Camp Wilderness

Our church is going to have a camp out over Labor Day weekend and yours truly is trying to get it organzied. So, on Saturday we headed up with some friends to check it out. On a side note, I have to mention that it was supposed to be a quick trip because everyone was supposed to have other things to get done. Also, I had decked myself and all of my kids in pants/shoes/socks on Friday for the hike with Grandpa that did not happen and so I decided to put everyone in shorts and sandals ... Murphy's Law strikes again!

The camp was awesome. We let the kids run around - Byron was a bit crabby (to put it mildly) and channeled that ire into a quest to make sure that the kids did not get any dirt on them or in the car ... while we were in the mountains. That didn't last long and the kids had a blast. Then Byron heard that the Needles lookout hike was really close to Camp Wilderness and decided to check it out - and our friends thought this would be a great idea too. It is a 2.5 mile hike (one way) up the side of the mountain until you get to a bare pile of rocks which has the lookout perched on top of it - you are supposed to get a phenomenal view of the entire valley from there. It started off pretty fun - great temperature. We were completely unprepared. Little water for all of us and as I mentioned before we were not dressed appropriately for hiking. Still, it was a good trail and we started off. Ben kept wanting to run - right on the edge of precipice (I swear that kid is going to give me heart failure). I tried run along side and keep him away from the edge - he tended to take that as a personal affront and would walk as soon as I started jogging and start running when I started walking - he was having a great time! Josh on the other hand decided after about 100 yards that he wanted to be carried and we ended up coaxing him the rest of the time because he is just too big to be carried. All in all he did pretty good. Ginny had to be carried but perversely wanted to walk and we really wished we had brought the backpack carrier for her ... she is getting solid! Lynn helped carry Ginny a lot. Byron eventually took Ben and went on ahead of us. I ultimately only made up about 2 miles. It got really steep and I realized that we still had to go back and the kids were just about done. Byron made it to the steps only to find that the lookout was actually closed. We really want to try that again ... without the kids.

After that we headed over the upper Peppermint Creek to see the water slides that we had tried to reach on Friday with Grandpa. I stayed in the car with the sleeping kids - and Byron, Bryce, and Tess headed out. I understand that it was too cold to do more than dip their feet, but they found them!

We headed down the mountain and tried to stop at McNally's hamburger stand for lunch - where our friends had already headed, but it was cash only and we didn't have any. So, we ended up at Nelda's diner in Lake Isabella - a milkshake tasted really good by then. The best part of the dinner? Bryce grabbing the largest shaker at the table (which holds sugar) to "salt" his french fries and then spending an amazing amount of time meticulously wiping each fry (and his plate) clean of the offending white stuff. Bryce thinks all restaurants should either use the packets he is used to or color their sugar so that it can't be mistaken. We tried to tell him that salt is usually sprinkled through little holes - rather than just poured through a spout, but he didn't think that was a good enough distinction.

When we got home I wanted to leave again. It has been soooooo hot! We are really praying to get this house now because it has air conditioning. I am going to have an AC fund all year so that I can afford to use it next summer - then maybe we will like being here in the summer. Alternatively, I hear that Camp Wilderness is looking for a caretaker next summer - I could seriously consider staying up there with the kids and having Byron come up for the weekend ... I would love it!

Grandpa's Day ... almost

Ooops with the last post - I was interrupted. I know, that's a first! Here is what it should have said...

Friday (7/25) was supposed to be Grandpa Bob's day with the grandkids. He brought the nieces and nephews out here and we were going to take them all up to Peppermint Creek where the water slides are. We packed a picnic lunch and started out. Unfortunately, Grandpa's car is afraid of heights and would not go all of the way up the mountain. We trespassed on the backside of a campground for our little picnic and nursed the car back down the mountain. We made it as far as Hwy 178 before Grandpa's car just decided it was done. We pulled over and I noticed that we were pretty close to the library and decided to have Byron drop me and ALL of the kids there since it was air conditioned and I was sure I could keep the younger ones out of trouble until the guys figured out what we were going to do. My only excuse is temporary insanity ... maybe sunstroke ... anyway

The library was hosting an animal show of some sort which was great for the older kids and even Josh. Ben and Ginny, however, could have cared less about the neat monkey from Pirates of the Carribean (possibly they recognized a kinsman?). I was a little too intersted myself and had to chase down Ben who was trying to climb into one of the cages ... can we say embarrassing? I finally gave up on the show and took Ben & Ginny to the back of the library to run around which worked much better. When the show was over - the work really began. I sat and read books with the babies (or attempted it) while the animals were taken out then I let them play with the toys and noticed that they were being fairly quiet - the real noise was from the older ones who had decided to play tag around the isles. I was soooo done at that point. Thankfully, Byron and Bob got the car going and came to get us before I could seriously ask the librarian if she had any duct tape handy.

The kids decided they would rather go swimming and so Byron took them all to our friend's pool (Jenny I love you!) and I stayed home and put the babies to bed and enjoyed nearly 2 completely quiet hours. Then they all had pizza and Bob headed back across the dessert. Thankfully his car decided to make it all the way home and there were no more issues. Better luck next year Grandpa! Truthfully, though, I understand that the kids all had a blast and that was the real point in the adventure, right?

Grandpa

Pioneer Day Fun

July 24 used to be my favorite day when I was little - because I got to dress up in a neat "old fashion" dress and often join a parade ... can you tell I spent some significant time in Utah as a child? As the years have passed, my love for costumes has not diminished and I seldom pass up the opportunity to play dress up (I know - you are all so surprised). This year, our little primary put on an activity at our local park. Due to a combination of fatigue/toddler teething issues/and (I am convinced) well-planned strategy on the part of the leaders of the event, I did not find out about the costume option (or the horse and buggy rides) until the night before the event. Did that deter me? Never! I dug out the costume boxes and called the primary presidency (or as many of them as would be attending) and offered my services. (This is my year to babysit the kids too young to go, so I decided to try playing dress up with live dolls instead ... guess what, it's just as fun!). With EXTREME reluctance, both Marcie and Karrie agreed to "play." Don't they look great???
Now Josh on the other hand, was more than excited to have a costume (go figure!) I had to empty that haversack on his back about 40 times before he got to go. This picture just makes me smile ... I love those dimples!

On the home front, I reminded myself why I will never open/run/have anything to do with a day care. I had my Ben & Ginny and took Karrie's Ed and Jessie (who were the calm and quiet part of that equation - believe it or not Karrie). I got every toy I could find and put it out in the living room. I brought snacks out there too (trying to limit the available running space). Actually, it was a lot of fun - I just didn't get anything else done (darn). I mostly made sure that various toddler passes missed the baby. The kids were awesome - they played together so well! With some help from the Backyardigans, I didn't loose a single kid! In fact, I really enjoyed watching them play together. Check out Ed's backstand - no hands!

Over all, it was a great day. I may not have gotten to dress up, but I got to share with friends. Josh had a blast and was crashed out from about 4pm until the next morning, and thanks to Keith & Sherri I even got a little buggy ride of my very own! I love Pioneer Day!

Is it over yet?

Our weekend has just been ... well, let's just say that Byron is really looking forward to leaving for the office tomorrow and I am feeling envious. We have the plague at our home! Actually, Ben and Ginny have some sort of yucky intestine bug. They have had the worst diarrhea (I always have to look the spelling of that word)--think mustard that has been in the fridge so long it has started to separate. Oops, I 'm sorry, was anyone eating? Welcome to my world!

To date, I have had to wash bedding several times, clean most of the carpet several times (I am soooo grateful for my carpet cleaner) and I had to wash all of the cushions on the couch which caused the zippers to come apart but I (with lots of divine intervention) was able to sew them back on and get the cushions put back together.

Our weekend actually started out wonderfully. Byron and I went to the temple with some friends and had a great experience. Of course the guys have complained for the past four months about not getting to choose where we stopped to eat (because ALL they want to eat is In-n-Out). So, in the interest of stopping said whining, we stopped at In-n-Out. As luck would have it (possibly poetic justice?) Tim got horribly sick just a few bites into his. I thought that put a whole new spin on the name of the restaurant - and he offered to throw something at me (which just goes to show you how sick he was because he is normally much kinder than most of you reading this - and wouldn't offer to throw something at me just for general principles) :-)

To end this Sunday on a funny note, I get to bring up Josh again. He is at such a fun age. I had/got to be his teacher today in Primary. Sis. Tucker had sharing time - which she started by sitting down in front of everyone with a small bowl full of chocolate chip cookies. She started talking to the kids and eating the cookies - my little sunbeams were just waiting for theirs because these nice adults ALWAYS share. Suddenly, she declared that she was full and put the rest of the cookies into the garbage (an object lesson). All of my sunbeams were shocked, but Josh just burst into tears. I don't think any of them got past that point in the lesson - Josh sure didn't. They all got cookies after church, but Josh informed me that they were NOT supposed to go into the garbage. So there Sis. Tucker! ;-)

Summer Fun???

Well, as life would have it, our swamp cooler is out of commission ...again. It really is our own fault. Last summer the ducting (which is nothing more than a very large tube made of plastic sheeting) came off from where it is attached in the crawl space/attic. Byron and I climbed up there to wade through the insulation material very early one Saturday morning - the area where the tube needs to be connected is, of course, way to small to make this a convenient job. We discussed getting it professional fixed during the winter ... oops.

In the meantime, I had picked up a very small inflatable pool for the kids but had not yet had the courage/energy to set up. Having no cooler yesterday made that more of a priority. It turned out to be pretty fun! Josh and Tess loved it. Ben was more interested in the squirting trunk of the elephant than anything else. The elephant is supposed to be a slide but since it too is inflatable it is more like jumping on a balloon - so the kids kind of bounce into the pool rather than slide in. Ginny found the water too cold and managed to slip and fall so that she was all wet at once - that ended the fun for her. She spent most of the time running around the back yard. She managed to get onto Ben/Josh's tricycle, which was fine and cute, but when she tried to get off it tipped with her and I didn't reach out fast enough to prevent her from plowing her face into the gravel of the back yard. It didn't break the skin anywhere but she has some lovely bruises across her nose and forehead - poor thing! Bryce spent a very long time blowing up the elephant while I worked on the pool but when it was all done he didn't want anything to do with it because it was too small. It might have had something to do with the Nintendo magazine that his mother sent him in the mail ... hmmmmm.

He's no dummy!

Hello again - I am going to make up for my earlier dry period this summer! We had a too funny moment today: I have a closet in my hallway which I recent changed the door knob to a locking knob. In this closet is anything I don't want the babies to get to (on higher shelves) and Josh & Ben's toys. We have been letting them take out one bin at a time and then having the next bin when the first one is cleaned up. At any rate, in the middle are a couple of bins of Robert's toys and, since it is summer, also all of the toys that Bryce & Tess brought with them that need to stay away from increasingly creative babies (they can get into ANYTHING without a lock). I told Bryce & Tess that if they wanted to keep anything safe, it needed to be locked up high in the closet. This worked well until a week ago when Bryce left the key in the lock instead of putting it back on its nail and the key vanished ...

Now, as you can see, Josh cannot reach the key when it is on the nail - even with a chair (although as tall as he is getting, I am going to have to hang it from the ceiling soon). I digress. This morning, Josh came to me and asked if he could play with some toys - I told him "Sure, when the closet is unlocked." A few minutes later, he and other babies were playing with the toys - the closet was still locked. I asked Bryce and Tess how the babies got the toys (I was doing dishes at the time and not in view of the closet) - they said "with the key." I said great, where is the key? They said, "we don't know." It was just a mystery! At that point, I turned to Josh and asked "Could Mommy please have the key now?" Joshua said, "okay Mommy" and went and got it out of the secret hiding place in his closet where he had been keeping it - just waiting for permission to unlock the door - and being very careful to lock the door behind him and "put away" the key again! :-) I am in sooooooo much trouble .......

Excited about Education

Okay, as most of you reading this are aware, I jumped off the public school system earlier this year and started homeschooling Robert (and the babies such an extent as they are ready). I have been reading reading reading, trying to get organized enough to do some good for Robert. I was introduced to Thomas Jefferson Education by our RS president and have just loved the principles involved. Dr. Oliver DeMille has written several great books on the subject (the first being Thomas Jefferson: A Leadership Education) prior to founding George Withe College in Cedar City, UT (with a new campus being started this year in Monticello, UT). Anyway, I headed out to a "mini-retreat" in Rancho Cucamonga on Tuesday evening (notice it has taken 'till Thursday to post this - I think I am still trying to wake up from the drive back in the wee hours of the morning). I wanted to share a few gems from the speakers ...

Community is incredibly important - without community we have no communication, in fact it may be said that without language with which to communicate, we cannot even form cognitive thoughts. Something to think about??? Also, the study of language (or communication) enhances our ability to think or process information. In other words, the more we know about words the better we can use them, both to share and to receive. You know me, I love words! ;-) Another thought that came to me about community: in Mosiah 29:26, it reads: "Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe amd make it your law--to do your business by the voice of the people." Looking at our world today, I think we have let the lesser part (often the more vocal minority) of our community dictate the direction our community should go and we have our work cut out for us to rectify that.

Freedom was a huge topic. I came away with the thought that you have to know what freedom is in order to strive for it. We have to actual have a "leadership education." That means to think and reason and create rather than to stay within the guidelines of what someone else has decided we should know. For example, reading Einstein's theories directly rather than someone else's "dumbed down" version of them. We need to develop our own minds to our individual potential rather than stopping where someone else has decided we should stop and thinking just what someone else thinks we should. We get enough programming attempts from the news, right?

The Thomas Jefferson Education approach uses some catch phrases. One of them is You Not Them, meaning that you have to have your own education because you cannot pass on what you do not have. This is referring more to the knowledge of HOW to study rather than possessing all of the knowledge in the world before trying to pass it on ... inviting others to join your journey, which should take your entire life to accomplish. In a great quote from one of the speakers, Chris Johnson, "What we are is the biggest impact we have on them." (meaning our children/grandchildren/etc.)

Why am I sharing this? You are all part of my community - even those who are reading this from far away (because you are probably family) and I want to invite you to join my family in getting excited about knowledge. I am going to be working on my BA shortly through George Withe College - using this mentorial system and I am incredibly excited about that. My biggest hurdle for myself and my kids is the fact that we are a trifle distant from any real cohesive community sooooo, if there any out there who are interested in really understanding what it means to be free and really ready to take on the obligations associated with that knowledge (ie community involvement) .... let's get together!

Evolution of Byron's Bug

Still kicking

Hello everyone - sorry I haven't posted anything this entire summer. I have lots of excuses, but I would get carpal tunnel just enumerating them, so I just won't go there. We have been having a decent summer. It is very hot this week (the fire over the ridge is not helping that any) and lately is has been hideously humid. For any of you who might not be aware, a swamp cooler stops being effective at a certain level of humidity - and we just have the swamp cooler. Yuck!
Joshua has started saying prayers all by himself - he always wants to be the one to say family prayers and he keeps thanking the Lord for "swimming in pools and going to the park." When the camera comes out (as below) he yells "Cheese me Mommy!" I LOVE that dimple!!!! I can't help him with the cheese part though - he has plenty (wonder where that came from)

Some notable happenings this summer so far include: I have, with Bryce's help, acquired the entire 10-season collection of Stargate SG-1. This is something that Bryce hooked us on last year and we were able to get most of the episodes through Netflix. We really enjoy watching it - of course who doesn't enjoy watching that McGuyver guy? Bryce and Tess are with us for the summer and are trying to survice this humid/heat wave as well. Bryce has played his clarinet for two years now and (at least before Stargate arrived) has been diligent about practicing every day. I had to run out and get him a music book to keep him from playing from "memory" and now we are just working on counting so that he can play with the cd that comes with the book. Tess is working on her journal - I need to take lessons from her, she writes EVERYTHING down! She is also has been enjoying being a little mother to her youngest brothers and sisters - she's pretty good at it too. I wish I could have gotten pictures of her trying to teach Bryce how to change Ben's pull-up ... it was priceless!

Genevieve is growing ... again! Brandy sent me home with a new box of clothes and it is a good thing because she is completely into 24 mos/2T now. This little dress (which was her cousing Brooke's 8 years ago) was too adorable to miss - and we had to be very carefull to get the hat back without smashing it ... and she only got to wear it once! Here is Byron "patiently" trying to help me document the occasion - isn't that a great look? This was on Father's Day and we all gave him a tie with a picture of all 6 kids printed on it ... the older kids remember that picture day with particular clarity as they had to do literal cartwheels to get the babies to participate. Byron loved the tie, but wished the background was not white - now he wants me to get a him a colored Sunday shirt so that he can wear it more often. Who is the fashion guru in our house???

We have gotten to go swimming a couple of times now - thanks to Jenny who lets us use her pool (she's soooo cool!). I got new suits for the boys that have the floats built in so that they look like little body builders (with scrawny legs). The pool has be a bit of a fiasco still - Josh is petrified of the water and will cling like a barnacle to my neck - usually screaming the whole time. Ben, on the other hand could use a bit more fear. He tries to "walk" away. The problem is that he doesn't use his arms at all and the suit tends to over-balance him on his face ... and I say again - he just won't use his arms AT ALL (he is going to give me a heart attack). Ginny on the other hand, just floats along in her little ring and talk to anything and everything.

Well, I will try to be better about posting, but summer is not turning out to be so easy as far as schedules go. To add to that, we are trying to buy a house in Squirrel Valley. I have never tried to buy a house before and the process is complicated beyond all reason. Things have gone smoother than we deserve however. In fact, Byron and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's in the Lord's hands and if He is willing, this will be our 5th anniversary present.