After Don's kids left we had a few days of complete chaos. One of those days we had back to school night where Rebekah got to meet Mrs. Brindley. She seems like a good teacher. She also met Mr. Wells again. Turns out they moved him to 6th grade and now he is the Bee's humanities teacher. Ironic in so many ways.
In the car on the way home Rebekah informed me that school can't happen the next day because we haven't done our back to school interview. So, we did it in the car.
Then back home, she got all cleaned up and had her annual father's blessing.
The next day she made good time and even left a little earlier than needed. I asked if she wanted back to school pictures at the school or home. She chose home.
I even got a close up, after which she pointed out her lack of eye-rolling.
I snuck one more picture of her walking into school. First day vibes and all.
Days later I compared the two back to school pictures. 6th grade on the left, 5th on the right. Little girl is growing up.
Kayla and crew made the long trek out to help grammy celebrate her 85th birthday. Rebekah was beyond excited. We ended up doing most of our meals at grammy's. This was breakfast one morning.
Kayla took the kids swimming at Browns pool. Rebekah's long wait was finally over! She totally embraced both slide and diving board. Girl has come a long way.
One of the main events was getting us all photographed for posterity. Unfortunately I don't really know how to do this so we called the local JC Pennies. While other's were being photographed, Josh had the kids in various poses.
I worked on an 85th birthday card for grammy. I asked each kiddo to pick something to be on their layer of the cake. Rebekah wanted a science beaker, Paige ballet, Henry a dinosaur, Makenna a fox, and Cole a cow. Then for each of the adults I drew something. Don wanted a sun, because he's the son. A book for me, a hammer for Josh, viola for Kayla and a cliff for Paul.
We frequented a few restaurants. The kids wanted to recreate Josh's suggested pose at the restaurant, this time with Don being the base. Grandpa was a willing participant until he realized the great weight of the situation.
Mom's friend Frank invited us over to ride his golf cart. Mom took the great grandkids for a ride.
Then Rebekah took them for a ride.
Rebekah wanted to make something special for grammy's birthday. She found a recipe for white chocolate tarts. I think they turned out beautifully!
Cole played solitaire with grammy great.
Eventually the pictures arrived.
Rebekah had such fun with the pictures of her and her siblings.
Kayla's crew.
The whole group.
Again they tried to pile on dad / grandpa.
Eventually it came time for Kayla and crew to make the drive home, but not before a happy birthday breakfast, including a song for grammy.
The grandkids and Rebekah each colored their layer and helped with the other pictures.
While Kayla and Josh packed up, Don kept the grandkids entertained.
Such a wonderful time. So grateful everyone could make it!
Rebekah's always showing me interesting ways to do old things.
Abby and Sam showing off Rebekah's bracelets she made them. Cooler cousins there are not.
Playing in Fall's Creek with friends.
Beautiful sky from my backyard.
In the hopes of motivating Rebekah do to some chores, I drew this puppy with a ball and covered with sticky notes - a chore a sticky note. She eventually uncovered the puppy, but I do believe the days of her desiring to color things are over. Poor puppy remains uncolored. Ah well.
I downloaded this for a second time so I could have something to listen to at night that I was already familiar with during the time I was taking the class. Bill Bryson is one of my favorites. It's pretty good, not my favorite of his, but still fun and interesting.
This is the second I've read of O'Farrell's books. This didn't disappoint. Like Hamnet, this one drew me in. It's about a young girl in the 16th century who is placed in an arranged marriage. Very well done.
Completely fascinating! Highly recommendable. It is exactly what it says it is, no further explanation required.
I was hoping to like this more than I did. While it did tell me folklore from many different countries and how they are similar and differ, The lecturer recorded herself telling the stories to young children and while I understand children require different things than adults, I don't understand why she felt the need to include those versions in an adult lecture series. The first one was okay, but by the time I had listened to multiple stories in her make it interesting for the kiddos voice I was done. It is fascinating how many versions of, say Cinderella, there are, each stemming from several different countries.
Very well written biography of Oppenheimer. The author includes much of his surroundings as well so one gets the entire view of what's going on. His is a story well worth knowing.
I started this before my class but had to return it. It was good enough I decided to finish it in order to see if Rebekah would like it. It's pretty good. Probably will recommend it to the Bee.
Historical fiction about class, immigrants, and the trouble that comes. It's another of the dual timelines and I believe it's a Christian author. It's not heavily preachy though, just prayer and God come up once in a while. On the whole pretty good.
This was amusing. An older retired lady wants to be useful so she volunteers to be a spy at the FBI. Through an accidental meeting she is offered a job. Fun and light.
This is another good light fiction. Kind of hard to describe but it's a fun page turner. If I remember correctly it includes some sex and language though.
Was hoping for more, but it was still pretty good. A lot of the time when the author writes about himself, he comes out sounding like he's full of himself. But it's an interesting story with a lot of history included.
I noticed Andy Serkis had an audiobook out of the Hobbit so I decided to try again. I absolutely love the Lord of the Rings series and this is suppose to be a prequel. Andy's reading did make it better (his Gollum is still somewhat scary) and the story line is good but it just doesn't have the same qualities as the LotR's. Turns out the Hobbit was first published in 1937, LotR 1954. So a lot of growth and experience between the two.
The last of this series from McConkie. The first book was the best. This one was not an easy read. We even took a small break before jumping into Revelations. I feel like I learned some, but not as much as the first one.
Rebekah asked me to read this one and tell her if it's worth while. It's a fun story. The author throws in some harder things in the lightness; for example there's a gathering for one of the minor character's son who was killed in a shooting (they make it sound race related). The book also addresses bullying but the situation seems to be too easily fixed.
I've heard the title of this one so decided to find out more. A light hearted play about mistaken identity. Trouble ensues. It's actually pretty fun.
I like the author so I tried this one. Seems perfect for some teenage kid who likes history and has a dragon fetish. I was hoping for more.
This was a great history of the Apollo program. Highly recommendable.
I started reading this one and couldn't mss all the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints references. It never comes right out and says it, but the main character has got to be a member. It's a great story of faith and endurance.
We had an afternoon flight with a layover in Dallas, however when I booked the flight I made certain it was NOT a red-eye and would be home around 11 PM Eastern time. That was the plan.
Shelly took us to the airport. It was so great to see her one more time. Once in the airport everything went smoothly, from the check in to security. Once the plane took off I cried like a little girl. It's always so hard to leave. Eventually I got control of myself and it was a relatively good flight.
Once we landed in Dallas it went less smoothly. But before everything went crazy we did see this big Dallas Cowboys wall for uncle Jo.
Don asked us to do football things. The only thing I know about football is my brother loves the Cowboys. So...
We had a great dinner - for airport food it was actually really good - and then headed to our gate. We got there and settled in only to find out our gate had changed. Rebekah was somewhat happy about that though because we got to ride the train to our next gate.
After riding the train and walking for a very long time we got to our gate to find our plane delayed about an hour. So it would be an overnight flight. But it's still not too bad. Could be worse, right? Rebekah handled it quite well.
Eventually we get on the plane. Then we wait for what seems like an hour only to find out the powers that be will not let the pilots fly because they would be slightly over their daily allotment. So we all get off the plane. At that point they say they are looking for a new crew and will let us know when they know. 40 minutes later they announce they have a new crew and our new take off time is around 1 AM, however they don't have any pilots yet. But they are working on it.
At this point Rebekah is over her limit. Don looks weary. So mom-hood kicks in and I take Rebekah on a long walk. We made it back and still have hours left, however soon we find out they have pilots to fly us back, but we leave about 1:45 AM.
We board and sit there for what seams like at least a half hour. Finally the pilot tells us he's waiting on some paper work before he can take off. The whole plane feels like it's going to loose its collective mind. However, the paper work comes through and we take off. The flight goes relatively smooth. Rebekah is able to sleep a little. Don isn't well but he's able to sleep as well. I'm totally wired. Exhausted but wired.
We land around 4:15 AM. Ironically Rebekah's back up and running. Don's struggling though.
By the time we use the restrooms, get our luggage (one of which was broken during flight - probably good thing I bought the set from a neighbor for only $1), take the shuttle to our car, find out car it's almost 5. Don is doing his best but something's night right. So I force him to let me drive home. He stays awake long enough to make sure I make it to the freeway and then he falls asleep. The Bee's quiet back there too and turns out she's asleep. So here I am, Back Home Again in Indiana, driving home to the sunrise. It's actually kind of beautifully peaceful. Like Indy is doing its best to welcome me back knowing it was so hard to leave Utah.
We make it home and I tell Rebekah that I need her to go back to bed. She assures me she has no problem doing that and she does sleep for until noon-ish. I sleep until about 11, then I call Don's mom to tell her we're home but taking the day off. Don sleeps the rest of the day.
I'll skip most of the story but Don ends up going to see a doctor and was diagnosed with Strep. I'm down with it the next day or so. Rebekah triumphs and doesn't come down with anything.
And there you have it. Back again.
When I'm back up and running I check out the garden. It looked great.
Even scored me a pepper.
Eventually I unpacked. My mother introduced me to my new favorite snack and sent me home with a few packages. I even love the name. I texted with my brother, who I affectionately call "JoJo" and said something about when you can't have the real JoJo. He assured me the real JoJo has way more than 8 grams of sugar. And I assured him that while that was true, they are just as nutty. "Cause I'm sappy like that.
Then I went shopping and stopped by the frozen pizza section, paused for a moment of silence, took a deep breath: I'm home.
