For our field trip last week we went apple picking.  You know if you have read many of my posts that my “Let’s go make happy family memories” outings do not always, and in fact often do not go as I plan.  Well, this was one of those times.  We didn’t quite end the outing in a knockout brawl on the ground… but we almost did.  Sigh.  One of these days I will learn.  I just keep hoping that it will actually be that warm fuzzy experience I imagine.  But you know what the definition of insanity is: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  And I suppose about every fifth time it comes close to my expectations.  One of my good friends told me a quote she’d heard the other day.  “If you take away the want, you take away the pain.”  I just have to change my expectation of what these outings will look like and it won’t be quite so disappointing.  So next time we go on a field trip I’m going to announce it this way, “Hey kids, today we are going to drive in the car and fight all the way there and then when we get there Reagan will boss everyone around, Cade will burst into a high pitch cry, Levi will scream at Reagan and Liberty will wet her pants at a very inconvenient time!!!  Won’t that be great fun?!”
Here are the cute pictures and you can just imagine that it went well. 

Also last week Rock celebrated birthday #36.  The boys helped me make his pie.



This year he specifically asked for “Gifts” instead of “Presents”.  So we all did service projects for him.  If you double click on the picture I think you can read the boys’ cards.

Since the official end of summer is just a few days away I wanted to get in one last summer post.  There are several random things I want to fit into this post, but the first is our fishing expedition.  We found a fantastic place on the river to swim and play back in August.  I LOVE being five minutes from the river, btw.  This particular day we weren’t actually planning on swimming, just exploring.  But when we got to this spot with shade and sand and shallow water all the way across, we decided to go get our swimsuits and come back to swim.  The boys also wanted to go fishing.  So we drove home real quick, found string and some sticks, grabbed the swimsuits and headed back down to the river.  We took our chairs down, and had just laid everything out perfectly when Libby had to go potty.  There were no potties around so I took her a little ways off to have her try and go squatting style.  I was NOT hopeful. She only just mastered the toilet, afterall.  But just as I started to have her do her thing, a snake slithered out of the brush two feet from where she was standing.  Nevermind!  I grabbed her and told the boys we had to go home again.  They weren’t happy, but such is life.  Ok, I wasn’t happy either, but I didn’t feel like it was a good option to force her to pee on the snakes.  So home we went again.  This time, right as I got everyone back in the car I got a reminder on my phone that in half an hour Reagan had an orthodontist appointment.  Grrr.  I was not going to go back down to the river only to turn around and leave 15 minutes later.  So I hauled them all back out of the car until it was time to do the Ortho.  Getting dizzy yet?  I was.

Finally, much later than originally planned we got back to “our” perfect spot on the river.  By this point, there were other people in “our” spot having a little drinking party.  It was just two women and they were not hanging from the branches in a  drunken stupor so we stayed.  They had, however,  taken the ONLY shade left at that point in the afternoon, so I had to sit in the roasting sun while the kids played in the river.  Oh well.  What’s a little sweat?  Here are the fun pictures I got of their “fishing expedition”

Who knew you could fly fish with a stick and some string.  Oh, and a safety pin too.

About a week later I was out running in the park behind our house and caught this great sunrise.

Then just last week we had some good friends came to visit and I just had to get in this picture of the breakfast smoothies…..

Only four of these were for the adults…..

And here is the big finale for the summer of 2013:

Teaching Levi to ride his bike has been on my to do list all summer.  Big brother (and natural skill) took care of it for me!  They took off his training wheels and away he went!

The leaves are starting to change color in our yard and it is getting chillier so summer is definitely on the way out.  But it’s been a good one!

On Labor day, after our big (if you were Libby) hike, we had a family BBQ.  The food was great and the company even greater!   

Great Grandma was thrilled to be at the kid table with all the great grandkids.

After dinner Grandma brought out the bubbles!

Libby just ran around chasing the bubbles.

This one actually catches her popping one.

And this one catches her in one.

Uncle Dave took this one of her and I just love it because it’s hard to catch that look on camera. 

On our last day in Colorado the boys found this little creature running around the house….outside, luckily.

And Grandma replenished our supply of playdough before we left. 

The boys got to pick a color and Libby got to pick a color.  Give you one guess what color Liberty picked.

We had a decent drive home.  But I will say that having a potty trained girl stinks.  Yes, you read that correctly.  It stinks because for all of my parenting life thus far, Rock has generally taken the boys into the yucky, smelly, dirty gas station/public  bathrooms on road trips.  This time around I had to take Liberty into all the yucky, smelly, dirty bathrooms.  I avoid those at all costs.  Pregnancy is just about the only thing that will induce me to use one.  UGhh.  Rock just sat back and gloated the whole trip.  Especially at the Pizza Hut in Brigham City where Liberty “had” to go no less than THREE times during our 40 minute dinner.  The light didn’t even work so we were basically shooting blind.  Double yuck.  She better thank me someday.  Speaking of which, THANK YOU MOM for taking me into all the yucky, smelly, dirty bathrooms when I was little.  You just got your payback. 

Took this last picture outside the Pizza Hut.  Kids are a lot of work, but they’re worth it.

Laboring on Labor Day

We went for a hike to the Mica Mines on Labor day.  Lots of beautiful red rock and cool formations.
 

The trail was covered in mica and quartz .  By the time Cade actually got to the mines, his pockets were so full, his pants were falling down, literally. 

All that white stuff they are sitting on is quartz pebbles and dust.

Each of the boys took home a piece of quartz this big.

The shiny stuff you see in this rock is the mica.  It’s thin, paper-like and breaks very easily.  Unbeknownst to me, Cade’s pockets were still full of this stuff when I did laundry after the trip.  You can imagine the mess it created.  I will be finding little shiny pieces of mica in our clothing and lint collector for years to come.

It was an easy hike for all but little Miss.  She toughed it out and didn’t say a word for about…..five minutes.  And then she was begging and pleading to be carried.
 

We used every trick in the book to keep her walking.  Distraction worked the best and Grandpa is now on a first name basis with each of the My Little Ponies.

Negotiation

Desperation

Victory!

She made it to the end, but she wasn’t thrilled about it.

Carrying Liberty made it a hard hike for Rock apparently too. 

Stay tuned for the last installment of Crazy in CO.

You’ll remember that last month we went Wild in Washington.  Well last week we went Crazy in Colorado.  Technically, we went crazy BEFORE we got to Colorado because an eight hour drive  with children invariably turns into a 10-12 hour drive with children which will ‘drive’ you crazy-especially if it is the second such drive in a month!

On our way through Utah we drove past Lagoon, which Cade authoritatively informed his brothers is the “MOST famous amusement park in World”.  That night we stayed with friends in Jordan.  When we were twenty minutes from their house Levi had to go to the bathroom and could not wait, of course, so we had to pull over for a potty stop.  At least we got this cool photo out of it:

The next morning, on our way through Provo, we kidnapped Sarin and took her to breakfast.  She is living at CP now and so we got to show the boys the exact spot where Rock and I met.  They were not duly impressed.  It made me cry not a little to leave my  Beaner there all alone with no friends to speak of yet and some roommates who seem to be pretty obnoxious, but we all have to do it I guess. 

And then it was on the road again.  You know the age old question; “Are we there yet?”  Well our children have improved upon it somewhat.  On this trip it was “Are we in Utah yet? or Are we in Colorado yet?”  Same whiny tone, but the question is at least slightly less annoying.  Somewhere between Nowhere Utah and Nowhere Colorado the Sunglasses Fight started.  One pair of sunglasses, two boys claiming them = a fight.  So big brother Solomon Reagan stepped in to end the fight by suggesting that we cut the glasses in half.  Mothers these boys are not because Cade said we should just throw them away and Levi’s answer was still a stubborn, “Give them to me!”   I told Reagan, “Sorry, Bud, they just aren’t mothers who care about the future of the sunglasses that much.”  Wise Solomon just sighed heavily and replied, “Sorry, I tried.” We finally reached Grand Junction late that afternoon to the relief of everyone, especially the sunglasses.

The next day we spent the morning at Great Grandma and Grandpa’s house; always an adventure.  Between the garden, the ditch, the frogs and the four wheelers, the kids think they’ve died and gone to heaven. 

Cade helped cut flowers for Grandma Dot.

For which he was richly paid.

It didn’t take Grandpa John long to bring out the four wheelers.  He knows just how to get the kids attention fast!

Libby did not crack a smile, but she didn’t get off and even wanted to go around again!

I love the look on Levi’s face. 

Remember the smiles on our faces here because there were no smiles on our faces when we finished this ride.  I typically don’t get on the four wheelers because I don’t know where I’m going around the huge property and yes, I’m somewhat of a chicken.  I don’t want to wreck somewhere in a ditch.  Nevertheless I got on one and let Reagan steer.  He was beyond thrilled that he got to “drive” the four wheeler all by himself.  He didn’t really know where he was going, though and for much of the ride I was afraid we were on someone else’s property and that that someone would come out with a gun to tell us so.   Right as we got to the main road and needed to turn around, the four wheeler died on us.  I could not for the life of me figure out how to get it started again and I had no cell phone to call for help because Rock had kept it after taking that cute picture you see above of Reagan and I all smiles.  So, more mad than anything, I started the long walk back to G & G’s.   Reagan didn’t realize that we were within walking distance of home though, and he was very upset and worried that he’d somehow broken the machine and that we were stuck for good.  As I stormed away, angry and embarrassed by the whole situation and swearing that I was never getting on a four wheeler again, my sweet little boy walked a little ways away, knelt down in the grass by a ditch and said a prayer.  That image will be forever seared in my mind.  He was scared and his first response was to pray.  May he always have that kind of faith.  When he’s a missionary in a faraway land, when he’s a young father with a sick child and when Satan throws at him the very best that he’s got, I pray he keeps that faith.  We were eventually rescued when G&G realized we’d been gone for a while.  And I will say it made me feel a lot better when they couldn’t get the four wheeler started right away either. 

We ended our day at the great’s with a yummy lunch and the traditional picture on the swing.

We sure love these two.  The next day in church after we sang the song Count Your Many Blessings, I looked over at Grandma and she was quietly counting.  It took me a second to realize that she was counting all the people in the pew with her; she was counting her blessings!  That made me smile.  I often thank Heavenly Father for these two wonderful people courageously accepting the gospel so that my children now have it in their lives.  Too many blessings to count!

Stay tuned for more Craziness!