One quick lifeguard

I took the kids to the pool today. They had a blast. I had the three younger kids with me in the kiddie pool and then the older two were in the big pool. They took the swimming test to be able to jump off the diving board. We spent about 4 hrs. there. The younger kids wanted to see their siblings come down the slide so I took them to watch the boys. You had to be 48 inches in order to go. Rachel really wanted to go and I sat there thinking if it would be OK. She went up and she measured right on. Zach was on the edge near the bottom for her so she could swim right to him. WELL.... as soon as she came down the slide the lifeguard blew her whistle and jumped in to get her. I had to go to the front of the building to fill out a report to verify that they had jumped in for her.

In my mind I was thinking that she jumped in pretty darn quick without giving her a chance to swim to the edge. But then as I thought more about it maybe she sensed something and reacted to her gut. And that was good. She was FAST.

When it was time to go and we got into the car the boys started talking saying how fast the lifeguard jumped in and that they thought Rachel was getting ready to swim over to the edge. I asked Rachel about it and she said the slide was fast and she said she thought she was going to drown. She didn't really even go under the water too much but maybe it was her fear. So maybe it was a good thing she jumped in. She really didn't seem to be in danger but better to be safe than sorry. She still loves the water and had a great time after that. But it was in the kiddie pool.

It was our first time there and we were just checking the accuracy of these young lifeguards. They passed the test. We will be back. :)

I think my kids are part fish. They all really enjoyed their time. I was wearing capri's but I was SOAKED from them climbing on and splashing me.

I forgot to take the camera. OH WELL. Next time.

Homemade zip line

Yesterday and today we are trying to limit our electronic use. It has been great. I let the kids watch one or two shows but limit the video games for the older two. They have spent more time playing with each other and less time being zombies. It isn't easy during the summer when the days seem quite long but it has been nice. So today we went out and tried to make a homemade zip line. All we had was some rope and then Zach found a board that had a hole in it so we used that as our handle. They kids had alot of fun. Some of them got hurt but they got right back up to try again. It was cute. Even Mayah attempted. She kept saying, "I don't want to go fast". I was holding on to her until she was able to reach the ground.

Today we also started back up on our reading. I was doing it a little in Washington. We would sit all the kids down and read for 20 minutes. And today we all sat down (including myself) and read for a half hour. I love that Caleb will usually keep reading even after the time is up. The younger two that cannot read just flip through books and then I had some crayons and coloring books on the ground that they ended up doing after a bit. Rachel LOVES to read. She is doing amazing. She can really sound out some big words.

Caleb and Zach have been taking the scooters or the little tricycles out in front of our house in the road and riding them down the hill. Looks really fun. As long as they wear their helmets I don't mind. Our road is rarely traveled and I LOVE that. What a better way to spend time rather than on the Wii or PS2.

Gotta think of some more fun things for them to do outside. We don't have a trampoline or any outdoor play equipment so we have to use our minds and figure things out on our own.

We weeded the corn the other day and will have to work on the potatoes soon. The storm that hit last night made a lot of our corn lean.

Tonight we went out on the porch and were surprised at how many fire flies we saw. WOW. I knew we had them but just didn't realize how many. Don's comment was "who needs Christmas lights". They were in the trees and it was the coolest thing. Then Zach saw a bat fly by. The kids chased it to see if they could see where it went. No luck. I think we will have to try catching the fire flies. Don told me he used to do that as a kid but I am not sure how to go about doing that. They only light up for a second. So how in the world do you see them if they are not lit up? HMMM....we may just have to try this.

If you have any cool ideas on other things to keep the kids busy BESIDES the electronics let me know. We have our chores that we do but we are needing some more things.

Happenings back home

Ok this is a LONG post with picture overload. For those who wanted to see my haircut it is all the way at the end. But you will miss some awesome pictures and memories if you fail to read all of this. :) Ok so every year most of my family attends a 3 on 3 basketball tournament about 1 1/2 hrs. away from home. My kids and I and my dad are usually the ones who stay behind. And what a treat it is. My dad takes us fishing. You have to understand that this is quite chaotic and not an easy thing. But every year my dad is up to the task. He is awesome. We have TONS of fishing pictures. It was so hard to leave any of them out. Here is my dad helping Zach get a fish off his hook. Rachel is in front.

Ok so there is NO order to these but here is Zach's HUGE fish. Check out all that in there. So COOL.

Caleb is getting ready to clean his fish. In our family if you catch it you have to clean it and eat it.

YEP...Ethan caught a fish so he is helping Grandpa pull the guts out. My dad is SO patient. The look on Ethans face doesn't look too pleasant. You know what I think happened here? I think my dad wanted to fish and I think he is pretending to get the pole ready for a kid. But I do not see any kids nearby. HMMMM this is a little bit fishy.
Ethan with his awesome catch of the day.

And here you have the fisherman....minus Rachel. She is in the process of catching one with Grandpa. This was SO COOL. Rachel was the bravest one. She would take the fish off some of the hooks. After Rachel took a fish off blood squirted on her arm. She was so proud of that. A true fisherman. Her dad is gonna love this pic.

Here is Grandpa helping Rachel.

I just loved this picture and I was wondering what Hailey was thinking. She probably wanted to catch some more fish.

Here is our bucket of fish. Now home to clean and eat them. By the way.....they were not very good. But we had to really get into them and talk them up so the kids would eat them.

OK this is the funniest thing that happened on this fishing trip. Zach caught a huge fish. But when he got it out of the water it was so heavy that it was flipping around in the dirt. The line broke so I picked it up and tried washing it off in this little irrigation ditch. Well the fish got away. But there was NO way we could leave it behind. It was BIG. So Grandpa told Zach to get in there and move up the ditch where it was really shallow. Zach did not want to do this. He was scared. Finally he did it. He got in and moved his hands to get the fish to move to the shallow end. Every time he would touch the fish he would jump and his hands would come out of the water. It was pretty funny to watch.

Here is his big fish.
Had to measure this one. It was 17 inches.

Every year we get the privilage of spending one or two times with Don's side of the family. The kids LOVE being with them. They always take us out to eat and then to the park. We really wear them out. I really think it is good for them because I am pretty sure they probably have the best nights sleep after they get done with us. Here is Ethan getting eaten up by a HippoH

Here is Zach on the rings.
Caleb is climbing on the equipment. It was almost impossible to get his picture. He kept hiding and running off. But I was good and finally got one.



I LOVE this picture. Notice....everyone notice that all my kids are looking and most have a nice smile. WOW. This is a perfect picture to put in a frame. LOVE IT.

The summer was spent with so many different things. We had slippin sliding.

There was basketball playing.
There was LOTS of visiting.

There was racing.

There was helping Grandpa change the sprinklers.

There were pranks. He didn't even know that someone put that there until OFCOURSE he got kicked.

Riding bikes. Lots of swinging.

Caleb spent a lot of time with his little cousin. Here they are getting ready to get into the kiddie pool.
Some trampoline jumpin....it just isn't as fun unless you have a sprinkler underneath.

Here we have some dancing going on. This was part of someones talent.

Some of the spectators. My kids sure miss their cousins.
Here is one of my favorite talents. My mom also does not like being in front of people. I know she was very nervous. She memorized the Gettysburg address and gave some great remarks afterward. Good job mom. You did fabulous. And you say you can't remember things.

OK this is funny. Many years ago my dad would make the grandkids sit and watch a Paul Harvey 15 minute video called "Our Lives, Our Fortune, Our Sacred Honor." It is a great video and it almost made me cry. The only reason it was funny was because the grandkids hated it and thought is was SO boring. Well now those girls are graduated from HS and they don't think it is fair that the new, better and younger grandkids don't have to watch it so Grandpa brought it out this year and had the kids watch it. I do have to say that they didn't complain ONCE about it though so they really are better.....right dad?

This year was our second year for the 4th of July to do a talent show. The kids just LOVE it and even many adults participated this year. We had between 40-50 people there. Now that was a big audience. And when I sang my knees wobbled. I was scared. This is Mayah. She sang "Our Primary Colors".

Here is Zach. He walked and balanced on that barrel back and forth on the basketball court without falling. He did awesome.

Here is Rachel. She sang "I Love to See the Temple" and did awesome.

Ethan sang "I am a Child of God. It was so cute.

And here is Caleb. I was a bit worried that he would get scared and not want to perform. He doesn't like to be in front of people at all. I was SO proud of him when he jumped up and went to the keyboard and played Battle Hymn of the Republic. Such a perfect song for the occasion. Good job Caleb. You did amazing. Your bravery impressed me the most.

We wanted to take a family picture of my parents and brothers and sisters. But my older brother got up early that morning and went home. I don't even think he knew we were taking pictures because he would have stayed. I wonder if we could phots shop him in there next to me. What a great looking family we are. And here we have the cousins. They are so funny. It wasn't very easy getting all of them to look. I thought it was hard with just my five. This is only a portion of the cousins. I think my parents have 23 grandkids. And there are only 10 there. Atleast we have the cute ones in this photo. :)

Another attempt. Not bad. Man those are some good looking kids. Wouldn't you say? Here are the three muskateers. Or the three stooges!!!!! Great buddies.

Here are the boys working very hard to build a tree house. Zach gathers the wood. Here is Caleb with the finished product. This did not last long. He brought it out on the dolly and the poor thing fell to pieces.

They look tired. They spent a lot of time nailing this together.

Three years ago on July 12th my sister had a sweet baby girl that passed away right after birth. A tradition is sending balloons up to heaven to her. Thankgoodness for this sweet little girl in the picture. That is the new addition to that family. She has a purple balloon that she is sending to her sister. Here you can see the boys in the background sending off their balloons. The boy in the white t-shirt is the big brother. The father stands to the left of the trampoline. Such an awesome family. They have shown amazing strength through this hard time.

There goes all the balloons. Happy 3rd. B-day miss Allison. We love you and miss you and will soon see you again.

Donating hair to Locks of Love. I do not have any before pictures. This was a spur of the moment thing. Rachel and I were going to do this together but her hair was ready before mine. I had gone into town the day before I left and I fought whether or not to do it. My stomach actually hurt while I was contemplating...not because I like my hair long or anything. It was because I do not like this type of change. I don't like any attention brought to me and I know this is something that would do that. This is my second time doing this. The first picture is after straightening my hair and the second is curly...just wash and go. Love that. Also notice the color in the first picture. That is the color Don painted the master bathroom. I absolutely LOVE it.

Which do you like better?