Busy, Busy, Busy

It doesn't seem life ever slows down. It just keeps speeding up and I guess eventually we'll die!

Since returning from our eventful Lake Powell trip, we have not stopped. Our business keeps us crazy, and we are trying to launch a new company. We are really excited about this company's potential.

The weekend of June 13th, was the Father-Son camp out. Chris (with a lot of nudging from me) decided to take Lincoln and Jefferson. We bought a tent nearly ten years ago, and it finally came out of the box. Chris woke the kids up early the next morning to run in a kids "k" up in Morgan. When we got up in Morgan, none of the kids wanted to run. They just wanted to play on the jungle gym at the park. Oh, well.

Reagan had her ballet recital on the 19th. It is so much fun to have a girly girl. Watching her dance at her recital was great. I know she is my daughter, but she is really talented. After talking with her teacher, I convinced her to take for another year and she has agreed. I sometimes get annoyed at driving her to practice, but I see the payoff at the recital.

When we got back from Reagan's recital, we packed our bags to head to St. George to meet my family. We decided to leave at about 2:00 a.m. and arrived sleep deprived at 7:00 am in sunny, hot, St. George. My parents and sister, Natalie, arrived in the afternoon and the kids went swimming. Later that evening, Chris took Reagan, Lincoln, & Jefferson up through the "narrows". Which is just a crack in the mountain. He took me to it five years ago, and I broke down in tears. I have found that I am extremely claustrophobic. The kids and Chris made it through just fine, and I stayed back with Ben. Saturday we took the kids to this wild life musuem in St. George. The musuem represents about 1/2 of a private collection. It is really neat. The kids really loved it and kept asking if they could go back. It went through the continents of the earth and showed the animals that live on each continent. They gave each of the adults a radio that told about each of the places and it also told the stories of how the man hunted the animals. That evening, Chris and I went to see "Les Miserables" at Tuacahn Amphitheater. They did a phenominal job. I absolutely love that play. Most of Sunday and Monday were spent driving around St. George and the surrounding area. We did drive up to Zions and were surprised to see how commercialized it has become. It is like a mini Jackson Hole. We left Tuesday to come home and decided to make a drive through Bryce Canyon. We took the turn off of Cedar City and began the 78 mile drive to Bryce through Dixie National Forest. We pulled over to the side of the road at a look out point. Benjamin had spilled water all over him, so I decided to change him to dry clothes. We reloaded back into the car and continued driving. We found several lava fields and got out and Chris got each of the kids a little lava rock. After about 45 minutes, I had a sinking feeling. When I had changed Ben's clothes, I had taken the laptop out of the back of the car to get into the suitcase and I didn't remember ever putting it back in the car. Chris pulled over and we search frantically for the laptop...nothing. We turned around, not really expecting to find it. We returned to the spot where I had left it and, again, nothing. We headed back on our way to Bryce Canyon. I wish we would have had a little more time to spend there. It is aboslutely beautiful. We want to go back when the kids are a little older and we can hike through and spend more time.

Wednesday it was return to work and life as usual. When we arrived at the office and pulled email, Chris and I were happy to see an email labled "lost computer". A very nice person named Jeff in St. George found our laptop and contacted us to return it....And we lived happily ever after. The End.

Pictures: Lincoln and J at the Father/son campout. Reagan at her ballet recital. The kids at the wild life musuem. The family at Bryce Canyon

The Lake Powell Adventure

I am sure I can not do our adventure justice, but I will make an attempt.

Wow. What can happen when you have 10 adults, 13 children, 4 babies, and a 75 foot houseboat....a lot!

Our much anticipated vacation began on Sunday, June 1st. The Sims, Volks, Moffits, and Hipwells (to be joined later by the Cheneys) began the long drive to Lake Powell. We were hoping to make it to the marina before dark and with enough time to load and board the houseboat. We ran a little late and mostly due to a very long stop at Wal-Mart in Price, did not make it in time. It had been a long day and we ended up staying in a motel above the marina.

The next day the "men" decided to load the houseboat while the mothers stayed behind with the kids. The kids were having a great time playing around the red rocks and chasing lizards. We finally got a call from the guys and we were told that the Moffits' boat was not "plugged", started taking on water and almost sunk! We were so glad that we had not tried to load the night before in the dark. We may have lost a few kids, instead of just some water and food. Luckily, we still had some good karma, and some friendly boaters came to Sam and Jamie's rescue. After a rough start, we were finally able to see our beautiful new boat. It is really nice and we were all excited to get going. We set out to look for the perfect place to park for the week. After a few hours of searching, we found a spot in Iceberg canyon. We set the anchors in(spot 1) and the kids were quite anxious to get off the boat. We wanted them to stay on until we were set, but Tanner got a bloody nose and so we let him stand in the water off the shore. The kids didn't think it was fair that Tanner got off the boat, so I told them if they got a bloody nose, they could get off the boat. Jefferson turned right to me and said "Mom, just punch me in the nose. I am a strong boy." What a character!

On Tuesday, spot 1 felt a little windy and we moved the boat to spot 2 and the Cheneys arrived to join the party. Wednesday rolled around and so did our boat! Right as we were sitting down to dinner, a gust of wind ripped our anchors from their place on the shore. We were being tossed about and boats and waverunners were all about. Chad was trying to save the houseboat from being rammed into the rocks. Jamie jumped into the water to rescue a wave runner. Jodi set out in her boat to track down some tubes that had blown away. It was CHAOS! Finally, all working together, we were able to loosen all the ropes caught in the prop and wrapped around other parts of the boat and drive to our third and final spot.

Reagan was ou outgoing one on the trip. She was always ready to jump on the tube with the bigger kids and have Sam drive crazy.

Lincoln was our more conservative water bug and was drawn the the local wild life...lizards. He became quite the lizard wrangler and caught several that are now sitting in a cooler in my garage. He did catch one lizard that the kids named "Killer" because it had the naughty habit of biting. Typically it didn't hurt, but Lincoln let him crawl up his arm and it ended up biting him on the ear and it actually drew blood. The kids would pick him out of the cooler and hold his mouth shut so he couldn't bite. One of the nights, "Killer" made a run for it and jumped off the top of the houseboat. Chris grabbed a flashlight and went to look for him in the water. Chris found him a few minutes later...lifeless. So, he gave him mouth to mouth and the little guy came back to life.

Jefferson was our comic relief. He loved the water. He screamed as we pushed him down the big slide. We made Chris push him down this year instead of Jaimee.

Chris was the ever present "professor" as he taught the kids about sandstone, lizards, and stars.

As for me, I wished the water and the weather would have been warmer(I am still waiting for global warming). I adopted Boston Cheney as my baby (we left Ben with my sister, Amie) and was ready to see Ben again after eight days away. With all the excitement of this year, I hope next years trip is a little less eventful!!!

Everything I need to know, I learned in Kindergarten

Reagan graduated from Kindergarten last week. Her kindergarten class had a cute program where they reviewed everything they had learned in this year. It is amazing how much she has grown this past year. She has made lots of new friends and has developed a love of reading.

Reagan is excited to move on to first grade because she will be able to eat lunch-and most important-she will be able to play on the big playground.

What are little boys made of.....

Reagan had a birthday party for a girl in her kindergarten class so I headed to Target with the kids to pick out a gift. As usual, I bribed the kids with a small toy from the "dollar spot" if they were good and didn't ask me to buy everything in the store. After picking out a gift for the birthday party, I headed to the section where the kids could pick a toy. The boys headed straight for these ugly plastic snakes and, of course, Reagan picked out some art paper and paints. Jefferson was thrilled with his snake(cobra). He kept telling everyone it was a "zebra"-the most dangerous snake in the world. After shopping and with the weather being warmer, I decided to take the kids to the park to have a picnic and play. There is a little park just down from our house. Right away, the kids personalities emerged. Reagan quickly made friends with some of the other kids playing at the park. Lincoln stayed on the outskirts of the playground-observing everything happening. Ben played on the playground in his own little world. And of course, our flirt, Jefferson, started chasing the little girls with his snake. He got a kick out of them giggling and running from him. Lincoln finally joined in the fun and the kids had a great time.

Lincoln has a fascination with finding bugs. He digs in the dirt and turns over rocks, just to see what kind of bugs he can capture and add to his collection(which MUST remain out of MY house!!!). Yesterday, he found great treasures in the neighbor's garden...snails. He came back with an entire family of snails. He enjoyed lining them up and watching them slither around leaving a gross, green, slime trail. Jefferson also learned that the neighbors a few doors down have a puppy. I have had a hard time keeping him in the yard because he wants to walk down and see if the puppies are ok. I know I will eventually have to break down and get him a puppy. I just dread the thought! Snakes and snails and puppy dogs tails...yep I have boys!

Fun? Run for Kids

All of the kids participated in a "fun run for kids" on the 3rd of May up Provo Canyon. As you can see from the pictures, some participated more willingly than others. Our very competitive Reagan was excited to run. She was in the 5-8 year old category and had to run 1/2 of a mile. Lincoln was in the same category. He was less excited and flopped at the start line, so he was behind. He came in third from last. You could see his energy was low, but as he got closer to the finish line and people started cheering, his speed and spirts were lifted and he flew across the finish line. His sweet finish brought a smile to my face! Jefferson was in the 3-4 year old category and ran 1/4 of a mile. He was SO excited to run. After he was finished, he wanted to run again with the 5-8 year olds. His happy, little spirit was ever present. Ben was first to race. He was in the under 2 category that ran 100 meters. He was the most unwilling participant. He cried the entire time-along with half of the other young runners. He just wanted to run back and forth across the bridge.

The Fun Run (http://www.funrunforkids.org)%20is/ a charity race and 100% of the proceeds from race participants were donated to children in Africa in care of Reach the Children, Inc., a 501 (c) 3 non-profit humanitarian organization http://www.reachthechildren.org/, so it was for a good cause.

Spring Soccer

We signed Reagan and Lincoln up for soccer for the first time this year. They are on a team with Colby Sims and Sydnee Moffit. It has been really fun to see them play. ALL of their games have been COLD (so much for global warming)! Aside from the weather, we did struggle a little with getting Lincoln to participate (see picture above), but with a little bribe of army men and a T-Rex and some help from Coach Chad, he is really starting to enjoy playing. Reagan was in it right from the beginning. Although, Lincoln is quick to point out that he has only had one goal scored on him and Reagan has had two. This is definitely a fun, but busy time in our lives.

Ben turns two

Our little baby turned two today. The time has just flown by. Ben has quite the little personality. You can tell he has two older brothers because he is rough and tumble. He doesn't back away from a fight. He can also be very sweet. His favorite things are his "fuzzy" and his "choo-choos". He was so cute when we brought him his cake with the candles on it. He immediately started trying to blow them out. He picks up things so quickly.