Of yards and dolls and puzzles

Our shelf prayers were not answered in the way I’d hoped. It sometimes feels like we take 2 steps forward and 3 steps back. We’ve had a random water puddle in our garage for a week and we thought it was the fridge, but when we went out to work on the shelves we did some investigating and  found it was coming out from the bottom of the wall. more detective work discovered it’s the wall with our master bedroom pipes, and when we flushed our toilet, water trickled out. 🤣 Come to find out, Matt hit a pipe when he  put up the first shelf, so that’s awesome. Thankfully we were able to have a plumber come the next morning and we only had to take a small portion of the shelf down and cut a small piece of drywall. Hopefully that will take care of the problem!

Delaney stayed home again on Thursday. I got her up and had her eat breakfast, but she still felt achy. 

Digging gate continued. 

We managed to get the fabric, rock, and pipe down and then it was just a matter of covering it all up, which the girls helped with. 

The Darrows did a fun pizza night in exchange for cans for the food drive, and while I don’t make great pizza, I do make a great cookie, so this idea was born. 

Imagine my surprise when a Facebook memory popped up where I had done this exact same thing - cookies for cans for another food drive we’d done years ago. I have the literal *worst* memory. 

Ta-daaaa! Mostly covered French drain. The girls worked for a long time raking all the extra dirt and rock from the grass and deposited like 10 wheel barrows full behind the shed, and there’s still more to do. 

In the meantime I’ve been going through our games to see a) if we still play them and b) if we have all the pieces. This is a fun puzzle my mom sent us. The pieces are tiny and if you move it at all you move the whole thing, there’s nothing holding it together, so it’s pretty tricky.  The missionaries loved this cutie and out in several pieces when they came over to help make cookie dough. 

Delaney made a video of her Our Generation camper. She’s so funny. 

Another puzzle instayed up way too late working on. #worthit

Playing in the mud

It rained just enough to make the ground messy for our digging yesterday. It did make the dirt softer, so that part wasn’t terrible. Also, we did more damage to our sprinklers than we thought, but our September motto is “we’re learning.” Like when we took an emergency trip to Ace and then decided we actually didn’t need anything.  

We are just praying this works! It’s a little nerve wracking hoping we got the grade right and that nothing gets clogged. 

This is what we got done by the time it got dark. We’ll sprinkle grass seed and hay and hopefully all the rain will wash the dirt off the grass and make it look more tidy. It is MUD.DY. 

The sisters came over and helped me bang out six batches of cookies for our cookie stand for the canned food drive. I made the dough and they weighed the balls and it went so much faster and was so much better for my sad little wrists. They’re such good and cute girls. 

We had homemade Taco Bell quesadillas for dinner and I am trying to clean out our freezer so we can defrost it so I made banana bread after everyone went to bed and then Amy called so I stayed up way too late chatting. 

Poor Delaney didn’t feel great when she came home from school, and still this morning felt just north of sick so she stayed home. I had a physical were my dr - who I swore I’d not seen before but actually did see last year - gave me gold stars and said she hoped all her patients today were like me. I helped her manifest that. Then I had to give 4 vials of blood because #oldlady. 

This afternoon is pouring down rain so we’re switching gears to our inside project. Pray with me that we can finish shelves today!

We’ve been working on the railroad

This girl is one of my favorite people. She’s sweet and salty and always has something to say. She’s growing up and getting rid of her little girl unicorn room and I’m just a wee bit sad. 

The neighborhood had a yard sale and we told the girls they could keep all the proceeds if they worked it. We worked together to price everything and Delaney labeled it all. 

Haha.

🤣 

Thursday was my first staff appreciation event - a Muffin Bar. I collected donations and made some muffins and set up the day before and it was easy and smooth and I still love staff appreciation. 

Here’s the after. Delaney loves helping me set up and clean up. As a student going into the staff lounge is pretty bomb. 

This is how I spent the rest of Thursday. 

Because the basement still isn’t put together all the toys are in the garage so I grabbed all the bins and we organized everything and got rid of a ton. 

Thursday night brought garage shelf building. Because why have one project in the works when you can have several?

That brings us to Friday and our French drain yard project heard round the world. We spent a good 8 hours and it was hard work. Our backs and wrists and muscles were so sore. We had talked about possibly renting a trencher and after being the diggingest dogs, we decided to go grab it. 

And since we also had to rent a trailer, we hit Lowe’s for long wood that won’t fit in the jolly green and all the gravel and concrete we’ll need for our current yard projects. We’re always happy when we can get the most out of things we pay for. 

We helped the girls get set up and they were on their own. 

They said no one even tried to haggle and they made $180 to split between the three of them, so that’s a pretty good haul. 

They’re working on posting the things that didn’t sell to Marketplace. Delaneys already sold several unicorn pieces. 

We dug dug dug all day Saturday. We had the girls come out in shifts and we banged that French drain out. 

We had to dig most of it by hand because of the utilities and we managed to cut a sprinkler pipe and also a hose. 🤷‍♀️ We were all happy when we got to the point where we could use the trencher. It took a little bit for Matt to get used to it, but by Monday morning he was a pro. 

Amazingly fast and easy. 

It was so. much. work. It isn’t often that I physically don’t have the energy for things I want to do, but I hit that point both days. 

A Frankie shift. 

I’m so proud of us. This was a lot of planning and work and we were both nervous but so far, so good and doing this ourselves is saving a ton of money. All the prayers that we’re doing it right and not going to hurt ourselves down the road. 

I had signed up for a Board and Brush class to benefit Chelsea’s school, so while I was bummed to leave our project unfinished, it was nice to go hang out. Although it was pretty hard to paint because a) I was exhausted and b) my hands were shaky because of a) above. I was the first done and even though it’s been forever since Chelsea and I hung out, I headed out pretty quick. 

We had the trencher till Monday morning and I could have been convinced that our ox was in the mire, especially since a St. Mary. County guy came around and told us we couldn’t French drain up front. That same guy came out years ago (I might have mentioned this project has been a long time coming) and never said we couldn’t or shouldn’t do exactly what we’re doing. It’s so frustrating because we’ve tried really hard to do the right thing for everyone, since when one  neighbor changes their water routing or grade it changes for everyone. Anyways, of course we are proceeding with our project, but just a touch worried we might get in trouble. 

Matt said our project would go more smoothly if we didn’t work on Sunday, even with the trencher, so we didn’t. I’m grateful for his good example when I can sometimes rationalize. It was a very full day even without yard work. Frankie had a talk, we sang in sacrament meeting, and there was a Linger Longer. We met up with Alecia early to run through our song. She’d recorded it for me but since we cut out a verse there was some confusion and we couldn’t ever figure out the last verse, so it was nice to finally sing while she played. Frankies talk was sweet and short and our song was fine. It actually was kind of fun practicing together though I wish we’d had more time. We told the girls just to enjoy it and smile and sing loud because this is our testimony. We sang If the Savior Stood Beside Me which is one of my favorite songs and it was lovely arrangement. Our humble witness of our Saviors love. I especially love the last verse and I couldn’t help but smile singing there with my family. We didn’t sound great but our hearts were in it. We all wore pink to coordinate and I even wore my goofy pink glasses. 

After church I had an area meeting to finalize our area RS conference proposal, so that took an hour and a half but was really interesting and I really hope we get approved. I had a presidency meeting at 3, but I was still in my area meeting so I asked them to start without me and then joined as soon as my other meeting was done. I hung out in the family history center on the comfy chairs so it was nice. I talked to bubba all about their new house on my way home and then had one more meeting at 5:30. It was a long and lovely day. Usually I am so sad for the weekend to end, but I gotta say I was a little glad on this one. That’s not a weekend I’d like to do again. 

Workers in our neighborhood get going with their tools pretty early, so right after seminary on monday Matt and I jumped on the trencher and were able to get 3/4 of the other side of our yard started. The trencher isn’t perfect and we’ll have to go in and make sure the slope works, but it will be so much faster than doing it all by hand!

We did manage to go exactly over top of our sprinklers and tear up a large section, so Automatic Rain is coming out today and we’re hoping it’s only an hour or 2 job. 🤣 Our philosophy this weekend has been that it’s all fine, we’re learning and trying and working together, so shredded sprinkler pipes are no big deal. 

It’s not the straightest line I’ve ever seen but she’ll do the trick!

We hustled her onto the trailer and were only 5 minutes late for our 9:00 dropoff. We thought we’d have to rent it again, but thanks to our early morning trenching we won’t. 🎉 We only had a few hours to work between Matt’s actual job, dinner, and ballet, but we think we’ve got the grade right so hopefully today we can get all our sprinkler pipes fixed and throw the gravel and tubes down and get it all covered up. Then we can start leveling out the other side for the French drain over there. It will be so worth it and good when it’s done. 

I went grocery shopping and adi target shopping while Delaney danced. She’s really enjoying her classes more this year and I’m so grateful!

By a yard

We’re switching family night to Tuesdays since Mondays are full of piano and dance. President Nelson turned 100 and we’ll watch his birthday broadcast tonight. 

Rachael asked our family to sing a musical number a couple weeks ago and then she actually followed up too. I love to sing, but it does not love me. We aren’t singers, but we’ll share our testimony through a song on Sunday. Actually, I think my crew sounds pretty good, I am the weakest link. Anyway, Michelle came over last night and brought us a really beautiful arrangement of our song and practiced with us for awhile and then we chatted till after everyone had gone to bed. She lives in our neighborhood now, so that’s pretty sweet. And we’ll see if we can pull off this arrangement. The jury is still very much out. 

Today Alecia hosted a brunch and it was nice to go visit with friends. And this is the one picture I took in the last 24 hours. Guess what we’re doing this weekend?

Temple-versary

Alecia and I went to the temple on Thursday and it was one of those cool learning trips. Also, I first received my endowment on September 5, 2002, so it was my 22nd temple-versary.

I made cowboy casserole that totally bombed and then had a very good meeting with President Boyd.

On Friday Matt and I went to look at patio stones. I am so done talking about our backyard and just ready to pay whatever we need to, until I see how much it will all cost. Blah, so many decisions and so much to do back there. 

Friday night is Delaney’s long night of dance. She started her contemporary class which she loved and made the 2 and a half hours go by more quickly. I walked and shopped and read while she danced. Then we all watched a movie and I made dough for 6 dozen cookies for our missionary meeting on Sunday.

On Saturday I baked the 6 dozen cookies and some sweet breads. I had an area stake RS meeting and Adi had her first day of driving with an instructor. Adi and Frankie went to a dance that night and Matt and I worked really well together and finished the frame for our last garage shelf. Now we just have to mount them and cut and attach the top and then I’ll be so happy organizing bins. 

I left home Sunday morning at 7:45. I attended the Calvert ward from 9-11, the Baysode ward from 11:30-1:30, then Antonio and I put on a stake and mission coordination meeting from 3-4. Sister Clouse was there and we caught up and I visited with some of my RS ladies and we all walked out together at 5:15. I got home just after 6 and it was just a long but very very good day. I caught up with some Communications and JustServe people and the Relief Society lessons were excellent, and I lead the council in Bayside, and I left spiritually filled and also glad the day was over. 

Adi made homemade pasta, a cooking feat I have never even tackled and a pink sauce to go along with her homemade artisan bread. She’s awesome and it was delicious. I told the fam about my day and they shared about theirs and it was a sweet night. 

This morning was the first one where I grabbed a sweater and was too chilly to open windows and I am here for it! Fall is the most wonderful time of the year! At least it is during the fall time. During the summer that is the most wonderful, during Christmas that is, and spring too. January and February not so much. 🤣

And because I didn’t take a single picture from Thursday-Monday I’ll share this silly little funny. 

Seminary

Sunday was papas birthday and we miss celebrating with him. I’d happily make him a birthday pumpkin pie and meatloaf if he were here. We settled for a FaceTime call. The first time he didn’t answer so we were gonna send him this pic, but then he called back. 

We had the sister missionaries and Karl over for Hawaiian Haystacks. I love having sisters serving. The boys are good too, but there’s something special about the girls. They are so sweet and also so young, I feel very tender towards them. They’ve both cried to me and I’m happy to be a mom figure. ❤️

We had a plan for our Labor Day Monday and we stuck to it. First up - put together the seminary room. I don’t know why I thought this would be a quick task. 

It took a few hours because Matt had to mount the giant whiteboard and then there are 25 doctrine mastery posters we put up. Adi measured to make sure they would all fit and her measurements were exact, the only problem was we didn’t go high enough so they go over the door frame. It’s not a big deal and idk if anyone even notices, but I notice. By that point we were like 20 posters in and we weren’t about to measure and level each of them again, so we called it good. 

Everyone helped. We swept, laid out all the books, helped hang the whiteboard (that thing is heavy!) and set up the tables and chairs. And in the interim some people rested.  

It actually looks like a little classroom, which is kinda weird. 

After that we ate lunch and then family shopping trip, first to Lowe’s for a new toilet for the girls, among other items. We really like this one in the middle, and bought it, but not sure it will work. Plumber is coming tomorrow, so fingers crossed! The girls toilet and shower leak, so that’s fun. The shower has been a thing for awhile, but the toilet is new. Matt would like to fix both himself, but he’s rather behind on the home projects, so a plumber it is. 

Next we hit BJ’s. Certain of our girls have decided they don’t like our lunch options. They are growing up and I’d rather they eat something, so we went to BJ’s and everyone picked some things they’d like. And finally, we hit the pool for one last swim. We stayed for an hour which was 30 minutes longer than I thought we would. It’s been super cool and pleasant out which is not great swimming weather. 

Also, Thomas sent this side by side. Just missing one on the right, but hopefully we’ll be making a totem pole with our 6th soon. 

Seminary started bright and early Tuesday morning. Delaney and I read together while she eats breakfast and it felt so strange sitting there while people were coming in and then an actual class was happening downstairs. I know we’ll get used to it, it’s just kinda funny. Everyone said it was “good,” and I’m trying hard to be chill and supportive. After, they all jumped on the trampoline for a few minutes and then headed out for the bus. We’re 4 days in and so far, so good. Matt has been prepping right after class and has still had time for other things, so that’s good. 

We did our home evening on Tuesday also and the girls jumped and Delaney took crazy pictures and it was an open window day - my favorite.  

On Wednesday I visited one old president and one new president and I’ve really got a good system for training new presidents now. I know it’s not me, I’m nothing special, it’s the spirit that has helped refine and polish my training, and it’s really such a joy to serve with these ladies. i feel so blessed, I really love my calling, even though it’s not always easy. 

I made meatball subs for dinner because I’m branching out and then ballet started. Kind of dreading 3 nights a week but like Alecia and I talked about, it’s a joy to serve our kids and help them develop their talents, so of course I do it happily. Sometime dreadingly happily. 🤣

Water Country

Last Thursday I had a late meeting at the church house next to the temple so I went early to go to the temple first. 

The coordinating council meeting was really great. We talked about women and the priesthood and the comments were thoughtful and insightful and I came home with some good ideas. 

On Friday Matt and I had a lovely date day. We went to Mezeh and then to the church to pick up chairs and all the rest of the seminary stuff. 

Alecia and Lily picked us up for the girls 16th birthday trip after school on Friday and to Williamsburg we went!

We stopped to shop at some outlets and finally at 9:00 we ate a delicious dinner at a restaurant the girls found. Our hotel wasn’t the nicest, but it was clean and relatively quiet. We played games before bed and I’m actually impressed that we stayed up as late as we did, considering. 

We slept in and grabbed our hotel brekkie. 

And just look at our room number! Perfect for our sweet 16’s!

It wasn’t the warmest day, but it was warm enough and thankfully cloudy since I forgot my sunglasses. 

The girls wanted to ride with us all day and it was so fun! We rode the four seaters and two seaters and the by ourselves’ers and we hit every slide but the 2 crazy ones. Lunch hijinx!
Lily is a good sport about silly pictures. 

After lunch a guardian angel gave us a skip the line card and that little gift enabled us to ride almost every ride again, it was so great!

We stayed till they closed at 7:00. 

Then ended the day with funnel cakes before our drive home. 

We talked about how we can’t believe these 2 are 16 and about growing up and they are such good girls. It was a fabulous sweet 16 trip!