Beautiful

I love where we live. It is so beautiful. A woman in our ward took this pic the other day. 

Snow Canyon vs Desert Hills

Once again, JV won but Varsity lost. This has been the theme for the year so far. The JV girls have been playing well and Courtney has been great. The temperature has been awful (104-105 degrees at game time) but I shouldn’t complain because I sit in the shade while they run all over turf. But it’s fun to watch her play.

New mask

The District decided that we could wear face shields without masks (they found some loop hole in the governors latest order) so we all filled out paperwork saying that we needed to wear face shields instead of masks because of mental reasons 😂 and because our jobs require communication with students. I bought some cheap face shields and it has been so much nicer than masks!! But I can’t wait u til all this is over.

Storm

We had a huge thunder storm and brought a lot of rain last Sunday night. We didn’t get flooding at our house but a lot of parts of St George flooded. I didn’t realize that the wind was blowing so hard until I drove to work Monday morning. Three huge trees by the tennis court were blown down.

Two giant sink holes developed at a local hotel. A man claims his car is in one but that hasn’t been verified. It was a crazy storm.

Canyon View vs Snow Canyon

Courtney has an SCHS game against Canyon View, a team inCedar City. We drove there to watch her play. Varsity lost but the JV team won...and Courtney made a goal!!!! A girl flat tired her on the way to the goal so Courtney lost her shoe in the process but she scored!! We were so excited for her but she acted cool, like she does it every game. She told me not to tell Ethan because she wanted to. It was fun!

The team always gets pizza at the game in Cedar. It’s a tradition.

There was a semi that was on fire in the southbound lanes of I-15 when we drove to Cedar City. So we all went the long way - through Enterprise - to avoid the traffic and get home. There are a lot of fires in the area so it made for a gorgeous sunset as we drove home. I had to try and capture it.




This was the view after we passed Pine Valley. It was so pretty.

Donating blood & Bryan’s bruise

Bryan and I went to give blood. Bryan has type O blood so they ask him to donate all the time. I’m boring A positive so I go once in a while to donate. We both had appointments the same day so Bryan changed his time so we would be there together.

I got there a few minutes early and got started on the intake process. Bryan showed up and started the process as well. I was ready to give blood so they had me sit down on a table and after a quick poke, my blood started filling the bag...really fast. The lady was kind of surprised and told me I would finish in a few minutes (it usually takes 8-10). 

Meanwhile, Bryan is taken to a bed to start his donation and, as I watch, I can tell that it isn’t going well. The lady is going in at a weird angle and I could tell that she couldn’t find his vein. This continued as I watched and I didn’t like seeing Bryan in pain.

My bag finished filling in 3 minutes and 42 seconds. The lady told me that was super fast. She took the needle out and had me put my arm over my head while she finished labeling everything. I kept watching them as the third lady tried to find Bryan’s vein. It was then that I started feeling light headed. I told her and she had me take my mask off and wiggle my feet. I haven’t passed out a lot but I could tell there was no going back. So I laid my head back and told her I was going to pass out...and I did. 🤣

I had a crazy dream that had a lot of colors in it and a river. I woke up to two ladies yelling my name in my face. I said “I passed out didn’t I? I had a crazy dream.” They were really surprised that 1) I came to so coherent and 2) that I had a dream. 

They had an ice bag behind my neck, the table was laid down, my right shoe was off, and kept me there for a while while they finally decided that they couldn’t find Bryan’s vein. He came over to sit with me until they cleared me to leave. The woman said I passed out because my blood came out too fast. Bryan thinks I passed out because I was upset with how he was in pain. I think it was probably a combination of both. I don’t think I’ll donate again for a while. But I have a good story.

Bryan ended up with a HUGE bruise. The first picture is the day after and the second is 5-7 days after. It was huge!

Pack #14

The soccer swag came in and Courtney’s warm up has her name and number on it! Here is to another fun year of soccer.

Random

This is what admin brings you when a really irate and hostile mom rips into you and the SRO (school resource office, policeman in our school) has to get involved....

This is the sign Courtney thinks Bryan and I should hang up. Yes, it completely applies to us!!


This is what we need to get Ethan for this coming winter. 🤣😂

Ugly car seat covers

I ordered some custom car seat covers for the car because we want it to last and look nice for a long time. When I ordered them I was told that they wouldn’t be here until September but I thought that would be fine. Courtney and I were walking around Walmart on Saturday and she fell in love with these ugly seat covers. We went home, I called the company to cancel our order, and then Bryan drove back to Walmart with Courtney to buy them. They were a lot cheaper than what we had ordered so I was fine with it and Courtney was thrilled. Now we will see how steady they are. 

Talking to Ethan

We get to talk to Ethan on Saturdays and that is when he is the most talkative.  It's fun to hear his stories and see how chatty he is.  Bryan says I can't steal Ethan's thunder and tell stories he may want to share in letters so I am just going to write a few things down here and then if he doesn't talk about them in his letter on Tuesday, I will put them on his blog also.

On Saturday, the elders did a split with the other elders in their apartment.  So Ethan went with a different missionary to work.  He said it was nice to see the other part of the area that is on the other side of the freeway.  There is a frisbee golf course that is next to a pond.  They went there in the morning to do a companionship study.  There is a group of boys who dives for frisbees that have missed the hold that is next to the pond.  They get the frisbees out of the pond, clean them up, and then sell them at the park.  That is something Ethan would have done if it were possible when he was younger.  So he bought one of the frisbees from the kids. He was pretty excited about that.

There are also 4 fires around where he is and he said that the smoke was really cool to see in the sky.  They hadn't been able to smell it until Saturday but he said they now could smell the smoke. Their plan for one day last week was to go and help a family with service but then they were called and told that the sheriff had told people not to go up there because they may have to evacuate.  So they had to find something else to do that day.

He has had some experiences with a guy who really hopes the missionaries keep looking for the truth.  It really ticks Ethan off because the guy is condescending and makes it sound like these young missionaries have no idea what the truth is and that he does.  So we have had some good discussions with Ethan about agency and how without it, the entire purpose of life is gone.  If we aren't here to make choices and learn, then there is no reason for us to be here.

Ethan has also become the cookie elder.  He made some cookies for the elders last week and mixed up the teaspoon with the tablespoon.  He still ate them (of course) but the cookies were kind of salty.  Haha!  And he didn't know how to form the cookies without a cookie scoop (curse modern kitchen gadgets).  But he made the cookies again and was more attentive to things.  He said he scooped them better, made sure the butter wasn't frozen and did the measurements correctly.  He made 4 dozen and the cookies lasted 2 days.  So he said they turned out perfectly.  

That's about it.  We talked for quite a while.  Courtney showed him her ice maker, the car, and apologized to him for making fun of his driving.  She complained that she was a slow driver and now she is the slow driver and completely understands.

It's fun to see how happy he is and how well he is doing.  They have people they are teaching and the work is progressing.

Best present

Courtney’s best friend, Sammie, brought over Courtney’s birthday gift. It was so cool! She got photos of them and made a collage.

And then she gave Courtney her soccer number in wood. The 1 has a soccer ball that has been cut down the center. It is really cool.


Courtney immediately hung them up and I think it looks awesome.

Friday at Success Academy

They had a bit of orientation at Success Academy on Friday. Courtney and Hayley (her friend in our ward who is also doing it) went over together. They played games, took a tour of campus, learned more about what they would be doing, and other stuff. They have another orientation on Monday and then they start into classes on Tuesday. 

The District has a new early out every Friday schedule which threw Success off because the morning cohort would have to miss one class at their boundary high school each Friday. In order to avoid that, they have adjusted the Friday schedule so they only do one virtual online lecture each Friday at 2 pm and they don’t even go into Success on Friday. I’m hoping it works out ok. Courtney will get to sleep in and do homework Friday before going to SCHS.

First day of school

Courtney actually has 2 first days of school. Thursday was the first day at Snow Canyon High School and then Friday will be the first day at Success Academy. 

SCHS has sophomore orientation where they talked to the kids about expectations, had their school picture taken, etc. Courtney said it was “super boring”. At lunch, she came home because she didn’t have class again for a while. She went back for her 2 classes she has on A day. World civ is going to be “easy” and seminary is full of kids older than her so she isn’t too thrilled. But she survived

I got a text midway through the day asking when I was going to leave work. I told her 3:30 and she asked if she could just come hang out with me and not ride the bus home. I told her sure. Her motives were not to have quality time with me! She wanted to drive home. So we drove home. See the perma-grin? She did a great.


It was a successful first day.

Birthday present

After Courtney’s soccer game she was able to open her gift from us. 

“Is it a washing machine?!”  “No, it’s a counter top ice maker!”










She was so excited and loves it saying that it is the best gift ever. She loves ice and there are many times when our ice maker can’t keep up with Courtney. We have ice trays she puts in the freezer but this is so much better. It makes ice in 8 minutes. She is in heaven!!

Face shields

The Washington County School District bought face shields for all the admin and secretaries in the schools. They bought half face shields for the secretaries. The teachers were all given full face shields but they kept digging up and it was a pain so a bunch ordered their own half face shields.

They look like the old head gear from braces and they feel dumb but at least we can breathe. We used those last week for the first week of school and it was nice. We had a few students that had panic attacks because of the masks. When the counselors talked to them and explained that they can use face shields it calmed them down and parents were excited for the option.

Friday, the governor of Utah decided that schools can’t allow face shields without a mask underneath. I’m wondering how the school district is going to respond because we have already set a precedence with the shields. So next week is going to be very interesting.

First soccer game of the season!

The first game was an exhibition game against a team from northern Utah. Courtney was excited to drive to the game, can you tell by the huge smile on her face?!?

Also note that the seat in the car is all the way forward so she can reach the pedals. 🤣😂

Courtney is #14 and is on the zero of the 40.












The JV team lost but the the varsity team won. 

Courtney’s 15th birthday!

It’s crazy that Courtney is 15 years old!!  We decorated with balloons and streamers, as usual.  I had to find a new place to get a Texas donut (because we had a bad experience when we went to get Ethan's) but we found that Smith's also does the Texas donuts and they were great to work with.

So we got her a donut and some lemonade for breakfast.

I don't have a birthday morning picture because when we went in to wake her up she looked so peaceful that we didn't want to bother her. So we went to work and let her sleep in.

I had made an appointment for her to take her driving test to get her learner's permit and it was the morning of her birthday.  Bryan came home from work to take her to the DMV.  It took 2 tries but she passed!!

Courtney then wanted to drive all over the place.  Bryan took her to a church parking lot near SCHS so she could practice then he let her drive home through the subdivisions.  She was so excited!! 

She had a soccer game on the night of her birthday so we didn't get to do much celebrating but we did buy her dinner.