Girls Camp

I got called back into Young Women, which I think is GREAT!  I am Mia Maid adviser. One of the best things about YW is going to girls camp. I am so glad I could go this year, since it is Emilia's last year.  All the youth leaders did a lot of planning and made camp really awesome. I helped Emilia make a Moana costume because the theme this year was Moana. 

Me and my good friend Marlo

Look at all those cuties!

Waiting for it to get dark so the bats would come out

Our bishop and another biologist taking bats out of a net

Measuring bat wings

There was snow at a high elevation in a shady spot

Magic Flute

I have somehow succeeded in getting Emilia into opera.  She's in love with the Magic Flute.  So in love that she actually got her good friend Ashlyn to love it too.  Now we listen to it all the time, which is fine by me.  Elise, is getting kind of sick of it.  Emilia has been wanting to go see it in a theater for awhile now.  We found out that they were doing a performance at UVU.  So of course we had to go.  (And since I'm a student the tickets were only 5 bucks!)  We drove up to the aquarium during the day (and of course went to Ikea after). 

The Magic Flute was... interesting... they had decided to have the setting be in the 1920s ganfster era in New York.  So that was interesting.  But the music was awesome!  The Queen of the Night was amazing and I could have listened to Tamino forever and ever!  His voice was awesome!

These two girls who don't believe in talking to people really wanted to get their picture taken with the Queen of the Night!

Cinnamon Rolls

This girl loves cinnamon rolls. She wanted to make sure she knows how to make them so she can make them all the time when she is on her own.  She made these on her own with a few pointers from me.  I think they turned out great!

yum

Pokemon Go!

So this summer a new phone app came out called "Pokemon Go".  You walk around and little creatures appear on your phone and you try to catch them.  It has gone crazy.  So crazy in fact that they have had to send emails to hospital employees to tell them (and to have them pass the word along to families) that Pokemon should not be played in patient care areas and they should not be spending work time playing Pokemon.  Seriously.  I took Elise to SUU campus to play Pokemon Go. Her phone doesn't get data but all the buildings on campus have wi-fi so we thought we could catch some Pokemon.  We were looking for Pokemon at the student center and stopped for a swing in the hammocks.

Wrap up

The summer is ending. The kids start school in two days.  We have been traveling all over the place and having a fun and exciting summer.  But the younger kids are starting to fight (all the time) and it's hard to keep kids occupied without electronic devices.  A couple of weeks ago I was not ready for school start.  Over the last couple of weeks though as the fighting got worse and the house got messier I quickly became ready. 

The sewing classes this summer were a huge hit and a lot of fun. I learned that some kids are naturally better at sewing than others- just like anything.  I guess the ones who seem to be good at it are the ones who actually take their time and try to do it right instead of just trying to get the project finished.  The kids who rush through and don't take the time end up with projects that look bad.  I'm really glad I decided to do the classes this summer. It also gave me the opportunity/motivation to sew more with my kids.  I actually got all my kids to sew SOMETHING this summer.  Ian and Adele love sewing.  Emilia and Elise don't love sewing but they did make something for their girl's camp secret sisters.  We also got to have Erica come to our house for a couple of days and we sewed with her too.  When I look back and remember this summer I will remember this as the sewing summer.

 

Trying to get the darn thing threaded.

  

And last of all, here I am doing my last (hopefully!) sewing project of the summer:  Sewing the SUU nursing patch onto my uniform.  I have been working all summer getting all my immunizations, documentation and school stuff in order.  Not to mention getting my bacterial issues under control.  Now that I seem to be free from my resistant bacteria (and after this darn cold I have) clears up I will be ready to begin the crazy new adventure that is starting in a week.  (GULP.)  I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'm a bit nervous for it all to start.  It's not so much that I'm worried about the actual school thing, I'm just worried about how I will be able to juggle it all.  My kids are in more activities this fall than last fall and I will have more credits.  I'm just trying to take it one semester at a time.  

We have a BIRTHday! 14 big ones.

Look who is 14.  

She's SO old!  These kiddos grow up so fast!  Elise is smart, beautiful, zany, witty and has a very caring heart.  We love her so much.

I'm pretty sure these kids are crazy.  Erica and Ashlyn Davis came over to eat pie with us.

Free at LAST

Look who got her braces off!  This girl was so excited to not have metal in her mouth any more.  And she was so excited to eat all the things she faithfully avoided during her brace confinement.  Look at that beautiful smile!

Hendrickson Lake?

Kent and I took Emilia and Elise and went on a backpacking trip with Sam Wells.  We were supposed to hike about 5 miles and then end up at a cute little lake in the forest.  We hiked and hiked and hiked. At first we were on the right trail.  Then we ended up missing a turn because it was unmarked and the map was wrong.  We ended up going about 3 extra miles til we finally realized that we were not on the right trail.  At this point we ended up just trying to find a place to camp for the night because it was getting dark.  We ended up camping in "Mosquito Lane", which should have been more appropriately called "Flying Ant Lane".  But, no worries, there were plenty of mosquitoes too.

Very tired of hiking.

Uhh, I think we are lost.

See my heart shaped blister?  It got even bigger, and actually looked like a bum when we were done hiking.

THIS is where we slept.

Birthday Girl

Another birthday for this girl!  She's 13.  She has changed a whole lot this year!  All these kiddos are getting so old.  This year (since February) she has been wanting a Nintendo 3DS.  She made a deal with me that if I would pay half and get it for her for her birthday she'd pay the other half.  She has been saving ALL her money all year.  She has resisted the temptation to participate in dollar store runs with the other kids.  I'm impressed with her dedication to save for something she really wants. Important life lessons!  We celebrated her birthday a day early because she was headed to Girl's Camp on her birthday.

The usual Swedish Pancake birthday breakfast

She wanted a chocolate and cookies n cream ice cream cake with the "Tri-force" on the top.  

Happy Birthday!!!

What We Did this Summer!

We did actually do a few things this summer besides living in a rental house and building a house.  Life goes on right!?  Here is some of the other stuff we did this summer.  

While at a 7th grade physical we did a quick eye screening and found out that we needed to get Elise's eyes checked.  Turned out that she really needed glasses.  So we went and got her these. I think they look so cute on her!

And, to go with the glasses,  Elise got braces.  This was a very busy summer for Elise.

We went to Tuachan and saw The Wizard of Oz.  It was SO cool!  We all loved it.  Too bad Elise didn't have her glasses yet!

We went to the Happy Factory a couple of times and helped stain the cars that they donate to children all over the world.

Adele got a new bike and learned to ride it in just a couple of hours. 

And I worked and posed for pictures with dorky glasses.

A couple of other things:

• Ian had a Mohawk (I will have to go look for pictures. You can kind of see it in the Tuachan picture).
• Elise and Emilia went to girls camp twice.
• Emilia got into Success Academy, decided to do it and had to drop her band class.

The BIG 1-2!

This awesome girl just turned 12!  For her birthday she asked for art supplies and a Minecraft t-shirt.  The kids are all very into Minecraft.  Elise was very excited to turn 12 so she could graduate from primary (finally!) and be able to go to girl's camp.

Horse Class

The city parks and rec dept. sponsored a class called "Horses Up & Close" and I enrolled Elise since she LOVES horses.  There were 4 sessions of the class and it was really fun even though it got off to a rocky start.  The first day of class the instructor didn't show up because she got stuck in Florida due to a hurricane.  She called the parks and rec manager who didn't pass the message on to any of the parents.  So we all showed up and there was no teacher and nobody could figure out what happened.   The class was supposed to have 8 kids but since many of the parents were disgruntled and demanded refunds, only 4 actually showed up for the rest of the classes.  This meant that each of the kids in the class had their own horse to ride the whole time during the 3rd and 4th classes.  It turned out great for us even though it was crazy at first.  Elise hopes to take the "advanced" class if the series is offered again.

Elise Turns 9!

June 3, 2011- Elise turned 9!!!

Elise posing with her birthday strawberry.  We always put a candle in whatever we are having for breakfast.  Since candles don't work so well in corn flakes we used the strawberry and helped it stand up with whip cream.  My kids go crazy for whip cream.  They'd be happy with a candle in a pile of whip cream.

We don't do a lot of cake at our house for birthdays.  Elise wanted peach cheesecake.

Since her birthday is in June, Elise ALWAYS wants to have a water party.  And pretty much every year it is too cold, windy and rainy for her party.  This year since we had her party 2 weeks after her birthday we thought we'd be safe.  Not so. It was very cloudy all morning with some threatening clouds.  FINALLY about 30 minutes before the party the sun came out. It wasn't hot but it wasn't freezing either so I guess that makes it a success.

We did the "Heavy heavy hangover thy poor head" thing and I think I did the "bump on the head" a wee bit too hard... (she kept trying to dodge it so I made sure I got her... heh heh heh.)

Since I was worrying about impending rain I decided I needed a back-up plan in case we had to cancel the water party.  Elise said she wanted a pinata.  So here's my last minute pinata. I wasn't about to go to the store and buy one for 20 bucks.  This one did the job and it was super cheap and easy (wrapped an oatmeal container with wrapping paper and voila~!)

 We decorated cupcakes with gummy worms, Mother's Circus Animal cookies, M&Ms (all at the request of the birthday girl). (Friend's names going clockwise from Elise for posterity's sake: Liberty M., Emilia, Ian, Jeff & Jonathan G.  Kinley & Aria G., Malabry A., Cadey C. and Caleb S.)

And of course we played water games.  Even though it was a lot of work (like parties always are) I think the kids had a good time and I was really happy that Elise FINALLY got her water party after all these years. Next year I think we are limiting the friend count to 3 or 4.