Days of my Life - Window to My World: Rexburg

Showing posts with label Rexburg. Show all posts

Sunday, October 19, 2025

Fall-Break Trip to Idaho

This week, I finished my assignment subbing for a math teacher at a junior high about 12-14 miles west of my home. Our fall break started after school on Wednesday.

My next assignment is back at this 80-year-old junior high school, which was the same school I spent four weeks subbing in a computer technology class at the beginning of the school year. Starting next Tuesday, I will be subbing here in an English classroom.

Our fall break started on Thursday, and goes through Tuesday for me. Monday is a teacher planning day in our district, but I am taking that day off.

It was a mostly rainy and cloudy week, until Friday. We set a record for October rainfall around here. We had over 4.5 inches of rain in just up to the middle of the month. After our very dry summer, it has been nice to get some much-needed rain.

Friday, we left on a little fall break trip to Idaho.

We stayed in Rexburg, Idaho, the town where Josh went to school at BYU-Idaho.

One reason for our trip was to allow Josh to check out job and living opportunities in Rexburg. He is thinking that he may move back there. He really enjoyed living in a small town, rather than a bigger city. This is an apartment he looked at. It was a two-bedroom apartment that he could rent for about the same price as renting a single room in a house down here in Salt Lake City. Josh hasn't accepted a job or made any firm decisions about moving back to Idaho, but he wanted to go up and have a look around, and his mom and dad are always up for a little road trip.

Of course, Josh wanted to visit his alma mater, BYU-Idaho. There is such a great, positive, Christian vibe there. It is beautiful, and the people are friendly and helpful. We had blue skies and sunshine in Idaho, although it was windy and cold.

This is a view of the city of Rexburg from the BYU-Idaho campus. You can see it is not a big city - no skyscrapers - just lots of trees. The population is about 40,000. Look closely and you will see snow on the mountains to the North of the city. Snow is in the forecast for Rexburg this coming week!

We worshipped at the beautiful Rexburg Temple, and that was a very special experience.

The temple looked so awesome lit up on Saturday night when we got out of the worship service. The Rexburg Temple is set on a hill overlooking the city of Rexburg.

After worshipping at the temple, we went to Applebee's for a delicious late dinner that we all enjoyed.

While we were in Rexburg, we got some Huckleberry Honey and Huckleberry Jam. We've had Huckleberry Jam before, and it is a real treat, so we thought we'd try the honey. I had some on toast Sunday evening and it was excellent!

We left Rexburg on Sunday morning and we were home by just after 1 p.m.. Although Sunday was mostly sunny, by evening, the clouds were back. More rain is in the forecast for the end of next week. There are always a lot of things to do (like unpacking and doing laundry) when returning home from a trip, so that is what is taking up my Sunday evening. I hope to do some reading and relaxing once all the extra laundry is washed and put away.

Weekend Gratitude:

Having a nice fall break getaway to Idaho.
Traveling safely.
Worshipping at the Rexburg Temple.
Getting our flu shots (yes, we went to a pharmacy in Rexburg).

Coming up next week:

Monday - Taking a day off.

Monday - New appliances being delivered at condo.

Tuesday - Begin long-term assignment at a different junior high school.

Wednesday - New pictures being taken for the new real estate listing of our condo.

Saturday - Birthday lunch for our granddaughter who is turning seven.

Praying for:

Help with the new long-term sub assignment I am starting.
Inspiration about and help with retirement planning.
Family members going through some rough times.
Our nation.

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by. Have a good week. See you again soon!

😊Deb💖

"Life is beautiful.

It's about giving.

It's about family."

~Walt Disney

Monday, July 25, 2022

Currently and The Weekend We Became Empty-Nesters....Again

The weather - is hot - 95 degrees with 23% humidity. I am staying inside in the AC today.

I'm feeling - tired. The past weekend, moving Josh up to Idaho, was exhausting. I have also been going through the clothing Josh left in his closet here. He didn't have room for everything in his student housing room, so he asked me I would go through his closet and donate some of the clothes he hadn't worn for a while. A woman in our church congregation volunteers at a local homeless shelter and has asked for clothing donations for the homeless, so last night, I was able to take a box of some of Josh's clothes that he hadn't worn since high school. I also cleaned all of the bathrooms this morning, so I am tired and I laid down and took a little nap this afternoon.

Listening to - The Matt Walsh Show on Youtube. He's saying some very interesting things about the recent news about big pharma, depression and antidepressant medication, and incidentally, I completely agree with him. I absolutely do not agree with him on everything, but I do on the topic of depression and antidepressants. In the background, I can hear the dryer drying all the laundry I have been doing today.

Watching - nothing today. Last night, Charly and I watched the final episode of The Chosen season 2.

Celebrating - the beginning of Josh's move to Idaho and beginning his educational journey at BYU-Idaho.

Reading - We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. I'm not crazy about this book, but will finishing it probably today or tomorrow. I will then read Walking on Eggshells by Jane Isay. I am still listening to the audiobook I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai.

In the kitchen - take-out Chinese food for lunch. I only ate half and will eat the other half for dinner.

Thinking about - our trip to Idaho over the weekend to move Josh to BYU-Idaho. Here is a little more about that.

We left our home about mid-day on Friday to drive to Rexburg, Idaho where Josh will be going to school at BYU-Idaho. Josh took his car, we we drove with him because he couldn't fit all of his stuff in one car. Also, we wanted to be there to help him get settled in, and deal with any last minute move-in glitches.

We stayed in Pocatello on Friday night, because Josh wanted to meet up with a certain young lady he met who lives there. Pocatello is about 2.5 hours from where we live in Utah, so we go there by late afternoon on Friday, accounting for gas and potty stops. While Josh met up with his friend for dinner, Charly and I had dinner, then went "treasure hunting" in a couple of Pocatello thrift stores. I didn't take any pictures at all on Friday, but then there really wasn't much worth taking pictures of.

Saturday morning, we all woke up pretty early and decided to make the drive up to Rexburg (only about an hour and a half) even though Josh couldn't check into his new apartment until the management office opened at 11 a.m.. Josh asked if we could find a place to go on a little hike while we were waiting. We had considered going to Craters of the Moon National Monument, but that was a round trip of 250 miles away, and we simply didn't have time for that.

We found a great little hike about 25 minutes from the college Josh will be attending and drove out along country farm roads, until we got to Cress Creek Nature Trail. This was a lovely, 1.5 mile loop hike that offered awesome views of the Snake River and surrounding farmland. Here are some pictures.

It was a nice way to spend the morning together before Josh checked and began moving into his new space.

This is the apartment building that is now home to Josh. Josh's room is the on the middle (2nd) floor.

Josh's student apartment is a six bedroom with a common living room/dining room/ kitchen area. All of the bedrooms are single/private bedrooms.

This is the kitchen area. Some other students were also moving in on Saturday and some of their cleaning supplies were on the table.

This is Josh's bedroom, as he began to move in.

The bedroom is small. It has a desk and a twin size bed with drawers in the bed frame. The opposite wall is a closet space with some shelves for storage.

Once Josh had everything in his room, we went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant then to several stores so he could get some things he needed.

One of the things we were looking for was some kind of room air conditioner for Josh's bedroom. There is not central air conditioning in his apartment, although there is a window AC unit in the common living room/kitchen area. Josh had a tower fan, but we finally decided to order this small room evaporative cooler through Amazon.

Later, we also went to dinner. The fries I got with my cheeseburger were delicious - probably made fresh from Idaho potatoes.

Sunday morning, Charly and I left quite early in the morning to come back to Utah. There was a beautiful sunrise on Sunday morning, which seemed symbolic of the dawning of Josh's adventure as a student at BYU-Idaho.

We got back home about lunch time on Sunday. We ate lunch and unpacked. Later in the afternoon, I got a text from my daughter with this invitation to our granddaughter's baptism next month. We were happy to get this invitation and we are looking forward to attending this happy family occasion!

This weekend is a long holiday weekend in Utah, because we have a state holiday - Pioneer Day - which celebrates early pioneers reaching the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Monday was just a regular day for Charly and I. We worked on our weekly cleaning chores, then got lunch at a new to us Asian restaurant. This was the Mongolian Beef I ordered and it was delicious! I ate half for lunch and will have the other half for dinner.

Coming up this week - a lot! I have appointments tomorrow and Wednesday, a meeting of my book group on Thursday evening and a day-long event on Friday.

What I'm thankful for -