Van Natter August/September

Wow, how did we manage to let so much time go by???

August:
Hot hot hot. Shocking electric bill. Frequently running out of ice in the frig!

Also:

• Heidi made a surprise visit early in the month. What fun!
• Met up with Annette for lunch at Les Madeleine Bakery in SLC. Yummy sandwiches and we took home Kouing Aman pastries. Pricey but oh so buttery/sugary decadence!
  
•  All clear at the dentist. Maybe this means nothing to you youngsters, but the older I get, the more delighted I am to hear I don't have to go back for 6 months!
• Neil started smiling!!
  
  
  
• The Bishopric stopped by for a visit. First time. Ever. They came to find out if Emily and Jacob planned to bless Baby Neil the next Fast Sunday, and also, Would they accept callings? 
• John and Addie had a routine of walking around the block together after he got home from work. She would be so excited when he got home!
• Special Stake Conference with Elder Soares of the Presidency of the Seventy. Excellent meeting! Did not replace Regular Stake Conference the next month. 
• Emily began the institution of Quiet Time - one hour wherein Addie plays in her room each afternoon after lunch. Can you say: blessed quietness?
• Lunch with some ward friends. Zupa's Tomato Basil Soup makes me happy.
• Emily's 29th birthday on the 29th! Not that it was much of a celebration, but we did have cheesecake at her request. John brought one home from Costco along with little peanut butter cups to chop up and their special caramel sauce, which is to die for - since they only do plain cheesecake, and Emily is a chocolate girl.

September:
Hot-cold-warm-cold-kinda hot-cool
The later in the month, the less the a/c was needed, and so the electric bill was easier to live with.

•  Neil Patrick was blessed on September 1. Heidi came up. We had Chinese Chicken Salad. At least there were no nut-allergy complications like at Addie's blessing meal (Ian unknowingly ate pecans in the chicken salad and his eyes swelled shut!)
• We all pitched in to help Heidi get her preschool up and running. Ian and Jacob picked up furniture from Ikea and hauled it in, John and Ian put things together, Emily helped with set-up, I cleaned. 
• Preschool started! Addie loves her Heidi-School. Grandma loves 6+ hours each Monday and Wednesday to get things done w/o a helper! Always happy when they return home though. Emily is a trooper to haul both kids down there twice a week, leaving here about 7:30 in the morning. But she wants only the best for Addie!! And Addie loves going to school with her backpack and lunchbox (she eats before they head home.) On a good day, both kids sleep coming home. And Addie still has Quiet Time once they get home.
  
• What fun to go to Avery's birthday party!! The pink train theme was adorable. Addie struggled with someone else getting the goods, but she persevered! When we left it was raining BUCKETS!! Bryce had to run us to the car holding an umbrella over us - one at a time! He got soaked!! The storm lasted until Davis County!
• Emily and I did a "Week in the Life" project in the middle of the month, photographing our everyday lives for seven days. Her photos are much better than mine, and way more interesting, but it was a fun project. Still need to assemble it into a digital book. (This is what we find on the doorstep most days, and frequently more than once a day!)
  
  
• Lunch with Annette - this time at Paradise Bakery. The Bakery thing has become a theme apparently! Their cookies are to die for! We wandered around World Market next door and picked up some fun things. 
• We had a Football party the day of the BYU vs. U of U game. Sad outcome, but we had a really fun spread! Tailgate Walking Tacos in little Frito bags, Honey Barbecue Chicken Sliders, Apple-Carrot Salad, Snack Mix, BYU Mint Brownies (with blue mint filling), and "Dirty" Pepsi (with coconut syrup and lime juice.) Would have been more fun if they had actually managed to win...
• Emily and Jacob have decided to build a house in Farmington. Only 20ish minutes from us!!
• Lunch again with my ward friends - this time to Rainbow Gardens. We had Mormon Muffins with our soup and salad, and they were sooooo good that I bought half a dozen for our next day's celebration:
• Welcome Fall Celebration!! (I'm taking advantage of having people around who like to party! They are of the female persuasion...) Heidi came up for this one. We had Baked Potato Soup (Machine Shed's recipe), Maple Cornbread Muffins, Mormon Muffins, Pumpkin Bread (made by Emily), Honey Butter, Quiche (Lorraine, Artichoke Spinach - thank you, Costco!), Sweet Potato Fries with dipping sauces, Autumn Salad (should have used pears but they were too hard so we used apples), Apple Pie Stackers (tasted good but weren't cooked through :-P  ), Pumpkin Spice Cookies (Emily made with Pumpkin Spice Hershey's Kisses), and Apple Cider to drink. YUM-O! (Mormon Muffin below)
  
  
• Neil giggled for the first time!
• Colors are changing on the mountains. The prettiest time of the year!

Love to all - hope your fall is off to a great start!
love, John and Kathi

Heidi August (and a bit of Sept)

Who's got 2 (very sore) thumbs and is sharing a NL post before ANYONE else?  Oh, that'd be me!
Half-way through September...how did that happen?  And where are the rest of y'all?

Let's see...August...I'm not sure I remember that far back.  There was a lot of working.  A.Lot.Of.Working.  It was kind of a mad rush to finish the 3rd Grade Morning Work Book before school started.  Didn't happen, but I tried!
 
The Teachers Pay Teachers website did their back-to-school sale and we broke our previous record by quite a bit.  It was crazy just watching the numbers climb higher for 2 days.  Business has stayed pretty busy since, but nothing like the sale days.

I had a random mini-vacation to the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City.  My friend (and former principal), Susan Huff, lost her mother.   When Betsy and I went over the next day to offer condolences, Susan begged us to take her tickets to the Shakespeare Festival since she wouldn't be able to use them.  How could we say no to that?  She even got teary when we said we'd do it.  So Betsy and I went home and packed.  Bright and early we hit the road for Cedar City.  Our first play was Peter and the Starcatcher at 2:00.  It was my favorite of the plays we saw.  That evening we say King John which has the distinction of being the least performed Shakespeare play.  I can understand why.  A lot of political intrigue with no really likeable characters.  We stayed in a hotel that night and the next afternoon saw 12 Angry Men which was incredible.  I'd seen the movie in high school but seeing it live was very powerful.  That night was The Tempest.  Betsy and I had seen that play in London, at the Globe Theater...and it was terrible!  It was an experimental adaptation with only 3 actors playing multiple parts.  Every time they swung on the giant rope you were to understand that they were changing roles.  Bleck.  It was nice to get a chance to see it beautifully done.  The play ended about 10:30 and we had a 3 hour drive back home.

I'd never been to the Shakespeare Festival before.  It was on a much smaller scale than I imagined.  There was a lot of down time between plays.  And, between car rides and shows, it meant a lot of sitting.  But I think I'd like to go back.  Especially because next year they're going Sense and Sensibility.  I can't miss that!

I went to visit all my teacher buddies before school started.  I had a little cry outside my old classroom.  It's so wrong that someone else is in there!  I also went in to help out on the first day.  Due to budget cuts they had lost one of the office staff and I knew they would need someone to help sort out bus routes.  I left about 1:30 for a dentist appointment.  It felt so strange to be leaving a first day of school without being completely drained!  I haven't been missing school too much; it's nice to be able to function in life instead of just getting by from day-to-day.  I want to cry for all the years I spent so exhausted.

I had gone to Home Depot in July to set up a flooring installation.  They were supposed to get my supplies in 10 days.  After 3 weeks I still hadn't heard anything, so I went back in.  The nice ladies at Home Depot fought with the installation company to get me all set-up.  The store already had the floor pieces, they'd just been waiting weeks for the stair pieces.  So they delivered 50 boxes of floor planks and we lived around them for a few days.  Finally on a Wednesday (the 28th) they called to say the guys would be there on Friday.  So I spent a frantic 24 hours trying to pack my life into two small bathrooms.   Clothes, books, wrapping paper, filing cabinet, office furniture, alllll the preschool stuff, craft supplies, bedding, mattresses, and bed frames had to go.  I had to take an hour break to drive to Home Depot to pick up my stair pieces (since they wouldn't make a separate delivery).  I'd been assured it would all "fit easily" in my car.  Ha!!  45 minutes on the hot black top of the parking lot (and a pleading for my roommate to bring her car over) and it was finally loaded up.  And then I got to bring it all inside...

By about 9:30 on Thursday I was kind of losing it (and hadn't even started the preschool stuff), so I begged Betsy to come help me.  She was a life saver!  Especially since I had to crash at her house for a couple days (my bed being in the bathroom and all).

Friday and Saturday I was stuck in the basement while the 2 guys sweated over my floor.  Fun fact #1: the air conditioning has to be off while they install flooring so the planks don't shrink.  Fun fact #2: it was about 100 degrees both days they were here.  I shouldn't complain since they were the ones doing the hard work, but man it was roasty toasty!

That same Saturday, Ian and Jacob went to Ikea to pick up all the shelving I needed and the guys from The Geek Squad came to mount the TV in the basement.  It was a happening place around here!

Sunday was baby Neil's blessing, which was lovely.  I went to Mom and Dad's Sunday School lesson.  It was fun to see them dealing with teenagers (they do it very well!). Then we had a lovely Sunday as a family and I got to move back into my house a bit.

Labor Day Dad and Ian came to help assemble furniture and hang blinds.  Tuesday the electrician came to put in light fixtures, The Geek Squad came to finish things with the TV, and Cassity came to help me unload things from bathrooms.  Wednesday Mom, Emily, and Dad came to help out.  Aunt 'Nette surprised us all by popping in.  I was very grateful for all the extra hands!  That night my roommate, Adrienne, helped me with some more Ikea shelves.  Thursday morning Cassity brought her kids over to help me with even more Ikea shelves (for the office).  Then the exterminator came by for the bees in the backyard.  They're European honey bees.  Not aggressive, thankfully, but we don't really want to kill them.  We discussed options and he made an appointment to come back on another day.  Then I ran some last minute errands.  Betsy and Adrienne helped me with the last minute prep before the Friday morning Open House.  We ended up taking a sheet over the kitchen doorway because it was such a disaster!  Otherwise things were good.  Em took pictures of the kids and I think it all went well.

 That night was our friend Tifani's birthday so we went to Gloria's for dinner.

And then on Saturday I collapsed.  There was a Harry Potter marathon on TV and I watched a lot of that while trying to find the energy to plan some preschool activities.

Monday-bright and early-my 5 little preschoolers arrived.  It went very well except for Cassity's boy screaming for an hour and 40 minutes.  Tuesday's group went much more smoothly.  The plumbers came that morning to install the faucets and shower heads I had bought a few months ago.  They were there for an hour and 5 minutes and it cost me $625 ($400 to install the faucets/shower heads and $225 for a new garbage disposal).  It got me thinking that I should have gone into plumbing.

Tuesday night was the first card night since April.  It was lovely to go out with friends again since I've become such a hermit!

Cassity bribed her kid before preschool on Wednesday so that group went well.  I had a mom bring her son to Thursday's class to check out my program.  She said she was really impressed (which was lovely to hear since the 3-year-olds aren't big on praise) and she signed her son up.  That gives me 2 groups of 5 and I think that's a good total.

I had a kid-free Friday which was lovely and rainy.  I'm still trying to recuperate from the past 2 weeks.  I can't wait till everything is organized!!  I'm living out of a suitcase (the dresser I ordered on line in JUNE! won't be here till the 20th) and a lot of my 2nd grade stuff is still on the kitchen table.  I'm unearthing things that were shoved in boxes and corners to get them out of the way and I'm trying to keep up with the demands of the business that actually makes money.

I need a vacation from my life!  But as frazzled as I'm feeling, it can't compare to the utter exhaustion of the days when I taught 2nd grade.  I need to remember that when I'm frustrated by the slow pace of progress around here.

Happy September wishes to you all!