Camping

We love to go camping, it's the one activity we do faithfully every summer at least once or twice per month. Memorial Day is our first camping trip of the year and this year was a great success. I little cool, but we didn't get rained on, a first for every camping trip during the previous 3 years. We discovered a little campground just outside of Kanosh (near Fillmore) a couple of years ago and it has become one of our favorites. It's not a fancy campground, but it's close to a river, 4 wheeling trails a plenty, water and potties. My parents, Grandma and Grandpa Gary came with us and we had a great time. Going on 4 wheeler rides, playing cards and eating way to much good food are the general pastimes of all good camping trips.

This was also the first camping trip with our new dog Sadie. For the most part she was pretty good, but the first 4 wheeler ride we went on we tied her up and took off. According to the neighbors she howled the entire time (1 1/2 hours). So after that we had to devise a better way to care for the dog. I thought back to when by kids were little and how I kept them on the 4 wheelers with us, and remembered I would take a long sleeve button down shirt, but it around them and tie it behind by back to make a sling to help hold them on. So we tried that with the dog. Bless her heart if she didn't just sit there and let me tie her in and she sat on my lap while Mitchell drove her on her first ride. For the rest of the weekend she sat with one of the kids while I drove and some of those rides were a couple of hours long and kind of bumpy. She would sit between the driver and the passenger and peek her head around the driver to feel the wind in her face. I never could tell if she really liked it, but it was better than being left alone at camp. I'll have to devise a better way, a harness or duffel bag or something, but at least I know she won't panic and try to jump off the four wheeler.

Wild hair

I've never been one to fight too much about my kids hair. I try subtle little hints, "Is your hair in your face, would you like to go get it trimed?". Mitchell is just getting to the age where he is aware of his hairstyle, he combs it, puts styling gunk in it and wants it to look like Percy Jackson. Last spring we tried to bleach it blond and it turned out more orange than blond, poor kid. I thought that would cure the desire for bleached blond hair, but alas, this spring he wanted to bleach it again. So to the store we went and after an evening of converting the kitchen to a hair salon, I now have a very blond son again. Not as orange this year.

New Camera

I finally gave up on trying to find my camera and bought a new one. It's a Kodak, like my other one which makes the software easy because I don't have to learn another one. I was having fun updating the software and looking through old pictures and I had a ton of pictures that I had totally forgotten about. I uploaded them to my digital picture frame and WOW, talk about walk down memory lane. It was fun.

I finally got pictures of our new dog, Sadie. She's adjusting to life with a new family and life as an inside dog. She is usually pretty good, but she had an accident in the house yesterday while we were gone. We were gone longer than we thought we would be and didn't get home in time to let her out. Otherwise, she's a pretty good dog, and the kids love her to pieces, and that's the main reason we got her anyway.

Family Day Out=Girls day and Boys day

Boyd decided he wanted to go to the motorcycle freestyle show in Salt Lake today, and Mitch really wanted to go too. So us girls thought we should have a day out too. JoLyn wanted to go to the living planet aquarium, so we all drove up, we dropped the boys off at the TRAX station and rode the train into downtown, and the girls took of to see ocean life. Well the aquarium is really cool the first time you go (last summer), but it's not as interesting the second time, so we only spent an hour, then went to the big mall that's just down the street and spent 3 hours looking at everything from the china patterns in Dillards, pretty foofoo dresses at Deb's, wild nail polish at clair's, ice cream by the carousel and finishing off the afternoon with a round of glow in the dark mini golf. Yep you heard me, glow in the dark mini golf. It was actually really fun. JoLyn and I had a fabulous day together. It's days like this that remind me that we need some one on one time with our children and all together as a family out of the house doing something fun. We've been cooped up in the house way too much this winter. Still stressing about my camera, maybe I'll just go buy a new one.

Lost Camera

I've been waiting to post a new blog until I can get pictures of our new dog Sadie. But I've lost my camera. I haven't seen it since Christmas, which makes me think it might be down south at family's house somewhere. This may also be a good excuse for a new camera, haha. Now that I am done with school for the time being, I have a little more time to keep the blog updated. Our Christmas as really nice. For the first time since the kids were little we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at home. We usually travel down south to be with family, but this was my year to work Christmas so we made a big Christmas feast and spent Christmas together as a family which was really nice. JoLyn got a new dog for Christmas, she is a 4 year old beagle and she is adjusting to life with her new family. The kids absolutely love her, she is so patient with them, she lets them hug her and love her without getting angry. I've never heard her growl and she only barks if she really needs to go outside and when people leave her all alone. Boyd and I are doing well. I've started teaching first semester nursing students at Utah Valley University's nursing program which has been a good introduction to education. I teach with two other instructors, so I'm not alone, and I just follow the outline and syllabus they have already created. It's interesting to watch the thought processes of nursing students. They expect specific answers to any situation, except part of nursing is that every patient is different and what works with one doesn't work with another. Nurses have to learn to critically think and problem solve and that is difficult to teach. It's been fun though. Makes me really glad that I'm not starting nursing school. Hopefully I'll find my camera and get some new pictures posted soon.

Mother Daughter Date

Last week JoLyn and I decided to have a mother/daughter day. Boyd was in St. George and Mitchell was at camp, so it was just the girls at home. JoLyn got to choose the destinations and she decided on the Hoogle Zoo and the Living Planet Aquarium. We went to the zoo in the morning, just after it opened and spent the morning hours there. It was a cool, cloudy day which I've decided is the best time to visit the zoo. I've never seen so many active animals so close up before. The bird show was great!

In the afternoon we went to the aquarium and JoLyn's favorite display was the sting ray pool. They swim around and let you pet them which is way cool! JoLyn sat with her arm in the water petting sting rays for a FULL HOUR!!!! Oh, well, it was her day to do what she wanted.

Later we went to dinner and rented "Marley and Me". We had a great day just the girls.

Hello, my name is Albert Einstein.....

Sometimes schools get really creative when they teach kids about history. Mitch & Jo's school recently held a "wax museum", done by the 5th grade. Each student was assigned a historical figure, they had to research that person, write a report and make a poster about that individual. Then they dressed up as that person, and had a huge wax museum. They set up in the gymnasium, all dressed up in front of their posters with a "button" that people pushed. The student then stood and gave 30 seconds of information in the first person about their historical figure. Mitchell was Albert Einstein. All decked out with a lab coat kindly "donated" for a couple of days from the hospital, with hair standing on end and sprayed white, Mitchell looked the part. I was really impressed with the students and all the different historical people they got to be for the day. Here's Mitchell with his friend Logen who lives next door. I learned a lot about historical figures and was really proud of those kids, it was really scary to stand up in front of strangers over and over again. The whole museum took about an hour to go through and there were tons of people there.