9/3/23

Survived the first week of school! We didn't have to do 2nd day of school pictures, Emily took Lucy's, Anne took her own, Jane's had 2 invaders, but then her teacher sent one the 2nd day, so we gradually got it covered! They only had 1/2 days ALL WEEEK, so this is what our schedule looked like: 7:00 breakfast 7:20 Anne leaves 7:30 Lucy leaves 8:30-9:00 Jane leaves 11:20 Anne comes home 12:00 Lucy comes home (she couldn't leave at lunchtime like Anne could) 1:15-2:15 Jane comes home (stopping under EVERY tree for shade along the way) I ran Emily home via Frontrunner Monday morning in between older girls and Jane leaving, came back for presidency mtg until Anne came home, went out to lunch w/ Laura Finlayson after Jane arrived, and then had fun family time for a bit that night. Anne had 2 great tennis matches this week--I actually LOVE watching good tennis, and you can tell when she's having so much more fun--even without winning, it's so satisfying having matches with long rallies, strong hits and speed on the ball, and so many great shots right to the base line or putting spin on. She did win good games even losing the set, and loved having good playing experience. I went on visits, worked on the garage and yard, washed the car, made zuchinni bread, and picked up LaVonna's daughter who flew in to stay with her a while until they find a long term solution for her not living alone. Dad & I took a late night shift at the cannery Wed night (8PM -12) which was fun, but threw off sleep the next couple of days! Fortunately his trial scheduled for this week pled out, so he was able to catch up on a lot. Usually at the cannery, you sit at one station for a while, quality checking cans or labels or food product, but this time I started off on "sweep duty" which was just keeping the floors cleared off wherever the corn would fly the most (these are amazing machines, but it is still so messy!) I took advantage of the chance to see the whole process of how the system worked, and found sweeping spots all along the line. I thought how much life often feels like one station, where you feel like you are seeing the same thing day in day out, without much change, but when you can take a step back to see the entire process, you see pallets and pallets of fresh corn getting dropped off, miraculously shucked and cobbed, then the stacks of 85000 cans filled in just one day that can then go all over the world to anyone in need. So much of life does not look or feel glamorous or even that impactful, but that "by small and simple things, great things are brought to pass" is so true! We drove up to Idaho Friday night to spend time with G&G, enjoying Aiden and Landon this weekend as well. I got to go to the IF Temple Saturday morning, and then ran around their green belt right after--they have beautiful trails around the snake river right there, but we also had fun playing cards and visiting while the cousins bounced between gaga ball and mariokarts. We got home last night just after Maddie & Brian arrived for the weekend, so it's been a fun time having more family around. Dad and Brent suffered through the BYU game last night while Emily watched live--we pulled off a win, but considering the lack of a school we were playing, it should've been much better, but ready or not, we're all officially into the school year now! Love you so much! Love, Mom