Thanks to my niece, Elle...

...I now know what a seizure in a 2-year-old looks like. Simon and I were at the Murray Pool this morning with my sister, her 4 kids and my other sister's 3 daughters. Elle and Misty were just sitting in the shallow end playing in the water when Misty noticed that Elle wasn't acting like her normal, talkative, playful self. She was just sitting there, staring off, not meeting her mom's eyes, and NOT TALKING which is not like her. After I looked at her, I agreed with Misty who was starting to panic at this point that something was not right and she needed to get her to the ER. An ambulance ended up coming instead and after an evaluation by several paramedics right on the desk where you pay to get into the pool, they took her over to the IMC ER. The doctors there determined it was brought on by fever, which Misty didn't even know she had, and is very common. It was scary though, because if Elle wasn't such a spunky little 2-year-old and had been a more mellow kid, this could have easily gone unnoticed, especially if a mom wasn't paying close attention. We are glad you are okay, Elle Grace!

On our nightly walk...

Simon, my little imitator of everyone and everything, said "Look Mommy! I peeing like Yoshi!"

Things that touch me...

As you know, I have become a recent So You Think You Can Dance follower. This last Wednesday, I realized why I have developed such a liking for this show, or the art form of dance, really. The following piece choreographed by Tyce Diorio about breast cancer was so moving that I was brought to tears. I was a little embarrassed to be sitting alone in my bedroom with tears rolling down my face because of a dance. However, at the end of the piece when I saw the dancer had tears on her face, then each of the judges emotional in their own way, the choreographer trying unsuccessfully to hold his tears in, and then even most members of the audience, I realized that dance can be an incredibly powerful tool to evoke emotions if we let it. I don't know if it is my personal experience dealing with my dad's cancer right now, or just the beauty of the dance itself, but it seriously touched me. Music always brings out the emotions in me, but this was new for me and I wanted to share it with you.

click here...

Happy Birthday, Connor!!

My baby is 15 today. Freakin' FIFTEEN. Quince...Quinze...Fünfzehn...пятнадцать! I can't even believe it. Do I look that old? Apparently from the pictures we took at Bear Lake today, I actually do. But it's alright. I've earned every bit of it. Every stretch mark, extra pound, crows feet, smile line, grey hair and age spot have come from 15 years of love, learning, tears and laughter and I will cherish every one of those years for the rest of my life. I love you, Connor! You are turning into such a cool person. I love and admire so many things about you including your dedication to teaching yourself to play the piano, your enthusiasm for seminary and EFY, how much you love your brother and sister, your sweet hugs, and your willingness to help me when I need it.

To celebrate my Boo Bear's birthday, we had a party at my in-laws last night including BBQ, swimming, fireworks and a firepit. It was a full evening that ended very late but he had a blast. The most exciting part for him was the fact that his uncle Aaron gave him an organ. You read that right. An organ. It's a long story including bidding on storage unit contents who's renters defaulted on their payments, and it still has to somehow find it's way down our stairs into his room in the basement. If it can't make it without making a hole in the wall, he will be out of luck. But if it somehow makes it, I think he will be the first 15-year-old I have ever heard of with an organ in his bedroom. And be thrilled about it. He thinks it will be the grooviest thing ever, and his musically talented friends that sleep over often will probably think it's awesome, too. Instead of their usual piano duels, we will be hearing organ duels coming out of our basement as the rest of the family tries to sleep :) Good times. Thanks, Aaron. No really - thanks.



To extend the celebration a bit, we headed up to Bear Lake on Saturday for a day of relaxation in the water. Well, by the time we got up there after driving the 3 hour LONG scenic way, we had a few hours to play before we had to come back. But they were good hours, and I think everyone had a great time including my mom and the kids' cousin Ayana.

Betrayal.

I have my computer back. Mind you, it is without any of my files, photos, songs, video, email, financial records (OUCH), etc. that it had on it last Friday. What I have is a brand spankin' new whopping 250 gigabyte hard drive which I normally would be excited about. But I now get to wait a couple of weeks and probably spend $1,000 to see if an out of state company can recover any of my information on my hard drive that decided to crash last week. If it weren't for the Think Tank Quick Books files, I would kiss that hard drive and years of history goodbye, as hard as that would be.

I feel like I've been betrayed by a good friend. I trusted my computer! It didn't even give me any warning signs that the crash was coming. Oh my gosh, I feel like I've been dumped. By Apple. That is pathetic! Do you know how many prayers I sent up on its behalf (and the MacDocs guys who were working on it) this weekend hoping to get my old hard drive back intact? I guess this is Heavenly Father telling me not to place too much value on things of this world. Okay, I get it. But I am going to back up to an external hard drive from now on probably like all of you are doing.

Blogging from elsewhere

I'm blogging from my husband's laptop because my computer crashed yesterday which has never happened to me before. Somehow in my Apple-pride I thought my beloved Mac was immune to such PC-ish things as hard drive crashes but apparently not. I won't know until Monday if any of my information is recoverable. I'm trying not to think about what it will mean if I have lost everything, especially my Think Tank bookkeeping files. As soon as it happened, I started to pray for my computer. Seriously. Even though it is a worldly thing, it's not for my vanity that I need that information. It's for our livelihood! I hope H.F. understands how badly I need it.

Other happenings this week...

My sister Erin had her baby late Thursday night!
Baby Kate weighed 6 lbs. 11 oz. and was 17" long. She looked perfectly beautiful thanks in part to good genes and a last minute C-section that spared her of a newborn squished head look. I've gone to see her twice now and am amazed every time I see her that this day is finally here. Erin was the first sibling of mine to have kids and is also now the last out of all of us. Brave lady! Her teenagers are so sweet and tender with their new baby. I don't know how they will ever get anything done after this.

I went to Girls' Camp on Tuesday and Wednesday. Despite being in YW for 4 years now, this is the first year that I actually attended. Camping is not my cup of tea (especially after freezing my buns off during the night) so it was a struggle for me to enjoy it, but I did love getting to know the girls and leaders on a deeper level. I admire those leaders who made it all 4 days! And I'm glad to have avoided the pranks on the leaders which happened after I left. :)

Connor attended a second session of EFY. When I picked him up this morning, all he said was, "It was AMAZING". I'm sure if he was a girl I'd get a lot more out of him, but I was happy with the few details that he gave up.

Ward Un-Campout

We just got back from our ward campout, or for our family, the ward un-campout because we never stay the night. My dreams of becoming a camping family this year have fizzled due to lack of equipment AGAIN. I just need a big tent and a few sleeping bags! I guess I could have spent money on those things instead of hotel rooms in a few weeks when we go see my dad, but I figured that was more important in the long run.

We did stay for dinner, zip-lining and schmookie roasting, though, which only served to whet my camping appetite. Dinner was surprisingly good thanks in part to the cooler full of REAL caffeinated Diet Coke and Dr. Pepper. I know who is responsible for that and she has my undying gratitude! Our ward activity committee did an awesome job with lots of food, fresh fruit, candy, cookies, chips... my idea of a great mountain meal. I know they were short on help but you wouldn't have known.

The zip-line is my kids' favorite part of this ward activity. I think it is a scout-constructed zip-line which adds an element of fear/excitement to it since you never know if it's going to work properly or not. It's usually operated by one of the young men or young women, so that's kind of scary, too. To be fair, though, I've never had a bad experience on it and we even took Simon on it tonight several times without accident.

Going...

Gone...

Hiking back across the gully...



Connor insisted on trying to stand/crouch on the teeny metal platform.


shmookie | shmoŏkē|
noun ( pl. -ies)
a spongy confection made from a soft mixture of sugar, albumen, and gelatin sandwiched inbetween chocolate chip cookies.


Against my better judgement, I allowed Simon to discover the sand volleyball pit. He's never played in a sandbox or anything like it before so he was pretty intrigued. That is until the sand fight that he so innocently started turned on him. What a mess!

So now I'm home sitting in front of my computer still smelling of campfire, a smell I love. I will get to sleep in my soft bed with a clean bathroom right next door. I won't be eaten alive by mosquitos. I will be warm. I guess un-camping is the way to go? I'll just keep telling myself that...

Hill Air Force Base Air Show

A few weeks ago we ventured out to Ogden for Hill's bi-annual air show. It was a pretty high-effort family activity thanks to the unbelievable crowds and stifling heat. Just walking from the car to the tarmac took about 1/2 hour. But Simon got to sit in a black hawk helicopter and see some pretty cool airplane aerobatics so it was worth it. At least that's what I keep telling myself now that I'm not there. At the time, I was thinking other things!

The best seat in the house...
The second best seat in the house, underneath the shadow of a jet...
Could this kid have a military career in his future?

It's a start

No actual results yet, but at least now he's not afraid to sit on it. Besides, is this not the cutest sight in the world?

Long vs. short

It's been 2 1/2 years since Emmy chopped off 10" of her hair and donated it to Locks of Love. Since then, it's grown pretty fast and we were getting close again to the long beautiful tresses that I loved from when she was little. But Emmy got the itch to cut it again, and SHORT. She's been asking me for a while, and although I didn't flat out say no, I didn't encourage her either. When the hair appointment with my cousin came, I let Emmy be the one to tell her what she wanted, which she wasn't sure of even on the car ride there. I secretly hoped she would chicken out and keep it long. Emmy chicken out?? Ha! She has no fear when it comes to changing her hair. But I should trust her fashion sense more often because this is the result...

This is Emmy's cousin Sunny who's hair was the very inspiration for what Emmy wanted...

If anyone needs a great hair stylist, my cousin Linsey has a salon in her home in Draper and does an awesome job.

Park City Adventure sans Dad

Whenever Zach goes out of town, I somehow get up the energy to do something big with the kids, something I usually think that I would need him around to accomplish. Last week when he was in California for a car event, I figured I'd take the kids to Park City for dinner and some Alpine Coaster fun. Simon was still too small to go down the coaster, although he could have done the Alpine Slide which is weird to me because that's the one that you can actually slide off the track on, but go figure... Emmy didn't want to ride alone so she coupled up with Connor. I still can't get over how expensive that 1 ride is, though. $20 per person for 1 time, even if they ride together! Luckily they were happy going down just once so it didn't break the bank.
Simon was blissfully happy just sitting on this tractor quarter machine that didn't even work. He's a cheap date :)

Afterward, Connor needed to take some pictures for his graphic design class the next day for a poster design project. I handed the camera over to him and these are some of the shots he came back with. I love what catches his eye. It is totally different from mine...



I love this guy!!!
Every blue moon, these two are the best of friends and get along so well. When that happens, I make sure to capture it on camera.

I love me a good tear-jerker...

... I really do. Zach keeps away from any movie that he thinks will make me cry. I think it's because he is secretly afraid he's gonna cry, too, but he won't admit it. That was his stance on "My Sister's Keeper". Good thing I have my book club friends who wanted to go see it after our book club BBQ last night. We were discussing the book "My Grandfather's Blessings" which I didn't get very far into because I got SUCKED into this book instead. I had a great time being there anyway and listening to their thoughts on what sounds like a great book. We read "My Sister's Keeper" a while back and it's becoming a tradition to go see movies based on books we've read, like "The Boy in the Striped Pajama's". We had the theater to ourselves, surprisingly. And we all admitted after the movie to crying pretty much non-stop from the very beginning, although none of us knew it because we were all being so sneaky about it! I could have easily sobbed out loud but was able to keep my emotions pretty quiet although my face was a slobbery mess. I didn't finish this book, either, so I wasn't aware until after that the movie ending was completely different than the book.

What I want to ask is this: What movie/tv show/commercial/book has been a tear-jerker for you? Some of mine I came up with on the way home last night were Marley and Me, Extreme Home Makeover, baby shows on Discovery Health, My Dog Skip, and when Denny Dukette died on Grey's Anatomy. But I want to hear yours so please comment!

Celebrating the 4th

DOING FIREWORKS THE NIGHT BEFORE...
Simon was scared of the fireworks at first, but soon became a fan...
Zach has officially passed on the responsibility of lighting the fireworks to Connor who does a great job. GOING TO THE MURRAY PARADE...

Zach couldn't get himself out of bed to go to the parade, but some of his design work was there! We really hope Mike Romero wins the mayoral election this year. We've known him and his wife, Kathy, for about 10 years.

This is for Julia...

Emmy made Good News! Who hooo!