Hart Happenings

Hello everyone! So fun to catch up on the blog!  

  Sad to hear about the decision to stay in Houston.  I'm sure that you are doing what you think is right, but Jack is skeptical.  

  Horrible to hear about the mice problem.  My recommendation is to get a cat.  They really do a good job at catching mice.  Jack disagrees about cats in general.  Also, probably good that we don't live near you, I would probably be your best, most faithful customer, to the detriment of any of my health goals.

  Jenn, the house is starting to look like a house!  Jack was worried about the paint color you chose until he understood that blue was the only option for the waterproofing layer.

  Jack really wants to talk about us now so here we go:

- Alex is gearing up for the debut season of the Pro Spikeball league.  It has taken a lot of work but there is much excitement from the people surrounding this latest venture.  So he is doing a lot of that lately, as well as working his brokering business and running the airbnb's.

- I just got called into Young Women which threw me for a loop.  It's been a while since I had anything to do with girls, really.  Peter is thrilled for me to be working there though and loves to come get me after church and say hi to the ladies. The garden has been spectacular and we have enjoyed an abundance of strawberries, honeyberries, cherries, apricots, raspberries, and now blackberries, apples, pears, and grapes!  Oh, and the strawberries are back for another round.

- Ian is wrapping up his final performances of Footloose this week.  He has absolutely had the time of his life!  He has been looking at getting a car, prompted by his experience of the van breaking down on the freeway.  Thanks to everyone who went to see the show and support him.  

- Jack made the Varsity soccer team this year.  Good for him! Yay!  It really stressed him out for a while so we are glad the tryouts are over and his future is secured.  Their first games are this week and we are excited to watch.  

- Peter has been learning the electric guitar since landing the role of Zack in School of Rock.  It has been an adventure and we have been hearing a lot of music that doesn't usually feature in the Hart repertoire.  *sigh* We really appreciate all the tips and gear loans from Nick.  He is the best resource! Peter is also playing soccer when it doesn't conflict with rehearsals.

  We spent a lovely afternoon at Mesa Falls in the rain today.  It was Jack's best day.  It was good to be in a beautiful place after a pretty rough week.  I was sick all week and then we spent Saturday afternoon at the funeral of the oldest son of our long time friends, Max and Jenn Bennett.  They moved away years ago but e was Ian's age and they were little bike riding buddies on the numbered streets.  He developed pretty severe depression on his mission and ended up committing suicide a couple of weeks ago.  It was so sad to have our reunion be under those circumstances but we were so grateful to be able to be there to support them. 

  Experiences like that are such great perspective correcting moments.  It's crazy how quickly I get wrapped up in "the thick of thin things" (Elder Maxwell) and hearing about tragedies like this really line things up in a more accurate order of importance. 

  Here are some pictures from our life recently.  It's been fun to see many of you at different point over the summer.  You continue to be our favorite people on the planet!

The band kids from School of Rock

Jack and Alex in the Zion Narrows

Hyde Happinesses

 THOMAS! So good to hear from you on here :) I hope it becomes a regular thing. Love getting caught up on all your doings. 

I forced myself to write “happinesses” this week though I’m not feeling particularly happy. I feel absolutely disgusting. We have a mouse problem 🤢 guys. It’s so bad. I don’t know how many there are but they seem to pop up everywhere. The worst one? ON MY PANTS. Hanging up in my closet. UUUGGGGGHHHHH. Mice should be illegal. I hate them. I actually used to think they were cute, even when I got bit, but in my house???! Spare me. It’s so gross. Sometimes I think about the Celestial Kingdom and how nice it will be without disease. And rodents. So if you have any great ideas of how to get rid of them once and for all, please let me know. I am over it. 

In other news, we had a day this week when it only got up to 77°, so to celebrate, we made homemade grilled cheese and tomato soup. Not to toot my own horn, but it’s the best meal I’ve ever made. Homemade sourdough, slathered in butter with melty cheese… ohhhh man. It’s going to be a staple when it actually gets cold. The forecast shows no more days in the 80s though! So fall is on the way. 

I have been baking lots lately. I’ve gotten the hang of sourdough and I quite enjoy making it but really don’t care to eat it, so that’s why we’re starting a home bakery 😅 I make too many treats and we don’t eat them all 🙄 hopefully it works out and other people like it as much as we do. 

Barrie Britt is the owner of our house. Her brother, Rodney, lives next door and is the landlord. He and his wife and phenomenal and we love them. Stetson absolutely adores Rodney (Wodney). Anyway, Barrie is coming into town this Wednesday and has us on pins and needles. Cam is convinced she’s going to let us know if we can stay at the house for longer than our year contract or not. I’m really hoping she’ll let us stay for the next few years (if not indefinitely), but we’ll see. She may not even say a word! 😅 but that has us a little nervous. 

I’m hosting a girls night tomorrow. The girls in the ward try to get together once or twice a month to do games or a craft of some kind, so this month we’re doing gourmet s’mores at our house :) I think it will be very very fun. Each of the girls pitches in a few dollars to help cover cost of the activity, and then we just sit around and yap and catch up. It’s so fun and I’m excited to host this time. 

The boys are doing really well. Stetson is acting so grown up these days. He’s a parrot which is fun but I really have to watch myself. He loves to say “heck yeah!” Very enthusiastically whenever he is excited. He recently learned how to do a somersault (thank you Manning’s), and while performing for us, he said “I’m really cool looking.” I love his confidence. Beckham is delightful. He squirms around everywhere and absolutely adores Stetson. He looks for him whenever he hears him and gives him a huge grin. He’s so sweet and generally good natured. He only has about one bowel movement a week, which always ends in an enormous blowout. It happened today on the way to church. Cam had to take him to his parents house to literally wash him off. And his car seat. It was a disaster. 

Anyway. Sorry for being long winded. Miss you all. Hope you can come visit sometime :) 

Believe it or not, that bowl was half full of tomatoes. They’re Stetsons favorite 

A new friend, Nyla. She’s spicy but so fun. 

Stetson invited himself over to Rodney’s house while I was watering the garden. I found them just chatting and catching up. 

Flake Fun

We had a good week despite very warm temperatures.   We started some school stuff and are still working out our rhythm.  We signed up for a program called that meets on Fridays and supplements art, STEM, history and literature.  The kids are really excited about it and I am hoping that they make friends with some other kids their age. 

Scott took Friday off and spent the whole day and most of the night moving, leveling and compacting dirt in preparation for our slab.  It is a long process but I am hoping that we can pour before the end of the month.  

Our tenant let us know that he is planning to move out because he can't afford the rent.  Please teach your children money management! And teach them that they have control over their life and don't have to be a victim. It makes me sad to see his life. 

Other than that, we are just surviving and hoping that things cool down soon.  

Hope that you all have a good week!

The kids "masterpiece" - Ledge decorating

Flake Fun

It has been a busy couple of weeks.  We finished up our summer reading program which was a lot of fun.  We also did some work on the house.  We enjoyed a few nice rainstorms and didn't enjoy several upper 90's days. 

The progress pictures uploaded backward so scroll to the bottom and go up. We got the waterproofing paint on (two coats), the French drain pipe in, and the first layer of gravel and dimple board put on! Oh and we passed our under slab utility inspection!! Progress is slow but we are getting there. 

 

Smithfield Scoop

 We have had a delightful time reading the blog posts this morning! Thanks to all who contributed to the blog recently! A little plug for the blog... Such a great option for keeping track of our doings and sharing experiences with each other. Thank you for doing that in spite of how busy you are! It will be a treasure in the future - as it is now each time we read it! The photos are especially wonderful! Thanks to everyone!

We did some fun things in July! Mannings generously gave us tickets to see "12 Angry Men" at the Hale Theatre - and it was remarkable! SO GOOD! Very thought provoking and well done. Much better than the old black and white film. Thanks Lauren and Nick!

Dad received tickets to the melodrama at Pickleville for Father's Day, which we took advantage of in July. The name of the show is "Trouble in Hunky Dory" and it is a classic melodrama with a hero and heroine, as well as some clueless townspeople and a great villain and his sidekick. Delightful music, lyrics that slipped in some classic references to local culture and religion. Such a clever, fun show! We even got some popcorn, which seems to be a must at Pickleville :)

Dad's Uncle Wain and his wife Charlene bought a house in Riverton and are moving here from Washington State soon. Whenever Wain is in Utah, he absolutely must have lunch at Frederico's on USU campus, as well as dessert at Aggie Ice Cream. But, since he absolutely cannot go to lunch alone, we were invited to accompany them. It was a great conversation and good to learn more about Charlene. She is nice, unassuming, and is good to Wain, which is very nice to see. They are moving here to receive cancer treatments and advice, but I think it's more to be closer to people who know them and love them. Hopefully, we will be able to help them get moved in and settled and keep in touch. Wain is now in his 80s.

After finding out about a Blue Sox baseball game that was celebrating the 130th year of that team playing in Smithfield, we thought we should support the team! We enjoyed being in the crowd, sitting on the grass, and cheering for both sides, who were playing their best. It was fun, but long. We tired out watching before the teams tired out playing! Fireworks were had at the end to culminate the celebration. Such a fun town tradition!

We had some hot days in July that we tried to tolerate. At least the temperatures at night have now been adjusting lower, which is a nice reprieve. We can open our windows at night and cool things down to a very pleasant sleeping temperature! And rain also helps...

We have some new "friends" that Dad calls "squatters." They are very cute little spotted fawns. For some reason they seem to enjoy our yard and its vegetation. So far they haven't eaten too much of what they shouldn't. They like to nap in various locations in our yard, either in the back or the front. They don't seem terribly particular. We hope they find other greener pastures elsewhere before they get too much bigger.

One Saturday, I had to go to Idaho to check on a mom and baby. We took a side trip into the Oneida Narrows, which is a popular spot for rafting down the Bear River, and there were lots of people doing just that. It was a lovely drive. On our way home, we decided to go to a favorite restaurant spot - Deer Cliff Inn. Maybe someday we will take everyone there. It is only open Thursday-Saturday and on Friday and Saturday they have a live band. It was funny to hear the old country western songs we knew when we were growing up! We enjoyed a delicious meal and music and listening to the river running by as we ate. Our dinner was paid for by a nice man who was trying to pay us back for switching tables with them so that their larger party could be better accommodated. Good folks in the world wherever you go.

Houston Chronicles (it's a real newspaper here, so keep it on the DL)

 I think it's been... years? Yes, years since we've been on here, so let's not give you a synopsis of years, but rather pretend like we've been here the whole time and you know everything up until July of this year, okay? Cool!

So just to catch everyone up, there was a possibility of us moving back to Utah when Barry's opens the Salt Lake City studio later this year/early next year, but after much prayer and discussion, we've decided it would not be the best move yet.  So T is trying to figure out next steps as far as careers are concerned.  As of now he's still looking at costs, and possibilities of opening his own studio/gym, but we will keep you updated there!

Tori has recently been called as a stake social media specialist and is working with a lot of non profit and interfaith organizations in Houston.  So that's been a learning experience and fun for her to put her social media skills to gospel use.  She is also crushing her MBA program and learning a ton! 

JJ recently had his 5th birthday at a trampoline park, with about 15 of his church and school friends, which was the highlight of his month! He's constantly moving, jumping, flipping, building legos and transformers, and his favorite activity, swimming.  When it's not raining, we're swimming, which it seems to rain 97.5% of the time these days, but IT'S ALL GOOD. 100+ degrees and raining, so pretty freaking cool. So cool. The coolest. 

Anyway, we'll try to get on here more, and I'll try to remember more of what is happening in our lives down here!  Love and miss you all!  

Flake Fun

 Things got super toasty here.  Triple digit temps are not my friends!!  But we survived and are now enjoying upper 80's...at least for this week.  

The twins had a birthday which was fun.  They got new bikes and have been riding them as much as possible. 

We enjoyed the Pioneer Days festivities this past weekend.  The parade in the rain was a great experience and the kids didn't complain at all!! Now we will try to get back to normal and do a sugar detox!!

No real progress has been made on the house due to festivities and weather so hopefully there will be a bigger update soon. 

The cows got into the orchard and we completely lost 3 trees and the others are all stripped of leaves so I am hoping that I can baby them back to life.  The raspberries all got eaten too but I am hopeful that they will come back next year as well. 

That is all that I can think of for now.  Hope that you all have a good week!

Our current trench! 

Our new swing