Holladay Happenin's: Week ending 6-12-22 Goodbye Maddie and Spencer, garden work

Not much happened this week. Just dropped Madalyn and Spencer off at the airport on Tuesday and worked in the garden a lot. It felt quiet and lonely with the 3 big kids at home. The 7 younger ones just hung around playing and reading. I did a lot of yard work and painted the little boys' room.

Monday: We used to keep our compost bin here and threw our pumpkin in it last fall. Now there are about 30 plants growing from its seeds so I had to thin it. I threw away about 15 and moved 10 and kept 5 in this spot.

Moving 10 plants to this field by the garden. Hopefully they grow well here even though the soil isn't the best.

Our garden boxes this year, looking better than they did last June 6. We hadn't even closed on our house but we went and bought some plants and planted them. A lot of the boxes sat empty all summer and filled up with weeds. This year every single box is full and we had to put pumpkins and watermelon in the field beside the garden.

First little kiwi. I really hope they grow and we get to eat them. Too much of our food here goes to critters, bugs, diseases, and frosts. Last year there was a late freeze before we moved in and killed all the kiwi, apples, plums, and most of the grapes.

Madalyn took over the reading spot with her suitcases--packing 3 to go to Nauvoo and 3 with her stuff to be stored in the shed.

Playing football during an MTC break.

Tuesday: Anderson pulled out his first tooth!

Talea talking to Madalyn while she goes through some last things in her room she shared with Alexis.

All packed and ready to go to the airport! Three suitcases are Madalyn's and 2 are Spencer's.

Spencer and Maddie chatting all the way there. It's 2.5 hours and since I'm smaller than they are, I got chosen to squish with the 7 kids in the back.

RDU's fancy parking garage

It was fun being at the back of this procession of 9 kids and 5 suitcases as we found the right terminal. Can't believe I'm going to say goodbye in a few minutes.

Checking in.

The goodbyes begin.

Talea and Spencer. When he gets home she'll be 7 years old or almost. Crazy!

Madalyn and Samuel

I wonder how tall Thomas will be in 2 years when he's 16.5.

Alexis cried the most. She's so close to her big sisters. She wrote to Kylie every week on her mission and wrote to a lot of her companions too. She tries to keep a missionary schedule and studies her scriptures an hour each day. She loves going out with the sisters and wearing dresses. If they changed the missionary age to 16 she'd be the first one to submit her papers! She's ready to go.

They've had fun sharing a room again the past 6 months that Maddie has been home.

One last picture together. I still can't believe they got their calls the same day and leave the same day. I'm thrilled for them. They love being in the same MTC district (8 sisters and 4 elders) and getting to eat meals together, attend the temple, be in the same classes at the MTC.

There they go!

After they went through security we saw them come around to the gate. Out of all the gates, we could only see 2 of them and 1 of them was theirs! So we got to watch them get on their flight too.

Watching them get on through this window.

Maddie turned and waved one last time. They're both going to be awesome missionaries and I can't wait to hear about their experiences.

Thursday: Sam, Andy, and Tilly play cars in the dirt. We had 70 degree weather all week, just right for playing and working outside every day.

Friday: An animal pulled up all our pepper plants!

A few he dragged to a different garden box and the others he left lying by their hole.

This happened 3 nights in a row and each morning I had to go replant them. I hope he's done messing with our garden and the plants can begin to grow.

First itty bitty zucchini on Andy's plant. He planted all the zucchini seeds and is in charge of the zucchini bed.

First carrots. They're a bit bitter though.

The pepper box is first. Behind it is the herb box. Behind that is lettuce, arugula, spinach, and garlic.

Tomato box. I planted them all from seeds directly into the bed and I'm happy that so many of them came up. I had to thin them quite a bit.

First tiny pumpkin or gourd. This is the one growing out of the old compost pile so it could be any of the weird pumpkins and gourds we threw out last year.

Saturday: We went to a Seussical cast reunion at a friend's house in Ararat. We don't get invited over to people's houses very often so it was a lot of fun. The weather was perfect and it was wonderful to socialize and relax.