Bachelorette Party

It's not often you get to go to your daughter's Bachelorette party! And Dad too! Ha, ha.

Courtney's high school friends wanted to celebrate her before we left to Pagosa since they aren't able to attend the wedding. 

Two were out of town and one got sick at the last minute.

So Courtney, Taylor and Zoe came boating. And it was a blast.

I loved getting a chance to catch-up with these cute girls as well.

When we got home, I was excited to see Saturn and Jupiter lined up with the moon.

I recognize Venus, but didn't remember that Jupiter and Saturn line up. It made me happy.

And look who got a new groomer today!

They're Heeerrree!

Yay! Yay! Yay!!!

Just Stuff

Kristin and I walked together this morning and it felt so good to walk and talk.

Then came home and finished organizing and tidying Christopher's room, washed all the millions of towels that are always wet from the pool or various bathrooms, filled soap, swapped and washed hand towels, tidied the bunk room and put bins away that have been sitting in the hall for a week, cleaned up the stack of junk that was getting out of control on the kitchen counter, ate leftovers for lunch which was a lot like cleaning out the fridge, and generally took back control of the house. 

The control that was lost when two kids and a fiance came home during Covid. 

(I'm including Lizzie in coming home for dramatic effect. 

Even though she didn't live here or cause any messes. But it sounds more dramatic that way.)

After the satisfying feeling of putting the last load in the dryer, 

I went out to the hammock to read and promptly fell asleep.

I tried to read again when I woke up an hour later, but couldn't get into it, so just surfed and wasted time and enjoyed laying in a hammock with nothing to do.

And also reveled in an absolute flood of relief that came when I got a long text about Young Women's and knew I didn't have to do anything anymore since I've been released from my calling.

(I quit and got fired at the same time last week and although it definitely feels like the right decision, I'm still sad and it hurts -- for many reasons. But that's a story for another day. Or actually a story for my journal because its pretty personal. Suffice it to say, even though my president and I don't see things eye-to-eye, we do actually love each other. 

I know I feel that way, and she also said the same, and I believe her. 

But we're also probably equally happy not to be working together.)

Look carefully and you'll see a mommy deer and baby. They've been hanging around lately.

Tonight Dan made dinner and the meat was kind of a failure.

But fortunately it was just me and Nick and we are pretty easy-going about dinner

 and the veggies were delicious.

The three of us made 100 sandwiches for the Good Samaritan House

AND THEN... we all got Covid tested!

How's that for a fun Family Home Evening?

Marty and Lizzie get tested tomorrow and then we're all going to be even more 

careful until we go to the wedding. Counting down!!

Home Pizzeria Limone

Nick brought home a pizza kit from work on Saturday!

Marty and Lizzie weren't with us before when we made pizzas, and Marty commented,

"This is such a fun activity for Sunday!"

Nick was a great pizza maker teacher!

You know he's been learning at work when he says, "...you take about 4 ounces of cheese..."

This morning Dan had Zoom Ward Council and I chatted with Courtney the whole hour and a half.

We didn't leave to go on our walk until noon. 

And then we had brunch, and THEN (at 3:00) we had church.

I love that we can have church whenever the heck we want to.

We watched a few mission farewells from kids in the ward from the last two weeks.

I think we should video all the farewells, because so often in the summer we're traveling or have to miss one farewell for another, and they're such spiritual messages with sweet conversion or obedience stories. I hate it when any of my kids miss them.

So after Covid, this is one thing we should continue doing.

Oh and guess what movie we all watched last night?

Marty's choice: Captain Underpants. Oh my. 

What I loved most was remembering how much the boys loved Captain Underpants books.

And that Dan would read them to them and they all got such a kick out of it.

Claire's Baptism

Kory's daughter, Claire, was baptized today.

Dan got to do her confirmation.

I always look forward to seeing Kory and Amy, and of course Jo Ellen too.

And EC had flown up to be there too and it's been so long since I've seen her!

But I hate only seeing people I love behind a mask. I hate not being able to give them hugs! 

Not seeing smiles stifles conversation for me.

(I wonder if kids will not talk so much to their neighbor in school. Maybe that's one benefit.)

Dan was excited to talk to Kory about the Dodgers. But Kory said when he turned on the game and saw all the players kneeling, he had to turn it off. Oh Ugh. I forget that as a cop, how lonely it must feel when it seems everyone is against you and not appreciate all the good you're doing. 

It made my heart hurt for him and Amy. 

In the Church, when I hear of a bishop or other prominent leader who has been involved with criminal activity, it feels personal to me. That person's actions make the whole Church look bad. 

And people start complaining about the system being corrupt. And I want to shout, "there's so many good ones! Thousands of them! You can't judge the whole church organization by a few sleazy men."

And I wonder if it feels the same for cops right now.

Is there an expression for Black Lives Matter AND I'm Grateful for Cops? 

24th Fireworks

At the end of the day, Dan and I drove to Wasatch Blvd to watch fireworks.

It was lined with cars and kids and families doing the same thing as us.

Large shows were cancelled, but you could see the Utah pyromaniacs setting off home fireworks throughout the whole valley. Made me proud of our state and everyone's innovation.

It was impossible to capture with a photo. But trust me, it would blow you away.

Seeing People

This has been the great week I was hoping it would be. 

After feeling so bored when coming home from vacation, I knew I had to take some time to spend with other people and have new conversations. 

As it turned out, they naturally came our way.

Monday: Bekah and Matt both stopped by on their runs for a quick hello. Yay for sisters! I ended up doing a quick change into my exercise clothes and walking back with Bekah to her in-laws home. We sat on her lawn and the kids came out to say hi too. She is always the breath of fresh air I need in my life!

For dinner, Diane, Luke and Max came over. We never, ever get to spend enough time together -- and rarely with Max too! And actually, Luke is often running off with Chris. So this was so nice to get to be with all of them (missed Sam!). Luke came home from his mission the week before so it was good to get to talk to him in person.

Tuesday: Bekah, Matt and family came over to swim and BBQ. Their kids are the cutest! They swam while we talked. They mobbed Marty and Lizzie (who came up for the evening so everyone could meet Lizzie). Then we had a pretty great game of TV tag. Bekah and I also did a few cartwheels and even worked on the splits with her girls. (I actually still have great form! But my back definitely noticed that I have not moved those muscles in that way in a million years.)

Wednesday: Young Women's bleaching t-shirts activity. We had a great turnout and the process was easy and fun. I love these cute girls and I HATE not being able to give them hugs! I also love chatting with Mary, my partner in the class and her cute girls.

After the activity we had a presidency meeting that I've actually really been looking forward to since I've been craving human interaction this week. We had a marathon meeting -- per our usual -- but it was fun to talk and plan with everyone again.

Thursday (Today): Eric Rigby's 50th birthday party across the street. Dan and I were committed to wearing our masks and just saying hello and leaving. We had to really give each other moral support on the way over and reminded ourselves "we're doing this for Courtney." It worked out perfect! We waved at friends from a distance, said hi to Steph and Eric, chatted for a minute with just a couple of people and took our burger and shakes to go.

Then as we were coming home, our good friends, The Mabey's, who we used to talk so much back in the elementary school days but haven't seen in a long time rode by on electric bikes. We had a good socially distanced visit. Wendy is so kind and had such sweet things to say about Chris and me. It felt good.

I've realized that as much as I love being by myself, I do need people too. I need different conversations and talking about other people's lives and discussing topics that naturally come up. So it was good to have that this week. Coronavirus has created difficulty in finding that balance.

Wedding Prep

The gang will all be there!

It Keeps Getting Better!

Today I was able to talk to Kimberly Tafua! She told me the story again -- the boyfriend's name is Diego. He was baptized his Senior year. Unfortunately, his mom and step-dad were very upset by him not only joining a new church, but leaving to go on a mission for two years. So understandable! His girlfriend's family was his primary contact family while he was gone.

He came home because of Covid. His girlfriend had been called to a Florida Spanish Speaking mission, but with Covid, some minor health issues precluded her from going. Now they're engaged to be married in October! I enjoyed talking with Kimberly so much. She said she spent an entire day trying to figure out how to discover the family of "Michael D. Adair." She researched White Pages figuring it would very likely be someone from California or Utah at that time. She found a few options and then looked on Facebook. When we had a friend in common, she thought it wouldn't be too weird to reach out, even if it was the wrong family.

I was curious about which mission Diego served in. Turns out he was in Mexico City, and we discovered that both he and Chris were in the Mexico City MTC (CCM) at the same time! They both started August 20. But with over 1,000 missionaries at that MTC, it was unlikely they knew each other. But we had to ask! We exchanged information and promised to keep in touch.

Soon after we hung up, she texted me back. DIEGO AND CHRIS WERE ROOMMATES! They were good friends and still keep in touch! It's just so incredibly amazing -- we have all just been blown away!! The cherry on top of this story of miracles, is Chris' friend Noah was reassigned to their mission in California. 

Chris and Diego at the MTC

I texted Chris today, not expecting to hear back. (They can look at their messages, but they're only supposed to respond on Mondays and Fridays.) But he immediately texted back: "Hold up, it was Diego Murillos who went on the mission to Mexico??? That's insane. I had a super good talk with him about his family like the second week in the MTC."

Missionary Blessings 60 Years Later

I don't ever look on Facebook Messenger. But Diane, Luke and Max came over for dinner tonight and Luke was telling us Chris had some mission messages out on Facebook. Tonight I got on and noticed a few messages. One was from September from a mom whose son was in the CCM with Chris in Mexico. Wow! I'm sad I missed those way-back-when.

The other was from March 27th with an amazing note and photos about my dad:

In his missionary journal, my dad had a list of his companions and the dates they served together. I was able to look at the two months he and Elder Lavender served together and find the journal entries referring to Cesar R., who was a boy or a young man at the time he was baptized.

How wonderful to see a Book of Mormon placed sixty years ago are having an impact again all this time later!

Well...It's Going to Take Some Time

I'm not going to lie, I prefer Home Church.

I feel more engaged and personally invested. I love sitting in our living room with my boys.

And I was kind of uncomfortable singing. I thought we weren't supposed to sing indoors or in a group. And it also made me nervous that the speakers removed their masks. Not that I would get sick, but that they were spreading it amongst themselves -- 

all of them spitting then standing so close to the pulpit.

But that being said, there have been plenty of times I "just don't feel it" at church. But that's not how I feel most of the time. I'm sure it will just take some getting used to.

(And I'd also feel better if the positive cases would start decreasing.)

Our ward was broken into two sessions. One at 9:00 a.m. and ours at 1:00 p.m.

Three hours in between gives time for the virus to die between sessions.

Also, we'll go every other week and the other ward who meets in our building will go on opposite weeks from us.

After church we played Monopoly cards with Marty and Lizzie and Nick made guacamole.

Then we took naps, made chicken for dinner and finally came outside for another movie.

Tonight we watched Top Gun. It's meaningful because it was the first movie we watched in Dallas when we moved into our Yaggi house and Dan set up a new sound system. 

Top Gun was the best movie to appreciate the new technology at the time.

So of course it was a top pick for our new outdoor set-up.

We got a screen (and the sheet works the same way) that's see-through so you can watch both on the couches and in the pool!

Say it with me...

"I have the need... the need for speed."

Something New

To break the boredom rut, I went a different route on my bike ride. 

It helped. 

When I got home, Dan had the idea to dive into the project of making an outdoor theater.

I've been talking about wanting to do this for a while,

and he did the research to figure it out.

We have to wait for the screen to be delivered in a week or two,

but meanwhile, an old sheet worked perfectly.

Inception was a perfect first movie in the yard.

Marty and Lizzie even showed up for most of it, which made it even more fun

because Marty loved Inception. And he could talk me through all my questions afterward.

And in other exciting news, The original Cotton Bottom sign is back. Or lit.

I can't remember if its been there all along or not. 

But if it has, it hasn't worked. And now it does. 

We always loved the sign with Bugs Bunny on it when we were kids.

The Most Boring Day Ever

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I didn't get up on the water ski this morning. I tried four times before giving up. I probably should have tried five times. So that was a bummer. And then we got home. Vacation over. And I wish it wasn't. Exhausted from the trip, I took a nap and read my book. But honestly, I'm bored.  We did watch Psych the Movie 2 tonight, so that was fun. Shawn and Gus make me smile.

Skiing, Fishing, Shooting, Swinging

The mornings are cold at Jordanelle! 

I love how the boys get up easily and are excited to get to the lake, even when they're tired.

Nick's getting really comfortable driving the boat. 

And I got up again! Only three tries this time.

 I love water skiing!

Dan had a good run too.

Nick's still got moves on the wakeboard and was getting some good air.

And Will and Nick were playing around double surfing. 

These boys are all really knowledgeable in getting the boat ready to take out of the slip and getting buttoned up after we're done. I timed us at less than three minutes coming in and out today. 

That's pretty amazing to get on and off the water so quick.

Will caught a fish today. But almost killed it taking ten minutes to get the guts up to touch it and pull the hook out. It was hilarious. (Although not for the fish.)

We drove up Weber Canyon to go skeet shooting. 

I even got a clay pigeon. (One out of four, but I felt pretty good about that!)

The boys were amazing shots. Clearly video games has been good for something.

We played "Annie Oakley" where two people stood ready.

If one person missed the clay pigeon, and the next person got it, the guy who missed was out. 

Will, Will and Nick never missed! Even the instructor was impressed.

After shooting, we drove to the end of the canyon to Smith and Morehouse Reservoir

to check out the rope swing. Will and Nick even tried the high swing. 

They were glad they did it, but said once was enough. It was sketchy.

The lower swing was a lot of fun (so they said... obviously I didn't do it! Or Dan.),

but there was a long line, so they only went once.

We had just an hour to rest before going back for our night run on the lake.

Marty and Lizzie joined us!

The boys tried to show Marty how to jump on the powerboards, but he preferred to 

try and pull everyone off like tube wars.

But he did get up to ski again. Amazing how getting up is so easy for him!

Tomorrow we have to check out and go home. I want to continue our trip and check in to another place in Park City. But everyone else is ready to go home. Sigh.

One more morning on the lake.