Split loyalties, park dates, and old yeast.

A couple Mondays ago we had the Facundus/Syddall and Weed families over for dinner and the park. Note: since our backyard is not currently in any condition for entertaining, we've deferred to the park more than once, as you will see later in this post :-) 

I love this park because it has a lot of fun things for young AND older kids.

We are super excited to FINALLY have cousins that live close by, so it was a bit of a Welcome-to-Colorado party for Robyn, Kade, and Cole.

Mace was heading to BYU the next day, so it was a bit of a Sayonara/Adios/Farewell party for her.

It was a perfect night and such a fun time!

Last Friday Bill and I attended the CROSS-TOWN SHOWDOWN.

CV and DC (the 2 high schools in our new town of Castle Rock) were having their big rivalry game, and since Mar was going, Bill and I thought we would go check it out, too.

We couldn't help but reminisce a bit, since this is the very stadium we supported Taylor (marching band) and Britt (cheerleading) at. It was so weird. Weird that we were back there and that so much time had passed (where did it go??). Weird that we were rooting for a team that wears black and red (it was a "black out" game for CV, which I am happy to oblige since black IS my favorite color haha). Weird that the opposing team belonged to the kids I teach in seminary. Weird that we only ran into one family we knew.  Weird that we were outsiders trying to learn how to be insiders.

The stadium was overflowing, and we were lucky to find a spot on the ground on the CV side (this is a strange stadium set-up that only has bleachers on one side... I've always thought it was dumb).

 I believe this stadium serves as the HOME stadium for both teams... so the Cat Country on the locker room building is removable, as this happened to be a home game for the Sabercats. I found it funny that the game was between cats and dogs (DC are Huskies) hahahaha.

Bill and I sat right on the edge of a lovely red ant pile.

 I don't think you can see them, but they were all over the place. Luckily we brought our {Titan} blanket to sit on (black side up, of course), and Bill took the side closest to the ant pile. I believe he only received one bite. I was on the side next to a group of high schoolers, which were calm and fairly quiet the first half of the game, then started getting rowdy (or is R-O-W-D-I-E?? haha) in the second half... encouraging me to encourage Bill to exit a bit early.

 I tried to snap a good pic of the Sabercat mascot...

...this was the best I could get.

The Huskie mascot stayed at the opposite end of the field and did not interact with the crowd. Weird.

The mascot outfits were awesome, but the people in them could use some serious training.

(As far as Bill and I could recollect, neither CHAP nor Legend even had a mascot...? My kids might correct me, though. **Note: I had a sudden burst of memory and methinks I recall CHAP had a Wolverine mascot... but I still can't remember ever seeing a Titan...)

And here were a couple of snaps that Mar sent out.

At least she fits in {wink}. The Sabercats won the game. Since the first CROSS-TOWN SHOWDOWN, DC has won 3 games (the first 3), and CV has won 3 games (the last 3). In the little local paper, they said maybe this game is worthy of a trophy. They must be a little slow around here.

Bill made a person.

 I can't remember what they're really called, so person works.

For Labor Day, we had our friends, the Cobbs, over for lunch and... you guessed it, a park date.

There's those 200 stairs again.

One of these days I'll go up those without stopping.

 Mauri's got skills climbing that rope.

 Bill climbed it twice (since I missed the picture the first time). Yesterday after work he was super concerned that his shoulders, arms, and upper body ached. He has a funny habit of assuming he has something terrible when he gets a few body aches. He wondered why he would be feeling so... sore. He had totally forgotten about the double rope climb he did on Monday hahahaha.

Don't worry, I reminded him. I think he was quite relieved {wink}.

On Wednesday this week, Bill and I were back at Legend for their Homecoming parade.

Bill's company is still one of their big sports sponsors, so it gives us a good reason to go back.

 I drove the car while Bill and one of his employees handed out candy and flyers.

It was a pretty hot day, and it's literally ALL UPHILL.

This was the view from my comfortable, air-conditioned spot behind the wheel.

After we finished the parade route (we were more at the beginning of the parade), and started heading out, we saw some emergency vehicles coming the opposite direction. I had wondered at the time if something had happened along the parade route. As a driver, I was so surprised at the amount of young children running between cars to grab candy, with nary a parent in sight to warn them of danger. I took my job as a driver very seriously as children were running RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME to grab mini footballs that were bouncing all over the street. 

Bill found out the next day that a high schooler riding on one of the trailers had his leg caught in the wheel-well, which pulled him off the trailer, running over his leg. When the driver realized something happened, he stopped, then backed up, stopping right on top of the kid's leg. Apparently it was a gruesome scene, but the kid will be okay (after a long recovery, I'm sure). I'm thinking they'll implement a few safety features in the parade from here on out.

Yesterday I spent a chunk of my day making cinnamon rolls for my seminary class.

This was the first time I have attempted any sort of bread since we've moved, and I learned a valuable lesson about old yeast and new ovens.

I made two double batches because I was worried about the yeast from the get-go. It didn't foam like it should have, but it was doing... something, so I went ahead and used it. Then I started a second double batch with a new old bag of yeast I had in my freezer (expired 2005 haha), and it was doing the same thing.

THEN I popped them in the oven, only to discover that the mini oven on top bakes much differently than a regular oven. AAAUUUUGGGGHH. You would think I could have made some of these deductions BEFORE spending my day on it.

So I still took some to seminary, but they were sad little hard, tough cinnamon rolls.

I'm determined to prove I can do better.

(I've tossed all my old yeast, btw).

Icing covers up the over-browned tops of these rolls, but now we have boatloads of rolls not good enough to share with others. I think I might freeze them for an object lesson in seminary on leavening in the future haha.

Here's what my favorite peeps have been up to:

Love them.

I've spent my day today doing this, that, and the other, when I should have been studying and pondering and preparing for my talk in sacrament meeting Sunday.

I hope I can pull it together tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

In the middle of the ride.

I love the song "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World.

(I am in no way recommending you view the music video for this song, however... I just looked it up this morning and found it to have nothing to do with my interpretation of the song, not to mention it was a tad... disturbing.)

My favorite lines from the song:

It just takes some time

Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride

Everything, everything will be just fine

Everything, everything will be all right, all right.

Bill had attended a church meeting a year or two ago with {Elder Holland, I think... I will have to double check my facts}.

He came home with the perspective that we are ALL currently "in the middle."

The middle of the plan of salvation/happiness,

in between our pre-existence and paradise (or prison).

This middle part, although long, tiring, full of ups and downs, good and bad, joy and pain,

is so so important.

I'm just trying to keep on keepin' on... to endure well... among the crazy business of life.

Anyway, here is what I've been in the middle of the past week:

It was Homecoming week for Legend.

This year Bill was able to come promote himself at the parade... Yay! 

Mar and Cass helped pass out candy and cards. Those girls rock.

 

After all the work Bill has put into promoting his company locally, he has recently found out that he will have to change the name due to some technical legal issues. He is in search of a new name that has NO POSSIBLE problems (trademarks, etc).  I think he needs it THIS WEEK. Ugh. Such a discouraging turn of events. But, to quote my favorite missionary, we will survive.

Thursday night was the Homecoming football game. It was fun to meet up with friends and ward members to cheer on LHS.

Friday night (also the evening of the Homecoming dance), our ward had a special youth temple baptism trip planned. I'm pretty sure that was a bit of a calendaring snafu, but the youth who were NOT attending the dance, spent the evening at the temple doing baptisms.

 We actually had 4 or 5 more youth show up after this picture was taken, so a pretty good turnout considering the scheduling conflict.

On Saturday morning, Mar, Bill and I went to the Parker Road clean-up.

After all the years we've lived here, with our family participating in this event too many times to count, I have to embarrassingly admit that this was my first time.

It went well. It was a lot o' work, and it got pretty darn hot by the time we were finishing up, but we were able to finish with a sense of service to our community and a job well done.

I think I mentioned that I decided to antique/glaze my cabinets. I actually worked on them ALL DAY two Fridays ago, and didn't quite get finished but was literally so sick of working on them that I took all of last week off (not to mention we were just so darn BUSY all week). Here's a shot of a few of the finished ones:

I like them much better antiqued, so it was definitely worth the effort. I have set a goal to totally complete them this week... in the middle of all the other regular busy-ness going on.

Also last week:

I grocery shopped. 5 stores... I'm a bit of a tightwad and always trying to get the best deal. It's so exhausting!

I gave the Sisters a haircut

A family that was renting their home in our ward was given 24 hours to move out of their house, so I spent some hours helping them pack and load up

Celebrated 2 friends' birthdays by going to lunch with them. One of the birthdays was at the end of May... I'm a little behind, don't you think?

I took a dinner + a freezer meal to my neighbor (with the 7 kids)

Went visiting teaching

Spent most of the day on Friday at the temple (4 sessions total)

Just trying to document why I'm so darn busy all the time. For my own memory's sake. Today I am working on a sweet little baby quilt for my newest little granny-daughter, then we are having some investigators over for a lesson with the missionaries tonight, which means a little house tidying is in order.

Gotta run.

Sorta out of sorts.

Maybe it's just normal to get all in a funk and out of sorts after a vacation. Maybe it's a teeny tiny midlife crisis (I hate hate hate to admit they just might be a real thing). Maybe I'm a little sick with head congestion + headache + sore quads, glutes, and hamstrings due to my never ending PT exercises to help my feet. (The feet still hurt, btw.) Maybe I'm just turning into a grumpy old lady.

Whatever the reason, it's a day in much need of a pick-me-up, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorite snaps as of late. Honestly, a well-timed snap makes the day so so much brighter.

Literally just got this one from my favorite little zebra in the past couple of minutes:

Some more snaps that have kept me smiling...

 Mar experimented with the face swap feature and discovered it could do a three-way face swap. 

So funny!

Yes, I get in on the fun, too. Usually while I'm waiting in the carpool lane after school.

Another thing that makes me happy is listening to Mar practice.

A couple Saturdays ago she competed in a Junior State piano competition with her duet partner, Addie.

They won Top Performer in their category. 

One of the judges came over and talked to them afterwards, suggesting another piano competition they should enter. Mar, on the other hand, is ready to get out of the performing/competition circuit and just focus on playing what she wants to play. We'll see how that goes over with her teacher {wink}. She has another judged performance opportunity this Saturday (remember DEMTA Britt and Lex?). She will be playing two duet numbers and two individual pieces. I'm so proud of her and hope she will continue to develop this amazing skill. Since our piano is in the loft, when she practices it fills the entire house. Makes me happy.

Well, I feel better already. Still a little off...

...but better.