Can't Take the Heat? Take the Kitchen Outside!

Monday, July 15:

This last week consisted of Hallie working a lot, 6 days as a matter of fact. Mike watched the kids all of those days, and Hallie is so grateful for his willingness to be an awesome dad! Mike made a great effort getting to the gym with the kids this week. Yeah for them! Landon and Eliza had a great time in their last day of this session of swim class. After hearing a talk in Relief Society, Hallie brought home the importance of the consistency of FHE. So, Monday night was the start of a renewed emphasis on making it more formal. We had a nice dinner and FHE followed. It went well for the most part. Bedtime followed up quickly after that.

Tuesday, July 16:  

It was another hot and humid day when Hallie left for work so early in the morning. Mike took the kids to Storytime after sending them outside for some relief early in the day. 

In the afternoon Hallie took Eliza and Landon with Sara and Chase to a local bounce house. 

After she met up with Mike so he could take Eliza home to bed, She took Landon to Jr. Tumbling armed with a frozen Gatorade and a water bottle filled with ice water. Hot and humid was almost an understatement at gymnastics. There is no air conditioning in the facility, so it is not nice in there when it gets so hot and muggy, but Landon was a trooper. Possibly due to the heat, many of the kids in class did not show up. Landon had a lot of special time with Coach Shane, and Hallie LOVES it when that happens. They practiced front standing hand flips. How exciting it was to watch him make such progress!  

Wednesday, July 17:

Hallie headed to work early yet again. Mike headed to the gym and then intended to take the kids to Eliza’s speech appointment. However, when Hallie got home she had received a call that the therapist went home sick. Thank heavens Hallie caught the gang before they got all the way there. Mike tried to give Hallie some time to sleep off the lack of sleep she has had over the last few days. It was necessary when he left her with the kids in the late afternoon to attend a productive Elders Quorum presidency meeting. He got back in time to put the kids to bed.

Just so you know. 

Thursday, July 18: 

This was the one weekday Hallie did not have to get up super early. She managed to turn it into a very busy day. The day started with the sister missionaries meeting Hallie at our home to drive them to the temple. Hallie was excited to go with them because they were meeting up with Sister Beaty who had been transferred just 5 weeks before. Sister Beaty has struggled a bit since getting transferred, and her “mission mom” couldn’t wait to see her. There were lots of missionaries at the temple, and it was so exciting to be amongst them. After our session, picture taking ensued, then we headed over to Five Guys with two sets of sister missionaries, two sets of elders (which had 5 guys), and drivers.  It happened to be Sister Decker’s birthday that day as well so we all had extra fun letting her be the center of attention. Hallie volunteered to take Sister Beaty back downriver, and boy, was that a travel experience. Hallie was excited to go to Grosse Ile for the first time, but after sitting in traffic forever the excitement wore off. Oh, well. We will go back another day for some fun.

Yup, there are five of 'em.

While Hallie was out having fun Mike took the kids first to gymnastics and then to the movie theater at our park (what a perk of living here!) to see Monsters University. Mike and Landon have referred to the movie several times since, so Hallie is guessing it must have been pretty good. (Mike says, “Yup!”) 

Ready?

Ready!

The night ended with Hallie working and Mike bringing the kids to swim. Landon hadn’t seen much of mom that day and asked to stay with her for the rest of her shift, which ended at 9. Sure, why not? We had fun with yummy Panera soup Dad brought us back and meeting all kinds of interesting people who came in to work out.

Friday, July 19:

Hallie put in her regular early 4 ½ hours (yes, she probably should have just camped out overnight), and then we all headed to the gym. Landon said how he loves going to Child Watch at the YMCA, and we are so grateful he and Eliza like going. We headed to Sam’s Club for some fruit and then home. Getting Eliza to take nap while Mike was gone with the missionaries was really hard, and Hallie was not successful. Our air conditioning proceeded to start having some hiccups and it was starting to get HOT in the house. Mike got back in time to figure out the problem. We thought ahead and bought a pizza at Sam’s, and three of us watched a movie together after Eliza had her inevitable crash. The heat let up after an intense “sunshower” passed through.

Saturday, July 20:

We all got to sleep in a little bit this morning. We have tried to manage the cleaning of the house a little bit at a time, so today we went after Mom and Dad’s room, or at least part of it. 

We received this week’s CSA of kale, romaine lettuce, curly parsley, sage, sweet corn, new potatoes, blueberries, and squash. We made kale chips by tossing torn pieces of the kale leaves in sea salt and olive oil and baking them for a few minutes. Wow! Hallie went to work in the afternoon while Mike corralled the minions. While Eliza slept, he made monster cookies with Landon. She brought home some steaks to grill, and while Mike cooked them and the corn on the cob, Hallie put together a fancy tossed salad and herb butter. We feasted in style tonight!

Sunday, July 21: Mike taught Landon’s class in Primary, and he’s glad that’s not his regular gig. Cute kids, but they were a handful. At the end of church Hallie met with the Branch Employment Specialist and hopefully we can get things moving in a different direction so she will not have to be gone all the time. This week full of work really emphasized how hard it is on everyone for Hallie to work so early and be away so often, even though she does get a lot from the interactions she has with club members.

Janel invited us and Dave and Analee and their kids to her and Derek’s house for burgers on the grill and games on the back lawn. Now that the temperature has fallen back to tolerable levels, we took full advantage of the chance to enjoy dinner al fresco.

We arrived home to find all three sets of missionaries serving in the branch poised to ambush us while our bemused neighbor looked on. They wanted to know our plans for tomorrow and whether we were game for a trip to the zoo tomorrow. Any guesses about our answer?