2023, August 28-September 3

This week was our last transition week from summer into fall, as Eliza will start at Yates Place next week. Hallie and Landon are back in action at Springville High, Mike is doing his thing at TomiPlan, Kai is with his other family, and Fergus rules the roost. 

The girls decided that they finally had had enough of the yellow jackets flying around the playground, so they did away with them. Leave it to Eliza to get in on the action up close and personal.

They also enlisted Mike to help take out a couple of nests at our new neighbors' house. 

Hallie gathered up the last fruits from the garden. This has been her most successful year yet! We used the peppers in our Sunday fajitas.

We're trying to encourage our artist Landon to make better friends with our new neighbor, who also likes to draw and enjoys anime.  

Landon's learning new math this year.

Hallie and Alicia spruced up the kitchen and dining room. Living in the clutter was getting old. By the end of the day (like most people) we get tired. We are grateful for friends who have a bit more energy than us to come and help. We have kept things up since the cleaning.

 

Eliza had some BUH fun cooking and making crafts. She'll shift back to afternoon classes next week.

 

Landon decided he wanted to play Fruit Ninja with one of the cucumbers we harvested. He even got Mike to join in.

 

On Thursday while Hallie, Mike, and Eliza were out, Landon put a hole in the office door. "'Tis but a flesh wound." The boy tried getting out of taking more responsibility for his actions by suggesting we pay for it from his Splash Summit earnings. Mike was not impressed.

 

Hallie's preschool will be fairy tale-themed this year. She, Mrs. Kelly, and the students worked hard at putting up displays and murals before the little kids come in. 

Kai is with his other family, which means Fergus is back to his normal spot on the top of the food chain. Fergus seems to be quite happy in this position.

Landon is fortunate that we have some repair materials from his other mishap with the office wall to use to repair the office door. We traded the door to the office with one from the closet in the office. The repair will not be perfect, but it will be enough, and it will be hidden.

 

Hallie went out with her friend Amanda on Saturday. They got filled chimney cones at a place called Crispy Cones. 

Amanda gets treat boxes from Japan, and she gave Hallie some salt lemon Kat Kats to share. The ladies checked out the whole treat box to see what was delivered. It was really fun looking at the creative packaging those folks in Japan come up with. After the ladies went to Crispy Cone they headed to Costco to look at new glasses for Hallie. They just may have found some Hallie liked quite well.

Mike took advantage of the mild weather to read outside on Sunday. Fergus joined him. The rest of the day was quite pleasant. Hallie and Eliza made homemade salsa with ingredients from our neighbors and from our CSA box. Then with more ingredients from our garden and the grocery store, we made homemade fajitas while we chatted with Grandpa O, Grandma O, and Alie. Landon was asked to make the Spanish rice (not homemade) and for his first attempt did a great job.  

 

2023, August 21-27

We're cruising along. Apparently we mostly did stuff related to animals this week. 

Here is Eliza on her way home from BUH. 

Here is Fergus cozying up to Landon's backpacks. 

Landon loves to give Ferg boops. 

Here is Kai chillin' on the front lawn on Tuesday. 

Here he is in the minivan. He loves to go on car rides. In fact, he jumped into a stranger's car as kids were getting out of Reagan Elementary! 

In BUH, Eliza embroidered a crescent moon and a star on this cap. 

The neighborhood dogs do like to socialize. On Wednesday, they all ended up at Sophie's house. 

As Eliza continues to develop, she has needed to graduate to a bigger girl's bra. Hallie took her to a fitting at a store Hallie has used for her own needs. The girls dragged Grandma M. with them for the fun.

Eliza won the award for the most loved human by the pets. 

Mike managed to get some kite time in on Friday. The wind trailing after the week's stormy weather shifted in a different direction. 

Some attribute the abundant rain and still-green fields to the Sacred Whale of 9th and 9th in Salt Lake. 

Hello, Kitty! Hallie had to capture this picture of Fergus checking himself out.

Hallie took Eliza to an animal shelter. Hallie saw a Facebook post that the shelter has close to 300 cats, and most of them are kittens. The shelter was in need of food, so Hallie and Eliza grabbed some kitten food and headed to the shelter. While there the girls signed up to volunteer at the shelter. We will see what happens.

E then cuddled with her favorite canine pal. 

We have several horses near our home, and it was fun to see how Kai and the horses reacted to each other when we took him on a Saturday morning walk.

At Dutch Bros on Saturday they celebrated National Dog Day by giving out a bandana to your pup. Hallie and our neighbor Becky and the dogs went to Dutch Bros to celebrate. Kai looks so sharp. He knew his dog mom thought he looked amazing. 

 

2023, August 14-20

Not tons of news this week. Landon started the school year, and we got a little rain from the tropical storm that hit the southwest. 

"Hey, girl." Fergus found a cozy corner in the bookcase where we store some towels. We couldn't find him for a bit. Fergus would do great at playing hide and go seek.

Monday late afternoon Hallie took Landon and his friend Sonny to Sophomore Orientation at the high school. In our area you go to the high school building in 10th grade. Trying to help Landon find his 6 classes (he has an A day and a B day, 3 classes each day) was a bit crazy. After the orientation we headed to the Springville Farmers Market for dinner. Yummy! 

On Tuesday morning, Hallie got trapped by the pets. It is not often that both pets will lie down so close to each other. We had to capture the moment.

Mike spied the neighbor's cat out of his house. Getting the cat back in took some skill only Eliza has, and our neighbor was grateful for the rescue. 

Eliza was kind enough to get him and return him home. 

Landon saw Stacey Harkey (formerly of Studio C and part of JK! Studios who made the movie Go West) down at the rec center, where Stacey teaches some fitness classes. Landon got brave enough to ask for a picture!

Hat head, amirite?

The neighborhood dogs all spontaneously got together to play Tuesday evening. We live in a truly great neighborhood. 

Summer ended for Landon on Wednesday, as he started at Springville High as a 10th grader. Mike took him on the first day. Once preschool gets closer to starting Hallie, will drive every day. 

Hello, kitty. Fergus is finding new spots to lie around during the day while Kai is around. Eliza spent two different shifts at Bridle Up Hope on Wednesday: Yoga and Art, then Art and Embroidery.

With the start of the new school year Hallie is back to taking tickets for sporting events. On Thursday afternoon Hallie, Eliza, and Lily (a neighbor) went to the high school to take tickets for volleyball.

Kai went back to his other family for a week on Friday. It is weird to not have Kai greet us at the door when we come home after having him here for six weeks.

After dropping Kai off, Hallie got her hair cut. This is the first time she has had bangs in a while. It was either bangs or shave the whole head. Jamie took the conservative approach and gave Hallie bangs. Later that day our neighbor and her daughter didn't recognize Hallie right away.

Friday afternoon Eliza went to a gardening class at Bridle Up Hope. Eliza said they researched about what kind of vegetables they want to plant for next year.

We had some friends over for a movie night on Saturday. Ferg liked having a fluffy spot on the floor. 

Outdoors, we got some rain in the afternoon and early evening along with a really bright rainbow!

We had colorful marshmallows as part of the Sunday Social this evening. Our new neighbors' daughter had her ninth birthday. So, of course we couldn't just do s'mores.