July Swam through.

After I got over my terrible cold I picked up somewhere in our Ohio trip, I finally signed the kids up for swimming lessons.  Elizabeth and Olivia went to a pool at someone’s house and had semi-private lessons with a girl we know so they could have their lessons tailored for them and figure out the things that are hard.

Here’s Elizabeth with Siena trying to finally conquer the back float.

Abby liked this teacher’s helper in her Minnow class at the city pool.

Olivia likes the diving board, even though she just jumps in instead of actually diving.  She picks this over the slide.

Vincent’s class of ten kids was almost always on the steps between turns to try out new things.  Half the time he was under the water on the steps holding his breath.

On the second Friday the class could jump off the diving board, but Vincent didn’t want to, so he just swam around wearing the life jacket instead.  He almost passed everything off for his second level class.

Abby’s teachers asked her if she’d rather play in the baby pool or jump off the diving board too.  Guess what she chose?  Toys instead of something she’s scared of.  Shocking.  However, she totally passed off all of the things she needs to know for the youngest class.

This week I signed all of my kids up for semi-private lessons with Siena.  Elizabeth and Olivia go first.  This is them swimming across the deep end of the pool conquering another fear of theirs.  They are doing so much better with individual attention.

Vincent is swimming now.  He’s super confident and is learning so fast.  Siena’s there to catch him when he gets worried though.  He is a little fish.

I took this picture Monday, the first day of the semi-private lessons for Abby and Vincent.  Siena even had a friend there who does lessons too and they both taught my kids.  Totally worth the extra money to have personalized lessons.  Abby was almost swimming today!

In other news, I finished this jean quilt for one of my friends.  She started it a year ago and got frustrated with it and sent it in the mail to me.  She was coming through to see me and I wanted to finish it so I could give it to her then.  There are three different sizes of jean squares and they are in the shape of an R.  I made the R stand out a little more with red yarn.  It is HUGE.  And done. =)

My mom came to play with the kids when I had to work a night while Andy was on a campout.  The next morning she took these pictures of the kids.

Vincent was reading to Abby.  (He can read now and is awesome at sounding words out!)

Elizabeth and Olivia were working on their little cross-stitches.

I had a haircut and had my friend cut off four inches and she waxed my eyebrows too.  I felt good this day before work so I took a few pictures with my camera.  Andy made fun of me for taking “selfies”, but I felt good and wanted a picture anyway.

Elizabeth planned an activity day and made kits with princess finger puppets.  Looks like the girls liked making them!  She planned the whole thing herself.

A few weeks ago the kids wanted to have a lemonade stand.  They each made a few bucks and want to do it again this Friday.

The library had a science fest that was insanely full of people.  One of the ladies who works there told me 700 people signed up!

Vincent in the cutout as a scientist.

Scientist Abby.

Abby with the balancing teeter totter.

Making boats out of tin foil with our friend Rory.

This van is definitely not pretty, but it’s still going after more than four years and its purchase on Craigslist.  Andy’s been working on it lately to fix a few leaks.  Better than a car payment (and we finally finished paying off our nice car so now we can make some headway on other bills!  Yea!!!)

I found some great finds at my favorite thrift store for some of Elizabeth’s back to school clothes.  Those jeans were $1.50 and the shirt was $2.

 

Aunt Torrie gave Elizabeth three bags of clothes to wear over the next few years too, so she’s nearly set for school.  We just need to buy her a new pair of tennis shoes and she’ll be ready.  I found nine things for Elizabeth at that thrift store, two for Vincent, two for Olivia, two for me, and three pairs of shoes and it was just $35.

Elizabeth and Olivia wanted to go watch the new Maleficent movie and because I used Elizabeth’s birthday movie tickets a few years ago, she’s been hounding us.  The movie was pretty good. I liked it and so did my girls.

Please note: These things were not all packed into one week.  This is most of the month.  There were plenty of days were we wore pajamas until we had to change.

Playing games, Swimming, & a Musical

I was chosen to host another FREE House Party.  This time it was for Hasbro and they sent me three games to try out.  The weekend to have the party was the weekend of the Fourth of July though and no one was able to attend so we had our own little party with just our family and then I headed out to work.

We played Catch Phrase Decades which was fun, except we don’t know a lot of the current celebrities or how to describe them.  Andy had the clue Taylor Swift and said “sewing very fast” and Elizabeth was able to figure it out.  It was fun.

Vincent liked the Bop It Beats game, but was frustrated when he missed an instruction and he lost.  I liked this game a lot.  It was a favorite for Elizabeth.

Olivia enjoyed the Simon Swipe game.  It lit up and then you do the same pattern as the lights had done.  I liked this one too.

And a group shot that’s required for House Party.  They sent me all of the games and batteries and some Quaker granola bars to try out for free and some coupons to pass out. If you want some coupons, let me know soon.

We met some friends at the park to play when I saw on facebook that they were in town.  We went to a wading pool in the park after eating a picnic lunch and playing on the toys.  Elizabeth was helping Abby swim.

Abby could stand up in the pool and it only came up to her waist or lower.  It was nice for a hot, hot summer day!  And then it ended abruptly when another mom was picking up some cardboard and leaves out of the pool and then found POOP!  Everybody out!  Disgusting.  It was NOT my kids by the way.

My friend Rayleen and I went to middle and high school together as well as church and so many other things.  We were even in the same ward when our first kids were born before her family moved away so her husband could go to dental school.  We always try to see each other when they’re in town.

We planned on meeting another classmate at the park the first day, but she didn’t check her facebook after our initial conversations and we didn’t have her phone number.  We finally heard from her that afternoon after we got home and planned another park day in our hometown.  We went out there and had another picnic and played in the Snake River. Vincent fell down as we walked across a basketball court on the way to the river and skinned his knee so I had to run over to the van and pull out the first aid kit to help him out.  That’s why he’s so hesitant in this picture.

Randomly Elizabeth ran into a set of twins who are in her class at school who were at the park with their grandma, so they played a little.

Olivia put a life jacket on Abby and walked out a little ways until Abby wanted to come back to the shore.  I love having helpers.

We finally had had enough of the heat and were almost ready to go home, but the kids stopped to play for a bit on the fun playset again.

We visited some more.  It was a fun day to see my friends.  I used to check books out from Sheena, especially “The Baby-sitter’s Club” books because she had almost every one of them.  She even made me a library card.  We used to walk home together and talk about the differences in our religions (Mormon and Baptist) and really enjoyed each other.  She brought her three very blond boys to play.

Abby (the Superpower) wanted her picture taken after Elizabeth took our picture.  I called her that because lately whenever someone asks her name, that’s what she says.  I guess she wants to be addressed as Abby the Superpower.  She is so full of energy (and her hair is growing back!  Time for another trim).

Elizabeth was taking pictures of the dolls after Olivia fixed their hair to show off the dresses she has been making this year (see their blog here and feel free to leave them a comment or two to encourage them!).  Then Vincent wanted to sit in front of the backdrop Elizabeth made with a couch cushion and blanket. I think his headshot turned out pretty nice.

We played more games Friday night while Andy was camping with the scouts with our game night friends and had free slurpees from 7-11.

I got a phone call from Kohl’s Thursday asking if I’d like to be cross-trained to do customer service as well because they recognized how organized I am and that I can get tasks finished efficiently.  The manager who called told me that they don’t normally move people up unless they are really impressed. I guess I’ll start training for that soon. I have already been covering some breaks for customer service so I already know how to do many things back there, but I’ll learn more.  I usually learn something new every time I work back there, so I’m excited.  Andy asked if that little promotion comes with a raise.  We’ll see.  I’m not all that worried about that part of it…

The same manager told me Monday night that she was excited to see my name on the schedule when she was closing because I do a good job and work really hard.  I told her I do my best and just want to try and get it all cleaned up and folded and really done, but hardly ever can get it all done.  She told me than that I get about the closest of anyone to getting it done and told me that I’m well thought of at Kohl’s.  Man, that made me feel good!

I worked again Wednesday night and the lady in charge of the Kid’s section worked before me and told me she was hiding from me because she’d been working on projects all day and hadn’t done many of the go-backs (stuff that needs to be returned to where it goes from customer service) and she was embarrassed to leave me with a mess.  She had been rearranging where clothes go and doing signs and all kinds of things like that all day.  I’d rather clean up than do those things anyway.  She told me that when she came in Tuesday morning after I worked Monday night that it looked beautiful (It wasn’t perfect, but like I said, I do my best!)  I’m seriously loving this praise because I DO work really hard!

Kohl’s kept calling me to work this weekend even though I wasn’t on the schedule, but I’d already made plans, so I had to say no, but that’s they way it goes.  I’ll see plenty of Kohl’s next week, I’m sure.

I had a few friends performing in “The Sound of Music” and invited Andy’s mom and my mom to go with me, Elizabeth, and Olivia.  It was fun to watch.  One of my friends was a nun in the play (actually I went to school with her sons in Burbank) and wanted her granddaughter to come and watch, but she didn’t have anyone to sit by, so she called me on Saturday afternoon to see if she could sit by us.  She got along great with my girls and my friend even put out a blanket for us to save our seat right in the middle in the front row!

The play was well done.  It was outside at a new venue and was extra nice after the sun set.  The only downside was that the grass we were on was wet and made our pants wet which is no fun.

Another friend was playing her violin in the orchestra while her daughter was acting onstage.  (She’s the one in the sunglasses with the cute blond ponytail.)

They actually double-cast the play with a set of brunette children and a set of blond kids.  My violinist’s daughter is the second from the left playing Marta.

Here they are singing “Do-Ri-Me” with Maria.

All lined up to sing the “So Long, Farewell” song.

My friend is the nun in the middle of this picture.

The three girls watching after intermission (and eating some chips).  I spent intermission waving our jean quilt around to dry it off and then folded it up four times the long way to sit on it by the rocks to rest our backs. The best part about the second act for me had to be when Maria and Captain Von Trapp kissed and my friend’s granddaughter wasn’t expecting it and said “Uhg!” way too loud.  All the people around us laughed really loud.  I guess she hasn’t seen the movie.  I warned her that they may kiss again…

The moon was beautiful to watch come up.  It looked more orange in person.

It was such a nice evening out with our moms (even though Andy’s mom had a chair and had to sit in a different section. Next time we’ll all bring chairs!).  I’m glad we watched the movie in the last six months so they understood it a little.  They were still surprised when I told them about the Nazis and World War II and that this story happened for real. (They did not use the word Nazi in this kid-friendly play.)

And next week we are moving on to busier days with scheduled swimming lessons.  I’ve really been enjoying these past few weeks without anything much on our calendar and plenty of time to read, play outside (or inside when it was hot), and nap a lot, but it’s time to do swimming lessons again.

Independence Day

We started our Fourth of July with one of my favorite church events of the year-our Ward 4th of July Breakfast.  I love breakfasts (not the early time so much, but the food is awesome!)

After eating, Olivia helped Abby walk across this ledge by the grass.  She kept a pretty good hold on her and no one fell.

The Primary President arranged some kid fun.  They played Duck, Duck, Goose and then she changed it to Drip, Drip, Drop with water drips and dropping the rest of the water on someone’s head.  They liked it a lot.

The High Priest Group Leader arranged for a first annual Gummers versus Juniors flag football game.  I bet he thought of that this year because that Elder in red played for BYU.  The Primary President had water balloons and told the kids to go attack the men playing football.  It was hilarious.

After that fun, but before our kids got too wet, we went up to Andy’s parent’s place in the mountains to play for the day.  Sara was up there with her kids and we enjoyed our day.  Kids had a good time on the four-wheelers.

George took Vincent on a little ride of his own.

Andy’s cousin Jared was there with his dad and taught Olivia how to shoot a bow and arrow.

Two trees were cut down here and they became a great stage.  Vincent went and stood on one and then Ezra wanted to get up, so Vincent helped him and then moved back to the bigger one.

We had quite a performance of mostly Frozen songs.  Cuties.

Two fun guys.  Not fungus.

Mostly I just like to go there and relax and enjoy it all.

We came home and had dinner and game night before popping some popcorn and going out to our front yard to watch some fireworks from around our neighborhood.  We’d rather enjoy other people’s money being wasted than waste ours.

Then I took Elizabeth with me to go grocery shopping so I didn’t have to go alone.  It was fun.

Ohio to Washington

Sunday we had yummy blueberry pancakes at Sunny’s before going with her to church.  The kids had a good time in primary while we went to Sunday School and other classes. We packed up before church and were ready to head out after lunch at Uncle Richard’s house.

We ended up leaving a little before 3pm, but we didn’t have far to go and we don’t swim on Sundays in hotels, so we just got to Michigan City, Indiana and went out for pizza for dinner.  I must have been really tired or something because the lady brought us waters to drink and the kids had lids on their cups.  While I tried to take Abby’s cup away because she was misbehaving with it, I knocked my whole tall cup over toward Andy and Vincent.  The lady had to bring towels over.  I’m sure she was glad I only had water, but it was not very nice that I was the one making the mess.  Then Vincent’s straw poked a hole in his cup (I’m sure he helped) and it started spilling out under the table at the girls who thought he was peeing or something.  We got another towel from the nice lady and ordered our pizzas.  Everyone had a potty break while we waited and before Andy and Vincent came back, the lady brought me a new water and I promptly spilled it again, but this time it was toward the outside of the table.  She must have thought I was drunk or something.  It was a mess.  We couldn’t stop laughing about it all.  The pizzas came and they were delicious.  Elizabeth asked the lady if I could have water with a lid.  I refused to get a new water just in case I’d embarrass myself even more and spill that too!

Monday we drove to Fargo, North Dakota marking the 12th state on our trip (and eight new states for me!)  Nothing really memorable happened other than that I finished reading all but one of my books I brought with me and traffic+construction made our trip much longer this day than we planned.

We stayed in the nicest hotel that had two rooms in the suite.  The bigger girls stayed out in the front room on the hide-a-bed after we went swimming for about 15 minutes because the pool closed at 10:30 and we pulled in that day at 10pm.  We’d been looking forward to this hotel pool even more than the other pools because this one had a really fun slide.  I went down once with Abby after Andy came in (he had to put the hotel cart away and park the car).  It was fun.  Vincent and Andy both went down as well, but the bigger girls were scared.

Because it was a short swim, Andy decided to take the bigger girls back in the morning before we left to swim for an hour.  They both tried the slide then and liked it a lot.

Tuesday morning we stopped in Ransom County in North Dakota.  Andy’s seen Ransom County on maps his whole life and has always wanted to go there.  Now we have.  Abby’s in this picture too.  This place is named after some guy named Ransom who’s not in our family tree.

I woke up with a terrible sore throat and just took this picture from the window.  I spent most of the day sleeping in the car as much as possible.  Andy picked up a bottle of lemon juice for me to drink to calm my sore throat down.

We headed over to Fort Ransom after the courthouse.  This viking was up on a hill that the sign called a pyramid.

Close up of the viking.  Andy has almost no Scandinavia in his family tree, but NaDell has plenty, so our kids are part Viking.

We walked across the gravel road to the other sign for a picture.  A nice lady was driving her mom around and stopped to take our picture so I could be in it and then told us that we should stay for the day in Ransom County because they do so many things in the evening.  We didn’t have time for that.  We had to get moving.

Andy says: This relief depicting building the Interstate Highway system was carved into the bricks on a rest stop building in North Dakota.  I declared that if North Dakota has money to blow putting art on a rest area, it better be clean, and it was just about the cleanest rest area I’ve ever visited.

We stayed in Billings Tuesday night and went to visit Andy’s cousin and his family who live there.  It was good to see them and we saw the Billings Temple from the hill too.

We skipped the hotel pool this night because we were exhausted and I still felt lousy.  We got to the hotel room and I just curled up in the covers and let the girls get Vincent and Abby ready for bed and made Andy take over after he parked the car.  We all slept at least nine hours.  I guess it was needed.

After the hotel breakfast I had Olivia braid my hair.  Here’s how she did before it all fell out from my head on the seat and I had to make it a bun.

Wednesday we were super excited to get back to our own house.  I still had a sore throat and a cough and that’s never fun.  Kids were starting to get a little cranky too, but they did pretty good and better than expected overall.

We stopped and visited Andy’s sister in Cheney (just two hours from home!) on our way through and bought some pizza to share with them for dinner.  It was a great way to eat dinner and visit in one final stop.

It’s so nice to be home and sleep in our own beds.  I am still a little sick, even a week later, but it’s not as bad as it was.  Just an annoying tickle in my throat now that mostly bugs me when I’m laying down to go to sleep.

PS.  We owe the kids a lot of quarters!

Ohio-Squaw Rock and Auction

It was rainy overnight so we met at Uncle Richard’s for them to figure out where to hike instead of the rock hike we were going to do.  They decided against having kids climb all over wet rocks.

We went to this park instead and the kids played and we had a picnic lunch.

Vincent liked the Swiss cheese in his sandwich.  He’s so cheesy.

The older kids played more games.  I think for this one they all had to make a different sign with their arms or something like that.

Abby and Vincent went with me on a mini hike with some of the other restless kids before the real hike.

We drove to a different part of this huge park for the hike.  When we started Abby decided to hike without using her knees.  Grandpa Paul prodded her along while Grandma Ellen giggled when Abby noticed it and laughed.

The kids who were behind me for a little while.  Abby latched onto one of the bigger girls and I didn’t have much to do after that.

The girls went down to the Squaw Rock.  It’s on the edge of a river and they were sad we wouldn’t let them get all wet like most of their cousins were because I didn’t want their shoes wrecked because they need to wear them the rest of the summer.  I’m a mean mom like that… Squaw Rock is a carving with so many different things in it. If you’re interested, you can look it up.

Abby figured out a way to keep her feet from getting tired.

I hiked back with Andy’s parents.

While we waited for the whole group to get together again, I pulled some snacks out of the car to share.  I overheard Grandma Ellen say she wanted a candy bar and I had granola bars, so I gave her one of those.  I had several bags of licorice and gingersnaps and some bagels to share as well.  (I had a lot of roadtrip snacks.)

Olivia practiced her braiding with the licorice.

And she’s still practicing braiding her hair.  She does this all on her own.  She watched a YouTube video a few months ago and has been doing this ever since.

Front of the braid.

After the hike we went on our own to some falls.

Vincent and Olivia by the falls.

Abby posing like she always does for me.  She’s smiling.  I’m happy.

We headed back to Sunny’s house to help with dinner and to rest.  Sunny’s husband made some of the best chicken ever.  I helped make a pasta salad with pepperoni, cheese, and bell peppers with Italian dressing.

While we ate a little fawn came out to the neighbor’s garden.

We had a family meeting to talk about the reunion in two years and it’s going to be in Idaho near Yellowstone at a home Andy’s aunt has there with her family.  It’s going to be so much fun!

We planned to have a family picture as well so I handed my camera off to a friend of the family and she practiced a little.  She took this one of Abby.

Here’s most of the family who was there.  Right after this was taken another family came and we took another picture, but by then the sun moved into faces, so I like this one much better.

We had a family auction to raise money for the next reunions and to replenish the funds from this reunion.  These are some of the things at the adult table.

And the kid table is a lot of fun (more came after I took the picture)! We did the kid table differently this year because there were so many items and so many kids.  The kids each drew a number (1-20) and then when their number was called, they went up and picked something from the table.  When we got to 20, we went back down.  I think our kids ended up with about four things each.

Grandma Ellen shared a story with everyone, but especially the kids about how to make a difference in someone else’s life.

This night was a lot of fun.  Everyone really liked the auction and bid higher than I expected on a lot of things.  My jean quilt went for $65 I believe.
Then I cleaned up the kitchen while Sunny went to bed because I like to clean kitchens and I’m a night owl and she was exhausted and she’s a morning person.  Andy took tables and chairs back to the church with the guys too.

We enjoyed seeing lightning bugs in the evenings.  We hadn’t ever seen those before (When Andy was on his mission he did see them in Iowa, but that was quite a long time ago.)

Ohio-Amish Country and Kayaking

On Friday the day was open to do whatever we felt like doing in the Cleveland area.  Some ideas were to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or the Football Hall of Fame.  Both of those are very expensive and not really for kids (and football really doesn’t interest anyone in my family).  We asked about Amish country and several others were interested in that as well. There are Amish communities close to where we were, so they met up at Uncle Richard’s house and went there.  We had to buy a set of new tires because although we hoped we could squeeze out the miles on the way home (2,000) and then buy them at home, it was time because they were bare and one had a bulge.  Andy made an appointment for early Friday morning and we joined up with everyone in Amish country.  We wandered around some antique malls and things like that and then ate lunch at Mary Yoder’s Amish restaurant.  They had a chicken buffet bar that Andy and Olivia, Vincent, and Abby all ate.  I had a chicken salad sandwich and Elizabeth had a burger.

Abby was “displeased” when her macaroni and cheese didn’t cover all of the white part of her plate, so she pushed it around until it did and then she ate every single noodle.  We had fun visiting with Andy’s aunt, uncle, and cousin from Las Vegas during the meal.

A beautiful Amish quilt and a few cute kids.  My mom loves quilts.

Abby used some of her souvenir money to buy this vintage red rattle for her bunny at an antique store.

As we drove to the next place, Andy spotted this cannon, in a town called Middlefield, and drove around the block to have a picture.

It was so cool to see the horses and buggies.  I like to read Amish books, so I really did like this part!

We went to an Amish cheese company and then to a general store, in a town called Mesopotamia, for ice cream.

Our family in front of the large wooden horse and buggy.

The kids and I wanted a picture in the photo buggy.

The store had SO much stuff.  I found a fun magnet for a dollar to go with our fridge collection.  Abby and Olivia played checkers for a little bit.

We headed over to Andy’s cousin’s house for shish-ka-bobs for dinner and the kids played on his lake with the kayaks.   A few of the cousins came back from girl’s camp and scout camp this day and they all joined right in and made friends.

Olivia used the single rider kayak.  She was really good in the canoe last summer, so I knew she could handle it.  There was tons of these lilypads though and she got a little stuck.

She didn’t get frustrated at all.  She just worked her way out. It took several minutes, but she was patient (and she avoided them a little better after that).  While she was out it started to rain a little.

This tire swing was a lot of fun.

One cousin took Vincent out on the lake.  Big cousins are so nice.

Elizabeth took a ride on the tire swing too.

The woods had poison ivy in areas, so I think Olivia got some because she was pretty itchy, but mostly everyone just had a really fun time.

June Goal Update

January here. February here. March here. April here. May here.

1. COUPLE-Two $10 Dollar Date Nights a month with Andy.

Andy and I went out the night before our roadtrip and we were going to just go have buy-one-get-one blizzards for my birthday, but then we decided we were hungry and ate at Wendy’s too.  We also bought some jeans for Andy and a pair of Sunday shoes for Abby at Sears and found a cute shirt for me at Kohl’s for $1.75 (with a father’s day $5 gift card and my discounts and even the $1.75 was used from a gift card a friend gave me!)
I guess we may not be doing the $10 dates all that well, but we are going out and that’s important too.

2. SELF-IMPROVEMENT- Read 100 books.  Check out my list at Goodreads.  I finished 51 books this year already!  I’m ahead of schedule!
(Complete list and mini reviews at the bottom of this post.)

3. SELF-EDUCATION- Learn to use Sander Tool I asked for and got from Santa in 2012…. I did it!  I opened the package.  I read the directions.  I put the tool together in the correct way.  I sanded a board for PTA that needed it.  It wasn’t big because this is more of a decorative trim sander (which I didn’t really know until I opened it…) I believe that Santa brought me this one because you can add attachements to it, like a larger sander.  I’ll have to find out more about that.

4. FAMILY- Read scriptures four times a week (several nights are busy with mutual and other activities).
We haven’t been formally reading scriptures together.  We’ve updated this plan with memorizing the Articles of Faith.  We are taking on one a week and saying them before our family prayers and in order.  Our FHE has a place to discuss each of the Articles of Faith more in depth and really learn what they mean.   This has been working really well.

Books read in June 2014:
Week One-
Book 43 for the year. Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry–
Wow. This book may not connect (yet) with the series, but it is a beautiful (and kind of haunting) story. I need to keep thinking about this book.

Book 44 for the year. Champion by Marie Lu (Legend #3)-
This book was a terrific ending to the trilogy (because apparently the best books leave you hanging after the first two and need another to complete it…) It was suspenseful, fun, a little romantic, and sad too. Pretty much everything that makes a book great.
Warning: There is a little bit of minor swearing (no F words though!)

Week Two-
Book 45 for the year. The Princess and the Hound by Mette Ivie Harrison-
Once I got into the book it was easier to follow. Interesting book.  It tells the story from the prince’s viewpoint mostly, but there are kind of strange twists.

Week Three-Roadtrip to Ohio
Book 46 for the year. Entwined by Heather Dixon–
I started this one last October and ran out of time to read it before returning it to the library.  I finished it on our roadtrip.  I can’t remember if this book was written before or after the Barbie “12 Dancing Princesses”, but it’s very similar, but way more creepy!

Book 47 for the year. A Vow for Always–
Great ending to the six part series. I don’t like to give away endings, so I’m not spoiling it, but it’s worth it.

Book 48 for the year. If I Stay by Gayle Forman–
This book was recommended by a friend of mine and apparently it’s being made into a movie. I always like to read the book first, so I read it.  I didn’t enjoy this book very much. It had bad language scattered throughout and the plot dragged along for me.  We’ll see if the movie improves the book.

Week Four-Roadtrip Home from Ohio
Book 49 for the year. The Quilter’s Apprentice (Elm Creek Quilts #1) by Jennifer Chiaverini–
Borrowed this book from my quilter mother. I liked the whole book!  It’s been sitting on my to read shelf for so long.  I’m glad I took the time to read it.

Book 50 for the year. Round Robin (Elm Creek Quilts #2) by Jennifer Chiavernini–
Really great second book in the series. It went right along with the first book and the lives of the people in the story.

Book 51 for the year. The Cross-Country Quilters (Elm Creek Quilts #3) by Jennifer Chiavernini–
This third book in the series didn’t flow with the first two as easily, but it was still fun to read after I figured out all of the new characters.  There are three more books in the series and I’ve already asked to borrow them from my mom.

I am all caught up on my magazine reading too!  I completed my reading of the May Ensign with the General Conference talks as well as the Friend and Ensign from June on the roadtrip.  I also read Family Fun and Family Circle magazines.  When I got home from the trip, the July Ensign had arrived and I’m already most of the way through that and just have Better Homes and Gardens to read to truly catch up.  The conference talks were all so great.  I loved reading a few and then thinking about them as I looked at our beautiful country on the roadtrip as I fell asleep.

Ohio-Kirtland and Rookery

We started off the first morning of the reunion with a delicious pancake breakfast at Uncle Richard’s house.

Abby and her cousin playing.  These girls were peas in a pod.

Elizabeth, Olivia, Vincent, and cousins.

Abby eating breakfast with cousins.

Kirtland Temple for a tour from one of Andy’s uncle’s friends from the church that runs this tour.  It didn’t give chills like LDS tours do so easily, but it was interesting and while we were inside, Andy’s aunt asked if she could play the piano and then we all sang “The Spirit of God”.  That was cool!

Grandpa Paul and Grandma Ellen.

In front of Kirtland Temple after our tour.

After this we took a break for ice cream cones at McDonald’s and then met up at the LDS owned site.

Vincent with an ant.

Abby with flower petals from Kirtland Visitor Center flowerbed.  They were already on the ground.  She just picked them up.

Newel K Whitney store

Abby and Sunny taking a break at Kirtland Visitor Center so the rest of us could listen to the sister missionaries.

Olivia and Vincent at ashery

Uncle Richard showing Vincent what they did at ashery

We drove out to the Rookery for a barbeque.

The cousins attacked this poor dinosaur even though this playground said it was for kids under five.

Abby with watermelon

Abby and Andy’s cousin’s wife ‘clinking’ their ‘glasses’ together.  Adorable.

We found a turtle along the hiking path.

Nature hike

Snails found during nature hike

Cousin red-rover.  I love that they played this game.  They kept trying to tell us how it works.  We already knew…

Olivia made a cousin pal.

We stopped by Andy’s uncle’s house that his cousin bought and fixed up on our way back to go to sleep.  It was fun to see where they all grew up.