September 2020

 Kylee and I painted her dresser and night stand over a year after she got the paint for Christmas.  We finally had some free time and decent weather during quarantine.  I think it turned out really cute!

Remember how I said there were a lot of fires?  The red sun is pretty cool, but I don't love the air quality!

Kaden lost his other front tooth finally!  Only four months after his first one got pulled. No more gap toothed. (or so I thought.  It's been almost a year now and his first one still hasn't started growing in).

Sara got tickets for David Archuleta and invited us to join.  It was really fun!  The weather was making us nervous for the hours leading up to it, but it turned out perfect.  We listened to his new album for weeks afterwards.

After the third round of illness for Dylan I decided the responsible thing to do was take him to the Dr.  He said he didn't think it was necessary to get him tested since the treatment is the same.  But he started him on an antibiotic for something that seemed infected (I can't remember now exactly what it was).  After a couple days Dylan's hands and feet looked like this.  I thought that was a bad sign but the Dr wasn't worried.  He slowly improved and was able to be healthy!  Yay.

I was able to do a couple more hikes with the help of friends and family watching Kaden.  We did Alaska Basin (with Devil's Staircase) and Lower Palisades one last time.  The Fall colors are pretty awesome!

And Sherri and I ran the Jackson Hole Marathon.  It's pretty frustrating when you train all summer long for a marathon and are healthy the whole time.  Then three days before the marathon you get so sick that you are in bed for two days.  Why??  It's not fair.  I blame Dylan.  I figure I got what he had.  I don't know though. I just know I was really run down and in bed Wednesday and Thursday.  Then Friday we packed up and headed to Jackson to stay the night and run the race the next day.  The weird thing is that Sherri was the same sick as me at the same time.  We were twinners the whole time.  We popped some Sudafed and Ibuprofen and just went for it.  I think we did pretty dang good considering.  But my body would not let me go my normal pace.  I had to go way slow.  As long as I was going slow, I was fine.  So I trucked along and it was the longest marathon ever.  It was a really pretty course.  I really liked it, other than the point-to-point with no transportation to the start either before or after the race.  But it worked out for us that we finished just in time to head over to the public transportation and ride that back to our hotel.  I felt rather beat up.  My muscles were cramping up.  It didn't help that it was raining on us.  Running in it was fine, but after I finished I had to wait for Sherri for maybe 10 minutes, and then on the bus for a long time before we could change into some dry, warm clothes.  So my body wasn't happy.  But we were good enough to walk around Jackson a little and see some of Sherri's old haunts.

Lagoon

 Sadie had been planning a trip to Lagoon with Jen's daughter Brynlee for months.  They had been saving money, planning out how much tickets cost, gas, food, etc.  They were really excited to go.  And then Covid.  We didn't plan a Lagoon trip in the summer because we didn't know what to expect.  Then I heard from some people that it was fine.  And Sadie still really wanted to go.  But by then soccer had started and we had very few free days.  Brynlee wasn't able to go on the one day we could go.  So Sadie called it her birthday celebration (way early) and she invited Lydia to go instead.  She was very happy!

We basically split up in three groups.  Kylee and Dylan did their own thing a lot.  Then Ryan and I took turns with Sadie and Lydia or Kaden.  Masks are annoying especially when it's hot.  But it wasn't bad.  We still had fun and the lines were normal long.  Sadie was brave enough (with the help of a friend) to go on Cannibal finally.  Kaden still doesn't like scary rides and refused to even try Bat.  I'm not sure what to do with him.  Maybe some day.

Start of School

It was a strange year, but we were just happy they actually got to go back to school!  This year Kylee was new to Hillcrest, Dylan was new to Sandcreek, and Kaden was new to Woodland Hills.  All very exciting but so much better being in school and not home online.

Both Hillcrest and Sandcreek had the new young students come by themselves on Monday for a half day as an orientation day.  They did this instead of back to school night.  Kylee had been to her school for registration, pictures for yearbook, etc.  But Dylan had not stepped foot in Sandcreek, never had a locker, never had to change classes like that.  So I guess having an orientation day was better than nothing.  Since Kylee and Dylan had a first day on Monday and Kaden and Sadie didn't go until Tuesday, I decided to invite their friends over for cinnamon rolls and to ride the bus together.  It was pretty fun.

The next day we had their real first day.  Unfortunately, Dylan came down with a fever after school on Monday so he had to stay home.  I made him get up for pictures... I'm that kind of mom.

Poor kid had to miss the whole first week of school.  I was very grateful he had that first day of orientation or he would have been completely lost.  He jumped right in and said he was fine, even though it took a bit of time to catch up in his classes.  With Covid, they have to miss any time they have any symptoms.  I never took him to get tested because I figured we would be doing the same thing regardless.  He kept checking to see if he could still smell, and he always could.  Unfortunately he only got to go for a week and then he got symptoms again and had to stay home again.  He ended up missing like 10 out of the first 17 days of school.  No wonder he got overlooked for the "smart" math group.  Luckily they have Mondays as online learning days for Jr High and High School.  On those days, the kids that need extra help can go to school and get the help from their teachers.  So he was able to do that and get caught up.  It was a rough start though!  He barely made it to soccer tryouts for club, which were a big deal.  And he got sick again right after (so he was probably contagious during them... but we really didn't think it was Covid.  Who knows.)

Sadie and Kaden did have a back to school night where they met their teachers, we just had to schedule the time.  Kaden got Mrs Pawlaczyk and we are so happy!  She is the best.  It's so fun to have him in Kindergarten finally!  And only a tiny bit sad.

Sadie got Mr Peterson, whom Dylan had before.  And he quickly learned that Sadie and Dylan are a bit different, lol.  He loves Sadie.