Summer Has Arrived!

Or at least the end of the school year has arrived. We are still turning on the heat in our house and wearing long sleeves. Too much rain and chilly weather for the end of May..It's been odd.
Andrew and Nathan successfully ended their school years last week and Summer vacation has officially started. I'm home with all the munchkins all day and the house isn't as clean or quiet as it had been during the school year. Ah well, we adapt and move forward. I have initiated a summer chore/routine/schedule for the boys that is new this year. And I hope we can stick to it. I borrowed the program from my friend Amber and after tweaking it slightly to accommodate our family, we dove right in. The kids earn fun bucks by doing their daily routines and chores and then they can cash them in for various rewards and activities. So far, so good.

I've entered the extremely awkward third trimester and have (for the first time) experienced swollen ankles and hands. I never had that with past pregnancies and I'm dismayed to find I can't wear my rings and my ankles and feet are fat and puffy. I took off my wedding ring to go swimming a couple weeks ago and have not been able to get it back on since. Seriously. My fingers are sausage fingers and I hate not being able to wear my rings. I lathered up my hands with lotion and tried my hardest to squeeze my ring on. My finger turned purple and I tore some skin off trying to pull it back off. I'm probably just being a dork, but I don't like being without my ring while I'm so obviously pregnant. (What must people think...?)
Friends have given me lots of girl things already and I'm getting excited about this big change coming our way soon. My friend Tara made me the most beautiful quilt. She is a master seamstress and quilter and I have (secretly) longed for one of her quilts for years and she gave me a beautiful one for our baby. I was thrilled! I've accumulated lots of pink in the last couple weeks from my sister and friends passing on their girl clothes. It's becoming more and more real every day.

We celebrated David's third birthday last week. I've been so exhausted and, frankly, irritable with this pregnancy, that all I could manage was some store bought cupcakes and a very unheralded birthday party before Greg had to leave for work on David's birthday. We've introduced the boys to Duck Tales and they are completely infatuated. My brother burned us a DVD of some old Duck Tale episodes. They watched it over and over and over. David in particular absolute loves Scrooge McDuck and the Beagle Boys. So we did the job right and got David all three complete seasons of Duck Tales for his birthday. Grandma sent him some helicopters in the mail and he has no idea that he got a lame birthday this year. He couldn't be more excited with his gifts.

Andrew began his second year of Coach Pitch baseball on a city team and Nathan started T-Ball. We're happy to have friends from the ward on both the boys' teams and they are excited about the upcoming season starting soon. This should keep them busy and happy. For the month of June, anyway.

So for now, that's what we are up to!






Random picture slipped in here. We climbed the mountain up to the white lime pit a few days ago.

Spring Break 2?? Same people, different location...

Just a couple weeks after returning from our trip to Seattle to visit my brother, Dave, he and his family decided to come south. Their intention was to go visit the extraordinary Carl Bloch art exhibit currently at BYU's Museum of Art. Unfortunately it was all sold out and they didn't want to gamble with standby tickets. So they just stayed in Idaho with my parents. I couldn't pass up another opportunity to see my cute niece and nephew and bro and sis in law. So we blew off school for three days and went up to Idaho for a visit. First off, was rock climbing at City of Rocks. For anyone who doesn't know about The City of Rocks, you are truly missing out. It is one of the greatest things about Idaho and my siblings and I practically grew up on those rocks. It's just a huge national park full of these massive rock formations where people come from all over the world to climb. We went rock climbing and cooked hot dogs over the campfire. We blew a tire on my van coming home and Dave was the best brother in the world as he changed my tire and got filthy and sliced his finger open in the process.

This picture refuses to post in order, but we went to Shoshone Falls to watch Idaho's version of Niagara Falls. It was beautiful, as always.









Probably the most popular rock to climb is called Bathtub Rock. At the very top there are these wind made holes that usually fill up with snow and rain water creating bath tubs on top. It is also the scariest and most difficult rock to climb. I remember having no fear as a child scaling that thing with the welded in metal hand holds someone made years ago. But I'll tell you, watching my two sons go up that with their Uncle Dave about gave me a heart attack. The pictures don't do it justice, but it is so incredibly dangerous and I can't believe there haven't been more accidents on that rock. Most people use ropes and rock climbing gear, but if you're the amateurs like us, you go up the back using the welded on hand holds. It's terrifying. But my boys loved it. Thanks to Uncle Dave who stuck it out when maybe he would have wished to turn back. They're up there looking like tiny little ants on the top of the rock.


We also went swimming at Slyger's natural hot springs pool. Also an old family favorite from my childhood. It's called something different now, but it will always be Slyger's to me. Didn't bring my camera, though.

Anyway, we need to stick out the rest of this school year and stop taking unplanned and spontaneous vacations like this one. They're only 3 weeks left of school. I think we can do it.