It’s good to be Meg Willardson

When I walked into Sunday school yesterday, my students told me I smelled good. I thought that was so nice. Until Hyrum moved his chair next to me and asked what I’m grilling, because the “nice smell” was from my bbq smoker. 💀💀💀.

I put 4 racks of ribs and some cheddar jalapeño sausage on my smoker before church yesterday. I suppose there are worse things to smell like than good bbq. I also made homemade french bread, and had watermelon and garlic and brown sugared bacon wrapped green bean bundles. I made a lemon cream cheese no bake pie with a graham cracker crust and fresh peaches on top for dessert. Killer meal. I love Sundays. 

And my people love ribs. Look out Hal-B-Q, you’ve got some competition! 

My signature eau de Baby back ribs fragrance was a siren call, I guess, because in addition to my family + Ryan, we also had Neal, Hyrum, Noah H trickle in for ribs and World Cup soccer. Between games and during half time there were rounds of code names, FaceTime with Elder Ratsachack and Jamine Willardson, some light hoops out front, a rogue firework, and a post HXP/pre FSY haircut for Noah. Instruments were practiced, scriptures were studied, a few kids joined the missionaries for a discussion, and some naps were taken as well. A perfect Sunday.

These boys have started a tradition of 4:30am hoops before leaving for FSY. Corbin and Soren (and Neal) went to FSY  with Bentonville stake this morning. But first I woke Corbin up at 4am to pack (why do they wait until last minute?) and then they joined Hyrum, Ryan, Ammon, and Bruce, for some early early morning basketball. I went back to sleep after they left, and woke up to two very sweaty sons on my bed. I think Corbin and Soren know I’m going to miss them this week, so they offered a parting gift of waking me up with sweaty snuggles and boy farts. I’m sure is an intentional act of affection. Definitely.

I had clean bedding packaged up for each of them and sent them to Missouri via Dan Grover with beef jerky, sour patch watermelons, and a few charges of motherly counsel. 

Quincy’s mission presidents post pictures or a video of the missionaries on a private Facebook page for the families after interviews every transfer or zone conference.  Usually I just have to scroll through and try to spot Quincy because everything is in Korean. But this month, she made a cutie video turned everyone into little AI keychain people and it’s the most Korean thing ever 😂 

 I spent several hours out in the garden pulling weeds and pruning my over grown tomato vines. I am getting a little impatient for summer tomatoes. I’m making fresh pesto with the basil and we roasted some zucchini last week. 

A cute YSA sat with us on Sunday. Corbin was very interested in meeting her after church and blew up my phone from the other end of our pew.  Then there was a small commotion when she suddenly got up and slipped out right before the end of the meeting. 

We went over and visited HolleeAnn and Gigi on Friday. Her adorable cleaning lady met us at the door and exclaimed “wow, you are beautiful!” when HolleeAnn introduced me. Listen, I don’t determine the way I feel about myself based on the opinions of others, but I’ve never in my life just had a stranger just randomly tell me I’m beautiful like that. And the way she said it felt so genuine. I think I am already a generous giver of authentic compliments, but that little powerful experience resolves me to tell even more people they are beautiful. Or at least make sure I say it in a way that they believe  me. 

Heres cute Corbin giving Dolly doggo some love. Thank you Corbin for taking one for the team. Holleeann gave us a bunch of Georgia peaches she ordered and they are out of this world delicious. 

We set out as a family on Aaron’s day off to get French desserts, but they were sold out. This place will make an appearance on the blog in the coming week for sure. 

My body does not like the extreme heat. The new garments have been an imcredible blessing this summer. I’m still swelling up in my underarms and hands. The vibration plate at the fitness center has provided so much relief! I try to stand on it anywhere from 3-10 minutes  a few days a week and all the influencers are correct. It really does help with lymphatic drainage. I love this thing. 

I also really love my mahjong group. We played two games and I won one of them, this week. The set I ordered finally arrived. I’m going to teach my family how to play—-um as soon as I am confident in all the zillions of rules 😂

Our coach, Jenny, teaches me a couple new Chinese words every time we play, and I get to practice my Spanish skills with Lily and Cristina. And Lisa is Korean, so it’s always a cultural experience. I’m just happy there. 

Reese and Logan came with me to pick up Soren from the temple on Wednesday night and we decided to walk around the north forest. This is super fun to do in the dark. Soren and Logan took an alternate path at one point and managed to disappear into the darkness even though they were only 10 feet away. Reese was startled by a bunny and the boys took that same moment to jump back and frighten her when she already had her guard down. It was a sensational jump scare.

I took the triplets to the Gravette pool to meet up with the Geddes, Pezeley, and Ammon’s families. Good times! I’m thankful that my younger kids have friends in our ward to play with. Bear especially loves having boys to wrestle and rough house with. 

George Washington hair for independence week 😂