Summer Wind Down

Hey there! I I hope you’ve had a great week. It was good to hear from you as always. Glad to hear you are busy and learning a lot. I hope this transfer goes well and you enjoy training a new missionary!

We’ve had a fun couple of weeks around here as summer is winding down.  

1. Last week I took Tate and Jett to Fort Collins to visit Alison and Zach’s family. We had such a great time. The little cousins loved running around together, and I think maybe we need to make this annual tradition. Fort Collins is such a cool place. They have so many parks all over the place. We swam at their neighborhood pool, and the next day we went to a city park that the river runs through. The water was low and the kids were able to float in tubes and swim with the fish and throw rocks. Great way to pass the afternoon. Zach said that when the water is higher people can kayak there. On Sunday we took the kids to ride their scooters through the sculpture garden. It was a fun and relaxing trip, and I had several hours to listen to my audiobook while I drove.

2. While I was gone Dad took the older boys to Tommy Rawson’s baptism. Hard to believe he’s 8 already!

3. Dad was also available to oversee the repair of our kitchen flooring which has been separating at the seems (hallelujah!), and he also ordered us a new family car for me to drive hallelujah!). Productive weekend for him! And that’s not even including all of the school shoes and soccer gear he bought. Your dad is awesome. I’m super excited about the car. We ordered a dark gray Yukon Denali, and we are hoping to get it in the next 6-12 months. However, the dealership called to say some of the features we selected are not available right now, so we may need to make changes to the order. Darn chip shortage! Buying a car right now is a pain in the neck. 

4. While Dad was ordering shoes and the Yukon (and also a sweet bike rack for the Avalon! Ty was thrilled!), I was racking up a Costco rebate by ordering a pallet’s-worth of food storage, and making plans to Epoxy the garage floor. He tells me we are done spending for now. But I still haven’t done back to school shopping yet.

5. The day after we got home from Colorado, we had a Rawson cousin play day at Cherry Hill. It’s been WAY too long since I got to relax in the Lazy River! Tate loved it, and I’m thinking maybe we should get passes for next summer. 

6. Ty got to go to the Tetons for high adventure last week, and of course he had a great time. He reminds me of you at this age—trying to fill in every possible spare moment with some outdoor adventure with his friends. He’s not thrilled that football is starting this week, and he also needs to buckle down and work on his ACT prep.

7. Friday night we went to the ward campout and had such a great time. We didn’t have a ton of people show up, but the campground was awesome. Dad ended up finding a spot that had a big pavilion with lighting and firewood. That was very beneficial because it rained hard as soon as we started trying to set up the tent. We ended up keeping the tent under the pavilion for the night. There was really loud thunder and rain during the night too. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been camping when it didn’t rain. If I went camping more often we could maybe make a dent in this super drought. One time when I was a teenager I went down to camp near Zion’s with my dad. It rained to hard there was flash flooding and they closed the entire area where we were supposed too camp. We stayed up late (of course) and played a rousing game of Bananagrams. Hopefully we didn’t keep anyone else up. 

8. This week I worked on my garage project. Costco delivered my cabinets in huge, heavy boxes much earlier than expected. I had just decided that I wanted to do an epoxy floor covering. I’ve always wanted to coat the garage floor, but it’s really expensive to pay someone to do it. But if we are organizing and moving things around in the garage, now is the time to do it. I won’t want to do it later once the cabinets are installed. Dad is not thrilled about the project. He doesn’t see the point of making the floor look nice. I hope he likes it once I’m done. He helped me rent a garage floor grinder yesterday from Home Depot. And then he said, “this is the point of no return.” He did not want me to screw up the floor and then have to pay someone a gazillion dollars to fix my mistake. So I’m kinda feeling the pressure to do it right. This week Blake helped me empty the garage (royal pain). And then I cleaned it all out with the blower, grinder the concrete, and cleaned all of the dust up. Tomorrow I am planning to pressure wash. Hopefully Tuesday I can repair and etch the concrete, and maybe do the painting on Wednesday. The side of our garage looks like trash.  Just in time for Ty to have all of his HEFY friends over on Friday!

9. Ethan and I got to do PT together this week. Mother-son bonding time right there.

10. Elder Hill came home and gave his Homecoming talk today, and Sister Bass returned as well. Missionary service seems to go by so quickly when it’s not your own kid!

Today was an excellent Sabbath day. Your Dad and I got to go with Blake to get his patriarchal blessing. It was a really great experience, and I think Blake was prepared and felt the spirit. He was able to see the possibilities of what his life could become if he stays close to the Lord and remains faithful. This is the kind of experience that makes all of those hard parenting moments worth it. We are proud of him, and proud of you as well.

Love you, Mom