4th of July testimony meeting

Andrew stayed home with Phoebe and Alexander while I took the older four to church. Kind of. I drove Benjamin and Zoë. Rachel and Miriam went separately because they had a meeting after church. 

But Zoë was fading away during sacrament meeting, so Rachel ended up driving her home (so that I could set up for primary). 

The fast Sunday closest to the 4th of July is a Sunday that I approach with some dread because I really don't love it when all the testimonies wind up being about the constitution, for example, rather than about the gospel of Jesus Christ. But today's meeting was truly wonderful. 

Many of the youth (including Rachel and Miriam) bore their testimonies about what they had learned about the gospel during the many retreats they've had this past couple of months (YM camps, YW camp, youth conference, FSY). A few adults bore their testimonies about their immigration or their ancestors' immigration, highlighting the love they have for their homelands in addition to the States. Only one sister spoke of the founding fathers directly—she read a passage from the Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

She spoke a bit about traveling to Berlin pre-1989, of seeing that wall, of knowing that on one side there was oppression while on the other side there was freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and so forth. And how much joy there was when the wall came down and people were reunited and given the freedom to...you know...be. And how sad it is when we put up these walls and grant freedom to people on one side, while not allowing those freedoms on the other side, and that our Heavenly Father loves every one of his children no matter what side of the (human-made) wall they are on.

Swimming

This morning we went to a friend's birthday party at her lake/pool clubhouse. She invited all the youth in the ward...plus some of the older primary kids. Alexander and Phoebe would have been welcome as well, except that they're both too sick. And Miriam was on her way home from FSY so she missed out as well. 

The kids spent a good portion of the morning at the pool, came out for pizza, and then spent a good portion of the afternoon at the lake. 

Medicated Kindness

Phoebe was fine, fine, fine, fine fine yesterday.

Then she got a little runny nose.

Then she lost her ever-loving mind. 

We have never seen that girl so grumpy. She didn't quite know how to communicate that she just wasn't feeling well so while we were at Grandpa and Darla's she just...kept asking to go potty. She should have just found a quiet corner to curl up in because in reality she was just miserable. 

There was a lot of screaming and crying. 

When we loaded into the car to head home she requested that we put on "Everything is Awesome," which we did, and then she fell asleep before we even left the neighbourhood. 

She woke up shortly before we got home and cried because she thought we were going home...which we were. I guess she just had been hoping we'd be there already. 

She definitely had developed a fever by the time we got home. Andrew gave her medicine and put her to bed while I did a video call with my sister Kelli and her grandkids (she went up to Alberta to visit them for the 4th—Scarlett is a year older than Benjamin, Rowan and Arthur are both around Alexander's age). 

*****

It was a long night.

Breakfast flop

I failed the pop quiz. 

To be fair, there was no announcement about the ward breakfast in the email that was sent out three days ago. The attachment was included on the email dated June 24. And, yup, I didn't see it. 

We put the breakfast on the calendar because it was announced over the pulpit (and because we knew we had one every year). To that end, the breakfast is always at the same place and swimming has always been tolerated but not encouraged (and in fact is more often discouraged). 

We showed up without swimming suits. All the other kids were in the pool. 

(How did they all know?! I imagine an announcement was made in RS or something.)

We sat on the sidelines listening to nauseating patriotic music and—for my part—feeling incredibly stupid and underprepared. I had a bad-ittude.

Pop Quiz: Find the information about the ward breakfast!

[Redacted] Ward

[Redacted] Ward Bulletin 

Sacrament Meeting: 9:00 AM till 10:00 AM

1st and 3rd Weeks - Youth Sunday School

2nd and 4th Weeks - RS/EQ Meetings

2nd and 4th Weeks - YM/YW Meetings

Each Week - Primary: 10:00 AM till 11:00 AM

Each Week - Nursery: 10:00 AM till 11:00 AM - Parents welcome to attend with their child. 

Chorister: [redacted]

Organist: Miriam Heiss  

Opening Hymn: 185 : Reverently and Meekly Now” 

Ward Business 

Ear infections and things

Swim team always seems to do Alexander in. 

Last year he wound up with pneumonia. 

He's been sick for the last little while as well. 

We've been battling swimmer's ear all summer. 

And then he caught a respiratory thing that has been lingering and lingering and lingering. 

Last night when he was saying goodnight he casually announced that he couldn't hear anything out of one ear (isn't that weird? But it's probably fine. I love you, goodnight!). 

Yeah. So, we decided we needed to take him to the doctor in the morning.

Silly scripture study

We have this game called "Flushin' Frenzy" that my sister Kelline sent to us a few years ago—right in the middle of COVID lockdowns. She thought we'd get a kick out of it. And we did.

The kids still like to play it. Rachel has catlike reflexes when it comes to grabbing that plastic poop in midair. No one can ever beat her.

#Fail

This afternoon I decided we should embark on some "spiffy up" projects. 

Rachel will be leaving for college soon, which will cause a domino effect of sorts in the bedrooms. Perhaps musical chairs is a more appropriate analogy. Either way—we'll be switching up who's bunking with whom. 

"I'd like you guys to help me decide which board books we should keep and..."

"Okay!" Phoebe said. "No problem: All of them."

"But surely we don't need all of them."

"We do! I don't even know how to read yet! I need the book about the trains. I need the book about the little farm animals. And just...we need all of them, okay? 'Specially the book about the trains."

So apparently we're into trains right now.

And it's too soon to be getting rid of board books. 

We have spiffied up nothing. 

Church Cleaning, High Tide, and Songwriting

When we went to clean the church this morning we accidentally stumbled upon another ward's "Dads and Doughnuts" activity...so the church was filled with dads and doughnuts and children. They invited us to join them (and we did, from the sidelines). My kids weren't terribly upset about getting "second breakfast" before pitching in to clean.

The church has been filled with strange messes, some of which we've known about and some of which took us by surprise. One surprise was that someone had spilled a carton of chocolate milk in the chapel...and then just...left it...fermenting in the carpet. Super awesome. 

Some of the messes we knew about were: a urn/flower arrangement delivery box left over from a funeral that happened months ago that has been sitting in the chapel. Some banker boxes that someone left in the hallway (again, months ago). I made the unilateral decision that these were destined for Rachel to pack her college stuff in.

I threw away some things that our co-op left behind (again, months ago now). 

And I finally put a poster up in the YM room that had been put behind the piano in the YW room (again months and months ago).

It can be difficult to keep the church uncluttered when so many units are in there because no one wants to throw away anything that belongs to anyone else. But...given the unclaimed nature of these things...I don't think they were going to be claimed any time soon. 

So, it took us a while to get through with our cleaning, but it was a pretty good morning.

*****

When I got Phoebe dressed this morning she was still in a bit of an early-morning daze so I was helping her pick out her clothes (which she ordinarily does on her own).

"Do you want pants or shorts?" I asked.

"Shorts," she said.

"Okay, here you go," I said, handing her a pair of blue and white striped shorts. 

"Thanks," she said, "But I want to wear my high tide shorts."

"Your high tide shorts?" 

"Yeah! They're right there!"

She meant her tie-dyed shorts. And then, of course, we had to find her "high tide" Grogu shirt to go with it. Here she is in her "high tide" outfit:

She was delighted to see Rachel and Miriam (she hasn't seen them since Sunday night because they've been at camp...and then even when they were sleeping at our house they were coming home after Phoebe went to bed and leaving the house before she woke up so she didn't even realize they were "home"). We were happy they were home to help us clean the church!

She delighted us on the drive to the church by singing "Once There Was a Thunderstorm" (to the tune of "The Wheels On the Bus"). She had sung the first verse last night at dinner and you should have seen us all lean in as she got closer and closer to the last line of the song because no one was sure what she was going to do to resolve her song. She simply fell back on the traditional ending for "The Wheels On the Bus." 

Here's her song:

Once there was a thunderstorm,
A thunderstorm, a thunderstorm.

Once there was a thunderstorm...
All through the town!

So she sang that in the car for us and then went seamlessly into a secret second verse:

The thunderstorm made the power went out,

The power went out, the power went out!

The thunderstorm made the power went out...

All through the town!

Did she past-tensify too many of her verbs? Absolutely. But that's okay. 

I recorded her singing it later and she corrected her over-past-tensification to say "the thunderstorm made the power go out." 

It was fun to listen to her improvise this little autoethnographic ditty about her experience last night.

Power Damage!

As the evening progressed, it became clear that our 40% chance of thunderstorms had increased to about, oh, I'd say ninety-nine-pointy-one. When the storm hit us, it was raging: the thunder was loud, the lightning was constant, the rain was...wet. Our power flickered a few times in the midst of everything, but it didn't go out until after we thought we were through everything.

We'd just gotten Alexander and Phoebe into their jammies and were about to gather for scriptures and prayer when...everything went dark. It was still light enough outside that this wasn't a huge deal, but Phoebe thought it was the best thing ever!