Nothing Turned Into Everything... And It was Good

This week was supposed to be boring. This week was supposed to be my recovery week. Two weeks ago I was at girls camp; last week we were in Washington State; this week we are home and I wanted to catch up on laundry, yard and house work. Last Sunday morning I looked at this week's calendar and there was NOTHING on it except a couple of soccer games, a soccer practice, and the viewing of the girls camp slide show. Plenty of time to do the above chores.

Then 5 minutes before church on Sunday, the phone rang, "Valerie? This is Amazing Visiting Teaching Companion and I'd like to go visiting teaching this week."
"Okay. Surprisingly, my calendar is clear, so feel free to make the appointments any day. I'm good to go!"

Famous last words. As each minute of each day passed I became entrenched in more and more activities/chores/visits/gatherings.... you name it!

The thing is, it was an enjoyable week. I got to reconnect with a sweet friend who is visiting from New Zealand and I also got to meet her mum. I also had an old friend from our early days of marriage stop by and spend the night on his way through town. I got have lunch with the most wonderful group of ladies as we bid a tearful farewell to Thorkgal. I played in the rain with Inigo and then my family. I visit taught a sweet 100 year old lady as she got her hair done in the assisted living facility where she resides. I hung out at a soccer game and watched my boy kick a goal. I (happily) chauffeured my daughter to her "first" job that she (finally) landed this week. We went to the ice cream parlor as a family and each got a scoop of our favorite flavor.


I only got one load of laundry finished. But I did get the house dusted, vacuumed and dishes done! I did get the lawn mowed and watered (no auto sprinklers here! I haul hoses!). I even weeded a flower bed.


Not to mention I was able to finish two books: I've started the Ugly Series by Scott Westerfeld and I'm devouring them... It's nice to start a series of books and be able to read all of them at once instead of waiting one to two years between each installments.... ahem Hunger Games.... which reminds me that I need to pre-order Mockingjay!!!


So, you see, this boring week that I was supposed to have wasn't boring at all. But it was good!

Our family's self portrait after playing in the rain. What a blast we had!! We played tag on the hospital grounds across from our house and layed down on the hill and let rain drops fall in our mouth.

My S.O.S. crafting group. It was good to be together for our lunch date, but so sad to say goodbye to Thorkgal (second from right in yellow shirt).

Apparently while I was at camp, Max took Inigo to his soccer game. Max promised him that if he made a goal, he'd buy him a Michael Jackson movie. At last night's game, Inigo scored a goal. The minute the ball was in the net, Inigo came bounding across the field to Max and I and yelled (to the delight of EVERYONE sitting around us), "Dad! I made the goal. Now you have to buy me that Michael Jackson video!"

They stopped at K-Mart on the way home.

(And I was happy that Inigo will let me take a picture of him, so I let him give me a goofy pose.)

Wouldn't it be nice if every week I don't have anything to do could go as well as this week?

This and That

I'm in kind of a "BLAH" mood right now. I'm not happy, but I'm not sad either. I'm somewhere right in between. But it's just easier to say, "BLAH!"

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Girl's Camp is finished. Done. Over with. WHEW!! I'm so glad to have it over for another year! I am pretty undecided on whether or not I'll do it again next year. If I absolutely HAD to make a choice today.... it would be NO!! But I sincerely love those girls and I've been to camp with many of them for their entire camp career and they are begging me to stay. (This is my 4th year of going with this ward... my third as camp director.) We've created many wonderful, fun traditions that the girls look forward to each year.

One of them being the after-camp-slide show. Which I'm happy to announce I finished today!! Yippee! I stayed up until 2am last night getting it ready to burn today -- which might be some of the reason I'm feeling, "BLAH!"

I'm soooo tired!

We show it tomorrow night at Mutual and then I'll pack up my bag of camp tricks for another year.... possibly forever.

(The argument that I'm having with myself over this is: Am I denying someone else the pleasure and blessings by doing it year after year?)

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Last week the kids and I went with Max to Washington State. He has a client up there and spends one week a month working in this little town. He's been going up there for a year and a half and has wanted us to go every month.

I now see why he wants us there! He needs a distraction! The hospital he works for is in a very small (Pop. 1736) town where you have to drive 45 minutes to an hour out of town for any activities; movies, grocery shopping, shopping, etc. There is a bowling alley in town, and a public swimming park, which is nice, but that's all there is, which can be quite monotonous.

I will admit, it's BEAUTIFUL country! I have never seen so many rolling fields of wheat. And we were there as the wheat is turning golden. It was so beautiful!! I kept singing America the Beautiful as we drove from one field to another.

One thing I found interesting was the absence of subdivisions. There were neighborhoods "in town," but as we got out of town, we would only see a random farm dotted here and there among the rolling hills. I'm extremely social, and while it's my (and Max's) dream to eventually move to "the country" and live on one or two acres, I would still want a neighbor or two to keep me company (or hear me scream in the middle of the night -- but that's another story about one of my many paranoid neuroses). :)

That's why I named this picture "Lonely": Because, while this farm is beautiful and is in a beautiful setting, that's how it made me feel to look at it.

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Tonight, my almost 8 year old son and my 40 something year old husband are sleeping in a tent in the backyard. Since the pad on our trampoline ripped, we've had very few sleeping-out-in-the-backyard-moments.

Isn't that what warm summer nights were made for!?!?

And I learned something new about my son tonight... to our recollection, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME HE HAS SLEPT IN A TENT!!

I know!!! What the....? We are the family that loves to camp and my son has never slept in a tent before? I'm failing as a mother....

Anyhoo... self recriminations aside... every time we have gone camping since he was born, the poor guy has always slept in our pop-up tent trailer, which is fine and comfortable for ME, but has denied him the simple pleasures of the scent of a tent, the rustle of the fabric, the scrunching in a sleeping bag and gazing out the window (or the top of the tent if there's not a rain fly on it) at the stars.

We are happy to provide this experience for our son tonight. And he was so happy (giddy actually), he even smiled for the camera!

Good night, my adventuresome men! Sleep tight! And don't let the bed bugs bite... or the mosquitoes, or the spiders, or the moths, or.....

(Poor Lola Dog is in a quandry... does she sleep outside and protect them? Or does she sleep inside and protect me?)

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Today, I learned some sad news. My good friend, my crafting buddy, and the mother of the cutest boy in Buttercup's graduating class -- who also happens to be an amazing artist, as well as witty and clever -- is moving from Florin.

Thorkgal (who comments frequently on this blog) and who has been my friend since I moved here 10 years ago and joined the S.O.S Crafting Group, is moving to greener pastures south of our great state.

Thorkgal, I don't want to make this move any harder than it already is for you, but I just want you to know how much I will miss you and your beautiful smile. I will miss copying your craft each month. How can I be "creative" without you?!? S.O.S. will not be complete without you and I know that each and every month we'll say, "Something's not right! We're not a whole group anymore!" I know we'll see you again, since you're leaving half of your heart here, enrolled in college. Please come visit soon and often! We'll always have an empty chair at our craft table for you! We'll always have a shoulder and a listening ear. I hope you find your dreams and that all your wishes will be fulfilled!

Now, I must go find a Kleenex and blow my nose! (And I have to start practicing NOT swearing at S.O.S. anymore...)

Love ya, Thork! :)

Time To Synchronize Swim

I'm back from camp and I survived!

Barely!!

I came home so exhausted and tired. Seriously tired. There was LOTS of hard work and extremely little sleep.

It was a good week, and I've had positive reports from my girls and their parents and that's what's important. After all, camp is all about them and making sure they have a good experience that brings them closer together as a ward and also enhances their own testimonies and brings them closer to their Heavenly Father.

This video is an example of one of those experiences. The people in it are the Stake YW leadership and two members of the Stake Presidency. The president is the tall one in the yellow swimming cap (yes, he's younger than me! It freaks me out just a little!) He's the one that spits water in the end.

Maybe you'll enjoy it as much as we did.

P.S. It was FREEZING cold that night. It was so cold we could see our breath.



(Why is this video so big?!?!)

Here We Go!!!

It's here!!!

I'll call it..

C-Day.... CAMP DAY!! Tomorrow morning -- bright and early -- I gather the young women of my ward together, bid farewell to my little family and go to the nether regions of my state where we will combat mosquitoes, wind, mosquitoes, burning sun, dirt and grime, mosquitoes and (hopefully) have the time of our lives.

This is the 3rd consecutive year I've been Camp Director. I think back to this time in 2008, when I was getting ready to go for the first time. I was in melt-down mode, completely freaked out, running around in circles, thinking I had a very important purpose. I was running list after list after list through my mind, wondering what items I had forgot and what activity I didn't plan for. Would the girls have fun? Did I have enough for them to do? Would I be able to handle the two emotionally challenged girls that were going with us? (Would I be able to handle using the gross bathrooms that are at camp for a whole week?!?)

I wasn't worried about feeding them... I had the MOST AMAZING camp cook you could ask for. I was so grateful for her, her organizational skills and her calm demeanor. Everyone should have a camp cook like Love-lee!

Last year we went to camp without our stake -- just our ward. Our stake has never done that before, so we were breaking new ground. We had to learn how to make sure each girl got the correct certification done... which was HUGE!! We had to plan each and every minute of every day. That's a lot of work. We shared all the cooking and cleaning up chores (I lost my fantastic Camp Cook to the Relief Society presidency). Thank heavens I had a SUPER assistant who kept telling me to BREATHE and to SIMPLIFY.

This year, we're having a stake camp again and surprisingly, I'm not stressed out. As a matter of fact, I already have all the camping gear, all the food, every incidental packed up and on it's way to camp -- A DAY EARLY!! Thankfully, I saved all my lists from previous years, so I had a good system of checks and balances, which made everything seem extremely easy.

So easy, that I have to wonder... WHAT DID I FORGET!?!

Hmmmmm..... I guess we'll just have to see. But for now, I'm going to have my husband take me out to one last dinner, then I'll come home, put my feet up and watch a movie.

And just RELAX.

This is the hairdo I got from the girls my first year.

(See ya next week!)

A.G.T.

Do you watch America's Got Talent? This is the first year I have. I was pleased to see these girls. And then I found out that they are local! They are from Guilder. We're rooting for them!




I found out some "back story" on the girls: They went through the audition process separately so they could audition separately, but the people back stage said that they need to sing together -- a duet -- so 10 minutes before they went on stage they stood in the hall and worked up this song.

This is the first time they have sung on stage together.

I hope they do well!!

Whose Boy Is This?

Thanks, Red, for capturing these photos of my boy last weekend.

I ♥ Big Sky Country

Buttercup often questions my passion about Montana. (The word "obsessed" has been used before.) She's still young and doesn't fully understand why I love it so darn much. She still has fantasies and dreams about moving to a big city and living among the throngs of people and tall buildings. She dreams of the hustle and bustle of city life. The constant moving, the noise, the smells. She hasn't felt the need to escape to wide open spaces, fresh air, no population and almost complete peace.

I think I was much like her when I was 18. And, I will admit that there still are times that I dream about those things too.

Then I repent.

And hop into the car and drive to where the skies are big and blue, where the mountains tower above me. As I drive I roll down the windows and inhale the fresh pine smell and the sweet scent of wild flowers. It's usually chilly and rarely too hot. The only down side I can find are the irritating mosquitoes or painful horseflies... but I can deal with those.

Montana is home to me. I grew up in nearby Guilder, and almost every summer weekend we would go to the family's property in Montana. We hiked the mountains, swam in the lakes, prowled the National Park, watched thunderstorms bounce between mountains, fought skunks, laid under the stars gazing at the Milky Way, picked wild flowers, fished for trout, cut wood for our home fireplace, played cards, and enjoyed wonderful family time together.

I'll say it again, MONTANA IS HOME!! I've never had my own official Montana address. I've never had my own Montana fishing licence or driver's licence. But it's as comfortable to me as my own town of Guilder. I heave a sigh every time we cross the border. The air is fresher, cleaner and more pure...

Don't believe me? Let me show you!

(Warning: be prepared to be innundated with photos from the July 4 weekend in My Montana.)

Did you know there are hummingbirds in Montana?

There are lots of Mountain Bluebirds to be found.

And Burrowing Owls.

There is plenty of wind for kite flying.

You can watch the storms roll in for miles.

The scenery and mountains will take your breath away.

(This is my first panoramic shot...)

You can hike tall mountains or smaller hills.

Who wouldn't want this view out of their kitchen window?

There's always time to play cards and be silly!

And many opportunities to pick a wildflower boquet for your loved one's birthday!

Do you have your heart set on riding bikes? NO PROBLEM!!! We can find you a trail!

I find many opportunities for fulfilling my obsession of photographing clouds in Big Sky Country.
If this hasn't convinced you, that's okay. I like it better when there's less people there!