Hello!
Before I jump into last week, I have to quickly write about two things I forgot to write about in my 7-week catch up last week!
First, Rachel was asked to say the opening prayer at stake conference back in April and she did a great job! The stake executive secretary texted me about it, and when I asked Rachel, she agreed without an ounce of hesitation. The week leading up to it, I asked her two or three times if she wanted to talk through anything about what she was going to say, and she always told me no. The morning of, we got to the stake center 30 minutes early to be sure to get a seat in the chapel. As I was sitting next to her waiting for the meeting to start, I asked her one more time if she wanted to run anything by me and she said, "Mom, I know how to pray!" Indeed she does. I was done asking her if she wanted help after that! She confidently walked up to the stand as the opening song was ending and gave the sweetest prayer. It was slow and heartfelt and so thoughtful. A primary age boy gave the closing prayer, and his was the same. Intentional and thoughtful. But also simple. It was wonderful to have two primary kids give those prayers and I was so proud of Rachel for saying yes to that opportunity.
And speaking of primary...I was released from the primary presidency two weeks ago. Our presidency had been in for just over three years, and the bishop decided our time was done. Rachel and Gretchen have been especially sad to see me go. I have been in the primary since before our stake came back to the second hour of church during Covid! I have been a primary staple for those two! I am really, really grateful for the time I had to serve in there though. I have had a handful of primary callings over the years, and honestly, I have not loved any of them! This presidency was different though, and I genuinely enjoyed myself. Lots of small testimony building experiences, especially during singing time. I am currently without a calling, so we will wait and see what is next!
Okay! Here's a rundown of our first week of summer!
Richard had to work on Memorial Day. We really did absolutely nothing exciting. Rachel had a tumbling private lesson and Bridget worked at the farm. A lame Memorial Day. Bridget, Gretchen, and Marshall did hang with friends, so that was good, but Rachel and I just chilled at home...zero complaints with me. Oh yes, we did get the results of dance tryouts on Monday morning, much sooner than we were anticipating. Gretchen made a competition team! Yay! Go Grizz. She is on Mini and I think it will be a great fit for her. Rachel made Junior AIM, which we were totally anticipating and were so happy about. Because she made an AIM team she gets to go to nationals again next summer, so she is thrilled. So we lived on Cloud 9 for a bit, but then we got word that Sara made a different team and we were heartbroken. Ugh. I honestly wanted to throw up. Rachel and Sara have danced together for the last five years and have made the same team for all three years they have done competition. Rachel and Sara's schedules have been 100% synced and her mom, Meri, is my carpool lifeline. It is going to be a doozy for both of us. Rachel, to her credit, is taking this okay. Almost all of her team stuck together, and she gets along well with all of them. It will be a fun year, even without Sara, and Meri and I are just praying they will be back on the same team again next year. I think I am handling it worse than Rachel! Wah!
Tuesday felt like our first "real" day of summer...kids home and Richard at work. Rachel and Bridget had a piano lesson at 9:00 am and their piano teacher lives very close to Gretchen's beloved friends, Afton and Evelyn. So after I dropped my girls off at piano, Gretchen and I picked up her friends and they played at the park for an hour. It was perfect. The Hopes were kind enough to let Gretchen stay and play at their house for the rest of the day, so it was really a win-win for all of us! Marshall had an orthodontist appointment (we'll see if he ever gets these braces off!). After lunch, the three other kids all took off with friends and I went to Cabinet World to finalize all our cabinet decisions! Both stressful and exciting!
Richard had Wednesday off of work...so many days off in May! Zero complaints here! Richard and Marshall ran errands in the morning, with Marshall driving, and Marshall got his haircut. Bridget practiced with her goats at the farm and then went to horseback riding that afternoon. Marshall had soccer tryouts that evening and Richard stayed and watched. The girls and I relaxed at home and that felt great.
Thursday the kids were great sports and set their alarms so we could be out of the house at 9:30 am with all our laundry! Marshall drove us to and from the laundromat and did great-we are trying to have him drive as much as possible this summer! The kids were really so wonderful as we did all our laundry-they've got this down! After we got home and took care of said laundry, I took Marshall out for lunch. We picked up In-N-Out and then ate at the park. I am so glad I had that time with him. I was bordering on being a wreck about him leaving for Europe, so he was a great sport and let me spend time with him and run him through scenario after scenario and give him all advice I could think of! After we got home, I quickly packed and then the girls and I were in the car on our way to Logan about 2:15! Logan goat show! We got up to the hotel in Logan right around 3:30. Once we got in our room, the girls were in swimsuits within minutes and we were at the pool with Cambria and her family. The kids had a ball and played and played. After showers and dinner, we met up with Cambria's family again at a park. It was a perfect evening. We found a park with a great playground, tons of grass, huge trees, and a river. It was a great way to spend an evening. The kids ran and played and expended even more energy and Melanie and I loved talking with each other! We leff a little after 8:00 pm, relaxed in our hotel room for a bit, and then called it a night. Rachel and Gretchen fell asleep quickly, but Bridget and I tossed and turned until after midnight! It was maddening! And neither of us slept well either so when the alarm went off at 6:20, it was a tad painful!
Friday obviously began early. Bridget and Cambria did breakfast at the hotel at 6:30, and then I dropped them off at the fairgrounds at 7:00 am! They spent the next 2 1/2 hours helping the Garlicks and cleaning their goats. It was a chilly morning, so the Garlicks opted to not bathe the goats, instead they just cleaned their hooves and rear ends-sounds so lovely! Gag! Back at the hotel, the other kids were able to sleep in, we had a later breakfast, checked out about 9:15, and were to the fairgrounds just minutes later. The show was supposed to start at 9:30, but these things always seem to start late, but things were underway a little before 10:00. Showmanship comes first (that is where the person is judged based on knowledge, handling of the goat, interactions with the judge, etc.) Bridget is in the junior age group, which is second. Bridget has been pretty diligent practicing with her goats at the farm and studying even more than she usually does. During senior showmanship, Bridget watched the judge and could tell that she was very thorough and got a good idea of what this was going to be like. When it was Bridget's turn, she confidently walked into the ring with her goat, Ophelia, and was in there for the next 45 minutes! The judge had them do a couple of maneuvers, which they have to execute correctly, she talked with each of them one on one and asked about terminology and the good physical characteristics of their goat and what they would change. She also had them switch goats, so they were working with a different goat that they don't know. She was very thorough! Through it all Bridget did absolutely great, so great! She took first in showmanship, out of 12 kids in her age group! She has been showing goats for four year and this is her first time getting first in showmanship. I was so proud of her! At the end the judge has to say why she placed everyone the way she did and the judge spoke so highly of Bridget! Go B!!! The rest of the day was downhill from there. Ha! The judge maintained her thorough-ness and the show finally ended at 9:57 pm. Good grief! A youth goat show that lasted over 12 hours! Bridget, of course, was amazing and didn't complain once-I cannot say the same for the rest of us! It is a beautiful setting up there, and there were plenty of kids to play with. For the most part, Rachel and Gretchen did great. They were in and out of swim suits and played in the water with the Garlick's grandkids, and other kids. There is tons of grass and so much shade, Gretchen ran back and forth to her heart's content. I took a nap on the grass under the shade and I could have slept there for hours! At 5:00, Gretchen was begging me to take her home, and in my head I knew I could drive home from Logan, drop her off, and drive back up to Logan and the show still wouldn't be done, but I did not have it in my to spend 3 plus hours in the car! Gretchen was a good sport about me telling her no and we all very eagerly piled in the car at 10:00 pm and finally drove home!
Richard did work on Friday, so Marshall was flying solo that day, and I am sure loving it! He packed for his trip, mowed the lawn, and maybe cleaned his bathroom. :) He had his last night of soccer tryouts that evening, so he and Richard went and did that. When I got home at 11:15 pm, cute, sweaty, Marshall was downstairs waiting for me to help him finish up a few things for his trip. I actually loved that he stayed up and waited for me. He was happy and cool as a cucumber and seemed to have zero nerves about his big trip in the morning.
The other big thing on Friday is that sheetrock was hung in our house!!! I was so eager to see Marshall, that I just went straight downstairs as soon as I got home. When I finally made it back up to the main floor just after midnight, I seriously just stood on our main floor, and using my phone's flashlight, took it all in for a good ten minutes! Ha! It was so fun to see walls!!! This project is nowhere near to being done, but seeing new walls up, after almost four months of no walls, did my heart some good!
Richard, Marshall and I were up early Saturday morning. Once again, Marshall seemed completely himself, no apparent nerves on the surface. We were out the door at 8:00 am and on our way to the airport. We parked in the parking garage and walked into the American Airlines check-in counter. We found his group, got his bag checked, he met his buddy/roommate, touched base with all three adult leaders, and then Marshall told us we could go! I had already started crying on the way to the airport, but composed myself enough to get us in there, but when I hugged him and literally clung to him, I lost it all over again! Gosh. After Richard hugged him, he took my hand and walked me out of the airport with tears streaming down my face the entire time! I was a wreck! I cried all the way home, came home, got in bed, cried more, tried to sleep, slept, woke up, and cried more. This pattern more or less continued the rest of the day! Thank heavens, Richard did not work all weekend. He was the go-to parent for all of Saturday. Between exhaustion and the emotions of sending my oldest child to Europe for two weeks, I was out of commission!
A little background on this trip...a former teacher at the junior high and Marshall's school counselor have been doing these trips, with EF Traveler, for over 20 years. They are well seasoned travelers who for some reason love taking dozens of teenagers somewhere every summer! Marshall was invited on this trip as a 7th grader and could have gone to Australia and New Zealand last summer. Even though Marshall really wanted to go, neither Richard or I felt good about sending him away for that long. So as an 8th grader he got invited on this current trip and we did feel a lot better about it. He is almost 16, going into his sophomore year, so we signed him up almost 2 years ago! I am actually really glad we waited until this summer, because in the last year he has done so much travel without us, and that has been good for us and him! That is not to say we honestly tried to talk him out of this trip earlier this year! Ha! But, he has not wavered once. So, I finally decided to trust him and let him go. Clearly, it ripped my heart out, but I am doing much better now! Anyway, they flew to Dallas and then took a flight to Rome. They arrived in Rome early afternoon on Sunday. They have done a couple of days in Rome, Florence, and today it looks like they are on the eastern coast of Italy and soon they will make their way to Greece! Trip of a lifetime.
We did ask him to text us one picture a day, and he has been very good at doing that. The sights he is seeing are incredible! He tells me he is happy and having a great time! I did wake up on Sunday morning feeling SO much better. I have not cried anymore, I have just felt so excited for him, and also super proud of him. He is not friends with any kids on this trip. He has told me for months that he knows who they all are and that they are nice kids-I sure hope so!
Real quick, back to things at home...after an emotional Saturday, where Richard and I did test drive cars, the girls played and we went to an outstanding ward party, luau style, we all fell into bed and slept very well that night!
Sunday morning Bridget was up early to work at the farm and help the Garlicks out since they were still in Logan. After church and some downtime at home, Richard left with Bridget, picked up Cambria and met his mom in Fruitland. So yes, I had to say good-bye to one more child! My heart! Richard wanted to send Ziggy out to Vernal too because of how much work is being done in our house the next couple of weeks, but I told Richard I could not handle saying good-bye to one more living thing, so the dog had to stay! Ha! But Bridget and Cambria made it out safely to Vernal and are living their best lives out there. I have not heard a thing from them or Bob and Becky, so I am just telling myself that no news is good news!
I will call it good there! This has seriously taken me three days to write.
Love each of you.
Richard, Jenny, Marshall, Bridget, Rachel and Gretchen :)
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