70th

We celebrated my Dad’s 70th birthday!!! It’s funny how 70 seemed old when I was a kid. It doesn’t feel old to me anymore. 

We went to La Jolla Groves for dinner Saturday night. Only the adults went to dinner and it was a very nice night. Lots of good conversation and amazing food!

We had a party today on my dad’s actual birthday at my parent’s house. You can never have too many get togethers with my family. 

I’m so grateful for my dad! He is a great example  to me!!

3rd Cabinet Redo

The girls’ bathroom was next on the cabinet painting list. I’m getting lots of practice in before I take on the kitchen cabinets.

I forgot to take a before picture. I was just so excited to get going and completely forgot. These pictures are from Marshall’s phone before the bathroom was done.

After

I went with Repose Gray. Same as the art room. I love how it turned out. Huge thanks to Marshall for helping me paint and installing the hardware!!!

 

Ski Day

The minis and Kade get 5 days at Park City with the Epic School Kids pass. James has the IKON pass with his fiends. Marshall and I decided to get some passes so Lynnlee, Marshall and I could go with the minis to Park City. It is my most favorite resort. 

Today was our first day going for the season. The weather was awesome! No one was cold and the snow wasn’t slushy but also not icy.

Getting everything packed up for skiing is a lot of work. Getting everyone’s gear on is madness and all the kids are whining and complaining about now everything feels and every little discomfort. We see everyone’s worst side while at the car getting ready. 

Then we get in the lift and everything is good again. Everyone is happy and life couldn’t get any better.

Everyone was in their comfort zone going down the east green runs. Then we took them down a blue and the minis were terrified. It was rough. 

I took them back to the bunny hill and they were good again. Marshall took Lynnlee and Kade on the blue runs.

Crazy Hair Day

Crazy hair day can be too high maintenance. Thankfully each of the kids chose something that took a minute or two. 

The boys just wanted hair color sprayed on. We only had pink, gray and black.

Sienna’s was my favorite. I love how it looks and it only took a few minutes.

Pickleball

We played at Club Pickleball USA with our Get Out Pass. Ali, Katelyn and Drew came as well as  Grandpa Lowry. It was a fun place but really loud. 

Sienna played half the time and then took pictures. 

We had three courts. We rotated around after each game. 

Creative Room

We had an art room in our last house. My kids and their friends spent a lot of time in there making all sorts of art and crafts. Our new house has the perfect room for it off of the loft upstairs. We’ve named it the Creative Room. 

We forgot to take a before picture. 🤦🏼‍♀️ Here is one during construction.

This is a picture from the appraiser:

(This was before the baseboards were painted)

I need to get better at “Before” pictures because I have a lot of projects coming up.

The plan was to add desktops, drawers and cabinets. IKEA was awesome for desktops and drawers. 

We found cabinets at Lowes:

We were going to mount them up against the ceiling. Marshall mounted the middle one first. Then when mounting the right he realized the ceiling wasn’t level. The cabinet couldn’t mount up to the ceiling evenly. So he dropped the side cabinets down. I didn’t like it at all. So then we moved the center one down and added molding to the top. We learned a lot!!! There are always surprises that come up with projects and nothing turns out as expected.

We painted them Repose Gray. It is a Sherwin Williams color.

Marshall added the handles, trim around the cabinets and caulked to finish them off.

Moving Aunt Betsy

We helped aunt Betsy move to her new townhome in Day Break. It was amazing how fast it all went. Ali’s family came and helped also and we were done in a few hours. 

Then we helped Betsy get settled which makes the move so much better. When your bed is ready, blinds hung, washer and dryer hooked up, kitchen accessible, tv working, etc it doesn’t feel as chaotic.

I loved Tag and Si Si’s teamwork moving “heavy” boxes. 

Murdock

About once or twice a week I like to change up my runs from my normal routes. I was so happy the inversion cleared out so I thought I would run the hills of Lehi. I parked at Dry Creek park and ran up to the Murdock. Running the Murdock trail was a bad idea because it was ice. I stuck to the gravel on the side and made it without a fall. 

My Girls

I grew up with three sisters and so I’m happy Lynnlee and Sienna have each other and I’m grateful I have them. There is different communication level with daughters/girls than with my sons/boys.

This week I had done downtime with Sienna when she was recovering from being sick. We texted back and forth funny gifs and emojis. (She doesn’t have a phone but used an old iPhone we have) It was fun seeing her reactions.

The next day I had the opportunity to take Lynnlee to the Draper temple again. Then she came with me to run my errands in Salt Lake. We stopped at a Burger King really quickly for lunch. The employee was a super happy guy who seemed to love his job as the drive thru order taker. He was so friendly and gave us each  a crown. So naturally we had to drive home with them on and get a selfie. 

I love silly, randomness that we will remember forever, like the time my mom and I bought hair nets. Then we put them on and “dragged main.” It wasn’t easy being the youngest and I found I had a lot of one on one time with my parents. One weekend night I was feeling left out from my friends group. My mom and I went shopping together and then she had a random idea to buy hairnets and wear them driving down Main Street. We laughed the whole way. We still laugh and joke about that night.

Limo Ride

Every year our school has a fundraiser. Instead of selling chocolate or lame products they just have a direct donation fundraiser. Then they have a drawing for prizes and the students earn rewards depending on how much money is donated. Some of the rewards for the whole school are candy thrown off the roof, pajama day, dancing in the hall, fun assembly, etc. Last year a motor cross group came and performed.

Then some of the rewards for the individual drawings are limo ride to Chuck-A-Rama, fine dining during lunchtime, magic carpet ride, principal for a day, pull the fire alarm, etc.

Taggart won the limo ride to Chuck-A-Rama. He got to go today. There were 11 others who also won that prize. He had a great time! He said the limo seats were really soft. He loves the Mac and cheese at Chuck-A-Rama and he said he ate a big plate full.

Chess

James started playing chess at school this year. Then he got a chess set for Christmas. His siblings all play now too. I don’t know if they know what they are doing but I like that it entertains them for long periods of time.

Couch Hair

Bedhead is one thing but 3-day couch hair is next level. Sienna didn’t leave the couch for three days straight. Well she did go to her bed during the night but she was laying down for three days in a row.

Her hair was a beast! 

It took a half hour and half a bottle of detangle spray but I finally got it under control.

President’s Cup

James’s team played in the President’s Cup tournament in Mesquite. We decided we wouldn’t be going as a family and so it was tricky to know which parent would take James. I really wanted to go since I don’t get a lot of one on one time with James. Marshall has had a lot of hiking trips with James. Also, the new house project list for Marshall is pretty long. Most of the projects can only be done by him. So it was decided he would stay home, I would go and the rest of our kids would stay with my parents so Marshall would be free to work on projects.

The morning James and I left was madness. Sienna woke up throwing up, Taggart had a fever, and Kade felt sick. Marshall wasn’t too excited about me leaving sick kids since he doesn’t feel experienced in taking care of them. I knew he could do it though. The kids are old enough that they can practically take care of themselves.

Also I will add that we weren’t worried about James taking the sickness to the tournament because he had been distant from those that were sick leading up to them being sick. 

James first game was Thursday afternoon. They lost 2-6. Their passing wasn’t the best but they all played hard and didn’t give up. The other team was playing pretty dirty and the referee was a hot mess.  

James and I had a reservation at the Best Western in Mesquite. We would be close to the games, and I was excited to run the hills. That night we realized most of his friends were staying in St. George. They invited us to come stay in their Airbnb with them. Marshall helped us cancel our reservation.  It was really fun for James to have so much time with his friends. It pushed me out of my comfort zone, in a good way, staying with others.

Running in St. George is pretty great too. They have so many paved trails to get miles in.

Friday morning James and his friends worked on some homework. Then they all got to swim in the pools because their game wasn’t until later that day. Last tournament it didn’t work out for James to swim with his game times so he was really stoked! The outdoor pool was heated this time so that made it more fun too.

He lost his game Friday and it was frustrating. The boys weren’t passing well. It’s hard watching them not play the best of their ability when you know they are capable of more. It’s like they couldn’t relax and just play. They needed to win to have a chance to move on so it was tough knowing we were headed home Saturday. 

That night most of the team went to the movie American Underdog. It was a really good true story but 80% of the movie was all hard stuff. After a discouraging game it was not fun watching all of the discouraging stuff. The last 15 minutes were great though and the boys were all pumped up when we left. 

Saturday morning I had my therapy session on the Santa Clara River trail. It’s the cheapest and best therapy.😁 I ran some of the half marathon course and saw all of the race signs up. I should have planned ahead and ran the race. It is one of my favorite half marathons.

They won their last game 2-0 and James scored one of the goals! As a team they played so much better. They were actually passing to each other. It felt like they all relaxed and just did their thing since the pressure was off. I just wish they could play like that with the pressure.

James and I left for home after the game. The car ride was much nicer leaving with a win. 

It was fun to spend time with James. He is easy going and always happy. He never complains.