Dear Friends and Family,

Got back this morning from our annual camping trip to Palisades. The little figure above in the pink sweatshirt is Allison off to catch minnows and tadpoles. We came back early to make church. Kids snored all the way home, girls curled up with their dad to snooze some more this afternoon and are off to bed early tonight. A sign of a good camping trip is how tired you are when you get home!

This is the earliest in the year we have ever gone. No one wanted to try swimming and we had a few hours and most of the nights filled with rain. Kids determinedly went down to catch minnows the first morning there, rain or no rain. But after getting drenched they decided they would rather trailer hop and wait out the storm. We had 5 other families go all of us with kids. So we all had a great time, eating, hiking, riding quads in the nearby canyon, catching lots of tadpoles and minnows and making up all sorts of crazy games by the kids that involved lots of running and yelling. It was a lot of fun. Jeremy got to have some male bonding playing golf. He commented how fun it is when everyone is equally bad!





Jeremy borrowed kids' helmets so all the kids took turns riding around with Jeremy. Robyn did one loop around the campsite and was thrilled.





Spencer went in for the hardcore quad riding with Jeremy. Friday night they went up to the overlook and then Saturday after the rain stopped they went out in the mud. Spencer came back covered in mud but with a big grin an hour later.

All the kids did much better sleeping this year. They have the routine down now and are set up in their sleeping bags asking for their hot chocolate and cookies and wanting to know what movie is showing that night. I think I am mostly tired because of Taylor's inevitable 3 am chirping that doesn't let up or Rocky's neurotic whining/crying because of the storms. Glad to be home and close the doors and ignore all the kid sounds unless screaming is involved.

Spent a lot of time this week pulling weeds and cleaning out the trailer. You can now see clearly in our yard what are plants and what are weeds so I am making progress! The trailer I am not sure why I bothered as this was a very muddy trip. I couldn't figure out why the trailer was smelling still after I had scrubbed everything out. Then I found the piece of deli meat left in its package stuck under the vegetable bin in the fridge. Ewwww!

Spencer was going a little stir crazy this week with not being able to do much physical activity. Tomorrow he gets his arm re-x-rayed and we are hoping he is able to start doing PE and karate again. He really, really, really needs it! Had pack meeting this week and he was thrilled to run around digging up fake dinosaurs, eating all the treats and laughing at the not so funny skits and jokes.

Allison has been on a no glasses kick this week. Then when I finally realized she had been going without I found them with the lens popped out thanks to Robyn. So we are making a trip to Costco tomorrow.

Thursday morning Taylor went in for dental 'surgery'. I had to get up at 5 am and felt like I had been hit by a truck the rest of the day. They had Taylor go first just in case there were complications. He did great. He had 5 baby teeth pulled and they cleaned up all of his teeth and put sealants and stuff on. His mouth was pretty raw the rest of the day and he kept getting bloody noses from the tube being put down. But it went really well. I had high hopes that like his VNS surgery this might knock out his seizures for a while but no such luck. Oh well, he has shiny teeth now! Found out that one of his adult teeth, his incisor is just missing. So they are going to leave the baby tooth in as long as possible as when it falls out he will just have a big gap. Jeremy spent the morning riding herd on the kids and hooking up the trailer. Robyn was extremely helpful with that!

We have made up this week for a bunch of the babysitting favors we have called on. Robyn has loved having friends over most days this week.

Been spending my nights making Relief Society handouts, invites etc. Jeremy pointed out how much time I would save if I would just type out the information, print it out and be done. But how cute would that be?

Seems like my to do list lately is longer than my time to do it list. Try to remind myself that that is a good thing and if kids have to fend for themselves a bit more it builds character! Love to you all. I am going to go crash in bed for some make up snoozing and ignore the piles of muddy clothes until tomorrow!

Love you all and very, very Happy Birthday Mom!

Heather