FHE Adventures

Since we ended up with Isaac in some makeup, we should start this post with the other Isaac in makeup. Isaac was over for Family Home Evening and Daisy had all sorts of challenges for us. Isaac happened to draw something about letting people dress you up. It would be a bit weird to put him in our clothes, so instead, we just dressed him up witchy style. Robyn dibs doing his makeup. And June was there for moral support. He didn't look too bad.

Tyler actually ended up with a makeup challenge as well, except I was blindfolded while I applied. I'm sad that his eyeshadow matched. I was thinking he would end up with two different colored eyes. But only his lipstick was a little wonky.

June got the pour water on yourself challenge. She didn't bat an eye. She walked outside and dumped a cup on her head. Nice.

Ivory got having people draw on her feet. That one is the worst. It tickles so badly.

 

My family is so quirky and fun. We have good times.

Dancing With the Stars

The competition season has started for ballroom. Ivory had a couple days in a row where she was dancing. The first day was really fun. It was the team competitions and we all went to watch. Those are the most fun. The costumes and dance moves are great. I saw some things that I'd never seen before. This team with the blue to pink dresses were fantastic. 

And who doesn't like a leopard print outfit?

Ivory's first dance was the foxtrot. She's the third girl in the lineup. See if you can follow her. She switches partners part way through. She looks absolutely lovely. 

Then they did Cha-Cha. She got to dance with Isaac for this one. This is the same dance they did for half time, so maybe you recognize it?

They did pretty well. In foxtrot, they came in fifth, and in Cha-Cha, they placed 8th. I think their choreography needs some work, but that is something for the coach to work on.

Isaac and Ivory had a lot of fun.

They came back the following day to compete in Newcomer Rumba. They actually made it through several rounds, but not to finals. But they had a great day of watching dancing and maybe being a little silly. At least I think Isaac looks a little silly in bright red lipstick...

Senior Assassin

* This post is filled with intrigue and trickery, but also a lot of words. If you don't feel like reading, move along.

Ever heard of Senior Assassin? They didn't have that kind of thing at my High School, but many schools do it around here. June is a natural competitor, so she signed up right away. The basic rules are that you are given a name. You have a certain amount of time to track that person down and kill them. Killing them means squirting them with water. If you kill your person, you move onto the next round and receive another name. If you don't get them in the time allotted, you are out, OR if you are killed by your assassin, you are out. Simple enough.

Usually everyone has a different name, but for some reason, they started this season with everyone being paired up. That meant that whoever you had, they also had you. It was a showdown between the two of you and only one would move on.

June got the name of this guy who she didn't know at all. She started doing recon right away. She managed to find out where he worked and where he lived. She stalked him, going to his work and pretending to be a girl looking for a date to see what his next shift was. (It was a great ploy, and was working well until we found out he quit that job.) She staked out his other job, but with too many exits, she couldn't catch him.

She came home so frustrated. She lamented that she would never catch him. I said, "You don't have to catch him. He has to kill you as well, so instead of hunting him, let's set a trap."

We started putting together all the things that would help us. June didn't know anything about him, so we had to assume that he didn't know anything about her either. Which means, he wouldn't know that she has sisters that look almost exactly the same as she does. The plan was coming together.

People were watching Robyn's social media, so she threw out a bait post. It said, "I love Wednesday since I get to sleep in, but my sister has to be up early to go take a test!" (This was back when there was no school on Wednesdays, and to be fair, June DID have a test.)

The plan was easy. Robyn would dress as June and go out to her car in the morning. Hopefully, the guy would try to kill her and she would admit defeat. Then, June would jump out of the bushes and kill him. Simple, right? 

We each had our part to play. Robyn got ready, dressed as June. June went to the side of the house to wait. I held the dog in the back because we couldn't have her barking and messing things up. Everybody ready?

The saddest part is that I was in the back and I didn't get to watch, but it was epic. Like the movies, it went totally according to plan. Robyn walked out. She took a minute to get her keys in order and suddenly this guy came running down the sidewalk, spraying her like a crazy man. Robyn acted so surprised. She was so disappointed that she had lost. She asked how he knew she would be there and he confessed that he had read her 'sister's' post. (seriously, how perfect, right?) Then, when he was sufficiently distracted and talking to Robyn, June jumped out of the bushes and shot him. 

Now who was surprised? He turned around and said, "Who are you?" Just the actual target and now assassin. He fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. It was classic! He had help of course, and the other boy came down the hill and felt stupid that he couldn't tell it was Robyn, but really, some people look right at Robyn and call her June. After killing her victim, June indeed went to take her test. :)

That meant June moved on to the next round. She received her next victim's name but she also knew that she had to figure out who had her so she could avoid them. It didn't take her long to discover her assailant. Oscar was in charge of taking out June. 

June went into work and we got a call from her around 10:30 pm. She said that Oscar was there hunting her and it was obvious that he was going to kill her when she left work. At Color Me Mine there are only three doors in the front with the big window and there is NO back exit. Dang nab it.

We immediately went into planning mode. How could we get June out of there? We looked into a lot of different options and we finally settled on a plan.

June tried to tell Oscar that she would be there late, but Oscar knocked on the window later and said, “My Mom says I can stay until 1” Funny. (I do appreciate that parents get super involved in this game as well.)

Here’s how it went down. Tyler drove out there first. He parked at the movie theater around the corner and took over a bag to Color Me Mine. (I should mention that they were closed by now. There were no customers involved.) In the bag were hoodies, and water guns. He came back to the theater where Robyn and I had joined him in our separate cars. 

Meanwhile, the girls (June and her coworkers) got into the hoodies. They cinched them tight and wore masks. It was June, Becky and Serena, and once they hooded up, they all looked similar.

Then all three of us, Robyn, Tyler and I drove around the building. We each stopped in front of one of the doors. I was at the front, then Robyn and Tyler had the last door. We each left our car running, went around and opened the passenger door and then we went and waited by our individual Color Me Mine door. 

Oscar was on my side. He looked at me and said, “Wow, you guys are intense.” Yep, we are. Once we were in position, it was up to the girls. They turned out the lights and then the three girls exited the building through three different doors to three different cars at the same time.

My job was to protect my girl as best I could. Oscar was right there and I tried to shine my flashlight in his eyes, but he was fast. He shot my girl as she raced for the car. I could only hope that it wasn’t June. But it didn’t seem like her.

Sure enough, when I ran around and looked in the car, it was Becky. Good job Becky. Excellent diversion. 

Robyn had Serena, who was shot by Tanner (but that wouldn’t have counted anyway) and June was in the last car with Tyler. They didn’t get her at all!! The boys were frustrated and they ran off into the night.

It was such a rush. We had successfully extracted June. I was so proud of us. We drove home and those boys had parked in our driveway. Nope, not going to happen. I honked at them until they moved. There is only so much they can do. June made it home alive. She won that round. 

Meanwhile, June was also intent on getting her target Michael. We found his house and we did a LOT of sitting and watching. Stake outs are super boring. Seriously, so much time looking at this house.

I followed some people for a while, but that didn't lead anywhere. Michael had no job, so he had no reason to leave the house. This was going to be tough.

We tried thinking out of the box. We even had Daisy and Pearl help. They scootered by his house, pretended to fall down and then went to his door to ask for a bandaid. (They were hoping to see if he was home.) But his mother came to the door, and she was nice enough to give them a bandaid at least.

Monday was the last day. June had to get her target or she was out. The day started very early. June and Robyn went over to Michael’s to try and catch him leaving for school. They waited a while and then his mom caught Robyn and told her she should just go to school since Michael got his second vaccination shot and he was really sick and was not going anywhere.

The girls couldn’t wait much longer anyway, so they headed back home, where they ran into Oscar looking for June. June ducked down in the car and when Oscar asked about her, Robyn said that June went to school really early. Easy enough to lie.

Which means that June didn’t believe Michael’s mom either. She wanted to see if Michael was at school, so she sent me on a mission to find out. I got a muffin and I stopped by the school and asked what was Michael’s first class. The lady looked it up and then she did a double take on me. “Are you his mother?” she asked. Well, I was NOT going to lie about that, so I told her I was a friend. To her credit, she said that they weren’t allowed to give out info. So I asked if they could take the muffin to his class. That was allowed she said and then NOT to her credit, she turned to the aide and said, “Can you take this to Anderson’s class?” “Coach Anderson?” he questioned. “Yes, Coach Anderson,” she replied. (If you aren’t going to tell me, you probably shouldn’t mention the teacher in the next sentence.)

I also checked to see if he was absent and she said that he was recorded as there. Fantastic. But since he was down in the PE area and so was Ivory, I decided to snoop a little more.

I went in the back entrance and looked in the gym, but no luck. Just them a friend who works there came down the hall and she told me that Coach Anderson was down the stairs. That’s lucky, since Ivory is UP the stairs and that would be plausible deniability if someone asked me what I was doing. 

Then the muffin boy came down the hall. I just hung out and waited for him to leave. And then I went down to check it out. They have a nice weight room down there and sure enough, Michael was down there. So I left and texted June. 

I checked her out early from school and Robyn too and we went back to stalk him and hopefully catch him coming home. We were there for about two hours. The girls were around the house and I was on the other side of the block watching traffic come and go. Suddenly Robyn started madly texting:

Follow the car follow the car follow the car follow the car follow the car

BlZck

U33 9at (not actual license plate)

He’s in it

I couldn’t see anything since I was on the other side of the block. I started to pull out and pulled back to the curb since I didn’t know what to do. Then, they pull up RIGHT BEHIND ME. I think they were discussing their game plan. They finally turned around and headed back. They circled the house and then drove away. I tried to follow, but I was too far away to see where they went.

His mom came out and told the girls that he left and went to his cousin’s and wasn’t coming back until they left. But we didn’t believe it. You could tell he needed to get home. (Also, his mom was a liar, as we had already established. I totally respected that.)

So we stayed. I was parked in a new spot down the street from the house. A white car pulled up across the street, but I wasn’t really paying attention. Then I saw Michael was in the car and the guy who was driving was waving his hand out the window. At first I thought he was waving at me, like he saw me sitting there in my car, but I realized he was trying to wave to the mom who was pulling out of the driveway. In fact, she missed him. She drove right by. Michael jumped out and chased her down the street yelling, “Mom, MOM”

June was running that direction now too, but she was too far away. She reached my car as Michael reached his mom at the end of the street. She told me to follow. We almost did and then I realized he was still trying to get home. I told June to go back and wait by the house. 

She did and they pulled into the driveway. I missed most of what happened since I was down the street, but Michael got out and June aimed for him. She didn’t hit him straight on, but she thought she might have gotten him a little. His mom told them to go away and we had tried our best, so we left.

June texted Michael and said she thought she got him, but he said that he checked everything and he wasn’t wet. He could have been lying, but we’ll never know. Maybe June missed him completely. Either way, she was done hunting him. Hours were spent waiting, watching, stalking, and being bored and it was time to be done. Also, we were out of time. 

June decided she would let Oscar get her since he had worked so hard to assassinate her. She went to a choir activity later and allowed herself to lose. I'm proud of her. And in other news, Michael never got his person, so he was also out of the competition. 

It was a very long, very epic week and we were all glad to see it draw to a close. Well fought Cazier's.

Married So Young

In May we went to the wedding of one of June's friends. She was 18. That is so crazy young. I understand that people get married at all ages, but I hope that all of my girls are a little older than that when they tie the knot.

However, the couple looked extremely happy and I wish them well. We didn't take pictures because it was a bit dark inside the theater where they held the reception. One of our friends recommended a pizza place right down the way. We had never tried it and we were all hungry, so we wandered down to grab some grub.

It was super tasty. We took the pizza over to a park and ate while also being educated in how the area got its name. (Please don't ask how, I don't remember.)

Ivory was working, so we finished the night going to see her at Menchie's and getting some froyo. (Pardon, it looks like Robyn was also working. Didn't mean to leave her out as well.)

Weddings are fun to attend and I'm assuming there will be more and more of those to go to as the kids get older. Someday, it will even be our girls, but NOT when they are 18.

Hot Pots Revisited

It has been five years since I took the kids out to the Hot Pots in the summer. When Caroline called and asked if I'd like to go hike out there during Fall Break, it seemed like a great idea. Then only three kids could go. Then Ivory was sick and it was only two kids. But I felt like we had committed, so we dutifully went and it was a good time.

Here we are. Last time I hiked this, the 'littles' were little. Now Daisy is taller than me and Pearl isn't far behind. I probably should have dressed warmer. I was thinking shorts for hiking, and then it ended up being pretty chilly. 

The scenery was gorgeous. We saw all the fall colors as we walked along. There were lots of leaves on the ground and a few left on the trees but it was all so pretty. We even saw a somewhat beaver dam. (I actually don't think there are beavers so much as wood that has stacked up in this one spot.)

The hike up is a little less than two miles I think. There are some ups and downs, but nothing crazy. We made short work of it. You can tell when you get close to the hot pots, because you can smell the sulfur in the air. The hot spots were right where I left them, but they certainly didn't look the same. The water level was so low. Where there was usually a waterfall, there was only a trickle. But I did like the cairns someone set up there. 

I don't have a lot of pictures of them, but the Turner's were with us. (They organized and drove in fact) Caroline, Jason, and their three kids, Annie, Olivia, and Andrew are all expert hikers. I'm sure they go much more often than our family. Here you can see Pearl and Olivia and then Daisy and Annie up above.

Because there was less water coming into the area, it seemed much hotter. No one was really up by the falls. So we wandered back a ways to some of the pools that looked manageable. Weirdly, one of them was VERY green. You can't tell from this picture, but it was almost food color green. In fact, I think someone may have poured some type of dye in to make that color.

We went to the regular pools. It was quite warm. Not uncomfortably so, but for me and my sensitive skin, I was guaranteed some heat rash following my soaking. We enjoyed our natural hot tub and then we packed up for the trip back.

Pearl got my phone for the return trip and took over 100 pictures. I'm not going to put them all on here, but there were some neat ones.

The bridge had a special message, and whereas I don't totally disagree, I'm still glad we didn't run into any 'beautiful' people at the pots.

It was an excellent hike and a great way to spend the morning. The afternoon was a nap for me. (I'm out of practice getting so many steps at once.) Don't tell anyone. See no evil, speak no evil...