Holding Down the Fort

Jonathon left May 1st for Brazil, and that meant that I was a single parent for the entire month of May. It was very challenging, and I gained so much empathy for people who have to do it all the time. It was also challenging because May is the month for so many big events and celebrations that Jonathon missed: Christian's AP tests, Mother's Day, my birthday, choir concerts, end of year activities, and our anniversary. So many people stepped up big time to make sure that we were ok and that I was spoiled on those special days. Here is a run-down of our May spent apart while I tried to hold down the fort.

AP classes and tests

It has been a very difficult year for Christian with his advanced classes. He has had to work very hard and do a lot of studying to keep up. He and Jonathon have spent hours and hours on his AP Calculus. By the end of the year, he was starting to understand it pretty well, but there was a lot of stress and even some tears to get to that point. At the beginning of the year, he decided to take the advanced AP Calculus class (BC) instead of the regular one (AB), so he really made life difficult for himself. I was so so proud of his efforts though, and through it all he learned that perfect grades aren't as important as learning, growing, and continually trying. He even managed an A- his last quarter, which felt like a huge win for all of us. 

The AP tests were a week after Jonathon left for Brazil, so they studied together over Zoom. Christian was very dedicated. He not only had Calculus, but AP US History as well. We won't know how well he did on them for awhile, but it doesn't really matter because we know he did his very best, and that makes us so happy. 

Mother's Day

Without Jonathon around, the boys really had to step up and take care of their Mama, and they did a great job. They snuck out with Grandpa Hill and bought me some flowers, and then worked with the other guys in the family to help make dinner. Christian and Andrew were in charge of a Keto dessert, and they made me a delicious cake. Christian also came up with a creative idea for a little gift using sugar-free soda. I loved that he did it all on his own.

I also went and got my hair cut for the first time in about a year. I went to my favorite curly hair stylist. She is amazing and works magic with my hair. Unfortunately, she has gotten so good that she can charge a lot now, so it was my Mother's day and birthday present. I love getting my hair cut and styled. It always looks so good... at least for a few days.

Another thing I really wanted for Mother's day was a picture with each one of my boys. They are getting so big. I can hardly even handle the idea that they will leave home before too long. It makes me so sad because I love them so dang much! I am even starting to feel small next to them.

Festa Junina

I am the PTA Treasurer this year for Lakeview. I was kind of conned into taking the position. At the beginning of the year, they were desperate for help. They assured me that all I would need to do was sign checks. Well, very long story short, it has been such a crazy year with way more work than I ever imagined. Our last big school-wide event was a Brazilian festival that took place on May 15th. It was terrible timing for me, but my boys helped me a lot, and we got it done. 

Festa Junina is a yearly celebration in Brazil that takes place in the month of June. We did it in May since school isn't in session during June. The festival is very similar to our harvest festivals. They wear farmer/country clothes, decorate with hay bales and plaid, do country dancing (like square dancing), and eat lots of delicious food. Since we are a Dual Language Portuguese school, we decided to host a big celebration and invite all of the families of the school. 

The PTA sponsored the event, but the Portuguese teachers did a lot of the work. Each DLI teacher taught their class a dance, and they helped to create games, get food trucks to come, and decorate for the event. They put in many, many hours to make it amazing. I was in charge of all the financial things (ticket sales, checks, etc.) and decorating the photo booth. Luckily, my amazing Portuguese teacher, Diomar, was also doing a Festa Junina at her school, so she had a lot of decorations that she let me borrow. It was so much work, but it turned out so cute. 

On the night of the event, I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Lots of people needed lots of help, and I wanted to make sure that everything went smoothly. We had some great helpers. Christian spent the whole night at the Guessing booth, Andrew and his friend, Jake, ran the bounce houses, and several members of the PTA helped with sales. Everything turned out so fun! 

Some of the highlights for me were: seeing everyone take photos at the booth, Hyrum's class dancing, eating a coxinha and a filled churro, and earning more money from the event than we expected! Wahoo! It was a huge success. I was dead tired at the end of the day, but thankfully, it went well.

My 40th Birthday

May 16th was my 40th birthday! I am officially old. I definitely notice more gray hairs and creaks in my bones, but growing older has always felt like a blessing to me after my cancer scare 10 years ago. I am grateful to have more birthdays and be healthy and happy with my family. My friend, Janelle, also turned 40 the same week as me, and she had a big girl's night out the weekend before. I haven't seen her in quite a while, and it was so much fun to catch up. She invited some of my very favorite women, and we had a great time together. We went out to eat and then went bowling together. The evening was full of lots of chatting, laughter, and fun. I even won at bowling with a pretty great score (for me). So, even though we were technically celebrating her, I felt like it was perfect for my birthday as well because I got to have fun without being the center of attention.

On my actual birthday, my amazing co-worker, Lisa, brought me a birthday badge to wear at school and made me a whole plate of homemade cinnamon rolls. They are my absolute favorite dessert, and I felt so special that she would do something like that for me. She is just one of a kind! All of the kids who saw the badge wished me a happy birthday, which was a fun bonus.

On the Sunday before, Christian was acting suspicious by asking me lots of questions about my plans for the day of my birthday. I started getting anxious that something was being planned behind my back. I'm not the best with surprises, so I forced him to tell me what was going on. He finally spilled the beans that my mom and sister, Hannah, were planning to come surprise me for my birthday. I felt bad ruining the surprise, but at the same time, I was so happy to have something to look forward to. I was starting to feel bad for myself that I would be celebrating such a big birthday by myself, so it was the best news that they would be coming. I got two extra days to be excited! 

I can not even explain how much it meant to me that they drove all the way down just to spend the evening with me. When I got home from work, they had the kitchen all decorated with white and gold 40th birthday signs and streamers. Then we went and got pedicures because I wanted cute toes for Brazil. We spent the whole time chatting and enjoying the pampering. Then mom bought my family dinner at Cafe Rio (my favorite!). Not having to make a meal is the best present of all! We played games and chatted that evening, and then I decided to take the next morning off work so that we could spend more time together. We decided to go shopping, and Mom bought me a new outfit for Brazil. 

When we got home, my friend Ali brought over a Keto cheesecake that she insisted on making for my birthday. I love her! And my sweet neighbors, Greg and Kris Tina, brought over more cinnamon rolls. They were so thoughtful the whole month Jonathon was gone and always volunteered to help me. It was such a lovely birthday! I love my family and friends who helped to make it special!

Hyrum's Choir Concert

Hyrum has been doing choir at his school all year. It took a lot of sacrifice on his part because he had to get up and go to school an hour early every Tuesday and Thursday. He enjoyed choir and learned a lot of fun songs. He was sick for his December concert, so this was his first time performing. He was really nervous, but it sounded so good. I was very impressed with all of the different numbers they did. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I am glad that he found an activity unique to him. Here is a short video of one of the songs they sang called "Fairest Lady." It was beautiful and was constantly stuck in my head after this. 

End of Year Awards Ceremony

Andrew is a star student. He cares deeply about his grades and works really hard to ensure that he gets straight A's. At one point toward the end of the quarter, it was looking iffy in one of his classes because he had an A-. He emailed his teacher to see what he could do to bring it up. He retook a quiz to see if he could improve the score. He originally got a 19/20 on it, but just the one extra point would boost him enough to get an A. He succeeded in acing the quiz and got his A. I understand Andrew because I was just like him in school. I worry that he might make himself crazy trying to always be perfect, but I appreciate his desire to work hard and do well in his schooling. His diligence was rewarded at the end of the year when he received an award for a 4.0 and was the outstanding student in both Portuguese and STEM for the whole school. He got to attend a special ceremony and received two medals. Way to go, Andrew!

Kid's Business Day

All of the 4th graders in the school have the opportunity to participate in Kid's Business day where they get to come up with their own little shop to sell things. Each of the kids earned money throughout the year for good work or good behavior, and they got to spend it however they wanted. Hyrum is my little entrepreneur. He is always coming up with ideas for businesses and ways he can earn money, so this was right up his alley. He and his best friend, Calvin, and their friend Peter worked together to create a business that Hyrum named "Mepcon." They created a logo, a mascot, and even had me help them make t-shirts. They were totally dedicated to their little company. For the month before Kid's Business Day, Hyrum 3D printed little animals and toys. He made axolotls, Among Us characters, canons, and bird whistles. They were all so cute. 

When he came home after the actual event, he had an enormous bag of candy, treats, and toys that he had bought with all of his money. He said that his stuff sold out in the first 3 minutes because everyone was so excited for them. I was proud of him and all his hard work!

 

Last week of School

We were all so happy when school finally ended. It was a really long month with a lot of stress and anxiety leading up to the end of school and our trip to Brazil. We had a couple of days when the kids broke down in tears and when I was overwhelmed and stressed out. We talked to Jonathon every day over Zoom, but it just wasn't the same. We all missed him and needed him around to keep us calm and centered.

One of the big stressors was that I was in charge of the yearbooks this year for the PTA. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but so much unexpected stuff happened to make it difficult. First, the company forgot to order the yearbook flyers, so by the time they finally arrived, it was too late to get them passed out and ready. I had to extend the deadline and print stickers to put over the old date on 1,000 flyers. I was so busy with YW and Trek meetings, that the boys helped by putting all the stickers on. They are the best! Then, when the yearbooks finally arrived, we opened the boxes and found out that they had sent the wrong schools' yearbooks. We received a California schools books. I immediately got on the phone with the company and told them we had to have them in one week because school was going to be out for the summer. They had no idea where our yearbooks were, so they said they would reprint them and send them as soon as possible. Two days before school ended, we finally got them. It was a mad dash to try to get them all passed out and organized. I didn't order enough extra copies, and there were a lot of people who wanted one and didn't get one. I felt bad, but we advertised them heavily and gave plenty of time for orders. I couldn't have done anything else. Next year, I will know to order more, but it made for a stressful week. 

Another stressor was trying to clean our house and pack for our trip. We debated renting our house, leaving it empty, or finding someone to house-sit for us. There were pros and cons to all options, but we really didn't want to worry about another family living there that we didn't know, so even though it would have been nice to get some of the money back, we just didn't feel good about it. We also knew that someone was going to have to take care of the yard and cat, so we couldn't leave it totally empty. The perfect solution fell into our laps when our Girl's Camp director, Carrilyne Jaynes, said that her daughter was looking for a little bit of independence but didn't have any money to pay. She is a good worker and was willing to do all the chores while we were gone, so it really felt like a good option. We talked to Indy, and she said that she would love to house-sit. That meant that we didn't have to pack everything up, but we still wanted to make sure that we left it really clean. 

My awesome mom and Aunt Tracie came down on Tuesday night to help me out. They were unbelievable. They took my list and worked so hard to get everything on it done. They loved completing jobs and crossing them off. I can't even explain how much they did to help me. While I was busy with school and PTA, they basically scrubbed my house from top to bottom. They sprayed weeds, organized the shed, deep cleaned all my bathrooms, did the grocery shopping, dropped off Amazon returns, and on and on and on. I honestly could not have done it without them. My life was in such chaos at the moment that I would not have been ready to go in time. I kept telling them how grateful I was, but it really didn't feel like enough. I guess the only way to truly show my gratitude is to pass along the kindness and service when I have a chance. 

That weekend was the wedding reception of my cousin Brooks Ogborn, so my dad also got to come down on Friday. He went right to work as well, changing light bulbs, unclogging drains, etc. I have such a great family who takes such good care of me. After all of the work, we got to enjoy the wedding reception with some divine cakes made by my cousin, Mariah. I still have dreams about her cakes. They are so heavenly!

On Sunday, Christian had to speak in church and I had to teach part of the lesson for Ward Conference, so there was no rest for the weary. After church, we continued our last minute packing and finished cleaning on Monday morning before we left for the airport. That ended one of the longest months of my life. We were all ready to go see Jonathon and be together again. We have been planning and preparing for Brazil for so long, that is was time to finally just go. Ready or not... we were headed off on the adventure of a lifetime!