Staying Cool

It has been hot lately. And since our trailer isn't exactly a nice cool place, we needed to go cool off somewhere. Wednesday we went to the city pool because it was free swim day...at $3 a person, it's best to go on those free days :) The boys just finished swimming lessons today, but they still wanted to go back. Besides the cost, my sunburned back still hasn't recovered from the pool. We'd had other plans for the afternoon (they weren't keeping cool plans), but they'd fallen through. So I told them to go to the bathroom, put on tennis shoes that could get wet, swim trunks if they wanted to and I had a surprise for them. Joshua figured it out before we got half way up Main Street because I'd said it involved water, but wasn't swimming. And we drove up Old Etna to Grease Flats and headed down to Etna Creek and had fun wading, splashing and throwing rocks for about an hour. Nathaniel told me it was "The Best Day Ever" (I love that kid...any day we do something fun is "The Best Day Ever"...makes me want to come up with something almost every day to hear him say that)  We will be going back (the kids hope Monday) with Brian so that we can explore upstream and downstream...I told the boys that carrying Grace and trying not to slip wasn't the best with me being the only adult. I could just see myself slipping and falling and Joshua trying to figure out how to get me back to the car :)

Heading down the forest service road to the ford in the creek...they were pretty excited.

I think he'd just been splashed in the face by a falling rock (courtesy of one of his younger siblings). After he slipped, fell and banged his knee on a rock within the first 5 minutes we were there, I realized that I hadn't had him put on his old taped together glasses. Not wanting him to do something to the two week old new glasses, I had him take them off. He could see well enough to get around, but was happy to see details again when he put them back on.

 I took this picture with my cell phone to send to Brian.  We'd gotten treats at the store on our way and Nathaniel was still finishing his.

She wasn't too sure at first about her crazy mom making her walk in cold water on slippery rocks...in fact, she kept asking for Daddy. (I don't think she thought I knew what I was doing). But once she discovered that I'd told her the truth about us going to a place with a lot of rocks, well, then she was happy. She threw lots and lots of rocks into the creek.
The obsession this girl has with rocks - I think she'll be a geologist someday.

Must always have big walking stick. I told him to smile for me, and he had to get posed first. Can't believe how big this kid is...the first time we took him here to wade...he was barely walking...time sure flies.

This was taken almost 9 years ago...July 26, 2003

Not his usual cheesy smile, but almost :) He was thrilled to get to stomp around in the creek, throw rocks and he even had a smaller version of Joshua's walking stick until I got tired of him trying to use it and almost knocking himself or someone else over, so I took it and chucked it downstream. Joshua was going to rescue it...I finally got him convinced to let it go!

As you can see, this tired her out pretty good (sadly this was about 4 pm she finally went to sleep around 10 tonight). I looked at the blog post I did in 2010 when we took the kids there the last time (why we don't go up there more often to cool off, I don't know. It's five minutes from the house and as Joshua said, "It's better than the pool 'cause it doesn't cost us a penny!")

Here is a flashback to August 2010...the kids sure have grown and changed...and in some ways, haven't changed a bit.

http://leehappenings.blogspot.com/2010/08/this-and-that.html

Nathaniel's Kindergarten Graduation

Our kindergarten graduate...when I heard they were going to do graduation from kindergarten, I was really curious. I'd been surprised last year when they had a graduation from preschool, so I guess I should have expected one from kinder.
They had a very cute little ceremony - at the beginning of the school year each child had been asked to bring in a binder. All year long they'd put special pieces of art work in these binders. And they'd made scrapbook pages with pictures from different events (one of these days I need to scan some of those pictures for my own scrapbooking!). The kids had not seen the final binders, so they were dying to get their binders and see what all was in them.
The teacher said a little something about each of the kids as she called them up to get their diploma and binder.
Nathaniel was the 2nd or 3rd kid called up, which was nice, because by the time kid #24 or whatever was called up, Grace was beyond sitting still so I could really pay attention. I videoed Nathaniel's presentation with the camera,but for some reason I can't get it to upload to the blog.
Nathaniel enjoyed kindergarten, but he was so ready for summer vacation!!

With Mrs. Veryla (the class aide...she was the class aide to the other 6th grade class way back in the good ol' days when I was in 6th grade!)

With his teacher, Mrs. Lang...one of the first few days of school, Nathaniel asked me if Mrs. Lang had been my teacher (valid question since his classroom was the same one I'd had for kindergarten)...I told him no, in fact, she hadn't even been born when I started kindergarten...

Fourth of July

While my favorite July holiday is actually July 6th, we did have a fun July 4th. Brian set up the slip n' slide in the front yard and the kids had fun. Grace took a little while to warm up to the whole getting in the water thing, but she (with some help from mommy) finally got in and had fun with the boys. I finally figured out how to keep ponytails in her hair - I put three in and by the time she took 2 out, she'd kind of forgotten about the 3rd one :) We'd also (courtesy of pinterest for the idea, though I added our own creativity to them) made soem 4th of July decorations the day before. In the afternoon, we went to my parents for BBQ and cake (early birthday) and homemade chocolate chip ice cream (that Brian made). In the evening we went out to a friend's from church where the kids played with more friends from church (trampoline, marshmallow guns, basketball...) until it got dark and then we watched the teenage boys do a firework show and got home sometime before 11. Below are the pictures of the decorations, the water fun and a little prank.

SPLASH!

Posing for Daddy to take a picture.

smiling at grandma & grandpa when they walked over from the store

The triple pony tail...quite patriotic :)

Our festive holiday decorations (I painted the wooden flag several years ago when we lived in Winters)

Brian & Joshua like to have fun with water...and dumping it on each other when they're not expecting it (like a glass of cold water dumped into the shower)

I'm so glad that the camera cooperated and took this picture at just the perfect moment :)

Our flowers...

We finally got around to doing some yard work. Brian got our front "yard" (it's not big) mowed and then one morning, I started weeding the flower bed. It had some tulips and a daffodil blooming when we moved it, then there were a few iris. There have been lupin blooming for the past few weeks. I'd bought some petunias on clearance at the store, and wanted to get them planted before the blankety-blank dogs from around the corner got to them...or the raccoon. The kids all wanted to pick out some flowers too, so we walked across the street to the store and Joshua picked out some marigolds - yellow ones, surprise. Nathaniel whatever he could find that was orange (violas...there were some yellow ones too) and Grace, of course, went with purple (more violas, with some white ones). We all worked hard that morning and were so happy with the end results.

The Portland Temple

I love the zoom on my camera...joshua was disappointed that his didn't zoom quite as much

She was so excited to finally see a temple...this was her first time to visit one.

She informed me that she was "right 'hind Jesus" and she was very excited.
He did say, "Come, follow me" and that's our goal.

I love this one because she sat right at His feet...I need to hang this one in her room.

He took pictures of everything!

Reflecting...

Wanting to be by Jesus too

On our way home from Washington last weekend, we stopped at the Portland Temple. We were excited to see that they now have a visitor's center...brand new, just opened in February & will be dedicated this summer, I think they said. We took some pictures and stretched our legs. Then we fixed PB&J sandwiches in the parking lot (I know we did that at the Provo Temple in2009 when we did our flying trip to Utah...can't remember if we did that when we stopped at the Portland Temple on our way to Washington in 2009 though, maybe we should start a tradition), changed out of sunday clothes and continued on our way south.

Padre Joshua

 Memorial Day afternoon, while I was looking at some patterns I'd pinned on Pinterest for skirts for Grace, I happened to mention to Joshua that I'd found a Jedi Robe pattern on there. I showed it to him and he said, "That would be really good for Wednesday." I asked him what it would be good for on Wednesday, because as far as I knew there were no battles with the Empire and the Dark Side or the Sith or the Clones or whoever scheduled for that day. Then he reminded me that they were doing their California Mission reports that day and they were supposed to dress up, if possible, like a padre  or a Native if they more closely identified (?) with the Indians (I mean, Native Americans). Well, I'm glad he told me this on Monday afternoon instead of Wednesday morning.  We had to go by my parents anyway that afternoon to pick up something or drop off something - I can't remember now. I mentioned to my mom that we were going to go to our storage unit so I could see if I had enough brown felt to make this robe thing. She just happened to have a big beautiful piece of brown fabric that my grandmother had given her. It was perfect. The pattern was simple and I had it finished by the time he got home from school on Tuesday pretty much. I washed it that night. That's when we discovered my mistake. I always wash my fabric before doing any sewing project. But I was in such a hurry to get this made, that I skipped that step. And after washing it, we found that it was a wool blend...and it shrunk. It still fit, but instead of hitting the ground practically (as a true Jedi or padre) robe should, it was just above his ankles. Oh well, not time to worry because he had to go to school. He was about the best dressed padre there. His teacher told him how lucky he was to have a mom that could do something like that for him at such a short notice. I'm grateful that I've got the basic sewing skills to do something like this...or to do what I did last night...rehem and take in Brian's new scrubs that were too long, too "bell bottomey", and too big and too wide. I narrowed the legs, rehemed them. Took up the shoulders and took in the sides of the shirt. Looked pretty good when he headed to class today. Next sewing project...pink dress with white polka dots for Grace...just have to decide what pattern I want to use :)

Our baseball players...

I have taken pictures at the boys' games...but I haven't gotten around to posting any. And the season is over (yay!!!). Nathaniel enjoyed, for the most part, his first year of t-ball. I enjoyed the fact that it was very low-key and the kids had a lot of fun. He wasn't excited about having to wear a purple t-shirt, hat and socks, however.

This was Joshua's 3rd year in Little League and his second year as an Angel. He was a totally different player than last year and got at least one hit every game. At the beginning of May he even made the tie-breaking run and got cheered by his team and lifted up and just about mauled and he loved every second of it. His coach told him today, when he dropped off his pictures and a medal, that he had the most hits for the last three games and that he was the most improved player on the team. He has made the most growth of any of them. He also made the only run of their final game on Saturday. He truly has become a baseball player this year and it was a pleasure to watch.