Mom & Tatum Trip to NM

    Well it seemed that everyone had grand plans for fall break--even Max got to take off on his school trip to NYC.  No such plans for Tatum & I.  We decided to head over to my dad's house for a couple days to help him do some deep-cleaning/de-cluttering.  NOT a job for the faint at heart.

    

    First room on the list--the laundry room.  This is 40 years of lint and dust and also some crazy sponge paint job that I did way back in the 90s when that was a cool thing to do.  

Before pics:

After pics:

    Next up was the kitchen.  Tatum, the brave soul, tackled the freezer and fridge all by herself.  Quite the adventure.  First of all, the freezer looked like a murder scene--it was just vegetable/beet juice that my mom used to drink all over the bottom of the freezer:

    We also threw away a TON of food--pictured is "breakfast patties" that had expired in 2006--before Tatum was even born😝😂

    The kitchen about did us in.  We removed at LEAST 1,000 pounds of garbage, old food, tupperware containers with no lids, other questionable things.  We also took quite the load of pressure cookers and LOTS of canning jars over to the local Goodwill.  We wanted to tackle the pantry as well, but it's got to be baby steps with my dad.  (And I totally forgot to take after pics of the kitchen).

    

    While we were there, we did get over to Mexico to get some prescription meds and eat at "The Pink Store."  We also got to help get the donkeys back in after escaping the front yard--it took my dad and I plus 3 sheriffs deputies to get them back in...😅. ALWAYS an adventure to be had in Deming.  We'll head back at Christmas to tackle my mom's obsessive/compulsive food storage pantry/apartment.

Naughty Donkeys!!!

And I usually love ALL puppies, but this new one of my dads....well, she's a bit too much for me--good thing my dad likes her😂

These just make me smile...

 It's a trendy thing to re-make old photos--and I LOVE this trend.  I LOVE that my kids still love each other to do silly things like this:

Tatum is 14!

     How is my baby 14 and in High School???  This girl just continues to make us proud every single day.  She works harder than any of my other kids on her grades at school and it shows in her grades--pretty much straight A+s and she is also currently tied for the #1 spot in her Freshman class.  And she's a star on the softball field both in her school and her Chandler Rec team.  Cannot wait to see what this girl does in life but for now, I LOVE having her home with me.

    This year, Tatum wanted Olive Garden for her birthday dinner.  Then we had a quiet birthday dinner/cake at home on Sunday with our Missionaries.  (We will hopefully be taking a Disneyland trip in January celebrating both Tatum & Max's birthdays--as long as Chris still has a job at this end of this year:)

Superhuman/Touched by the Finger of God...

     So I guess this girl gets up on a Tuesday morning--2nd day of college classes at BYU (Tuesday, August 31st)--and decides to go and test out of "Functional Piano,"--which she did with flying colors and flair:)  Then has her BIG audition for chair placement for the entire year and she lands 1st CHAIR/PRINCIPAL Oboist of the BYU Philharmonic AND the BYU Chamber Orchestra!!!  Which also means she will be touring Europe next summer (2022) with these groups.  WHAT?!  WHO DOES THAT???  Oh yeah, she also had to work her shift at Chick-fil-A and didn't get done until 10:00 pm--it was her fellow oboists who were texting her to congratulate her is how she found out.  She's pretty much Superhuman.  I remember once after a high school concert, one of her fellow classmates came up to her--after she had played incredible oboe and accompanied multiple people on piano--and told her, "GIRL!  You were touched by the finger of God!"  And at first I thought this was a strange compliment, but now I absolutely agree with her.

    Incredible, beautiful Carlie Mae.  Congrats baby girl.  Way to come back from your 18 month mission and get right back up on top.  Love you to the moon and back.

First Day of School 2021

    YAY for Heritage Academy starting school ON TIME AND MASKLESS this year!!!  We love our school!  First day of school:  Monday, August 2, 2021.  Max in 11th grade and Tatum in 9th.

18 Year Battle...WON!

    I started piano lessons at the age of 8.  I begged for lessons for years before I was finally able to get in--we lived in a small town with one teacher and she had no openings.  I just knew that if I could learn, I would be good--can't explain it any other way.  When I finally got in, I never quit.  Music became my main focus for years. 

    I started teaching piano when I was 16 and have never stopped.  So here I am 28 years later still teaching.  I feel like it's my life calling.  There are MANY things I don't do well, but teaching music is my thing.  So when I had kids, I heard from every single teacher I talked to--"You CAN'T teach your own kids.  It NEVER works..."  Well, I decided that I would prove them wrong.  I WOULD teach my own kids and they in turn would be useful pianists with the ability to perform AND teach others.  I chose this battle about 18 years ago and I'm happy to report that I did it!

    With Carlie, it was quite easy.  She was always drawn to the piano.  She was constantly pulling herself up on the bench to plunk out songs she heard on TV--lots of "Dora the Explorer" songs and songs from her "Leap Pad."  I immediately discovered that she had perfect pitch.  So I began to formally teach her at the age of 3 because I basically couldn't keep her off the piano.  There were many times that Chris and I would make Carlie get off the piano--"Carlie, you've been on the piano for about 4 hours, you need to go play outside."  NO joke.  Then my son Ethan came along.  I decided to start teaching him at 3 also.  But he didn't love it like Carlie did and often ran away😂. I remember actually saying to Chris, "There is something wrong with Ethan, he won't just sit there and listen to me."  And thankfully my husband, being much wiser than me replied, "Honey, maybe he's the NORMAL one."  So no, there is NOTHING wrong with Ethan or Max or Tatum.  Carlie was just always going to do music--never a question.

    So my other 3 went along with my crazy ideas.  Perhaps I would not have been able to teach my own kids if I didn't already have a strict teaching line up with other students--my kids had their assigned times each week just like any of my other students.  And they were asked to practice--each song 5 times for 5 days--just like all my other students.  And yes, they whined and complained and tried to cheat ALL the time, but they did it.  They weren't allowed TV/computer until piano was done.  There were tears, yelling, pounding of keys but then there was also joy, laughter, and LOTS of singing around the piano.  We had some bad times AND great times around this instrument. 

    Carlie completed through Level 12--college + level.  My boys went through Level 4/5--hymn playing level.  And I was able to push Tatum through to Level 8--beginning college level.  I just stopped teaching Tatum this spring because her softball schedule became so demanding that something had to give.  It felt weird to NOT be teaching one of my own kids after 18 years.

    Currently, all 4 of my kids have piano callings in their own wards--Carlie in UT, Ethan in ID, and Max & Tatum here in our Branch.  And they have each taught their OWN piano students over the years.  Max currently has 2 students on top of his job at Popeyes and Tatum has 4 of her own students.  Words cannot express how incredibly PROUD I am of all my kiddos.  They made this momma's dream come true.  How blessed I am because of these four amazing kiddos.  I LOVE YOU ALL TO THE MOON AND BACK!!!

Meeker Family Vacay 2021--Final stop...ATLANTA!

    Last stop...Atlanta!  We were so lucky with weather on this trip--other than our very first night flying into Hurricane Elsa, we had no other rain interruptions.  In Atlanta, we did get some very welcomed rain our first night in and boy, it moved in fast--but us AZ peeps, LOVE IT.  Our plan was to watch the new "Black Widow" movie anyways that first night so the rain did not mess anything up for us👍 (LOVED the new Black Widow movie).

Crazy clouds moving in!

Six Flags over Georgia:

     We spent our last full day at Six Flags over Georgia of course!  Great day to go--super overcast and not too hot.  We also pretty much had the entire park to ourselves.  We rode every single ride we wanted to with a 5 minute or less wait.  We were able to ride roller coasters, go to the water park to get wet and ride the slides, then back to ride all our favorite roller coasters AGAIN!  It was AWESOME!

World of Coca-Cola:
Max and Chris are HUGE Coke fans so we definitely had to hit this place up before we headed to the airport.  It was SUPER cool.  Coca Cola has been around a LONG time (since May 8, 1886 originally meant for headaches/exhaustion) and is definitely the most popular world-wide carbonated drink.  It was developed by a Pharmacist that was then sold to a marketing-genius which is why it's still around today.  The original hand-written formula is apparently the best kept secret of all time and is still guarded today in a vault at this location.  

The actual vault that the Coca Cola
hand-written recipe is kept in.

New Coke:

I was super young when "New Coke" came out and I lived in the middle of no where (Uvas Valley, NM) which is why I had NO idea that "New Coke" was such a controversy!  I remember liking it but apparently there was a lot of angry people who dumped New Coke down sewer drains and actually sued Coca Cola.  There's a funny display showing all the outrage of this time period:). Coca was actually sued and that's one of the reasons why we don't see New Coke today.  Who knew?!  Not me😂

Taste-Testing:

At the end of the tour, we got to sample different sodas from around the world--most of them, NOT good😂 but we are HUGE fans of the Coca Cola freestyle machine.  Here's a video of Max drinking a soda called "Beverly" that is apparently popular in Italy...😝

Max's new BFF

Olympic Park right next to World of Coke.

    We also hit the "Ponce de Leon Market Place."  Very hipster place to be.  There wasn't a single thing there I would have bought for myself but once again, a cool history--the building used to be owed by Sears & Roebuck and back in the day you could have purchased a spider monkey in this building for $31.50.  Dang.  Missed opportunity.  There was a cool painted piano that anyone could play on so Max did.

    So after 8 days of exploring new places, we were ready to head back home.  We had a such an awesome time--Chris is an excellent trip planner...he should do this for a living:)  We sure missed having our adult children with us but it's too hard to get those guys on the same schedule as us.  Georgia and South Carolina were awesome but I'd be happy anywhere as long as I'm with my crazy kiddos and my hubby💗