BYU and pies

On to Sunday morning!! Evelyn and I went to church with my parents and met up with Abigail and Juliet, who were staying at my parents' house. Then I went back and went to church with Ruth & Jordan's family and the rest of my kids (minus Luke, who stayed home with Juliet). Then we went to brunch at Riverside and checked out the latest progress on the amazing house Ruth and Jordan are building (can't wait to see it finished when I'm there in a month or two!). 



Then we OF COURSE had the Decker Night of Pies. Ruth really brought her A-game as you can see here...actually as I'm typing this now I remember that we were up until like 2 am making pies, haha. 




So fun to see everyone, loved this snap of Isaac cuddling Hope while she told him all about her shoes 



I think this was a very intense conversation about the use of the blow torch between my mom, Elise, and Ruth 




On Monday morning I got up early and met my dear friend Kelsey for a hike up the canyon. 



It was so gorgeous!



I seriously did not turn around but we both had places to be! Love that Kelsey and I manage to get in workouts together a few times every year (we just passed 3 years of texting each other our workouts every day after she moved to CA in 2020, we were so bummed to miss out on running together every day and have just kept this going!). 



We went to BYU and did a campus tour with Abigail and Juliet. I have a few scattered pics from it but please enjoy this gem which shows Abigail in the hallway in the Clyde where she took her first steps. #byubabies

Then we went back to my parents' house and picked up the boys and went to hike the Y with my dad! (I think I logged a ridiculous amount of vertical hiking that day.)

Looking out on Provo from the top...



And here's the view from the base looking up towards the top. 

Juliet fell asleep as per usual, she is so good at chilling out wherever she is.

So beautiful looking towards Mt. Nebo!

Matthew was soooooo not enjoying the trip up (then he ran all the way down). 

Luke's fever finally broke, hurray!

And my dad, just casually being the World's Best Grandpa (TM), I think he ended up carrying everyone's coats while Neil hauled Matty up. Two great guys. 

Then we went to the Creamery and ate all the fries and ice cream as one does. 



Then we went over to Elise's for awhile and Ruth, Elise, and I got a jump on some Thanksgiving cooking and I made the side dishes we were supposed to bring to dinner with Neil's family that night. 

We didn't take any pics of the family dinner with Neil's family, but almost all of his siblings and their families were there! 

I did take these pictures of baby Neil while I was waiting for Matty to go to the bathroom (the halls were lined with family pics). 

And if you look closely you'll spot some pics of our family...quite awhile back! 



Totally out of order, but I took these in Smith's when Ruth and I went shopping for pie ingredients Saturday night. Not sure if it's bc I was so sleep-deprived at that point that I thought they were hilarious? 

 

birthdays in quarantine

Abigail turned 15, and Nathan turned 7!!

On Abigail's birthday we biked over to her favorite restaurant to pick up takeout, then went over and ate it by the high school in the little front garden outside the freshman cafeteria. The last time Abigail was there, she was hanging out and eating with her friends, so it was pretty bittersweet (especially the part where she cupped her hands around her face and looked through the glass to see that the monitor displaying the day's menu was still on...).




I have a lot of feelings about these two birthdays, mostly because both kids have been talking for months about their birthday plans. Big parties, Kings Island with friends/family (even though yikes Neil and I were planning to be at DisneyLand by ourselves on Abigail's birthday...). But they were both great sports about it and we managed to make things pretty celebratory, I think. And Abigail's started (online) driver's ed!

Other random things...Neil and I are really into long Saturday morning bike rides right now instead of long runs. For some reason it's really nice to bike because we can go so much further and gosh I am SO darn sick of the roads/trails around our house right now--definitely seeing waaaaay too much of them!! Last week we biked up to a reservoir about 11 miles away from our house and went down to the sand and just sat there for awhile listening to the water slap against the shore. It was perfect.




Then we came home and tore apart our deck (which is nice because if I had run 21 miles I would be lying on the floor all day feeling sorry for myself, but with biking I was just kind of tired but could still do stuff).

And like everyone else in the world...lots of baking happening here. This is my new favorite book. So fascinating and that reminds me...I need to go tend to my dough! Here's yesterday's bread, topped with lots of Boursin cheese and smoked salmon. The very very best.

Another week

Welp, here we are--another week down. And as my watch just started beeping at me to remind me, I should be on a plane to San Jose right now, in that alternate COVID-free universe. At least we only have five weeks left of e-Learning!

Things that I am doing to keep myself busy this week (other than the obvious): refinishing our interior (very beautiful solid cherry) doors & keeping up my Duolingo streak. Totally embracing that quarantine cliche of "learn another language!" Except this is really just refreshing a language I already know (French) and a little bit of dabbling in a new-to-me language (Italian), except then I realized you could actually compete and so I started focusing more on French so that I was competitive. A couple weeks ago I took 1st in my league and gosh, it felt like ALL I DID that week was Duolingo. Like we were on a walk and I had an AirPod in and the kids were like "Are you still beating Roderigo?" because apparently I was talking out loud about crushing the guy who kept trying to challenge me for the #1 spot. I spent a couple of evenings in a row just doing Duolingo while watching a movie with the kids/Netflixing with Neil and I won resoundingly, but since then I'm just doing enough to stay in the top 5. ;-) Saving up my energy for taking #1 in the Diamond league, peeps. 

Easter dinner table...this was fun to put together. For journaling purposes, those are my grandmother's silver 50th-anniversary candlesticks (given to her by my mom); the crystal bowl is a wedding gift, I inherited the silver from my dear Aunt Pam after her death, and the platinum-edged china was the thrift store score of a lifetime (last year--found a full 12-setting set with serving platters and bowls and walked out with the whole thing for $60). The china is 80 years old and the silver well over 100. 

Neil is getting a loooot of use out of our guest room/office. I snapped a pic of him lying down to take a conference call (he usually works at his desk with a couple monitors and multiple laptops out, but Abigail was using one of his laptops to do a CAD drawing in Inventor with Luke sitting next to her, completely fascinated. That girl is SO good with CAD already--this is for her engineering class that is concurrent enrollment with one of the local colleges. She turns 15 on Monday). 

(ps I love love his long legs)

And here is the trifle that I made for Easter dinner--yum! Fresh pound cake, pudding, tons of fruit and cream--you really can't go wrong!

I was doing some grading tonight and it was interesting to read my students' weekly project updates. Usually people are complaining about how they hate doing group work online/remotely, and every semester I'm like "guys I promise this is a valuable skill! Just learn it!" and guess what, this semester everyone is like...wow, the skills that we have been learning this semester about online collaboration are SURE HANDY NOW THAT THE WORLD IS ALL REMOTE. So I was thinking about that a bit just before writing this post, and thinking about how much I absolutely hate technology sometimes (I wish my children had never heard of smartphones, or tablets, or Nintendo, or TV, etc. etc.) but on the other hand--I can't even imagine how hard this pandemic would be without it. And I know that people have obviously experienced these types of situations without technology, but gosh, I am just so grateful that I can work remotely, and Neil can work remotely, and our kids can do eLearning (as much as it also drives me crazy I would be way more upset about NOT having it), and that I can stay connected to my friends through FaceTime, and Zoom, and texting, and that I can listen to podcasts and watch Netflix and read the news so easily! In particular, some connections I am really thankful for this week (in no order): 

• the "cool cats and kittens" text thread that is constantly running with five of my good friends here. This is our group of couples that we get together with for game nights, but boy our text thread with just the wives has basically lit up over the last 6 weeks and kinda become a lifeline for me! So darn grateful for those women and the fact that we can vent/commiserate/rejoice together about this craaaazy time. We have a Zoom game night tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it (we spent almost 5 hours just talking on the last one!)
• doing virtual workouts with my dear friend Kelsey who moved to Sacramento about 10 days before the world locked down. On our last run together at the end of February, coronavirus was not even on the radar. This week we started a new 8-week workout challenge together and I love checking in with her every day, even if we can't log hours of talking time on the run!
• similarly--doing virtual baking with Kelsey and Stephanie. Before Kelsey moved, the 3 of us got together to do baking nights (croissants, croquembouche, macaroons, eclairs) and this week we are doing a "challah challenge" all week with a Zoom at the end of it. 
• weekly writers' Zoom group faciliated by my brilliant friend who is a professor of creative writing. Truly therapeutic and I'm so grateful for all the effort she is putting into it!!!

and an in-person connection...Abigail and I had SUCH a good time going to pick up groceries this morning, haha! We were so excited to go somewhere that we took the "scenic route" there and another "scenic route" back, and totally enjoyed the half-hour chilling in the Kroger parking lot while we waited for our order.

(ps please do not worry--I am also having my fair share of COVID breakdowns, hence the lack of blogging for a couple days there) 

Day 5

Today's five good things:

1) Stake conference today meant that church started an hour later, which meant there was time for me to make waffles for breakfast! (And for the kids to exhaustively recap all of the nightmares they've ever had that they can remember. Interesting way to start the day off...)

2) Abigail & I made orange rolls for dinner tonight--the last time I made them all of the kids HATED them and tonight they loved them! Good thing because who does not love orange rolls?!

3) Neil got a nap today. He's been living on the knife-edge of exhaustion, so I'm glad he got a break this afternoon.

4) I got an email earlier today notifying me that my federal and state tax returns, which I filed yesterday, have both been accepted--hurray!

5) Morning church means more leisure in the afternoons (the best!), so we made Juliet's favorite little tuna cakes for lunch today:

2 cans tuna, well-drained
1 small onion, diced finely
2-3 eggs, depending on size
1 c. panko crumbs
1 T. soy sauce
1 T. fresh lemon juice
2 T. mustard (either Dijon or yellow)
1/2 t, salt

Mix all the ingredients together--you should be able to squeeze them into a cohesive ball in your hand without it either slopping away or crumbling apart. It was a little crumbly today so I added another egg. Flatten into little round cakes (I usually do them 3-4 inches in diameter). Heat a nonstick pan, add a couple tablespoons of oil, and fry the cakes until golden-brown (2 minute or so), then flip and fry another 2 minutes. Yum!

New floors + a few daily life photos

Over the last few weeks, virtually all our spare time has gone to ripping out linoleum/carpet to install new flooring, preparatory to (someday) selling our house. It's been a pretty monumental project and I am sooo happy it's 90% done! Just a few more transition strips to go and then it's all done.

First of all, I had NO idea how long it would take to get all the paper/glue off from under the linoleum. I hugely underestimated that part of the project (it ended up taking about 20 hours total, most of which I did solo). Basically the process was rip up the linoleum, which went pretty fast, and then soak the glue/paper in hot water and remove it with a drywall mud spreader one bit at a time. The places that had gotten a lot of foot traffic (i.e. the entire kitchen) were the hardest. In total, we did the kitchen, eating area, hallway between our kitchen and laundry room (which used to be carpeted), pantry, laundry room, and foyer. I also painted all the kickboards in the kitchen, baseboards in the pantry and laundry room, and walls in the laundry room behind the washer/dryer. This project also involved moving out the dishwasher, fridge, stove, washer, and dryer. Like I said...pretty intense. It took about three weeks doing it in chunks. 

Bare cement subfloor in our kitchen for about ten days...we broke a lot of stuff.

We lived with a partial floor like this for about five days...we had to be super careful not to step on the edges!

And the finished product!! So beautiful! So much easier to clean, and so lovely lovely lovely. We've done SO much work on this kitchen--new floors, painted the cabinets and changed all the hardware/hinges, removed horrible ugly tile backsplash (which necessitated redoing the drywall), installed new not-horrible ugly tile backsplash, replaced the faucet, painted walls (twice), removed awful wallpaper, etc.

Somewhere in there the kids had a piano recital...Isaac's first! All of them are thriving and learning, but Isaac is seriously learning by leaps and bounds. He LOVES piano lessons and piano practice--only one of my kiddos thus far where I have to set a time limit as to how long he can practice, rather than how long he must practice.

 Case in point...Isaac playing Christmas carols while Nathan plans his invasion of the Christmas village.

We're trying to train Matthew to sleep in his crib. It's hard. This picture is deceptive. 

Last week Abigail made some pretty darn delicious challah, start to finish all by herself.

 Abigail and Matthew cuddling before bedtime sometime last week...

And me with Matthew LONG after bedtime. Wishing he would go to sleep.