Salmon Challenge

Today was the long-awaited salmon challenge.  Isaac doesn't really pine for nuts because he hasn't tasted them, but he pines for salmon and shrimp because they are foods he loved, but then developed an allergy to.  It's been hard on all of us because we all enjoy salmon about once a month for dinner.  Isaac's shrimp and salmon numbers have been getting better though so Dr. Broadbent decided we could try a salmon challenge.  I grilled a small piece of salmon and we went to Dr. Broadbent's office to eat it.  Isaac ate a very small bite, then we waited for 15 minutes.  He ate a slightly bigger bite and we waited 10 minutes.  This patterned continued for a few hours until Dr. Broadbent was satisfied that he PASSED.  We are all excited--mostly Isaac.

Ironically, we planned to have salmon for dinner to celebrate, but Dr. Broadbent said Isaac couldn't have anymore today--she didn't want to overload his system.  The rest of us enjoyed it though.  It came out of the oven hot and golden.  Yummy.

This boy asleep on the couch at 6:00 p.m. is Jake.  He is completely wiped out from church responsibilities, school, officer duties, and the weekend incident.  He looks all little and dependent when he curls up on the couch and falls asleep in the middle of the day.  I wish he were still little and dependent. 

Mondays

Mondays are pretty low-key around here.  No one really has lessons or practice.  It's a good way to start the week.  Hopefully because there aren't a lot of scheduled things, people are getting a jump on the school week.  But probably not.

I have been really trying to make Mondays more productive.  The week goes so much better if I do all the grocery shopping and meal planning today.  This week was a good week for that.  Hopefully I won't have to make another trip to the store this week.  I've been really working on emergency preparedness and food storage the past few months, so as I peruse the ads each week, I try to use Monday to pick up sale items that will work well on our food storage. 

I mailed Evan's birthday package today too.  I think we did a good job of sending some great stuff.  We sent some food he enjoys, some new exercise bands, a Sacramento Kings t-shirt that says, "Got Jimmer?--We do!".  He'll like that.  We also sent candy.  We usually send things in a flat-rate box so no matter how much the box weighs we pay the same price.  It's worth it to stuff it to the top.

The first game of the high school state tournament was tonight.  My foot hurt, so I stayed home, but Craig took the kids and went to watch.  We won pretty easily.  Jake is pretty much the leader of the student section, so it's fun to watch him lead the cheers. 

Jake also spent a good part of his day giving more statements to administrators and school police about the weekend's activities.   Since this is a public blog, I don't want to go into a lot of detail, but Jake did absolutely nothing wrong.  He was a victim in an incident that involved mainly threats.  We would like to see the boy who made the threats punished, but all we can really do is give statements and wait for an outcome.

Confiscated

Unfortunately, sacrament meeting today was completely lost on me.  I was so distracted by the weekend's happenings and my kids were super irreverent.  In fact, I had to confiscate four iPhones.  I would have confiscated Craig's phone too, but Isaac said I didn't because "Dad has all the money".

After taking all the phones away, my lap shook with text messages the rest of the meeting.  I probably should have just called it a day at that point, but I had to teach primary.

We watched the Oscars tonight.  Lame.  Lame.  Lame.  Okay, Billy Crystal was pretty funny, but c'mon, a mainly silent movie wins everything?  I think there should be a new rule.  If a movie about baseball is nominated for anything, it should win.  Period.  The End.

We heard from Evan tonight.  He's as happy as ever and loves Fuji!

Weird Day

Today was kind of a wierd day.

I never left the house.

Craig ran around running errands, buying baseball bats for the boys, did my grocery shopping, got a movie for us to watch later.

Caroline spent her afternoon and evening with friends.

Sam went to the BYU basketball game, last home game of the season.

Isaac went to basketball practice at 10:00 a.m. and came home at 10:30 p.m.

Jake went to the WX girl's choice dance.  Weirdest thing of all.  He went with his friend, Cassidy, but left alone because an old boyfriend thing turned into a great big thing.  Wish I could be more specific.  Let's just say, things are still getting sorted out.

It's probably good that I wasn't awake when Jake got home.  I got the filtered version from Craig the next day.

Worldwide Deacon's Championship

Tonight was the famous world Championship Deacon's Tournament.  It just happens that it is always held at the Mueller Park Stake Center.  The tournament takes place on a Friday night in February.  Games start around 5:30 and go to around 10:00.  There are eight teams, it's double elimination.  Blink and you'll miss something because things move pretty fast.  We had a good team this year.  In fact, we were so good, our coach said, "the second best team in this tournament is our bench".  We only had to play three games to be crowned World Champion Deacons.  We never even lost a game.  We thought about losing a game on purpose so we could play more games, but decided an umblemished record in the tournament would be great.  Here are some of the boys killing time between games.  

We came to our house afterward to celebrate with banana splits only to find a house full of unauthorized teenagers (Caroline) that were put out on the street in about 60 seconds. 

Visitors for Scriptures

With Craig back in town, we found a minute to read scriptures all together tonight.  It's hard to catch everyone home.  In fact, Sam came home from baseball just as Jake was about to go study math at his friend's house.  So we grabbed Jake and read a chapter in Alma.  Part way through scriptures, I noticed Caroline had invited some visitors to read with us.

No One Died

Craig has been in Tampa this week with his partner, Terry.  Craig was traveling with Terry when my dad died.  Craig was also traveling with Terry when my brother died.  You can see why I might not want Craig to travel with Terry, or at the very least why I  might want to keep my kids home from school and locked up in the house for the duration of their trip.

They were supposed to land in SLC tonight around 8:30, but had a weather delay that put them into Salt Lake City at 12:30 a.m.  I texted Craig and said, "at least no one died", to which he responded, "that's what Terry and I were thinking".  Sort of funny to joke about, but sort of not.  So glad to have him home!

Isaac had two basketball games tonight and the older kids had a fireside given by an astronaut.  Jake had to conduct again.  He's worried that people are going to think he trolls for firesides to conduct.  Haha.  If he didn't do such a good job, people would stop asking him to do it.