Not Back to School

 I can hardly believe that it's time for school to start again. The day before the public schools started, we spontaneously did a "Last Day before School Starts" adventure and went bowling and mini golfing at Fat Cats. The kids had a great time, and I'm just so grateful for these fun friends of ours. (Bless the Ward Family and how good and kind they are. They have been the best friends for our kids and such good friends to David and I. We are blessed to have them in our lives.) 

And with the first day of school right around the corner, that means one thing... our annual NOT BACK TO SCHOOL PARTY! 

One of our favorite traditions is to hang out at the pool with our favorite homeschool peeps and swim and eat donuts while all the other kids are getting on buses and headed back to school. 




This celebration reminds me that we are intentionally choosing this path because of the many opportunities it gives us, especially the joy of spending more time together. It also reminds me that we are part of a beautiful, brave, creative community of amazing people that are learning and growing with us. Pool+sun+donuts+people I love= the best way to start a new school year.

Shantel's March

A few things from my March: 

We hosted a stake primary training for all of the Primary Presidencies and Music Leaders. We focused on the roles and responsibilities of the primary, had a demonstration of how to utilize the newly installed televisions, and participated in some great discussions. I feel like it went really well even though we didn't do a lot of prepwork or fancy things. 

The day after the training was my half-birthday - March 15th. At our house, we do Nothing Bundt Cakes for our half-birthdays, and when David walked in with a little cake for me and our family to share it genuinely made me so happy. I had forgotten that it was my birthday, but he had not, and that meant the world to me. I didn't take a picture or anything, but the family sang to me, told me they loved me, and let me blow out a candle on my cake. Then I got half the cake and everyone else split the other half and it was just so sweet. Because I didn't take any pictures, I thought I'd share this most recent picture of David and I at the La Jolla beach because I love it so much and I love him so much. 

On March 29th, I was at our Friday Coop teaching my classes when all the sudden I started not feeling very well. I pushed through until the end of class and then made it to the bathroom where I stayed while everyone else cleaned up. I could hear the kids outside looking for me, so I gathered myself up - got them in the car and drove home. Man, I was so sick I barely made it home! I texted the people that I was supposed to be meeting for a field trip (Tracey Aviary) and told them that I couldn't come then I dragged myself up to bed and basically asked Lydia to take care of the kids by putting on a movie downstairs because I couldn't function. I slept for most of the afternoon but kept waking up to my watch alerting me that my heart rate was too high. I felt awful, but the kids seemed fine, and I was grateful that they were old enough to mostly be okay while I was suffering in bed (ha - I'm mostly being dramatic - but I really was grateful, they did a great job and although they popped in an out occasionally to ask me a question they were kind and took care of each other while I slept). I mostly am adding this here because about dinnertime there was a knock on my bedroom door and it was my sweet friend Dani. She had gotten my text that I was sick (but did NOT know how sick I was) and had picked up dinner for us and a few things at the store. It was so kind, it made me cry. She sat by me on my bed and took care of me for a few minutes (helping me know whether I should be worried about the heart rate thing), then went back downstairs to get my kids settled until David got home, and then left us with the most delicious food and a heart full of warmth. I want to be a friend like her and I am SO grateful to have her as a friend. 

Also, do not worry - I survived, high heart rate warning and all. 

Spring Break

The first year that we homeschooled, I decided to skip spring break. We'd taken off a handful of days here and there through the winter (because of the flexibility of homeschool) but I felt like we should just school through spring break to make up for it. It was a bad decision! I learned that taking a full week break right here in the spring time is needed to give you the energy and motivation to push through the end of the school year! Each year since then, I've made sure to take the whole week off, both for me and for my kids. Even when I think "well, I could have them catch up on this - or I could have them work on that..." I shake my head and insist that one week taken completely has more impact for a successful end of school year than trying to squeeze in other things. 

Typically, as homeschoolers we could take spring break at any time. Right now we have rotations with the Youngs in our neighborhood and their dad is a public school teacher, so we were planning to take the regular school spring break with them. When Austin and Caleb's surgeries were moved forward from the beginning of March to the end of March, they ended being scheduled the Thursday before spring break. I felt like that was going to work out fine because then we could take it easy over Spring Break while they recovered. But I woke up the Monday morning and realized that it would be better for us to take our spring break a week early so that we could squeeze in some fun, active things - and then do a simple (but structured) homeschool routine during that first week of recovery. We had a great week! Unfortunately, the boys surgery was canceled (again) due to a small cough that Caleb developed. So when the actual spring break week rolled around, we ended up doing a super simple homeschool routine and taking spring break part 2! All our friends were spring break-ing, and there was just something in their air that said "sprrriiiiiinnnnggggg brrrrreeeeeaaakkkkkkk". It was two weeks packed full of fun activities and now I feel ready to tackle the end of the school year (and feel SO excited for summer!). 

Spring Break Part 1

Ogden Nature Center

Hiking the trail to the Timpanogos Cave

The kids want to hike all the way to the very top. It's a long, steep hike - but they are insisting they want to do it so I told them that we could practice. We could hike 1/4 way, then 1/2 way, then 3/4 way then all the way. We went and hiked the first 1/4 and they did great! It was a morning hike, we were there by 8 am and it was SO beautiful. We should do more morning hikes. 

Swimming at the Provo Rec Center

I'll just say that this was SUCH a fun rec center and we will absolutely be coming back. The kids loved everything, especially the two water slides. Lucy loved jumping into the lazy river and being swept away while I tried to stay close to her. What a fun afternoon. 

Making Homemade Donuts and the Haderlies

Lydia has a goal to make 10 new recipes. She went through her Harry Potter Cookbook and pulled out a bunch of recipes that she really wanted to make. These Jam Donuts were at the top of the list. We couldn't figure out how to cook them enough on the inside without making them too brown on the outside, but she was happy and I love that she loves being in the kitchen so much. (Also, the Haderlies coming to spend the night at our house always makes spring break better.) 

Spring Break Part 2

Bean Museum with the Shields and the Perkins

We met up with Karli and Amy and their kids at the BYU Life Science museum and had fun exploring and learning about different animals and about the world. I'm grateful for these two friends, but only got a picture with Amy. It's funny how, even at 34, I sometimes feel like I'm 12 and am trying to figure out where I fit in with the "friend groups" at school. These two women always make me feel accepted just as I am, make me feel like a million bucks, and make me feel valued and appreciated. I love them. 

Sewing Projects

We were still doing a simplified homeschool routine, but because we didn't have our rotations on T/Th we had some extra time in the afternoon. I decided to do a little sewing camp where Ava came over for three days in a row to finish their sewing project of making a foldable tic-tac-toe board and bean bags. I'm really enjoying teaching these lessons to Lydia and Ava and it was nice to have three days in a row to work on their projects to finish them out! 

Uncle Matt-Matt & Juniper!

My brother Matthew and his sweet daughter Juniper ended up being in Utah this week. They are moving from Texas to California and decided to stay a week in Utah. We were lucky enough to be able to see them a handful of times. We went swimming at the Lehi Rec center with them. We met up with them at Wines Park for playing (and ice cream), and we managed to squeeze in a hike with them to Jungle Trail in Draper. Brooklyn's sister Hannah lives in American Fork, only 15 minutes from us - and she just started homeschooling her middle daughter so we've had her join in on some of our homeschool field trips. I've enjoyed spending time with her, and I feel like it was so nice to have a friendship with her so that while Matt was staying at her house in AF, we were still able to spend time with them all together. (He brought one of the girls swimming, they were all at the park, and we went on the hike together.) Lucy especially loved Juniper and walked around calling her "My Juniper". These sweet cousins are only two months apart and look just like twins. 

Children's Museum with the Haderlies

Sneaking in a quick visit to the children's museum with the Haderlies. 

Weekend in Morgan

After Matt and Brooklyn were finished visiting her family in Utah County, they came to Morgan to spend a couple of days. Because we wanted to spend as much time with them as we could - we tagged along. We had family dinner in Morgan on Sunday (complete with cousin egg hunt - pictures in the easter post) then stayed until Monday. Matthew did THE best job of making our kids have a great time. He played with them, let them play his Mario video games, AND he did a kid-style Dungeons and Dragons storytelling session and they loved it SO much. They were so engaged in telling the story and making the decisions and the creativity and engagement was almost palpable in the air. You could see their little brains working, learning, growing, and having fun. It was really neat. Also, we did a "magic puzzle" with my mom and uncle who happened to be staying in Morgan that weekend - and it was really fun. You do the whole puzzle, then when you're done - you can slide big sections of the puzzle away from each other creating a hole in the middle, which you then fill in with a last secret bag of puzzle pieces! 

Yay for TWO weeks of Spring Break! 

Good Friends and a Surprise.

 I have been blessed with a handful of really, really good friends. It's often hard for me to make real friendships. I don't have a lot of time to spend hanging out with other adult women (especially when my children aren't there) and although I have a lot of happy acquaintance level friendships, I am especially grateful for the women who are friends to me even through my awkwardness and weaknesses. 

Amy Perkins and Karli Shields - two of the best out there. We used to try to go out for lunch for each of our birthdays but Karli moved and I can't really do lunch anymore because of homeschool, so we opted for one combined dinner/girls night for the year. Amy's birthday is in January. Karli's is in June. Mine in September. We are finally getting together in October. It was a great evening with good friends. 

And speaking of the best of the best, Ali Middleton's 30th Birthday is the first week of November. After a brief conversation about how she was going to be out of town on her birthday (she loves birthdays as much as I do) my wheels started turning and I knew that I really wanted to throw her a surprise birthday party for her milestone 30th birthday. I tend to have big ideas, but always need someone else to jump with support for the idea and help with the planning in order for it to happen. Our mutual friend, Tara Gotfredson happens to be an amazing floral arranger/lover and she volunteered to host a wreath-making class if I could manage the dinner. Ali is one of the most creative people that I know and a wreath making class was perfect for her. 

I was able to secretly find a guest list by going through old text messages for other creative adventures Ali has invited me to, finalize a night and plan of surprise by texting Mike, her husband, and get her input on whether she liked silver, gold, or rose gold jewelry by pretending that I was having a debate with David about what was best. I'm a horrible liar, so I was proud of all of those things. It worked out just perfectly. 

Ali was surprised, the dinner was lovely (thanks to so many people pitching in to help), the wreath making was fun. The friends of Ali's coming together to surround her with love was tender because you can see the goodness of the person she is by the people that surround her. I'm just grateful to be counted in that number.