The End of Summer 2017 And (A Little Bit) Beyond

After returning from the Nash family reunion in Vernal, there wasn't much summer vacation left; just two weeks! Our charter school starts earlier than just about everyone else (July 24th or thereabouts), and there was a lot to get done after we arrived back in Tucson. Some of it was dull & boring (school supply shopping, yuck!), some of it was pretty fun! Here's a rundown of some of the more memorable things we experienced in late July/early August.

Nathan and I went on not just one, but TWO date nights with other adults!!

This is in bold-face because this so rarely happens anymore.  When we are lucky, we manage to sneak out of the house and pull off a quick date with just the two of us. We still have a decent number of friends living in the area, but we are all getting so busy with work, kids, church, and life in general that our socializing has been reduced significantly...especially during the school year, when all the kids' extracurriculars are in full swing.

Imagine our happiness, then, when the Savoies (some old friends from another ward) invited us to attend an "escape the room" date in Tucson, just one week after we returned home from vacation. We had been through a different escape room last year, but we really enjoyed it and were excited to try it out.

We ate a delicious dinner beforehand with our fellow "escapees" at the Brushfire BBQ, and then headed over to the Escape Room. Right from the start, I enjoyed this escape room better than our previous adventure. Why? Because this room was pirate-themed!

Rather than simply "escape" the locked room, our team had to unlock the pirate's "chest" and "steal" it. It was fun to have a different objective other than "find the key and get out." The decor was lots of fun, and there were some truly clever tricks involved in this room. For example, the eight of us started out in a very small room, with a large wardrobe taking up the bulk of the space. We reasoned that opening the wardrobe would be a key step in progressing towards our ultimate goal. When we finally got the doors open (hint: it involved magnets), the inside revealed: a secret passageway into another room, with a half-dozen more puzzles to solve inside! It was really cool.

In the end, our group managed to open up the treasure chest with about seven minutes to spare. We were pretty proud of ourselves! In our previous escape room, Nathan and I had been attempting to catch an international jewel thief. There were a lot of number- & geography-related puzzles to solve in that room. In this pirate-themed room, there were more riddles, anagrams, mirrors, and magnets; there were a greater variety of puzzles and it was great fun. We were so glad we got to go!

Just one week later, we went out with a different couple...some friends of ours from our ward (I teach her children piano, and she gives my two oldest daughters voice lessons. It's been a good trade so far!). We had mentioned to them once that we would like to try sushi...and so when they invited us our for a sushi dinner as a birthday date, we were excited to go along! The Hibberds have a lot more experience eating sushi than us, so Nathan and I were relieved to have some relative "experts" to help us pick some tastier choices.

Mmm...Beet sushi! Baby squid sushi! Eel sushi!

 

We both went more "exotic" than I think we were expecting, but we had a lot of fun trying everything out...even the stuff that we decided we didn't like. It was fun to do something different for dinner! Hopefully we will get a chance to go out for sushi again sometime.

The girls completed all their summer "extras."

Throughout the summer, our girls had each had their own "special" activity. As the girls have gotten older, and as they are slowly transitioning into teenagers, it is getting harder to figure out how to keep them entertained in the summer. Example: I signed all three girls up for swim lessons offered at our local pool by the Tucson YMCA. The lessons were free: Hooray, I thought! Well, it turns out you get what you pay for. The instruction offered was on the extreme end of basic; each of my girls already knew all of that stuff. To make matters worse, they inexplicably put Aurora in the more advanced class, and Lorelai and Celeste in the intermediate class! My older girls were offended and bored, and even Aurora thought there wasn't enough to do at these lessons. I guess next summer, if I want my girl's swimming to improve, I will put them on the local swim team (unlikely; too expensive) or sign them up for private lessons (more likely; we'll see what our schedule allows).

Despite this hiccup, we had some better luck with our other summer "extracurriculars." Lorelai at first asked to participate in a basketball camp; unfortunately, our budget and the timing of our family vacation didn't really allow her to participate. Instead, we tried something in the summer that we'd never done before...we gave Lorelai private trombone lessons! Of course, she has been taking private piano lessons from me for years now. However, she does love her trombone, and she's asked me for lessons before.

I was able to get in touch with Sammie, a former band-mate of Lorelai's from Great Expectations Academy. These days, Sammie is in high school, participating in marching band and playing first trombone in the jazz band as well. Lorelai always looked up to Sammie (as she should; Sammie is a sweet girl and an excellent trombonist!); and I decided it might be nice if the two of them could have "jam sessions" once a week! Sammie (and her mother) jumped at the chance for Sammie to be a music teacher for the summer. I paid for the lessons (not a ton of money, but hopefully a nice sum for a high-school student), and the two had a lot of fun together.

Sadly, I don't have any photographs to commemorate these lessons, but they were a nice opportunity for both girls and Lorelai really enjoyed herself. It was a good opportunity for Lorelai to see what sorts of things she would have to work on in her performance before entering high school. She got several pages of scales, exercises, & technique builders from Sammie that she worked on diligently through the summer. Besides that, she also got the chance to "goof off" with her instrument a bit; the two of them practiced improvising back & forth with each other and they enjoyed that. When the school year began again, I noticed a significant improvement in Lorelai's playing ability. Maybe it was my imagination somewhat...but I think if nothing else came out of of these lessons, they were a confidence booster for Lorelai going into seventh grade. I think that when the time comes for her to try out for jazz band in high school, she will be ready!

There was one more major activity that Lorelai was involved in this summer...

...Girl's Camp! It is a yearly event for all girls in the LDS Church (plus any of their friends who want to come along!), aged 12-18. The girls travel several hours from home and spend most of the week doing all sorts of things: outdoor activities; faith-promoting experiences; spiritual strength building; sports; music; crafts; or just plain goofing off. It is a highlight of the year for many girls, and Lorelai had been looking forward to her first year of camp for a long time.

The girls in our ward are expected to do their own fund-raising in order to attend camp, and last spring, Lorelai baked over a dozen pies to be delivered on "Pi(e) Day" (March 14, or 3/14, for you math nerds).  I helped her make the pies, of course; that is quite a workload for any one person, let alone an 11-year-old!

We ended up with fourteen pies altogether: three mixed-berry pies (my personal favorite); five apple pies, of two different types; a cherry pie; two chocolate-cream pies; and two Virginia Peanut Pies (Think a pecan pie made with peanuts instead! It was sweet and salty, and pretty tasty). We kept one of the peanut pies for ourselves, and made a "grasshopper pie" (chocolate mint)...because there was no way we weren't having pies for our own family on Pi(e) Day!

The girls from our ward, getting ready to head out to camp

Thanks to Lorelai's hard work in March, she managed to pay off her entire fee for Girl's Camp four months before camp! I was very proud. After that, the hardest part for her was waiting to go to camp! We had a busy summer, so it was still a little hard to believe my eyes when she was goofing off with her friends that first morning, waiting to board the van. It didn't feel real to me that my daughter was heading off to Girl's Camp...that's something that teenagers do, not my "little" girls!

Of course, Lorelai has been off on overnight activities several times before this; as a member of jazz band, she has traveled as far as California without me. But on those occasions, she still had cell phone access, and was still able to contact me frequently. Not hearing from her for five days was disorienting and a little worrisome. However, she had a wonderful time...and some merciful parents who'd gone along to Girl's Camp posted a few pictures on social media, so I knew she was alive and well.

Lorelai hasn't shared a whole lot with me, but I gathered that she had a very nice time at camp. She made a few crafts, went boating, got to rappel down a rock face, attended a few devotionals, participated in a gift exchange, and even went on the traditional "snipe hunt" that has been a Girl's Camp tradition since I was a girl myself. She enjoyed every minute, and had a few spiritual experiences that I suspect strengthened her testimony (of course, she will never tell me about them, because she's often close-mouthed about such things).

Girl's Camp took place outside Alpine, Arizona; it's a city up in the northeastern part of the state (in the White Mountains). The girls were frequently rained on and got a little chilly at night. When Lorelai arrived back in hot, sweaty Sahuarita, it was obvious she needed a shower! But she looked very happy to be home, and happy with her experience. I sincerely hope her next Girl's Camp is equally memorable.

But Lorelai wasn't the only daughter in our household with extra activities this summer: Celeste & Aurora got to attend a sewing camp, and make a few items!

I am one of the world's worst sewers. I can reattach buttons, and that's about it. Luckily, our neighbor Trista (the same lady who currently gives Lorelai & Celeste voice lessons!) is an excellent seamstress, and she offered a weekly "sewing camp" to interested grade-school kids this summer. I was happy for them to have the opportunity; at least they would be taught by someone with better knowledge than myself! Each week for about an hour, the girls would head over to Trista's house, and she would instruct them on basic sewing tools, use & care of a sewing machine, and stitching techniques.

By the end of the summer, they had both each made a pair of pants, and a handbag! They picked out their own fabrics, so each item had their own sense of (interesting) style. It was awesome! I am really happy they had this opportunity. I don't know if it's something they would ever want to do again, but I'm glad they got to try sewing out this once. Now if only I could follow up with them and help them expand on what they've learned! Sadly, that may not happen. Maybe I need to send them to Grandma's house next!

I had a few home projects too...and one project (literally) fell to earth.

Even though there wasn't a lot of time left in the summer, I still found time to get my homemaker on. For a while now, I have been wanting to repaint the white walls in each of the girls' bedrooms Originally, we painted all the walls of each bedroom but one, leaving one wall white as a contrast. However, the paint on that white wall was the flat, unattractive matte paint left behind by the original sellers. As a result, a lot of ugly smears & smudges had appeared on the walls over the years. I determined to buy some better white paint and cover up the mess. Besides the bedroom walls, I also decided I had enough paint to do one additional wall in our main loft area upstairs. I guess after painting the stairwell in the spring, my house-painting "itch" still needed some scratching.

It took me several weeks to get all the walls done.; I did Lorelai's room while she was away at Girl's Camp, and I had to wait until school started to take care of the other girls' rooms. When I was all finished, the walls didn't look especially different or flashy (it was more white paint, after all). However, they definitely looked cleaner, so I was satisfied. Now, most of our house has been painted the colors we want! All that remains is our upstairs loft & hallway. Here's hoping we can complete it before moving out!

As I was trying to complete this home improvement project, another, much more unwelcome home project reared its ugly head. We were sitting inside one rainy night, when we heard a sickening, wet thud come from outside. We peeked out and saw this:

A very rainy monsoon season, combined with the weakened wood inside our backyard balcony, meant that the materials had rotted through and lost all structural integrity in the rain. Sheetrock and particle board alike gave way and fell to the ground; for the rest of the summer, a steady stream of water poured through the hole during each storm.

It was very disheartening for us to see the damage. Nathan and I had known that the balcony was in bad shape and needed repair, but we had hoped to put it off for another year or so. In a year when we have had so many appliance & car repairs, as well as getting our home exterior painted, it has been scary and disheartening trying to calculate the costs of this repair. In fact, we still haven't finshed the job...although our family has had many offers of help so far. I'll share more on this later, once things are more settled.

Losing our balcony made me depressed...and like many women, when I am depressed I bake. Luckily we had a lot of fresh produce to work with this summer...

I found a recipe for Lemon Zucchini Bread, and it was so incredibly delicious I literally couldn't stop making it for a couple of weeks. I delivered loaves to many of my friends. I sent several of them up to Girl's Camp. I may have eaten a few myself! Soooo good!

I also ordered a huge crate of plums from Bountiful Baskets; I don't do as much home canning as I would like these days, but I was in a "plum" mood this summer, so I tried out a bunch of things:

I canned some halved plums to start things out; I've done that a few times before. I also froze a bag or two of plums, to use for later. But then I tried some slightly more exotic items. I made a whole bunch of plum jam, which looked and tasted delicious. Finally, I canned a few jars of spicy Asian plum sauce; it's excellent on chicken, duck, and pork. We had a little extra sauce left over after canning, and I dipped some egg rolls into it. Fantastic! It was fun to try a few new things.

I also made some plum cobbler. Yum!

Best of the rest!

When Lorelai was at Girl's Camp, Celeste & Aurora had a great time. They missed their sister, but they also had fun having the house to "themselves." We took a trip to the Tucson Children's Museum, a place Lorelai is getting a bit tired of, and they had a terrific time.

And, of course, our beautiful Coco was surviving the summer as best she could indoors.

Coco is a very active dog, and being cooped up inside all day is difficult for her (especially because she is actually afraid of the sound our air conditioner makes when it turns on! Sigh...our "brave protector" she is not.). We tried to get her some extra toys to play with...

And when it started to cool off in the evenings, we would take Coco to the local dog park, and watch her run off all her energy. Coco is a very fast dog, and we love watching her fly across the grass and play with other dogs. We are happy to have a place like this in our neighborhood.

And just like that...

School began! Lorelai got home from Girl's Camp on a Friday; our first day of school was the following Monday. Yikes! Every year our summers seem shorter. I will blog more about school another time, though...for now, I'll close the blog post with the end of summer. It was a lot of fun, and over a little too soon.

A June Filled With Murder, Mystery, and Sun-Baked Cookies

Our June was filled primarily with Tucson Temple-related events. However, we did manage to fit a few other fun activities into the month...especially a big birthday party! (More on that in a minute.)

First, a brief rundown of some things the girls and I did together:

Swimming

Isn't that what everyone does lots of in the summer? My kids seemingly never get tired of our clubhouse pool. It hasn't changed much over the years, but it is undeniably refreshing in the hot, hot summer. This year, we discovered a delightful new way to enjoy our community's pool...by visiting it in the evening!

 Usually we visit the pool in the daytime, but a few friends of ours swore that "night swimming" was the way to go. We tried it once and ended up going in the evening several times this summer! The pool is less crowded, it's cooler, it's well lit, and (best of all) we didn't have to worry about applying sunscreen!

Donut Eating

June 2nd is National Donut Day, as my Facbook friends kindly reminded me. To celebrate, a lot of businesses were offering free donuts. Usually, however, those donuts came with some strings attached (like purchase of a drink or another item). Not Krispy Kreme, however...they offered their donuts free to all! Even though the nearest store was a fair drive away, I decided to hop at the chance and take the girls to a Krispy Kreme store for the very first time.

The line (as I expected) was pretty long! However, the line passed right by a large window into the Krispy Kreme kitchen, where the girls were entertained by watching hundreds of donuts made as we waited.

 

Mmmm....donuts. Enough said!

Caving

Thanks to a coupon I purchased, the girls and I took a summer visit to Colossal Cave. The kids went last summer without me, but they graciously agreed to go again so I could check out all the cool rock formations one more time.

We had a very cool wildlife sighting just before we entered the cave on our tour; we saw a coatimundi hanging out just down the hill from the cave's gift shop! They are apparently pretty rare in North America, so it was a cool treat to see one.

This fella (no idea if it was male or female) was taking its sweet time munching on some food and moseying around; it didn't seem to care that several people were whispering, pointing, and aiming cameras directly at it. This coatimundi had no fear of humans; that was a good thing for us, so we could see its cuteness up close!

"Natural" Baking

As you probably know, dear readers, June in Arizona is hot. Dang hot! in the middle of the month, we were hit with a particularly nasty heat wave; for several days, the daily high temperatures were at 110 degrees or higher. It was exhausting just to think about going outside; even the pool didn't sound all that appealing. So we decided to combat the boredom somewhat by conducting a few food experiments.

On one hot morning, I decided to see if there was truth in the expression, "You could fry an egg on the sidewalk!" Since our sidewalk was dirty & covered in dog hair, I decided to fry our egg in a frying pan...but using only "natural" heat.

We put the egg outside between 7:00 - 8:00 am. I put the lid over the pan to keep away bugs. I think the lid may have accelerated the cooking process.

I checked the egg once after about an hour and a half. It looked lovely! The yolk was probably pretty soft, but I like my yolks pretty hard so I left it outside. Then, after getting distracted by other things, I checked on the egg again after three hours had passed.

That egg was overdone! The whole thing was hard, rubbery, and definitely inedible. But it was still amusing to have seen it cook outside!

The next day, we got even more ambitious...

 

...we put several pans full of chocolate chip cookie dough outside. We were hoping to have some "naturally" baked cookies by the evening!

To mix things up a bit, I also put one pan inside our car on the dashboard. I thought the more intense heat in the dashboard might speed up the cooking. But we ended up driving the car around a bit that day, so the temperature fluctuations ended up damaging the baking process.

Yes, we drove on the highway in our van while cookies were "baking" on the dashboard. Edgy!

We were very excited to see the results of these cookies. In the end, the results were...interesting but kinda gross.

 

The cookies did bake, but not very thoroughly; they were hard & crispy on the outside, but fairly mushy and undercooked in the middle. Worst of all, though, I forgot to spray the cookie sheets with non-stick spray, so all the cookies had a faintly metallic aftertaste. Yuck. We still enjoyed this experiment, and maybe we will try it again next year (with some adjustments) if we get stuck in the middle of a similarly miserable heat wave.

But even though all these mother-daughter events were lots of fun, the "main event" in June (at least from a social perspective) was Nathan's fortieth birthday party. I had thrown a big "taste-test" party for my fortieth birthday back in October; now it was Nathan's turn to plan his own party! His birthday is May 23rd, but since that falls right at the end of the school year, we decided to delay the party by a couple of weeks to let things die down a bit. To celebrate this milestone, Nathan decided that he wanted to throw a murder mystery dinner party! He had participated in several of these parties when he was younger, and he thought it would be lots of fun to try with several of our friends.

Murder in Margaritaland

 Nathan found an online company that sells murder mystery dinner packages, with a large variety of themes, plots, and contents. These parties could also be customized, based on the number of people involved. Nathan narrowed his focus to just a few themes; one was a 1980s-style class reunion; another was a "flapper"-style 1920s party; and then there was Margaritaland, an unspecified tropical resort. Nathan finally settled on the Margaritaland package, mostly because he loved the dinner menu and because we both thought it would be easy to find decorations!

 

I spent much of late May & early June raiding our local dollar store for any party decorations I could find. The timing for this type of party was fortuitous; the store was overflowing with "summer party"-themed decorations, and I may have overdone it a bit. There were serving dishes & plates, banners, sunglasses, candles, paper plates, silverware, napkins, tablecloths, wall hangings, centerpieces, and more.

Nathan was a bit surprised at all the stuff I bought...but he had to admit that the house looked great once everything was up.

 

We catered our dinner from Mama's Hawaiian BBQ, a delicious restaurant in our town. We got pulled pork, coconut shrimp, teriyaki chicken, macaroni salad, rice, and more. We also made a few of our own appetizers, including ham & pineapple skewers and barbecue meatballs. Nathan also had a coworker custom-make one more entree, Spam musubi, which is basically Spam prepared sushi-style! It was not the most popular item, but it was cool to have it anyway.

Since we were ostensibly all visitors to a place called "Margaritaland," it made sense that there would be drinks available to our "guests." Our party package came complete with pages of recipes for mixed drinks that could be prepared from home. Luckily for us teetotaling Mormons, there was a whole subsection devoted to non-alcoholic drinks, so we were able to get in on the fun!

Best yet, two of our guests volunteered to mix all the drinks for us! Our next-door neighbor Steve was given the "bartender" character, and he really took to his role. He even bought a professional cocktail shaker along with him! For about an hour, he patiently mixed drinks for all the other guests, while staying in character and cracking wise throughout. Another guest, Jasmine, whose character was listed as the "bar manager," was very helpful as well, mixing many drinks on her own. Nathan and I were so very grateful that Steve & Jasmine helped us out at dinnertime! It was a little hectic hosting a party like this and it would have been very very hard to focus on the drinks on top of our other duties.

Another great helper was none other than Lorelai, who insisted at being present for the party. We sent Celeste & Aurora to friends' houses for the night, not wanting any kids underfoot. However, Lorelai (who attended a murder mystery dinner of her own last year) was very excited to see how it would all turn out. She promised to help out in whatever we needed if she could stay. She ended up being our greeter, photographer, and part-time cocktail waitress. She had a blast (and very much enjoyed wearing her dollar-store coconut bra around for the evening!).

 

 

 

 

 

It was so much fun for all of us to see the cool costumes everyone came up with. Most people got to wear goofy Hawaiian shirts, leis, or surfer clothing, but other characters (such as a millionaire, a lottery winner, and a policeman) came in suits or uniforms. Our friend Lindsey was given the character of "tattoo artist," so she brought along a bunch of temporary tattoos for everyone (featuring My Little Pony characters, naturally!).

 

 

Dinner went very well; everyone was in character, sharing their ambitious as well as their grudges and fears. I admit to being terrible at these kind of activities, but I was having a lot of fun trying to figure out everyone's motivations.

And then...tragedy struck! Steve, our beloved next-door neighbor/bartender collapsed "dead" at the party! He had been poisoned!! But by whom??

 

 That was what we all had to spend the next hour figuring out (well, except for Nathan, who accidentally spoiled himself while preparing the paperwork for the party).

In the end, we all ended up feeling a little sheepish...no one correctly guessed the murderer's identity! (It was our friend Scott, who was playing the "alcoholic" life guard). We had all had so much fun following all the many love-triangle subplots that we missed the significant blackmail plot sitting in front of our noses. Oh well! It was a slightly disappointing finish, but we all had such a great time participating anyway.

After concluding the "mystery," we ate our delicious homemade desserts; a "margarita" cake (flavored with margarita mix; yum!), and some coconut cream bars. They were both amazingly delicious and amazingly fatty.

This party was a lot of work to put together, but it turned out very well and we were so happy. All our guests also seemed to be enjoying themselves, too (at least we hope they enjoyed themselves! At any rate, they were too polite to tell us otherwise). We are so grateful for the many wonderful friends we have made in our years of living in Sahuarita. They are a great blessing in our lives and we are lucky to know them, have fun with them, and be inspired by them. We probably don't have the energy to do a party like this again until either Nathan or I turns fifty, but we were happy to celebrate Nathan's fortieth with a bang. Here's to a wonderful year for us both!

Post-Script: We had such a great time putting up the decorations that we left them hanging up for a few weeks! We ended up hosting a Moana movie party for a bunch of the girls' friends, and the decorations felt very apropos. But after that, it was time to clean house and get ready for our big family vacation at the end of June!