November 26, 2017

I've been having wierd symptoms for the past couple of years.  I have the hand tingling/numb/weak issues at night.  Breathing problems.  My hair falls out enough that I have a ton of baby hairs once or twice a year.  I've had a lot of wierd anxiety where I worry about things more than I used to, or my body acts like it's really worried even though my mind doesn't really feel that worried.  I don't sleep well.  It's hard to go to sleep, I wake up for hours at a time, I wake up way too early, I almost never get 8 hours of sleep.  They've all gotten to where they really disrupt my life.  I've been actively working on things since last summer (2015). Well, I worked on it before by going to doctors for my hands and and trying other things.  But I feel like I actually started on the correct path last summer when I started going to see Valerie.  She helped me see a few false beliefs/skewed beliefs that I didn't realize were off, but fixing them brought a lot of peace. One example was that I didn't think I was ever really doing my best because I messed up.  I knew better so I thought I should do better.  I didn't take the atonement into account or that this life is a process and the Lord knew I'd be right here on my path right now and He's ok with that.  So I need to be ok with it too.  She has a great way of descibing the gospel and the plan and was very helpful in helping me see things that I didn't even know were wrong in my belief system.  I saw her for a while, but my breathing was still a problem.  She said she couldn't help me any more, but she refered me to Dr. Kruger and the supplement lady in Ogden.  I've learned so much from Dr. Kruger and I feel like he was also very helpful for Seth, but it didn't fix my breathing issues.  The supplement lady was interesting and her supplements probably did help me, but they didn't fix my issues either.  Along the way I had a priesthood blessing for my hands and they haven't completely healed, but they aren't nearly as bad as they used to be.  Now my hands get more stiff and weak at night, which is still annoying but it doesn't generally wake me up at least.

I've studied a ton of nutrition and health websites and books.  I feel like I'm searching for truth because it's become hidden over time.  The standard american diet and the regular health care system does not lead to health the way our Heavenly Father intended, I believe.  I've cut meat and dairy out of our diets at home for the most part.  We eat many more fruits and vegetables than we used to. I go to the temple weekly and fast on many of those days.  I've also really studied and applied Elder Nelson's talk from April 2017 about accessing the power of Christ.  I've felt I need access to that power in order to find healing.  

This fall I found a functional doctor who did more medical tests on me and found that I have active Epstein-Barr, Lyme and Lyme coinfection viruses and all of my symptoms can be a result of those viruses in my body.  At the same time I was led again to Cynthia Sumner and her whole healing program.  She teaches about the power of plants and our mind in healing our bodies.  I've found a lot of healing through her program.  I've found that when I eat raw for at least 2 meals a day that my symptoms are decreased.  I breathe better and I sleep better.

temple what to do for viruses- mind as biomachine, meditate on Savior's love.

switch flipped with 7 allergens, will be similar when I figure out health. consequences of lack of sleep taken away, not lack of sleep.

October 22, 2017

Life has been busy! We just finished the first quarter of school.  I can't believe that much time has gone by!  Rachel made the HS volleyball team! It's been so great for her.  We've been so happy about it.  Her games are fun to watch, she has a great coach and she loves to belong to a team and be friends with girls she probably wouldn't have otherwise.  I encouraged her to try out because I wished I would have done that in high school, so I was pretty nervous for her.  I'm so glad it worked out!  School was a big adjustment for her because long volleyball practices and seminary started at the same time, but she's done awesome!

Danny got straight A's the first quarter! It's a miracle! Ha!  He has struggled since he started middle school with his grades.  Mostly because of lack of trying.  But we told him he won't drive if he doesn't have at least a 3.5 and he'll get a better car if he gets a 4.0.  That was the ticket! He switched his whole perspective and work ethic with school and has been doing great!

Aaron has been adjusting great to middle school.  He works hard and has lots of great friends.  He is playing the Trumpet in band and doing great at it.

Seth and Ruby have great teachers and have made good friends and are doing well.

Bob and I are taking the Personal Finance class with the new self reliance program.  We absolutely love it!  We were starting to feel a little under water and out of control with our finances.  And this has completely flipped us around.  I've always had a good budget, I just don't follow it.  I go over budget almost every month and I trade money around to different categories all the time to make it work. I learned both of these are definitely not in line with the principle of budgeting.  They talked about figuring out the financial blessings we want and then making sure we follow the principles that are associated with those blessings.  That was such a great way to look at it.  Some of the blessings we would like help with are being able to buy a car for the kids when Danny is 16 and being able to take our family to Japan. Last week we learned about getting out of debt.  I've never really worried about that much because the only debt we have is our house.  But while we were doing the lesson I really felt impressed that we should work on paying off that debt faster.  I knew that in my finite mind it didn't make that much sense, but I do have a testimony of the power of obedience. So when we came home that night and were talking and thinking about it, the phrase "prove me now herewith" came strongly to my mind.  It was so exciting.  I know He was telling me to be obedient to this principle and he would prove to me that he would open up blessings to our family in ways that didn't seem possible with my limited view of the future.  Bob and I created a plan to work on paying the mortgage off faster.  I know we will be blessed as we do.

I have been having such amazing strengthening and tutoring lessons from the Spirit in the last few month.  Mostly because of my health issues.  I need to write about it more, but we have home teachers coming soon.  So I'm putting this in here to remind me to write about it next time.

August 13, 2017

School starts tomorrow.  I'm excited for a routine again and for my house to stay clean during the day. They all seem excited to be starting school.  I think I have a good carpool. I'm excited to get some good things done during the day.  I just need to work on being more disciplined with my time.

I've felt a little anxious about this school year and what kind of work I need to do.  I just don't really know what I want to do for work.  I have a few ideas like websites, photography, maybe some thing with health.  I also want to help at the school and go to the temple and be available to help people and be a deliberate mom.  I was feeling worried about what I would choose or what the Lord wanted me to choose.  But then I felt like it's ok not to know.  So my plan is to have a big list of things I want to accomplish and some of those will be looking for website clients and practicing with my camera or home projects and I'll pray about it and listen and then plan my day or my week.  Hopefully I'll have a least some success in making some money to help pay for teenage drivers and trips, etc.

I don't know if the gluten thing is helping Seth.  Bob took him to Adam Adair's homecoming yesterday and he ate a bunch of donuts. We were 12 days in.  But I also wasn't being super strict with it, like I forgot to ask the deacons to bring him the gluten free bread for sacrament.  And I didn't buy gluten free oats and he ate plenty of those.  We're pretty good at small changes over time, but cold turkey changes are hard for us.

August 6, 2017

EFY went well.  Rachel had a wonderful time and talked about the Spirit she felt and got to go to her first dance.  She called me every night.  Danny had a chip on his shoulder all week and before he left. I never found out exactly what his problem was.  He just seems like he doesn't want to do anything that I think is a good idea sometimes.  He barely responded to my texts for 2 days and then he stopped all together.  When he got home he was in just as grumpy as ever and acted like I was judging him.  I just tried to love him and ignore his bad attitude and ask him about the week.  And by the end of that day he was nice again and he's been nice since then.  While the bigs were gone, we went to see a movie and we went to the water slides.

Danny was home for a couple days and then he left to drive to Texas with Blake's family.  They're having a good time there and he will fly home in a few days.  Rachel has started intramural volleyball at the school to get ready for tryouts when school starts.  We only have one week now until the first day of school.  I think we're about ready.  We have the carpool figured out and uniforms purchased.  We just need to get a few more school supplies.

Seth and I started doing gluten-free on Aug. 1.  I want to see if going off gluten will help his allergies and eczema and attention.  I am probably more like "low gluten" because I'm not as good at following it.  And I know there are lots of hidden places they put gluten so hopefully we are getting most of it out.  We've still been doing regular oats, but now I'm thinking I should buy gluten free oats to make sure we're getting it out.  We'll see.  Recently several sources I really like for learning about nutrition and that make a lot of sense with the word of wisdom say that gluten isn't really good for anyone.  I'm torn with that one because that's what got me going on studying the word of wisdom in the first place.  There is a lot of research that says gluten does a lot of harm.  And they probably have changed wheat some since the word of wisdom was given and we probably eat more of it than was intended.  But I still feel a confused about it.  So I keep praying and thinking about it.

My breathing and sleep continue to improve.  My sleep recently made a huge jump.  I got a sleep mask to try to help with my dry eyes and that combined with whatever else I'd been doing have helped me to sleep though the night so much better! It used to feel like the night was a little bit of an ordeal.  Where I would try so hard to fall asleep and then I'd wake up wide awake who knows how many times in the night and have to start the process over.  But now it's finally back to how it should be where I go to sleep and I might wake up in the night, but it's just for a minute and I easily fall back asleep.  It feels so wonderful.

July 23, 2017

Girls Camp was great.  I loved being a stake leader.  It was great to hang out with those amazing ladies in the stake and get to hang out with our ward, and to not have quite as much responsibility as being a ward leader.  I was in charge of the survival march and it turned out great.  The girls loved it more than I thought they would.  They learned lots of survival skills like prayer, first aid, water purification, orienteering, knots, signaling. And then they got a slip of paper with a scenario where they needed to use the compass to get a cache of supplies where they had to set up food, water and shelter with the skills they learned.  There were also edible crickets for them to try there.  And they got to throw knives while they waited.

We came home from Girls Camp and had 2 days and then we left for Tahoe.  We took Danny's friend, Blake with us this time.  We had a great time as usual.  We floated the Truckee River, went fishing and swimming at Donner Lake (which Seth absolutely adored), kayaked and jet skied at Sand Harbor, played games, Danny and Blake were human pinatas for the little kids where they had candy glued to their shirts and they had to run away from littles trying to pull the candy off.  Seth and Ruby loved the new zipline in the Smith's backyard.  Danny and Blake played a lot of basketball in the driveway.

Danny and Rachel leave for EFY tomorrow.  I have been praying my heart out that Danny will let the Spirit in and have a good experience.  I sure hope he does.  I'm sure Rachel will do fine.  I'm looking forward to the week with just littles.  It'll be fun to focus on them.

July 9, 2017

Summer vacation is going fast.  We've been so busy.  We went to Utah right after school got out for Grandma Donna's 85th birthday.  We stayed at Trina's house since we weren't going to be there the whole week to share in the rental house with everyone else.  The first day I went to see Nancy Litchfield in Ogden.  She was the nutrition supplement lady.  She knows so much.  I was there for 4 hours.  I left with several supplements that I've been taking for the last month and I think they've been helping (multivitamin, D3, lots of fish oil, and Magnesium).  She also said that she thinks most people have a gluten sensitivity that causes lots of problems for us.  At first I was totally against that idea because it says in the Word of Wisdom that wheat is for man.  But I'm coming around to the idea of at least limiting flours a little.  I wonder if Seth's allergies, exzema and focus problems might be related to gluten.  We're going to try going gluten free for a few weeks when school starts and see how it goes.

Wednesday night we went to the Strawberry Days rodeo.  That was fun with everyone.  Thursday we went to the Provo Temple to do baptisms, to the BYU bookstore and then went to Utah Lake with everyone and bbq'd and went on motor boats with tubes and knee boards. Friday we went up Hobble Creek Canyon most of the day to celebrate Grandma's birthday.

Then we came home from Utah and Danny went to scout camp the next week and Aaron went to spend the week in Visalia.  The girls had their dance recital that weekend and then the kids and I drove to Visalia the next Monday.  We had a good time there seeing movies and swimming at the neighbor's.

Then Bob flew in on Thursday and I picked him up and we drove to Pismo for our anniversary.  Bob got us a cute airbnb to stay at.  We went to Morro Bay and then Pismo.  We spent a lazy day at the beach on friday.  Then Saturday my parents brought all the kids to play at the beach with us.  It was fun to kind of have a climax to the vacation and get to share it with them.  The sad part was that the ocean was so cold, kids didn't get in as much as usual.

This last week has been our only regular week at home this summer.  We had a fun 4th of July with lots of friends coming over to swim and bbq and then stay for fireworks.  I've been getting ready for girls camp and it's been kind of nice to be a little lazy.  This week Rachel and I go to girls camp and Danny will babysit the kids.  Then when we get back, we will turn around and go up to Tahoe for the week.  I'm so excited for that trip.  I love Amanda and her family and she always plans such a great week for us. Then we will hurry home for Danny and Rachel to go to EFY in Cedar City.  After that Danny will go to Texas with his friend Blake for a week and then fly home just in time to get ready for school to start.  It sure makes the summer go fast when we have so much stuff.  But it's all fun.

June 4, 2017

My breathing and sleep has been going back and forth a little still.  I feel like there's forward movement in healing, but at least half of the time is still how it's always been.  I had another blessing from Bob.  The line that stood out the most was "find strength in weakness". So I think this is how things will be for a while.  But it keeps me searching and reaching and I've come to really like that.  I went back to Valerie to see if she had any more suggestions or knowledge.  She gave me the name of a nutrition healer lady in Ogden.  So I'm going to see her when we go to Utah for Grandma Donna's birthday.  At the very least I'm sure I'll learn a bunch from her.  She also gave me the name of a book called Healing Back Pain by John Sarno.  It sounds like its a lot of healing through mental exertion kind of like Valerie teaches so that will be interesting to read.  And we talked about how the Lord has already given me the blessing I need for this and all of the tools I need to get through any roadblocks to get there, I just need to work through those so I will be ready to receive the blessing.  I think there are just still things I need to learn.  I think the major things I've learned so far is the massive amount of power and love available as we partner with the Lord.  My relationship with and understanding of who the Savior is has deepened and expanded so much in the last year.  Also I feel like lots of my answers and things I've learned have been the Lord's truths for how to take care of my body, not the ways of the world.  So I don't know what direction this path is going in the end, but I've learned a lot of healing methods, but I've also learned that the Lord can teach us true ways of doing anything if we work with Him.

May 21, 2017

I'm having more breakthroughs with my breathing and sleeping lately.  It was staying about the same since the last time I wrote.  I thought I was doing everything I could.  I was still going to Dr. Kruger every other week.  I went to Valerie again and she didn't really know why.  She suggested essential oils. So I tried that.  But nothing has really had any effect that I could see.  I have felt more acutely how the Lord has been with me in this trial.  There have been so many nights where I used to get up and just focus on how bad I felt that I didn't notice the Spirit there.  But now I've been able to feel the Lord sitting with me and comforting me. It obviously isn't best for Him to take this trial away, but I can really feel him with me even when I feel bad or sad and that's ok.  I felt like I should try a cleanse so I found Dr. Christopher's juice cleanse and Bob and I did that.  I felt like the biggest improvement was my mental clarity. So I pondered that and felt like maybe I was led to that to strengthen my testimony of fasting.  I mostly try to get through fasting.  But I think that kind of mental clarity is probably available to me in my monthly fasting if I will do it correctly and with the intent that I should.  So I fasted and went to the temple this week. Also a few days before that I started my reading and felt directed to Elder Nelson's talk about Accessing the power of Christ.  It felt like it was just for me. I felt like I'd been working on a lot of the steps already but the last one was asking like a drowning person and I definitely was feeling like a drowning person.  I went to the temple and didn't feel like a I had a ton of direction.  I think I'm going to go see Valerie and see if she has any more information for me.  And maybe I'll look for more information about the diaphragm.  But the thing I didn't expect was how things would just start being better on their own.  Just by bringing more of the Power of Christ into my life.  I've slept much better the last 3 nights.  My breathing is still tight, but I can get many more good breaths here and there than I used to. Also the joy I feel at being closer to the Savior is wonderful.

We went to Visalia for half of Spring break.  We had a great time with my Mom.  We went bowling and to the park.  Kristal and Ryan came for Easter weekend.  We all went to the zoo.

My mom and Kristal came to Las Vegas to do a girls weekend.  We ended up doing a lot of maternity shopping for Kristal.  And we ate at some good places.  We just stayed here to save money. We watched movies at night.  It was nice.

School is almost done.  I'm so excited not to have a schedule.  The kids sports just finished.

March 18, 2017

I'm learning so much from this breathing problem.  I probably should have responded to it years ago and things wouldn't have gotten so bad.  But I'm grateful that it finally made me take notice and change some things.  I went to see Valerie again.  She helped me realize I was internalizing my kids' choices and assuming that if they messed up it was because I hadn't done some thing right.  But they have free agency and I can only do my best.  Letting go of that took even more stress out of my life.  And just recently I realized I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to earn money. I don't really have any work for United Way right now, so I was having to create work for myself, which is no fun. I didn't like to do it so it was hard to make myself do it, but then I had guilt because I didn't.  I had a talk with Bob and had to remind myself that I think it's ok for me to not work right now.  Summer is coming so it would be hard for me to start anything new.  But I feel like when the time is right, the Lord has something prepared for me and I will be able to find it.  I just need to give myself permission to be ok with that plan and take working off my daily checklist so that I can focus on the things that are right for me to do right now. I am grateful for the insights I'm gaining into myself and how I'm pretty strong-willed and checklist-oriented.  There are so many things I haven't thought of before because I was too busy trying to do the right thing to listen to the Spirit which would have told me the real right thing I should be doing.

My breathing and sleep still aren't great.  But I can feel the hand of the Lord so much through this.  There are many nights I hardly sleep and I should feel so tired and grouchy the next day, but I don't. I'm still able to be patient with my kids and get my things done.  I'm able to feel the Savior's love for me personally more and feel how infinite it is that there is plenty for me and everyone else.  I don't need to compete for it in the slightest.

My scripture study has been so much better.  I start with a prayer. Then read whatever I want.  Right now I'm working on reading all the topical guide references to the Savior.  President Nelson suggested it in the last Worldwide Devotional. Then I spend at least 5-10 minutes meditating and pondering and visiualizing the Savior and His love and anything I'm seeking help for. I feel a lot of strength in focusing my scripture/ponder time like that.

Danny started volleyball with his school.  They are doing an intramural team this year so they have a bunch of boys who have never played before.  He's having fun with it.  We had to have a discussion about the use of his time because he also wants to play for Ballerz and walk the dogs.  So he's still busy, but he's trying to work harder and have a better attitude.  I've been working hard to be more positive and loving with him.  We were in a little bit of a negative spiral.  But it's amazing how quickly he responds when I try to hold my tongue and let him do things on his own.

Rachel spends a lot of time drawing and practicing the piano and riding her bike with Kylie and Mckayla.  She was just released from being Beehive president.

Aaron was asked to be on a basketball all-star team that is supposed to turn into a club team.  So we're waiting to see how that turns out.  Somerset is also supposed to be starting a club team for middle and high school so that might work out well too. Aaron was also asked to be on the track team at school because they noticed he's so athletic.  He decided he didn't want to do it though.

Seth is so excited to go to cub scouts. He's absolutely loving it.  He's also playing soccer and taking piano lessons.  He's doing a lot better with paying attention and sitting still at school.  He still gets distracted and is hard to motivate sometimes, but I think we're on the right track.  We've been using some essential oils on him and I do the Kruger stuff on him. Sadly, it's allergy season right now and he's always sniffing. We're looking forward to when that is better.

Ruby is doing dance and soccer right now.  She's really excited to be playing soccer and scored 2 goals in her first game.  She works really hard at everything she does. She idolizes Rachel and always talks about how kind Rachel is and how good at art she is. She just lost her 2 bottom teeth and was over the moon about it.

Amanda and Wendy are coming this weekend! We are staying at the Wynn and I'm so excited to get to hang out with them.

February 12, 2017

We've been having a nice February.  It's been in the 60s to 70 and sunny.  I like winter like this.

I've been working on the 14 days of Valentines with Bob.  It's such a great reminder how helpful it is to serve and think of the other person.  Because our marriage is so great when we do.  Not that it's bad normally, but so much better when we put some effort in to it.

I've still been going along with my breathing and sleep problems.  They seemed to hit a plateau. I kept feeling like I wasn't getting any answers because it's not going away. But this week I realized I have gotten answers and things have gotten a little better.  But I realized I still wasn't relying on the Spirit as much as I should. I was still falling back into my old ways.  I found a book on Deseret Book called Finding Inner Peace, Lessons learned from trying too hard by Wendy and Brent Top.  I haven't read all of it, but it's making a lot of sense.  I'm still trying to run faster than I should and faster than the Spirit tells me to.  So the last couple days I have visualized sharing a yoke with the Savior.  And my goal is to stay yoked all day.  I pray for help in the morning and try to pay attention to when I don't have peace and then I know I'm going off on my own.  That has brought a lot of peace.  And it's been one of the only things that has had a direct effect on helping my breathing.  I still have the tendency to hold my diaphragm tight.  But if I notice I'm doing it, I can relax it a little.  I've never been able to do that before.  Usually if I think about it, it gets worse.  I'm so hopeful for a change in my breathing and sleep and in my whole life.

This is the last week of high school basketball.  It's been a good season, but it'll be nice for Danny to not be so busy.

My garden is doing well.  I've found I like winter gardening because there are no bugs! I'm harvesting brocolli, cauliflower, kale, carrots and peas right now. It's great.

I was asked to be a level leader at girls camp.  I'm excited to go to camp!

February 5, 2017

January went so fast. Danny and Rachel had finals. They all continued their sports. Danny is so busy. He is at school from 5:30am to 5:30 pm every day.  I'm glad it's almost done.  It will be nice for him to get back to having time to do things like sleep and walk the dogs and hang out.

Seth and I have been going to see Dr. Kruger every Tuesday in January. I've made a lot of progress, but I still have sometimes where I can't breathe right.  He still thinks he can help me.  I think I'll go one or 2 more times.  We'll see. I signed up to take his class so I'm excited to learn more about what he's doing and if I can do it.  But the best part has been taking Seth to see him.  He went the day after Christmas and he said the same thing about being out of alignment and he can't focus because he's trying to get comfortable and can't.  That first time I took Seth, Dr. Kruger worked on me first and the whole time Seth was waiting, Seth was crawling around on the couch and hanging off it and in constant motion.  On our third visit we went in and sat down and Seth just sat next to me and was completely still.  There was such a difference! He still has a little bit of a hard time focusing at school, but I think some of that is behavioral and we need to practice and talk about those skills with him.  But it seems like a lot of his underlying physical reasons for not paying attention are better.  I'm excited to take Dr. Kruger's class so hopefully I can keep it up for Seth and help him when he needs it.

We went to Visalia for MLK day.  Grandma Monte and Grandpa Gene were there.  Grandpa Cliff is working on a knot challenge for scouts so he practiced tying Ruby up, which she loved. We went to a really fun sledding place that has a rope tow.  The weather was nice and sunny.

January 1, 2017

 Christmas break was nice. We had a week out of school before Christmas. We were able to catch up on a lot of our Christmas traditions that we hadn't been able to get to during school. We went to the Bellagio and the cactus garden and made a gingerbread house and slept under the tree.  We also worked on Kwanzaa. We didn't have a full day this year to do it so we did a couple hours every morning.  It was so nice to get the house organized. We went and saw a movie as a reward on the day before Christmas Eve.

 My parents and Grandma Donna came to celebrate Christmas with us. They came the morning of Christmas eve. We went ice-skating that day. We had a lot of fun. But it was pretty hard for the kids. We realized they have never rollerskate it or rollerbladed or anything before. So there was a lot of falling and tears.  But they all stuck with it and by the end they had had a good time.

 That evening we had Chinese food for dinner. We went over to the Pettingill's for a little bit to join their annual party. Then we acted out the nativity and open and sibling gifts.  Everyone was very happy with their sibling gifts this year.

 On Christmas we got up at 6:45. We opened gifts for a while. The kids got a new trampoline, Bob got a gas fire pit, Aaron got a new Xbox, Danny got a lot of games and controllers for the Xbox, Rachel  got a lot of art supplies and a electronic tablet for drawing. Seth and Ruby got a superheroes playmation game that they both loved. They got Legos and Pokémon toys.

 After presence we had Norwegians for breakfast. We played for a while. Then we had sacrament meeting at 1 o'clock. It was nice to have church on Christmas. Then we came home and had our second annual testimony meeting.

 On the day after Christmas, my parents took the kids to  The store to buy me a birthday present. Then we celebrated my birthday by going to dinner that night. Then we went to see the Christmas lights at the speedway after that.

 Tuesday afternoon we packed up and drove to Utah.   We stayed with Trina. Wednesday we went to the temple with her and did and down my aunts and ceilings for Pepas  siblings. We went to the Provo city center temple. That night we went to ikea  and then watched movies at Trina's.  Thursday I took Danny and Rachel  to the outlets for a little shopping. That night we had dinner at Kenton's house  Josh and Holly came too.  We celebrated my birthday and then we all went to watch a BYU basketball game.  Friday we went over to the Dean's house. We had a great time catching up and spending time with them. The kids spent the night there that night. Then we pick them up the next morning and drove back to las vegas.

 We had three different friends invited us to spend time with them on New Year's eve. That was fun. We moved from one party to the next. Danny went to the stake  dance and had a good time. Everyone stayed up until midnight.  I think that was the first year that had happened. We started at 9 o'clock church today. That was hard to get up for. But it was so nice to have the afternoon open. We had a mandatory family nap time to catch up on sleep. At night we  went for a family walk and played Apples to Apples and did family yoga. It was nice.