Date Night 2022

Monday, December 19th: Ice skating date!  Just the two of us on PERFECT ice.  Allen has the longest break he's ever had for Christmas and IT. IS. GLORIOUS!

Friday, December 16th: Torman Christmas party!  Only four couples made it kind of cozy.  We came with a bidet, and left with 8 new bags of potato chips--my favorite result from a white elephant party.  Meg was a fabulous host as always and it was just what we needed!

Thursday, December 15th: Pocatello temple date!  This might be our fastest trip to Pocatello ever.  We went to the temple, grabbed some food at Panda Express, hit he D.I., and then drove home.  No groceries, no errands.  It was inexpensive and spiritually uplifting.

Saturday, December 10th: CAUSWE (Coon Annual Ugly Sweater / White Elephant) Party!  We laughed till our cheeks hurt.  One of our favorite holiday traditions, and the most epic "group date" of the year!

Tuesday, November 29th: Temple date!  In the Jordan River temple.  We stayed the night at Cori and Jeff's house and had such a lovely time with our favorite friends--watching the Christmas musical Spirited, a hilarious and touching take on A Christmas Carol, attending the temple together, and then going to lunch with Cori and Jeff at Crown Burger. It was one of my favorite dates of the year.

Monday, November 21st: I was getting over a horrible cough, and Bonnie and Beau invited us to meet them at Lava Hot Springs for a date--which is just what my poor throat and lungs needed.  On our way home, Allen and I got burgers and tots at Quik Stop to officially make it a great date!

Thursday, November 10th: Veterans' Day date!  Two patriotic dates in one week! Allen didn't have work to day and we had a fabulous time going to the Veteran's program together.

Tuesday, November 8th: Election Day lunch date!  Whenever I work an election, Allen brings me a Diet Coke and shrimp tacos from Gonzales in the middle of the day and we eat together while our friends and neighbors are coming in to vote.  This year was the first time we ate at the new auxiliary gym of the middle school instead of in the freezing cold (and falling apart) Hooper Building.  

School's Out For Summer!

We will probably never know how lucky we were to have a pretty much "normal" school year in 2020-21.  Our kids went to school full-time in the Fall, and were able to do everything they would do in a "normal" school year--we quarantined a few times, and watched some wrestling matches on Zoom, but in our rural Idaho community, it was basically a regular year.  

And that means a regular last day of school!  We had friends over, put the sprinkler under the trampoline, roasted hot dogs, painted rocks, and offered up two sacrificial watermelons to kick off the summer season!

Brigham thinks he is so funny . . . 

Amelia, Mollie, and Jaydie

Brigham playing with Luke

Mollie and Macie will be in EIGHTH GRADE next year

All the kiddos!

Hope, Georgia, and I had fun hanging out while the
kids ran around the backyard and played for hours.

Truman and Brigham are both life guarding at Lava Hot Springs again this summer.  Brigham had a three-day stint working at Arctic Circle, our local fast food restaurant, but it only took him one day to realize that life guarding 1-pays more money 2- is more flexible with his schedule for running and mowing lawns, and 3- is about a hundred times more fun.

Truman is gearing up to head out on a mission--his papers are being submitted THIS WEEKEND and my next blog post may very well be about his mission call.  He is saving money, working hard, and is so much help around the house.  Which is good, because he and Brigham are also EATING ME OUT OF HOUSE AND HOME.

Mollie and Calvin spend a lot of time together, and they are such good friends.  In fact, as I am typing this, I just got up from a nap and the two of them made cookies together while I was sleeping.  

And already ate half of them.

I bought the kids Super Smash: Ultimate for our Nintendo Switch and gave it to them on the last day of school.  They all love to play it together.  There's a new sheriff in town: 2021 mom is a totally different video game monitor than 2011 mom.  The kids still can't play whenever they want, but they are playing much more than Truman and Brigham ever did when they were in middle and elementary school.  Fortunately, Truman and Brig don't complain, because they are reaping the benefits of the new sheriff's lenient policies . . . aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, they are always at work, so they don't actually know how much Mollie and Calvin get to play.

We cleaned the church as a family the Saturday before Memorial Day, and it was a very peaceful experience.  Mollie played "I Feel My Savior's Love" in sacrament meeting the next day, and she practiced it a few times while we dusted, vacuumed, polished, and disinfected the chapel.  It was very sweet to perform this easy service together.

Mollie ALSO had her first recital with her new piano teacher, Shirley Harris.  It was in the historic Bear Lake tabernacle--constructed in 1917.  Her talent has really taken off since she started with Shirley in January, and it is such a pleasure to listen to her play.  You can hear both of her songs in the video clip below, and see the original Minerva Teichert murals that are displayed in the tabernacle--the first time I saw them, I literally gasped.

       

Mollie and her fabulous piano teacher, Shirley Harris

And finally, me and the kids spent a day together at the outdoor pool at Lava--Brigham was working, and Truman, Mollie, Calvin (and his buddy Quaid), and I enjoyed the deliciously unseasonable HEAT.  Calvin surprised us all by going down the tube slides for the first time, and THEN GOING DOWN THE SPEED SLIDES over and over.  This is the kid who has not once ever gone on our own zipline in our own backyard. 

Bring on summer!