Settling in at Home for Reals

The early part of the week brought a change in our original plan to go to Canada this week. We instead opted to return home and get settled in before the new school year starts.

On Monday, Hallie took Porter, Landon, and Eliza to Kids Club Fun and Fitness. Hallie didn’t see the kids once she set them loose to play in the jungle. Mike worked on grading papers and doing other school-related work (not much of a vacation) and occasionally took a break to visit with the twins and Breanne.

After everyone got home and Riley returned from work, we had BBQ chicken salads and mint brownies with ice cream for dinner and dessert. Because Riley had to go to work early in the morning, he said his goodbyes in the evening. The Maygren family sure is lucky because Breanne is a great cook!

Tuesday morning Hallie got up early enough that she could say goodbye one more time to Riley. Hallie held strong do that the tears didn’t flow but she always has a hard time saying good bye. Over the last week Hallie laughed so hard at times that wheezing happened. Those times are the best! After everyone else got up and had breakfast, we headed out from Riley and Breanne’s, bidding the kiddos a fond farewell grateful to have gotten to know them a little better.

From there, we got a quick treat at Dutch Bros. The kiddie drinks are very sweet, and the staff gave us free drinks for our first visit. Great customer service!

We continued along the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon, stopping first at Vista House . . . 

. . . and then briefly at Multnomah Falls. Lots of cars and very little parking, so only Mike and Eliza got out. Nice pics, Girlie-O!

After some lunch, we set back on the road in earnest, spending the night in Meridian, Idaho, where we saw the new temple being completed there and got rice bowls from Flame Broiler and some local ice cream from Reed’s Dairy.

On Wednesday, we finally made it home after stopping off at Pettingill’s Fruit and Produce in Willard. We brought with us a half bushel of fresh peaches, several ears of sweet corn, and other veggies to enjoy. Look at those giant peach shakes! We only bought two and didn’t even finish those.

At home we had box upon box to unpack. Eliza really wanted her new bed put together, so Dad set to work on that and then on Landon’s bed too, which was much simpler in comparison. Frankly, Eliza’s bed may become a permanent fixture. Eliza, however, loves that her bed can be a couch too.

We went to the university on Thursday morning so that Hallie could get her spouse ID card. After being a professor's spouse for 10 years, this is her first perk. Kind of cool. Then Mike and the kids toiled at home while she got her nails done. We thought that Landon had gymnastics at 12:30, but the afternoon brought with it a return to one of the routines that will become the new normal starting next week with Landon’s new gymnastics schedule at 3:30. Mom took him and ran errands with Eliza, and Dad unpacked boxes and did school work. We may just rent here for the rest of our lives. This unpacking thing is for the birds!

Friday morning had all of us unpacking boxes and trying to get the house organized before Hallie took Landon to the gym in the afternoon and ran errands.

For pizza and a movie, we watched a gymnastics-themed film called Raising the Bar, which the kids enjoyed for obvious reasons. Hallie loves that Papa John's is right on the way home from gymnastics.

Saturday morning, Eliza had the chance to be a gymnastics example during a coaches training. Eliza was paid handsomely with a bag of giant Sour Patch Kids (her favorite candy). Afterwards Hallie found out the girls' head coach is moving right next door to us. Yeah for lending an egg or two.

Meanwhile, Mike organized the garage. He has misplaced some plastic brackets for the metal shelving units. Oh, boy. Too many boxes and too little time.

Hallie had an errand to run in the afternoon, and there was a Slurpee promotion going on, so the rest of us tagged along and got Slurpees. The owner of the 7-Eleven was so into it that he even took the trio’s photo. No Slurpee for Hallie, boo hoo!

We went to our new ward for the first time on Sunday after spending a (mostly) quiet morning at home. This early afternoon church thing isn’t bad at all!

Our new ward is quite different than any we have attended since being married. There are 180 children in Primary (50 in Nursery). The demographic of the adults in the ward skews pretty young too. This will be an interesting experience. Everyone was very friendly, and we look forward to getting to know the families in the ward. It has been a while since Hallie has been in Relief Society, and it was good to be there.

After dinner we took Mike to see the “land” or the “cricket field” where Grandpa and Grandma M. are moving to, and then we headed to the Payson temple. We waited for quite a while for the lights to come on, and Hallie got tired of waiting so we left. As we got about a block away we saw in the rear view mirror that the lights came on, so we turned around and went back.