Summer Vacay So Far

We had planned to leave for my parents' home after church on Sunday.  Sunday started at 5am with Lucy barfing in bed.  Oh great!  She went back to bed and when she got up again, she was okay.  Not barfing, not eating much, and she was complaining a bit of a stomachache.  "Oh this is a swell way to start our trip and a 6-hour drive in the car," I thought.  I had gotten everyone ready for church and sent them to the car to buckle up.  I came out a few moments later and was told that Lucy had barfed on her carseat, etc.  Ugh.  Anyways, long story made sort-of short:  I dropped the three kids off at church for sacrament meeting and came home with Lucy and washed and dried the barfed-upon stuff.  We then went back to church, got the kids, said farewell to Ben, and headed off to Utah.  I had planned on staying all 3-hours but not when Lucy got sick.

And blessing of blessings, Lucy did great on the cartrip - prayers were answered!  No complaining or barfing.  Awesome.  We made it in good time and all was well.

We've had a busy first couple of days.  Jonas is doing a BYU mini-football camp - it was Monday through today (Wednesday).  It was from 1:30-3:30.  Miles is doing a lego stop-action movie making camp in Lindon (north of Orem) from 3:00-6:00.  So we leave around 12:30 and I take Jonas, drop him off, hang out for a bit with Miles (and the girls on Tuesday and Wednesday), then drive and drop Miles off, drive back and pick up Jonas, hang out with Jonas (and girls on Tuesday and Wednesday), then pick up Miles, then drive back to my parents' home and get there by 6:30ish.  It's a little busy, but good.  And my mom has a hot, yummy dinner ready for us on our return.  Lucky us!

We've been swimming each morning and the kids have loved it.  It's slightly cool out and so we get a little cold - but not bad, really.  The water is kind of warm so that is good.  Here are a few pictures of our first couple of days here:

The kids like to eat out on the back porch.  It keeps the inside cleaner!  :)

Jonas at Cougar Stadium.  Fun!

Each day the kids would meet in the locker room.  The Locker Room.  The first day Mitch Matthews (?) and Jordan Lindsey (a new transfer) spoke to the kids.  Cool.

While Jonas was at camp, Miles and I had a little bit of time before I had to take him to his camp.  So we went to campus and did some of the hands-on experiments at the Eyring Science building.  Here I was blowing some air at him through a vortex thingy.

Jonas' camp always ended in little scrimmages.  Jonas said that was his favorite thing at camp.

Coach Mendenhall was there and fully engaged with the kids.  It was pretty awesome.  Jonas didn't realize who he was that first day until I told him ("He had sunglasses on the whole time," was Jonas' excuse.  :)  Coach Mendenhall even gave Emmy and me high-fives one day - Emmy on Tuesday, me today.  :)

The kids favorite thing, probably, of their days:  swimming.  My least-favorite part.  :(  But it's not too bad, really.  Plus, my mom even bought a swim-suit and has come to the pool with us twice - first time she's been in a pool or swimsuit in like 20-something years.  Go mom!

Lucy was throwing a fit and so I told her she could take some pictures.  She took about 20.  This little pool is great - because it's so shallow, thus so warm!  It's a good way to warm-down and end our swimming time.

Tuesday, while Jonas was at BYU football camp, we went across the street to some BYU Museum of Paleontology.  It was small, but interesting.  Nobody was there - well we did see some workers behind glass windows, but that was it.  The girls were especially nervous of the small room full of head skeletons.

While Miles was at camp I took the other three kids to a splash pad and park in Provo.  The girls had pretty fun - Jonas didn't play at the splash pad, just the playground.

Brrrr . . . there were a lot of laying-down-on-cement-to-get-warm breaks.

We picked up Miles at 6 and then headed back up Provo canyon to my parents' home.  The kids all got a turn talking to Ben on my mom's phone.  :)

 Here Jonas is on his last day of camp - today, Wednesday.

 Coach Mendenhall shared a few thoughts and a story at their last locker-room meeting.

 I convinced the kids to stay for a bit so I could actually watch Jonas doing some of his camp.  We stayed for just a little bit, but I was glad to see some of it.  The kids did drills and had different stations:

 The punting/kicking station.  :)

On the way to taking Miles to camp we stopped and got him some shaved ice.  Then afterwards when we picked up Jonas I took the rest of the kids and they all got some shaved ice.  There are these awesome trees there - LOVE them.

A yummy, fun time.

We then spent the rest of the time-until-we-pick-up-Miles at Blickenstaff's, a really cool toy store at the Shops at Riverwoods.

On a side-note:  my dad has been sick for about a week now.  He got some lab work done last Friday and was told only that his WBC (white blood count) was elevated - indicative of an infection.  That was it.  By Sunday night he and my mom had decided to go back to the doctors - or ER if no appointment could be made.  But Monday morning he started feeling a little better.  But, by today, he was still feeling dizzy and just not quite right.  My mom called his doc (whom he did not get to see on Friday) and either the doc or some lab person said his labs were not right at all and that he needed to be seen.  Anyways, long story made sort-of shorter:  my dad has perhaps some gallbladder issues going on.  But his labs that were taken today are showing improvement.  An ultrasound will be done on Friday, I think, and then further plans discussed then.  I am pretty sure if his labs were read correctly on Friday, he would have had his gallbladder out.  Anyways, so he's been down this whole time - kind of a bummer.  But hopefully things will continue to improve and get figured out!

Whooo-wheeee, I'm done for now.

Memorable May

I almost forgot to take a picture - I started wiping off the "May" title and then remembered.  :)

And, no, "Get Minecraft" was not a scheduled event that I put on the calendar.  The boys wasted spent their lemonade-stand money on buying Minecraft for our PC.  They love it - yet they still only get 20 minutes each Saturday (not day) of computer time.  What do Ben and I think about it - let's just say it was a loooooong day hearing all about minecraft, watching them play for a bit, still not understanding it quite, totally not understanding why kids LOVE it, threatening to take it off the computer at least once if not twice, etc.  :)

The First Lemonade Stand of Summer 2014

Fun Facts about this:
*  I did it nice and early so the kids can't tell me all summer how I never let them do this . . .

*  My kids all stand out there and wave to most of the cars that drive by.

*  A policeman stopped by and bought some lemonade.

*  A nice lady came, told the kids she was on a diet and so didn't buy anything, but gave my kids $5 anyways because her daughter used to do this.

*  So far 2 people from school have stopped by - the computers teacher and Miles' Quest teacher.  Totally exciting for my kids!

*  I sit back on the porch and let the kids do it all.

* Miles made the cookies.  Emmy and Lucy helped with the lemonade (We just had to go and make more!).  Jonas wrote the sign, helped carry out the tables, and helped a tiny bit on the cookies.

*  One man asked the boys if they were in Cub Scouts.

*  I think this is the busiest they've ever been - we'll have to see what the final amount-made is when they are all done.

*  Miles wanted to make a "grand cookie," (i.e., a really big one).  At first, I was like, no.  But then I didn't have any reason to say that, so I told him to go ahead.  It sold within the first 10 or so minutes.

*  When you sell things for cheap, most people give a "tip."

Fun stuff!

The Summer (so far) Report

Well it has almost been exactly 1 week since school got out for my kids - about 8 more minutes then it will be exactly 1 week.  :)

So far, we have all survived!  Maybe we've even had some fun.  :)

I thought Miles would be the most challenging to deal with all day long, every day.  While he definitely presents his challenges, I think Emmy wins, thus far, for being the most challenging.  I've dealt with screaming fits (twice she's had to walk Lily home so she could have a time-out and relax and chill-out), drawing with pens on my desk and the toilet, stuffing construction paper down the toilet (luckily Ben had to deal with that one).  Seriously!  What is up with her?!  I'm hoping it's just a "transition phase" and we'll be done with it ASAP.  I've realized I have 3 really strong personalities - and that can be a challenge.  Jonas is the easy-going one.  At least I got one!  I like strong personalities, but mixing them all together - not my favorite thing.

Anyways, we've done some fun stuff like:

We went bowling one day.  I've signed the kids up at kidsbowlfree.com and each kid gets 2 free games a day during the summer!  We'll never go that much, but I've already gone more (once!) this summer than I did last summer.  The kids really liked it - though Jonas got a little mopey when Emmy started killing him the last game.  :)

Another day we rode our bikes to the skate park.  It's a 30-minute ride, one way, so it's a good one!  Emmy complained (probably yelled) about having to ride her bike and not sit in the trailer with/like Lucy.  Growing up is tough, kid!  But we had fun at the park - we played at the playground, ate our lunch (plus 2 popsicles for dessert - I'm the coolest!), then went to the skate park and had a great time there before heading back home.  Lucy really got in to riding her little pedal-less bike down a ramp there - she would ride down, go up, ride down, go up, over and over and over again.  The boys found a circle area that they just rode around and around and around in . . . circles, of course.  :)  We made it back home right before it started raining.  Perfect timing.

Saturday late afternoon we met another family at the bike bumps.  Remember this?  I had a feeling Lucy would love it on her bike and whoa did she!  She was all over that place riding her bike on her own.  It was the cutest and coolest.  The other kids had a great time with their friends and so it was a really great outing.

Today there was a "water safety" event offered at the pool/rec. center.  It was free and another friend was going and encouraged us to come and so I reluctantly agreed - because I do love my kids and knew they would love going.  It turned out to be pretty great.  The kids got passports and had to go to 6 stations - where they learned some water safety tips, played a game, and got a prize.  At each station you had to get a signature and then when all 6 signatures were there you could go and swim.  There wasn't too many kids and so that was perfect.  Plus, 2 of our friends (friends = a whole family of friends) were there, too, and so my kids were loving it.  I was able to handle it well since the outside pool is pretty shallow and the boys are fine all alone - even going down the water-slide themselves.  Lucy is getting taller and wore a life-jacket and so that really helped, too.  It was already a hot morning, so it actually felt good to be in the pool (though my kids did get out for a good 15+ minutes to warm up - they get so cold in the pool!).  There were "drawings" were the kids won prizes.  Our entire group of friends (12 total) each won a prize.  My boys won some nice goggles and swimming caps.  Lucy won a beach ball.  And Emmy won a free swim pass for one day.  Then Emmy won the "grand prize" as Miles called it.  It's this big inflatable Thing - a lizard?  I don't know.  How did Emmy win it?  By asking!  I had gone to take Lucy on the slide and Emmy was with my friend Patty.  I guess Emmy went and asked one of the lifeguards that was helping out with the event whose it was and then she gave it to Emmy.  So fun.  We'll take it to my parents' house and hopefully have fun on it!  So it was a good day.  Of course it still wasn't/isn't without the little battles and struggles that happen each hour or so.  :)

Anyways, that's summer so far.

Let the hiking begin

I'm not sure how excited Emmy and Lucy are about hiking, but it felt good to get out today.  :)  We went not to the forest - where Ben and I would prefer, but due to probable snow in most forest-areas, we stayed low and desert-ish.  Ben's friend Randy loves Dominguez Canyon and so we get some ideas from him of where to go and headed out this morning.

We hiked/walked about 3.4 miles in to some Indian Petroglyphs.  We only had a minute to spare before we were just going to stop and break for lunch and head back.  So luckily we made it to the rock just in time.  :)  It was a pretty cool hike and a definite good outing for the day.  Emmy sure complained A LOT on the way up, but did great on the way down.  Jonas did pretty good, too, with just some very minimal complaints on the way. Miles is quite a hiker and just has the desire and stamina to go and explore and see everything.  Lucy was good, too - held lots and put in the backpack, too.  Here are some pics:

 What cute hiking sistas!

The hike starts out along a railroad track.  Too bad no trains came by while we were there!

Jonas caught a grasshopper - he's pretty good at catching things!

A pretty flowering cactus plant.

Cute girls and their handsome dad.

Some hikers in front of us spotted this guy.  He was the biggest and most colorful of all the lizards we saw - most were brownish/grayish.  Pretty cool!

 The rock!  Finally!

Lunch!  Finally!

This pictures just gives an idea of the area we were in.

Lucy just couldn't really get comfortable to fall asleep for too long.  Even though her tired self so wanted to!

For the last mile (we did about 7 miles total) Emmy got to ride on Ben's shoulder.  Lucky girl.

And here is one video of Miles and his Echo:

Wasabi Yucks

It had been a while since we had played the flour-game; so when one of my kids suggested we play it last Friday night, we did.  It's definitely fun!  Here is a video shot afterwards:

Awesome.

Last Day of School, 2014

(The markings on his face were done the previous night at a Cub Scout Pack Meeting.  Miles wanted to keep them on for school.  Whatever.  :)

Wiser, perhaps, but not necessarily a better speller . . .

I saw a cute and simple teacher-gift on Pinterest and so I had the kids make one for their teachers.  We stuffed them with some chocolate.

(To understand my title, check out Miles' - on the right.)

Post-library Syndrome

This is what happens when the kids come home from school and see that Lucy and I have been to the library and checked out new books:

Oldie

Wilson turned 12 last Saturday.  It was quite a busy day and so nothing was done to celebrate.  Wilson was highly offended.  So we promised to make it up to him on Monday night.  We took Wilson on a walk for our FHE and had cake.  Well, people had cake - Wilson had gross dog treats that he seemed to love.

 His cake.  Well, our cake to honor him.  :)

Not a super great picture, but I couldn't keep him from moving and licking up all the milk that Emmy had spilled. . .

A video:

Wilson is a great dog, really.  We're lucky we've had him for 12 years!