The last few weeks

Here is my attempt at blog catch up. I'll just warn you now- it's way too long.

Life became insanely busy for a while. It still is but I am making a blogging effort now.

During the last full week of June Ethan’s activities dominated our lives. He had cub camp tue-fri from 1:00-8:00 pm. Add another 30-45 minutes to the beginning and end of that for meeting at the church and transportation and that makes for a long day. Jason and I both volunteered to help a little with the boys and had a good time. I was honestly surprised at how much fun I had. This camp was a lot better than last year's and it wasn’t as hot and the boys were really good and the activities they did were awesome and when my turn was over I was surprised at how fast it went. That same week Ethan started swim team and had basketball camp. Plus Kate and Nathanael started swimming lessons and all three of them started chess club (free at the library). It was a little crazy and I was glad when the week was over.



The next week we left on Wednesday to go to Boise for the 4th of July. We had a blast staying at my sister’s. My brother Eric and his family came too and we all relaxed for a few days. The cousins loved staying up WAY TOO LATE together, sleeping on the tramp, swimming and sliding at Roaring Springs, watching fireworks and just being together. We also had a little family piano recital. Ethan was pretty worked up about it. The kid does not like stressful situations. But he did great and my mom and dad watched it all via Michelle and Corey’s videophone. It was awesome to be able to be with so much of our family and have my mom and dad sort of there too!



We left early on Saturday morning and drove to Seattle for our nephew’s baptism. Gunner (Jason’s brother’s oldest child) was being baptized at 4 pm. We drove as fast as we could and only stopped at home to switch luggage. We were a little late but we made it and the kids were once again in cousin heaven. Of course we didn't get any pictures at the baptism. We blame it on sleep deprivation.



The following Monday Ethan started his round of swimming lessons concurrent with swim team and Kate and Ethan started a conditioning camp that a high school here puts on. It’s awesome. Everyday it’s an hour of running, jumping, stretching. . . good old fashion exercise with a bunch of kids. They love it. On Thursday Becky and George (Jason’s sister) made it to our house. My kids have been so spoiled to play with cousins so much this summer. Ethan kind of did his own thing but Kate was a little mommy to Nathanael, Jeb (5) and Kimball (3). We played at the parks and were lazy! Becky and I did steal away alone to the farmers market.



Friday night was Ethan’s first swim meet and he swam 50 yd breast (3rd place) and 50 yd free (1st place!). We also had a movie outside that night. It was a busy day.


Sunday evening Jason was at a youth fireside and the kids and I and Becky were outside chatting. Ethan was swinging a baseball bat. Then there was the awful sound of glass shattering. Ethan had accidentally let the bat go and it flew about twenty feet straight to the basement office window. We are so lucky it didn’t go through the next window over where George was holding Dorothy or that Jason wasn’t sitting at his computer. There was glass all over the place!



Last week we finished swimming lessons (I’m ready for a break) and Ethan spent his days doing a load of chores that Jason came up with for him to earn some cash to pay for the glass for the window. He is still working and still earning. . .

On Saturday we had a ward picnic. The organizer of this event happens to be a person that I kind of struggle with. I will leave my opinion out of this and just present the facts. She was using a megaphone with a loud, attention getting siren that she would turn on whenever she wanted to talk, which was often. The problem was that she used it so often that people soon ignored it and that was rather upsetting to her. Overall, it was a nice picnic with lots of games for the kids and pretty good food since they made it a cook off in an effort to get people to bring decent food. The ward provided fried chicken for the main dish. The committee overbought on the Albertson’s special fried chicken and near the end of the activity the megaphone was blaring again. She informed us that the fried chicken would be repackaged and sold for the price they bought, like 6 or seven pieces for $5. The person next to me said, “I believe that this is the first church function in a lifetime of church functions where the organizer has tried to sell the leftovers.” I second that motion. It was crazy. Apparently there weren’t too many takers so after a few minutes she lowered the price to $3. Now the leftovers were on clearance.

Saturday evening our modem died and because we have VOIP we had no phone either. Jason plugged in his spare modem (the one he uses in his truck/office) so we had phone until Sunday when he left. I had a quiet week! I was unreachable until today (Jason got home late last night) and that had its advantages.

Happy Birthday to Ethan. He is 10 today. I will post something just for him. Soon . . . very soon. And there I thought I would be caught up!