Floods, PR's and Quick Trips

This has been a big year of "firsts" for us.  First time 2 major appliances have broken down at the same time, first time our car has broken down in the middle of nowhere and this week was the first time we have ever had to have a cleaning restoration company at our house. So many exciting events, so little time.

 

Tuesday morning I ran down to the storage room to grab something, but when I stepped in and turned on the light I knew something was wrong when my feet got wet.  I could hear water gushing into the room so I ran upstairs to get Adam.  We could see the drain in the storage room was not draining and found the water only gushed in when someone flushed a toilet.  Further investigation revealed there was also water in the utility room and it was starting to get into the cold storage room under the front porch. Long story short we had a pipe 17 feet down and away from the house that was partially collapsed so when someone in our house flushed a Thomas the Train toy (could have been any of the 10 young boys that have played there in the last week) it got caught where the pipe collapsed and caused a sewage backup.  Even though we caught the backup almost right away the fact that the water coming in was sewage meant that a full professional cleanup was required.

 

There is nothing like having a couple of guys in hazmat suits hanging around your house for a couple of hours.  I was kind of waiting for someone to say "E.T. phone home" but realized my kids were a little young to know the reference.

 

They had to cut the carpet around the 2 doors which means that now we will have to get new carpet in the entire basement.

 

On a happier note Britton ran in the Region Cross Country meet on Wednesday at the Cottonwood Complex and had a fabulous race.

The start of the JV boys race

He got a PR of 17:51 for the 3 mile course.  At first we thought it was only 2.9, but the official results said it was an even 3.0.  Whatever the case Britton was thrilled.  He finished his freshman year on a high note and even beat a few boys on the team he hasn't beat before.

 

RHS Cross Country Team

Ridgeline swept Region in all 4 races.  They took first place in JV boys, JV girls, Varsity Boys and Varsity Girls. Britton has really loved running cross country.  How could you not with such a fun team?

 

We made a quick trip to Boise this weekend for Terrika's "missionary opportunity to speak". We couldn't leave until after Britton's Saturday morning soccer game, but we still fit a lot into our overnight trip.

 

 

Korinne holding a pet bird on her finger.

 

Adam's sister Kirsti has 3 girls, the youngest of which is Sarah who is 15. Being a lot older than Jameson didn't stop them from getting out their big tub of toys and playing right along with him.  In fact, after finding them all deep in their play I wondered who was having more fun, the older girls or Jameson.

 

They all played together non-stop. They played soccer and volleyball outside until they got rained out, then came inside for games.

Britton, Korinne, Cassidy, Sarah and Jenna

Jenna, Korinne, Britton, Sarah and Jameson

 

They even had cool coloring books and design stencils.



Terrika and Jenna

Terrika was called to Russia the same week the news broke that Russia no longer allowed religious proselytizing and that missionaries would essentially become "volunteers".  A lot of missionaries who received calls to Russia have been reassigned to other countries.  Terrika is still going to Russia, but 2 weeks before she was scheduled to enter the MTC her mission call was changed to the Samaria Mission instead of some Mission that started with a V and had a super long name that I couldn't pronounce, and her MTC date was pushed back 3 weeks.   She now leaves Oct 26th.  She did a great job on her talk and we were glad we were able to spend some time with them during our short trip.

After church on Sunday Sarah was showing the snapchat app to my kids.  They were laughing hysterically at all of their funny pictures.

 

We are talking hours of entertainment here.

 

Sarah LOVES playing with cousins.  When Jameson was concerned that there wouldn't be any cousins his age to play with I assured him that Sarah would be more than happy to play with him the entire time and she did.  She really loved having Jameson around and wished we lived closer so she could play with him more often.

 

Sarah took Britton and Jenna with her to a stake dance Saturday night and they had a great time.

 

We were back on the road at 2 p.m. Sunday but were really glad we had made the journey especially since we were the only ones from Kirsti's side of the family who could be in attendance.  We wish Terrika well on her next big adventure in Russia!

Races and Mazes

I can always tell when one of my kids is attending preschool at the Child Development Lab because everything at home gets messier.  Since they are encouraged at school to explore and do everything hands on it doesn't take long before I find them playing with their food and making even bigger messes than before. I know it's supposed to be good and build their brains, blah blah blah, but for me it's kind of annoying and is definitely the down side of this type of curriculum. Yeah, not getting any Mommy points for this opinion, but it's the truth.

 

 

Jameson and another painting mess. :-)

 

I've tried to get a good picture of Britton playing soccer for 7 years and I still don't have one.  I guess running is just an easier sport to get a good action shot.

 

Britton had a race this week in Morgan.

 

Britton with a few of his fellow freshman teammates. 

 

It was a cold day so all of the parents were in coats while the kids ran in their skimpy uniforms. It felt mean, but what can you do?

 

Thursday night was our annual night at AWHC.  It was a beautiful night, but was cold so we broke out the coats, hats and gloves for the first time this season.

 

 

 This year Grandma and Grandpa came along for the first time.

 

They enjoyed the first minutes of the corn maze, but soon enough my Dad declared himself to be done and took my Mom with him as he walked off the path and straight through the rows of corn to get out to the road. Yeah, he can only be lost in a maze for so long before he starts looking for an exit strategy. :-)

 

We finally did make it out of the maze thanks for the navigation skills of Korinne and Britton.

 

On Friday I went to a Relief Society overnight retreat and Adam held down the fort.  I missed the first P City parade where Britton was on a float as part of the City Youth Council, but I know they all had a great time either throwing out, or receiving candy.  I love it when fall is in full swing.  It really is my favorite season of the year.

 

Family Pictures

 

 

Can you see the successful photo bomb?

Empty

This last Wednesday was Britton's first and only home cross country meet of the season.  It was another Region meet and I think there were 8 teams participating.  It was kind of nice to have the race so close to home.

 

On your mark, get set, go!

In fact it was so close to our house that the course went up the big nasty hill that I have to bike up every time I go on a bike ride.  Yeah, the runners liked running up the hill about as much as I like biking it.  It is brutal and makes this 5K course the hardest high school XC course in the state.

 

Britton finished strong and high fived all of his teammates as they came in.

 

 

Ridgeline boys and girls won the meet by a large margin.  Grandma and Grandpa were able to see this one, but unfortunately Grandpa ran into a little trouble (no pun intended) when he injured his hamstring jumping over a ditch by the finish line.  He heard it rip, which is never good, but we were able to get him into the car easily so he could still watch a bit of the race.  We are wishing him a speedy recovery.

 

After the race I took the girls and Grandma over to my friend Stacie's house.  Stacie has an amazing raspberry patch and every year she lets anyone who wants to come pick as many raspberries as they would like.  She schedules a day for each picker and Wednesday was my night to come and pick the entire patch.

 

 

 

We got a LOT of raspberries.

 

9 batches of jam and 6 bags of individually frozen berries for smoothies came out of our efforts.

 

On Thursday night we headed up the canyon for family pictures.  Our photographer put a pin on google maps so we would know where to meet him, but unfortunately we lost reception a few miles before getting to the spot so we had no way to find the elusive location.  We waited where we thought we were supposed to be, but when he didn't come Adam decided to drive back to where he could get cell service and see if  he could call the photographer which didn't work because the photographer didn't have cell service either.  After coming back from a failed attempt to find the photographer or get a hold of him Adam said, "Um, did you realize that the van is out of gas?" What? I hadn't even looked at the gas gage for a few days, but it was now showing we only had 6 miles until we were completely out of gas. This is what you call being in a pickle.  It took me a long time to get everyone ready for pictures and now we were in danger of not only having to reschedule but of possibly running out of gas before we could even get out of the canyon.  I was just a wee bit frustrated with the situation.  We started driving back down the canyon when we saw a car in front of us pull over to the side of the road.  Adam looked at the driver as we passed and said, "That's him!" so we pulled over, too.  When we didn't show up the photographer decided to drive back to where he could get cell service and that is where we found him.  Since the shooting location was still a few miles back up the canyon and we didn't have the gas to spare we left our van at the side of the road and all piled into his little car to go back up the canyon. The good news is that we still had plenty of light to do the photo shoot. I'd say it was a miracle it all turned out in the end because for a few minutes there it wasn't looking good.

 

We won't get the pictures back until next week, but here are a few I took with my phone right before it ran out of battery.

Where's Jameson?

 

Jameson was trying this best to photo bomb the girls during their individual shots.

 

 

 

I really liked this photographer.  He is part of Adam's BNI group and is more expensive than photographers we've used in the past, but I could tell he knew what he was doing and he kept us all laughing.

 

So the big question is did we make it out of the canyon and to a gas station before running out of gas?? Spoiler alert- the car will still go a few miles after reaching "0 miles until empty" on the gas gage.  We made it to a gas station, but were on 0 for at least a mile or 2 before doing so.

 

 

We have a 20 gallon tank in the van and put in 19.88 gallons.  It's nice to know the car people put in a little buffer for us, but we don't plan on pushing our limits like that again.

 

Friday night we went to a BBQ at the home of our friends and neighbors Dave and Lacie.  Britton is usually the oldest kid at these social events, but I appreciate the fact that instead of sitting around and being bored Britton will go and play with the little kids.  Here he is taking on a trio of little boys in badminton.  They love it when a big kid takes time to play with them.

 

Of course both Britton and Jenna left before the end of the BBQ for other social engagements with their friends.  That's the other part of having older kids, it's less about getting them home early to go to bed and more about the 11 p.m. phone calls to come and pick them up from a friend's house. 

 

Yesterday morning I got up to go on a bike ride before the first session of conference and saw these amazing balls of light in the sky.  Of course the pictures don't do them justice, but I have never seen anything like it.

 

Just one small portion of a bright rainbow was visible so it looked like a brilliant ball of light in a cloudy sky.  We love conference weekend around here so it was a great beginning to a great conference.