No Blood, But Definitely Sweat & Tears

Last Monday was Memorial Day, so for a memorable family day we chose to have an adventure over the firepit in the backyard. It was the most delicious chicken I've ever had in my life! 

Recipe here: https://mountainkitchen.com/green-chili-cheese-dutch-oven-chicken/

*My own recipe notes are below.

Jacob and Weston building a lincoln log structure to house the charcoal briquettes while Abby looks on. The structure imploded, but it was still a cool idea and the briquettes ended up doing their job just fine.

It's a recipe called Green Chili Cheese Dutch Oven Chicken. It has Ritz crackers, cheese, green chilies, chicken, and mushrooms. We made a couple of adjustments out of necessity. (Recipe link above) 

We didn't have green chilies, even though I thought we did, so we substituted a small can of salsa verde that we poured over the top. The recipe also called for a can of mushrooms, but I bought some crimini mushrooms instead and sauteed them before adding them on top. Delicious! 

While the men (Jacob and Weston) worked on getting the fire and charcoal ready outside, Amber, Hannah, and I, worked on food prep inside. We used a 12 inch camp dutch oven. Ha ha, something important that I learned about dutch ovens is this: there are two types of dutch ovens. The one type is known as a kitchen dutch oven: it does not have 3 little legs underneath and has more of a domed lid on top. This does not make it conducive for stacking charcoal on top of the lid. The other type is known as a camp dutch oven.  It has the 3 little legs underneath and a nice flat lid for stacking charcoal on top. 

I had found a good deal on a dutch oven at CAL Ranch over Memorial Day weekend, but when it came time to use it, I discovered it was the wrong kind. Thankfully, Amber and Weston had a camp dutch oven that we ended up using. But hey, I learned something in the process! 

Hannah and Jacob helped mow the lawns too. They are so helpful!!

I also went shopping for a couch for the living room. I found a great deal at Odell's Furniture here in Idaho Falls. Most couches in town were selling for $600-$1500. But Odell's had a very soft, reclining sofa that was in a nice shade of grey, and it was only $288!!

I wasn't sure how to fit the loveseat in our living room, but after a few days of browsing online for something else and not having any success, Scott had some ideas on how to rearrange the room so we could accommodate a loveseat. I called Odell's and they said they would still honor the price of $288 for the loveseat and even had one in stock! 

When I first brought home the sofa, Amber and Weston were instant volunteers to test out how comfortable it was. They approved. :) Later we arranged the whole room for a whole new look.

So this is my new arrangement in the living room. The colors are very calming and classy: grey couches, mustard sofa chair, seafoam carpet (someday I'll replace it), and someday I'll have some cream curtains instead of dark brown ones. 

Thursday we had quite a surprise. Weston was already planning to leave on Friday, but when he got up Thursday morning, he found out that there was a last minute change to the schedule and suddenly he needed to leave in about 4 hours. Things got a little crazy during those hours, and I did my best to entertain the girls so that the flurry was less noticeable. 

When the time came for hugs and prayers and priesthood blessings for his wife and daughters, the tears could not be stopped. I tried so hard not to cry, because I knew that if I cried, the girls would see me and it could be disastrous. But when even Weston started crying while giving his little girls a priesthood blessing, I cried too. Quiet tears they were, but eventually I just walked out of the room after he was all done. Besides, I wanted to give them some private family time to grieve and hug each other. 

Shortly thereafter, it was time to say the final goodbyes. 

Weston ended up coming back a few minutes later because he forgot his white lab coat! But the second round of goodbyes went much smoother, thankfully. He has since made it down to San Antonio, Texas and begins his externship tomorrow morning (Monday, June 1st). 

The girls requested to fill up the swimming pool immediately after Weston left. I remember when my own husband left for lengthy deployments and our children were small. It brought back the pain and sorrow of saying those emotional goodbyes. But our coping strategy at the time was to think of fun things to do along the way, not to celebrate the loss of our dear husband and father, but rather to find a new version of happiness in spite of the loss. It was helpful for the girls to just let loose a bit that day as well. 

Papi happened to call at the same time that Gwen wanted me to help her put swim goggles on. :)

Later that same day, we were able to participate in a VERY brief parade to celebrate the recent graduates from Idaho Falls High School that live in our neighborhood. A flyer went around earlier that week, inviting us all to prepare posters, banners, or make some noise and cheer at the designated time. The graduates met at the church behind our house at 6:00 p.m. and then proceeded to drive all throughout the neighborhood. We knew we would be the first street they turned down, so thankfully we were ready! At 6:01 p.m. they turned the corner! We had some fun music blasting through a speaker, a bike horn to honka-honka, and lots of cheers and posters. 

Our best friends and neighbors across the street, Ben and Kim joined in the fun, too.

It was all over in about 25 seconds. Four cars total. Four grads total. And then it was all over. I didn't even have enough time to take pictures because we were so focused on cheering and dancing for them! I saw several other signs and posters around the neighborhood showing their support as well. What a great idea. I'm glad we got to participate!

After the "parade" was done, we took the girls over to our storage unit to unload some things that Weston had run out of time to take over before he left. The girls had fun playing in the back of the truck while Amber and I did the hard work. :)

The next day, Friday, Abby and I teamed up and did some errands in the truck together. I saw that Goodwill was open and accepting donations, so I jumped into action. I've had about a third of my garage piled up with donations for the past 6 weeks, and I couldn't even park in the garage. I excitedly loaded everything up, and one truckload at a time, we got rid of all the stuff. 

It took 3 truckloads in all. Sadly, at the donation drop-off area, there was only ONE lady trying to empty out all the bins as fast as she could and get them inside the warehouse, so nobody was available to help us unload outside. I unloaded everything by myself on load #2, but on loads #1 and #3, others stepped in to assist. I was very grateful.

Abby loves coming on errands with me in the truck. She enjoys sitting in the jump seat behind me. And she REALLY loves being where the action is. :)

After we emptied the garage and successfully dropped off everything at Goodwill and one other thrift store, we headed over to the furniture store to get our loveseat and haul it home. Amber and I had already moved the piano, the other sofa, and some other furniture pieces to make way for the new couch. I vaccumed and cleaned the room up, and then off Abby and I went in the red truck once again. 

While we waited for someone to load the couch into our truck, we got to sit on one of their showroom sofas that was super comfy. And they gave her a sheet of stickers to enjoy, too! 

It was a super hot day (88 degrees), which was so surprising after just having snow a few days prior. My left arm even got sunburned from being next to the truck window on all of our trips back and forth.

After I got home and finished arranging the living room, I pulled out all of our box fans and window fans. They needed some TLC in the form of a damp washcloth and some muscle to get the last couple of year's worth of grunge off. So I spent about 1.5 hours (maybe 2) cleaning all the yuck off. Sadly, when I plugged them in, THREE of them didn't even work!! I cleaned them all for nothing! 

To finish up a powerhouse day, I mowed all the lawns after dinner and I weeded the front garden bed and pruned the apricot trees. I slept really well that night.

Saturday morning, I got up bright and early to head out in search of some new fans. I also took Amber and the girls with me a little later in the morning to get some flowers for the summer season. Amber bought a terrarium and we found some really cute succulents to arrange inside. 

AAANNNDDD . . .

My kitchen painting project is 99% complete now. 

I still need to paint one more final coat underneath the bar, and then put the cupboard doors back on. 

And I need to fix a couple of trouble spots, too. The lazy Susan cupboard for example. Because of all the layers of paint, the top left corner of the spinny door doesn't want to spin. It gets stuck. So I'll need to sand it down and then repaint. Sigh.

And then this happened while hanging the lazy Susan cupboard door back on: I put a screw in a hole that was available and very inviting, but in fact was not needed. 

And last night, after two days of hard labor and hot sun, I was very, very tired. But I still wanted to get the last 3 sets of cabinet doors back on. These doors are tricky though. For the first few years of living in this house, the original cabinet doors overlapped when you closed them, but I found that to be VERY annoying. One year for Christmas, Scott built me sliding drawers in some of the lower cupboards. In doing so, he adjusted the overlapping "flap" of the left door so that you can now open each door independently of each other. So awesome. 

But as I began to paint the doors, I had to disassemble the flap in order to paint it properly. The problems came when trying to put the flap back on and still get everything back where it was supposed to go. At that point, the previously drilled holes never seemed to match up correctly and I found it to be very frustrating. Weston was here to help me with a couple of doors, but even those still need some tweaking (when Scott gets home) because you can't open up the left door without also needing to open the right one first. 

So back to last night. I called Scott so he could help me figure out how to get the flaps on the left doors accurately. Although he was very helpful in talking me through each step, I still ran into multiple snags. At one point, I had to dig around the garage for clamps, and even when I followed all the advice that my dear husband gave to me, there is still a big gap in between the doors, and the right door is slightly crooked. 

He said, "I'll be home soon, honey, and I'll fix everything for you." That's when I lost it. I was so tired and hot and sweaty and frustrated. It was 10:00 at night and I couldn't get it right. I don't know why I took this picture, except that he was so sweet and tried so hard to reassure me and cheer me up through my tears. *He is not laughing AT me in this photo. He was trying to cheer me up.*

So, while I wait for him to come home, the other two cupboard doors will look something like this: NO FLAP. I'd like to refer to it as the big front tooth gap. :)

We still don't know when he will get home. It will likely be mid-to-late August, which means he will come home and immediately have to start teaching. Sigh. Someday we'll get a minute to be together . . .

He now has to wear a mask and gloves when he goes in to work with the Saudis. Someday it won't always have to be like this though. I took a picture while he was telling me all about his new rules at work. :)

And lastly, today we had some friends in the ward (assigned to "minister" to us and check on us regularly) come and bless the sacrament in our home, since Weston wasn't here to do it anymore. The girls had a hard time with the new arrangements, attention span and all, so Amber had a great idea to help re-teach them about reverence during church services.

She got out our trusty lincoln log set that we've had for about 20 years, and invited the girls to help her build a church. As they did so, she asked them questions like: 

So what does a church have inside? 

What do people do inside a church?

Where do the people sit?

What if the children don't feel like sitting quietly? What can they do to still be respectful?

Abby answered enthusiastically and valiantly, with Gwen echoing everything that her big sister said. It was so darling. I think they definitely learned some good things about being reverent at church and why it's so important. Good job, Amber!

Here, the little family is all sitting together and holding hands, ha ha.

And here, Gwen wanted to build her OWN church. Abby is helping her.

So, while things got sweaty, frustrating, heart-breaking, and tear-inducing, we did some great things this week. I just need to remember all the positive parts and let the rest go. :)