This Memorial Day was quite different from ones in the past. Normally today we'd be at a large church-organized BBQ with our whole ward. Thanks to the quarantine and COVID 19, we had no such event. So, Kelly planned some one-on-one activities with the kids and I did a BBQ at home. Kelly took Bella biking at Maybury park in the morning. He wants to try to find something physcial that she can get interested in and excited about. I don't think it's mountain biking. :) She has a really hard time with sports and exercise and he and I both worry about her future weight and health as a result. She said the whole thing was very tiring and she ended up falling and severely scraping up her elbow and needing to come home for treatment. She was thankful for the time spent with her, though. In the afternoon he took Benjamin motorbiking up by Flint. They were gone until 7pm and had a wonderful time. Benjamin was nervous at first that it would be very busy and he might really struggle with a new bike and new surroundings and didn't want to embarrass himself in front of so many people. It turned out to be much more deserted than expected (thank you stay-at-home order) and was perfect for him. Kelly has really wanted to find something he can do with Benjamin that will get him out of the house and away from his phone and give Kelly a chance to spend qaulity time with Benjamin. He thought it would be mountain biking because Benjamin loves that, but then another thing came along. Kelly wanted to sell his Mazda 3 and get a management lease car. The Mazda was costing more to maintain than a lease would cost, so it made sense. However, buyers were hard to find and the only one that panned out wasn't able to buy the car, but rather, wanted to trade his motorcycle for it. Kelly agreed since the cost was comparable and he figured he'd just sell the motorcycle in the spring. (This was last fall). So the motorcycle sat in our shed all winter and just as he was going to sell it, he thought, what if this is the perfect thing to do with Benjamin? Spiritual prompting? So, rather than sell it, he bought a second one for Benjamin just last week. Benjamin's is lighter and a little smaller and a really fun bike to ride. Benjamin spent hours online taking lessons and tests to earn is ORV license so they could go together today and he came home all smiles. He was excitedly telling me all about it. In retrospect, I didn't pay as much attention to his stories as I wish I had because they came home just as I was busy dealing with Peter and getting the BBQ on the table. I'm sad about that because there's no recovering that kind of moment. However, the BBQ was a feat for me. I had planned on Kelly running it but when he didn't come home, I knew I needed to take over. So Bella and I made the burgers and I got all the other supplies and sides and got the grill going through a little bit of trial-and-error and a lot of God's grace. It turned out really yummy and Kelly was very relieved to come home to a made dinner, rather than having to do it himself, as he thought he would. I was really happy that things went so well with Benjamin (any time away from the phone is a heavenly gift and really proud of my accomplishment. Who needs a man to have a BBQ? :)
Other than those activities, the younger kids and I spent the day watching our favorite youtube science guy, Mark Rober, and filming their piano recital songs. Their teacher is doing the recital over zoom so they get to pre-record it. It worked great. They each did about 5 takes and it was so much nicer to just be able to delete the video and start over rather than agonize in the audience when they flubb a part of the song that you just know they nailed countless times at home.
Today Christian decided to write a book and Bella offered to be his illustrator so they spent hours discussing the plot and characters and their appearance. They both had a wonderful time working on "Finding Peter" together. They fight a lot, but for the most part those two play well together and these last few days, they've come up with a ton of things. I love that they're close and work well together.
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