July update

I have been so bad at updating recently! We have loved summertime... we spend a ton of time at the pool (it is soooo nice having 2 pools in walking distance) and the kids have the best butt tans to prove it! We have been working every morning doing a summer school type routine with the boys, and it has been really enlightening to see exactly where their strengths and weaknesses lie. It has been a great experience, and confirmed my belief that I could NEVER home school my kids (not like it has EVER been a serious consideration for me...) In mid July, we took the boys to Ithaca, New York and spent a week camping at one of the state parks there. We had such a great time seeing uncle kelly, visiting extended family during a reunion, and cooking over campfires! Halfway through our trip our tent flooded (it had an inch of water in it!) and we ended up at kellys very bachelor townhouse for the night. Def. an experience we wont soon forget, but the rest of the trip was sunny and dry. The boys LOVED cooking over fires, making s'mores and lemon chicken. We will def. try to do another camping trip soon...



The highlight of our trip to New York was the day we spent in Palmyra, NY. We toured the printing press where the first Book of Mormon was published, and since we had yet to buy T his own set of scriptures, we got them at the bookstore next to the original printing press... he thought it was so cool, and I enjoyed the sentiment as well. We also went to the Smiths Farm, and the Sacred Grove, and topped the evening off watching the hill Cumorah pageant. The boys thought it was so magical, Nephi building the boat amazed them, and they seemed to get a lot out of seeing their favorite scripture stories come to life. Van fell asleep at King Noah, and M fell asleep when Christ came to the Americas. the older 2 boys stayed awake for the whole thing, and loved every minute of it! It was Johns first time to Palymra as well, and it is def. a vacation worth taking.... We will go back soon. The Spirit is so strong, and it feels like you walk through time touring the area.... T was highly offended at the protesters who lined the streets with their bull horns to protest the pageant. He took a long time to calm down (Dad, why are they calling us stupid??) but enjoyed the evening other then that.

Before we left for New York, we went blueberry picking! I had gone a few days earlier and picked a few pounds only to bring them home and have the kids DEVOUR them, so the day before we left, we went and picked again, and came home with 10 pounds. We took 5 to NY with us, and the rest are almost gone.... Unbelievable. We had a great time. Van ate all of his. He would pick them into his bucket, then eat them all out and start again. The older boys would find us "magic bushes" where the berries were excellent and eat all the big ones before they would start picking.

The picture is out of order, but T just finished his first season of swim team! He had a great year, and started off pretty slow. (he wont dive off the blocks bc he almost hit his head on the bottom of the pool the first meet) but by the end of the season he was consistently scoring for his team! Championship was this past sat and he got DQ'd in breaststroke, but would have taken 6th overall, he took 7th overall in free, and 5th overall in back! I am so proud of how hard he worked, and am amazed at the change to his body as a result of so much pool time. They grow up so fast!!!

And.... since I am already working backwards... Happy 4th of July! We spent all morning at the pool enjoying a rainy (hard...) bbq with tons of games. the rain broke mid afternoon and we headed to the park for my orchestra group to play a concert. Right before we were supposed to play, it started pouring again so we hung around under the tent and Van and a cute friend of his Graham had a throwdown to keep us all entertained. Finally the rain ended and we could play our show. T had a great time playing with sparklers as it got dark and we lost LOST van for several minutes in a crowd of hundreds. it was horrifying, to say the least. Luckily he wandered back to the blanket while we were looking for him and we found him unharmed... The boys had fun making their t-shirts for the day, and even now when van wears his he calls it his July fourth shirt and wants to go back and watch the fireworks...



FInally, recent news:

i went to the doc today (john and I went as a date, then out to lunch!! THANKS CAROL!) and have finally packed on the pounds! 4.5 to be exact, to put my preg. weight gain to 9 pounds! I feel so much better knowing I am closer to where I should be. HE scheduled another 4d sonogram for 4 more weeks, so we'll end up getting 2 of those, in addition to the 5 we have already had! I love my doctor! We settled on baby C Grace (i think.... right john??) and he has asked me for 10 more weeks. Hopefully my body will co-operate and we will make it to 37 weeks. She is getting so big, and is already stuck under my ribs. I have no idea what I will do when she is triple this size! I feel like there is nowhere else for her to....