Oklahoma

 A few weeks ago Mark was talking on the phone to his mom and some of his sisters who were together in Utah. His one sister Laurie was visiting from Oklahoma and by the end of the conversation Mark had reserved seats on a plane to Oklahoma.  I opted out of the trip.  The closest airports to them are Dallas or Oklahoma City and both are 1.5 hours away and it just seemed like a lot of driving for a quick weekend trip. And it was over 100 degrees there. They flew out of Dulles early Friday and flew back into CHO early evening Monday. They were originally going to fly out of Richmond but seats filled up more than Mark was comfortable with so I drove them to Dulles early Friday then came back home to work. I completely missed my exit to get back home but made it back. I had a lovely weekend at home and they had a blast in Oklahoma. 

Mark was surprised that Oklahoma was as green as it was and had more trees. Laurie and her family moved there about a year ago and really love it there. They have a beautiful pool and property, a new quarantine puppy and a boat.  They have 5 acres and next door to them there is a pond which Jared went fishing at with Aiden, Laurie's oldest. Jared and Lydia loved their puppy Sunny and swam as much as they wanted.  One day they were there there was a huge thunderstorm with quarter size hail so that was exciting.  They took them out on the boat Saturday night and Jared and Lydia loved that they could jump off the top of the boat. It was a really great trip for them and I am so glad they made it and had fun with cousins they don't see often at all.  Laurie has 3 kids, Aiden 17, Ashton,15, and Felicity 12.  It was well worth the trip. 

They went out for breakfast Saturday and Laurie helped Lydia out. 

Jared inherited some clothes from Aiden and Ashton which he was really excited about.  Aiden took Jared into their rooms and when he was done Jared's suitcase was full of clothes like the above.  Lots of really nice athletic clothing pieces and he is thrilled. 

Laurie also has her cosmetology license and gave Jared and Lydia haircuts. Jared really wants his hair long on top so Laurie gave Mark some lessons on how to cut it that way.  She and Mark went to a store later to get good scissors and a thinner so he can cut his hair like that at home. I don't think it looks that nice personally (the style that is, Laurie of course did a great job doing just what Jared wanted) but it is his hair and as he gets older these are the type of things I will just have to let go of.  Lydia has decided she wants to grow out her bangs which I am trying to not be sad about.  There will be some awkward pictures until they are grown out and it will take awhile to get used to her without bangs.  She has had them her whole life.  Her preferences really seem to be changing.  She never wants to wear dresses anymore, only shorts and wants skirts for church and no dresses with any poof. I am sure there will be many more changes. 

16th Anniversary

We celebrated our 16th anniversary with kayaking, donuts and cake.  Mark and I ordered some Duck Donuts online and went out to kayak at the Earlysville Reservoir. We don't go there to kayak very often so it was nice to go somewhere different. Although the water didn't look very pretty in some parts.  I think kayaking somewhere like Glacier National Park has made kayaking here harder.  The water is just not the same but it is a nice activity that we enjoyed doing together.  It is so awesome to have kids the ages we do. It makes date night or morning in this case, so much easier. Lydia does not love being alone but does handle it fine. She normally stays in her room where she feels safest.  We have our landline and I always call to check on her and it has been working great.  It is rare she is without at least Jared.  

Mark decided he wanted to have some cake to celebrate our anniversary and our family anniversary. There is a well known bakery in town (Chandler's Bakery) that we have wanted to try out but haven't necessarily wanted to spend the money.  Our anniversary seemed like a good time to go for it.  We looked up their cakes online and ordered an 8 inch Raspberry Drip Cake which is a lot of cake for 4 people.  It was chocolate cake on the bottom, raspberry filing, yellow cake, raspberry filing and one more layer of yellow cake. It was covered with Raspberry buttercream and chocolate ganache and was absolutely worth the money.  We all loved it.   

Every year Mark makes a photo collage of events from the previous year and we go through it as a family. I love that Mark makes the new collage every year. It was a lovely anniversary celebration.  I donut want to think about what our life would be like without Mark. 

Birthday celebrations, Perseids and Painted Rocks

We celebrated Mark's birthday with crepes, tri tip and ice cream cake. He's got one more year left in his 30's, hopefully it will be a great year for him.  Mark and I don't generally make gifts a big part of celebrating each other's birthdays.  Its more about food they pick and time for what they want to do. It was a go to church Sunday so he was gone for the morning part of the day so we had the crepes for lunch. After our session of church we were visiting in the parking lot with the people in our group and Sister Adam's brought up his birthday and had us all sing to him (nice and far away from each other)  which was fun of her. Its always fun to celebrate Mark.  He is so good to the three of us.

 

For the last 2 years or so I have seen articles about the Perseid Meteors and have wanted to try to watch them up.  They happen every August and seem like a sure way to see some cool meteors.  I brought it up with my family and they agreed to try and view them with me.  The peak was last Wednesday but when I checked the weather it looked like clouds were coming in so we planned to go out Tuesday.  We set our alarms for 1:15 with the plan to first try Chris Greene and if the gate was locked to go to UVA Research Park.  I toyed with the idea of driving up to Shenandoah but it is over 45 minutes away and while I really wanted to see them I was not that determined. We drove over to Chris Greene and the gate was wide open so we drove over near the lake and laid out our blanket to watch the stars.  It was beautiful.  We laid in the grass near the lake for an hour and saw about 15 shooting stars.  I would have been happy to stay for another hour but clouds were coming in and Jared who wore shorts even though I strongly encouraged him not to said he was freezing. It is such a happy memory, something I would definitely do again. 

We've been making great progress on our Summer fun list. One activity we crossed off this week was painting and "distributing" rocks.  This was an activity I put on there as a "we are home and bored what can we do" kind of activity.  Neither Jared or Lydia were that excited to do it.  After getting everything set up and starting Lydia enjoyed it and painted the most rocks.  Jared was in a grumpy mood (possibly tired since he had gotten up early in the morning with his crazy Mom to look at stars) and did not enjoy it much.  We looked up some simple ideas online and he started to paint one but messed up and it just pushed him over the edge seeing as how he was not that excited in the first place.  He painted two rocks total and then decided he really liked one of them and did not want to give it away so he ended up with one rock to hand out.  In the end I was glad he felt good about the rock he painted, that he was proud of it.  The day after painting we went out to place them for people to find as they were outside.  They did enjoy doing this part.  We went to Chris Greene, UVA Research Park and Baker-Butler. It was fun to be outside and trying to find good spots to place them.  I painted four and had a fun time. 

Awhile ago, when we went to collect the rocks at UVA Research Park we saw these fun mushrooms growing on the edge of the tree.  Lydia painted a rock to look like a bluebird and placed it on one of the mushroom ledges.  She said it was her favorite one.  It was a fun different thing to do that was easily done and will maybe spread a little happiness for someone who unexpectedly sees our rocks.

 

Storm, Atlanta, Preddy Creek, and Dickerson Beach

 There was a big storm last week (Thursday) that knocked our power out for 12 hours.  Lucky for us a majority of that time was overnight (5:35 pm - 5:30 am). I was trying to hurry and get dinner finished but no luck so dinner was cold cereal which Jared and Lydia thought was great.  There was a tornado warning so we spent a good 20 minutes playing Apples To Apples in the basement hallway by lantern light.  Our road was on the edges of the worst of the storm so there was not much damage to our area but lots of nearby neighborhoods got the worst of it.  It did knock our internet out and it took until Tuesday to get it restored and it appears our TV and DVD player are causalities from the same power surge.  The modem was in that group too. While this was happening Mark was down in Atlanta working at the Atlanta airport.  He left Wednesday and returned Saturday.  They were short on people to help disinfect the airplanes.  The ridiculous thing is that his supervisor here at CHO did not turn paperwork in on time so he was not able to work all day Thursday so there was no reason for him to be there but they did pay him for 10 hours of work so it was basically a paid vacation. He did a little sightseeing in Atlanta but was more than happy to come back home.  He took a scooter ride downtown and stopped by the temple which he enjoyed a lot.  Mark is so good at getting out and finding things to do when he is in new places. 

Because our Internet was out I could not work on Friday so we met up with some friends at Preddy Creek. We hadn't been in a very long time and it was nice to go back.  The creek was fuller than usual because of the previous nights rainstorm and that made it a little extra fun. 

The next day I took Jared and Lydia down our road to Dickerson beach.  I had a good book to read and they had a great time playing.  Its so convenient to our house and they love it so much.  Its such a win because it requires so little from Mark or myself and it make them so happy.  The river was really high (compared to what it normally is) which meant there was not much "beach" as it was covered in water which Jared did not appreciate but it worked out fine.  Sometimes I think about these creeks and playing in the river down the road from our house or the fact that we basically live in the woods and I smile because it seems like such an old fashioned way to raise kids.  It is not at all what I imagined our setting would be, but it has turned out great. "Raising" them has been pretty close to what I imagined or hoped for thus far but definitely not the gravel road, creek playing and woods living.  We feel so watched over, so placed here because it was where we could thrive. We didn't even know it was what would work so well for us.  I don't think this is our forever home/city but it is very happy place to be. 

Big rain storms always make the water more muddy/brown and it was a big storm. 

Pioneers, Peaches, Harry Potter and Floating down the river

We were traveling on Pioneer Day so we waited to celebrate until Saturday.  Mark picked 17 miracles for our family movie Saturday and it made me tear up again and again.  So many sacrifices were made and so many miracles happened. I believe it was on Amazon Prime which makes me wonder how many people watch it who are unfamiliar with the back stories or religious association and what they think of it. It was a fitting movie to watch but so emotional.  I was glad to have another resource to use to teach Jared and Lydia about the Pioneers and be reminded myself of their stories. I was in charge of the activity the next day for Home Evening so to continue with the theme we played Pie Face which was a lot of fun.  Its impossible to not take a ton of pictures when playing this game.

Mark's favorite day of Summer happened this week.  We headed to Carter Mountain to pick peaches. We met up with the Shedd's, Mark's co worker from Burley and sweated it out to pick 74 peaches.  Due to Corona Virus things were a little different.  In past years you can bring your own container or use large clear plastic bags that they provide.  After you were done picking you take them to the register and have them weighed then pay. To minimize contact they sold bags that you prepaid for and could fill with as many peaches as you wanted.  Challenge accepted. Jared set a goal to get 2 dozen peaches in his bag and he and Mark made it happen. Jared and Lydia both found great peaches, Mark was pleased with their progress in selecting peaches.  They each found lots of peaches that Mark "approved of" and didn't pick any he would have rejected.  I was surprised we were able to fit that many peaches in a bag.  We now have 8 gallon size bags of sliced and peeled peaches in our
freezer. He wants to go again before the season is over.

It smelled so good! 

Friday morning as I was working out (I've been jump roping 3x a week and am hooked.  Its amazing cardio and I love having something new and challenging to do) Jared came downstairs to wish me a "Happy Harry Potter's birthday day".  We kept it simple and celebrated with Butter Beer, props and watching Harry Potter 2 for movie night. 

The weather looked decent for the first day of August in Virginia (not above 90 before noon and cloud coverage but not rain) so we decided to drive to Scottsville and float down a section of the James river Saturday.  I originally wanted to actually float in a tube but Mark convinced me that he and I should kayak so we could move Jared and Lydia long if the river was very slow.  Thank goodness he did.  The section of the river he chose was 6.5 miles long and while we did have cloud coverage for a good portion of the time we were floating the times we did not were brutal.  I always think this will be great and it always ends up taking SO much longer than I think it will.  Our goal was to cover 2 miles an hour and with Mark and I paddling we were able to stick to that.  Mark took one for the team and towed both Jared and Lydia.  My kayak is missing a rope to attach the tubes to so it would not have worked very well  to tow one of them.  Overall we do enjoy doing this. We are always ready to be out and doing things and this was a good choice for social distancing. We saw a group of 3 people put in right before us but they went the other direction first and then nobody else on the river where we were until we got to the end point. Thank goodness we brought sunscreen with us in the kayak. We reapplied twice and all made it out without getting sunburnt a major accomplishment for me, Jared, Lydia. We brought some snacks but should have brought more.  Things to remember for next time.  Poor Jared got quite cold sitting in the water in his tube which boggles my mind as it was hot! It would have been more fun with friends so we will try another time and hopefully some can come.  There were a few spots of very mild rapids I don't even think you could call them that, more like sped up current which were great.  We'd really like to find some faster  moving water around here.  It was a good outing, but next time friends and more snacks. Lydia gave it a 5 out of 5 which surprised me and Jared gave it a 2.5 but more snacks would have pushed it up a whole point so that is an easy fix.  I think I would be better if we could find a section that was closer to 4 miles. We listened to some fun music which gave us energy and made me feel cool and Jared and Lydia loved it when they could bump into each other.  Once we got to the boat ramp Mark got in his car to go pick up the highlander so Jared and Lydia had fun playing in the water on the boat ramp while we waited.  That is another hard part about floating.  Having to take 2 cars and then wait to drive back and forth.  It was nice to use our kayaks somewhere new.  Jared and Lydia would have loved to stop every now and then and explore somewhere or try out a few rope swings but it was already going to be such a long outing and corona virus stuff so we were mean and made them stay in their tubes. Were just doing our best to have fun safely this Summer.

 Before we hooked them to Mark's kayak

Major props to Mark!  It was hard work towing these two.  

I had to try to not paddle or I would get way far ahead of them.