August and September 2020 Taking Jacob and Ashley to school

Restaurants have been closed to diners for a long time. Jeff and I found a place in the Corona Crossings to eat outside on the patio. It was nice to not have to cook or eat from take-out containers.

It was a nice day and nice to get out of the house and spend some time together. 

During this summer we have had a service project that included collecting blankets to be donated to local organizations. I have personally done quite a few and a lot have been donated. I’ve been able to give them to Parkview hospital, Beds and Blessings and Binky patrol that brings them to all sorts of local police, fire, care facilities and more. 

We were talking about the wedding one night and I was showing the kids our wedding pictures. Next thing you know I was pulling out my old wedding dress and Taylor Rose was trying it on. 

Then Taylor tried on one of Jeff’s suit jackets and they did a mock wedding with Jacob officiating and Ashley serving as the ring bearer, ha ha.

 

Ashley has enjoyed spending time at the beach with friends. These two are trying to soak up as much beach time as possible before they go up to school. 

 

During Covid Ashley has done a lot of planting. She got these cucumber seeds from the dollar store but she didn’t like how the cucumbers tasted so she let them die. Later she realized she just needed to fertilize them and she was sad she didn’t let them grow longer. 

She is also going to miss the pets so she tried spending more time on the porch with the cat. 

Saying goodbye to Maddie

 

Ashley was soaking up as much friend time as possible before leaving up to Idaho. Goodbye Maddie. (She will probably miss her more than us, ha ha)

In August we celebrated Jacob’s 22nd birthday! 

 

Happy Birthday Jacob!! 

(Taylor in the back with his long Covid beard)

Jacob drove the car loaded up with most everything and Ashley and I flew to Salt Lake and then met up with Jacob. Ashley is sneaking her fish onto campus so they were carefully packed in the car with Jacob as well.

  

In Utah we made sure to stop at Kneaders where JJ (or Justin) is working and see him.

He’s doing good and enjoying Utah.

We drove to Rexburg. I didn’t realize that it was quite a long drive to get there from Salt Lake. Probably a little longer than it takes us to get to Vegas from our house.

We finally made it. Ashley‘s dorm room is cute but we still had to go to Walmart and buy lots of things to get her set up. Jacob has simple tastes so he only needed a couple things.

Getting started setting up her dorm room. The fan is always a must.

I stayed in a hotel nearby while the kids stayed in their dorms. I was able to go to church with them. We haven’t had in person church since the pandemic so it was nice to go in person. With masks and distanced. Afterwords Jacob gave us a tour of the campus and enjoy the day and took a few pictures..

Ashley and 2 of her new roommates. 

One of the nights I drove out to David and Laurel‘s house and had dinner with them. The kids were busy but I enjoyed the time reconnecting with them.

Our last morning together we drove to a cute place that was highly recommended on yelp to have breakfast. It was actually my birthday the kids need to get up to school so I just did a couple things with them in the morning to enjoy the last of our time together.

We ended up going to the art museum on BYU Provo‘s campus. I always love it and Ashley enjoyed it with me. Jacob gave up on us at some point and sat on the bench until we were done. Ha ha at least he didn’t complain.

Afterwords we decided to drive up Provo Canyon and see bridal veil Falls. What’s great is that it’s right off the road so you don’t have to hike really to get to it.

I was pretty chilly in the canyon. I didn’t have a jacket with me so I used one of Ashley’s thrift store jackets that we had bought. 

Falls was beautiful. Ashley had to put her feet in just to try it. Freezing cold!

Once the kids left I had time to myself in downtown Salt Lake. It wasn’t really anything fun to do since everything was shut down. There had just been Highwinds the day before so there was tree branches everywhere. Temple Square was even close to renovation. The mall was open but it was dead and nobody was shopping. I ended up getting a phone call from riverside unified asking me to start teaching online school. I snuck back into my hotel after I checked out to use their Wi-Fi so I could set up my Google classroom and Skype with a teacher to get a little bit of information. I’m not gonna be able to start the Friday they wanted me to but I’ll start on Monday.

Cindy Pendleton made my birthday one of the best ones I’ve ever had! She had me come and hang out with her and she really made the day special.

Our first stop was the gardens at Thanksgiving point. I don’t know why I had never been through this before. They were beautiful!

This is some thing I would love to come back to again. She had been to them before so she was able to show me all of the best parts

The sculpture garden was one of my favorite. You could walk all around the sculptures and see things from different perspectives. It was peaceful and really brought the spirit.

After our time in the Gardens she took me out to dinner. Love you Cindy! 

Kate came up to school after Ashley did. Her mom took them to Yellowstone so Ashley got to go and experience it with the Thompson’s! She loved it.

Kate and Ashley all set up in their dorm room ready to start school! Good luck girls!

When we got back home we celebrated Joel‘s birthday and my birthday together eating out with Joel and Virginia.

I have now taken over Jacob’s bedroom as my classroom. I’m here every day teaching online school. After a couple weeks it turned into a whole year contract. The nice thing is I’m getting regular teacher pay. Maddie likes to hang out the room with me and I usually have some sort of crochet project for when the students are doing independent work.

The Taylor’s gave me homemade Peach cobbler and plant for my birthday! They are the sweetest.