Kids, Horns and Cantaloupes

Last Saturday we decided to take Nikki and Garrett out to dinner impromptu. Curtis and I had already gone to a baptism in the morning and then a stake leadership training meeting in the afternoon. We were going to just go to dinner ourselves but Nikki had some unexpected things happen during her date with Alex that caused it to end short. Apparently her best friend Angie was also in the mix of things. Long story short, Nikki was mad at both of them and they were mad at her. Garrett had just finished mowing a lawn and Curtis suggested taking them both out to eat. 

She posed for the picture but she was not happy and not very hungry. That meal lasted her 3 days.

This was Garrett's first time eating Mongolian BBQ. He didn't realize he could stack his food higher so he ended up with a smaller sized bowl after it was cooked. He still had leftovers though. I love these kinds of leftovers!

It took a couple of days and a trip to the therapist but I think things are finally good again with Nikki and her friends. I don't think I mentioned yet that she recently started going to therapy to help with her anxiety, depression, etc. It's something her pediatrician recommended last spring when she was struggling last spring with school. Once I finally called they had to put me on a waiting list and I didn't hear from them until July. It's called Journey Mental Health and she had her first appointment at the beginning of August. So far it's going well.

Over the weekend Jack had asked if he could switch from flute to French horn because the band director Mr. Sene was asking students to switch instruments because there were too many flutes. We were fine with it because we're renting from the school and it's only $80 a year so we'll see how well he likes it. It also helped our decision when he volunteered to clean our game closet out on Sunday. We decided to get rid of some of the games, which Tamara came over and took a few. Even after Jack switched there are only 2 French horns. He likes that he has a less popular instrument. If he really likes it and continues with it maybe we'll buy him his own. We'll see. As for his flute, Garrett claimed it since he has an instrument collection now. 

Recently we noticed that Charlotte's cantaloupe plant actually had some little cantaloupes growing. I don't know how well they will do with the irrigation getting turned off next week which is a whole month early and the fact that we planted it late. It was planted back when we planted seeds with the activity days boys in June. The fact that we were able to get it to grow in that spot and to do well so far gives me motivation to try other plants there next year, like pumpkins. Alice had planted carrots near by and we thought all 3 plants had died but one day I saw one of them growing again! Unfortunately one of the girls I babysit pulled it out of the ground thinking it was a weed. I tried to put it back in the ground because it wasn't very big but I guess the damage had been done because it died....again! No carrots this year I guess.

She's pointing to the biggest one.

Charlotte has spent the last 3 days home from school with a cough and sniffles. Although she stayed home today she has sounded mostly normal and I think she should have gone. I was able to pick up some homework for her to do at least. I'm pretty sure it was allergy/asthma related so I picked up some allergy meds for her and we have her doing some breathing treatments again and they both seem to be helping. I didn't think about using allergy meds though until my relief society president Donna Fitzen had mentioned it at our ministering interview on Tuesday evening. I decided to start taking some for myself as well. Jack also ended up staying home today because last night after his youth activity he started getting a sore throat and he still didn't feel well today. He's been sleeping most of the day so hopefully that will help along with the allergy pill I gave him too.

Last night we also had a good visit with Ken and Cori. Curtis needed to extend a church calling to Ken and also asked them to speak in Sacrament this month. Ken accepted both. He'll now be serving in the nursery with Cori. She's happy about that. He was already helping her in the nursery every week anyway so we just made it official. And I guess there are some kids in there that already love him. They will be speaking on the 12th and I'm excited to hear it. When we went over last night they had some old papers out from Ken's childhood like his original birth certificate, and blessing certificate and multiple pictures, etc. I love seeing old stuff like that. I also learned that Emily has been working on temple work for Ken's birth family line. Apparently Ken's birth dad never had his temple work done and so Emily got it all prepared and Ken was able to do it. Before that had happened Cori told me that while she was in the temple she heard a voice say the name Jack. Someone else that she knew who was with her also heard the name Jack. They couldn't figure out who this Jack person could be until Ken mentioned that it was his birth dad's name. I'm not sure how long ago that was though but so neat that they were able to do his temple work!