Ready, Set, Summer!

I have been counting down the days to summer vacation. Now that it's here, I'm a little worried. I'm working on job charts and trying to think of fun (and cheap) things to do to keep everyone busy and motivated. One problem of having a big family is that we drive a gas guzzler that consistently costs close to $150 to fill up. So I'm trying to keep our driving down to a minimum. So I think we'll just do a lot of walks and bike rides, running through sprinklers and playing at the park. The kids will have to earn "screen time" which I define as TV, computer, Nintendo, Gameboy, texting on cell phone, etc. (In case you're wondering, Hayden bought himself a trac fone this week so he can be "in" and text with his friends. No I didn't cave and get him one.) So hopefully I can work out all the bugs this week and we can have a great summer. So here's the review of our last week.

Regan sprained her ankle on Monday and was actually able to start walking on Thursday. Today she was just about back to normal. Yay! It was REALLY hard getting around with a baby, a naughty 3 year old and a crippled girl that is really too heavy for me to carry far (46 lbs!).


On Thursday Regan had her first violin lesson. She has been chomping at the bit to begin, so now I get to practice with her every day, too! For the first month or so she won't even use a violin. She'll mostly work on things like the perfect bow hold, clap rhythms, etc. Barbara is such a fabulous teacher! Beginning next week we'll have all three lessons in a row (two full hours of lessons!) so we'll see how that goes! After Regan's lesson she said (in a very dramatic voice), "I REALLY liked her. She is SOOOOOO beautiful!" What a sweetie.



Despite our cool spring, strawberries finally came on this week. I drove by our favorite berry farm on Wednesday and was so happy to see them in business! I stopped and got a half flat of strawbs. I had to hide a few so that there would still be some when Dix got home from work. The rest were devoured by the crazy berry monsters. They'll start u-pick next week and then we'll get them in mass quantities and start our little jam factory going. I can't wait! Then when we're done with strawberries there will be blueberries, raspberries, marionberries and last of all (but free all along the sides of nearly every road), blackberries. I love Washington in the summer!



Yesterday Hayden went on a Boy Scout campout to Ape Caves with the boys from Lacey 3rd ward (they actually have more than one scout!). He had a great time. Porter was hoping to go with them too, but since he's only 11, he can only go if Dixon goes with them. So at the last minute Dix ended up having to work all weekend, so Porter didn't get to go. He was pretty sad about it (although he never even complained!), so we decided to do a little campout of our own at home. Porter dug a fire pit in the backyard and started a little fire. Key word here is little. Everything was miniature.


Hayden took all of the regular marshmallows with him, so we cooked miniature marshmallows over the fire. They were actually really good, just hard to get on a stick. And most of the sticks that worked well would burn up when you put them in the fire. But we had fun anyway.




Regan liked to get her marshmallow on fire, then blow it out and feed it to someone.


Finally she tried eating one herself.


Blech. She didn't like it at all!


Turner and Cooper slept through the whole thing, so it was actually somewhat calm with only three kids! Then they decided to camp out, but since our yard isn't fenced, I was a little nervous about it. We talked them into moving the tent up onto the deck, but one by one, all the kids came in and slept in the family room. They had fun anyway.