Other October

Oct 1:  Crazy how these two ladies and I couldn’t work in a hike together all summer.  Finally in OCTOBER we were able to coordinate a semi-quick hike up Poo Poo Point.  It was a cloudy morning but at the top we were above the clouds which is a pretty cool view as well.

Oct 2:  My favorite thing each morning is to hear Drew say the Pledge of Allegiance.  I’ve been wanting to sneak a recording for weeks now and finally got a decent one this morning.  His fluctuation of “flaaaag” is unique to today but makes it even cuter in my opinion.

Justin took this picture of me helping Katie put on a shower cap.  She’s been loving getting her hair braided and didn’t want to take them out when she showered tonight.

Oct 3:  As conference neared the kids kept asking me if I was going to put together the mystery bags again.  They loved it in April and I was already intending it on doing it again, but it was nice to hear that they were looking forward to it again.  

Conference was wonderful.  I have a group of friends that have been focusing on preparing ourselves physically and spiritually for the times to come and felt that conference confirmed those impressions we’ve been having.

 

Oct 7:  Next stop in my kamut adventures was making a sourdough starter.  Did you know it takes a week to make a starter?  I didn’t.  On the morning of day seven Katie came upstairs saying my kamut had spilled all over the kitchen.  Yep, I guess I should’ve used a bigger bowl, but at least that means it was doing what it’s supposed to.

The next day I was able to bake my first loaf of sourdough.  It cooked much faster than the recipe said so I learned I need to tweak the oven temperature a bit.  Thankfully, I had a kamut-loving friend in Auburn I was able to text throughout the day to get some tips on “feeding” the starter and keeping it happy.  

I’ve a few more loaves since and they’ve turned out great.  It does take some planning since your starter needs to sit out overnight and then your dough needs to rise twice.  Quite the process!

 

Oct 10:  I screenshotted this collage off the link the school photographer sent encouraging families to buy past years school photos.  Abigail sure has changed over her high school years.  If you recall the large photo from her senior year was meant to be goofy with her hair (she was also wearing glasses but they made her take them off).

Tonight we played the last game on the wall – Acquire.  Justin bought an old version of this game for cheap after playing it with the Gibbs YEARS ago.  I didn’t like it, but he did.  Even though he liked it YEARS ago he was totally reluctant to play it these past months.  Even though I never liked it I was ready to get it put away with all the other games so I sucked it up and decided to refamiliarize myself with it and teach the kids.  Turns out we loved it and as Justin watched us play (between working all day) he could hardly resist jumping in and playing with us.  We’ve played it tons since and it’s become a new favorite – ironic.

A few other favorites during this project of play it or get rid of it are…

 

Carcassone

Blokus

Thurn and Taxis

Settlers of Catan

Clue

Quixx

 

Oct 11:  I dusted off a dress and heels today to attend in-person church for the first time in seven months. It took much longer than expect for the sacrament portion due to all the safety protocols, but it was nice to be back.  It was strange to not be able to visit with anyone.  We were seated immediately upon arrival (after turning in our COVID paperwork) and then after the service they dismissed row by row and we were to exit the building and head home.  It’s also hard to “see” people when everyone is wearing face masks the entire time.  In fact, President Smith was sitting on the stand when we arrived and I couldn’t figure out who it was so I asked Justin and Carly and they were shocked I didn’t know it was Matt – who we’ve know the entire time we’ve lived here as our bishop, hometeacher, stake presidency and friend.  To my credit he also stopped shaving his head over COVID which I hadn’t seen yet.  It was wonderful to feel the spirit and strength from gathering together as a ward family.  We’ll only be attended once a month at this point and the other weeks will be over zoom. 

Oct 13:  I got my hair done today and popped into Chick-fil-A to redeem a free sandwich and also picked up some Chick-fil-A sauce for us to have a home – yum!

I also hit up Walmart, Costco, WinCo, Home Depot and Nordstrom – my car was packed by the time I got home but I love a productive day!

 

Oct 15:  Near the end of every year General Mills cereal goes on sale and we like to stock up on some of our favorites.  This week was the week and it seemed like they were cheaper than in the past – after all discounts each, large box was only $1.49.  This was our first grocery run.  I think we went two other times and got about this much each time.  Great food storage and can’t be beat prices!

Oct 16:  Washington’s first Crumbl Cookies opened yesterday in Covington which is only 20 minutes away.  Today was FREE cookie day and we weren’t going to miss it!  We actually ended up waiting in line nearly an hour for our FREE cookies and bought a dozen on top of that.  It had to be done.

And just a picture of Katie carrying around Drew on her back which is not encouraged…

Oct 17:  We were invited to a surprise birthday party for my friend Addy’s twin daughters 10th birthday.  They moved from the ridge to a beautiful property in Fall City with acres and acres to enjoy.  Jason wasn’t excited about joining us, but in hindsight he really missed out as there were a few other families there with kids his age.  Plus lots of great food and lots of fun.  Addy went with a Harry Potter theme and created a fun web game in which each kid had a black string “web” that they needed to follow to a goodie bag full of fun.  The webs crossed and tangled each other taking some kiddos 30-45 minutes to untangle.  Drew had a tough course but happily stuck with it to the end.

It was so nice to see some families from our old Snoqualmie Falls ward and visit with them.  Our social circles have been small since COVID so it was a real treat.

Oct 20:  I woke up this morning to a text from a Mom of one of the kids from Carly’s homecoming group that she tested positive for COVID.  This family has been super careful during the pandemic so it’s ironic that of all families this would be the one to test positive.  They had hosted the teens on Friday night for the dinner portion of the evening so it was important that we all be aware that they may have been exposed.  Carly had three babysitting jobs today and we felt she needed to be tested before potentially exposing anyone.  So all plans for the day went out the window.  She cancelled all her jobs for today and we drove down to Auburn to get tested.  I figured I might as well get tested as well.  We were both pretty nervous to have a massive Q-tip stuck way up our nose.

The test wasn’t as terrible as I feared.  Not at all pleasant, but we survived.  I thought this meme was funny given the situation and season.

We both had negative results within 12 hours – phew!

Oct 23:  Justin and I went out tonight.  I wanted to check out the new apple watches but unfortunately Apple is only allowing people in the store if they have reservations so that was a bust.  We had some gift cards to Cheesecake Factory so we enjoyed a delicious meal there.  I was shocked there wasn’t any wait for a table on a Saturday night especially since they have to space out customers so much.  Guess that means that people really have changed how much they are going out since COVID.  We also had some Baskin Robbins credits from this week’s T-Mobile Tuesdays offer so we both got a big ice-cream cone to top off the evening.

A cheesy photo opp in the mall

I thought this voicemail I received today was pretty funny.

Oct 24:  Months ago I signed Carly up to take the ACT in Ellensburg, WA – a 1:20ish drive east for us since there wasn’t any testing locations nearby.  A few weeks ago I got a notification that the test had bene moved to Olympia, WA – a 1 hr drive south for us.  So weird.  Anyhow, she had to be there at 7:45am – Justin offered to take her and they were gone all day doing that, walking around the Capitol, and getting some lunch.

Justin was able to score some Clorox wipes at a Costco in Olympia – these have been impossible to find near us.

While I was out walking the neighborhood this afternoon I took a picture of the street into our neighborhood.  Next year I need to catch it before the trees start losing their leaves.  It’s so beautiful in the fall.

Abigail got to attend her first BYU football game tonight in Lavell Edwards Stadium.  BYU is undefeated so far this season, 6-0.  Go Cougs!

Oct 29:  This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned this and it likely won’t be the last, but I continually find myself surprised that I seem to be the only one in our house that changes out the empty toilet paper rolls.  Like it’s actually part of my job description.  Today I was shocked to find that the actual toilet paper roll was missing this time.  Someone took the time to remove the empty roll and yet could not bring themselves to replace it???

I posted this picture on my stories and 100% of those that commented said they too feel like they are the only ones apparently capable of replacing the empty rolls.

Later in the day I had to share Brenda’s comment regarding the puzzling disappearance of the empty roll.  Ha!

Today I posted on our ward Relief Society page offering up a large tub of Legos.  These are all Lego specific to their Hero Factory and Bionicles line that has since been retired and my kids never really got into. They are actually worth quite a bit of money now but I couldn’t feel good about selling them when they were given to us.  Just passing them along to another family that can enjoy them.

And them some cards with K&D before bed tonight.  Actually I was taking the picture more to show the sweet bruise in the palm of my hand from moving a large slab of granite from the bonus room into the garage.  It was SO heavy!

This month has been busy getting our bonus room ready for some new furniture.  We’ve painted the walls and ceiling, moved out the big ole’ cabinetry and granite we’ve been using as storage/TV stand and we’re getting ready for new carpet.  Lots of projects going on behind the scenes – exciting, busy, stressful stuff.