Sunday

Today our family was assigned to speak in Sacrament meeting. On Thursday I got a phone call from our ward music director asking if there was a particular theme for the meeting that we would be talking about. I told her, I didn't know we were speaking and I will have to call my husband to see about this. I sent David a text asking him. After a few minutes he called me back and said yes and that he totally forgot. Well, what do you do? At least I had some days this week without the worry of it all. Carson and Callie both spoke with David and I. They are such good troopers. Callie spoke on Baptism and Carson spoke on what he can do to prepare to serve a mission in 8 short years. The other children were excited to sit with the bishops family. In this ward they let you choose your topic which I find is very hard. I spoke on 2 Nephi 25:26 and David spoke on Capt. Moroni and how we can build barriers in our own lives.

Curtis there was a son-in-law of one of our ward members that was visiting today. He served in your mission. Keate is his last name.

Pictures are always nice to see so here are some pictures of the girls before church today. Lucy asked for curlers last night. She was so excited when we took them out this morning that she said, "Yay, I look like Annie!". Ginger wanted curlers as well but her hair is soooo straight. It would have looked funny. Maybe when its long again.

This and That

*****Saturday night David took Carson, Callie, and George crawdad and night fishing with a guy and his son from work. Probably not the best timing the night before church. Carson caught one fish and the others caught some crawdads. In the process of fishing, Carson's hook flew up and hit just below his eye. That was close! I took the picture last night so its healing well.

*****Sunday night, on the computer, I found some old friends of ours from Ft.Bragg . Kyle and Jennifer Paul. They are living in Montana with their 6 children. They were both single adults with David and I. Kyle actually was David's home teacher and helped him to come out to church again. He would go by David's barrack and invite him to all the YSA(YoungSingleAdult) activities and to church. Of course once David met me he didn't need Kyle anymore. :) The last time we saw them was at Curtis and Cindy's open house in Utah(1999).

1994- at McDonald's for breakfast in Washington DC for a temple trip. David isn't in this picture but I am. The one's circled are Jennifer and Kyle.

1994(April) Curtis's(my brother) open house before his mission. David is in the very far back by the picture. Kyle is the second from the right and Jennifer is next to me. Curtis is the one in the bottom left corner.

1994 again. Jennifer, me, and Amy Ralphs.

*****Yesterday Ginger gets off the bus and says to me "Mom, I have a hot new girlfriend. And we have some hot boyfriends." We had a long discussion about how "hot" is not a word we use to describe anybody. We can say pretty or handsome but not "hot". Today I told her to remember not to say that and she said "Can I say it one more time to tell dad what I did?" I said yes. She is our little spice.

School is going well for the others, and Lucy is having fun with mom. Piano lessons started again and George is taking this year. Callie is learning the recorder at school, taking choir, and learning to knit from a single sister in our ward. Carson is hoping to be a part of the band this year with the trombone. He is also in choir and trying to work on his scouting. We are staying busy.

YoungWomen garage sale

We got donations from ward members. We had a lot of clothes, books, and VHS tapes to sell. We made about $350 which I think was good for the prices we were selling things for. We had the clothes and toys going for .25 cents and books and movies for .10 cents. We didn't want to have to transport stuff in the end. We still ended up with quite a bit left over but the DI (Deseret Industries) truck will be at our stake center in Redding this month, so we'll donate there.

The generous sister that donated her home and breakfast for the girls.

Some of the girls found a future costume or prom dress. The two girls on the right are sisters and thats their mom in the back. She is in the presidency with me. The other girl is a non-member that wants to be baptized but her parents won't let her.

A big portion of the merchandise.

OH! Here is one of those treasures that we found.

Where there are toys, there is fun!

First Day of School

Well, today is the day. The kids are entering another school year. Carson is in 5th grade, Callie in 4th, George in 2nd, and Ginger in kindergarten. Lucy is a little sad to have to stay home with Mom. We'll have lots of fun though. They were really excited and nervous this morning. Carson told me he woke everyone up at 5am. If only that excitement would continue throughout the whole year.

Its another new school for them. Carson did just fine this morning going into his class. His teacher is the wife of his baseball coach from the spring. She remembered him which was nice. Callie on the other hand looked like she was going to l it. She is so like me its not even funny. She will do fine though. Carson and Callie both have classes with 30 kids and that makes me nervous a lot. George's and Ginger's classes both have from 15 to 20 which is much nicer. George did fine going to class as well. Ginger will go meet her teacher in about an hour and stay for an hour. She is bouncing off the walls with excitement.

Here is a car that was in the parking lot this morning. I thought the saying was funny.

Bravin' the ragin' waters

On Saturday we returned to Grants Pass to pick up Carson and Callie and decided to camp over night. Oh and while we were there, why not float the river. So we rented a raft, six life jackets(we already had one that Uncle Tony had given us), and four oars. It took us between 2-3 hours to float and paddle and float and paddle and float and paddle down the Rogue River. It was a lot of fun though. We look forward to doing it again and being more prepared, having experienced it once already.

El Capitan George! He was so full of energy.

Lucy loved it as well. I know it looks scary but she was totally safe. It was her trying to reach in that scared me.

It was a wild hair day for Ginger. Most of the day was very messy and dirty as you will see later.

Carson did not fall in. He wanted to go for a swim then realized how cold it was. It was really cold.

Callie went in as well. Brrrrrrr!

Ginger thought she would try it as well.

Carson and Callie did a great job at rowing. By the end they were really tired. On the few rapids we went through they did awesome. I have no pictures of the rapids because I was clutching my little ones.

I didn't get any pictures of the campsite itself but I couldn't pass up dirty bottom Lucy. And the front of her matched her backside. But here she was pretending to leave.

And Lucy trying to avoid getting marshmallow in her nice clean hair. We made it successfully.



When the sun had almost set, David laid down in the tent with the kids. He had Carson tell the story of Wall-e because they had gone to see it with Grandma and Grandpa, and the other kids hadn't. The kids were so tired. Carson couldn't finish so Callie continued the story. After they finished it was really quiet. Ginger made the comment that its hard to go to sleep without music. We usually play music on the computer at home. After 5 more minutes of silence Ginger sings "Steve Earl, Steve Earl, please write me a song." perfectly. I just had to chuckle. (We listened to the new Sugarland CD in the car on the drive) Another favorite is "Joey"

Wednesday

This past Wednesday some families with children from church decided to go to Siskiyou Lake. Carson and Callie were up in Grants Pass, OR so it was just my three little ones. It was a really nice day and they had lots of friends to play with.

This is a picture of Mary(Carson's age) getting George. Ginger is the girl on the far right and Lucy is a little below and to the left of the flowers. The flowers are covering some girls that need to be covered.

Little Lucy chillin' in the sun. She didn't stay there very long.

Ginger the fish. She did so well at playing safely. She's my more adventurous one.

Cool George!

Mary was very helpful and enjoyed playing with Lucy. It was a very nice break. We should take more advantage of being so close to the lake. Its about 20 minutes from our house. When we lived in Mount Shasta it was 10 minutes.

Ginger's art work

A week ago Monday we took Carson and Callie to stay a week at their Grandma and Grandpa's in Grants Pass, OR. They own a bakery so they had some early mornings and lots of treats. Anyway, on the car ride there the three oldest ones were giving Ginger a hard time so she decided to draw funny pictures of them. Here is Carson, poor guy.