YW Camp 2010

Once again, I had SO much fun! I reinjured my calf muscle on the way up there. Pranking the cars in our caravan up. We were stopped at construction and I jumped out and ran up to pound on the windows and scare them. It worked, but on the way back to our van, I felt my calf pop. MAN! Did it hurt! Just sitting in the car it was killing me, let alone walk on it! So we stopped in Quincy and I got an ace bandage for it. The next day was our big and strenuous hike, I needed to go. Once we got to camp, too, Kevin and Sam administered to me. The blessing lasted 72 hours! :-) I did great on the hike and the rest of the week of camp. When we came down off the mountain yesterday I felt like I had just injured it. I could barely walk on it. Today is even worse and I have a HUGE UGLY bruise on it! I am grateful for my prayer being answered and the blessing working for me while I was up there. Now I can take care of it and get it healed up, hopefully, for good.
So we, in my opinion, were give the BEST camp sites there. Here is our view:

Don't you agree? There were so many things we did up there. Here are a few of them:

This is called "Ants on a Log" and the girls have to always have 3 on at a time. If they don't, they start all over. So if someone falls or gets down before someone else gets on, they start over.

This is the scaling wall. Object is to get all the girls over the wall with only 2 people at the top and girls below. I love the team work and positive peer pressure here. There is one girl who refused to go. She (with positive peer pressure) did it! I was so proud of her and the other girls for doing so good with her.




I saved the best for last. Here is just one picture along the way on our hike. It was SO gorgeous! I am so blessed to be able to enjoy this hike once a year. I think we are going to go up sometime and take the kids hiking on it! It's too beautiful not to share!

The girls at the top of the trail climb on top of Chuck and the view from their is UNBELIEVABLE!

This doesn't even do it justice as I didn't climb Chuck because of my calf muscle. But just imagine seeing the entire lake with out any trees in the way.


So that, in a nutshell, was YW Camp. I, for some reason, didn't get any pictures of the snow piles still left on the ground. We froze at night (seeing our breath) but the days were PERFECT! Thanks to everyone who made this so wonderful! I hope I get to go back next year!

(PS There are more pictures on Facebook if you are dying for more!)

This week..........

Kevin and I are leaving bright and early tommorrow morning to go to Girl's Camp!!!!!!!!!!!! I am SOOOOOOOOO excited! I LOVE Girl's Camp! I am over 3rd years again and have a great group! I have a list a mile long of things I still need to do (last minute things) before we leave!
Make monkey tails and ears (our skit)
go to bank
pack lunches for tomorrow for Kevin and I
clean, wash and gas up van
wash veggies (for meals up there)
Monday laundry
wash our bedding (mom and dad are sleeping in our bed)
Mail Father's day present to g-pa Stewart
finish packing
clean boyz bathroom
finish thank-yous for my 6th year helpers
mail AP catalogs
boyz paint Father's Day presents for Kevin

That is my list and THEN some!!! Not to mention that girls are going to be coming all day to drop off their 'stuff' to take up to camp. 24 hours! YAY! Better go get started! Have a great week!

New favorite website

So if you love books, you are going to LOVE this website! The other night at book club a friend was telling me about this website: www.paperbackswap.com What you do is list books that you want to trade with someone. All you do is pay postage and get a credit to order a book. For example, when you sign up you get 2 credits when you list 10 books. That equals 2 books! So I did that yesterday and have 2 credits. Of the 10 books, I already have 2 of them I am mailing out today. All I do is send it media mail and I pay the postage. It prints off a mailing label and everything! So when the receiver gets the books, they go in a say received and I get 2 more credits! Total of 4 = 4 books! So there are a few books I'd like to get with my credit. I 'order book', (but never pay anything for it) and the process is the same for the person sending it to me. Pretty amazing site! I can see my self being done with Amazon's used books! Give it a try!

Nathan-ism

So Nathan's turn to set table for breakfast.....right in teh middle of doing it he yells:

N-"MOM! Have to go to the bathroom...LITERALLY!"

I have been pondering all morning what the figurative way to go to the bathroom is?

Any ideas?

Funny boy! I love the mind of my 6 year old!

Vinyl lettering

So I LOVE my cricut machine! I have been 'accessorizing' my newly painted walls. Here is what I put in my bedroom: Take up about a 5x4 foot spot.

Above my bed on the top of the headboard....got some decor up there.

Now what to do up here? It's about 4' at it's peak, 7' long and 2' deep. Thought of some topiaries....any ideas?

Here is what I put in the bathroom above the bathtub. You soak in the tub, look up at that wall and see this. Ironically, you sit on the toilet and see it, too. I guess it could apply!

Winding down school......

So we have been kindof busy lately. Ryan, Comptyn & Bryce had a pack meeting last week. They earned quite a few things. I love scouting as it is a list of things to do and cross them off! My kindof program! Plus they are mostly things we do anyhow, or can easily incorporate in our lives.....for example, play tennis and baseball for 30 minutes.....2 belt loops earned! Anyhow, in these pictures I definately wore the wrong shirt for pictures! I look like a fat cow! I am only a medium sized cow....working on becoming skinny cow! At any rate, Comptyn and Bryce are pinning mother's pins on me. Ryan just got new Webelos leaders so he'll be able get his Webelos done here soon. (One of the requrements is be active for 3 months in your den....he hasn't had one!) He still earned a few (7) belt loops and pins for his colors.



Nathan had his kindergarten promotion last Thursday. He is done with school! YAY! He is the blue star in this first picture. They were singing "You are my Sunshine". It was adorable!

In this picture he was singing another song "I Like Kindergarten" and the motions were SO CUTE! I wish I had my video camera (forgot it) and knew how to upload video to my blog. (Any help would be appreciated!)

Here he is getting his certificate from his teacher Mrs. Mitchell. We love Mrs. Mitchell and hope she gets hired back! (She was RIFed, unfortunately) The twins start school fall 2011 and we'd love to have them in her class.

Do you notice Nathan's head is shaved? That's because he started cutting it the weekend before.....here is what it looked like:

Yesterday we drove over to Reno and picked up Melissa and Travis. We had a picnic at the park across the street from their place.

Then we headed out for a hike. We did the Peavine trail, which wasn't pretty at all....just walking thru sagebrush. I like trees and water. Anyhow, what it lacked in that area, it made up for in wild life, besides my kids! I dont' know if you can see it in this pictures be the kids and I saw.....WAIT! Daniel said, "MOM! I found a crab!" ......we saw our first scorpion! It was under a rock Daniel moved. So look closely in the divet of dirt for the little dark mass. Kindof the lower left corner. It was only about 1 1/2 inches long. It was pretty exciting!

There were lizards, which we took a picture of. There were dancing caterpillars, as my kdis called them. They were ocming out of their cocoon like things and twitching. It was funny.

Travis and Sammy walking together....CUTE!

We came to the side of a hill we were on and the kids were throwing rocks. Kevin started throwing big rocks and we would all try and hit his rock....like clay pigeons. Travis actually hit it once! It was fun....kids love throwing rocks!

So Travis almost stepped on a snake on our trail. it scurried off into the bushes so the "MEN" scared it out so the boyz could see it. Here Kevin is flicking it out onto the trail.

By Ryan's left shoulder the snake is on the gournd. Kindof looks like a stick. I freaked when it started hissing at them!

All in all it was a fun hike. Never foudn the pond were were told about, but tired the kids out which is always good! Kids are out of school Friday...YAY! Then we sart our summmer full fling! Got the mayoral swimming lessons (2 weeks free lessons) for the kids today. It comes with a punch pass with 30 free swims...PER KID! So we are gonna be fish this summer! Reserved a week of camping (Mon-Fri) at Grover Hot Springs in northern California. The boyz (and mom and dad) are excited to do that! We haven't gone since before Daniel's transplant. So it's been 2 years! We are doing the summer reading program and LOTS of hiking! Hopefully it will be a safe and fun summer!

No, I didn't paint.....but lookie what I did all day!

Last night was our Young Men and Young Women's dinner/auction. It was SO much fun! The kids had fun bidding on things, pooling their money to try and win something. Overall we walked aawy with cupcakes, patriot star, homemade cedar Christmas ornaments, snowflake batter operated tea lights, a gourmet dinner (and clean up) from the YM Presidency, 3 different nights of babysitting, 2 hours of housework, and Troop 39 putting in 8 hours of yard with at our house! YAY! I don't have to help Kevin fix the fence!

Here are the things I made to donate. There were a few other baskets I threw together of things, too, but these are the vinyl things I did. The first one isn't vinyled by my sister wants to see it!











This last one was tricky. It's a frame from Wal-Mart and then just keep the glass. Hot glue gun it in. I learned once vinyl hits the glass...BOOM! It's stuck! It's actually a wedding present.