2021, August 16-22

Summer vacation ended, and a new school year began. We had a visit to urgent care and with Landon's birth mom and brother. The weather is hinting at fall, but there's plenty of heat to be had.  

On Monday, Eliza had gymnastics at 7:30 in the morning. These early practices were hard for the parents maybe more than the child, but Eliza is happy and we are taking gymnastics day by day at the new gym she has decided to attend. She exchanged gifts as part of a "secret sister" activity. 

Landon and Hallie picked up Eliza and then headed to Landon's 8th grade open house. Not sure if it is because none of Landon's friends are in his classes this year or because he is 13 and is just moody, but Landon does not want to go to school. He attends and is not a problem to his teachers. After having him unenthusiastically meet each of his teachers the three of us headed to Bold to drop Landon off at gym.

From Bold Hallie and Eliza headed to Eliza's open house. Eliza is doing school online this year, but she will have a teacher dedicated to her grade level from our district. Her teacher was a teacher she knew through her online learning last year. After meeting her teacher we headed over to the office of Special Ed, and we met Mrs. Daniels who will be teaching Eliza reading online. During our time with Mrs. Daniels the teacher and Hallie put together that Mrs. Daniels helped Mike and Hallie with the adoption process of Eliza nearly 11 years ago. What?! How crazy is that? As we left Eliza said, "Mom, my cheeks hurt so much from smiling."

We quickly headed to horseback riding where Eliza was making up a lesson from the previous week. We were running a bit late, but everyone waited for Eliza. After her lesson and on our way home Eliza told Hallie that the horse she was helping her friend get ready stepped on her foot. Hallie thought it must not have been that bad if she didn't tell her for nearly two hours and she never told her trainer. By about 9:00 p.m. it was time for Eliza to be asleep, and we heard her crying saying her foot hurt. Sure enough, it was a bit swollen and not her normal skin color. 

Tuesday started off with a bit of worry when Eliza's foot looked and felt worse than the day before. Hallie took Eliza to gymnastics for her coaches to look at her foot. After a few minutes Hallie and the coaches decided to take her to the urgent care and to have her foot x-rayed. The urgent care is part of the new hospital in Spanish Fork, and they took great care of us. In the end we found out that Eliza's foot was just really bruised. Thank heavens for it not being broken! Back to gymnastics she went with her foot lightly wrapped to remember not to use it very much for the next week. The pain has been off and on, but by Friday she was finally feeling a lot better!

As a last hurrah before school starts, we got peach floats from Burgess Orchards up in Alpine. We got rained on pretty hard, but we had fun. 

Gymnastics was cancelled for Landon on Tuesday and Wednesday. We had a very bored child on our hands. 

On Wednesday everyone started a new school year! Eliza started 5th grade with Mike as her own private teacher, Hallie took Landon to 8th grade on her way to her job for year #2 as a special ed technician in a mild-to-moderate special ed class. After school Mike took the kids to Twisted Sugar, a local sugar cookie/soda shop that had a fun back to school arch and yummy special sugar cookies for back to school. After the kids were sugared up Mike dropped Eliza off at gymnastics and Hallie met them there. It rained a ton today, and after being at gym for a few hours Eliza's foot was hurting her and it was time to go home. 

Thursday dawned with more clouds and bluster. Fergus joined Mike and Eliza for their morning reading activity. He's such a love.  

Mike did the after-school pick up this week, and after dropping Landon off at gym, he got reminded that Landon had a physical therapy appointment. What should have been a 15 minute trip dragged on for over 30 as stop signs, trains, and a school bus's flashing red lights thwarted their movement through Provo. After getting frustrated at first, we had to just shrug it off and have a laugh. We got to the therapist late, but it all worked out, and maybe we avoided some unknown hazard en route. 

Mike and Hallie were scheduled to do date night in the evening, but Eliza was acting up by the end of the day, so we opted to hold off. Instead, Hallie and Alicia went to Quiero Mas for quesadillas and luchadores.

By the time Friday hit, we were ready for summer to be back! After dropping the kids off at gym, Hallie met Mike up in Pleasant Grove for a French Dip sandwich and smothered French fries at Cravings Bistro.  We got some tasty cookies too.

On the way home, Mike stopped to pick up a pizza order for the kids at Hungry Howie's, a chain we used to frequent in Michigan. Sadly, he had a bad experience here. After arriving, he was told by the kids working their that first they couldn't find the order and that next it was coming up. Some 40 minutes after his arrival, one of the kids found the pizza in a warming oven waiting for pickup. Grr! 

Saturday was pretty low-key for Mike and the kids. Landon got up early but fell asleep watching TV. 

Eliza did a bunch of work cleaning her room. 

Hallie got her hair done. After she came home, all of us did a deep clean of the house's toilets based on a YouTube video Mike found. The sparkly commodes gleamed after not too long an effort.  

On Sunday, we spent time with Landon's birthmom and brother up at Wheeler Farm. Afterward, we went to Natalie's work, KOU (Korean BBQ of Utah) for some more together time.