the movie the doorbell rang. It was our cute neighbors bringing us some cinnamon rolls to welcome us. And it turns out that they are Tanner Dow's aunt and uncle! What a crazy small world!

The bench. Ah the bench. This was such a highlight when it was discovered and it became the ultimate hide out. Everyone would fight about who got to go in and who was squishing who too much. I got nervous that it would crash down and kill someone (those suckers are heavy) so Kirk helped by putting some things on that should slow it down. It didn't work because it was too heavy, but I do think it helped. The irony is once that was done and I felt less anxious about it, the kids had moved on. I'm writing this in January and they've only been in a couple of times since August. But during that first month, they pretty. much lived in there.

Note Amelia's shoes. She LOVES these shoes

Red Sign always throws the best parties! But I will say that I am very happy to enjoy the parties without Rusty working there anymore haha. They threw a big 7 Peaks Swim party and we had to fit it in! We had a great time swimming and playing and enjoying the hot weather. Henry wanted to go on some rides but Rusty wasn't able to come this time so I couldn't stay with him. I ended up inviting McKayla to go with Rusty's ticket and it was really fun! It also made it so I could leave the girls long enough to make sure Henry got to the ride and then he'd go down on his own. He was so proud of himself! I was proud of him too, I can't believe he is getting so old!

Sometimes life just doesn't go how you planned haha. We got things ready to have a tea party outside and it started to rain. Instead of changing our plans we decided to use umbrellas! We ate cereal and had water while it rained on us and it was kind of magical. 

With things being really crazy with the move, I was happy to be able to steal away one afternoon and go to my happy place: South Fork Park. We stayed there and played in the water and just enjoyed time with no schedule or anything to do. This place automatically makes time stop for me; I don't check my phone, I don't have a list of things I want to do or activities I want the kids to do, they don't expect me to entertain them. It's heavenly and I feel so much peace here.

Before I knew it, it was back to school night! The kids were both so excited to start school. Okay, well Della was really excited to start school. Henry was still asking to homeschool haha. But, after the back to school night I think he was a little more excited! This one was just for Henry because Kindergarteners had their own a week later. We met his teachers (Mrs. Scott and Maestra Martin) and saw his classrooms in the blue portable outside. He's cute and he is prepared and ready for second grade, even if I'm not super ready for him to be that old.

Our backyard here is not really even a backyard. There is no grass and it is really tiny. But we decided to make the most of it! Mostly we use the green space behind the house, which is awesome because it's huge and we don't have to take care of it. And nobody is ever out there so it's still kind of like ours. But it's not fenced in, and it's not really ours, so I'm still very excited for our house to be done! We decided to do some upgrades to the backyard to make it a little better. We got a sandbox, set up the mud kitchen and water table, and then used extra gutters as water pipes on the fence for the kids. They loved this so much!

We met our really cute neighbors, Johnna and Brooks. They were really nice and invited us over to have s'mores with them in their yard. It will be nice to have such sweet neighbors! I'm happy that everyone we've met so far has been so kind!

The kids got all fancy for church and I wanted to take a picture of the girls because they were wearing my old dresses, but Henry did not want to be left out so here is all three of my beautiful children. 

Rusty and I felt like we needed a reset. We needed a little relief from the move and I wanted to show Henry that good things would still happen after we moved. We decided to go to Bear Lake and rent a boat for the day for Rusty's birthday! It was absolutely the best thing ever, and very helpful. We invited Kirk and Phyllis to come (they were still in town so it worked out) and my parents to come too. We got a pontoon which I thought would be kind of lame, and I was so impressed! It was wide enough that you could walk around and have tons of space, but it still did great pulling a tube and wakeboard! This was a wonderful day. We tubed and wakeboarded and had a picnic lunch on the boat. It was a perfect reset to get us all ready to be in a new place. This definitely solidified my desires for a boat and to spend more time at Bear Lake though haha! Hopefully next summer!

When we got to my parents' house we had dinner and then had a little birthday party for Rusty. It was really nice of my mom to do that, because I didn't have anything planned for that night. I brought some brownies for his cake.

After Rusty's presents my mom gave the kids some back to school clothes she bought them and they did their little fashion show! They love doing that, and it was fun to show Grandma Phyllis and Grandpa Kirk that tradition too.

The next morning we got up early and packed stuff up and headed out to Bear Lake! We got to the rental place that Rusty had used, parked and then walked out onto the boat. Like I said, I was nervous the pontoon was a bad choice but it ended up being wonderful! We all had the best day out on the water tubing and wakeboarding. I love being out on the lake, and this day was just what we needed.

The very next day was the first day of school! Well, the first day for Henry. The Kindergarteners started a week after the rest of the school. I made the ABC and 1, 2, 3 apple cinnamon pancakes and took Henry's pictures. As you can see, I had to write the First Day of Second Grade sign on a random piece of paper because our printer wasn't hooked up and I didn't know where clean paper was haha. But we got him there! I walked him to school with the girls in the stroller.

Henry's dual immersion classrooms are in that blue portable.

Full disclosure: I had no idea where their shirts were so I had to order them on Amazon again and take these pictures very late.

 I felt bad because Henry's school list said there wasn't a supply list and the school would provide everything they needed, so I didn't buy him any school supplies. After his first day of school he came home kind of sad and when I asked why he said that everyone had pencils and crayons and pencil holders except for him. We went to Wal Mart right away to try to fix that and he was a happy kid!

While Henry was gone, the girls and I were trying to find things to do. We found the face paint that Rusty got Della a couple months ago and decided that it would be a great time to test it out. We did a great job, don't you think? Oh, we also found some mustaches on the floor haha!

One of the things that has changed since we moved is how often we ride bikes! We ride them to school every morning, we ride often in the afternoons to the park or the skate park, and we just enjoy being out together on them! Henry was feeling kind of bad about school still so we decided to get him a new helmet and new bike. He was pretty happy about it.

One particular bike ride was really fun. After we dropped Henry off at school the girls and I rode our bikes over the cute little bridge by our house. Then on our way back we gathered sunflowers. It was so idyllic. 

Another day while Henry was at school the girls and I went on a little date downtown. We went and explored to see what there was! We got lunch at Lola's, got cinnamon rolls from the Midway Bakery truck, and then ate our treats while we watched the cuckoo clock at Town Hall. I love that clock so much!!

The kids are kind of obsessed with taking pictures on my phone right now. I always find pictures of their tiny faces and it makes me so happy. Some of them are actually really good! And it is fun to see the world from their perspective.

Midway has the cutest farmer's market of all time! Ok, maybe my extreme love of this town is clouding my judgement but I think it is pretty awesome. It's right next to Town Hall and I'm still in love with the cuckoo clock. I went three times this summer: once with my family, once with Bryndee, and once with my mom. I tried some fresh cheese, delicious produce, fresh duck eggs, yummy pastries and some really cool bath scrub and bars.

The Lee's here does Maple Bar Mondays, so we went done and got some to share! I think this little town is so cute.

Another new thing that my kids have discovered is playing at the skate park! The girls don't ride anything most of the time, they just run down the ramps. Henry has started working on riding his bike and is getting better! I never thought I would spend time here as a mom (or just in my life haha) but it is actually a really fun place for them to play. Who knew? It's close enough we just ride our bikes to it and it's great.

After our sunflower bike ride it was time to take Della to school for her testing and "back to school night". It was mostly just showing her the classrooms and seeing where she was at academically. Della was so excited and felt like such a big girl to be there at school! It was hard for me to see her there because I don't want her to grow up, but she fit right in. She is ready for school!

After a week of having cute Della all to myself, it was time to send her off to Kindergarten! She was not scared until the very end, when she got a little bit nervous and said she didn't want to stay but she wanted to go home with me. We got her settled in and her teacher came to pick her up and then everything was great after that! For a few weeks she would talk about missing me at school and feeling sad, but she always came up with ways to make herself feel better!

Clearly, I was only concerned about getting the one kid ready haha

And then it was just the two of us! Amelia and I enjoyed the quiet house and all of the one on one time we got. It is really nice to get to spend time with her on her own, because I never get that. She is a cute little girl and is so much fun to play with! She is a ball of energy and life!

One day we decided to go and get some delicious donuts and then play at the park! The kids all loved their treats, and I particularly loved watching Amelia eat her donut by biting the sprinkles off of the top haha! Grandma and Papa were coming to visit, so we were spending time waiting for them to come. After they got here they played for a little at the house and we went out to dinner at an Italian place in Heber that was new for us. It was alright, nothing special.

Another show we got to see was The Bluebird at Sundance. I loved this for three reasons: 1. It was in the same setting as Cinderella, which was fantastic. 2. I love doing unique things, like listening to live music from famous song writers. and 3. I was just in Nashville, so this felt a little extra special for me. These artists were AMAZING. Like truly I don't know how these people can be so talented. They wrote all kinds of famous songs: The Highway Don't Care (Tim McGraw and Taylor Swift), The Dance (Garth Brooks), $7500 OBO (Tim McGraw), Sleeping in the Stars (Tim McGraw and Faith Hill), Here I Am (Patty Loveless), Here in the Real World (Alan Jackson), Neon Light (Blake Shelton), and Redneck Crazy (Tyler Farr). They each had such unique styles and voices and it was absolutely amazing to see them and hear their songs and stories.

Another great tradition is our back to school blessings! I'm so grateful that Rusty is worthy to hold the priesthood and able to give us all blessings. They were beautiful and full of hope! I got one too.

Another first for me was to go to the Childrens' Museum with just one kid! While the kids were at school Amelia and I went and played at the museum. I did realize that because I only had one kid I was too excited and didn't plan well enough and ended up with no snacks there haha. So we bought a very healthy lunch. Laying down with Amelia outside by the waterfall and reading with her is one of those memories that are so sweet and perfect you know you'll have it forever.

About two weeks into school for Henry, one for Della, I decided I wanted to do something special for them. I went and got happy meals from McDonald's and then picked them up early from school. I had their swimming suits and towels with me and I surprised them by taking them to Deer Creek! They ate their food and then played in the water. Henry loved finding clams (who knew we had clams here?) and Della and Lia loved playing in the mud and water. We didn't get to stay very long because there was a bathroom incident that involved poop getting on the floor and we had to leave abruptly. HAHA. I was trying so hard to do something nice and I felt like it backfired so badly haha. But, it worked out because we had fun before and then after we went home and showered we had some more fun.

Ironically, the very next day my friend Melynn who homeschools invited me to bring the kids to Deer Creek when they were out of school to hang out and play with some of her homeschool friends. We went and Henry got to play with some kids closer to his age! He went out on the Wibbit and he was so brave! He moved around out there really well and it was fun to see how old he is getting and how independent he is. He did great! Della mostly enjoyed playing in the sand, and Amelia liked playing in the sand and being pulled by me on the SUP while I went out to check on Henry every once in a while.

Rusty was able to go on a boys fishing trip to Montana! It was last minute, and it wasn't very long, but he had a great time! He went with Uncle John, Jayden, Nathan, Joseph and some of their cousins. I'm so glad that he was able to do that! He really enjoyed it.

Henry's Highlights:

• He is getting independent! He wants his bike halfway home from school on his own, he did it once or twice but once Della started school she did not feel comfortable with that.
• He plays soccer mostly at recess
• He's really into rocks and gems right now
• He tries the second container of milk. "Is that milk expensiver than the other kind? They taste the same. If it is, it's a trick."
• In his class they were doing a get to know you game. The kids were supposed to say a country they have visited. One kid said Hungary and Henry raised his hand and said, "Hungry?! I've been there lots of times!" Hahaha he didn't know that was a country. He said he got embarrassed when he realized he just thought the kid was saying he gets hungry

Adeline's Adventures:

• I told her the phrase "frog in your throat" and the next day she told me that she had a "ribbit in her neck" 
• She is doing so well riding her bike
• I was making Della toast and she asked for butter. I said I already put some on it and she said, "All food is bettah with buttah"
• I taught her the expression "frog in your throat" and the next day she told me that she had a "ribbit in her neck"
• There is a boy at Henry's school that is being a bully to him. His name is Roger. One day at breakfast before Henry came out she said, "You know that guy? Roger? I know you know his name. He makes me so furious! But... he is still a child of God."

Amelia's Updates:

• Holds her hands together
• Loves El Patito Feo book
• She's obsessed with bugs, dinos, and sharks
• She says help in the funniest way. It's a short little yelp that sounds like "halp"
• I try to get her to say happy because it's so cute, but she will only say it with Bailey afterward. "Happy Bailey." 
• Dresses are called "beaus" because they're beautiful

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