Memorial Day Weekend

It's Memorial Day today, a day to honor those who gave their lives for the freedoms we enjoy, as well as remembering our loved ones who have passed on before us. I love this time to reflect and reminisce and express gratitude for lives lived by loved ones. 

Normally, Memorial Day is a three-day funfest, complete with lots of cemetery visiting near and far. This year, however, our visits were curtailed because Youth Conference starts on Tuesday, I have been largely responsible for the planning and implementing, and I spent all Saturday morning and into the early afternoon food shopping and organizing. We're going to have good food, but meals for 60 people require lots of foodstuffs. I shopped with Mandy Ficker (YW president) at Costco and Day's Market, then grabbed a few more things at Maceys when I stopped there for our own holiday food needs. It was a relief to have everything stowed at Jeri Covey's house, the base for our youth conference activities.

On Sunday after church, we met family up at the East Lawn Cemetery to see all our people with all the DeMartini people. We made a stop at George and Merlynn's spot, at John's, at Brian's, and then at Jeff, Grandma & Grandpa Hare, and my dad. I love these people and miss them. We ate donuts in Dad's honor, and talked about how good all these people were and are. I don't like talking about them in the past tense, as I know their spirits live on and are busily engaged in the Lord's work, just on the other side of the veil. I sure would like a peek through that veil! On Sunday, we also drove down to the Springville Cemetery to see David Davies and put flowers on his and his mother's graves. Kent took Richard to put flowers on his mother and sister's graves too. It was a lovely day.

This morning, we drove north to Murray and Wasatch Lawn. We had hoped to visit with Jonathan and Laurie at Murray, but they returned home from Hawaii in the wee hours of the morning and were headed to the cemetery later that day.  It was nice to talk about those we visited.

The pool was opened on Saturday, but today we went swimming for the first time. Well, Brandt and I went swimming for the first time; Kent and Blythe abstained. The water was wet and cool, the sun was shining, and we were partying together with family, enjoying being together. Suddenly, it felt like summer. Bring it on!

Snowcones

We went and had our "first" snowcone of the season. I took Brandt and Blythe as well as Jarom and Sam Oyler. Brandt pointed out that he and Jarom and Sam had been down for a snowcone a couple of days before, and we have had snowcones at Grandma Sue's, for me and Blythe, it was the first "official" snowcone of the season. I got my favorite flavor, pomegranate pink lemonade. 

We did have a funny incident. When the woman taking our orders asked for Blythe's name, she said, "Blythe, B-L-Y-T-H-E." The woman looked somewhat mystified and said, "I've never heard that name." Her coworker said, "It means happy." Indeed. We had a little chuckle about it. Then, when Blythe's snowcone was ready and the woman working was going to call out to her to come get it, we saw her turn to her coworker and ask how you pronounce "Blythe." So funny! 

summer yumminess

Last Day of School

Today is the last day of school. We have seen the conclusion of 9th and 7th grade, and quite frankly, we are all happy to see this school year come to an end. Covid-19 restrictions of two-days-a-week school (first quarter), followed by four-days-a-week school (second quarter), followed by five-days-a-week school but still short days (all the rest), mask-wearing until the last week, on-line assignments and the constant use of Chromebooks, restricted activities, and lousy sack lunches made the whole thing nearly intolerable. Brandt and Blythe both struggled academically for parts of the year, doing well in some classes and failing others. Far too much of the school year felt like lots of independent study classes for people not yet really capable of managing any classes, much less lots of work they needed to be motivated to complete on their own. I can not count the number of times I ranted about how awful it was all going. But they both survived and we have been guaranteed that next year will be back to normal, with no masks, full days, and all activities. 

There were good parts of school for both the kids. When I asked Brandt what the best parts of 9th grade were, he said, "All of it." He wasn't thinking clearly. But he did elaborate and say, "Tech Crew, teachers, high school, not getting enough sleep (said sarcastically), walking home from school, getting fitter in PE." All these are good things, and I'm glad his freshman year was good for him, in spite of all the challenges.

Blythe's best parts of 7th grade were making new friends, wearing hoodies practically every day, her awesome teachers, and participating in "A Night of Broadway." She was disappointed that she didn't get to have a locker, but she's hopeful she'll be able to have one next year. I think 7th grade had a lot of drama, with friends, homework, and trying to figure out where she fits into life. It was turbulent. But she survived (and so did we) and next year will be better.

 

To celebrate the conclusion of school, we went to get churros at a newish churro place downtown. We took Mikayla's kids with us. It was an adventure! The churros were delicious and universally liked. 

Here's to a year completed and the promise of a better to come!

Cora finished kindergarten

Brick finished second grade

Kal finished his first year of pre-school

Just for fun and a chuckled years from now, I'm going to include a copy of Brandt and Blythe's grades for the year. In some classes, grades went from the sublime to the ridiculous, or vice versa, but both of the kids came away with a decent enough GPA. Brandt got a 3.629 and Blythe got a 3.38. Zions Bank has a program called Pays for As. They will give a student $1 for each A they earn, and we took advantage of this. Brandt got $15 and Blythe got $19. She had more classes than Brandt, so his complaint that it wasn't fair that she got more money held absolutely no water. But just to sweeten their efforts, I gave them an extra $2 for each A, so Brandt made another $30 and Blythe another $38. 

How does one get an A the first term of Painting, but an I (that's a failing grade) the second term?

One just doesn't do any painting in class. 

That's how.

(I'm shaking my head--again.)

But a failing grade to a B+ in Ancient Civilizations is terrific!

Water Balloon Fun

Blythe was at Mikayla's house this afternoon, helping out with the kids. They played with water balloons. Everyone got really wet and everyone really loved it. Blythe is so good with the little kids, including Janie's kids who she plays with a couple times a week. She likes them and they like her. Who wouldn't love someone who played in the water with you? Mikayla got these pictures of Blythe biting a water balloon and caught a wonderful shot of one of the balloons bursting. 

Here's to summer water fun!

Oh! The anticipation!

Youth Roller Skating

As something of a kickoff to Youth Conference, the youth went roller skating today. I’ve recently received a new calling as a Young Women’s Specialist, Kent is a Deacon advisor, and so this youth activity was a family one, too. Brandt would rank roller skating in the top six of his 10 Least Favorite Things To Do, so he wasn’t thrilled about going, and he certainly wasn’t thrilled about donning skates. I think he made it around the rink one time, grousing the whole time about how much he hates skating. Then he took off his skates and hung around with other non-skaters. Blythe, on the other hand, loves roller skating, or more accurately, rollerblading, and was excited to be there. In true Blythe fashion, she wore her headphones and listened to her own music the whole time, but she had a good time. Kent chatted with other young men’s leaders and I roller skated. While roller skating probably wouldn’t make the list of my 10 Favorite Things To Do, I have always enjoying roller skating and was happy to strap on a pair of skates. Once around the rink and I realized I wasn’t 25 years old anymore, and after the second time around, I stopped and stretched. All was well until the last song when I bumped into the only other adult leader skating, Sam Davis, causing us both to fall. I got up, uninjured but too quickly, and then fell again, landing hard on my butt and elbows, bruising the elbows and cracking my phone screen which was in my back pocket. But I didn’t let that color the fun evening. We all had a good time and we are all looking forward to Youth Conference next week.

Rachel Jensen, Elle Blad, Emma Bradford, Blythe

Terrible picture of zoomer Blythe

The lighting left much to be desired.

A glimpse of Brandt in skates.

He took them off about three minutes later.

Me on the far left

Blythe almost on the far right

Blythe and Lizzie Jensen

Creativity

Blythe was very creative today and made some pins for her backpack. She has wanted to buy some, but pins can be expensive and I didn't want to spend money on unnecessary items. But for Blythe to make them was a marvelously creative activity that pleased me. Aren't they cute?

Drama Banquet

Brandt has loved being on the tech crew at Timpview this year. He has been frustrated from time to time by the administration or teachers who have underestimated his abilities, or by actors that won’t listen to him. But generally, he has truly loved it. He’s done sound for practically every production this year, as well as several assemblies and other random events that have needed sound. He has been reliable, responsible, and committed to tech crew.

 

Tonight was the Drama Banquet which was held for all the drama-involved students. Everyone got an award. Brandt’s was the Sound Baby award because he was THE sound guy, and he’s got a cute baby face. He got a Tech Crew t-shirt which he proudly wore the next day, even though it has long sleeves and it was hot out. We are delighted Brandt has found something he enjoys doing so much and that he has created lots of new friendships.

Back row:  Jake, Brandt, Josh, another one of the Jakes, Seth, Randy, Eli

two girls sitting on stools: Lexi, Abby

On floor: Hunter, Emerson, Mr. Avila, Ray, Alex, Mason, Price, Caden, other Eli

Choir Concert

This evening we attended Blythe's end-of-year choir concert. She's had choir the second semester and has been learning about all different types of music. She has mostly been learning folk songs, and tonight's program featured eleven songs, Blythe's favorites being "Scarborough Fair ", "The Parting Glass", and "Shenandoah". The choir sang beautifully and the whole program, start to finish, was about 25 minutes. It has been fun to see Blythe performing and stretching herself.

Elodie in front of Blythe, 

JoJo and Livia on the back row with Tanner in front of them.

Sawyer in the suit to the right of Blythe, not in this picture but in the ones below.

Birthday Celebrating

It was my birthday today, and because turning 51 isn’t nearly as exciting as turning 50, I spent the day working. But I did celebrate a bit. Yesterday, I had a girls-night-out-dinner-and-a-movie date with Mom, Mikayla, Sharae and Makenna, and Tysen and Ava. I invited Blythe to join us, but she didn’t want to see the movie we were going to, so she didn’t come. I had to work in Saratoga Springs, far from home, and thought we wouldn’t have time to have dinner. But I met everyone in Orem at Zupa’s, and we were able to enjoy dinner and chatting until the movie started. We went to see Finding You, a fluff romance that we all liked, just because it was predictable and silly and entertaining, and we haven’t been to many movies since Covid-19 shut everything down. I was delighted to be with everyone for some pre-birthday fun.

 

Today I worked in Payson. Sharae was going to be working there this week, too, but then her schedule changed. She had told the tellers that it was my birthday, and after lunch, they had balloons and donuts for me. Mikayla sent Crumbl Cookies to share, so we had lots of treats. Kent took us all to dinner at Joe Vera’s for dinner so I didn’t have to cook.  This evening, I had a steady stream of people who stopped by with little gifts and cheerful birthday greetings. It was wonderful to visit with dear friends who kindly remembered me on my day. All my cul-de-sac neighbors made me a sweet (literally and figuratively) candy bar poster and came to sing to me. It was a lovely birthday celebration, spread over two days.

Morning Supplements

Every morning, Kent gets out our daily vitamins; three vitamin C, a vitamin D, a vitamin E, and for me, a calcium tablet and two chewy women’s supplements. And many mornings, Kent arranges those vitamins in clever patterns. Here are some examples: