Dinner at Marjorie's

Russell's sister Marjorie had a pot-luck for everyone who wanted to come. So, we went. (Of course we did! Family and food... how could we turn it up.)

The girls adored the bunnies that Marjorie had. (Well, except for Kristen, who liked looking at them, but didn't really want to hold them.)





They also had chickens, which were fun to chase. But the girls didn't really want to catch them.


And there was family. Lots and lots of family!





Oh, and one blogging friend of Russell's (that I've gotten to know through Facebook). She was fun, and fit right in. (We should just make her an honorary Fox!)

A fun night!

The Bearded Ones

From what we've heard, Abe's been waiting a while to show Russell his beard. I also heard Abe's beard is not going to last much longer...

Pre-Reunion Spokane

There's lots of things to do at Grandpa and Grandma's house while we wait for the reunion to start.

We can play on the teeter totter.

We can climb the swingset. (It's about 13 feet off the ground!)


We can drive the 4 wheelers.

We can bounce on the trampoline.

And we can get very, extremely dirty.

In short, we can have LOTS of fun.

What 10-year-olds Do At Sleepovers

She was very proud of it, said it was just like Adam Berthelson's. They had a whole setup in there with pillows and blankets, but it got mostly cleaned up.

They also take pictures of themselves.

I liked this one.

Kristen Got a Haircut

It's about time, too!

The Art of Sleep Deprivation

So. Russell was away at girls camp all week -- he went down Monday with the stake leaders to set up, and (aside from a quick trip home on Wednesday; more on that later) we didn't see him all week. Megan was off to girls camp on Wednesday. And the three of us dabbled in the art of sleep deprivation this week. (The rest of the family got adequate sleep. Mostly.)

Monday bedtime: 10:30 p.m. Getting people off, shopping for camp for Megan (shoes) and some tennies for Caitlyn (very posh high top Converse knock-offs with pictures of high tops on them). Alison and Kristen played at the Chavezes. We took people to piano group lessons. Caitlyn's dying because she's sick with a cold. (Ask her: she'll tell you that she's slowly dying!). I stayed up late watching Notting Hill. Still a great movie.

Tuesday bedtime: midnight. Megan packed. Some more shopping was done. Kids played at the Kitchen's house, where Caitlyn and Rachel made a pillow on the sewing machine. (Good to have crafty friends.) Went to the Y with Alison and Kristen (because Megan was packing and Caitlyn's still slowly dying). Kristen fell asleep at 4 p.m. I chose not to fight the battle to wake her up. Elder Parente (*waves*) was in town for a zone conference, and stopped by with his companion to say hi. The girls were very excited and chatted their ears off. (Except Kristen, who was mostly asleep.) I headed to the Austins to meet a librarian friend of theirs and ate yummy Vietnamese spring rolls and talked kids books. Kristen woke up at 9 p.m. I fed her dinner, gave her a bath, read her stories, and put her back to bed by 10:30. I watched a Bollywood movie in an attempt to ignore her. Eventually, she went back to bed, and so did I.

Wednesday bedtime: midnight. Got Megan off to camp first thing. Went to the Y to our exercise classes. Was planning on taking a nap, but Rachel called inviting Caitlyn to the pool, and, dang it, both Alison and Kristen had to go, too! So, off to the local public pool we went for a couple hours. Home again, change, wait for Russell to come home. Dinner, pick up the babysitter and Russell and I headed off to the first concert we'd been to since Virginia: Michael Buble. Now. We're not super fans of his, but we like the jazzy singing style and figure we'll never get to see Harry Connick Jr in concert (which we would both love). But, the concert was fantastic. Sure, Buble's a showman, and sure he's got his shtick. But the shtick was funny, the music was fantastic (the opening act -- Naturally 7 -- was brilliant a cappella!), he's actually a really good singer (actually feeling and expressing the music as opposed to just singing it!) and we came away thinking it was worth our money. The girls had a grand time with the babysitter, too.

Thursday bedtime: 10:30. Russell headed back to camp first thing in the morning, and I realized that I had the energy level of a wet noodle. We went to playgroup at the splashpark; the girls ran and played in the fountains and on the playground (it helped that the weather had "cooled" off slightly; it was only 75 at 10 in the morning instead of 85). Then we spent the rest of the day vegging in front of various TVs and laptops while I tried to act enthused about being a mom. It didn't work. The girls went to the Kitchens (yet again), and I went to yoga and felt good enough that Caitlyn and I watched Wednesday's So You Think You Can Dance episode after Alison and Kristen went to bed.

Friday bedtime: midnight. So, Friday was a better day energy-level. We went to the library in the morning -- Caitlyn biked, the rest of us drove (I'm not biking because of my hamstring injury). We hung out there for a while. Then we hung out at home for a while; Alison spent the whole day wondering when the workers were going to come to work on our house. I was searching for things to do and noticed that How To Train a Dragon was at the cheap theater, so I suggested a movie date, and the girls were game. The movie -- aside from the fact that my kids feel a need to talk through the movies, either asides to me or comments at the screen -- was quite good. We all want a pet dragon now. Then Merry came over for a sleep over, and we went to Target (how many shopping trips were there this week? Jeez.) to get toys for our impending plane trip on Tuesday. (We're attempting it without a DVD player. Should be... fun...). I stayed up watching the rest of the Bollywood I started on Tuesday.

Saturday bedtime: 10:30. So. The workers. There's a church being built in the parking lot across the runoff from us, and a couple of the pastors came by a couple of weeks ago. Turns out they were having a service-a-thon (it's one of those hip, evangelical, mega churches) this Saturday, and they wanted to know if we wanted service. More specifically the pastor, who is in the business of home-restoration (what? He's not a full-time pastor? Huh.), noticed that we needed a bit of repair work done on our house, and offered to do that work and then paint it for us. Really? Am I supposed to deny others service? I think not. God is good. :-) Anyway, they came by Saturday, and spent most of the day working on replacing rotted out boards (wow, we had that many boards that had gone bad?). They didn't get to painting, but they promised that they'd be back while we're gone and we'll come home to a freshly painted house. Okay then. Alison spent as much time as she could in the yard talking to the workers, watching what they were doing. She didn't offer to help, but she was entertainment. Caitlyn and Merry were off to a stake Activity Days day camp, and Kristen watched movies while I read and tried to sleep.

Eventually, on Saturday Megan wandered back in, brown, hot, sweaty and bursting with stories from camp. Russell wandered back an hour later, in much the same condition (add stinky to the list, though). They spent the rest of the evening telling me tales of camp: getting a swamp bead (Megan, for swimming in the nasty lake every day); the infamous "helicopter noise" (Russell; it's going to have to be in every skit from now on); the fact that the ward camp leader was an absolute dictator, which had the side effect of getting the girls to bond (Megan: "We had a common enemy"); the challenges -- and while jumping in the lake at 5 a.m. was fun, putting your feet in a vomit-like substance and eating a chocolate covered cricket were not (Megan); and being proud of Megan for bearing her testimony (Russell). It was a grand experience for both of them.

And now... we're counting the days (1 1/2) until we get on a plane and fly to Spokane to see the vast majority of Russell's family. Fun times. (Church today was nice. Next week when we're gone will be interesting: every single pianist save two (one male, he's covering the organ for me; one female, but she's in Primary) will be out of town. I suppose singing to a CD player isn't that bad.)

Two Weeks

Last week, I just wasn't feeling up to it. We'd had a busy week -- alternating HEAT with RAIN, among other things -- and by Sunday I was DRAINED, emotionally, physically, the whole works. I took a nap. A nice long nap. And on Monday, I called and scheduled a massage (for Friday, more on that later), and now I'm feeling much, much better.

So.

We've done a LOT of swimming. LOTS. Megan's gone to swim team most every day. We've gone to the various Y waterparks over the course of the two weeks. If you're interested, the Northwest Y (that's the closest one) is the "in-between one", the South Y (with a diving board, rock wall and several slides) is the "teenage" one, and the North Y (with a wave pool, one slide and multiple little kid slides) is the "little kids" one. I'm sure we'll bounce between all three.

On top of that, we went out to Cheney Reservoir (there's a lake in Kansas? Really?) and had a grand time. We went with some friends at church, and in spite of the tiger or zebra mussels or whatever they are (clam-like things that attach themselves to rocks and have a wicked outside edge that will cut you. Seriously.), we really enjoyed ourselves. Said friends had a boat, and everyone (except Kristen and me) got out on it to go tubing or skiing, or just ride around. We were exhausted by the end.

This week has been more of the same. The rain finally blew itself out -- after raining enough that the runoff was quite high (it's amazing what one good scare can do. Now we just say, "Well, it's not as high as it was that September two years ago" and go on with our lives.) and the field behind us was a puddle, the weather decided that we'd had enough and moved on. Now we're looking at temps near 100. Must be summer. We've mowed the lawn, we've looked at the gardens and thought, "Weeelll, we ought to weed." And then we hide inside where it's cool(er).

On Friday, Russell stayed home and took the girls swimming while I went in for my massage. I got a hot stone massage this time, and WOW. Oh, man. I was in heaven. Seriously. I need to be pampered like that more often... At the very least, it was relaxing and stress-relieving and oh-so-enjoyable.

And then we took the girls to see Toy Story 3. We don't often splurge for first-run movies for the whole family, but this was totally worth it. The story, as Russell would point out, is not as good as Toy Story 2, but it's a good one. (It's a Pixar movie. It can't be bad!) And everyone enjoyed it, except Alison who lost it completely at one scene near the end, and was basically hysterical throughout the whole rest of the movie, even though there's a happy ending and everything. She never really settled down, either, but then we just chalked it up to getting up before 6 a.m. to go birdwatching with Russell Friday morning (she had a grand time, thanks for asking). Oh, and if you're an adult, you will cry. Unless you have a heart of stone.

There was other stuff in there, too. Dinner with the Austins, playdates with friends, sleepovers, Shakespeare in the Park (Merry Wives of Windsor is QUITE the silly play), piano, budgeting, planning for Girls Camp and the upcoming trip to Spokane, texting, too much TV and movie watching, turning down traveling salesmen, reading, librarying... you know, the usual summer fodder.

That's about it for us. Happy Summer Solstice, and happy Father's Day!

Summer Adventure #1: Cheney Reservoir

So, even though my dear bloggy friend Corinne hasn't actually put up her summer adventure challenge for this year (and I don't know if she will, either), that doesn't mean we have to stop looking for new places to go and things to do around town (and Kansas).

First up, courtesy of an Elder's Quorum activity, was swimming/boating on Lake Cheney.

Now, being from Michigan, I have fairly high standards when it comes to lakes. (I'm a snob.) And, I have to admit, that this one surprised me. It was nice and coolish (not cold), and even though it was muddy and not exactly nice (I don't know what the barnicle-like clam things that were attached rocks on the bottom were, but they were particularly wicked -- we all have cuts from them!), it was a lot of fun.



I had the distinction of being the only woman to get in the lake. My question is: are you ever too OLD to enjoy swimming in lakes (or pools, or the ocean)? I think not.





(FYI, the boy is one of the sons of the friends with the boat. He was a good egg for hanging out with all the girls...)

It helped that one of the families there has a boat, and so the girls were able to get some tubing (Megan tried skiing; she doesn't weigh enough to actually get up!) in.



Russell got up on the skis! (But did he stay up?? That part is lost to history.)


Before:



During:


It was a fun afternoon!

The Greens Came to Visit

So, Russell's old college friend, Jonathan Green, and his family are on the move from Arkansas to Idaho, and they needed a place to stop over. So, we offered our house for the night (which goes for any of you, should you find yourself in our neck of the woods). They crashed and then the next day we got to play around with and talk to them for a while before they headed out.

Alison thoroughly enjoyed being girly with Clara and Annika:


and Caitlyn adopted their youngest, Collin.

At one point she said, "He's so cute. I want a baby brother." And then I reminded her that he's only cute because he's not around all the time. I'm so sentimental.

Here's everyone (except Megan who hid in her room after we brought back Fire for her from the bookstore as a swap for babysitting while the adults were all gone -- some to said bookstore, others out to lunch):

And the adults:

It was a quick visit, but fun. We're glad they stopped by.

Summer Pleasures

So, we officially started summer this week.

Monday, I really didn't know what to do with myself... so we spring-cleaned Caitlyn's room. It didn't take nearly as long as it did with Megan's room, but we did manage to dig out a few bags of garbage. Merry came over for a sleep-over, and we headed out to play in the fountains at Riverside park after dinner. One of the pleasures of summer is that you can head to the park at 6:30, and not only is it warm enough to play in the fountains, you don't have to worry about getting back for bedtimes.

Tuesday, we were lazy. I've been going to power yoga on Tuesday mornings (under the guise that bad yoga is better than no yoga, and I need more yoga in my life), and we kind of mis-timed everything. Oh, well. Merry stayed for a good portion of the day, and they spent a lot of that down in the run-off observing all the tadpoles they've discovered down there, which is definitely another pleasure of summer.

Wednesday, is our Y day. Megan and Caitlyn are going to a kids yoga class -- they love the instructor; she's Scottish, and speaks with a fairly thick brogue, which they found fun. It helps that she's nice. And interesting. Alison and Kristen went to their "play class", but Alison doesn't really like it ("I'm too OLD, Mom. It's all babies.") and I was at a loss with what to do with her, but it turns out they have a free gym class for kids her age, so perhaps we'll try that next week. Then Megan spent the afternoon being a teenage girl at the pool with her friends, whom she hasn't seen in "FOREVER" (one week). The older girls and I also watched the first episode of this season's So You Think You Can Dance, which is another summer pleasure.

Thursday was library day this week -- I don't know if it'll stay Thursday; we might move it -- and Alison got her first library card. And she got to use the self-check machines, which made her very excited. She wanted to check out George of the Jungle, but it wasn't in. (Thankfully, Inkheart was, so we managed to bring Brendan Frasier home at any rate.) Then we went to the Y that afternoon. Megan didn't come; she decided to do swim team this summer, and got up to be at the pool at 8 a.m. She liked it ("it was good, but not life-changing"), but by 2, she was beat. At any rate, we had a blast at the pool. Caitlyn found some friends from school, Kristen and I hung out (what am I going to do when my kids are too old for me to be in the pool with them??), and Alison discovered that she's tall enough for the slides at the Y. Oh, happy day! It was hot, too -- up in the 90s already -- and so being in the pool was most definitely a summer pleasure this week. Thursday night, Megan had a sleep-over, and we (plus Caitlyn's friend Rachel) went out to Bradley Fair to see the first jazz concert. Russell really wanted to go because it was the Friends' Jazz ensemble, and a former student of his was going to be there. Everything was going swimmingly, until Kristen decided she wanted to go running. I sent her off to go meet Russell, who was coming around the lake... and then, minutes later, she came running back to me, blood streaming down her face. The people down the way said she wasn't looking where she was going, and ran smack into a lightpost which had an edge just the height of her eyebrow. There was a police officer, and several nice people (some with baby wipes!) who helped us get her cleaned up and patched up, and then after we went home to change our blood-spattered clothes, we headed off to the ER. (Funny thing: I was just telling a friend earlier this week that Kristen was the only one I haven't been to the ER with. I must have jinxed her, poor girl.) Alison decided she wanted to come, too, so I let her. They both were good girls; the hardest part was (for Alison) watching Kristen get stitched up (so she didn't) and (for Kristen) getting stitched up. Especially when they hit a spot they hadn't numbed all the way. Poor thing. It was a late night, and she's got three stitches in her forehead, but she's doing all right now.

Friday, I spent reading (summer pleasure!) for the 48 hour book challenge. Well, that was after I drove Megan up to Salina for her semi-annual three hour drive + hour wait for a 10 minute doctor appointment. We took a look at the xrays this time; there's a noticeable curve, and her hips are a bit out of wack, but we still won't know for certain what's going to happen until she manages to start menstruating. (Sorry... a bit overshare, but that's what the doctor said.) He said come back in six months, and that she should, SOON (she's starting to wonder why it's taking so long; I tell her it's because she has no body fat...). Until then, we're still waiting. Russell was great to take off of work (or going to the office anyway), and hold down the fort while I was gone, both physically and mentally.

Saturday, Russell and Megan were off to Oklahoma City with the youth for a temple trip. I held down the fort and let them watch too many movies while I read. And read. And read. They were good and helped out after lunch; and we realized that when we put our minds to it, we can get the whole house cleaned in about 2 hours. Huh. And so I read that afternoon while everyone else hid out in the air conditioning. It was hot, and since Kristen can't go to the pool, we just stayed inside.

And today's been nice. Church was good, we had Mike Austin over for dinner (his family is out of town), and the weather's cooled off (all relative!) to a wonderful mid-80s with a clear blue sunshiney sky. Sometimes, just living here is a summer pleasure.

Tadpoles

The girls have discovered that there are tadpoles down in the runoff. For some reason, Alison is the one most fascinated by this fact, and she begs to go down and check on them.



I wonder if she's going to to be interested in them when they are frogs?

Kristen Gets Stitches

So, while we were at Bradley Fair, Kristen was running around and ran into a light post. Since it was bad enough to get stitches, off to the ER we went. She was very brave.

But soon was back to normal.

(Thank heavens for cell phone cameras!)

Jazz at Bradley Fair

Bradley Fair is an upscale shopping mall across town (it's also where we go on carriage rides in December) that has a Thursday night jazz concert series in the summer time.

It's really a nice place; we hang out at the lake, listen to jazz in the background and the girls get to run around a bit.



Someday, though, I'll remember to take a book.

Memorial Day in the Fountains

So, we went to Riverside park on Memorial Day, primarily to get wet. Which, as you can see, we all did.






Caitlyn and Merry said they weren't going to...

But even they came in and got in on the action.

You gotta love summer!