Fun and First Times

We have had a little bit of fun this June. Celia got to go to girls camp for the first time and Joseph enjoyed High Adventure. The Priests and Deacons went to Lake Oroville and slept out on the river and then water river rafted down the American river to top off the week. Joe came back sun burned and reset with stories and good memories made. Father's day was nice. I barbecued and we had the grandparents and Kieran over. Kieran and Addison have been visiting from Hawaii so it has been fun . Celia has enjoyed swimming with them. She actually swims across the deep end herself! She has watched and encouraged Kieran on his skating .She is becoming a lovely young woman.I heard she even bore her testimony at camp. :)

 Celia and I got to go to Tahoe overnight and it was beautiful. No drama and everyone slept well. We hung out at the Diamond Resort beach and walked around shops down the street. I loved the Italian restaurant we found and visited that night. It was the yummiest food and I was happy I had a coupon for garlic bread. The kids were in heaven. I shared with Celia an we had the best spaghetti and meatballs, I've ever had. Another great experience was visiting inspiration point. The road to there is curvy, high and narrow. It was fun to drive the family there in my black car. We looked for bears and enjoyed all the trees. I couldn't believe the air quality. So clear and crisp.It was lovely to be there. We visited North-star on the way home after a slight accidental detour to Carson city. Now we can say we have been there. While at North star we took a ride up the Gondola. There were two and the second one rose up 1000 feet in elevation. Celia was a little nervous when we'd reach each point and the gondola made a sound. She said "Well that is a concerning sound". I agreed, but we made it safe and it was a fun little ride. The top of the mountain was beautiful too. The Sierra Nevadas are impressive and I am reminded how much I love nature and the outdoors.

We had a youth temple night recently too. I drove and was so please to have Celia actually be baptized. The sensory sensitivity she has with water was a deterrent, but she was brave. Joe was so tender with her. He was like a missionary baptizing a new member. So respectful and with care he slowly dipped her into the water and checked on her when she came up. Once was good for her and I felt the spirit so strong that evening.

Many Blessed Times with Friends and Family

July is flying by. I was happy to host for fourth of July. We had George and Ginny over with my folks. We enjoyed great conversation, it was really neat hearing about George's experiences in the navy and being at the helm from Hawaii to Long beach. I'm glad we had Brian's new BBQ for the hot dogs that turned out great! The zombie chaser turned out to be a great finale for our front yard fireworks. The night before the fourth we went to Rah Rah's and Papa's backyard. Caroline joined up and we all enjoyed a great seat for the Sun city aerial fireworks.

Joe got to go on his high adventure trip with the priests. He rode motorbikes and went white water river rafting and drove jet ski's. We also managed to get his driver's training done and he scored a perfect score on his driver's license exam.  We have needed another driver around. Spence has been out of school and he is really into being active and gone in the car day and night.  One day I decided if I was going to spend the whole day driving, I might as well see the beach. We have a lovely drive to Stinson beach. Spence didn't last long, but Celia and I got to go and get some amazing pizza and hot chocolate(Parkside café) and visited a surf shop in town. We were home by 3:30pm. The benefit was we saw and took in amazing sights and sounds and then made it home before any rush hour traffic.

My Dad had a Birthday on the 9th and we celebrated at this house. We also got to go and have yummy posole as Rah Rah's with my folks. Looking back, it has been a great July even thought there were hard times, we were able to have fun, have our health and visit with friends and family.

Celia went to a 12th Birthday candy themed party for Caroline's sister, Mandy. She seem to have a great time and Joe stayed out late visiting this party and Caroline even after the trek. Joe pulled a cart in pioneer clothing 20 miles. I'm proud he made it and enjoyed it and said it wasn't easy, but easier than he expected. I prayed so hard for him and he walked for his ancestor Jesse Bigler Martin who was a pioneer and a captain of a party that crossed the plains and settle in California and Utah. I want our children to feel of their heritage and feel so grateful for what they have now, so it pleases me to have my son participate in such an activity.

We are getting excited for more family time in the mountains of Colorado at the end of this month. We are preparing for the trip for spencer with all the sensory tools we can. Bri has been loading us up with weighed blankets and hand massagers and swings. We should be good.

Age of Sails

 It was fun clue into the past and all things nautical to go on Celia's Field trip called Age of Sails. Were were on a ship in San Francisco. I had volunteered to drive months before and Celia had been anticipating the day for. She knew the captain and first mate would be strict. She knew there would be punishments for talking in everyday language from the 20th century and for having idle hands. I didn't realize being a "tall sailor" I would be participating so much in the back to the ages event. It was fun to be in character. I learned to say A Vast when I spotted anything unsafe. There was definitely some team building going on and I felt privileged to bu-lei the sailors as the rigger and learn to hoist sailors up high to reach the sail and mast. Our captain looked a little like the Character Russ Poldark and it felt very surreal like living in real life at the time and place of Pirate's of the Caribbean.

We did get rained on, an the ship did rock to and fro a little too much at times. Overall it was a great experience. I especially felt blessed and noticed the Lord's tender mercies towards me. Pack meeting was on the same day as this event. I was worried about traffic and getting home in time for the track master to set up for the event. The other fifth grade classes that went the this same field trip returned home much later that was feasible for me to do all my duties in preparation for pinewood derby.  We avoided traffic on the way there and a semi that jack knifed on the freeway we were on. We were ahead of our group an arrived there 30 mins early. I noticed I didn't have my lunch for the all day trip so with the extra time I was able to park closely, get a lunch and get some validation for the parking. As soon as we were off the boat, I was able to leave early with the group I was in charge of. They took their birthday cupcakes to go and we arrived home early after all.  Another Mom that knew I was in a hurry offered to wait with my scholars I was in charge of so I was on my way home in no time. We saw many beautiful birds and rainbows were in abundance as well. Pinewood derby went well and I was glad to have had the stamina to endure the busy, demanding, blessed day!

Never a Dull Moment

You would think that after all of the birthdays and parties happening around here had passed that things would be pretty uneventful for awhile, but that is definitely not the case.

The day after Spencer's birthday Emmy invited three of her friends over and they made a sarcastic hot pink birthday cake for a boy that one of her friends used to like. They had lots of fun baking and driving all over town, and Spencer sure enjoyed having all of teenage girls at the house.

On Monday Celia got to have "her hair done" for an E.E.G. like the ones that she got when she was four. We went to visit Dr. Chez, hers and Spencer's neurologist, for the first time in almost four years and he remembered us. He said that he wanted to get to know Celia again and to make sure that the nightmares that she sometimes gets aren't from any seizures that we don't know about.

On Wednesday Andrew came over to pick up a guest pass from Emmy so that she could go to his Senior Ball next week. She had forgotten it at school, but luckily I was able to go pick it up from the office at her school and bring it over to the office at Andrew's school a few hours before the deadline. While he was at our house, him and Emmy decided that they wanted to make a pizza from scratch. They went out and bought all of the ingredients that we didn't already have around the house and spent the rest of the evening making the dough, waiting for it to rise, putting toppings on the pizza and then putting it in the oven. They seemed like they had lots of fun doing all of that while in the meantime Brian and I went on date night to Costa Vida. I decided to try their raspberry chicken salad, and I think it has become a new favorite of mine!

On Friday afternoon I dropped Joseph off to go on a campout with his boy scout troop, and he felt like he was better prepared for camping this time around since he could use the hiking backpack that he got for his birthday to carry his things during all of their hiking instead of having to carry a couple duffle bags. Celia felt like she wanted to go camping too so while Joseph was packing his things she took out all of her own camping supplies, only all of her things were much smaller and all pink. He seemed like he had a great time and enjoyed telling me about all of the hatchet throwing contests they had at the campout. He didn't get home until late on Saturday night, but he was all smiles and didn't even seem to mind that he was covered in dirt.

Also on Friday, I got around to replacing the hubcaps on Emmy's car. She had been missing her front left hubcap for awhile, so Brian decided to order her some new ones. I put them on her car by myself, but they turned out to be too small. We had barely even gotten off of our street before three of them came off. Oh well. We're ordering some different ones that are the right size, and after a carwash and a week and a half of being in the repair shop her car will be all the way nice and spiffy again. It's so nice that we have a working car for her to be able to drive herself places and we're glad that it will be working for another few years.

And after all that, we all enjoyed just being able to relax.