Teaching License - done

 I just wrapped up my 3rd year of teaching part time at Wasatch High School. It's been a great experience so far. I have worked hard and on the very last day of school I finished all the required work for my license and submitted the application. I heard back soon after that everything went through and I now have an official teaching license. I have enjoyed all the teachers that work in my corner of the school. We eat lunch together in my classroom every day. I'm grateful for their friendship. We took this picture on the last day since Brooke Wilson is leaving to teach online school. Mike Cowan wasn't here for the pictures. Left to right: Kristen Di Stefano, Emily Willardson, Brooke Wilson, Me, Whitney North, and Luke Searle.

Best Mother's Day Ever

 Today was Mother's Day as well as Evan's farewell talk in Sacrament meeting. I could not have asked for a better Mother's Day. It was so wonderful to have all the kids here. Becca and Sam flew in for the weekend from Palo Alto. Evan gave a beautiful talk and we got to spend the afternoon with family and friends at our home. Evan will be a great missionary. 

Thanksgiving 2022

 This was a Jones Thanksgiving for us so our married kids were all here with us. We were happy they got to stay for several days at our house. We spent Thanksgiving day at Grandma and Grandpa Jones' in West Jordan with all the Aunts and Uncles and cousins except Joe's family.

Sam's younger brother, James spent the weekend with us as well. It was fun to get to know him and I felt like he fit right in. One day before Thanksgiving, we drove into Park City and walked around Main Street. My favorite shop was the Book Store. There's something special about browsing around a book store. As much as I enjoy the convenience of reading on my phone, it's not the same as turning the pages of an actual book. I have a thing for cookbooks and Kate bought me one that I eagerly unwrapped Christmas morning.

A few of the kids ran the Midway Turkey Trot early in the morning. I thought about it for a short minute but it was sooo cold in the mornings, so I stayed home and prepared food to take to Thanksgiving. 

Grandma didn't ask any of the grandchildren to bring food to Thanksgiving so I was surprised when Carter showed up to our house Thanksgiving Eve with four pumpkin pies he made from scratch...from actual pumpkins. WOW. He impresses me with his cooking. I love that he likes to try new things. 

Thursday afternoon everyone headed to the park for some flag football.

We went to Heber Valley Artisan Cheese to get a grilled cheese and the kids all wanted their pictures taken together in the store since each one of them has spent some time working there as a teenager.

Droney

 Jon has wanted a drone for a long time. He works so hard at his job and his calling as Bishop that there is little time for hobbies. But...he finally decided last Spring that taking a break occasionally from work would be beneficial so he purchased a drone...whom we affectionally call Droney. He has enjoyed learning how to fly Droney. He has always kept the safety features on because he is still new at flying. Occasionally he will take a break from work and fly Droney for fun. Well a few days ago, he was flying droney and the headset gliched and Jon lost connection. One of the safety features is that the drone is supposed to come back home if there is every a problem or it starts to lose power, etc. But it didn't. He knew about where the drone was when it lost connection because he could see he was over the construction area near our home. So...we walked over there a couple times in the evening and walked around to see if we could find it. It's a pretty big construction area and a little drone, so no success. After no success finding it, Jon sent in info to the company for a "fly away" case. They requested more info and told him how to download more data from the goggles. The data gave the last known gps location. Kate and Jon went out one night (6 days after being lost) in one last attempt to find Droney. Jon had the location on his phone of the drone. Kate pulled up her map on her phone and they walked until they were in the same spot that Jon's phone showed that Droney was last known to be. And sure enough. There he was. Dusty, but not damaged. We figured he must have just safely landed. Amazing with all the huge construction equipment that he wasn't found or destroyed. Jon is one happy papa!

It's the Tooth Fairy problem all over again

 Remember when Becca was little and she wrote a letter to the tooth fairy, asking her to please remember to check under her pillow? Well we're having the same kind of problem, but in a more grown up way. Evan is going to be a Senior in high school this year. He has a job and a debit card. Sometimes he will use his debit card to buy things that we pay him back for like groceries, gas, etc. After several of these purchases, we owed him $160. We owed him this money for months and he would keep reminding us that we owed him money. He would even send a text with a list of how much the purchase was and what it was spent on. So today he wrote me this letter that made me laugh.

Hiking Club

 Kelly is always so great at finding outdoorsy things for us to do. She and Becca went hiking a few times this summer. I joined them today. Kelly said she was going to send out a text on Thursdays about "Hiking Club," and we can let her know if we can come or not. It was really fun. It was an early Saturday. I left home about 6:15 and met she and Becca at the trailhead in Salt Lake. There were some pretty steep climbs, but it was worth it and felt so good. 

 

The Concert We Nearly Missed

Kate and a few of her friends...Jadyn, Stella, Taylor and Paige spent about a year being pretty obsessed with the band, One Direction. Paige had a birthday party once for her favorite One Direction singer, Harry Styles and Jon and I were even invited over for some dessert and a few games. There were One Direction sweatshirts and posters and pillowcases to name just a few. And lots and lots and lots of One Direction music played over the google hub. At the time, Kate's favorite band member was Louis Tomlinson. This was during the COVID pandemic and all concerts were being cancelled. 

One day Jon and I noticed that Louis was going to be performing in Orem the following year so we thought it would be fun to buy Kate tickets to go and possibly bring her sisters. We bought 4 tickets and didn't tell her about it. Fast forward a year. Jon and I had mentioned the concert a few times, recognizing that it was coming up and that we should probably check when exactly it is. 

Then about a week ago, on March 1st, I was in the parking lot of the Rec center at 6:00, picking Kate up from tennis when Becca called and said, "Hey mom...you know that concert you bought tickets to for Kate...do you know when that is cause I overheard some co-workers talking about going to a Louis concert in Orem tonight?" OH BOY! I pulled up my email and searched Louis Tomlinson and sure enough the day before I had received a reminder email about the concert that was going to take place March 1st at 7:30. We rushed home and Kate scrambled to call a few friends. Unfortunately, two of the friends were super excited to go until they realized they would have to show proof of vaccination and they were not vaccinated. Luckily, Paige could go. We called Emma and she decided to come with us. 

I don't think I've ever been to a real concert that wasn't a concert in the park or an orchestra concert. I wasn't even thinking about how loud it would be. After we got inside I realized I might go deaf...ha ha. I slipped out to the bathroom and put some toilet paper in my ears. I'm not sure if that really helped but it made me feel better. I think Kate and Paige had fun. Emma and I felt a little more awkward since we were not true Louis Tomlinson fans and didn't have all the words to the songs memorized. We stayed till 10:00 and then decided to head home. Emma was ready to walk to a friends house and we didn't want her to do that alone. 

In the end, I felt really grateful for Becca's phone call that saved us.