2023 :: week 30

Summer Week #10

July 23

Sunday afternoon we attempted to get a picture of all the grandkids with their tie-dyed shirts. Some were more excited about it than others. That evening after (salmon) dinner the sisters had a "meeting" with our mom and dad where we discussed end of life plans, asset locations, retirement goals, funeral wishes, etc. All that stuff people love to think about. ;)

July 24

Monday morning the Toms packed up and headed back to Utah. We enjoyed having them, but know that travel with toddlers and babies is exhausting. Sunday night we stayed up later than we should have visiting with Laura and Trevor, so I was a bit tired Monday. Monday night Melanie and I went to see the Barbie movie with friends from my book club. We thought it was clever and especially loved "Weird Barbie," because our family definitely had a weird off-brand Barbie affectionately referred to as Horns. Horns originally was in our Grandma Crane's small selection of toys, but one of our Barbies got swapped with Horns and she became legend with the Crane sisters.

July 25

Tuesday we went to Clinton Lake with the cousin crew. Jill & Jake brought their paddle board and tent, which made things extra fun and comfortable. The Staritas brought Tyler with them and we brought Mikey so the Wilson boys could come even though Matt had to work and Emily didn't want to take Calvin out in the sun. The kids had fun swimming, playing in the sand and digging for clay. The adults had fun chatting and snacking and swimming a bit too. Our water life has gotten so much more pleasant now that Miles enjoys the water. I remembered to bring our cooler, but left our bag of food (pretzels, cookies, etc.) on the counter at home, so others shared with us. Tony really liked the cinnamon sugar Dot's pretzels that tasted like churros. 

July 26

I was so tired on Wednesday. I got up and took Elliott to an early dentist appointment (he got his first filling) and felt like I was dragging all day after that. In the afternoon we stopped by his classmate Jaklyn's summer treat sale. Jacklyn and her brother James were selling strawberry lemonade and cake flavored homemade ice cream. I can honestly say I have never bought roadside treats from kids that tasted this good! Their mom Katy is an excellent cook so I shouldn't have been too surprised

July 27

On Thursday afternoon I drove Will & Lauren to Independence for the MAMA festival. They had a bit of nerves on the drive there. The kids perform their pieces in a room alone with a judge. While Will was performing "Katy's Dance," he stopped and restarted and I was worried for him. When he came out he was sure he had failed, but he played well enough on his second try and even better on "The Spy" that he still received a Superior rating. Lauren also received superior ratings for her song, "Part of Your World," and "Jazzy Cat." At the practice recital the week before she made several mistakes and was excited to redeem herself. I was so proud of both of them for working hard and persevering through set-backs. I treated the kids to chick-fil-a milkshakes and we headed home, they had to wait a few weeks for their teacher to bring them their trophies. Last year the festival was in St. Louis and we made a trip of it, but when it is in KC we don't go back Sunday for the award's ceremony.

July 28

Friday we said goodbye to the Staritas (they would leave Saturday morning). In the morning we went to the Allred's house to celebrate Arthur's birthday a little early. His really wanted to have a birthday party with his cousins and the Allreds went all out putting on a really fun water party. That evening we went to Bluejacket for Blaise's birthday party. He and Elliott have gotten to be great buddies this last year! The pool really cooled us off, which was perfect because we then met the Throssells at Theatre in the Park to see Footloose. I had no idea how many classic songs came from that movie! I knew about the theme song (obviously), but "Almost Paradise," "Let's Hear it for the Boy," and "Holding out for a Hero" were all surprises. 

July 29

Saturday I hosted a small group recipe exchange relief society activity. Each of us prepared an easy go-to meal and brought it and the recipe to share. Kami, Rebecca, Jennifer, Bonnie and Allison attended. It was fun trying new recipes and visiting with friends. In the evening the Maxfields arrived for a week of fun! Lauren's friend's (Breña) mom was selling authentic Peruvian food that we bought for dinner for the adults and we treated the kids with pizza. After dinner we walked over the the pool and went swimming. It was cheaper for the Maxfields to buy a pool pass than to pay each time if we went three times, and being that it was forecasted to be in the high 90s most of their visit we figured we'd be spending a lot of time at the pool. We are excited to show the Maxfields the four OP Pools over the next week, and are interested in their unbiased assessments of the pools. 

2023 :: week 29

July 16

Miles has a hard time saying goodbye when we drop him off at primary. When Tony attends our ward he drops him off because Miles is a little less clingy with him. Sister Benedict, the primary chorister gave Miles a footstep to use during singing time and he was pretty pleased about it, though he was trying not to show it.

July 17

Over the past few weeks I have been working on decluttering...again. It seems to be a never-ending process. I recently joined a "Buy Nothing" group on Facebook and have had success in giving new life to some of the items taking up space in our house that we no longer want or need. I know that the easiest way to keep the house clutter-free is to limit what we bring into our house, we are working on that too.

July 18

I went to the event formerly known as "Mormon Night" on Tuesday with low expectations. The Royals record is not great and the forecast was incredibly hot and humid. My boys on the other hand, were amped to be there and super excited to have a good time. Everyone's expectations were exceeded. It turned out to be one of the most exciting games of the season as the Royals won 11-10. Dairon Blanco had a career night, hitting a triple, two doubles and a single. Will sat with his buddies Jude and Adrian about 10 rows below us, and the Allreds moved over to our row after the second inning so we were surrounded by friends. Will and his friends were briefly seen on the big screen dancing. Things got a little stressful when the Royals gave up four runs in the top of the 9th, but were able to hang on for the win (they had been up most of the game). I know no one really cares about my opinion, but I like the faster pace of the game with the new pitch clock rules.

July 19

Why is making dinner during the summer such a chore? We eat a lot of pizza, tacos and breakfast for dinner during the summer. I had to document when I chicken tikka masala. 

July 20

This week Elliott was invited to attend Camp Invention, a free STEM camp offered by our school district. Each elementary school was able to send nine kids and OPC sent all 1st graders.  As explained in the welcome letter, the goal for the week was to give students the opportunity to "explore a range of subjects and create immersive in-person environments that encourage children to take risks, apply hands-on problem solving, and practice critical and creative thinking." Here Elliott and his friends Liam, Sadie and Eli are holding their "mimic bots," (Elliott named his Bobby Witt Junior Junior). Throughout the week they worked on creating individual pop-up ventures (Elliott's was a card shop called E's Card Shop) where they were challenged to come up with a product their classmates would want to buy. They also each built a skate park for their mini-riders to ride their skateboards. Elliott was nervous about attending, but each day when I picked him up he was beaming and declared each day a little better than the day before. We are so grateful Elliott was able to have this amazing week!

 

July 20

My sister Laura and her family stayed with us for a few days this week (7/20-24). Melanie and her family overlapped with their yearly visit (7/21-29) and the entire Crane family was together for an informal reunion. Miles and Hannah became great friends over the weekend. Miles is about 18 months older than Hannah, but thanks to her amazing vocabulary, height and social skills they seem about the same age. 

July 21

We took a group picture to remember the time we were all together. On Friday afternoon we tie-dyed t-shirts for each of the kids together, which was a little bit more chaotic than we anticipated. Saturday many of us spent several hours at Tomahawk. Elliott is finally tall enough to go down the slides and he was elated to go down with Leah and Tyler. That evening we all gathered at my parents house for some delicious ribs, smoked by my dad. Later all the sisters came back and played Marrying Mr. Darcy while eating Twisted Sugar cookies. Three of the five of us ended up "Old Maids," so I guess we lucked out in real life. 

2023 :: week 28

July 9

Sometimes the kids act crazy in the foyer after church. In the afternoon Anthony and I met with the Stake leaders over the youth class we teach (Pres. Larsen, Sis. Atkinson and Bro. Royer). We discussed how things are going with our class as well as the direction the youth leaders would like to see the class go. When we start up again in the fall we will have a tighter focus on the recently revamped Preach My Gospel, and the name will be changed to Living & Sharing the Gospel.

July 10

I started the week off with a headache, which wasn't helped by the fact that we found out that we would need to spend approximately $1550 to fix a leak in our basement. In the morning a plumber came to the house to find the root of the problem. Our water main runs through copper pipes, and the pipes vibrate slightly when water runs through them (I am told this is normal). As the pipes age (our house is 45 years old) they are susceptible to holes. What starts as tiny as a pinprick eventually grow until they are constantly dripping. We aren't to the constant drip stage yet, but know that at that point the repairs become "emergency," so it is best to take care of this before that happens. He's coming back next week to finish the job. Monday night I took Lauren and Daphne to Five Below so they could do a little shopping. The girls were very well behaved and found many good deals.

July 11

Elliott had a great day with buddies on Tuesday. When we went to the park after lunch we ran into several friends. Jolie was kind and offered to have Elliott over for awhile after I told her I felt a migraine coming on. Cole and Ian went over too. Jolie grilled them hamburgers for dinner and the boys played baseball in the year for hours. It was a perfect day for Elliott. Summer is more fun with friends!

July 12

Will had some simple summer fun with friends this week too. On Wednesday he met Tripp and Landon at the pool. After awhile they wandered around the neighborhood and bought some snacks at Target. After that they came back to our house and played some backyard baseball. Elliott and Miles tried to get in on the fun too. 

July 13

During the warm months--typically May to early October--water aerobics classes at Genesis are held outside. I have mixed feelings about this. I love being outside, but the pool is slightly smaller so there is usually less space to move around. I really enjoy Sarissa's classes and almost always feel like I get a great workout. 

July 14

This week Lauren had girl scout camp at Camp Prairie Schooner in Lee's Summit. Because it is so hot the camp ran from 2-8pm each day. Parents dropped the girls off at SMS and they rode buses to camp, then picked them up back at SMS at the end of the day. Overall I think Lauren had a fun time. Different parents signed up to go help supervise the girls and I was originally scheduled to go Tuesday, but Angela asked if I would trade her and go Friday instead. It ended up being a great move for me because I had a bad headache early in the week, but was feeling a lot better by Friday. Unfortunately, a huge storm passed through the metro and we ended up spending most of the day (over 5 hours) in the mess hall. The power went out and we spent the day playing various games to pass the time. It was hard to see how bad the storm was, because we were inside and in a more remote area. When we got back to OP we could see how bad things were. Limbs were down all over the place, as well as many large trees. In our neighborhood we passed several fully mature trees completely uprooted!

July 15

We spent a few hours Saturday clearing up debris from the storm. In the afternoon we took a little day trip to Atchison. Earlier this year Lauren and I read the book The Amelia Six together. The book is a mystery set in the childhood home of Amelia Earhart. While we were reading it I made the realization that we lived less than an hour from said home and couldn't believe I had never been there if when it was that close. Being that the Amelia Earhart birthplace is included as a place we can get free admission to via the Sunflower Summer App I added a visit to our family Summer Bucket List. Lauren and I also read Amelia, Lost! to prepare for our visit. While we drove north we listened to a short podcast about her final flight, and I tried to supplement with information we learned from our reading so the boys would be up to speed. It was good we did all that research, because the home itself was light on narrative. The family home was located in a picturesque setting, across the street from the Kansas River. The tours were self-guided, and though each room was filled with cool artifacts from her lifetime, if you didn't already know much about her you would struggle to understand the significance of many of the items. We learned that her younger sister Muriel was not only instrumental in getting the museum up and running, but she also lived most of her adult life in the Boston area and taught school at Belmont High School from 1959-1969 (TJ's alma mater). It was a fun day trip!

2023 :: week 27

Summer Week #7

July 2

When we woke up Sunday we were all so tired. We had less than eight hours to drive before we made it home, but it felt like forever. Construction slowed our driving down and we did end up in the car for an extra hour. Most of our drive was green and flat. When we were about an hour past St. Louis I had to use the bathroom, so we stopped at a gas station. While I was inside Anthony decided to fill up our tank. Unfortunately, he happened to stop in front of the only diesel pump. As I walked out to the car he was walking towards me and told me, "I made a big mistake." He accidentally started pumping diesel into our van! Thankfully he realized pretty quickly and only put in about three gallons. At first we thought we would need to get our van towed and then the diesel siphoned out. After talking to a few people at the gas station we decided to push the van forward to a regular gasoline pump and fill the rest of the tank with premium unleaded gas (93 rating). We also added an octane treatment. Diesel fuel has very low octane (25-40 rating) so the hope was to dilute the effect of the diesel. It seemed to work. We made it home AND got amazing gas mileage. 

July 3

We were all pretty tired Monday. Anthony returned to work. The rest of us worked on unpacking, doing laundry and recalibrating to being at home. In the afternoon we went to the pool to help us ease in to "normalcy."

July 4

We had an awesome 4th of July this year. In the morning we went to the parade at the Lenexa Freedom Festival. In the afternoon we spent several hours at the pool. The Wilsons hosted a picnic at their house in the evening. We went to the parking lot at Bluejacket for Uncle Matt's 4th Annual fireworks show, then watched fireworks at the golf course. 

July 5

Lauren had her last softball game on Wednesday. Lauren has really enjoyed playing with the Monarchs for the past few years. Unfortunately, she will not continue to play because both softball and soccer require a pretty big time commitment and our family does not have the bandwidth for both. 

July 6

Blueberry picking is something I want to do every summer, but is sometimes hard to make happen. Thursday evening the stars aligned and we went blueberry picking. The temperature dipped into the low 80s and we had nothing on the calendar. We only picked for about half an hour, but harvested several pounds of the most delicious blueberries I have ever eaten. After we picked the kids climbed in the play area and we shared some muffins from the general store. On the way home we visited my parents are shared some of our pickings with them. It was close to a perfect night.

July 7

While we were in WV I noticed a hard lump on Miles' left leg. I asked Steven to feel it and he said he didn't think it was something to be worried about, but that we should get it x-rayed to make sure. The doctors at our pediatrician's office were amazing and got us in very quickly after we returned from our trip. After x-raying Miles' leg we have learned that he has a osteochondroma. An osteochondroma is an overgrowth of bone near the end of the bone and growth plate. It is not a problem at this point because it doesn't seem to cause Miles any discomfort, but he should be able to let us know if it is bothering him as he gets older. We will meet with an orthopedic doctor once a year to monitor the size and how Miles is feeling. 

July 8

Anthony and I spent several hours Saturday cleaning in our garage. We threw away a bunch of junk, organized, sorted and swept. I posted a few things on the local "buy nothing" facebook group and had takers almost immediately. There is so much more room to walk around now! 

2023 :: week 26

Summer Week #6 

 

June 25

On Sunday we went tubing down the Cheat River in nearby Parsons, WV. This isn't a typical Sunday activity for our family, but after looking at the forecast the only day without rain was Sunday. To get there we drove about 45 minutes through some of the most gorgeous scenery I've ever seen in my life. It was also the steepest, narrowest trip our van has taken. It was well worth it--it can be difficult to find an activity that all 31 of us can do. The younger kids were able to float either on their parents laps or in the cooler rafts. We had a great time! It was just warm enough that the water felt refreshing and cool. Our only frustration was that we were put in the river one tube at a time and most of the early tubers were the school aged kids, with the adults towards the back. We were hoping that we could join together, but that never happened. Instead there were spread into small clumps. Poor Elliott who doesn't weigh much got stuck in the reeds a few times and both Anthony and I had to walk against the current to get him going again. After we had finished tubing and browsing the gift shop Daniel overhead another patron say "that is  s*** ton of kids."  In the morning, before we emarked on our tubing adventure,  Doug and Tina gave a Come Follow Me lesson. That evening, after the kids were in their rooms for the night the adults gathered to share something meaningful they had learned over the past year. 

June 26

Games were a major part of the week. People spent time playing One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Family Feud, Cards Against Humanity (Family Edition) and Long Shot. In the evening the adults stayed up late playing card games--Hearts and Spades. In this photo Doug is struggling to speak due to a fart joke. Potty humor is usually a win with this crowd.  Additionally a lot of time was spent playing video games on kindles and switches. You could almost always find groups of kids huddled around a kindle watching other kids play. 

June 27

Monday afternoon Anthony, Meredith, Hillary, Tina and I took a group of kids on a "scouting" expedition to Blackwater Falls Park. We were pleasantly surprised by how easy the hike to the falls was, and came back with most of the family the next day. The falls were gorgeous. All week I couldn't get over the beauty of West Virginia. It rained on us a bit while we were there, but we were still able to have a good time. After the short hike we stopped at the gift shop and many people bought souvenirs. We also treated ourselves to ice cream. In the afternoon we all showered and got ready for family pictures. All day we fretted about the weather, but during 20 dry minutes we were able to get some great group pictures. Christmas card picture, check! Pictured are each of our kids with the cousins that are closest in age.

June 28

A puzzle table was set up in the 4th floor kitchen we didn't use for eating. Throughout the course of the week two puzzles were completed. In addition to puzzling the older cousins (minus Sadie and Will) set up a nook where the kids created with perler beads, and made friendship bracelets with polymer beads and also embroidery floss. Other fun things--Alicia brought their bounce house for the smaller kids to jump in. Sadie and Will made "awards" for each of the cousins. Kids spent lots of time playing ping pong, pool, and air hockey in the game room. 

June 29

On Friday we rode the scenic chair lift at the Canaan (pronounced Ca-nane) Valley Resort (same place we took family photos). Unfortunately the Canadian wildfires finally caught up to us and limited the view. The air quality was bad enough that Tina needed to stay inside and several of us got light headaches. We also took the kids mini-golfing after we rode the chairlift. We joked that the resort should have taken photos of our group for their promotional materials because the course was pretty shabby and our group made the place look bumpin'. The Salazars bought BBQ for dinner and everyone spent the evening packing up, preparing to leave in the morning.

June 30

Friday morning we checked out of the house and headed to Pittsburgh. It was hard to say goodbye to cousins, especially after such an amazing week. Thankfully we had something else exciting to help us out of our blue funk. When we realized that we would be so close to Pittsburgh we decided we needed to stop by on our way home and see a Pirates game. Anthony invited his parents because Doug cheered for the Pirates as a child. We had enough time before the game to pay a quick visit to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum. We were only able to visit for about an hour but were impressed! Mr. Rogers is from PGH and there was a display of original puppets from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood on display, including Daniel Tiger. We got free bucket hats at the Pirates game, which helped with the heat before the sun went down. The stadium is beautiful! I can see why it is routinely ranked high. The view of the river, bridges and downtown was spectacular. Unfortunately we were exhausted. Anthony struggled to stay awake and we because we knew we had a busy day ahead of us, we decided to leave a bit early. Will was very disappointed. Especially when the game ended on a walk-off homerun after the Pirates rallied and scored three runs in the 9th to defeat the Brewers.

July 1

Our hotel room in Pittsburgh was uncomfortably hot and none of us slept well. We had a hard time waking up Saturday, which put us on the road later than we had planned and we ended up missing the first two innings of the Reds game. The Reds were playing the Padres and lost 12-5. It was a fun game--we saw four homeruns, including two from Manny Machado (not my favorite player). We sat on the top row of the stadium, but directly behind home plate, which were actually pretty decent seats. The Great American Ball Park also has a great view, though it was funny to me that it was actually Kentucky on the other side of the Ohio River we could see from our seats. Taylor Swift was in town for her Eras tour, playing at the Bengals Stadium nearby that evening. The organ played several of her songs throughout the game, and as we walked back to our car it was very obvious who was going to the concert verses who was going to the concert. After eating Wendy's for dinner we drove another two hours to Indianapolis for the night. Anthony and I were feeling very fatigued. As we got ready for bed we could see fireworks outside our hotel window.