August

Bailey plays Mom for 2 weeks

The end of July and beginning of August brought a Europe trip for me and Dan and the kids taking care of themselves back home. They seemed to do great! 

The day before we left out of town, we took Bailey to her choice of restaurant for lunch (Freshiis). Aubrey was already at Girl's Camp.

And then, we left Bailey very capably in charge. She had lots of plans, and they completed many of the fun things on their lists.

Two of Bailey's roommates unexpectedly came to town to see Portland from Thursday through Sunday. Bailey figured out how to entertain them and still play Mom. One of the days they went to Portland to see the sights and another day they hiked the Gorge. Joseph went on the beautiful hike as well. It was great timing because a month later that part of the Gorge was on fire and the hike is now scorched!

Before we got home, they cleaned the house spotless. I'm so glad my kids have learned how to make and finish chore lists! 

We appreciated so much Bailey coming to town to be in charge. She and Aubrey kept things running beautifully and that helped us to enjoy our trip. 

These are the gifts we brought back for the kids from England.

Quick Utah Trip

Half a week after Bailey flew home I flew to Utah to help her buy a car and to meet Preston.

While there we did some back to school shopping.

 And Preston joined the Springer family for a dinner at Zupas. 

Afterward, I went with Bailey and Preston to walk through the stores at Riverwoods.

Backing up a day, we spent one entire day looking for and then purchasing her a 2014 Hyundai Elantra. It is a great car, but the purchasing process was, always, arduous and painful! I did successfully bargain the dealership down $500 and we got a good deal for a great car with low miles. However, we didn't find out until we had signed that there was no key fob for the car (so the next day we had to pay $200 to have one made. And then the key fob still doesn't open up the trunk, which is probably due to an electrical issue with the car. Oh well - the car is under warranty still and it truly is a good car!).  Bailey had her first experience of signing a million forms in order to make a large purchase. 

Afterward, we met up with Preston a few hours after we had intended and then took off to find dinner. We ended up getting a burrito and then going to a place in West Jordan called The Chocolate where we got three varieties of Pizookies. 

 Bailey's cute apartment and the white board where she wrote this great quote.

 While we waited at a dealership in Lindon for 1 1/2 hours for the key fob to be made, Bailey and I sat on this narrow strip of grass and talked about life. And it was super fun to be with my wonderful daughter in the beautiful Utah summer weather, looking at Mount Timpanogas!

Last few weeks of summer

Aubrey and I checked out a darling bakery in town with delicious pastries.

 We bought all the needed back to school shoes in one place, and I was thrilled to be done quickly! I got off the hook easily this year. Aubrey and I went shopping once earlier in the summer, and Joseph did his back to school clothes shopping with Bailey while we were out of town.

Noodle Fail

I really gave it a good effort to find a suitable homemade version of the noodles from the Birdseye Garlic Chicken which Joseph likes. I found three recipes which are supposed to be knock-offs of the Birdseye product. I bought two types of noodles which approximate the noodles used. We invited Joseph's friend Ian to join us for the experiment. The boys tried each of the three sauces with each of the two noodle options. Ian enjoyed the noodles! Joseph wasn't a fan. We will keep trying!

Venturing into Portland

If you know Joseph, you know that he does not like Portland. Not at all. It took some serious convincing for me to talk him into trying a Microsoft coding class with a friend. We signed up for a week-long free class, but were actually disappointed in the quality of the teaching and he wasn't very interested, so we backed out after the first day.

Summer Shakespeare

Aubrey had been spending all of her weekdays at VSAA since the beginning of August, rehearsing for a Shakespeare production of As You Like It. Harringtons attended with me one evening and Dan went another night.

 Can you see her? Up on top of the stairs.

Eclipse

The much acclaimed eclipse was really amazing. We watched from the Harrington's porch. It was eerie to see the light dim and feel the temperature drop. Matt and Hunter watched with us. We were lucky to notice the "shadow snake" phenomenon on the ground just before and after totality. We did have a little bit of eclipse regret, wishing that we had driven 2 hours south to see the total eclipse. 99.95% still wasn't the same as total darkness!

 Battling the Dark Side

The day we returned from a trip to the beach, Dan went to an all afternoon work party/event. This is the picture he brought home on his phone.  ???

My birthday

My day began with breakfast in bed, prepared by Dan

 Then, four friends went on a Portland adventure with me to a delicious hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant, followed by donuts at BlueStar donuts.

 And Bailey sent me this amazing care package from BYU - fudge!

And that wrapped up the summer of 2017!

First Day of School

School started on August 30th - my birthday! 

I had a hard time getting my new 7th grader to stand still long enough to get a picture. He was worried about being late to 7 a.m. volleyball practice, where he is the team manager with his friend Jayden.

This is the look I got when I asked him to pause for a picture.

Because I'm a sentimental mother, I took this picture as Joseph walked off to his first day of 7th grade. 

Next up, Aubrey left for the first day of her Senior Year!

 

After school we had zucchini brownies.

It was a successful start to the school year!

And, we received these pictures of Bailey's first day of school at BYU.

Girls trip to Boston

In May I took my two girls on a Girl's Trip to one of my favorite places . . . Boston. The two youngest kids went with Dan and I last year on Spring Break, which just whet my appetite to really explore the historically fascinating city. Also, we hit a freak snowstorm in Spring 2016, so I thought that scheduling a trip in mid-May would ensure better touring weather.  Ha ha ha . . . the joke was on me! There was a storm with gale force winds and "sideways" rain for two days of our four day trip. But, the rain absolutely did not deter us. We saw everything we wanted to see and got very adept at navigating the subway system and Lyft (for rides to and from the airport). We stayed at the Revere Hotel, which is a few blocks from the Boston Common.

It was truly delightful to spend a few days with my two daughters, who are my two favorite girls in the world! I'm going to do a separate book of our trip, but here are a few highlight pictures.

Food, food, food. We ate it all and it was amazing. Pizza, pasta, more pizza, every type of dessert. The restaurants in Little Italy were our favorite.

We happily walked about 10 miles a day, through rainstorms and windstorms. We wore two layers of jackets and used umbrellas several of the days.

We took a few guided tours. One was absolutely amazing and the other was sub-par so we ducked out and gave ourselves a tour using our guidebook. We also wandered on our own around the city and saw so many beautiful buildings and interesting sites.

 We visited several universities. Seeing Harvard was a life-long dream of mine. I was pretty excited! As per tradition, we rubbed John Harvard's toe for good luck.

 

 Harvard Yard had beautiful brick buildings but shabby walkways and landscaping. We were surprised!

 We also visited Boston University. We thought the campus was kind of weird but Aubrey is intrigued by some of the graduate programs.

 I just love the architecture in Boston. I will never get enough of looking at the buildings and learning about the history.

The view from our hotel room balcony.

The last day we finally got good weather, and it was the perfect day to ride the Swan Boats.

We had to squeeze through all the toddler groups to pose with the Ducklings in Boston Commons

 We loved Beacon Hill and would move there in a heartbeat (if we could just afford it . . . )

Aubrey priced the houses we passed.  Yep, super expensive.

Goodbye to Boston! We loved it!