august activities: church stuff

August kicked off with Chuck spending a week hiking around in the mountains of central Idaho! Also in attendance (left to right) were Andy, Adam, Dakota, Brother Fleshman, and Jared. They had a great time which will eventually be detailed here (have I ever lied to you?) and it was a really nice way to conclude Chuck's two-year stint as Young Men's President.

But holy moly the prep work for this hike - NO JOKE. They were gone six days and hikes 50 some miles and Chuck is amazing and had all the food and snacks and routes and lakes and everything planned so, so well.

I'd gotten pretty spoiled with Chuck's other outings over the summer; he had excellent cell phone reception at Scout Camp so we texted a lot and even talked a few times. The hike was way different, so I went back to my old school method of communication and sent him with mushy notes to open each day which I thought was pretty fantastic - but Chuck managed to beat me at my own game. He likewise left me notes for each day... that also led to a different treat/candy for each day! Bless his heart, he knew a serious amount of chocolate was going to be crucial to surviving our four darling kids without him for a week!

We actually had a pretty great week! My mom watched the kids on Friday so I could head to the temple which was wonderful. And Chuck got home safe and sound and dirrrrrty on Saturday afternoon, hooray! And also Braenna drew that picture of me one day and I loved it.

Pack Meeting in August was pop bottle rockets! And of course Chuck was stuck in traffic on the freeway; we greatly missed his muscles and poor Bishop had to help my kids - and Brother Chappell helped out with Carma so I could take pictures. Scouts is a group effort!

And speaking of Scouts, Chuck and I both got to be part of an Eagle Court of Honor for our buddy Will! I presented him with the actual Eagle award which was really neat and Brother Dille had indicated I could make a couple brief remarks so naturally I chatted for a bit ;). I mostly talked about the importance of being a person of integrity and honor. The best part was probably when I joked about being nervous to follow Brother Corn on the program but at least I could walk to the front... there's a chance he'd just had knee surgery, hahaha. Don't worry, he promises he'll get me back!

I finally got to take Heather on a Sunday School adventure! She showed me all around "Cost Plus World Market" which is a long name for a fancy store and then we picked up some pasta for a picnic in the park and Heather LOVED EVERY SECOND, especially when I took her picture. Heather and I spent a lot of time together in August (her school started later than most, so she used her free time to make me work out) and I'm so impressed with her intelligence and drive for success and her loyalty to those she cares about and obviously her charitable nature - did I mention the hours she spent putting up with my whining as my personal trainer?

August = time to get back out to the orchard and pick be.a.utiful peaches from trees that we had thinned back in May. I handed Will my phone and told him to take some pictures and he was darlingly diligent - here are the adults he snapped...

and some kids - including a selfie hahaha. As crazy as it is up there trying to keep track of a zillion kids while we pick, it's also soo neat to be there as families and as a ward family, serving together to fulfill the commandments to serve one another and feed the hungry.

More orchard fun - I may have found a spider in my bucket and I may have overreacted and Brother Fleshman may have plucked it away and pretended to feed it to Brother Rolfson, which may have been to make fun of me ;). Also, how cute is Carma holding a peach?

So, Chuck was released as YM president because at the end of July he was called to be Bishop Swenson's executive secretary... which makes me laugh because when we divvied up responsibilities in our marriage, handling the calendar and most phone calls fell under "Jana"... but now Chuck has them all figured out for Bishop, haha! One of Chuck's first big projects was to create a 'callings board' for the bishop's office and I was recruited as a scribe :).

It really was a big project, but it really helped reinforce to me how amazing the organization of the church is - at a ward level, no one is paid for doing their calling/job. All those pink and blue names on that huge white board represent men and women who willingly give of their time help the Nampa 2nd Ward function - whether that be playing the piano, teaching young children about Jesus, orchestrating fun activities for the youth on Wednesday  nights, making copies and organizing materials, etc, etc. It was really fun to work with Chuck to create this board, knowing that it will help the Bishopric map out the needs of our ward structure as prompted by Heavenly Father. My favorite part is being the lone pink name as Scout Advancement Chair in the lower left blue-dominated corner of 'Young Men' haha.

Allll riiight, we're into August so a mere six months behind. That's called momentum, my friends! Woo!