September 2021

If August was a gut punch; September has been a bit of an unclenching. It wasn't completely stress free but there was a definite lessening.

School started! And...it was *normal* school for the most part besides the wearing of masks and lunch room seating assignments. It's every day and there are extracurriculars! Woohoo! Ailey and Bryn were sad to see the summer go but are happy to be back at school with friends and up to their eyeballs in activities.

This year Ailey is a senior...so hard to believe...and Bryn is in 7th grade. Hello middle school! Lots of kid milestones happening this year. Excitement and a little apprehension too!

Love those well thought out first-day-of-school outfits! They were planned with great care from their heads to their fingers to their toes!

Ailey's first day actually started at around 4 AM! It was Senior Sunrise!

Then she came back home and got gussied up again for school to start at 8 AM and, of course, for her sweet mother to take some snaps! LOL.

17 is precious!

Then it was time to throw this cherub to the wolves at middle school!

You couldn't pay me a million dollars to go back to 7th grade!

Then we were off to celebrate our own first day of school tradition...

We went out to breakfast as we do each year! 

This year we ate at The Cottage; one of our favorites! It's small and sometimes hard to get a table at but not this year. Yes, I am drinking a Mt. Dew with my breakfast...don't judge...early morning school schedules are rough especially after like...oh a year and a half...LOL.

The girls are both doing well and enjoying being back in school full time and participating in all of their various activities. Ailey is loving being dance team captain. She is also active in her FCCLA (Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America) club, her Prostart, and her Outdoor Living class. We barely see Ailey with work, extracurriculars, and her extremely busy social life! We are back to the grind of enforcing curfew again! LOL.

Ailey has been a busy dancer with Hello week, Spirit week, volleyball games, and football games!

Tourist Day!

Bryn is enjoying middle school and says that she doesn't miss elementary school which may be a Johnson family first. She has widened her circle of friends. She started XC and is enjoying it! She is sounding great on the cello and piano lessons started up again.

I love the cello concerts that I get to listen to while I make dinner and the beautiful piano music that I get to hear in the mornings! Bryn is a very social kid and has been having a lot of fun with friends. She is a "sad tortoise" no more! Those memes about checking in on your extravert friends during COVID were right!

It felt good getting back into a routine. It's been so long since we've had one to get into! Having all of the lake business behind us felt really good! I feel like we are back to being able to relax a little and enjoy our lives a bit. It felt good to work in our yard, hang out on our deck, and have some FUN! 

We've enjoyed relaxing and eating out here with the cafe lights and candles glowing! Love it!

I also started cooking again. Will wonders never cease? June, July, and August were truly a "fend for yourselves" situation. The weather turned a bit cooler this month which always inspires cooking. We've made soups, roasts, Thai food, blackberry cobbler, peach cobbler, peach pie, pumpkin waffles, pasta salads, regular salads, casseroles, and even tried a new and really good recipe: Egg Roll in a Bowl that everyone liked!

Tyler and I got back into working out regularly, biking, and keeping up with our daily 3 mile walks. We even purchased special aka *expensive* walking shoes to up our mileage. That has also felt really good!

I've been able to truly work on my business and my booth is finally fully stocked and looking good again! I've had time to enjoy the process of finding and creating merchandise. Date nights are back. Socializing with friends is back. Shopping and exploring is back. Working out is back! Home improvement projects are back! Boating and bike rides are back! I look forward to adding travel to that list!

Labor Day weekend felt like a rest and a reset. For the first time in years I did not participate in the Funky Junk Antiques Show in Sandpoint, Idaho. There was just no possible way. I could barely do Farm Chicks (a show I had already paid for) but there was definitely no way that I could turn around and do Funky Junk two weeks later. I had to tell my good friend Jennifer that I wasn't going to be able to do her show and I know that she was super disappointed. She had so many cancellations. I felt awful but I had no choice. I did go to the show, shopped, and supported her and all of my other friends who were vendors. The vintage/antiques business is a hard one during COVID and the timing was rotten. Two big shows within two weeks of each other. That doesn't usually happen. Farm Chicks is always the first weekend in June and Funky Junk is over Labor Day weekend. But the stars did not align this year.

Ailey and Bryn came with us to Funky Junk and we found MANY treasures!! We also stopped by to check out the progress on my mom's health clinic. 

Then we explored Mirror Lake and stopped at our favorite Wah-Hing for dinner! The rest of the weekend we worked on projects at our house and in our much neglected yard. We went to Green Bluff and got a big box of the most amazing peaches! We could not get enough of them! Is there anything better than the perfect peach? I don't think so!

We also explored Reflection Lake and went up to Zions Camp where the youth had youth conference in June. We barbequed and ate fresh peaches and corn. We were able to video chat with Kam during our Labor Day BBQ which was awesome! We watched The Outsiders with Brynnie! She loved the book and was ready to watch the movie. Out of all that dreamy cast of 80s movie stars her favorite was... PONY BOY aka C. Thomas Howell. Are you kidding me?! LOL.

My Institute class started up again which I LOVE! We are studying The Book of Revelation. So interesting! Early morning seminary started up again for Ailey which she does not love! Ha ha! She doesn't mind seminary but she has to be up so early because every morning she goes to seminary at 6am and then she goes straight to dance team practice at 7am for another hour all before school starts at 8am.

Bryn started XC and is running for her middle school team. She came home from her first night of practice and slept for two hours! Ha ha! Her first meet was cancelled because we have a weird bus driver shortage here in Spokane. That has been causing a lot of problems in getting all of the bus riding kids to school and made it impossible to get all of the middle school kids to their first XC meet. So that was super disappointing. She finally had her first XC meet at the end of September. She set a goal for herself this year to make it into the top 10 and to continue to run faster than herself! Her first meet she came in 11th and had a PR! She was happy with her performance and it was good to get those first middle school XC meet nerves out of the way! A lot of our friends kids were running including many of Bryn's friends from elementary school. It was SO fun to cheer them all on!

Check out that concentration!

Tyler and I had a fantastic day of boating on Lake Coeur d' Alene! It was an adults only day and it makes me wonder why we've never thought of doing this before! LOL. The girls went to school early one morning and we went boating and it was FABULOUS!!

It was pure relaxation!!

We boated all over the lake and went up the Spokane River to the Post Falls Dam. We anchored in our favorite bay and swam and soaked up the sun. It was WONDERFUL!!

The Spokane River

Lake CDA

We were on the water for about 8 hours before we headed for home. It was the perfect way to end a much-too-short boating season!

Then these guys came to town for the weekend and we rode the Hiawatha Trail! Tyler and I also explored Mullen and Silverton after Naomi and Kevin had to head back home.

My dad celebrated his 73rd birthday. We had his favorite cake delivered to him on his birthday in Las Vegas which he really enjoyed! He also got the Pfizer COVID booster shot.  A few days later it was the second anniversary of my mom's passing.

It feels like yesterday and a million years ago that she passed away.

Kirk and I stayed in close contact that day. It seems like on the *big days* we are fine but it's the random Tuesday or driving in my car or going into a store when grief suddenly hits unbelievably hard and out of nowhere. It's so unpredictable. It's those out-of-the-blue wallops that are the hardest. 

An unfortunate part of that day was that one of my sisters did a Facebook post about my mom that got forwarded to me and my brother. My aunt...my mom's sister who did not get along with my mom... selfishly hijacked that post about my mom and turned it into a nasty commentary about me and Kirk in the comments. It was hilarious since I haven't even talked to her or seen her since my mom's celebration of life. She is classless. Kirk and I were bugged at first but then we just laughed. I appreciated the many non-insane texts, emails, and phone calls that I received! LOL.

Kameron got transferred to Fairmont, Minnesota. It is a little town on the border of Minnesota and Iowa. A lot of his new area is in Iowa. This factory is nearby and is one of the area's claims to fame. I requested a picture of Kam posing WITH the Jolly Green Giant. He refused. LOL.

Kam was not excited about this transfer. He was loving where he was serving, his companion, and doing what he was doing with all of the social media stuff. He enjoyed working several days a week in the mission office and with the mission president AND they were living in the nicest apartment in the mission. Clearly it was too good to last! But this new transfer has been good for him. He is opening up a new area...it's a branch...and he is a trainer. His new companion is a missionary that was sent to him straight from the airport. The kid is also fresh out of high school. He was quite sheltered and his parents did everything for him so Kameron has gotten to teach some life skills too. Ha ha! Their housing situation isn't horrible either. They have a whole house to themselves. But it's back to small town livin' for our boy! LOL.

Kam's mission plaque is finally up on the wall at church. COVID and all of that delayed our stake getting it done. Now he is official! 

I had a big Fall Open House at Midtown Market this month. I spent most of the month prepping for it but it was enjoyable prepping. Not the crazy frenetic prepping I did for Farm Chicks. That was even with selling FIVE big pieces of furniture in one day prior to the Open House! LOL.

Tyler and Bryn came in and helped me on set-up night! Bryn was so cute and helpful! The open house turned out great and it was a big success! It was fun to change things up for Fall and add in some Halloween and Thanksgiving décor.

One weekend Tyler and I headed up to Priest Lake and had a great time! It is so beautiful! The water is crystal clear. You couldn't keep me out of it! It was COLD but I prefer to say that it was very REFRESHING!

To celebrate the first day of Fall; Ailey and I bought pumpkin bundt cakes from the Nothing Bundt Cake store. Ailey made some cute cards and we delivered them to the ladies that we minister to. Ailey and I are ministering companions. She is a good one and I just follow her lead! We also bought some little bundt cakes for our family to celebrate the arrival of Fall.

The girls had been requesting to go on a family bike ride so we finally set aside the time to do it. It's sad that summer has come and gone and we've done very little of the things that we like to do. We decided to ride further up on the Trail of the Coeur d' Alenes. This time we started in Kingston Idaho and rode down to Cataldo and then back again. It was a little over 14 miles round trip. Not our longest ride but it sure was a beautiful one!

Tyler and Ailey saw an eagle swoop down and pluck a fish out of the river. Bryn and I saw a giant moose and everyone saw a snake! 

We also saw plenty of wooly bear caterpillars and tried to determine what our winter will be like. It doesn't look good. 

Cold and snowy!

The trail head was right by The Snake Pit which is one of Idaho's oldest restaurants. Tyler and I also ate here the weekend we spent with Naomi and Kevin. They are famous for many things but one of them is their homemade cream pies. They are delicious. This was our healthy dinner!

Did the four of us snarf an entire pie in the back of our Suburban in the trail head parking lot? Yep! We sure did and it was AMAZING!!

I love all of our "Johnson Party of Four" adventures!!

Even though she claims to not believe it; we really ARE going to miss this girl when she goes off to college next year!!

Check out this sunset! No filter! Bryn took this picture as we were leaving Kingston. Gorgeous!!

This month we also had a Girls Camp Fireside, online Back-to-School night for the high school, and two different service projects. One was for Afghan refugees that are coming to our area. It was particularly nice to participate in that one with the girls since we've discussed the situation in Afghanistan a lot. It was nice to DO something beside just talk and feel sad about the situation.

I spoke in another ward this month. This time our Stake President shook things up and wanted all of the stake representatives to talk on a different subject this month so I had to write another talk. I'm getting quite the repertoire! Our stake primary presidency hosted a Presidents Forum for all of the primary presidents in our stake. It went well and has proved to be very worthwhile. This was our second one. The presidents liked having this opportunity to gather together and to discuss primary.

I also had book club in person again this month. We met at my friend Teresa's house but all wore masks. Still...it was IN PERSON and INSIDE! We read the book Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. I read the book years ago. Teresa did an amazing job hosting and moderating the discussion. It was one of our best!!

This month Tyler had to plan a Young Men's Awards Night which is like YW in Excellence for the girls. It went well! He also FINALLY did a sleep study which our entire family has been begging him to do for years! He is a horrible snorer. He did the initial study with the monitor on his finger for two nights and DIDN'T SNORE!! Are you kidding me?! WTH??? He also had a check up with his diabetes doctor and his podiatrist. The joys of being a diabetic. All went well with both of those. Tyler also asked his doctor about getting a COVID booster shot. Moderna doesn't offer one yet.

We didn't see a ton of Reilly this month. She and Hunter had been doing a lot of house sitting for her bosses and watching Emerson. She participated in some of our weekly video chats with Kam and I love it when the whole family is on together talking and laughing. She narrowly missed being hit during a police chase in Spokane Valley and called us right after it happened from the side of the road! Scary! In other criminal news...someone slashed a bunch of tires in the high school parking lot one night during a game and Ailey was one of the unfortunate ones who had a slashed tire. Parents were demanding the school turn over the video from the parking lot and the school refused to do so because the slasher was a minor. 

Bryn got her 7th grade school pictures back and they are super cute! That's not how 7th grade pictures are supposed to go!! It sure wasn't my experience!! LOL. Brynnie is such a cutie inside and out!

We got some worrisome news at the end of the month. My father-in-law got COVID and then was also diagnosed with thyroid cancer. We don't know the extent or severity of the cancer yet. I do know that thyroid cancer can be very treatable. I have had two friends who had thyroid cancer and who are fine now so we are hoping for the best. The COVID part has been scary. Joel is in that immunocompromised group. Luckily he was fully vaccinated and that seems to be helping. Thank goodness!

September was mostly highs! Good times with friends and family! School schedules and social lives! Cooler weather and lots of time outside! We've appreciated every minute of it!

Favorite Memes #21

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For my sister-in-law Lori...who is definitely NOT an alcoholic but who probably wouldn't buy a *cinnamon* candle but would DEFINITELY buy a *Fireball* candle! LOL

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First One In...Last One Out

It seems appropriate and symbolic even that I was the first one in and the last one out of the lake house for the final time. I was the first grandchild to come to this place... I am the oldest...and I was the last grandchild to leave. I have been a witness to ALL of the eras of this place. In addition, I have always been the designated responsible one. The dependable one. The one you can count on. The one who was supposed to set an example for the others. That hasn't changed. So I stride forward and lead the way into a new era.

I remember with great clarity when the property was owned by my great-grandparents. I remember their store and their home. I knew them. I have personal memories of them in that place. I can walk around their house and store in my mind. The kitchen, the living room with the davenport, the glassed in porch, and the Christmas tree with bubbling lights. I remember their bathroom and the back bedroom. I remember the other bedroom and the steep staircase that went upstairs to the bedroom where my grandma and her sisters slept as young girls. I remember walking in the entrance and knowing that if you turned right you went into the store and if you turned left you went into their home. I still remember how the store smelled. I remember how their kitchen smelled. I went for walks with my great-grandparents and fed the birds with them. I sat on my grandpa's lap and ate bugles and combed his three hairs. I remember walking over from Lilac Lodge for pop, candy, ice cream bars, and popsicles. I remember getting the tiniest little brown bag of candy to eat in the car when we would drive home. My great-grandparents taught me to tie my shoes in their kitchen. I loved them and I knew them and I remember the lake with them there. I remember thinking after they died (which shook my world) that the lake wouldn't be the same without them there. It wasn't. It evolved.

I remember when Lilac Lodge was shared by my grandma with her sisters and their families. I remember being elated after learning that our family inherited Lilac Lodge rather than the store or Pine Knot after both of my great-grandparents passed away. I remember being really worried that we wouldn't get it. I remember the joy of learning that it was ALL ours.

I remember when my grandparents lived and worked in Bonners Ferry. We lived with them for a year right after my mom got divorced the first time when she was pregnant with Kelley. I spent a lot of time with my great-grandparents then and a lot of time at the lake. I remember when my grandparents would load up their station wagon and spend long weekends at the lake. In the summer, my grandma would stay at the lake during the week while my grandpa worked in Bonners. She would drive up on Tuesdays to do laundry and whatever needed to be done at home and then drive back to the lake on Wednesdays. On Fridays my grandpa would drive down. After we moved out of their home, my sisters and I, would stay with them for a month every summer. That was back when Lilac Lodge was still just a summer cabin.

I remember when my grandpa retired and my grandparents built a house next door to Lilac Lodge and connected the two homes with a mudroom and this became their permanent residence. We would still come for a month every summer. Kirk and I call those days in the 1980s the glory days of the lake. But were they glorious? They were to us and perhaps to our cousins but I highly doubt they were glorious to all of the adults. There is no way that the rampant dysfunction that exists now didn't have its beginnings in the 70s and 80s. But in my memory those were wonderful times at the lake.

I remember after my grandpa died I thought that the lake would never be the same. It wasn't. It evolved again. I remember my grandma living there alone. We moved to Spokane from Salt Lake a little less than a year after he died. Those were some very special times at the lake. Just my grandma and our little family. Reilly was a toddler and Kameron just a baby. Kameron took his first steps in the living room with my grandma luring him with a cookie. All the rest of my family...mom and siblings...still lived in Utah and so we had this beautiful time with my grandma all to ourselves. It was then that I got to know her as a person rather than just as my grandma and I got to experience the lake on a different level and with four seasons. I cherish that time. We had many discussions about her vision for the future of the lake house...what she did and did not want to happen... and what would ever induce her to sell. I am so grateful for those conversations. They helped me to make some hard decisions. I have reflected on them many times in the course of the last year. 

I remember the lonely years after my grandma went blind and had to move to assisted living. She spent her days at the lake house while my uncle worked in the basement. He continued the family business that he and my grandpa had started. He would take her back to the assisted living place every night. Tensions ran high with the extended family as to how the lake house was to be regarded. Private home? Family vacation home? Another uncle made rules and proclamations that brought discord and strife. When my grandma passed away, everything changed again.

I remember the home being my mother's and the beauty and style that she put into the place. She put her own special mark onto the house and made it her own. I wish that she would have had more time to enjoy it. I was an owner of the lake house longer than she got to be. I am grateful for the special times spent with her there. I am supremely grateful for the conversations that she and I had about the lake house. Especially our last one-on-one conversation as we floated on the lake and she told me point blank her thoughts. What a gift. That is a conversation that has guided me throughout this whole process. I KNOW what she would have wanted to happen with the lake house because she literally told me in our last conversation. Her words have been a guiding light through the darkness. Thanks Mom!

I know what the lake house has been like with my siblings and myself as owners. Places have energy. We all know that. And spaces hold onto energy long after the events have taken place. The energy of the lake house is negative now. I wouldn't say that my siblings and I are solely to blame. The dysfunction of the extended family has been off the charts for many years. Its contribution is felt. There is too much anger, sadness, guilt, and regret. It's tangible. That place should be filled to the rafters with joy, laughter, love, and positivity once again. It's time.  

I am grateful to have been a caretaker of this sacred place. I have loved it and cleaned it and repaired it and mowed it and weeded it and raked it and protected it and now my watch is done. I couldn't have done better by this property or those loved ones who went before me. I couldn't have taken better care of it. I couldn't have treated it with more respect. I couldn't have loved it more. Of that there is no doubt. 

And so I remember. I will remember. Just as the trees remember my great-grandfather's name and my grandmother's name and my mother's name and mine. The echoes on Echo Beach will continue; only now they are echoes through time. My great-grandfather's voice, my grandmother's voice, my mother's voice, and mine. 

Before I left, I walked through each and every room and said thank you and I love you and goodbye. I too hugged the house as I left. Love and gratitude displaces enmity, anger, and sadness. Love is what ultimately remains. 

First one in...last one out. 

Email from Elder Johnson #29

9-13-21

BBQs 4 Dayz🤘🏼

Heyooo, these last couple of weeks have been a lot of fun and miracle filled as heck. This work truly be the Lord's. Sheeesh. 

I hit 14 months on September 1st which is just bonkers. These months are just over so fast it's wild haha but crazy to see the changes within me over the last 14 months. 

We've seen a lot of success with our area and hitting our goals 🙌 which has honestly been such a blessing and this last week we found 3 new people. Elder Blanco and I were soo hyped. They are all some amazing, amazing, people so we are stoked to be able to guide them on this new journey!

We had 2 BBQs within a day of each other which I definitely wasn't complaining about. haha. One was put on by one of our friends that the other elders are teaching and then the other one was our ward's Labor Day picnic/BBQ and shoooot dang it was a blast. Good food, good people, we love to see it. 

I am soo grateful for the wonderful people that I've met out here so far. Each one of them has helped so much in shaping me into who I am. Elder Blanco and I have been teaching a lot of our friends about God's love and prayer and the importance of building a personal relationship with Him. Because of all the people who have shaped me coming to know my Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ it has made the biggest difference in my life and I know it can make a difference in yours. He loves you and wants to hear from you, always.

Have an amazing week, keep being the amazing people I know yall are. I pray for ya every single day.

Love yall❤

-Elder Johnson