Road tripping

On Thursday morning (August 15) we drove down to Utah. We stopped and while waiting for the bathroom we found some fun Mt. Dew state bottles. Delaney is modeling Maryland. 

And Frankie New Mexico. 

Road trip food = red vines. #fav

The girls took loads and loads of pictures after they got all dolled up, of course. All the cringey eye rolls. 😂

These pictures are all out of order, which I’m sure will surprise my 2 loyal readers, hi dad, and happy birthday! I heart “welcome to” state signs, asyouknow, so of course we stopped. 

We also had fun with boomerang, but I guess blogs don’t boom. 

Frankie is such a sweet girl. She still giggles all the time. 

And Delaney’s v dramatic photos. I can’t even. 😂

We grabbed the most delicious Jack in the Box (not being facetious, it was taaaasty) lunch and ate at the Idaho Falls temple. 

So purty. 

Selfies gone wrong!

This pic here is one of the many reasons I hand on hip. What is happening with ma hand? 😂

Laura took this amazing picture in the VC. Gahhh!

It only lasted a hot second, which is why it was such a miracle. An August miracle. 

Idaho! Someday I want to accumulate all my welcome to pics, cut them into their state shapes and make a map. That will probably happen around 2063, so be on the lookout!

Our country is so beautiful!

After we snapped “idaho,” we froggered across the freeway to grab Montana. We also let the girls play on the little hill there, because freeway play is always wise. 

I lifted one of the girls up to touch the sign and they bet me that I couldn’t, so I was all “hold my delicious orange Vanilla Coke.”

And boom. Of course, I had to do it more than once because of an unfortunate shirt and belly situation. After that I tucked in. Because unfortunate bellies require that sort of thing. 

#outoforder

Delaney. 😂

We love us some road trips!

Montana time

Laura came to Montana while I was off adventuring. She got there Tuesday evening before C&A left Wednesday morning. 

The girls were so happy to see her!

And show off sweet baby Em!

The next morning the Finlayson crew headed out to Oregon. Laura took the girls for a Dollar Tree shopping spree!

They got make up and they. Were. Stoked. 

They had so much fun with makeup the whole rest of the trip. It was something to see for sure. 🤦‍♀️

I got home Wednesday afternoon and we did the one cool thing Great Falls has, we went to the fish hatchery. 

The sun was setting and it was gorgeous. 

So thankful for all the good friends in my life!

Great Falls is beautiful in its own way. 

Balloons

Laura had bribed the girls with makeup and they lay it on thick. And they also love Mochi. 

She’d climb in there in a heartbeat. 

That evening we picked up some picnic foods, made dinners, and headed out to Eden for the balloon festival. We parked and took a shuttle, and Delaney is kind of gross. 

Th balloon fest was advertised as dozens of hot air balloons. There were 4. But it was beautiful and we all had fun shopping the vendors. Then we found this free bouncy ball and tried to keep it up, and hit lots of our seat neighbors. 

I love this guy! So fun to see these grown ups that were kids a hot second ago. 

They blew up all 4 balloons for a few minutes, so we grabbed pics while we could. 

Joseph and Frankie played games in his phone. And then we all piled back into the cars and headed home. 

Friday was a wrap. 

Saturday awesomeness

We had big plans for Saturday and they did not disappoint. We got up early and drove down to the Provo City Centwr temple. We met up with SP, who used to live in our ward. 

That has got to be the prettiest temple I’ve ever been in, and after Philadelphia, that’s a tall order. The details are stunning and I loved every minute. 

From Provo we headed north, via a quick detour to Chick-fil-A for sustenance, and hit up the Jordan River temple. It was an interesting contrast to Provo. Every temple is lovely in their own respect, and JR was lovely too. And there was a fun Samoan family that had been sealed that we took pictures of, so that was sweet. 

After that we had our private birthday celebrations. Traditionally we get our beginning of summer pedi for Laura’s b-day in May, and end of summer with mine at the end of July, but this year we decided to switch it up. Mostly because Laura moved, but you know. 

We decided to go to an epsom salt chamber for a sensory deprivation session. It’s basically a cross between a jacuzzi and a flying saucer with a lid. You lay in about 12 inches of water and 500 lbs of rosin salt, so you float. We had both heard about these and I found a good Groupon and it was on. It was different than anything I’ve ever done. It’s 0 gravity and felt amazing. I can’t say I felt super different after, but I did enjoy it and I do believe in the benefits of Epsom salt, so I’d give it 2 thumbs up. One thing that was striking to me - we drank a ton of water beforehand because the Epsom salts draw our toxins and we didn’t want to get sick. So of course I was worried about bladder time. But then during the hour long soak I didn’t think about it at all. Until I stood up, and then gravity was all, hey yo, go potty! It was so interesting to me. Aren’t bladders so interesting. 😂 I’ll end my bladder monologue here, but I’m always up for bladder talk, sooo shoot me up. 

We stayed out all day and the girls had fun at home. And aren’t my friends amazing that they love my kids and watch them so often. I felt so pampered. 

Continuing my stroll backwards in time, on Friday morning I got up early and went to the Logan temple. This was my first Utah temple. I was blessed to go to 5 Utah temples the week I was there! So good. So now I’ve done 8 Utah temples, and I only have 23 to go. Just kidding, but barely. 

Open house

The 2019-2020 school year is revving up, and yesterday we went to the open houses. 

Dukes was straight tripping crazy. I don’t understand why they cram us into an hour and a half of whirlwind. 

Everyone is excited about their teachers and to see their old buddies. 

Even though Addie is technically not an elementary student, she’s still an Aviator at heart. 

These 2 are stoked to be in the same class! What luck!

Addie’s middle school open house was that evening, and Sarah took the girls so we could take Addie, so we got to spend one-on-one time with our big girl. We ate dinner at home and for ice cream rolls for dessert. 

How is our little baby going to this big school already???

I actually feel a lot better after walking around. I’m starting to remember from when the big kids went and it’ll be ok. 

We ran in to besties. 

And fought with her dumb locker. We all 3 tried and tried. We asked a student helper for help. We asked a teacher for help. We followed all the different instructions given to us, and I guess the answe is that they’ll work on it at school the first week. 🤷‍♀️

Addie humored me with all my pictures. She’s the best. 

We saw another mom grab this shot, so we had to. 

This was supposed to be a jump shot, but you know. 

We picked the girls up and got home to this beautiful sunset. 

I am going to chair the staff appreciation committee at the middle school, and today they had a back to school lunch, so the girls and I went to help. It was so good to get the lay of the land and meet everyone. I really liked the principal, she talked to us candidly about plans for the year and how she’ll be involved with the PTA. It was really great. 

At 2 we had Mother Daughter book club. Addie and I hadn’t read the book, but it’s always fun to catch up, especially after summer adventuring. They read The Giver, and one of the activities was to take a picture of something that represents color, and then constraint it with a black and white. So -

Color. 

Vivid. 

Black and white. 

It was kind of perfect because the girls and I had just had a long talk about opposition in everything. They always pray that we’ll “have fun,” but to enjoy having fun, you have to work, and sometimes not have fun, but you can find joy and satisfaction in those things too. We talked about summer, and how even though it’s been wonderful, school and learning is pretty great too. It was a good talk. 

Tonight I finished school supply shopping. I wasn’t sure exactly what Addie would need, so now that I know it feels good to be done. New outfits and lunch grocery shopping  are on tomorrow’s agenda and then we’re 100% ready. 

Bring it on, school year!