Birthday, HMTC, Temple, Garden Produce, Canning, Whoops!, Elastography

This summer has been pretty crazy! I don’t feel like it has been very organized, but we have done a lot of things.  Now as the summer is winding down this meme shows how I felt about all the crazy stuff that has happened these last few months--haha!  Needless to say we will be coming into the start of school pretty much a hot mess, but we will make it through, right?!

Summer is winding down.  Utah is going through a severe drought this summer.  However, we did get an impressive rain storm that brought lightning and thunder along with it two weeks ago.  There were multiple flashes of lightning every minute.  I was trying to get a good shot, but this is the best my phone did.  It is part of a lightning flash behind my neighbor’s home:

It was amazing to watch and listen to it while sitting on the porch for over an hour.

Today is Friday the 13th.  I am not superstitious, maybe just a little ’stitious’ though--haha!  Friday the 13th doesn’t bother me.  I did find a funny meme about it, though:

This morning I went to the track with Josh so he could work out with his companion which was me.  We were the only ones there which was great!  We did see some deer go by while we were there.  That was pretty cool since we live in the city and don’t see that very often.  

Aaron LOVES potato salad.  He made a big batch a few days ago.  However, Daniel felt like it needed some Smoked Paprika sprinkled over the top of it.  Daniel thought he would help it out and put some paprika all over the potato salad.  It wasn’t until Aaron had a bowl full that he found Daniel’s very spicy mistake.  Daniel accidentally got the containers confused and instead of putting paprika on it, he put a bunch of ground cayenne pepper all over it.  Wow, you could light a candle at 10 paces with how hot it was.  I am a super wuss when it comes to spicy things so I did not handle it well.  Good thing Daniel likes it (or at least he says he likes it to save face) because there is a giant Tupperware container full of it in the fridge--haha!

Last Sunday we were getting ready to take Matthew back to his group home when the van wouldn’t start.  DOH!! In messing around with it to see what the problem was it ended up being a bad battery.  It didn’t act like a typical dead battery so it took a while to figure out what the problem was.  Anyway, I am grateful that it was just a bad battery.  Even though that is not cheap, it is definitely cheaper to fix than other problems it could have been.  Another thing I am grateful for is that it happened in our garage.  I had had a few shifts down in Salt Lake the week before and the upcoming week so I am glad it died at home instead of stranding me in Salt Lake!!  I am counting my blessings!!

This past Wednesday we got an awesome opportunity as a young women group to tour the new Layton temple currently being built.  We got to hear some history about the land it was being built on and got to see some of the building supplies that were being used.

It was nice to have Sarah along with me!

Here’s our young women group that came for the tour:

In our garden this year two of our many tomato plants ended up growing some different tomatoes.  We don’t know if the signs on the plants at the nursery got switched or if the flowers got pollenated by something weird or what, but they are growing some tomatoes that look like these:

It’s one of those weird things, but we will still eat the weird tomatoes.  Our garden is really starting to produce like crazy.  Last week we got this:

Aaron smoked the salsa ingredients in the smoker and then made some fresh salsa.  It was really good!  I also made 4 loaves of zucchini bread.  We had bacon wrapped peppers for dinner for a few nights in a row.  Then we gave a bunch to G&G T.

Then we picked all this a few days ago:

I was excited to have about a bushel of tomatoes so I bottled some spaghetti sauce.  We didn’t do a garden last year since Aaron had ankle/foot surgery about the time the garden needed to be started and I didn’t want to take on such a big project myself with everything else going on.  That meant we ran out of homemade canned spaghetti sauce and salsa.  I am excited to build my stash back up.  Also canning lids are really hard to find right now.  I guess the Covid pandemic got a lot of people interested in food storage and self reliance.  That meant that you can’t find canning lids or supplies very easily right now.  I did find some no name brand lids, but I was wary to use them.  I have used no name lids in the past and although they seal right away, they don’t STAY sealed throughout the year.  That is frustrating to put so much work into something and then have to throw it out when the lid pops up unexpectedly a few months later--DOH!  I was pleasantly surprised when I pulled out my canning stuff to find two boxes of name brand lids inside--wahoo!  I made a lot of spaghetti sauce with the tomatoes and then canned it all.  I ended up getting 22 quarts done.  Next batch of tomatoes is slated for salsa--I can’t wait!

We have been getting quite a few cucumbers as well.  I had Daniel cut up some cucumbers for dinner last Sunday.  I was surprised he put some emphasis on presentation, too!  Here’s our fancy cucumber dish that we ate for dinner compliments of Daniel--haha!

Josh is still doing Home MTC.  He spends most of his time downstairs with the iPad in classes with his district.  However, every break he comes upstairs to get a change of scenery and talk to us about what his classes were about.  It is fun to hear what he is learning about.  However, he did come up last week and did this number for us.  It was pretty funny!

His district spent the first two weeks learning how to teach the doctrine in English.  Then last Tuesday everything went 100% to Spanish.  They are not allowed to say anything in English anymore to help immerse them int he language so they can learn it quickly.  Josh has been a bit overwhelmed, but he is learning.  He did get up to bear his testimony in church on the last Fast Sunday.  He did half in English and attempted half in Spanish.  We heard from a few Spanish speakers that it was a bit rough around the edges, but he still got the meaning across.  I am proud that he even attempted that because I think I would have been to scared to try!

We did get his travel/flight plans two days ago.  I am excited for him, but I did cry a little bit.  I am excited for him to get to Chicago, but will miss him!  We are both glad it is a direct flight with no layovers anywhere. However, it looks like he will be in a middle seat which will be a bit unpleasant since he 6’6” and all legs.  It will be interesting, though! I found these memes I shared with him because I think this is exactly what his flight experience will be like--haha!

In the evenings after Josh’s HMTC classes are over we have been watching Book of Mormon videos, playing games as a family, going for walks or a combo of all three.  However, Sophie now fully understands what the word ‘walk’ means and goes ballistic when she hears it.  We have now started referring to it as going on a ‘jaunt’ around the neighborhood so she doesn’t get her hopes up until we are ready to go.  When she does get the leash put on her collar she will pull you to the front door and bark and jump until you go outside with her.  She is a crazy dog!  Here she is barking and jumping at Josh to open the door and go on a ‘jaunt’ around the neighborhood.

However, the lady that grooms Sophie (she HATES being groomed) lives right around the corner from us. When we walk by Jackie’s house Sophie will yank on the leash trying to pull us along because she does not want to stop.  If you even step foot up the drive way Sophie immediately stops walking and puts on all four brakes because she refuses to even walk up the drive-way--haha! Josh pretended to start walking up the drive way and Sophie absolutely refused to walk at all.  Even to turn around she had to be drug about a foot before she realized we were walking away and then started RUNNING away.  Crazy dog!

I have been going to the track with Josh in the mornings as his companion so he can run.  The other morning we were there just after sunrise and the sun was bright red.  It looked like that because of all the smoke from the wildfires burning all around us.  It made for a pretty picture, but horrible, hazy air conditions.  I am sure it has been hard on people who have asthma because the air quality is so bad.

We got to see these cool clouds on the way to the track the other morning, too:

Josh got to attend a friend’s missionary open house for a few minutes last Sunday.  They are both Spanish speaking, but going to different missions.  They will be excited to speak Spanish to each other in their emails and when they get home.

Matthew’s birthday was last week.  He has been so excited for his 20th birthday.  He would call multiple times a day to discuss his 20th birthday.  That started back in February.  We finally told him that we won’t be talking about his birthday until after July 15th.  He waited patiently, but as soon as July 15th came it was all about his 20th birthday all day every day--haha!  He wanted to have a party.  There was so much going on all at once during the beginning of the summer that we didn’t get around to planning his party until mid July.  However, Matthew was super excited that once I told him the tentative plans he told his house manager that I gave the okay to print party invitations.  DOH!!   I had not given the okay, yet, since I had yet to reserve a place.  However, the invitations got printed, but afterward the place he wanted to have his party and that was already listed on the invitations was not available.  DOH!!  We did end up reserving a bowery in a nearby park instead,  but Matthew’s house manager had to go through and change all of the already 35 printed out invitations by hand.  We helped Matthew send them out and he could hardly wait for his birthday the rest of the time.  We then had a scare.  An employee in Matthew’s day program test positive for Covid. They had to shut his day program down for 2 weeks.  He was so upset by that.  They also emailed us telling us that they were discouraging home visits during those two weeks to prevent the spread of Covid.  When I read that email my heart dropped.  That meant Matthew would not be able to have his birthday party that he has been looking forward to for at least 6 months.  We didn’t understand why he needed to be quarantined since he has been vaccinated, but that is what the email said.  We were trying to come up with a solution, but there was not a good one to be found.  However, a few days later one of the coordinators called to talk to Aaron about something else.  Aaron asked him why he needed to be quarantined since he was fully vaccinated.  The coordinator said he didn’t need to quarantine and that there must have been a miscommunication somewhere.  We were so relieved!!  So the party was back on.  Finally his birthday came.  He was so excited!!  His old high school teacher and her family took him out to lunch to celebrate.  Then that afternoon/evening was his party.  We had a bunch of cookies and drinks set up.  There were a ton of people that came!!  They all signed his poster sized birthday card.  Then they recorded a short video saying happy birthday to Matthew.  Aaron is going to compile all the short videos into one big one so Matthew can watch it at any time.  He was so excited to see everyone that came!! I was so thankful/grateful for everyone that took the time to stop by.  It meant so much!!  After the party we cleaned up and brought him back to our house.  Before his birthday he made a gift wish list.  We picked a few things off that list to give him.  Then Matthew had been saving his money to purchase a few things.  His house manager took some of his agreed amount of savings a bought a few more things off his wish list, but didn’t tell him which items so he could keep it a surprise.  Matthew was so excited to open his new leaf blower.  He also got some back to school supplies, shoes, and clothes.  He had a great birthday!!  Here’s some of the people that were at his party:

He had a few more come visit him at our house later on, too!  Then it was present time!!

His actual birthday was on a Friday which is when he did his party.  We did a birthday dinner for him on Sunday.  He chose hamburgers for his birthday food and an ice cream cake.  Here’s what 20 candles looks like:

His huge birthday card everyone signed:

His high school teacher gave him a really awesome gift.  She had gone around and had all the administrators and teachers that were close to Matthew write a note to him.  She then went and framed it so he could hang it on his wall.  That is such a thoughtful gift!!  Here’s what it looked like:

Noah wanted some macaroni and cheese the other day for lunch.  The easiest way for him to make it was in the Instant Pot.  I was telling him how to make it from a different room since we were not in the same room, but not watching him make it.  He put the pasta in and dumped the water in to get things started.  That’s when I heard an, "Uh oh!”  I came into the room to see he had forgotten to put the liner inside the pot, but had already poured the water in.  DOH!!  That meant all the electronics just got dowsed in water.  My heart sank.  It was my 8 quart Instant Pot, too.  I use this thing frequently to make dinner so it made me sad to think it might just have gotten ruined.  I immediately unscrewed the bottom and tried to dry the inside as well as I could.  I dumped out all the wet/hard noodles that had yet to be cooked and then wiped everything down.  Then I let it dry for a few days before I would attempt to turn it on in hopes that it would still work.

After 6 days I put it all back together and crossed my fingers as I turned it on.  I was so excited to see that it still worked.  I think Noah was glad, too, because he had felt really bad that he was the one that forgot to put the liner inside in the first place.  We had macaroni and tomato sauce for dinner to celebrate.  Wahoo!!

Noah always is asking to have a sleep over at G&G T’s house.  They were able to have him over last week.  Grandpa T is really into coin collecting.  While Noah was there they set him up with some pennies and his own penny collection board.  Noah has been a bit obsessed.  He got a bunch of the penny slots filled with the correct pennies, but he was still looking for a few different years that he hadn’t found yet.  To try and find those different years he has begged me to take him to the bank to get some rolls of pennies to search through them for the correct dates.  We have made 3 different trips to the bank for rolls of pennies.  He is getting close, but will still need to try searching through a few more rolls to complete his collection.  Here he is with Grandpa T showing off their work:

Kids and chores are not a good combination at least not at our house.  Sometimes I get so tired of fighting with kids to do their chores!!  It can seem like it would be easier to bang me head against the wall than to get someone to load the dishwasher without any whining or complaining or fighting, etc.  The other day it was a certain someones turn to load the dishwasher.  The sink was overflowing with dishes from lunch that needed to be loaded.  This someone loaded the dishwasher and insisted it was full even though the sink still had quite a few dishes in it.  I was fine with that until I opened it after the cycle was finished to see how empty it was when I as previously assured it was ‘full’.  They just didn’t want to spend any more time loading the dishwasher so they though in a few things and turned it on.  DOH!!  What can you do?!  Here’s the ‘full’ dishwasher:

I then told them that they needed to unload and reload the dishwasher again and then be responsible to hand wash any dishes left in the sink.  Amazingly enough there were no dishes in the sink and the dishwasher was completely full the next round--haha!  Don’t you love kids?!

Noah has lost two teeth in the last two weeks.  Unfortunately, the first tooth got lost when the bowl it was in mistakenly got loaded in the dishwasher.  Noah has made sure this second tooth won’t get lost, though.

Sarah had her elastography done down at Primary Children’s last week.  We have an appointment to discuss the results on Monday with the Liver Team.  It didn’t take very long, but Sarah couldn’t eat or drink anything for 12 hours beforehand.  Here’s Sarah getting ready to start:

Elastography is a specialized ultra sound that looks for scar tissue or fibrosis in the liver.  It is a good less invasive way to see what is going on with the liver without doing a biopsy.