Back home (for a day)

We arrived back in our (American) home last night around midnight. Since we had a few hours to spare before catching our flight home, we stopped in downtown Salt Lake City to see the sights. The bathroom building in Temple Square was so fancy that Dio said, "I want to live in this bathroom." You feel like you're in a posh 5-star resort.

We also visited the Gilgal Gardens, which is a garden filled with bizarre rock sculptures. A stonemason started filling his back yard with sculptures and at some point it opened to the public.

Inga was happy because she'd never seen a "big city" before--one with skyscrapers--and this filled her bucket list.

When we pulled in last night, we were greeted by an absolute jungle. It's been the wettest July on record here, which means astounding weeds. (It doesn't help that the person I hired to do the weeding ghosted me...). Honestly it was depressing and stressful, knowing how much weeding was ahead of us. I even woke up in the middle of the night thinking about it.

The worst are the nettles that keep spreading, followed by Snow On The Mountain in places where I don't want it.

But first order of business this morning: feeding the horde. We had no food and the kids were hungry! Our town just got an Aldi--one of the few things I'm excited about coming back--and we spent well over $300 to restock our kitchen.

Then...the weeding started, plus mowing and car washing. By the end of the day things were looking much better and we have a pile of weeds almost as big as a small car. We also burned all the fallen branches and took an afternoon Smores break. Why not?

I had to run errands after dinner to get ready for my and Zari's departure for Australia tomorrow. So crazy! I got some new clothes at the thrift store and then ran to the big box store for things like travel-sized toothpaste, contact solution, etc.

I also had to do some woodworking to get the wood pieces ready for the simulator. I fired up the table saw, compound miter saw, orbital sander, and angle grinder.

Oh, last night I woke up in the middle of the night absolutely freezing. I was buried under the covers and still couldn't get warm. I finally decided to investigate. I went into the hallway, turned on the lights, and looked at the thermostat. Someone (cough cough...Dio) had turned it down to under 70F! (21 C) I usually keep it at around 78-80 with the fan blowing constantly, which is very comfortable without having to put on a sweater. (I HATE being cold in the summer. It's bad enough in the winter.) No wonder I was so cold!

I was still cold the rest of the night but it got slightly better. I gave Dio a lecture in the morning about not touching the thermostat. He still had his winter comforter on, but everyone else had just their summer covers on, and they were all very cold as well. So yeah, not a lot of sleeping happened after that rude awakening.