Family Night Activity

A couple Mondays ago Lucy was in charge of our Family Home Evening (FHE) activity. She chose to go swimming. We have some friends in our congregation from church that practically beg us to come and swim because they want their pool to get used. We don't mind because the girls LOVE to swim.






I am not sure how these girls became so fearless, but I went down this particular slide once and it was my last time. It is too steep of a drop for my liking. And a bit to narrow for my voluptuous hips.

This slide reminds me of a much larger slide I went down nearly 15 years ago at Seven Peaks
in Utah. Our family was on the last week of our 3 week cross country camping vacation and some friends of my parents, who lived in Utah, suggested this particular water park.


Driving up I was filled with great anticipation. I enjoyed swimming and water slides. Little did I know how these water slides would impact my feelings of them for the rest of my life.

If you click on the Seven peaks link right up there, it will take you to the tour of the park. You can view the different water slides available. I can't remember if it was the straight down blue one (sky Breaker) or the yellow one (jagged edge) but this is how the story went.

My twin sister, and little brother headed up the more than 6 story high stair way to the very top. Those slides didn't look to steep from ground level looking up. It looked like FUN! So up we went.

Once up there, we may have realized that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to go on the BIG slides. We tried getting our little brother to go down first , but he was pretty panicky. My sister and I were pretty scared ourselves. Somehow I was the one who ended up going first.

Instructions from the water slide attendant : Cross your arms and lay them over your chest. NO MATTER WHAT, KEEP YOUR LEGS CROSSED TOGETHER! And stay flat on your back.

Okaaaayy?!!?

My heart was pounding so hard. I crossed my arms, tightly crossed my legs, scooted to the edged of the slide to start dropping, and the next thing I knew the force of gravity had ripped my legs apart making me vulnerable to what naturally will happen to anyone who does not successfully KEEP THEIR LEGS CROSSED NO MATTER WHAT!

I get down to the bottom of the slide in the 4.5 seconds it says it takes to get to the bottom, only to find that my bathing suit has been wedged so tightly in between my cheeks that it causes a burning sensation. I get up only to find that my bowels had been filled with, not mercy, but high velocity water.

My sister had gone right after me and we both realized that we needed to quickly get to the bathroom. So we waddled to the nearby bathroom to spend the next several minutes getting rid of the unnaturally given enemas.


We both laughed hysterically through our pain. My brother got off the ride jumping up and down saying "ow, ow, ow, ow!"


Needless to say we stayed on the much smaller less dramatic dropping water slides for the rest of the day.

So even though our friends water slide was not over 6 stories high, more like 7 feet, steep is steep to me. I am not one for the free fall feeling. But if you are the "thrill seeker" type or if you want to clean out your system, then I recommend you try out the Seven peaks water park.

No particular subject

i keep on getting lots of great ideas to write about and i think in that moment "oh this will be a great topic to write about, I most definitely will not forget about it!"


and every single time i forget. what is worse is i have not corrected this problem i just continue to think i will remember, and then i forget. whatever.


as excited as our home is to welcome a new person to the fun, i wanted to document some of the true feelings i have had about adding a different gender to the group.


i was completely terrified. was being the key word in that sentence. for some reason going out to utah and being around all of our family helped me switch my thinking. i now find myself thinking about our little boy and anticipating his arrival.


speaking of arrivals. Monday on labor day, yeah i just about went into labor several time. our home was built in 1940. it is old. anyway, you know the girls and i were pretty much gone for the whole month of august. jared was gone at work and then to various church meetings and so forth so he was not at home often as well. this is the only explanation i can think of for what i found monday afternoon when i was ready to load in my last load of laundry into the washer.


there was a little mouse that scurried about. i screamed a scream that made me feel like the baby was going to shoot out of me. i do not do well with scurrying things. not one bit. i paused for moment to make sure the little thing was not going to jump on me. it moved again and i screamed again as i leapt to leave the laundry room.


i then yelled from the back door to jared, who was dutifully obeying his wife who had told him to finish his shed project, to stop what he was doing and to come quickly. he ran and came to save the day.


i told him the new top priority was to kill the mouse and to make sure that any further invasions of a mouse would ensure that upon entering our dwelling they would suffer a slow death from poisoning. i will spare you the details of how he handled the situation, but i will say that he was successful.


i was so worked up about the whole thing. i just don't like surprises like that. my body certainly didn't either.


the second time i almost went into labor happened later on in the day when i was going through the girls clothes to prepare for this cooler weather. i was moving some things and this BIG spider comes out of nowhere. I nearly popped the baby out again. especially when i went to kill the filthy thing.


i may or may not have cried several time on monday because my body was so stressed out from all of the surprises. unwelcome ones might i add.


anyway...... the girls started school tuesday. girls as in emma and sera. they were sooo excited! lucy and kady are doing mommy school. we did this last year and had a great time. eliza is on the verge of walking, but has been for the last 3 months. we shall see when she crosses over from babyhood to toddlerhood.


here is a random question. are there others out there besides me who does not measure the amount of water when you cook your pasta? i thought this randomness sunday evening as i was preparing some egg noodles to accompany out delicious dinner. i thought about if there was anyone out there who actually measures 4 quarts of water to boil their pasta in. if so i have nothing against you i am just curious if people really do this.


Sera was in charge of closing prayer for our family night on Monday. As she prayed she somehow included how she was thankful to God for GPS's. mind you, we have never had one and do not recall ever talking about them. but i am sure for many out there GPS's is something you are thankful to God for.

Good-bye Why-homen-ing

So on our way out to Utah I was safely able to capture the girls excitement as we left the great state of Wyoming. I especially love how Kady said Wyoming. Enjoy!

We survived

The girls and I drove from Michigan to Utah last week. Really they were the BEST! Our drive was uneventful. My make shift porta potty was my saving grace. We left last Tuesday and got to Utah on Thursday. This is the second time I have gotten on the computer since last Monday so I am not planning on being on here for the next month very much. Just wanted to let those who knew we were making the trek, that we had made it and survived with smiles on our faces. We won't be home until the end of the very end of the month. We are soaking up being with our family that is out here, and excited to celebrate with my youngest sister and her fiances marriage later this month. Yeah for joyous times!

The wearing of clothes

I find it completely interesting how each one of our daughters wears out clothing differently.

When Emma was younger she had a thing with chewing holes in her sleeves or at the base of the neck/collar. She wears out the knees of pants rather quickly, so I am always grateful when warmer weather comes and out goes the pants and in come the shorts or skirts. When she puts her clothes away she sorta puts them together but it is not important for her to have a structured organized drawer. She is not so much of a get dirt or food on her clothes, she just wears the life out of them.

Sera is a very clean child. Her clothing rarely has stains on them. She doesn't chew on her clothing, probably because she has never had enough teeth in her mouth at the same time to be able to do so. But even if she did I could not see her doing that. When she puts her clothing away she makes sure they are folded properly and organizes her drawers. I love that I can easily pass her clothes onto Lucy.

Now Lucy on the other hand. Well she uses her shirt lately for a napkin all. the. time. I ask her constantly to not use her shirt to wipe her nosehandsface. It is a yucky habit that ensures that Kadys clothing when she is Lucy's age will not look as nice as they did when they were passed down from Emma and Sera to Lucy. Lucy is a very active child too, so she doesn't mind getting in the garden and pulling weeds or digging in the dirt so she gets some good wear out of them.

Kady. Poor Kady. Most of her clothes have gone through 3 other people so I am not sure how she wears out her clothing. She seems to be more like Sera though.

And Eliza well again most of her clothing has been worn by Emma, Sera, Lucy and Kady so you get what you pay for.

For the most part though I have been able to salvage even the "damaged" goods and repair them to be able to last as long as they can. Because I am a cheapy when it comes to clothes for kids. Especially younger ones. Stains do not bother me. Well some do, like the skid marks I find. Luckily our washing machine is amazing and handles getting stains out fairly well

Sera first day of Kindergarten 2008

Kady July 2010

Lucy summer 2007

Eliza June 2010
You can tell the writing is
fading a bit. It is only 7 years old.