We Are The Entrikin Family: "The Earth Laughs in Flowers"

Emerald and Alexander planted some flowers this spring. Emerald planted some zinnias, and Alexander planted some sunflowers. It was an unusually hot and dry spring and summer this year, but we were still able to get a few blooms. The large holes in the ground are not from mice or gophers or voles. Those are from Alexander watering the flowers with the hose, a little aggressively. They seemed to like the water anyway. The small bush on the left are the chrysanthemums, still coming back up every year since we moved here!

Zinnia

Snapdragon

In August, BYU-Idaho called and asked if I would be a TA for Business Law. The more I thought about it, the more I really wanted to do it! But I couldn't see how I could do that and everything else. Eventually I ended up changing everything around just so I can be a TA for two sections of Business Law online. Each section has a different teacher, so it has been interesting to work with two teachers and see how differently they do things.

So one of the things that I changed was to quit working at Pocatello High School. That was a hard and wrenching experience. But I also received a part-time job at Tendoy Elementary as a morning Kindergarten aide. That has been delightful! It is also very hard in many ways, but not the demoralizing kind of hard that trying to force high schoolers to do pre-Algebra was. One of my duties is to be on the playground from 7:30-8:00 every morning. I thought that would be hard, but it has turned out to be my very favorite part of my job! I am in charge of unlocking the lunchroom door over and over again to let each student or group of students in for breakfast. It is so fun to greet each one of them every day! I also like watching the kids play on the playground, and having to continually dodge soccer balls keeps me alert!

One morning one of the students gave me this snapdragon. It reminded me of the first time my mom showed me a snapdragon when I was little. I've always admired my mom's gardening skills! I remember that she loved marigolds, too, and planted them often.

I'm not much good at gardening, but I enjoy watching my kids grow things. Alexander did a good job keeping the flowers alive last year and this year!

Alexander wanted to do soccer this fall. It's been rather hit and miss this season - he was sick for a week, then he hurt his ankle pretty badly. Here are some photos that he asked me to take after practice one night at Syringa Elementary:

With everyone being sick a lot this fall, we haven't had Rayden over in a while. He came over Friday night and was so excited to be at our house again - he just ran from one thing to the next, exploring. He went down in Scott's office and discovered the bright neon labels on the filing cabinets. He figured out that they moved, and he wanted to rearrange them.

In August, I went with Aysha to St. George, and we set her up at her new apartment so she could start school at Dixie State University. We had a long day on Tuesday, Aug 17 - we moved her stuff into her apartment in the morning, we shopped all day, and that night Aysha assembled her new room fan with a table knife and nail clippers: