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!

Benjamin's woodworking class

Andrew posted online about a swim meet the other day and someone commented on his post something like: "Lord, if I have but one day to live, let there be a swim meet, because those things last forever!"

With two swim meets this week, it has felt like this week has been at least two weeks (three swim meets within eight days). 

Add in the girls going to YW camp, a heat wave, the girls being sent home from YW camp, daily swim practices, class, work, and everything else...it feels like we've lived an entire lifetime since last week. 

Oh, and Benjamin had his woodworking camp this week as well! It was every afternoon from 1 to 5. And I think everyone had a good time—from the youngest boy up to the oldest teacher. Here's Benjamin when I dropped him off on the first day:

% Chance

We were driving home from Benjamin's exhibition evening at Woodcraft. Grandpa met us there and took Zoë and Benjamin back to his place for a sleepover. Alexander is feeling exhausted from the late night at the swim meet yesterday, so he'll be staying home this evening. The older girls are finishing up their last day of camp activities. And, of course, Phoebe was with us.

"That cloud looks menacing," Alexander observed. 

"Yeah!" Phoebe agreed. "Dad, is it going to rain?"

"It might." 

"Before you said it was going to rain!" she objected.

"No, I said there was a 40% chance of rain, which means that if we lived this day over 100 times, it would rain on 40 of those days," Andrew explained.

"What about ninety-nine-pointy-one cent chance?!" Phoebe asked, which is a sure sign you're being raised by a statistician of sorts (not that Andrew is a statistician by trade, not precisely...but he teaches stats and that's pretty close to the same thing).

Ribbons galore!

As you can see, the kids did well at their swim meets this week!

Benjamin had a whole fistful of blue (first place) ribbons:

Coach Heidi approached me about the possibility of him swimming on the high school team, which he's super excited about! He wouldn't be a star swimmer (to start out with; he'd probably be in the slowest lane), but he's showing a lot of potential and she'd love to have him when he graduates from middle school. He'll be heading to the county meet on the freestyle relay.

Last meet of the year!

We did it! We made it through the swim season! 

Our final meet was tonight and it was a little...touch and go in the beginning. A thunder storm rolled in just as we were setting up so we spent the next 1.5+ hours waiting it out. We got our meet started at 6:30 pm and the officiants really moved through things quickly!

It's. Hot.

On Tuesday the kids spent all afternoon in the neighbour's kiddie pool. This picture is just Phoebe...because at this moment all the other kids were sitting in front of the fans (they hauled up from our house) in the garage, dripping wet. That must have felt good! 

We've got the spirit

 Yes, we do! We've got the spirit!

How 'bout you?

Happy birthday to me!

My birthday was on Sunday. 

I turned 40, which seems impossible and also just about right.

Our ward choir performed, which meant we had to be to church early to practice. Phoebe had been a bit of a...stinker...in the night and did not want to wake up in the morning. Here she is stubbornly asleep at 7:45 (we needed to leave at 8:00):

Make-up Meet: A Boon for Benjamin

It was a scorcher today, but as hot as it was, tomorrow is supposed to be hotter! 

Poor Rachel and Miriam are off to YW camp, where they'll have to suffer through the heat all week (their cabin has electricity, so they've each packed a fan and have a few more items to help keep cool). 

The rest of us only had to suffer for a few hours at the swim meet this evening. Everybody was dripping—either from having just climbed out of the pool or from sweating to death on the sidelines—but we had a really great meet!

It was such a busy day between morning practice and Benjamin's woodworking camp in the afternoon. I changed into my blue shorts but somehow forgot to change into my white top (which I have to wear as a stroke and turn official) until I was walking out the door and Alexander said, "Oh, cool! You can wear navy blue and purple to judge now?"

No—I cannot! Good thing he said something! I had time to go back and change before heading to the pool. Andrew picked Benjamin up from his woodworking camp and brought him straight to the pool...it was chaotic.

But so good!

I worked with Alexander on his backstroke last Friday. I haven't been working with the kids as much this summer—in part because Rachel and Miriam haven't been around to help with Phoebe, who is still pretty hands-on in the pool, and in part because I've had bronchitis (have I mentioned that?)—but on Friday I did pull Alexander aside and we worked on getting his arms windmilling up-up-up into the air and down straight behind his head before pulling through the water. 

And just look at how high his arm is, whizzing by his head just perfectly: