Amazing Day

We had such an amazing day today. Actually, it started last night. We had our good friends, the Seamons, over for swimming and s'mores. At the end, their mom cam to pick the kids up and we sat around the fire visiting for a little while. She mentioned that she was going to take Caroline in to do baptisms at the temple in the morning. Kimee said how bad she wanted to go and how we hadn't been able to go yet. Mary said she would be happy to take her. It was Caroline's first time going. So this morning Kimee and I went with them to the Timpanogos Temple at 6am. It was perfect. Kimee and Caroline were baptized together when they turned 8, and now they got to be together for another special first. It really was so perfect for so many reasons.

The beginning of this story is that a few weeks ago, I was really stressed out. When school started, I was so on top of everything. I actually thought for a few days that I wouldn't get my normal totally and completely overwhelmed feeling that I get every year when school starts and I think I cannot survive as a working mom. And then everything started going south- Audrey crying every night about not wanting to go to her new school and Maddi was having major clothing issues. Every day, by 8am, I was already completely emotionally drained. I was almost in a daze for a few days. Luckily, I already had the first week of school planned. But with teaching, you can never stay on top of things unless you spend 24 hours a day at the school. So within a few days, I already had a huge pile of stuff to do. We had to go in for 2 movie nights at school the next week, one on Monday and one on Friday to try and catch up!

Anyway, that first week that I was so overwhelmed, I really wanted to escape. I kept trolling Worldmark Reservations looking and hoping for something. Actually, I had been doing that for a couple of weeks, ever since I got back from girls camp. As soon as girls camp was over, I was so relieved. All those months of preparation and thinking about nothing but camp were finally over. And I was ready for my summer vacation to start. I wanted desperately to go somewhere to escape my stress and the chaos at home. On Friday night, I went to lay down for just a minute, and I had the thought to go check for bonus time. Miraculously, there was a Friday/Sat open at Wolf Creek. I quickly reserved it and even found a sub for my class so we could leave around noon to do some fun stuff on the way up and beat the Labor Day weekend traffic. It cheered me up a lot to know I just needed to get through two weeks of school and I could be up in one of my favorite places in the whole world. Unfortunately, Dave couldn't get work off and Kimee did not want to get check out of school. I didn't want to fight through traffic and get up there late. It was a painful decision, but I went ahead and cancelled the reservation this Monday. I was sad about it, but was glad it would save us money and committed to myself that we would have just as much fun, if not more, staying home.

We have had "Hiking the G" on our Fun List for months and months. So when I cancelled Wolf Creek, I decided we were going to fit in some things that we never have time to do. Saturday morning was "Hiking the G". When Kimee and I got back from the temple, we got everyone up, packed up our water and snacks, and left around 8am. We had a great time hiking up to the G. The weather was cool and breezy and we were in the shade or cloud cover the whole time. There were no injuries or complaining. We were worried about Maddi being able to do it, but she did awesome in her too big dress shoes and she was at the front of the pack for almost the whole time. Not to be forgotten was when we went through the forrest of bugs. Even though we stopped a lot to rest and marvel at the view, we made it up there and back in pretty good time. Enough that we were able to come back, eat breakfast, and still make it to a baptism for a cute girl in our ward.

After the baptism we started getting ready for our amazing BYU football game spread. We had planned to have snacky foods for lunch, yummy treats, and watch the BYU game as a family. Audrey and I went and picked up buffalo chicken wings and Cravings cupcakes. It was so fun to watch the game together. I don't remember the last time I have watched that much of a game and really been aware of the score and what was going on most of the time. The team did really well in the first half and then struggled in the 2nd half. Several players got injured. It looked like we were going to lose. Kimee and Audrey weren't watching the game anymore. But with just a few minutes left I called everyone back and said we have to watch the end of this game. They missed a field goal and other chances for a first down. The announcers kept talking about how Nebraska hadn't lost their opening game in over 50 years. With 1 second to go in the game, BYU's freshman second string quarterback throws a 50ish yard hail mary pass, and the receiver barely gets in the endzone to win the game. IT WAS AMAZING!!! It was one of the coolest endings to a football game you could ever imagine and we were watching it together as a family.

Today was such a special day, I don't want to forget about it:)