Tales from Happy Land: August Part 1

Hey, Hyrum!

This week has kind of been a blur. My Prenda materials arrived about a week and a half ago, and then I found that one of them had the wrong cord. So they had me send the whole thing back. Then it turned out that 3 others weren't touch screen, sand they all should have been. So I had to send all of those back. I didn't get the replacements yet. Maybe tomorrow. School starts Wednesday, so I'm a little nervous! I now have a total of 7 students.

I got my reading glasses. They do help. And I feel like they look way better on me with my hair down.

So I spent the week doing training and whatnot and trying to get my class all set up. Papa got a set of shelves for us to hold stuff in. I need to get them organized tomorrow.

I took Timmy and Henry with me to the print shop one day. They have paper and crayons and toys to play with. Both of the boys sat still and colored for a long time while I printed things. And then the lady copied them and put the copies on the wall and let them take the originals home. :) Timmy made Centipede. I can't remember what Henry's is, but it was very detailed too. Henry also drew this guy another day. He's been drawing a lot. He sets out a ton of papers and draws about the same thing one every one of them, going back and forth making modifications. It's messy, but it's cute. He gets all focused.

We went to the cabins at Roper Lake on Friday. It was nice. We brought fried chicken for dinner, and we had bacon and pancakes for breakfast. The fuel in the camp stove ran out just after Benji cracked his eggs. 😅 But we'd all mostly eaten. So we went. Benji tried to fish, and he actually had worms, but he didn't catch anything. I think he needs someone to help him. Poor guy. And the four little ones filled out these papers that the ranger game them and then they said a pledge to help protect Roper Lake, and then they got junior ranger badges. They were so pleased. :) Also, we had a visitor in the night. Timmy was getting ready to sleep in the cabin with the big boys, but he kept coming back to ours as we were playing and getting ready. At one point he came in just sobbing. I asked what was wrong and he said he saw a raccoon. So we looked outside, and sure enough, there was a Panda trying to eat our garbage. We took the garbage in the cabin, which scared the raccoons away. Then I took the sobbing Timmy back to his cabin. I told him that some people call raccoons trash pandas. He giggled like that was the best joke ever. He keeps giggling about it still, but better that than sobbing. :) Anyway, the trash panda came back and ate all the chips and Cheetos that had fallen under the table, and then Jill threw him Cheetos one at a time. He came pretty close to us. It was kind of fun. We stopped after a bit because you're not supposed to feed the animals. But it was fun.

Anyway, fun trip. I'll send you some pictures.

I'm sure you read or will read Papa's email about Katie. Right now I'm feeling worried for her, but there's not much we can do but fast and pray.

We went to Sister Whetten's funeral on Saturday. I hope that I will never forget her smile and her laugh. I loved how she talked to everyone like they were her favorite person ever. I loved how she was so smart and not even a little senile. I loved her knowledge of the Gospel and her sweet testimony. I loved how she held my kids' hands and talked to you guys in that special way she had. I'm so sad that she's gone. I'm happy for her, but I miss her a lot. ❤️

We miss you!!

Love you so much!! Have a great week! Talk to you tomorrow!!

Love, Mommy

Jill at Activity Days

Jill at the first day of school at the DeSpain's house. She was nervous. We all were! But she loves it!

At the print shop (I love that place!)

At the cabins at Roper Lake

Benji with the fishing pole

Scripture time in the cabin Jeremy and I stayed in with some littles

Bubby fell asleep holding his junior ranger papers

This raccoon visited our camp to eat Cheetos

After they were sworn in as junior rangers

Hey, Hyrum!

We came to see Grandma. She was going to Miami Ward today for their ward conference because she's the stake primary president. So we went too. It was fun to see those guys! The building was really full today! We saw Nolan! He smiled big and gave me a big hug. It made me happy. 😊 His mom says he's not going back to his mission. He's going to EAC instead. That might be fun! :) I told him where we live and told him to come over any old time. I also took a picture of him because I thought you'd like that.

School started on Wednesday. It's crazy having only Michael in public school. I forget that that's where he is, and when I remember it feels weird. Prenda is going pretty good. I still need one more touchscreen Chromebook, and I have 5 non touchscreens waiting to go back. Ha ha! I have 7 students, and they're fun. I like it pretty good so far. I just still feel like I have a lot to learn! I think all our kids are loving it.

In my pictures this week I have one of Henry drawing. He spends a lot of time on each drawing, and they're always all over the place. There's also one of Papa reading to little boys at bed time.

It's Austin's birthday today, and Becca and Austin are still staying at Grandma's, so here's a picture of Mary because I'm holding her again. :)

Benji starts band camp this week on Tuesday. I think he'll love that. There's even a pool party one of those days.

I can't think of anything else to say. Mostly I just worked on Prenda all week. 😅 I miss you! I miss coming home and having you say, "Hey, Mama!" We think of you all the time. We're so proud of you, and we pray for you! Can't wait to talk to you tomorrow!

Love, Mommy

Well, we survived our first full week of school! We didn't die. Those kids do great while they're on their Chromebooks, and then they go nutso and won't listen, and they just feel like they can do whatever they want. So tomorrow I have a different plan of attack. We're going to do some exercises to tire them out a bit before heading into the other parts of school. It ought to work better. Fingers crossed!

So do you remember Lapis's family in our ward? They're in our ward. The mom is black, so Lapis and Sage, the kids, are black too. Sage was in our nursery. Anyway, the mom is getting baptized this coming Saturday! Pretty cool! The Rivhardsons are having a party at their house to celebrate, and they invited the whole ward pretty much. Anyway, hooray for fellowshipping, right?! ;)

Today in our ward someone from our stake reported his mission. His last name is McMaster, and he served in The Ukraine. He says there are only 100 or 200 missionaries in that whole mission. Crazy! Anyway, it's fun to see these missionaries coming home.

Last Saturday we had the Hatch family and the elders from our ward over for dinner. I can't remember if I mentioned that or not. Both of our elders right now are from the valley, so that's kind of crazy! But they're nice kids, and they're doing good. It was pouring rain after dinner, but they insisted on riding home on their bikes with their umbrellas because they wanted a good picture to send to their mom's. 😅 Sounds like they did get that picture, and they got home safely, minus an umbrella that broke in the way. (It was really coming down out there!) After they left we played Cashflow, and that was fun. We've run out of cards, though and that's a bummer.

Ashlynn is back in town. She came to see us last week for an hour or so. It was fun to see her. Sounds like she's in the same house, but because she lived there before she is like house mom or something and gets a better room. She still has roommates who want to do all the things, but between you and me, I think she rather enjoys doing all the things anyway. ;)

We finally got Joshua's schedule ironed out. We had to switch his major and reregister him. It was a mess, but it's all done now. School starts tomorrow for them. Whee! That reminds me. I still need to talk to Sister Hunt and get Joshua switched to last hour.

We did some fun things for school. We went on a couple of walks - one to the stadium and one to the hill in front of the auditorium. The second was more of a nature walk. They collected "specimens" in a lunch sack, and then they all got a turn to show what they found. They're cute kids, and overall, I love them! I want to do that one again. (Minus my leaning up against a wall that happened to be covered in ants that wanted to bite!) I'll send you a picture of my students playing on the grass and Bubby doing schoolwork. He got a haircut this weekend, but he was sure getting scraggly!

Also this week, Emily got engaged! She's been dating this guy, Ben Hobbs, for over a year. He looks like a nice guy. I'll send you a picture of them together.

Oh, and check out Heatron's outfit! It made me laugh. Now I have a feather mohawk helmet to match!

I found a very important broken dirty plastic spoon in the fridge.

Benji had band camp last week, and he loved it! They have him on cymbals, but he'll get a chance at the other things during basketball season. Here are Joshua and Benji right now, watching videos instead of sleeping. And Harry sleeping on my lap the other day.

I got sick this week, and that made school extra challenging. It felt like allergies that quickly went to a cold. It's getting better, but I still don't feel amazing. Still, I'm looking forward to school tomorrow!

I suppose I'd better get to bed. I suppose this letter is a lot school. I thing about it a lot, how to tweak things and make this or that better. I wish I could share our snacks with you. This week it's goldfish and animal crackers.

And here's Michael too!

Love you so much, Hyrum!! I'm so happy that you can be there, even if I do miss you. I feel like we've all been so blessed, even when I can't always put a finger on specific blessings. It's neat. Thank you for serving. We pray for you, and we love you to bits!!

Love, Mommy

First Day of School

Jill

Michael's last semester of public school

Ellie Jarvis

(She was my favorite student, but she moved at the end of February. :( )

Luke DeSpain

His and Emmett's mom teaches Jill at their house.

Emmett DeSpain

Emily John

Her mom teaches grades 6-8 at the DeSpain's house.

This is her rabbit face. I think she thought it was cute.

Sammy Petitt

We knew his parents in college. His older brother left on a mission just a few months ago.

We did art where you tear things and glue them together to make a picture. Bubby made this guy.

Ellie

We have workbooks for part of language arts. I made a copy because Henry wanted one. Look how good he did! I didn't help him at all.

Story time with Papa

Harry hard at work again

Sometime last year he learned from his siblings to spell his name Herry, and he told us that's his name, not Henry. He's changed his mind since, but that was cute for a minute. Still, it's cute that he knows how to spell it. He can type it, but I don't know if he can write it.

Nolan Gordon, Hyrum's good friend from Miami Ward

We love this boy! He's a good one.

Baby Mary again

I made this for Mom's little kids like 15 years ago or more. Mom says she loves it and wishes I'd make more. I took the picture thinking maybe for Christmas I would. Maybe this year. ;) Ha ha! It didn't happen.

We discovered mushrooms in the grass on nature walk.

I think on of the things about the whole school thing is that I have to be excited. Sometimes I'm not excited. But I do like finding mushrooms and kicking them.

This is what Conquer Mode looks like. (language arts and math time) Nowadays I pull out two tables and put them at the end of the kitchen table to hold all the work baskets.