July 23, 2017

Girls Camp was great.  I loved being a stake leader.  It was great to hang out with those amazing ladies in the stake and get to hang out with our ward, and to not have quite as much responsibility as being a ward leader.  I was in charge of the survival march and it turned out great.  The girls loved it more than I thought they would.  They learned lots of survival skills like prayer, first aid, water purification, orienteering, knots, signaling. And then they got a slip of paper with a scenario where they needed to use the compass to get a cache of supplies where they had to set up food, water and shelter with the skills they learned.  There were also edible crickets for them to try there.  And they got to throw knives while they waited.

We came home from Girls Camp and had 2 days and then we left for Tahoe.  We took Danny's friend, Blake with us this time.  We had a great time as usual.  We floated the Truckee River, went fishing and swimming at Donner Lake (which Seth absolutely adored), kayaked and jet skied at Sand Harbor, played games, Danny and Blake were human pinatas for the little kids where they had candy glued to their shirts and they had to run away from littles trying to pull the candy off.  Seth and Ruby loved the new zipline in the Smith's backyard.  Danny and Blake played a lot of basketball in the driveway.

Danny and Rachel leave for EFY tomorrow.  I have been praying my heart out that Danny will let the Spirit in and have a good experience.  I sure hope he does.  I'm sure Rachel will do fine.  I'm looking forward to the week with just littles.  It'll be fun to focus on them.

July 9, 2017

Summer vacation is going fast.  We've been so busy.  We went to Utah right after school got out for Grandma Donna's 85th birthday.  We stayed at Trina's house since we weren't going to be there the whole week to share in the rental house with everyone else.  The first day I went to see Nancy Litchfield in Ogden.  She was the nutrition supplement lady.  She knows so much.  I was there for 4 hours.  I left with several supplements that I've been taking for the last month and I think they've been helping (multivitamin, D3, lots of fish oil, and Magnesium).  She also said that she thinks most people have a gluten sensitivity that causes lots of problems for us.  At first I was totally against that idea because it says in the Word of Wisdom that wheat is for man.  But I'm coming around to the idea of at least limiting flours a little.  I wonder if Seth's allergies, exzema and focus problems might be related to gluten.  We're going to try going gluten free for a few weeks when school starts and see how it goes.

Wednesday night we went to the Strawberry Days rodeo.  That was fun with everyone.  Thursday we went to the Provo Temple to do baptisms, to the BYU bookstore and then went to Utah Lake with everyone and bbq'd and went on motor boats with tubes and knee boards. Friday we went up Hobble Creek Canyon most of the day to celebrate Grandma's birthday.

Then we came home from Utah and Danny went to scout camp the next week and Aaron went to spend the week in Visalia.  The girls had their dance recital that weekend and then the kids and I drove to Visalia the next Monday.  We had a good time there seeing movies and swimming at the neighbor's.

Then Bob flew in on Thursday and I picked him up and we drove to Pismo for our anniversary.  Bob got us a cute airbnb to stay at.  We went to Morro Bay and then Pismo.  We spent a lazy day at the beach on friday.  Then Saturday my parents brought all the kids to play at the beach with us.  It was fun to kind of have a climax to the vacation and get to share it with them.  The sad part was that the ocean was so cold, kids didn't get in as much as usual.

This last week has been our only regular week at home this summer.  We had a fun 4th of July with lots of friends coming over to swim and bbq and then stay for fireworks.  I've been getting ready for girls camp and it's been kind of nice to be a little lazy.  This week Rachel and I go to girls camp and Danny will babysit the kids.  Then when we get back, we will turn around and go up to Tahoe for the week.  I'm so excited for that trip.  I love Amanda and her family and she always plans such a great week for us. Then we will hurry home for Danny and Rachel to go to EFY in Cedar City.  After that Danny will go to Texas with his friend Blake for a week and then fly home just in time to get ready for school to start.  It sure makes the summer go fast when we have so much stuff.  But it's all fun.