Summer. Thus far.

In addition to traveling across the country and taking a picture a day, other things do go on in our lives.

Sort of.

Arilee has no life.  Or so she says on Facebook.  Poor kid.

Toby has no life, either.  She sits at the door, waiting, crying, begging to go outside.  And when we finally let her, she ends up climbing a tree and crying because she can't get down.

We've hit the range a couple of times.  Well, I went once.  Cody gave me a lesson and told me to hold my club a certain way and then re-adjust my grip a little bit, and HOLY COW, why did he not teach me this 15 years ago when I actually liked to golf?  I can hit it straight.  Just not very far.  I still have not developed a love for the game.  Yet.  I will.  Just not today.  The bare feet really help.

Justin spends his days at work trying to tame a rabbit that has moved into the golf cart shed.  The guys at work have come close to being able to pet it, but not quite.  Ashlee was determined to pick it up.  Not quite.

Fathers day.

Cody washed my car.  Ashlee played in the suds.

Cody's uncle passed away.  He lived next door to us and we were asked to take part in the program of his funeral.  I played the piano.  Cody prayed.  Afterward, he had a horse drawn hearse to carry his casket next door to the cemetery.  

It was led by bagpipes and the family walked behind (although we cut through the parking lot and watched the procession come in rather than walk behind).  

It was actually pretty cool.  Uncle Dick would have loved it. 

We put the pool up.  The first day, Ashlee dropped the pool cleaner thingie into the bottom and I made her crawl in the 60 degree water and fetch it out.  This was Thursday.

By Monday, they were swimming away in 80 degree water.  Another ten degrees and I might get in with them.   

We built a fire and roasted marshmallows.  

Justin's girlfriend brought over a turtle she'd picked up in California for Ashlee to see.  She wants one now.  So, I was at the pet store picking up some new rocks for our fish tank (and some more fish, our shark disappeared - we blame the cat) and we checked into turtles.  It turns out these little babies are illegal to sell in Idaho, so unless we feel like driving down to a flea market in California, she's out of luck.   We talked her into a frog instead.  Maybe for her birthday.  

Finally - my oldest sister is visiting from Mississippi for then next ten days or so.  Our first project while she is here was celebrating Ruthie's birthday at Applebees with the rest of the sisters and my sister in law, Kelly (who left before the picture was taken - she is getting ready to move to Missouri next week and was a tad busy).  I won't tell you how old she is, but she's old enough to have been my mother.  She would have been a young mother, but still.  

I can't believe we're 1/3 of the way through summer vacation already.  It doesn't seem like we've done a whole lot, but there is still time.  

Miscellaneous March

Beyond taking a picture a day, which when life gets chaotic, I am not very good at... 

other things have happened at our house.  

Ishee was clearly under the weather for a couple of days.  

Otherwise, she'd never take a nap in the middle of the day.  

 We had the relief society birthday party and the 

ward clerk asked me to take a few pictures for the ward history. .  

We had a fabulous sister in our ward talk about getting to know each other on a personal level.

 Cody's grandpa turned 85 so we all went down to Pocatello for dinner with the

extended family at Mama Inez, and then back to grandma's house for 

cake and icecream.  

 The girls were being super silly one night. 

It was fun to just laugh and laugh at them. 

 Justin turned 18!  We didn't do anything special, because we are boring like that.

I made a coconut cake with salted caramel frosting and 

even found the candles that were on his cake when he turned

one and eight.   We had hamburgers at the inlaws house, cake and icecream, 

he got 18 different candybars and balloons from his aunt Wendy and lots of money

then we went home and watched "Despicable Me" with his girlfriend.

 Air-bear was in a play at school.  We've already forgotten the name of it. 

The spotlight broke right before it started, and while it wasn't

necessarily needed, it would have made for better pictures.  

She played the loud, opinionated, smart-alek.

In other words, she was playing herself.  haha.

"Z" is for Zillion

I have a zillion people in my family. Or so it would seem. Seriously. I used to know the exact number, but I lost count at 100 this time and didn't want to start over. A hundred. A zillion. There's really not that much difference when you figure how many of them are under the age of ten. Then it feels closer to a zillion. For sure.

But that is what happens when your mother gives birth to ten children. We are spread far and wide... Mississippi, Michigan, Utah, and Idaho. The grandkids are spread from some secret location in Iraq to just up the street and just about everywhere in between. There are so many great grand kids, my mother can't remember all their names. I barely can.

This weekend, the oldest sibling escaped from Detroit and payed us a visit so it called for a family barbecue. While there were zillions who couldn't make it, there were still zillions that did. While there has been a couple of times in the past five years that all the siblings have gotten together, I don't know that there will ever be a time when the entire family will congregate in one place. There are just too many, spread too far. Wouldn't that be a fun picture to have, though?

(People! What is up with all the grey hair??? How old do you think we all are? Just in case you are wondering, there are 20 years difference between myself on the far right and the oldest on the far left.)

One of the fun things about having a zillion people in your family is that you are probably related quite closely to the conductor of the most awesome little pint sized train in town who takes you on all the rides you want. It's always a big favorite, even for me, as old as I am, I still look forward to riding the train every summer almost as much as the little kids do. Thank you sister dear and your equally awesome husband for obliging us, as always.

Then of course, we have a dad who cares not about water shares and when it's his turn to irrigate. He is a farmers worst nightmare. He takes it when he wants it and runs it for as long as he feels like it and you just hush up and let him do it. He got rid of his trampoline and his giant slide, so now the big treat after train rides is playing in the water while the rest of us sit around and visit and devour dad's infamous salt and vinegar roasted chicken. Flood irrigating is a cheap and easy way to entertain a zillion or so little - or not so little - kids.

So concludes my first "ABC Wednesday" experience. I didn't tune in until we were on the letter "C", so I missed the first two, but managed to do every other letter, tying it in to every day life. It's been a great time, and I can't wait to do it again.

Click on the ABC Wednesday challenge button below to join in.

"U" is for Unwinding...

After a long day of doing yard work...
Attending a wedding...

And chatting it up with some seriously super cute nieces...

We pulled up the lawn chairs...

Lit the fire...

And unwound from the week with a perfectly roasted marshmallow.

How did you unwind this weekend?

ABC Wednesday

"N" is for nephews (and nieces)

A week or so ago, I totally didn't take the opportunity to go to graduation at BYU-Idaho. I only had a nephew, a niece, and her husband graduating. My beautiful niece even gave the scripture. And I missed it!

But it was so early. On a Saturday.

I need my beauty sleep.

And I am not that good of an aunt.

Besides, my sister is already the favorite aunt and I hate to steal her title from her. I am, however, going to say I'm the favorite aunt of this kid... only because the usual favorite aunt is his mother. Otherwise... she probably would be his favorite aunt, too. I'm sure of it.

I did show up to the dinner afterward that my sister had for her only child, and not just because she was serving prime rib... she was also sharing her flu bug germs and I just couldn't wait to see if my flu shot was worth it or not. So far... it was.

Congratulations Patrick... now go get a job so you can move that beautiful wife of yours out of her mother in laws basement.

(Though, shame on me for not getting a picture with his diploma! There was one, I promise.)

ABC Wednesday is brought to you by:

C is for CUTE!

Meet Livia Mae, the newest member of our family. She has the most beautiful hair I've ever seen on a two week old baby! Seriously seriously cute!!!

I almost missed her because her and her mom were taking a much needed nap... and I'm so glad they, well mom anyway, woke up just in time for a couple of quick smooches before I had to run off to collect Ishee off the bus. Next time I need to give more warning, maybe she'll have her beautiful blue eyes open for more than a second or two. Congrats to the lucky parents and her three older siblings!

For more "C" pictures, Visit ABC Wednesday.

Issues....

I have issues. Mostly with laundry. If I walk in your room and find even one piece of clothing on the floor, I don't do your laundry. Period. Even if you are completely out of clean clothes.

For my girls, this can mean weeks without clean clothes. I stress and stress my "issue" with them, and they choose not to do anything about it but whine about having no clean clothes.

Now that school is in, that is a bigger problem since I prefer they wear clean clothes to school instead of looking like orphans.

It has little effect.

Kind of like when I tell the Ish she absolutely cannot leave her school shoes outside all night, and she does it anyway, just to prove to me that she can, indeed, leave them outside. Now she has to wear dewey damp tennis shoes to school.

They never learn. Issues.

In other news...

We drove an hour away this weekend to a restaurant we barely tolerate with people we prefer not to be seen in public with, especially when it involves alcohol and money, but that is another story for another day...

Then it was back to grandma's house... it was her birthday afterall... and feel free to think it wierd that my husbands grandmother is a year and a half younger than my own mother!
Being a grandma who already has everything and is constantly giving things away (usually to my kids), we stick with simple and gave her some handmade cards and a 5x7 group photo of the kids, which mysteriously found itself ripped in half approximately two and a half seconds after being handled by Ishee, who swears it wasn't her... it's a good thing I like her...
We then proceeded to sing Happy Birthday to grandma ... and after a major weeping and wailing fit over candles, she had to light them again so a certain four and a half year old cousin who shall remain nameless could blow them out all by herself. I tell ya, birthdays around here are all about her... it's a good thing we like her... and that she's not mine... cuz I'd a traded her in by now...
But, I kind of like her anyway, even if she thinks I'm strange because I'm always trying to take her picture, something she detests with every fiber of her being. She usually lets me get one shot before she screams at me.
Before we left for this evening of pain and anguish... okay, it wasn't THAT bad (but close)... we drained the pool. With the weather headed south and the solar cover having seen one too many hot summer days and falling apart (literally), the pool just wasn't getting much above 70 degrees. Nobody dared get in and swim to the bottom and pull the plug, so the husband made a siphon out of the shop vac hose which we used until the boy started playing with it and pulled it out.

We then made him get in and pull the plug.

Ishee cried.

and then she put on her swimming suit (over her underwear) and played...

in the mud...

I love weekends... almost as much as I love sending the kids off to school on Monday morning! Ahhhh.... silence....