I guess it's time I introduced the two newest members of our family. One year ago we had a disastrous first experience with getting a dog. It lasted for two weeks and then it was either he goes or I go. So imagine my surprise when I was out with my sisters one Saturday and Jeremy decided he'd take the kids and pick up TWO dogs. I was very disturbed at first, but I quickly realized that this would be nothing like last year's situation. The dogs are brothers and are so cute and well-behaved. By the time I got home the day Jeremy picked them up I was so surprised to see that even Brody and Jace had taken to them and were sitting down letting the dogs crawl all over them. I'm glad I got to experience that evil dog from last year because I'm convinced that I never would've taken to ANY dog if we hadn't gotten a "rock-bottom" dog first. It's taking time for us to bond, though. We took them to get neutered a few weeks ago and when I went to pick them up the assistant brought one of them out and held him up to me and said all cutesy-like, "There's your mommy!" That's when I realized I have a LONG way to go to become a true blue animal lover, because that statement made me shudder really bad. It's been going great, though. The kids all love them and they're a great addition. The best part is I can stop feeling guilty for making the kids get rid of the evil dog.

We get to have Allie and Detmer come over sometimes for sleepovers and the kids always have so much fun. One of their favorite things to do is take a bath. They especially love taking one in my big tub with lots of bubbles.

Detmer and Brody are scared of the bubbles, so they waited patiently until I could get them in the good old-fashioned kid tub.

They all love watching movies. Tonight they got to watch a movie on the big screen downstairs that Jeremy splurged on earlier this summer.

It's been a fun preview to the real fun when they get to have a big sleep-over tomorrow night at Grandpa Greg's house. They are all so excited for that! He has them all over once a month and they just love it (and, of course, so do the parents).

Happy belated birthday to Jeremy. He turned 36, but age doesn't mean anything to us anymore. Since we both aged about 25 years when the twins were born, we can't believe we're still young enough to be in our thirties.

I'll just do a little bragging about him now. He's always known he wanted to go on and get his masters degree, and now that he feels he can finally do it without me heading to the insane asylum, he's gotten it started. He went for summer and is starting back for fall semester. He's done really well so far. His gift for bs-ing will really come in handy on his way to his degree.

He's also an assistant coach for Corben's football team, and seems to be really loving it. He takes Lance to practices and Lance is thrilled to have become one of the team's water boys. They practice every night for a couple hours and Jeremy has been very dedicated.

He's still working on base and doing everything he can to better his position. It's been a shock to his system to have a job that requires you to be there at a certain time in the morning, but he is long gone every morning before I even roll out of bed.

This is what I like the most about him: He knows when he really needs to be there for me. I have been really sad these past couple of days, and he has done everything to try and makes things easier for me. These are some of the things he's done the last couple of days that I couldn't tell you when the last time was that he did them: bathed the kids, cleaned the kitchen, rubbed my back, brushed the kids' teeth, and has just generally been doing whatever he can to make sure I'm okay. He even cancelled a fishing trip he had planned this weekend so he could stay with me.

I hate bringing this up because it makes me look bad, but I made him sell his motorcycle. The feeling came upon me suddenly and strongly that we needed to get rid of it, and though he loved that thing, he immediately gave in to my wishes. It was really hard for him, but I'm very happy to know that when I feel that strongly about something, he won't second-guess me. It was never even an argument, he was just sad about it. He had it sold within a month (I won't mention the two news articles I've read in the week it's been gone that were about fatal motorcycle accidents. Just more peace of mind that we did the right thing).

The last thing I will mention about his amazingness is SO amazing, that he doesn't even know it yet! Since Kira is going out of town this weekend, he is going to get up bright and early on Saturday and come to yard sales with me! Isn't he the greatest?

(side note: this story ends fine, just sharing an experience)

A few weeks ago Jeremy took Trevor in for his sports physical. He was otherwise fine, but the doctor wouldn't sign him off because of a heart murmur. Trev would have to see a cardiologist before the doctor would sign him off for football. Jeremy and I scoffed. Who doesn't have a heart murmur? I've heard of tons of people who do. So we made an appointment with Primary Children's Riverton office (so we could get in sooner. The main hospital couldn't get us in until after football would have already started). We decided to make a day of it since we were driving all that way so we piled all the kids in and headed to see the doctor. The doctor was really nice, but after a couple of initial tests he explained that he didn't like what he was hearing. He went into detail, saying an innocent murmur wasn't common in a child as old as Trev, and it sounded like the type of thing, he didn't say this in so many words, but implied that it could basically make a child drop dead if they are being too active. At this point Jeremy and I were both getting a little nervous. The doctor sent Trev in for an ultrasound. After that we were brought back into our little room and waited. And waited. And waited. After nearly an hour, the doctor reappeared. Now, a little advice to you doctors out there: After you have just told me my child quite possibly has a very serious heart condition, done further tests and made us wait for an hour before reappearing, don't come back into the room escorted by two other doctors. Or if you must, at least poke your head in the door first and say that you have two residents following you around observing. It was a terrifying few seconds until he casually told us that it was an innocent murmur after all and Trev was just fine.

After that lovely experience we went to try out a big waterpark in the area called Cowabunga Bay. I can't believe how much fun we had. I'm always a little skeptical to take all the kids to a water place, but it worked out pretty well. There were a lot of slides they could all go on, even the little ones, and the water is never very deep. It was such a fun day. After a hectic summer it was pretty much the first time in several weeks we had gotten to spend quality time together. It's definitely something we need to work on doing more. The only damper on the day was missing Corben because he was at scout camp, but I stopped feeling bad when he got home and told me it had been the best week of his life. Uh, don't know exactly how I feel about that.

My two cents about Cowabunga Bay: We did the cheapest deal they offer, which is two hours at the end of the day, and it still costed $65. They are way overpriced. Though it was a lot of fun, it definitely does not offer enough to justify what they charge.

Here are the kids all tuckered out at the end of the day:

I've been bummed all week about last week's Deseret News 10k that I ran with my dad, sister, and brother-in-law. I had no doubt that I would improve on last year's time and ended up adding three minutes! So I'm trying to gain a little perspective. I'm blessed that I have the ability to even attempt a race. It's not something I would've ever thought about trying ten years ago. And my sister made a couple of good points when she wrote about it: It is an awesome family tradition that we've started. This was our second year but we have no plans to stop. Also it's inspiring to run with our dad. He's 56 years old and didn't even start running until about five years ago or so. I am an avid exerciser, and despite my deep love and appreciation for all things chocolate/fried/crunchy/salty, etc. and the ensuing weight problems that causes, I think I am fairly healthy. So I need to stop being bummed about what I couldn't do and be proud of myself for what I can do.

The kids and I just spent an awesome few days in Wyoming at Kira's in-law's cabin. Kira and I were there with ten kids between us. It kept us quite busy, but I think everybody had a great time. I was quite surprised at how much fun I had, since I really loathe anything resembling camping. But it's like Kira always says when she goes to the cabin, "I had fun because my kids had fun."

The favorite activity was going down to the river. The first night there we walked down intending to just throw rocks and maybe stick our feet in. We told the kids where to stand and to not get any closer to the river. Of course they all just kept inching closer and closer, and before we knew it they were all totally in the water and their clothes were soaked. I was pretty uptight for a while but Kira quickly taught me that you have to muster up lots of extra patience in that kind of setting. The next day after breakfast we got smart and got them all into their swimming suits before heading back down to the river.

The bigger boys had tons of fun playing card games with Kira. There was lots of screaming and laughter. I'm definitely going to have to learn myself a few games. Trevor's been begging for me to play some with him since we got home.

It was a lot of fun going hiking and exploring. There were a lot of interesting and fun sights. I was so amazed at how well the little kids did. They never got tired or slowed down. Everybody's legs are full of scratches and bug bites. Totally worth it, though.

(warning: yes, a couple of the kids are in their underwear in this first photo because their shorts were drying on the deck.)

Good job getting the computer fixed, Jeremy. Still waiting for our millions of photos to get put back on the computer, but until then, a bit about summer.

I've discovered that the only way to survive the summer is to keep the kids busy. Sure, my house, laundry, and cooking suffers, but that's easy to deal with compared to whiny, fighting kids. We've definitely been putting our Lagoon season passes to full advantage. We've also gone swimming, fun times with neighbors, and had a really fun 4th of July. When all else is lacking, we put out the pool in the backyard, or watch a movie in the basement to escape the heat.

I know everyone's met my best friend, Intention. Intention's job this time was that I was going to set aside some time every day for reading, and for the school boys to work on math. So far it has been done, let me think, zero times. Are there people out there who actually keep up on school work during the summer? If there are, I don't think I want to meet them.

Father & Sons 2010

Well, another F & S is done. This year, like last year, all seven of us went up. The difference this year though, was that we got there at 12:30 Friday, and it was really nice, we played kickball, football, frisbee, and played on the swingset (which the Brody and Jace can't ever get enough of). I was well prepared with food, which you have to be with 7 boys. We had chicken hobo dinners, and the kids ate them up.
Then, about 6:00, the storms came rolling in. It was a torrential downpour for quite a while. I was up most of the night paranoid about one of the twins or Zack becoming too cold and dying. Finally, after my second visit to the neighboring tree that night, I noticed that our tent was covered in snow. I went to the van to see what the temp was, and it was 35 degrees! I couldn't believe it. I started the van and got it warmed up, then started carrying one child at a time through the snow to the van to warm up.
I figured if I was cold and shivering, which is extremely uncommon at night, then they must be worse. So Finally about 4:00 in the morning five of us were in the van, and Lance and Trevor, who had the best sleeping bags, were in the tent.
It was crazy, and we quickly had breakfast and loaded up all of our wet gear and came home earlier than we have ever done from F&S.
Here is our annual picture we take in front of the tent: