the haystack: Hays Update// Spring has Sprung

Dear Family,

Spring is in full swing around here: trees are leafed out, my lettuce is sprouting (I can't wait to eat it!), activities are abundant, meals are on the porch and both doors are always open. I love this time of year despite the 70mph wind gusts.

We've had some highs and lows this week as usual. Let's start with the

HIGHS:

*The girls participated in Broadway Jr. This is one of my favorite things about Moab. They organize a song, choreograph it and work on it Monday-Thurs and then perform it on Friday on the high school stage. It is seriously adorable. Hannah and Liesel were in three songs that included one from Oliver!, Trolls and A Million Dreams. Liesel was absolutely hilarious and insanely animated. I honestly had no idea if Hannah was hating life or enjoying it. Afterward, she said she loved it, but that wasn't evident from her face haha!

Every night they were gone until 8am. A friend picked them up and I got used to have an incredibly peaceful evening putting Bridgette and Felicity down one at a time at a nice slow pace. Reading books, treasuring their cuteness and watching them drift off in minutes. I was like, "Remember when I thought two kids was hard?!" haha! Hannah and Liesel came home hyper and excited every night. I think staying up late combined with their instructors being high school students made them seriously jazzed.

I coached the last two soccer games on Saturday. The last game was actually exciting because we played another good team and Liesel scored the final goal to tie up the game in the last ten seconds. After the game we hiked up Hunter Canyon (remember mom and dad? Where we had that picnic and got all the caterpillars?) and then made it back in time to clean the house before Brian got home at 7pm.

Brian left after church today for Prescott, AZ for a helicopter manager training. He will get back on Saturdy afternoon just in time for me to leave for a wedding. He teaches the NPS-wide search and rescue training starting next Sunday. He is so busy with that he'll basically be gone all that week too. He spent this week prepping our yard for some more sod, organizing a BSA food drive, dealing with a major park service party that involved all of the employees and a DUI and a few rescues. He stays so busy with his job and had to work late almost every night this week.

I had no shoots this week and caught up on my editing from the weeks prior. I worked on my church lesson, watched my friend's kids every morning this week and joined a Crossfit gym that I love. I woke up every morning at 5:30am and managed to sneak in a mountain bike ride and a sunrise run.

LOWS:

Liesel got in trouble for taking a pair of glasses she found in a computer lab and pretending like they were hers for two days in class and lying about it. Once the teacher confronted her about it, she lied again. Finally she showed her an email that went out to every teacher about the missing glasses and Liesel finally told the truth. She got sent to "Skills" and got a referral for the principal. They wrote a letter home to me that I needed to sign and I spoke with her teacher. The loss of her teacher's trust and the pain of making the wrong choice made her very sad. All I can say is, "Thank goodness for EMILY!" I followed exactly what she said to a T and I feel very good about my parenting. haha! It was a good life lesson overall.

Hannah's teacher told me that Hannah told another whopper about me being sick and in the hospital. hannah wouldn't admit that she told the lie for 4 hrs until I threatened her with staying home from Broadway Jr.

Clay moved to Flagstaff this morning. We had his going away party for the NPS on Friday evening. His kids were all crying in church today. Leslie will follow in a month. We went on our last early morning run together on Saturday and Brian had his last "dude's night." They played poker with pennies and he came home and said that our life won't be the same anymore. It sounds dramatic, but it's kind of true. He said we'll have to replace the empty spaces with service. I guess that's true.

LOOKING FORWARD TO:

Seeing Cathrine this week! I can't wait to visit her in SLC on Thursday/Friday this week. I'm straight up taking the kids out of school and we are heading up since B is gone anyway.

This is right before I accidentally dropped my phone on her and woke her up screaming.

Hannah took this candid true-to life picture. I was playing with Felicity and her friend Anna that I had a pie for an eye. Felicity is constantly in this mermaid dress-- her alter ego is "Isla the mermaid" and she lies down in the middle of the floor and won't walk because she doesn't have legs.