The BrehiThomas Family Blog: May 2020

May was a crazy, crazy month. We moved to Utah, had a sister's weekend as soon as I got there, and worked on settling in!

The Sneeze

Naturally, Bobo and I were running errands together. We were at Target picking up a couple things Bobo needed (again, naturally hahaha). She paused in the middle of the aisle, and although all I could see was her eyes (via COVID mask), I knew she needed to sneeze by the way they were squinty. Knowing she would be the recipient of many glares if she removed her mask per said sneeze, she let loose the contents of the tickle into her face mask. I laughed, she was disgusted, which only resulted in more laughter from me.

When we were walking out of the store, purchases nestled in our plastic bags, I swung my bag at her, just because. She pretended to retaliate, which was all fine and dandy until mid-swing I realized she had a gallon of milk in hers and, consequently, embraced for impact...impact that never came. More laughter, this time, at my expense.

Singing Sensation

Home church has been going pretty well! Recently, Maverick always requests that he be in charge of singing time. Let me tell you, he is quite the diligent teacher! One week, he wrote songs on sicky notes and hid them around the house. We took turns finding them & then singing the song written on it. He has also arranged for each of us to pick our favorite song, while he leads the music with some controlled arm flailing.

House "Pending"

We put our house on the market, has 5 showings in the first 48 hours along with an offer. We continued to do showings throughout the week, which I wittingly put on our calendar for all to see when they were walking through. The offer made was a low, but we did some countering over the course of a couple days and finally agreed on a price along with other stipulations (leaving a picnic table, grill, and the kitchen fridge--all of which I didn't want to move anyways!) It was a total chaos doing showings--finding out we needed to find a place to disappear for awhile with 3 kids and nothing open proved to be, interesting...we took a lot of walks around the neighborhood. When the contract and the home inspection were finally wrapped up, we stopped doing showings (yay!) and started packing more things (we had a decent amount tucked in the garage to help with staging.

It was a long process, but knowing we had a couple of people interested in purchasing our home if things fell through was really comforting. The sellers turned out to be a little ridiculous (during the final walk through, their realtor sent our realtor pictures of things they were not happy with...like a tiny smudge on a door frame that took all of 1 second to wipe off). It was extremely annoying to me, being a very clean person and spending hours doing touch-ups and such for them to be SO nit-picky. I was super stressed when we finally closed--trying to make sure the house was perfectly clean, it about killed me. Luckily, Bobo took the kids for the last couple of hours we were in the house and I got it all done!

We had a heart attack on our door, friends drop by with treats and notes, and even a goodbye-drive by from our ward family! Even amidst all the COVID closures/social distancing, we felt the love!

Austin was amazing and flew in to help load our moving truck and drive it to Utah with Lehi. He was a huge help getting everything loaded, too. Having solid friends is such a blessing! We are so grateful for him! The Lorenc boys also came for a couple of hours and saved us a ton of time and sweat with their hard work ethic. It was so appreciated (best ministering brothers ever, y'all, especially in the Texas heat). Thomas found an ice scraper we had in our garage and asked what it was....hahahaha

I crashed Bobo's with the kids for a few days so we could caravan to Utah together--you know, 2 adults and 7 littles, what could be more fun! ;)

Lehi arrived with Goose & Austin safely and had a herd of people to help unload at out townhome rental. When he was telling me about everyone who was there, it was reassuring we were headed to a place with so much family, friends, love, and support.

"Oh how much we have grown in 4 years! Saying goodbye to our first home, ward family, and family has been harder than I anticipated. It's a good thing I still get to spend lots of time with my Bobo before we part (but it will never be for long cuz you can't keep up apart!) Off to new adventures!"

Bandera City Park Pt 2

During our crash at Bobo's we went to Bandera City Park with the Hunter family. The kids were in heaven. Marsha spotted a snake in the water, about 30 yards from where we were, which made Tasha and I squirm....we hate snakes. We made sure the kids stayed clear of that area for the rest of the afternoon. ;)

Cool for Cooler

Bobo and I ran some ~~quick~~ pre-road-trip errands. When talking to Andrew on the phone via the van, she told him that we needed to get a cooler.

"Why do we need a cooler?" I innocently inquired.

Bobo's wide eyes spoke volumes to me...mainly they were saying, "You moron!!"

(continuing to talk to Andrew) ".....BECAUSE we are going to Costco first and need to keep things cold."

The reality is we were going to clothes shopping for the kids after Costco. I told him this later. While we were gone, the boys' played in the yard, non-stop, all day.

Road Trip/Move

Day 1 (about 11 hours) on the road went pretty well. The kids mostly got along and Brielle was a dream, as always. She got mad about 3 hours in, so we did a quick gas station stop where I changed her (the source of her discontent) and Bobo took the 4 boys to the bathroom. Brooklynn was in my van, but jumped ship to Bobo's to help with Mak.

We did a quick McDonald's stop for lunch, where our 7-up tasted like they were out of syrup, so back through the drive-thu we went to exchanged them for chocolate milk. Since Bobo and I practically drive the same van, when she pulled up, she heard the workers talking to each other asking, "didn't she just get her chocolate milks." ...nope. That was me! Bobo said they looked at her like she was an idiot. She said, "that was my sister in front of me. We had bad soda, too." Throughout the few stops we did make, we had kids moving from Bobo's van to mine--the kid swapping was nice because it changes things up a bit and made the drive feel a little shorter.

We finally made it to our hotel, very late at night. I ran in to get our room keys and check in. Of course, they couldn't find our reservation and the room we had booked (a suite that could fit us all). The front desk attendant was very kind and did all she could on her end to fix things. During all this time, Maverick was in my van, connected to Tasha's via phone. He needed to go to the bathroom really bad when we pulled up, and we told him to wait until we got to the hotel room. Since the check-in was taking so long (about 40 minutes) Bobo came in to tell me that she heard Maverick say, "I can't hold it any longer!!" and he peed....on the floor in my van. She said it was the funniest thing she had heard that day. Oh what fun! We finally were checked into two large suites, right across from each other. We fed the kids quickly, gave them baths and we all crashed. Maverick didn't even make it to the bed and fell asleep on the couch while I was setting up Brielle's pack-n-play. (I moved him of course!)

Day 2 felt super long, but I was so anxious to just be done. The "breakfast" from the hotel was pretty much just small cereal boxes (via COVID) that you took back to your rooms. Kids fed, Bobo and I refreshed but still exhausted, we loaded up the vans again and drove onward. At one particular potty stop, we had all the kids in on (albeit large) bathroom. I REALLY needed to go, but Mr. Parker hopped right up on the toilet and then proceeded to poop, rather than just pee. It stunk SO bad and the kids thought it was SO funny that I was dancing, covering my nose, and whining that I was going to pee my pants. I didn't, but it was a close call.

Bobo and I parted ways in Provo, where she headed to Debbie's and I headed to the townhome. I missed my exit because it was encased in construction cones, so I added about 15 minutes to the trip, with Brielle letting me know she was done the entire time.I know 15 minutes doesn't seem like a big deal, but when you have been in the car for 13 hours and were SO close to being done, it was terrible.

I was a little overwhelmed when I walked into boxes and boxes everywhere, and pretty much my kryptonite (chaos/disorganization). So I immediately began unpacking boxes, after being in the car for about 13 hours. Lehi was baffled by my behavior but I just couldn't function until I had at least one space cleared and cleaned! In retrospect, I should have just enjoyed the move officially being over and spent time with Lehi, who I had been apart from for a few days. I apologized the next day.

Kinda Sister's Weekend

Why wouldn't we plan a (kinda) sister's event while most of the sisters were in Utah?? Yes, I did JUST move and had an house to unpack, but when the opportunity for adventures and memories arrive, you can't say no! :) It was a kinda sister's weekend because all of us had our kids with us, which is certainly NOT the same.

We started with an escape room--Mia also came to play with us, because she is practically a sister anyways! We laughed our bums off, had a few rooms we decided were broken, and spent a long time in the creepy room, trying to figure it out. Finally, they kicked us out because they were closing and Kristina asked the guy what the last door was (we had 2 of the 3). He gave us a big hint and then said if we wanted to go back and try again, we could. We did and solved it, causing a bunch of loud popping sounds to go off, so we all screamed because we were not expecting it. Here I though the worker was just being nice, but I am sure he let us go back and do it again so he could hear us all discover the big reveal at the end.

We hit up Rockwell's for some bomb ice cream and played the Monopoly Deal (a card game version) Kristina brought--Bobo hated it but was a good sport and played a few rounds anyways.

Twisted Sugar was on our list as well--Ronnie said it won best cookie of Utah last year. It was hands down our favorite. We ordered waaayyy too many and of course, our favorite ended up being plain sugar, no frosting.

The Westensees were kind enough to let us crash their cabin Friday night, so we could be as loud as we wanted while we played Nertz and ate Sees (the root of all Sister's Weekends). We tried Lola's in Heber on our way (it was good, not amazing) and hit up Walmart for the essentials--peach rings, sour straws, and other junk food for our consuming).

Kristina tried one of the peanut butter cookies Bobo got while in the car.

She commented "These peanut butter cookies are no good, they're crunchy."

Bobo shot back in a classic mocking tone, "As you eat one, without a crunch sound."

We got to the cabin in the late afternoon, so we decided to get some 4-wheeling in before we started in on our night of Nertz. One of the tires had a flat, we fixed that real quick, and were on our way. Kristina and I doubled to start--we were much more cautious drivers than the other pair of chaos, although as time passed we got more comfortable. We drove up and down dirt roads, over a few jumps, and had a blast. When we went the other direction, further up the mountain, I jumped onto Bobo's wheeler and Kris onto Ronnie's.

Bobo and I needed to turn around. She turned it sharp and I reasoned to myself, "she isn't going to clear that ditch. What is she thinking?" The next thing I knew, the engine revved and we were making a slow decent to the ground with the 4 wheeler. Bobo' ankle got stuck under but she shimmied it out fairly quickly. Kristina came running up, recording of course, and all you can hear is the puttering of the engine and laughter. Bobo said, "I knew we were tilting, then my thumb accidently hit the gas, and I knew it was all over!"

I know I look hurt here, but I am laughing too hard to get up

The hour of Nertz was upon us. Ronnie and myself were in sync the whole game.

Ronnie at 99, 6 behind me as we entered the final round, I pulled ahead by 3. Kristina MAY have subtracted 3 instead of add mid-way through the game, which would have meant she won by 3 rather than me. We will never know. So much for trusting the math major....

At one point, Ronnie has lots of 14s she had to work though. My tired/witty self remarked, "Oh, was my shuffling superior to yours?"

Bobo also won a game, which required a picture to document that strange phenomena.

We crashed earlier than we anticipated...and then Bobo and Kris started hearing things, people being outside. I heard them whispering about it around 1:00 am. All of us were having a full on conversation at 2:30 am.(We were all in beds in the loft). Ronnie shuffled a chair in front of the door to help ease their minds a bit. Finally, they went to sleep so the rest of us could, too.

All of us admitted to having sore thumbs from all the shuffling of new cards the next morning. We started cleaning up the cabin, doing laundry and such. We squeezed in a couple more Nertz rounds and decided on one of them that whoever won got to decide who had to go out to the utility closet and switch the laundry. Bobo HATED going in there and made me whenever there was a need. I had started the sheets but the hand declared Bobo had to go move it to the dryer. She was not happy. But she could have won the hand to change her fate. The cabin was so much fun, even with the "noises" and lack of overall sleep.

Chubby cheeks from helmets! She also demoed how to eat Golden Graham cereal with it on

Another sister weekend funny:

"It took you 12 hours to get here?" Ronnie (comment directed at Kristina)
"NO, it took 10 but that doesn't matter" Kris
"I'm trying to exaggerate, don't correct me!" (my additional, needed comment)

Memorial Weekend w/Izatt Family

Again, another opportunity for an adventure that couldn't be passed on! We drove up to Navada to spend some time with the Izatt family in their yearly camping spot for Memorial weekend. It was so peaceful and a much needed break in nature, and a little nostalgic to think years ago, Lehi and I were taking our engagement pictures in that very place. The boys were in heaven--from making boats to float with sticks/leaves, to hiking, shooting bb guns, and roasting marshmallows, they had the time of their life. We did freeze at night--I had Brielle in her winter-getup and inside my sleeping bag with me. The boys' sleeping bags looked empty, because they had tunneled right down to the very bottom of them. Goose was a pretty good pup, too. He did chew through his leash, but Amanda put some of her handy climbing knots in it to solve that issue. David took Lehi out for a few hours the day we left to shoot ground squirrels, too. He loved it and I loved chatting the morning away with Terri!