March 2021 Part 6: The Everyday (until March 26)

March came in like a lion and out like a lamb, but only because we went to Florida at the end of March. It was cold, miserable, and snowy, and we counted down the days to when we'd fly to the Sunshine State since the Beehive state is a little gloomy in March. How did we count it down? Well, I'll show you. 

Dry needling: Because nothings says comfort quite like putting needles in your face. 

Doing nothing. Because sometimes, that's all you can do. 

Participating in online preschool. 

Bundling up and going to the park. 

Making delicious cookies, decorating them for St. Patrick's Day, and sharing with Lea. 

Chillin' with the other neighborhood kids. 

Taking selfies with the intention of building business on social media. 

Seeing Cosmo at the BYU Bookstore (and finally getting Brian's BYU ID for being a Capstone Coach). 

Giving the new store, "Dough Drop" a try, but dividing the 6th cooking 5 ways...somehow.

Doing laundry. 

Watching something out the window. Hint: It wasn't popcorn popping on the apricot tree. 

Preparing to leave responsibilities for three weeks, including preparing treats and birthday notes for my young women. 

Celebrating Pi Day by eating yummy pie. 

(It was fun for some of us). 

Taking selfies because Mom's tablet was available. 

Looking at rainbows

Getting an MRI on your spine because nothing is as fun as holding completely still in a small, noisy tube for an hour. 

Watching your nieces so your nephew can see a specialist at Primary Children's and then meeting with your nephew and sister for lunch afterwards. 

Hanging out with friends and discovering that those friends are actually your 4th cousins, twice removed. 

Meeting up with your old college roommate and drinking Tang together. 

Pretending to be French 

Learning the fine art of silly lip whistling. 

Having picnics with friends out on the deck. 

Doing laundry. 

Injuring yourself (because the day of a major trip is the perfect time to attempt to go to the ER.) Thankfully, no medical action was needed. Liquid bandaid to the rescue!

Participate and/or view your class play (moved to this day at this time because your teacher knew you were going to be heading out of town for three weeks that very day).

Laughing at everyone staying in Utah when you woke up to snow the day you finally got to fly away to a warmer place! 

March 2021 Part 5: Home Improvemements

 Last month, on Home Improvements...The expansion on the deck was underway, but got delayed by weather. 

This month, the deck expansion continued and was completed. Again, we watched mostly from the comfort of our office. 

We found a guy to do our new metal railing for the deck (he actually did the original railing), but we had to wait a few weeks for the railing to be made. In the meantime, we attached our old railing to our benches with zip ties

to keep everyone safe. 

Brian really wanted to sit on the new part for a second, so we carefully stepped over our temporary fence to enjoy our new deck. 

And then climbed right back over. I realized that I really don't like being on platforms without guardrails. 

In order to order the railing for the deck, we needed to build our slide so we'd know where the opening needed to be. There were so many pieces and the instructions weren't super clear, especially because we were somewhere between an 8 foot slide and a 9 foot slide. We had lots of helpers though:

We put it together at least three different ways before finally being satisfied. 

With the slide measured, we were able to order our metal railing, and two weeks later, they came and got it installed. One of the kids thought one of the installers looked like Daveed Diggs and another thought he looked like Thomas Jefferson from Hamilton (played by Daveed Diggs) from the back. 

Finally, the railing was in and Brian and I finished installing the slide. It was mostly Brian, but I did help. A little. 

Ta dah!

Gabe was the first kid to go down and test it. He said, "It's good!"

It was time to get patio furniture. We tried a bunch of stores, but apparently we were still early in the season. What we did find, we didn't love. We decided to look more after we got back from Florida. 

Brian made little shelves for our kitchen, and I put stuff on them. 

We did a little more organizing in our pantry, including this IKEA bar thing (which we had to replace their metal bar with this wooden one because the metal one was too long) to hang cleaning things on. 

Brian cut a new shelf for the kids bathroom, and it looks so much better spanning the whole section. 

After months of waiting, all the speakers and things for our theater room arrived! They took up so much room in the car that there wasn't room for me inside, so I walked over to a home decor store while Brian hauled the car full of boxes home. Then, he came back for me. 

A few days later, the screen came in, and we barely got it into the car. I had to ride home in the back seat in order for it to fit. May it never be said that I don't love my husband. 

Unfortunately, Brian didn't have any time to do anything with any of these things before it was time for us to head to Florida. At least he got to go to Florida though. 

March 2021 Part 4: Hobbies and Skills

Did you know that Michael likes airplanes? Did you also know that he built his own airplane from scratch out of foam board? Did you also know that he got a pattern and built another one? Did you know he figured out what pieces and electronics he needed to make it fly? Did you know I've lost track of how many planes he's made and which ones actually flew?

Here's Michael's Mustang. (I don't know it's full name, but he does. Unfortunately, he's not here to ask, and I'm too lazy to go track him down to find out.)

It took him some time to build, and then he was finally ready to test it. 

This is how it went: 

Almost as messy as the craft room (and this is fairly clean, actually)

Don't worry; he rebuilt. He learned how to make it better, and he tried again, but not in March. 

Speaking of learning, after a three year break, I finally took Gabe back to swimming lessons. We were getting ready to go to Florida, and it was time for him to know how to swim. 

It was hard work, but he really loved it.

Soon, he was swimming across the pool.

I also signed Rachel up for swimming lessons. I figured she'd catch on faster since she was eight now. I told her a week or so before she was to start, "Rachel, I signed you up for swimming lessons and it's time you decided that you're going to be a swimmer. You have a week."

She did great! She was swimming across the pool in no time at all. 

I had a couple of photo shoots in March. I did a mini senior session for our nephew, Hunter (not pictured) and I took my cousin, Christie's, engagement photos at a local greenhouse. 

I also participated in a styled shoot at Arbor Manor in Salt Lake County. The models were all really fun to work with, as well as the vendors. 

I just wish that I didn't have to wear the mask the whole time. It was so hot and hard to breathe! 

In March, Brian continued to be an amazing programmer for Adobe and prepared to be on a four week break from work.