Birthday

It was time for me to age up. I'm pretty much over birthdays and this year I was in a particularly non-celebratory mood. But Don decided that wee still needed to do something. He took Rebekah to the store and came back with the following. Something for everyone. 

 

Grammy had Rebekah's back and got her something to give for me, complete with cute puppy / kitty card. 

Love Rebekah's little dog drawing. 

And one can always use kitchen attire. 

We got together and had cake. 

It is impossible for me to have 4 different flavors and not try them all. I think the best was the chocolate. The other flavors tied for next. 

Love the interactions between these two. 

My mom ordered me a box of food for my birthday. It somehow got lost along the way, or delayed, or something. When it finally came it looked like it had been through a storm. Don pointed out the irony that the damage was on the "Fragile" side. 

It came with dry ice. 

Yay for another year! 

Sam

I spent most of my single adult years with Daniel's little family babysitting when Shelly had to work. So much time with little Abby and Sam. When I married Don and had to say goodbye because we were moving to New York it hurt my heart. 

But we came back yearly and Abby and Sam were playmates to Rebekah. They were the best of friends to her. Abby is now at BYU and Sam, well he turned in his papers and got called to serve a mission in Taiwan. 

A few pictures I was able to save as they prepared to send Sam off:

 

Wow, I love these people so much! Families are forever and I'm so glad. I've been so blessed to be a part of their lives. 

August

August came and went pretty quickly. We had a few last scheduled play times.

 

The sky did some amazing things.

Rebekah started soccer again. She's improved so much since she first started. 

The buildings she asks me to build her on Minecraft get bigger and more extensive. This was my latest build for her. 

Not bad for a 46 year old, eh? 

Rebekah found out that all the computer time is making her somewhat nearsighted. So, we got some glasses for her to see the board when / if she sits in the back of the classroom. 

My garden. It's been a tough year. Turns out the cherry tomatoes I planted are good, but not wonderful. And the slicing tomatoes are small and split before I can pick them. The little red peppers have a touch skin. The big red peppers never got red, but they turned out pretty good. The squash bugs ate my zucchini, and eventually got my cucumbers. The fall peas I planted were quickly devoured by a bunny, who also ate my spinach plants before they could come up. The colored carrots Rebekah requested aren't as tasty as she hoped. But the eggplant is going well. So there's that. Although nobody wants eggplant but me...  

When I vented my anger concerning the bunny the lady in charge of the library plots told me she had just picked the tomato plot and I could go and take anything I could carry. Good thing I had pockets. 

Only a few got broken in the transfer. And I had them eaten in a few hours. 

Rebekah decided to give swim one more chance. She was invited to swim for the Colts team. They almost put her in with the Mustangs but she was a better age for the Colts. 

We're continually searching for friends to play with. One day we invited a girl from school to come home with us. They had a fun time. 

I keep asking Rebekah to do other things besides the iPad. She said she would draw if I drew with her. She asked me to draw fruit. 

I added a bee for the Bee. 

And then she asked for birds. I call the top right one bird in a wind-tunnel. 

Next time I need a knife set, I'm totally getting this one:

Rebekah asked me if she could have a YouTube channel. I said no.... Poor girl. 

But this same girl gave this talk in primary. I went through the Come Follow Me program during the week, then on Saturday I gave her the manual and asked her what she wanted to talk about and what she wanted to say. Then I typed what she said. So, really this is all her. 

Frank the Frog

One day when Rebekah was at school and I was making the beds I saw Frank. Then I saw Don's sleep machine. This resulted in the following.

 

I found it amusing so I took a picture of it and promptly forgot about it until Rebekah was going through the photos on my phone, found it, and was horrified. Which again, I found amusing. So the next day this happened. I left Frank for Rebekah to find. 

Again, Rebekah was not amused (which lead to more of my amusement). She even moved Frank to a place where she could keep a better eye on him. So the next day.... Originally it was just the iPad but then I found Rebekah's pj shirt thrown precariously on the bed and so why not.

Again, she was not amused. All of this was pretty traumatic for Frank so he decided to self medicate with Rebekah's left out candy.

When Rebekah got home from school she yelled, "MOM!" which again was more than slightly amusing. So the next day Frank joined us for some afternoon snow cones. His treat. 

Frank and I had a lot of fun that week. 

August Books

 

This was fascinating. I loved that it was about the effects of WWII rather than just WWII. The author went from discussing the clean up of the rubble to what happened mentally with the people involved. He even discussed financial ramifications. Highly fascinating. 

True story of airplane pilots during WWII and their time in POW camps. It's a good account but not the favorite I've read. The author tends to dwell on the horrible, but it's WWII so it's all pretty horrible. 

It is what it says it is, but basically if you live Christ's gospel you'll be fine without reading this book. 

I was highly excited about this book of midwest history, however it's basically Indians were here, White man came and married into Indian tribes, which was good because Indian tribes were dying out, but then white man became more prevalent and killed all the Indian and those with any Indian mixed in their blood. But it is spread out over 400 pages.  

Sometimes I wonder what the heck I just read. This is one of those times. It's suppose to be the life of a woman from birth during the Spanish Flu to her passing during the Covid Pandemic. But it's written in the form of letters that she wrote to her grandson. To me it lacks emotion and is not able to connect you to the characters. Not my favorite. 

I like Jennifer Nielsen's middle grade historical fiction. It seems very age appropriate and yet true to the history. This is WWI historical fiction was is nice because there's not much of it around; most everything is WWII. It's a little over the top at the end but still highly recommendable. 

I loved this book the first time. Turns out I still love it. A serious cry for people to get outside themselves and see what's going on around us. 

Another middle grade fiction book on bullying. I thought the author did a great job explaining all aspects of bullying, from the bully to those that participate or those that watch, to the victims. It was a great moment when the main character realizes that bully - or any form of talking (bad / down) about another person can be a form of bullying and is addictive in nature. Although it's not my favorite it's a pretty good read. 

A church friend suggested this book. It's probably the best self help book I've ever read. Highly recommendable. 

WWII. This one takes us into the battles. The author follows a group of soldiers through their war experiences. 

Middle grade fiction about bulling. This one the bully falls off his roof and suffers from amnesia. He sees the type of person he was by watching other's reactions to his presence while restarting his life at school. This was well done and highly recommendable.  

Same author as Jennifer Chan is Not Alone. It started out great and even included some of the ancient Korean folk myths. The story dealt with death - death of the father (happened before book began) and current dying of the grandma. It mixed fantasy with reality. In the last 3 chapters something happened that I felt was unneeded. Kind of changed the story for me. 

I'm interested in most anything that looks at Russia but this was somewhat ever the top. The author has a very high opinion of himself and yet plays the perfect innocent victim when most of the time I could have predicted his future problems with the choices he was making. I admit to getting 3/4 through it and just skipping to the end. Not to mention the repeated foul language.