Week 25: June 21 – June 27

Monday [6/21]:  I got distracted this morning when I realized it was Amazon prime day and there were several items I have had in my cart for a while now they were on sale. Since I am all about sharing deals lately I decided to share them on my HHH account which took some additional time.

 

I spent quite a bit of time today running Jason and Katie around to get haircuts. It would’ve made sense to take them at the same time, but Jason didn’t want to wait around for Katie and I also knew that there was a high chance that I would get a coupon on my receipt that I would be able to use for the second kiddo. J looked quite different with his new haircut and Katie’s cut was a last minute decision. Just in the last couple days she decided that she wanted to chop off her hair, usually we cut the kids hair ourselves but I didn’t want to deal with it and I figured it would be much faster to just take her to the little salon on the ridge. I’m happy enough with the results although I can’t believe how expensive even Great Clips can be for a haircut. I don’t plan on making it a habit.

Yesterday Justin mentioned the possibility of going to the lake this evening when he was done with work so I headed to the tennis courts right at 4pm today to get in a match or two before needing to be home to get ready for the lake. In weeks past we had matches scheduled with specific people, but the organizer decided to do things differently today and put together the matches as people arrived since we are going to be at the high school courts from now on and have access to twice as many courts as we have in the past.  I knew it was risky going that early since most of the women don’t play until at least 5:30pm. My prediction was correct and I was the only female there and so the organizer took it upon himself to play a match with me. He’s definitely a stronger player than me but I was able to put up a small fight and he won 6-2. The real kicker was that it was 91° and the heat was so exhausting for me especially because we didn’t take breaks or drink much water. On my way home I felt quite lightheaded and as I walked in the house I laid right down on the cool kitchen floor which is where I stayed for a while. The kids took pity on my and placed an ice pack on my back.  I was so sweaty that I didn’t want to move anywhere else.  When I finally got up there was a sweat outline of my body on the kitchen floor – gross! 

Only Katie and Drew were interested in going to the lake. Carly had gone earlier in the afternoon with a friend and Jason didn’t think it would be at all fun with just family, especially after having a great time at the lake Friday with friends. We picked up some Panda Express on the way and ate it when we got there. Justin only wanted to inflate one of our paddle boards so the three of them went out while I relaxed on shore in a comfortable chair. Drew typically ends up kicking around in the water more than sitting on the paddleboard, but he loves it. 

We stayed until 8:30pm and then packed up and headed to Krispy Kreme to pick up Justin and my vaccination donuts which we gave to Katie and Drew. I felt like I didn’t accomplish a whole lot today so I stayed up to read a talk which I’ve been asked to facilitate conversation on in RS on Sunday.

 

Tuesday [6/22]:  Today marked the return of EPIC (Eagle Pointe’s Immaculate Containers) with Jason taking the reins this year.  I’m excited he’ll have the opportunity to earn some summer money and work hard, but I’m also nervous about making sure they are done well and how kindly he will deal with his employees (aka Katie and Drew).  I only scheduled six containers today and it took him ALL DAY to complete them.  He did a great job though and even secured a nice fat $10 tip which totally made his day.  I’m sure he’ll get faster as the weeks go on.  He’s in it for the long haul!

Abigail didn’t have classes this afternoon and asked me to join her on an excursion to Bellevue to make some returns and look for some slacks.  We got lucky and found a nice pair at Macy’s on clearance.  I also treated her to the first 2021 Summer Lunch Date and she chose to eat at Cheesecake Factory.  We stuffed ourselves to the max and still picked up our free donuts at KK.  

Abigail called the temple this morning and was able to secure herself and two of her fellow missionary friends the opportunity to attend a 5pm session tonight.  I love that she’s been able to go to the temple four times now in the last month.

 

EPIC takes quite a bit of time for me to coordinate all the scheduling and responding to peoples questions and getting payments.  The days seem to fly by especially these last two where it seems the kids needed more of my time than usual.  I snuck in some CFM study before the missionaries came by to share a message with us and challenge us to read the Restoration Proclamation as a family.  After which I tried to be productive but wasn’t quite.

 

Wednesday [6/23]:  Wednesdays are crazy around here, add EPIC to an already crazy day and it’s a lot.  Our tennis lessons were bumped up to noon instead of one today and cut back to only an hour.  Jason was able to finish three containers before lessons and do the final two of the week after lessons.  Another full day for him, but he’s in good spirits especially after receiving another nice tip.

 

I had a few hours after lessons to catch up on some things at home before heading off on a RS visit (they weren’t home) and then immediately to the courts for tennis matches.  I really enjoy playing but each week I feel a bit anxious leading up to my matches.  I really want to play well and often I don’t do nearly as well as I’d like.  I played in two doubles matches tonight and was the least skilled player in both matches.  Thankfully my partner in the second match was by far the best player on the court and he led us to victory in a tie-breakers.  Busy, busy back home!

 

Thursday [6/24]:  Thankfully today was a chill day with nothing scheduled until book group at 8pm which was good because I still needed to read the book. It was a pretty short book “Strong Like Her” so I was able to get it done with a few hours of reading. The author attended our small little gathering which as fun and I enjoyed the discussion about women from history that have changed the views of women in sports, fitness and life in general. 

 

Jason left this afternoon for his first ever camping trip with the church. How that can be true with six years in scouts and youth is mind blowing to me. I’m so excited for him and glad that he was looking forward to a fun weekend on Lopez Island with the stake young men 14+. Shortly after I dropped him Katie discovered he’d left his bag of toiletries. So no shampoo, deodorant or toothbrush for him all weekend. Yuck.

Katie was looking forward to picking up new books at the library so we made a quick trip there. Drew had put dozens of Avatar books on hold. While at the library he picked up a summer reading tracking sheet and decided on his own to tackle that and ended up reading over 25 books this afternoon! He had some weird mass in his eye that we ended up calling the Teladoc for so we could get some medication for it.  They think it was just allergy related that that Drew had itched it too much.  It cleared up quickly thankfully.

Friday [6/25]:  I haven’t been sleeping well the past few nights. I’m not sure if it’s because of our new mattress, the cold/allergies I’m having, the heat wave we’re experiencing, or just stress in general. I took a sleeping pill last night hoping it would help me get a good night’s rest; however I woke up this morning feeling incredibly groggy and out of it. I decided to go for a walk while I was still relatively cool out which was nice but it sent me back a bit in getting started for the day.

 

We’ve got a pretty extreme heat wave coming through. Drew was playing outside for a little while when I got home from my walk but once things started heating up Katie and Drew spent the rest of the day indoors.  Justin and the kids made some good progress on the 1500 piece puzzle they’ve been working on.

I feel like I was pretty productive even in my groggy state. I ended up working tonight on the blog which hasn’t happened in a long time and was finally able to get the pictures posted from Abigail‘s temple experience and Drew’s baptism. I’m think it’s going to be  tricky going forward to stay on top of the blog (clearly evident that I’m not getting this posted until over 4 months later). Another remarkable/unusual activity was that I watched a few shows tonight while I edited photos. It’s probably been almost a month since I’ve taken the time to do that. 

 

Saturday [6/26]:  I still wasn’t feeling well this morning. I was planning to lay low today but some things came up that complicated things, including a call from bishop asking what I thought about opening up our church tomorrow and Monday to the community as a cooling center. I had had the thought myself but had dismissed it so I’m grateful someone else felt a similar prompting and moved with it. It won’t take a ton of coordination on my part but some.  I worked on some church stuff throughout the day as well as some catching up on some of my scripture study.

 

Justin went hiking this morning with some guys from church – Otter Falls.

Katie finished the puzzle today!

Justin was able to get a hold of some Sounders tickets for the game tonight in the T-Mobile suite. I had a hard time deciding whether not to go. I wasn’t really feeling well and was only in interested in going for the food. In the end we decided to have Katie go with him instead and it was a good call especially since they were only given hotdogs and chicken strips with popcorn as snacks. 

Abigail and I went to MOD Pizza for dinner. They are running a promotion this month that for every salad you buy in June you will get a salad for free in July. I wasn’t feeling hungry for a salad but Abigail was.  It was nice to chat with her about her talk tomorrow.  I was pretty exhausted by the end of the night but needed to get some prep in for ward council in the morning and preparing to help with the RS lesson. It took some rallying!

 

Sunday [6/27]:  Today ended up being a great day! I had my first Ward Council this morning over zoom which went well. Abigail gave her farewell talk in sacrament today and did an incredible job! 

She had so much to share that she easily filled her 20 minute allotment and I felt the spirit of her message and was so proud of her growth and willingness to share her testimony so freely and naturally with others. It was emotional for me to sit in the pews listening to her today. She is ready to serve!

 

Abigail‘s friend Gracie performed a musical number before Abigail gave her talk and during the musical number I felt prompted to share the zoom link with my family via a group text that we were pretty active on last night regarding some humorous family reunion shirts. I really couldn’t imagine anyone actually wanting to listen to a gospel message from a religion that they have completely stepped away from, but to my surprise Brenda, Mary, and Raymond all jumped on the zoom call and sent very supportive and loving comments back to me. Completely made my day! I’m not sure that the spiritual message touched them or not, and it doesn’t really matter, the lesson to me was to act on promptings and I appreciated the love and support from my family whose beliefs differ so greatly from my own.

 

Today was my first time conducting Relief Society which was completely stress-free. The sister teaching the lesson today is my newly called secretary and she is anxious to be released and asked both me and my first counselor to prepare 10 minutes of her lesson. We ended up running out of time so I was only able to share my testimony which has both its pros and cons.   I was a little bummed that I had spent time preparing a message that I thought would be good to share with the sisters and didn’t end up getting to. We had two sisters in RS today that don’t come to church regularly. One was an invitation that I extended to our current piano teacher who also taught Abigail several years ago. She doodled some cool word art based on Abigail’s talk.

It was so great to see her there and she even talked about coming next week which is great.  Abigail had an interesting interaction with a woman who comes to church occasionally that isn’t all there mentally.  I have no doubt she’ll have many strange and uncomfortable experiences on her mission as well.

 

We stayed completely indoors once we got home today as temperatures were over 100°. 

We played started a game of Phase 10 Twist after our CFM lesson led by Jason. But it took so long with seven of us playing that we abandoned that to go eat some french toast for dinner and several members of the family watched Coco in Spanish at Abigail’s request.

Week 24: June 14 – June 20

Monday [6/14]:  Not much going on today. Mary didn’t have anything planned and the weather was still yucky so they mostly hung out at the house and played with KD in the morning.  

 

Jason’s graduation ceremony was this afternoon and was broadcast on online so I watched that on my iPad.  Jason got a 4.0 this year - congrats JMan!

One of his friends moms sent me this picture.

Mary and Kingston walked down to the school in the afternoon to walk KD home.  We had some pasta and french bread for dinner and then everyone went to Snoqualmie Falls.  We had so much rain yesterday that the falls were raging.  I decided we should walk to the bottom which most everyone was game for.  It’s more steep than I remembered but everyone made it just fine.

Back at the house we enjoyed the raspberry dessert Jason and I made and finished the ice-cream cake Mary bought home last night.

 

Tuesday [6/15]:  I was airport bound this morning to take Mary and the kids to the airport.  I decided to tack on a trip to WinCo and Costco on the way home and had just enough time to unload the refrigerated groceries before heading to Fall City to meet Jenn and Addy for lunch at the Raging River.  The food was so-so but it was nice to catch up with them.  Addy had seen that Bri, who was released as the Mt Si RS President, post on Facebook about bring released and asked me who the new RS pres. was.  I kind of pointed to myself and it took a few seconds for her to process but there it was.  We talked a bit about it, but not too much.  There’s really not a lot to say about it at this point.

 

I joined Bri on a visit this afternoon to deliver a birthday card and treat to an older sister in our ward.  She’s lived in the same house for 60 years and I didn’t recognize her at all.  There are so many sisters I have no clue who they are even many active ones.  Clearly, getting to know who everyone is going to be a huge undertaking for me.

 

We invited the Taylor family over for games tonight.  This is Abigail’s good friend Braydon’s family.  We taught him the expanded version of Settlers a month or so ago and have talked about teaching his family for ages.  Unfortunately only six people can play so it was 4 of the Taylors with Abigail and Justin.  Their other son couldn’t come so it was only my family members that were left out.  We played a game or two, but everyone quickly lost interest in playing with the same ole people.  It worked out well though because I was able to work a few things that I needed to get done.  When they finished Settlers we all joined together for a fun game of Liars Dice – all 11 of us around the kitchen table.  So fun and such a great family!

 

Wednesday [6/16]:  JKD have only had one class on Wednesdays this year but today they had a regular day and Friday will be the one class day – the FINAL day of school.  Jason didn’t think he would be able to join us for our tennis lesson this afternoon, but as suspected there isn’t much going on in school this week so he was able to miss class and join Carly and me.  We didn’t pick up our free Krispy Kreme donut last week so I was pretty insistent we swing by today after lessons.  Worth it!

Last night I put up our ad for EPIC on our neighborhood Facebook page and I’ve had requests rolling in since.  Jason is taking the reins this year and it will be interesting to see how he handles the hard work and my high standard of cleanliness.  He’ll start next week with Katie and Drew hopefully helping him out.

 

I had two doubles matches tonight and lost both.  I was the weakest in both games which is frustrating.  Not humiliatingly the weakest, but still the weakest.  

 

I worked on arranging the RS ministering districts on the big, magnetic RS ministering board I inherited when I got home and then did some weights, showered and went to bed exhausted.

 

Thursday [6/17]:  Today was a RS day!  As soon as I was up and ready for the day I was in the office working on getting organized before meeting with my presidency this evening.  Of course, all the managing of the household still needs done so I had some other family business to take care of and cooked up two loaves of sourdough bread.  

 

Today was the last official day of school for JKD.  Ready or not here comes summer!

 

My meeting tonight went well.  We visited for nearly two hours which isn’t shocking being our first meeting, but I intend to never go that long again.  We covered what needed to be covered and I feel like we mesh well together and that they will each be a great support.  

 

I was up until 1am looking over our minister routes and thinking about possible callings we may need to extend.  I’m sure there will always be something I can be doing.

 

Friday [6/18]:  Justin had today off for Juneteenth – T-Mobile is very inclusive as a company and we’re happy to have a day off.  Our elementary school held a reverse parade this morning which Justin drove KD through.  Jason had two parties today so he was gone all day.

 

Justin and I played some tennis around noon, just rallying which was nice – KD played a little pickleball when the court next to us opened up.  After showering Justin and I headed to Infusion for a late lunch, early dinner.  I love that we have a standing BOGO free restaurant so close by that we both love.

 

I love seeing my kids playing game together.  Abigail has been so great bringing the family together during her down time.

Carly and I had a route of Crumbl cookies to deliver this evening for Father’s Day and then I tried to stop by an inactive sisters house in the evening with my counselor to wish her a Happy Birthday.  There wasn’t much face-to-face with either attempt, but the effort was made and we just left several goodies on doorsteps.

 

Justin went to bed early tonight since he was hiking early in the morning with some Elders in the ward.  I stayed up until around 12:30am finishing my CFM study for the week and working on some RS stuff.  

 

Saturday [6/19]:  A few pictures from Justin’s hike this morning to Mount Washington with three guys from our ward.

Our ward primary had an ice-cream social today and invited everyone from the ward to come by from 11-12 and get an ice-cream and visit with ward members.  We would’ve gone anyhow, but I felt the need to support it even more so now.  It wasn’t a huge turnout but it did give me a chance to visit with a few sisters and KD had fun running around and playing with balloons.

 

Katie started a 1500 piece Disney puzzle that we got for Christmas and hadn’t opened yet.  It was nice to spend some time just chilling.  

 

Justin and I went to Covington this afternoon to pick up some Crumbl cookies – I couldn’t pass up their candy flavors this week though they were out of Heath {insert sad face}.  We also got a quick bite to eat at Taco Bell (where I accidently bit into his beef burrito {insert barfy face} and hit up Costco for a few groceries.  Justin went to the temple with Carly and some other YW – they were low on numbers so Abigail went as well.  JKD and I did our own things back at home.

 

Sunday [6/20]:  I’m enjoying having church at noon as it gives us plenty of time to have our CFM lesson in the mornings.  Carly led the discussion today and then took off immediately afterward to her presidency meeting at the church.  Since it was Father’s Day the bishopric cancelled all the regular morning meetings so it felt like I had the day off in a way, especially since it was a Sunday school week instead of Relief Society.

 

Jason got his second covid shot yesterday afternoon and was WIPED out all day today.  He watched a show with us in the afternoon but spent the rest of the day sleeping.

 

Our afternoon was lazy.  Drew had drawn out of the summer boredom buster yesterday to create a scavenger hunt.  He was not thrilled but Abigail helped him plan a little hunt for Carly in order to find her HEFY package that had arrived.  We worked on the puzzle a bit and then watch the first episode of season two of the Chosen series.  Little did we know that while Justin and I watched the show with JKD, Carly was downstairs making pretzel bites for a Father’s Day treat.  So yum!

We also opened up the new mattress that Justin and I ordered for our bed.

Week 23: June 7 – June 13 {Hipwell’s Visit}

Monday [6/7]: At church yesterday Tori reminded me that institute was starting back up this morning. I attended weekly before covid but hadn’t yet decided if I would be making the drive to Redmond again. It will be broadcast over zoom for anyone that can’t make it, but I feel a bit guilty going that route if I technically could make it there physically and just didn’t want to. Anyhow, it felt like the right thing to do and I am interested in the new topic of Temples. It was a good class and one of the few that wasn’t too over my head, but that’s likely because we just barely got started. I hit Costco afterward so it felt even more productive.

I listened to a podcast on my way there but decided to opt for my apple music on the way home. I don’t have a playlist so all my songs are bunched together in one big pool so absolutely anything could come on from Christmas to Hamilton to 80’s Rock. The song Glorious came on by Macklemore, which is a song I love, but not necessarily a spiritual, peaceful song. I will always like my rock music and ironically it calms me more than the MoTab choir would. There were lyrics in there that I felt were meant for me to hear. It sounds crazy, but I felt the spirit in a Macklemore song.

I feel glorious, glorious

Got a chance to start again

I was born for this, born for this

It's who I am, how could I forget?

I made it through the darkest part of the night

And now I see the sunrise

Now I feel glorious, glorious

I feel glorious, glorious

I said amen and hallelujah, let me testify too

Another morning, a morning, won't let self get in my way

I got my breath, I got my faith and I remember why I came, woo

We gon' be alright, put that on my life

When I open my eyes, hope I see you shine

We're planting a flag, they don't understand

The world is up for grabs 

Then, the very next song out of the hundreds in my library was of the same title “Glorious” by David Archeletta and you know what? I felt the spirit in that song too.

Everyone plays a piece

And there are melodies

In each one of us

Ooh it's glorious

And you will know how

To let it ring out

As you discover

Who you are

Others around you

Will start to wake up

To the sounds that are

In their hearts

It's so amazing

What we're all creating

It's like a symphony

Just keep listening

And pretty soon you'll start

To figure out your part

I got all teary-eyed driving home from Costco and knew it wasn’t a coincidence. I believe God can speak to us where we are and in a way very personal to us. Heavenly Father was letting me know that he’s with me. Even in a Macklemore song.

The next song was “Good Life” by One Republic and while I’m not sure that was completely meant to be it’s also true. “It’s gonna be a good life” – even serving as Relief Society Pres – Ha!

I received a text during institute from our bishop’s wife Natalie, my minister sister, asking if I could go for a walk this afternoon or tomorrow. I thought maybe she might know something about my calling, she was RS President before her husband was called as our bishop. If she knows something she didn’t bring it up. It was nice to catch up with her but I was also feeling like there were a thousand other things I should’ve been doing.

I helped Jason a bit with preparing a new meal for dinner tonight and then I had two tennis matches. I lost both but felt decent about how I played. My second match was with all strong players – stronger than me, but I was able to hold my own and we ended up tying it up at 6-6 and having to go into a tie breaker. It was fun – discouraging at times, but fun.

Tuesday [6/8]: If I think about all I need or should be doing I start feeling overwhelmed so then I avoid thinking about all the things I need or should be doing and get nothing done. I hoped to tackle some household to-do’s today and did ok. It’s been a weird week chatting on MP with friends and not saying anything about my new calling. Not that they need to know or even that I want them to know, but when talking about what’s going on in my life that’s a big part and it feels easier to not engage much with them instead of not being totally real.

Carly’s last home match was today and they were scheduled to play the toughest team in the league for the fourth time – thankfully, they made a last minute call and sent their JV team to play our varsity team so Carly got her first win of the season. Justin and Jason came with me which is the first game they’ve seen (Jason’s first tennis match ever). I’m proud of Carly for doing her best in such a tough season. She really has improved quite a bit and I look forward to seeing her back on the courts next spring!

I whipped up a nice dinner when we got home – yeah, for planning meals in advance.  We ate late, but we ate well.  Abigail had the afternoon free so she went on a long hike with a couple friends who will be starting home MTC soon.  I’m glad she was able to get out of the house and socialize a bit.

 

Wednesday [6/9]:  Wednesdays probably shouldn’t even count as a day around here – at least not in a productivity kind of way.  The morning always seems to fly by – Katie and Drew now have piano lessons on Wednesdays at 11 and then HCJ have our tennis lesson in the afternoon and I’ve added my tennis league in the evenings.

 

I found Jason in bed last night at 11:15pm playing the Nintendo switch so he was relegated to cleaning out two of the cars today as his chores / consequence.

 

Tennis lessons went well as did my three matches.  I lost 2 and won 1 and didn’t expect to win the one I did and didn’t expect to lose the one I lost.  Bishop let me know today that he’s released the current RS President and that I could reach out if I thought it would be beneficial.  I think I’ll wait.  It would be beneficial for me to wait. 

 

We have Mary and the kids coming into town tomorrow so we needed to get some things straightened up tonight.  I’m not sure what to expect of their visit or how much we’ll be involved – guess we’ll see and just play it by ear.  Tyrone is having some health issues so he won’t be able to make it so Mary is bringing along her niece instead.

 

Thursday [6/10]:  This morning I spent some time this morning finishing cleaning up the house and getting the boys room ready for Mary and the kids. I left a little early so I could pick up some groceries on my way to the airport as well as something for lunch. 

 

We had some time back at the house to relax before KD got out of school.  I mentioned that we could walk down to the school and surprise them and Brooklynn jumped at the idea.  I mentioned several times that it was a steep hill, but she was all for it.  Katie and Drew were surprised to see us waiting for them.  Both were quite shy – Katie exceptionally so.  She kept her face mask on until we got all the way to Jeanne Hansen Park and walked in front of all of us the whole way there.  She seemed to even be avoiding making eye contact with me.  Clearly she’s a little out of practice being social.  I knew it wouldn’t take her long to warm up and they were all running around the park playing tag soon after.  We made breakfast for dinner and the kids spent most of the evening enjoying the Nintendo games that Brooklynn and Kingston have.

 

Apparently Brooklynn is one of the tallest kids in her grade.  Katie is just two weeks older and makes Brooklynn look short.

Friday [6/11]:  We had CJKD all in the same room last night.  Apparently Jason woke everyone up early trying to check the time and then he snored as well so not everyone got a restful night sleep.  Brooklyn slept until after 10am so it was a pretty slow morning.  My kids had some calls for school but there was plenty of video game playing throughout the day.  I walked with KD down to school to get some exercise and then showered and cleaned up a bit.  Before I knew it the afternoon was over and it was time to prepare dinner.  Mary went into Seattle for the afternoon but was back in time to join us for dinner.  Jason made some Biscoff Hershey Kiss cookies and when we didn’t think that batch was enough, Abigail made some lemon crinkle cookies as well.

 

It’s been great to spend time with Mary and the kids.  Mary is very easy to talk to and we had some great conversations about her family and how Tyrone is doing.  The kids have played lots of Nintendo but there’s been some good ole fashioned games in there as well.

 

Saturday [6/12]:  This morning was our stake activity day camp. Because of covid we couldn’t meet all together so the wards met at their church buildings for the activity and they tried to bring us “together” over zoom at the end. It was a fun activity but we had technical difficulties so we couldn’t hear President Smith when he spoke and the timing of the activities was off so we had to skip over some parts. Brooklyn came with us and seemed to have fun. Drew didn’t really have any friends to pal up with but I don’t think he really noticed. They did a cool nail craft of a temple which was a bit of a struggle for some kids, including Drew. 

Mary was off getting donuts from the North Bend Bakery when we got back which was a yummy treat. We decided to head into Seattle and catch a ferry to Bainbridge since riding a ferry was on Mary’s short list of things she wanted to do. The line to get into a ferry took much longer than we expected, over an hour, but we made it!

We were pretty hungry when we got off the ferry so we headed straight to a pizza place that Carly’s friends recommended about 15 minutes away and ordered three large pizzas. It was fun to try some different toppings that we haven’t had before. I wouldn’t say the pizza was exceptional but it definitely hit the spot and we finished all of it. The pizza place was right near the water so we walked down to the beach and the kids immediately started playing with a large dog that was there with its owners. They were throwing large sticks into the water and making the dog run out there to fetch it and bring it back to the beach. 

We enjoyed the pizza at a small park across the street and then based on the Bainbridge website we decided to drive out to a larger park about 15 minutes north. The pictures showed a huge wooden playset that the kids were excited to play on. Unfortunately we when we arrived the entire place structure was closed off and under construction so instead we walked around the park and the kids ended up playing duck duck goose and tag for a little while. Mary even got in on the duck duck goose action and Justin had a lot of fun playing tag with the kids. He’s pretty quick and has long enough arms that it’s hard for the kids to escape.  

We decided to head back toward the ferry terminal and go to Mora’s ice cream which is well known on the island. They have some pretty unique flavors which we were excited to try. It’s very expensive so between the six in our family we each paired up and shared a double scoop of ice cream. 

We checked the ferry status online and saw that the ferries were running late and there would be about an hour wait to get onto a ferry so we decided to head straight to the area and get into line. It’s no fun to wait in your car for an hour sandwiched between cars on every side of you. Thankfully we had a few extra phones with us that the kids were able to play some games but in hindsight we definitely should’ve brought the Nintendo switch is to keep them entertained. Drew was getting particularly grumpy and losing patience with just about everything. We didn’t get onto a ferry till after 8pm.  It was much more windy with cooler temperatures at the front of the boat tonight than it was earlier in the afternoon but we still stayed outside for a while and enjoyed watching the Seattle skyline get closer and closer. 

We headed straight home and tried to cycle through a few showers before getting to the kids to bed after 10pm - a fun night! Definitely an adventure that took a little longer than expected but I think everybody had a good time.

Sunday [6/13]:  I wasn’t sure how today was going to go but I will woke up feeling relatively calm. Justin made a big breakfast for everyone and then we had plenty of time to get ready for church. Abigail went to the SnoFalls ward to listen to her friend Morgan give her farewell talk and she didn’t end up getting to our ward until the last few minutes of our sacrament meeting. I was sustained today with my new presidency. When we went into Relief Society Abigail was taken by surprise that they were setting me apart since she had no idea that I had been called. She wasn’t too surprised since she felt pretty confident that bishop had given me a new calling when he came to the house a few weeks ago. Bishop sent me apart and I particularly appreciated how he talked about my being able to receive inspiration needed to serve in this capacity as well as the ability to balance things at home which he emphasized was my first priority. I wasn’t incredibly emotional as he sent me apart but when he set apart my second counselor that made me tear up. He spoke a lot about her supporting me and working together as a presidency.  It reaffirmed that I am not in this alone and that I have some incredible ladies to help support the work. We couldn’t find my first counselor so we went ahead without her. Justin thought she might be traveling internationally with her husband. Turns out she was just subbing in primary so it’s unfortunate that she wasn’t there was a with us. I’m still not sure what exactly my calling fully entails. Our current RS president took care of everything today during the meeting so that was nice. I left immediately after we were set apart to head into the young women’s room so we could be there to support Carly as she was set apart as the president for the oldest group of YW. Two President Fletcher’s in the house. I pretty much missed all of the RS lesson today and really didn’t get any chance to talk with anybody about anything. I got home and sent a few texts to my presidency to figure out when we can meet. And thus it begins…

 

Mary went into Seattle with the kids today and we weren’t sure when she would be back. Turns out she didn’t get back till dinner time. Justin cooked up some burgers and Katie and Drew finished preparing a dessert that Jason started and decided not to finish because he couldn’t listen to technology while he made it. Parenting continues to be oh so fun.

 

I had a meeting with Bri (whom I’m replacing) to go over a bunch of the RS stuff I need to know.  She was here for over two hours and we covered a lot.  No doubt I’ll have lots of questions as I get going.