For Laura

While I feel totally over my blog lately, I promised my friend who just moved to Italy that I'd post more often. True to my word, as always;) Hey! Why are you laughing?





Anyway. My camera is broken. So I'm just going to have to make due with the closest thing to real life that I can find on the internet to update y'all on what's been going on in my life lately.





We went to Idaho.


For 17 days.


We drove.


I survived.


Besides the 60 hours round trip, it was seriously our best visit to Idaho yet. We did a lot of outdoor stuff (whitewater rafting, tubing, high dives at the hot springs etc.) so here's a pretty accurate pic of me in my swimsuit.


I mean, this lady's hair is clearly longer than mine but other than that I think it's a dead ringer, don't you? Wait. Why are you laughing again? Anyway, the best part of the trip was that we got to spend lots of quality time with Jared's family and that's my most favorite part.


Then we returned to home and I began the much-loved task of getting my kids ready for school. I tried hard, as I always do, to get deals and steals on everything but Faith (going into 7th) was born with an opinion, Ethan (going into 6th) just grew one and Harris (going into 3rd) is starting to think about having one. You know you're old when all the jeans look the same to you and you tell your kids that you are sure the Wal-mart ones look just like those expensive ones at the mall and their friends will never be able to tell the difference. Yeah, they pretty much looked at me like this through most of our shopping excursions.



5 pairs of skinny jeans and one Justin Beiber haircut later...we are ready.





In other news, I won the award for Best Costume at our church 80's dance. I actually found acid washed jeans! The competition was pretty much trash after that (no offense, guys) but once I found a banana clip for my hair, and used spray adhesive (I ain't even playin') to tease up my bangs, it was ovah!! If you want to see pictures of that, plus Jared in a mullet wig and earring, you'll just have to stay tuned til' I can retrieve them from his phone.





I've also had a lot of garage sale luck lately and scored a gorgeous leather club chair for my office (remember the one I talked about as being my current remodel project about 100 years ago?) Jared would say the chair looks like this:





And I would say it looks like this:





He adores my junk collecting habit.


Well, school starts Monday. We enjoyed back to back orientations for the middle schoolers, and a "meet the teacher" session for Harry B. All in all, I think the kids got good teachers and schedules. I, on the other hand, got a crappy schedule. Turns out, if Faith makes the volleyball team (and I hope she does...I promise) I get to drop kids off at school at 7 a.m., 8 a.m, AND 9 a.m. CAN'T WAIT! (Here's me, "can't-waiting")

When logging on to my computer the other day I was unable to access my blog or email until I had an access code texted to my phone, entered it in, and changed my password. When I got into my email I saw that a huge, long list of emails had been prevented from being sent (emails I never tried to send) by my security software. It was just the reminder I needed that not everyone on the world wide web is just there to check their email and blog and be on their merry way. So I really need to satisfy that nagging feeling that I'd only be protecting myself and family from any possible funny business by going private with my blog. Sorry for the added pain of what that entails. One more step may be all that is needed to keep you from tuning into my riveting, sporadic rantings about mental illness and whatnot. Drop me a line if you'd still like to read and I'll happily send you an invite. Thanks to the masses for understanding. (That masses part was a joke)

okay so i've become such a blog slacker. so lazy i'm not even capitalizing. so much has been going on and my ocd self feels the need to put it all in here...like when you journal every part of your day and then quit journaling after a week cuz it's so exhausting? anyway, i know i don't have to put everything in here but i may one day print this journal for a family keepsake since i happen to be a really bad journal keeper and picture taker so i kinda wanna put the important happenings in.

soccer ended. harris got a trophy that he was proud of. so did charlotte and claire. school ended. field day, which i attend every year to help harris, was one of our best yet. he's really getting so he can do so much more physically. they are so good to him at that school and i am so grateful. there were awards ceremonies to cap off the year and ethan won the principal's award! harris won this last year and it's a pretty big deal because in each class the teacher chooses just one boy and one girl to be recognized. i was most proud when they said the reason (these vary) was for always being kind to others. those manners and Christlike attributes are what make me most proud as a mom...way more than academics or sports stuff. summer has been pretty busy as it is every year. harris and i went to cub scout day camp which is usually a nightmare because its all outside and requires lots of physical strength and endurance (sports, bb shooting and archery) and again, harris struggles with all of that and usually cries for about a week straight leading up to camp. just like field day he totally surprised me this year! he worked hard, could do a lot more, and actually enjoyed himself! a huge part of that was that for the first time his cousin luke, who might as well have hung the moon, was in attendance. now faith is at girls camp for the first time. this makes her feel ecstatic and just makes me feel old. while she's gone i'm tending some friends' kids so they can go and so my boys feel like they are having one big awesome vacation! junk food, video games, staying up late, you get the idea. they are loving life, and i hope faith is too, up at the camp bovay.
okay. what else! we are due to leave for idaho in two weeks. i am dreading, in a way you cannot understand, the 24 hour drive, yes i said DRIVE that it will take to get there! i will post about that later. however, it will be fun to spend time with j's family, plus i'll get to see my sis mary and bro dave and his wife em who are all attending or teaching at byui. we will also get to see our niece ashley get married in the idaho falls temple which is the same one we were sealed in so that should be special. also upcoming is me using the 8 cans of satin black spray paint i just purchased on my dining room table and harris may start getting music therapy (he loves music!) phew! i think i covered it all. oh. and my hair is brown. i dyed it with a 5 dollar box of just for men i found under j's sink. i was fed up with roots and unable to find a good hairdresser (mine moved) i've since found one and gotten a few highlights so it's a little lighter but still has a ways to go. i'll post some pics of all this stuff i'm saying but it'll just be what i've got which will be sad and sorry as usual. the ones of ethan getting his award were taken on my mom's phone and i have yet to get them. oh well. hope all of you are well. i'll also be posting later about faith's band called splattered paint..it will require its own post which you'll understand soon enough

Good Times

Today I went with Harris' class on a field trip to the Museum of Natural Science. And yes, those ridiculous shots are the best pictures I got from the entire day (don't get me started on his little friend who insisted I take a picture of EVERY SINGLE GEM in the Gem Vault!) Harris loved all of the exhibits, especially the dinosaur fossils. As part of the field trip, we went to see an Imax (super 3-D) movie called Whales and Dolphins. Harris was terrified the entire time and intermittently cried and covered his eyes with MY hand on which he had a death grip for the entire hour. As soon as it ended and the lights went on he sighed loudly and said, "Oh man! That was SO good!" What a punk.






Tonight we also watched Faith's volleyball game. Her team didn't win but she was playing really aggressively and I was so proud of how hard she worked. Her last game is Saturday and then she will start practicing and working toward making the school team next year in 7th grade. Go Faith!