June 1st – Scouting for ideas for a hike for girls camp. Started on TR 055 off of Alpine Summit Trail Head, Nice trail for kids, must remember to come back in fall to see golden aspens.
June 2nd – Went looking for a hike for girls camp. Started from Timpanookee campground, went on the great western trail and looped back on the Timpanookee Road, Found Julie Andrew’s Meadow and Julie Andrew’s herself. Was just shy of a 5 mile hike. I’m so grateful for Colin helping me out on the hikes.
June 3rd – Took pictures of Annie in “the red dress”. See post HERE.
June 4th – Celebrated Annie’s true birthday with Colin’s family with root beer floats. Met the best dog in the world – Aspen. (That’s not Jackson in the picture by the way)
June 6th
June 7th – After a huge cleaning and organizing ordeal, the kids reclaim the space under the stairs for a play space/toy storage.
June 8th – Drove up to Idaho Falls, picked up Grammy Goose and went to West Yellowstone. Went to the Grizzly and Wolf Discover Center and got very close to Wolves. Grammy Goose then sat in a dark quiet hotel room with sleeping kids while Colin and I could have a date in the rain in West Yellowstone. The Grammy goose and I had a magical date looking for wild life at dusk in the mist.
June 9th – Went through Yellowstone with Grammy Goose. Got lucky with the weather that it was just somewhat cold and windy. Went to Midway Geyser basin and old faithful basin. Jackson had a hard time waiting for old faithful to go off, but was impressed when it finally did go off. Completed the lower loop and headed home. The best animals were the baby buffalo and baby elk.
June 12th – Went for bike ride with Bethany and Celeste on the Provo River trail.
June 14th
June 15th – Fathers day “choose your own adventure” date. We ended up having a picnic up the canyon.
June 20th – Strawberry days! Wearing red for the children’s parade.
June 21st
June 22nd – Saratoga Springs Fire – The day the entire state seemed to catch on fire.
June 23rd – Tibble fork loop hike
June 24th – Checking out our campsite for girls camp
June 25th – Highland splash park
June 26th – “I feel like a woman!”
June 28th
June 29th – I went for an amazing backpacking trip with the young women in my Stake. We only had two girls (of the six who were interested) from our ward who went. There were more leaders than young women. The hike was easy (only 2 miles). The hot pools were pretty cool… We could have fires because of the fire ban, but we saw lots of smoke from the fires that were within 50 miles of where we were. I had fun and nothing traumatic or bad happened so I would call it a big success!
June 30th – The girls running back to my vehicle after hiking out of the canyon. My feelings exactly. I’m still recuperating. I’m not very good at sleeping on thin pads.
My life has been consumed by girls camp preparations. You know when your pregnant, it feels like the only thing you talk about is your pregnancy and eventually people get sick of hearing about it. Well, I’m pregnant with girls camp. I’m sure Colin is sick of it by now. At least we know when my due date is and I will not be going over. I am still learning how to balance my calling with everything else in my life, but I have enjoyed the experience immensely. I have not had the opportunity to use my creativity, organizational skills, and people skills since college. (Being a mommy is a different set of skills.) For the first few months, I felt horribly rusty at it. Even talking to people felt awkward. Now, I’ve been out of my mommy cave enough times that it is coming naturally again. I have worried so much about leaving my kids to go do things for girls camp. Well, I did it for the first time for this backpacking trip, and guess what, the kids were fine. They were better than fine. They did GREAT without me! I better explain so Colin doesn’t think this is a commentary about how I think he does as a parent. This isn’t about him, it’s about me. It’s about me being able to let go of control. It was amazing to leave and do something so fun as backpacking. I feel so alive!
Annie’s personality is coming out, and I might say she is quite “the princess”. And not in the benevolent, bless all those around her way. I can’t believe it, but I am seeing terrible two behaviors out of her already. She’s got opinions and wants and if you get in your way, she doesn’t hide her displeasure. I got an earful and hit in the face by her (not an accident) because I took my cell phone away from her. On the positive side, she is 100% weaned for a few weeks now. She goes to sleep easily for Colin. She’s sleeping better too – probably only one waking per night. (As I type, the neighbor is setting off LOUD fireworks so I’m ready to jump up and help her fall back asleep if need be.) Some new words – “choo choo” and “no no no” I've heard her make the Ma ma ma sound more, but still hasn’t used it correctly in calling me. When she wants something, she using a hand gesture and open and closes her hand over and over. Still crawling more than walking—but she’s slowly getting closer. I gave her, her first hair cut today. I took off about a third of an inch off the bottom of her hair, just so her hair length can start evening out. She had been looking like she had a mullet.
Jackson is a smarty pants. Today he wanted to know what smarty pants meant when I called him that. He is excited about learning to read and wants to know what words say a lot. He’s learned how to say his big numbers by learning how to read time. He’s sort of obsessed with “what time is it?” He’s gotten good at reading time off digital clocks. The other night, when it was the predetermined time to go to bed came around, his suggestion was to “change the clock” so he didn’t have to go to bed yet. I’m embarrassed to say, but he’s gotten good at playing xbox lego indiana jones and our kinnect games disneyland and some others. He regularly gets too much exercise from the kinnect games and I have to tell him to take a break when he is red faced and drenched in sweat. He LOVES the disneyland game. From the lego indiana jones game, he’s come to love indiana jones. He’s really into ropes right now, and wants to play with real rope, or ribbons and pretend to tie things up. He’d really like to swing on a rope like indiana jones. His night time prayer sounds like this (every night) “Heavenly Father, Thank you for this day, please help me be brave, help me be safe, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” Jackson wakes up more often at night than Annie. The kids are back in their own rooms because it didn’t work out together.
Colin is going to be registering to take his professional engineer exam soon. The exam will be this fall. He’s biked to work (part of the way) a few times this summer. It scares me to death, but it is an impressive feat.
My house is trashed. I’m still exhausted. The kids need some extra TLC. I’ve still got mountains of things left to do before girls camp. I missed going visiting teaching last month completely – I know because I found the June ensign still in its plastic. Colin is in desperate need of a real break. And yet, life is really good right now. I’m so very happy and satisfied with life. I guess feeling organized and on top of everything is overrated.
No comments:
Post a Comment