Summer Starts Up

Here are some of the events that got our summer rolling:

Just because school ended didn't mean it suddenly got all warm and toasty outside. We had several days that were very cool and rainy. And on just such a night Emma and I were lucky enough to get a pair of tickets from a friend to go see a concert at Red Butte Gardens. It was right up our alley - the cast of this summer's production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City came to sing through the entire show. No costumes or sets, just mikes up front for the actors to come sing. We love that musical so much.

It was a soggy evening to say the least! We really bundled up and brought some rain gear and had an absolutely delightful time listening to the music and doing our best to not burst out in singing along with the performers. It was Emma who had the really sharp eyes - she kept looking at the actor playing Joseph and finally pieced together that we had seen him before - he played Prince Topher last summer in the Tuacahn production of Cinderella. We loved him! That was such a great show - we loved it so much that Emma even named her Christmas Tortoise after Topher. Topher the tortoise! 

After the show we noticed that the actors were congregating on the side of the stage and we were able to go meet the guy (did I get his name? no) and talk with him. He was very generous and we chatted for a good 5-10 minutes. He asked Emma about her favorite songs from Cinderella and we talked about the upcoming production at Hale Center Theater. What a nice person, and what a treat to get to hear him sing again!

It was just in the second week of summer that Romney got the chance to run away to Stake Girls' Camp. What a great year! Again, it was a very chilly week, especially in the hills above Heber. I was quite nervous that she would be frozen and miserable for the whole camp but the sun came out and they had a wonderful time. I think this was the first year that Romney wasn't plagued with homesickness. She came home totally filthy, very very stinky and absolutely glowing. Her church youth group has really become her very happy place. What wonderful leaders and girls. They totally fill her cup.

I had heard for a long time about the Manti Pageant - Manti is a town in the middle of our state that has a beautiful temple for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I have no idea how long it's been going on, but for a VERY long time the church members in that town have produced a pageant that is played on the hillside below the temple. It tells the story of early church leaders and events from The Book of Mormon. I myself had never seen it, and of course neither had the kids. Troy saw it back in college I think. It's a big deal, and every summer that town draws in thousands of tourists to see it. Well, we found out that this summer would be the last summer of the Manti Pageant. Troy and I decided that we really wanted to take our kids and go. We picked a night that worked for us - turned out to be a Thursday. Was it cold and rainy? Of course. Was it a very long drive that we drove both ways that same night? Yup. Did we have to arrive about four hours before it started? Indeed! Was everybody happy to be there? Not initially. But we made them all come anyway and guess what - we had a great time. These whole-family events seem fleeting and more and more precious and I love them. The long drives, the games we play to keep each other entertained while waiting (name at least one Marvel character for every letter of the alphabet!), the walks around the neighborhood to kill time. I love it all. The pageant was...interesting? Quite impressive with lots of special effects and dramatic lighting and things. Also I felt like I was peeking in at a church of a different era. I'm super glad I went and can say that I saw the pageant before it closed. Very much worth the effort and exhaustion the next day.

Another piece of June included more rooster returns. You may recall that last summer we had to take three of our five surviving chickens back to IFA due to their rooster-ness. We crossed our fingers for better odds this year, and we can't deny that the odds were indeed better. It was only two out of four. We suspected these two pretty early on - and were bummed because the breed we wanted this year were the frizzled bantams and the two roosters were the only two really frizzled ones. The orange one was Liz the Frizz otherwise known as Curly Fry. The darker one was Burnt Toast. It was a super bummer to have to return them but not quite as bad as last year. Neither of these were Emma's snuggly babies and we are all rather more fond of Sweetie and Momo than these two. They were nice enough, but just too darn crow-y in the mornings. You'll notice that no one has tears dripping off of their noses in these photos.

Just wanted to include a few pictures of my teenagers. I love them. I love that they are spending more time together and are happy hanging out and being buddies. Good job kids. That makes your parents very happy.

Apa Turns 80

Early in the year I got a call from my sister-in-law who wanted to remind me that my dad's birthday this year should be a big event - my dad was going to turn 80. I so appreciate my siblings-in-law who give so much to our family. Sheri was totally right, we needed to do something! I got in touch with my siblings and we started talking about how to celebrate. It's a little tricky - I'm the only sibling who lives in town with my dad - the others are rather far away. I'm so grateful to each of them - they all made the effort to get here one weekend shortly before dad's birthday so that we could celebrate together. We couldn't do it the weekend of his actual birthday because I had one brother who would be traveling outside the country for the summer and would be gone by then. Since he was able to come a couple of weeks before we planned an early birthday.

I was happy to do some hosting but wasn't sure what we should do to celebrate. Luckily everyone came up with some great ideas.  We decided to start with a barbecue on Friday night at my house, all the kids invited. We wanted to spend the day together on Saturday as well but we weren't sure what to do. A hike? A day trip someplace? Happily my brother proposed a great idea - he thought it would be really fun to create sort of a scavenger hunt for dad that would take him on a tour around the city of places where he grew up and spent a lot of time. Isn't that a great idea? We quickly came up with quite a list of places - his grandmother's home, a couple of his own childhood homes, his high school, places he worked, his university. At first we thought that the grandkids could join in as well - they came with us to the first couple of stops in Sheri's car but we quickly realized that this would be extremely boring for them so we sent them off to go do something fun. We were sad that Peter couldn't join us - he had cello teacher training all day. I was bummed he couldn't be there. But Dad, Margaret, Adam, Whitley and I all had fun driving around, videoing dad as he told stories about each of the places we stopped, seeing him absolutely light up as he figured out the clues and arrived at the places.

In the evening we ordered out Indian food and enjoyed a feast on the front porch of my niece Kate's house. She and Mary Grace really worked hard to set up a lovely dinner for us and I appreciated their efforts. We had originally planned on going to a restaurant but I'm so glad we didn't. We needed to have all the time and quiet we wanted to enjoy our dinner and have a long talk with dad about his future and health and needs. Those talks are not easy. It was helped by the good company plus a walk over to the chocolate shop around the corner after dinner.

Happy Birthday to my dad. His past few years have been challenging to say the least. I love him, I worry about him, I wish I could make things easier for him. I was so happy to gather as a family to celebrate him. He really thrives when he's surrounded by people he loves.


Here we are loading up in Adam's rental car to drive many miles together to see the sites of my dad's history. First stop was of course getting large beverages to keep us going.

We stopped at his grandmother's house in Holladay. It was the first stop and I hadn't thought about how weird I'd feel about standing in front of strangers' houses and gawking and talking and videoing. Luckily no one came out to ask us what the heck we were up to.

We stopped at the house where dad lived when he graduated from high school. I actually had no idea how close this house was to my own home when I was in jr. high and high school.

We also made sure to stop at the homes where we lived as a family after we moved to Utah from Colorado. We even bumped into an old neighbor and he and dad had a nice talk.

Of course East High had to be on the tour:

And THE house on 5th South where dad spent his early years. There's a family joke about that house - we have driven by it so many thousands of times and every time dad would say something like, "Did I ever tell you kids that that's the house I grew up in?" We began saying it every time we passed it just as a joke. Well guess what, poor Peter only knew about the joke and not where the actual house was. I still need to point it out to him!

Our last stop was at the Park Building at the University of Utah, where dad had an office for a while. By then it was roasting hot and we were sure glad to conclude the fun tour and head to Kate's for some shade and good eats.

I'm very happy with the way we celebrated dad. I kind of wish we had found a way to get him together with all of his old friends but I just didn't have the bandwidth for that. Some other time.

On dad's actual birthday a couple of weeks later he and I went out to lunch. I loved taking him to Siegfried's German Deli down town. Man that place is so good. Make sure to get the red cabbage. It seems like something called red cabbage could never be delicious but is so is. I love their tangy warm cabbage. Again, doesn't sound good. Trust me, it is. Happy Birthday, dad.

Farewell to the Neighbors

This is so sad. Our next door neighbors moved. Joan moved into the house next door just a year or so after we arrived. (Back in the 90s!! Okay, 1999 but still.) She married Tim a few years later and they have been the best neighbors. They have come to our aid time after time after time....I can feel that I'm already starting to gush. I was going to give a little more preamble first.

So Tim and Joan are awesome. Joan has a son living in Rhode Island whom they have been going to visit for many years and have come to love the state. Now that son is ill and needs some extra help. They both felt that they needed to move there. Tim found a great job there in the winter and headed out shortly after Christmas. Joan needed some time to wrap up her school year at the University before she could move. Troy and I were pretty much in total denial that they were actually going to go. I mean...and here's back to the gushing....what were we ever going to do without them? Any tool we needed got handed over the fence along with countless eggs and cups of sugar and home grown tomatoes. If it didn't get handed over it was because Tim was bringing it himself to help us work on some thing or other. And if the college kids down the street ever got rambunctious in the wee hours of the night, Tim was our guy to set them straight. All the long talks we have enjoyed together, all the stories we have shared. They are so dear to us.

In June, it happened. They really did move. We couldn't let them go without acknowledging them somehow so we hosted a party on our back porch, with an open invitation to our church members and neighbors to come bid them farewell. That party happened the same week as Emma's birthday as well as a Preslar family BBQ but it was the night that worked so that was the night that it happened.

Just a week or so later the whole ward showed up to help them really pack up the house - that was a herculean job for sure. You can't live in a house for almost 20 years without having accumulated quite a collection of things. The thought of us moving gives me nightmares. All the stuff! But it happened. I think it must have been quite a painful process.

We sent them off on a Friday night with a photo and some tears and also a deer sculpture that was in their back yard. They had forgotten about it and didn't have room in the truck so as a final gesture of over-the-fence generosity it got passed from their yard to ours. They might want it back at some point but until they do I have a sweet little deer standing in the shade of our apple tree reminding me of them.

We have new neighbors now. They are young professionals whom we don't know especially well. They have been kind and quiet and I wonder how much we will actually get to know them. I am glad they are here, even though it's still so strange to remember that the house to the south does not house our friends Tim and Joan!

School Comes to an End

Let me make it clear that not everyone in our felt this way about school ending. In fact now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure our Emma was the only person who shed a tear or felt sad at all. But she definitely felt it enough for all of us. I love these pictures. They totally crack me up. Oh the sadness!  Emma really did have a great year, so I guess I understand her sadness about moving on, but let's be honest, Emma would sob like this no matter what!

Romney was so ready to be done with 8th grade and middle school in general. I thought she had a great year and grew close to a couple of especially wonderful teachers. I love the dress she chose to wear to her 8th grade promotion - it's actually a bridesmaid dress our friend Emily wore to her sister's super fun wedding and was ready to let go of. Romney adores this dress. 

 And here's Emma on her last day, just a few hours before her teary meltdown.

 I tried to snag a picture of Romney as she accepted her certificate and got her handshake from the principal, but using a phone camera across a dark auditorium does not produce great photos. She was in the school's show choir and they sang a few really fun songs. Those promotions are quite lengthy - there were like 12 student speeches or something like that. Some better than others. But it was worth it to celebrate Romney's survival of middle school.

After surviving that promotion I headed back to the elementary school in time for the school sing-a-long. (And subsequent tear-fest.)

 I can't really say enough good about Emma's teacher this year. She has never worked so hard. Yes, the work was challenging but also really fun and creative and nothing seemed like busy work. She really grew, became a better reader, thrived in her subjects. I'm grateful to Mr. Mitchell!

 More tears!

 
You may notice that I have no pictures of Chase on the last day of school. I failed to take any! He had the happy experience of being able to go to a concert the night before the actual last day of school, which apparently no one goes to. Yearbook day is on the Tuesday, and the halls are empty on Wednesday. So I missed my last-day-of-school pictures dang it. He probably wouldn't have let me take any anyway.

I was so excited for him - Chase is a major music-listener and one of his all-time favorite artists is Billie Eilish, who came to Saltair on that Tuesday night. We got him a ticket, though he had to earn the money for his pricey hoodie. He was able to go to the concert with his cousin Noah and they had an absolute blast. It was a great way to celebrate the end of his sophomore year. Sadly...I have no pictures. Wait...maybe he has some....

I'll have to add a few if he'll let me.

Anyway, lots of ups and downs this school year and we enjoyed celebrating its completion! I continue to be grateful for the wonderful teachers in my kids' lives.