June 6 - June 28

I honestly don't know if I've ever gone 22 days without blogging... and I've been blogging a LONG time! (I've had 4 official blogs in my life.)

I seriously have had a lack of available time. Life has been CRAZY busy. Actually, right now I should be in bed, but people are starting to question my dedication to this site and whether I have abandoned it all together, so I thought I'd give a shout out and say, hey! I'm alive. All is well. Life is moving on!

Here's a quick run-down of the past several weeks:

*****************************

Girl's Camp: GREAT FUN!!! It was soooo much work getting a ward-only camp ready, but it was worth every minute. (If you surround yourself with great assistants, things run like clock-work.) The girls were magnificent, the weather was great: plenty of rain, but plenty of sun too! (I knew that Heavenly Father would take care of the weather for us... and it worked out as well as it could... considering the weather pattern we've been stuck in for the past month.)



Our facility was a BLAST!

We had zip-lines, (and I faced my fear of heights and rode it!)

huge slides, (no, I didn't ride... still afraid of that one!) :)

a 9 hole golf course, (for Frisbee golf)

and a cabin w/ a fireplace and OVENS [a plus since my box oven didn't work as great as I hoped.]

and.... FLUSH TOILETS!!)

SORRY... NO PICTURE =]

**********************

The day after I got home from camp, my roommate from Ricks College came to visit. I saw her for about 2 minutes last year when she came through the "booty line" at the temple open house (our YW were doing booties that day). Before that, I think it's been about 7 years since I saw and spent time with her. It was a blast reconnecting!! She is still the same silly girl, only wearing less make-up and hairspray (come on!! We went to college in the 80's!)

We had so much fun remembering the "good ole days" of chasing boys, running away from NCMO's and stupid FHE bros. (excluding Max who we first met as a FHE brother). Lor was the studious/clean one and I was the goofy/messy one. (I remembered that I always slept on top of my covers so I wouldn't have to make my bed every day.) We remembered our Japanese roommate and the dried fish w/ eyeballs that stared at us every time we opened her cupboard. One of the good things in life is to have good friends that we can reconnect instantly with.

****************************

My big sister, Wees showed up the middle of the next week, visiting from the corn fields of the Midwest followed by my baby sister, Red, visiting from the poofy hair regions south of here. Of course we had to head to the mountains, to my parent's cabin. Thankfully, all the dreary rain clouds vanished and we had enough beautiful weather to hike and hang out to our hearts content.

My plenty-ninth birthday happened in the middle of all this and we tried to make it my final birthday by taking a killer hike up the mountains to an abandoned asbestos mine. I seriously have to get myself back to the gym... (you can see by these pictures how high up the mountain we went.)


I was very proud of nature-hating Buttercup. She made it all the way to the mine and even had a smile for my camera.


*****************

We had a fun couple days at the cabin and when we returned to civilization, we went through the old wardrobes in my parent's basement. What a treasure trove of fun things we found!!! Two old prom dresses that Wees wore in high school and MY WEDDING DRESS!!! (We thought it was lost.) So we gathered our three daughters and made them try them on.


**Disclaimer: We went to high school and got married in the 80's. Judge these dresses accordingly!!

(Since Buttercup is wearing my wedding dress, we thought she should make a classic wedding pose.)

***********************************
And finally, on Saturday we had the first ever family reunion on my mom's side. Red and I were supposed to be in charge of it... but Red ended up doing the work. (I offered my support and my name to the gazillion emails she had to send out.) It was so great to reconnect with my aunts, uncles and cousins. Most of the family came... only a few grandsons and one uncle were missing. Hopefully a new tradition has started. Maybe I can be more help with the next one.

********************************
Tomorrow, if the warm weather holds, we get to take the boat out for the first time this season! We'll take Wees and her family before they head back to the corn fields on Tuesday.

I think I'll meet up with another old college roommate this week as well as one of my good high school friends.

Seriously, can life get any better right now?

Such Enthusiasm!

Girl's Camp is in one week.... DID YOU HEAR ME?!?!? ...

...ONE WEEK!!!

Although, I'm glad to get it finished and over early this year. As of June 19... summer belongs to me and my family! Yippee! (Also happy birthday to Buttercup on that day.)

(Camp is going to be so much fun this year. We are camping on a ward level... no stake involvement. It's the first time this has happened in all my years of camping, so I've been a teensy stressed about making sure all the girls get certified etc. However, I'm also very excited to schedule the time the way I want and I GET TO PICK THE THEME. I've had GREAT help and although my stress level is heightened, it's not over the top.)

I don't really have time to keep current on this blog for the next week, so I thought I would leave you with one parting Inigo funny-ism:

Today it was very cold and rainy. There wasn't much we could do so we took the kids to see Night at the Museum. Inigo is a HUGE fan of the franchise and Buttercup was excited to have Mom & Dad pick up the tab for a movie.

There was the trailer for the new Harry Potter movie showing. It seems a little intense (as usual). Inigo isn't allowed to see the movie due to the subject matter and rating (PG-13), so he drinks up the bits and pieces he can see in the trailers.

The trailer, whose volume was extremely loud, finished.

It's that one moment between trailers.... it's dark and completely quiet...

My son, accustomed to the loudness that has been booming from the surround sound, says in a little boy's voice that can be heard throughout the theater....

"THAT'S TOTALLY WICKED!!"

We weren't the only people laughing at him this time.

Philosophy of a 6 Year Old

For the past several months, Inigo has been praying nightly for a younger sibling. It went from, "Please bless that we'll have a baby," to "Please bless that I can have two babies," to "Please bless that I can have 40" all the way to 20,000 and 100,000. (After a FHE lesson on appropriate prayers, he has dropped it back down to a more reasonable number = 2.)
I told him that my tummy probably won't be able to give him a baby and that if we can, we'll try to adopt one. His bestest friend in the world is adopted, so it's a concept he completely understands. Today, he came up to me completely excited. This is what he said:

**********
"Hey mom, I know how to adopt a baby!

First you put a baby in a basket and put a blanket over the face and the whole body and then you put a note on top. Then you put the basket on the door step and ring the doorbell and run to your car and drive away.

Then we open the door and look under the blanket and bring the baby in the house.

And that's how you be adopted!"
********

Well, maybe he doesn't understand it as completely as I thought!