Ice Cream Day

My whole side of the family has dubbed June 27th as Ice Cream Day. It is in honor of my dear Grandpa Blake. He died a few years ago and LOVED ice cream up until the very day he died. He and my Grandma were such good, down to earth, hard-working people. After my grandma died, he amazingly stayed in touch with all of us grandchildren, calling us monthly to see what we were doing and if we were "Remembering who we are and what we represent." He was just a super example of love.

So to honor his memory we have ice cream on his birthday. This year we were in Canada with the Dahls and had ice cream at a pier park.

Credits to Shabby Princess

Good sport mom and dad

My brother Clint, and his family were visiting last weekend. They were visiting for Deanna's family reunion, so we only saw them here and there. Clint and I decided to go and take the younger kids to float the canal. I was SHOCKED when Clint came out in his swimsuit. Clint hated the water when we were growing up. We get to the canal and sure enough, Clint gets in a tube and the FREEZING water and floats the canal with the kids. What a trooper. What a great dad!!!!

So when we were in Canada and all the kids were jumping off rocks and swimming the cold lakes.............I thought of Clint...........and decided to join them in the fun. I jumped TWICE!!!!!!
Thanks Clint, for reminding me that the kids don't always just want us to take them places to play.........they want us to play WITH them too!!!

Endings and Beginnings

So the school year has ended!!! Tara had a great year with the only man teacher in the whole school, Mr. Horn. Credits to Crisdam designs.
She had many good friends in her class this year and made lots of after school plans.

Will finished out his 6th grade year at the middle school. He tried really hard to get the chicken pox the week they were taking finals, but it just didn't work.

Tom's bout with the chicken pox has ended. It's been 2 weeks now and he still has scabs and red spots. He's doing basketball and football camp this week and then hopes to work for a guy in the neighborhood next week.

Summer has begun, even though you couldn't tell by the weather. It was 60 degrees today. I just love it. I don't like the super hot. So the longer it stays away, the happier I am. Summer means, MOM IS THE ENTERTAINMENT COORDINATOR. It's more work for me to clean up after and feed 5 kids all day.............but the good side is that we are not on a set schedule, which brings alot of freedom. So I welcome the break. Plus the thing I look forward to in the summer is walking with my friends in the morning. It's fun to get out in the crisp air and then just chat up a storm. It fuels me for the day.

The last thing that has begun.............is chicken pox all over Will's body. Yep, I'm a man slave all over again. He came down with the fever on Sunday after noon, and had pox on his belly before bedtime. He'll have a couple more bad days, but then it's not too bad. Itching and boredom will drive him crazy!!!

Pox update

Tom's condition has only got worse. He has triple the amount of pox now since the picture below. He now has it on his face and it is creeping down his arms and legs. Of course, I'm feeling sooooooooooo guilty for not getting him vaccinated. It was brand new when he was 5 and the doctors just weren't sure about it back then. So to ease my guilt, I've volunteered to be his slave. He wants water, he gets water. He wants benedryl, I run to the store to get it. He wants goop smeared all over his poxed body, I rub it all over. He's seriously miserable and a mess. The only good thing is that he doesn't have to take his finals. He's been exempt. That news brings a smile to his poxed face.

On a happier note, while we were traveling home from Utah I got a few pages done, both are quick pages. You'd think I'd get more done, especially when they are QP's but I just don't have all the things I need on my laptop so I give up easily when trying to build a page from scratch.
Credits to Celeste Jones' Blossom kit Credits to Flerg's Deacons Closet Kit

Utah holiday

We were able to see both sides of the family this weekend on our whirlwind tour of Utah. We headed to Logan first and saw Mike's family. His dad is still in a rehab hospital recovering from surgery, so it was nice to have a visit with him.
At Grandma and Grandpa Chadwicks there were goats. The kids had a great time feeding and rescuing goats.
Mike spent most of Saturday working at his dad's house getting it looking nice, while I went shopping with my mom at this HUGE interior decorating store. You probably all have heard of it.......Tai Pan Trading. http://www.taipantrading.com/ It was so fun wandering thru tons of beautiful displays. Check it out if you are ever in Clearfield.

Sunday was a hit.........at least for me. We made plans with my parents to go to the tabernacle on Temple Square to watch "The Spoken Word". Since it is the beginning of the summer months, they moved it to the new Conference Center. We found our seats and had a great time listening to the patriotic songs. What a great feeling and spirit that choir can bring to a room.
A funny story. As we were filing up the stairs to get out of the Conference Center, Luke started to drag his feet and fight us. I finally asked what was wrong and he said "WHERE IS PRESIDENT HINCKLEY?" Why on earth would we come to the place Pres HInckley always is and NOT see him? What a sweet boy. And what a sweet prophet we had to have such an effect on a little toddler.

Then we wandered Temple Square and made our way over to the JS Building and found a Sacrament service starting and joined them. It was a beautiful, peaceful morning.


Monday we had some extended family over for breakfast............then after they left Tom comes and takes off his shirt to show us his belly. It is all covered with little sores. We think it's Chicken Pox. It will be an interesting few weeks if that has infested the family.

Color my life

I found this template in png today and thought I'd give it a try. Most templates are just annoying and don't save as much time as you think they would. Anyway, this one looked simple and I loved the doodles.
Credits to Krystal Hartley

Eventful Weekend

I'm sure I'm not the only one that had a whirlwind weekend. We were seriously back to back to back to back with events.

Will had a soccer tournament out of town, so Mike left Friday night. They played two games, lost one, won one. They were back home later Saturday evening.

Tom had two tournament basketball games. Won both.

Tara had her first actual dance recital. She loved putting on the makeup, doing the curly hair, wearing the cute costume, and being with all the dancy girls.
Credits to Traci Sims "Shabby Linens"

Meg gave a talk in church on how families are our best friends.

Luke went garage saleing with me and we bought the cutest cowboy hat EVER. I have to do a scrap page with it before I can show you. So stay tuned.

And to top it all off...........it was Mike and my 17th Anniversary. Time is just flying. I still feel like I'm learning how to be a married person!!!
Our short story goes like this:
I met Mike the fall after I returned from my mission. After a bunch of casual (on purpose) bumps into him in the neighborhood, he finally asked me out. We hit it off from the very beginning. We were engaged about 10 months from our first date, and married 3 1/2 months later.

I loved that he had a life plan. I loved that he was willing to serve in the church. I loved that he was willing to give his time to worthy causes. I loved that he was mellow, and hard to get all riled up. I loved that he liked alot of the things I liked. I loved that he was worthy to go to the temple. I loved that he wasn't afraid of hard work. I loved that he was independant. I loved that he loved me.......even when I was silly, or tired, or cranky, or ugly. We are a great match and I know I'm a lucky girl!!!!