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.