The Week the Kitchen Fell Apart + Jenny & Lydia

 This week had some headaches, but we took it a day at a time! And one day at a time our kitchen fell apart :) First the microwave, then the dishwasher, then the stove, then the microwave kind of came back, then we learned we had to rip up our kitchen floor to be able to fix our dishwasher.

And all this as we're trying to wrap up life and hand it over to Jenny and Lydia for 9 days, which is an extreme sport even with a working kitchen.

BUT things came together bit by bit. Westin did some testing at school, Bennett did some testing at karate, the boys had fun at activity days and Camden and Asher came rock climbing with me for Young Women's. Westin loved celebrating Benson at his birthday party earlier this week, too.

I had a long to-do list for me and a much longer Google doc for Jenny and Lydia to help them step into life here and run the show while Michael and I took off for Portugal. They are the most wonderful people to do that huge service for us. I can't explain how grateful I was to know that my kids were left with such loving family and that their life was going to be so smooth while mom and dad were gone for a week. That was just the biggest favor to us and we appreciated it so very much.

Jenny and Lydia came into town Thursday night (scaring me completely in the shuttle pick up parking lot, I might add, they were so proud) and then Michael and I left Friday morning for our bike trip.

It's hard to leave our boys. This is the third time we've done it in our marriage, and it takes so much work and effort and feels like such a big ask. But this trip meant so much to me and I felt so grateful to have a body healthy enough for days of biking and a family old enough that could do just fine without me and I love, love, love, love love traveling with Michael.

More on our trip later, but Jenny and Lydia carried the kids into the weekend super smoothly and had a great start to their week. They were here through the dishwasher repair and I switched their meal plan all around to only use my Instant Pot instead of my non-existent stove, and they were taught the mysterious ways of the microwave :) And they took such good care of our boys. Our boys really had the BEST time with them. They made cookies and had Easter Egg hunts and made up the raptor game and ran the show around here all together. Family is the best and I'm just so grateful for mine.

Bennett earned his yellow belt!

Two little cuties came climbing for Young Womens with me for a bit,
before Michael finished surgery and came to get them.
They were brave climbers!

Westin's class went on a golf field trip and he loved it.

Just tearing up flooring so we can get a dishwasher out...
what a silly ordeal.

My two assistants have been looking at tile with me lately and they each showed me their favorites.
Camden likes these "pretty blue rocks!"

And Asher prefers the ones that look like, "Whoa, pretty money!"

Trying to spot an ambulance or police care out of the swimming lessons windows.

These boys pushing us off to the airport...
oh our hearts.

Straight into Cover Your Assets and everyone was happy.
Jenny and Lydia are the BEST.

A new record??

Cool Aunt Dinner!
Once I made Lydia and Jaren cookies for dinner because I thought I was a cool aunt.
I know understand much more about nutrition and protein and annoying aunt behavior (sorry, Jenny) and I just feel quite guilty about the event.
Lydia is a cooler aunt than me because I know this is actually just Cool Aunt Dessert and my children were fed dinner before this.

Faraway FaceTimes with these sweet boys.
Our time difference was tricky! But we loved seeing them before they went off to school.