Camping in Heber (I can't believe blogger let me upload this many pictures into one post!)

We got to go camping with Nate's family this year!  Nate took Friday off, so we left Thursday afternoon right after school.  (I still feel bad about letting the kids play hookey from school on Friday, but whatever).  It was a really nice campground.  It's owned by the church and usually used for Young Women's Camps.  The people running it are acutally older Missionary couples.  They were so cute and sweet.  It was funny to watch the frail little gray haired ladies driving around on the four wheelers the whole time.  We were in Campground 4 in the Marjorie Pay Hinckley Campground.  In cabin 4A.  This place was really nice, very well kept, and fairly comfortable. 

We got up there just in time for dinner (how conveninet) and then Nate, Noah, Luke, Joe, Erika and I all went for a little walk.  It was a really pretty campground!  We ran into a few deer who obviously were not very intimidated by us.  They stayed within 10 feet of us until we quieted down and took some pictures.  They were so pretty!  I do love deer now.

Erika was a good girl for most of the campout.  I was actually really surprised with how content she was in the backpack.

Our first night was pretty awful though.  Not as bad as some of our fellow campers, but not my favorite nonetheless.  Erika woke up about every half hour and either kicked and pinched me or just kicked and screamed.  I felt so bad for Jen, Nate's sister who had to sleep with us.  Everytime I was able to finally get Erika to sleep, someone else would wake up or talk, or just move and she would wake up again.  It was SO miserable!! I was definitely not my "cheerful self" in the morning.

Friday was really laide back.  Everyone just played games, wandered around the camp, took pictures, filled out the little paper that Grandma had passed out, and basically just bummed around.  I loved the relaxing atmosphere.  And the chance to take some pictures of everyone. 

The poor little W boys.  Threw up all night and all day.... that had to suck.  It actually kind of caught on and everyone was doing it by the end of the trip.  We kept hoping against all odds that we wouldn't get it, using hand sanitizer like crazy (even though we know it doesn't kill the bacteria that cause vomitting), and steering clear of the sickies.  It was nuts.

Cute little E was such a fun little subject :)  She loved smiling and then coming over to look at her pictures after.  She is SO adorable!!!

As always I loved watching my kids hanging out with their cousins.  The kids were so diligent with these little worksheets Grandma Ruthie gave them.  They made sure to fill in every square !  Took them half the day to do it but they all did it and got their little prizes :)  They sure had fun with it too!

cute girls.... shoulda tried to find Charity and Sierra first!

M and his Dad made this cool Bow and Arrow.... pretty cool!

The boys all spent most of the day in the "forest" building forts and traps and stuff.... sure looked like they were having fun.  I couldn't believe the fort the older boys had put together!  Pretty amazing!

Our official babysitters for the weekend :)  The little kids entertained themselves by pushing the babies around the paviolion.  It cracked me up how much fun they were having. 

I thought it was funny to hear Luke saying "She's not your baby" "She's not your sister" "She's not your little sister" to anyone and everyone who so much as looked at his baby sister.  He's very possessive, and very much her biggest fan.

Luke played Bocce ball all by himself for a good half hour.  I couldn't believe how much fun he was having all by shimself.  He would roll them all out there and then go pick them all up to do it again.  Cheering and jumping when he did really well :)  It was adorable.  I got to play with him for a little while too, and he was so sweet to me, telling me how good I was (like him).  And helping me to do better, teaching me his strategies.  Lots of fun.

K was a sweetheart and cam eover and played with Lukey for a little while.  They seemed to be having fun.

Nate took off with the camera for a little while and got some really nice pictures.

I loved watching Luke an dErika.  Luke really just can't get enough of her.  He just loves her so much.  Makes me smile.

hmmm.... I wonder if those new little pearly whites had anything to do with the sleepless night?!!!

Erika did miss the freedom she enjoys at home, not being able to just crawl wherever on comfy carpet.  But the few times that she was on the ground, she made good use of the time.  Taste testing ever rock, crumb, wood chip, bug, you name it that was in her reach.

Little "Jewum buddy" was another fun little poser :) He sat and did his cute little fake smile for me for several minutes :)  Such a sweetie.

Noah just loves his Jewum buddy.  He kept chasing him around to give him hugs and stuff.  He and J are a couple of little clowns when they're together :)  They're seo much alike it's weird.  I love watching them play.  For how young they are, they sure get along and have fun with each other.

L has quite the fan-base at these family functions.  My girls kept asking "when is L gonna come?" "How much longer till L gets here?".... she's pretty popular.  She taught the girls boondoggle, and shared her abundant supply with them.  She's so fun and sweet to entertain them so much. Hopefully she enjoys the extra shadows :)

Bradley went off on his own and with the older boys for most of the campout.  It was fun to catch him every now and then with a new "gun" or "sword"... I love how boys can make ANYTHING into a gun.  He sure looks up to his cousins and wants to be like them.  I'm glad he has boys to look up to.  It really blows me away to think about how old he is now.  He's just gorwn up so fast on me...

B is so cute how she always has a baby on her hip :)  Such a cute girl.

These two were being so cute I didn't even notice that they were playing over a hot fire pit.  (no fire, just hot still)  But it wasn't till A got after them that I realized I was getting them in trouble.  They're so dang cute though!  Nothing bad happened.

Friady night was much better, not perfect, but a lot better.  We were all happy to see R and H and their family, and happy to have them in our cabin.  The older kids slept much more soundly that night too.

On Saturday we got to go participate in Challenge Courses.  We all split up and went to different courses according to age, I was in the group with the littlest ones.  We had a total blast!  The big swing was the favorite part of course.  In fact I think the kids had completely lost interest after the first few minutes of the second course.  Which was fine :) I think we all still had a lot of fun.  But the swing was incredible!!  I can't believe how brave those little kids are!  I went on it and didn't think much of it until I was 30 (ish) feet up in the air, having to let go of the strap that held me u pthere!  It was FREAKY!!!  I seriously couldn't contain my scream!!  It was a lot of fun though!  I wanted to get pictures of all the kids, and play around with them a little on the photo editor, so here they all are.  It was a lot of fun to watch each of their cute little faces as they wizzed past.  They sure seemed thrilled. 

I didn't get to see Charity or Brad on their courses, Nate was with Brad and had some fun stories to tell about him being the brave one to volunteer to go first on the climb up to the zip line.  Nate needs to tell thate one though, I can't do it justice.  I just know that my little boy is a stud and totally showed up some of the older boys :)  We're pretty proud of him :) 

Sounded like Charity did some pretty cool stuff too.... I'll have to beg Matt for those pictures. 

It was a lot of fun.  Exciting things that my kids have never had the chance to do before.  I like that.

After the courses we came back to our camp, finished cleaning up, took some last minute pictures of everyone and everything, and then sadly headed home.  This is when we started to get nervous about kids getting sick.  Charity had a stomach age and Kelly wasn't feeling 100%.  We knew it was coming, and pretty much figured it would happen on the way home.  Luckily it waited.  Saturday night, after we'd had dinner, and were gettng ready for bed, Noah announced that he needed a bowl, then a few minutes later, during family prayer, he vomitted.  Erika followed suit shortly after, and then it was my turn.  They've both been sick for the last two days.  I somehow managed to get by with just one time.  It was probably the most I've ever thrown up at one time (sorry if that's tmi), but it was only once, so that was nice.  And I have to say I was really grateful to be AT HOME and not camping when it all hit the fan.  It really could be worse.  As I'm typing this (at 4:00 in the morning) Charity is dealing with it too.  I'm hoping the rest of them can skip it.  Especially Nate since he starts on the floor for the first time (Again) today.  Cross your fingers for him!!    It was a good camout.  We all had so much fun.  The cookie tossing definitely made it more memorable.... kinda like the rain a couple of years ago.... we'll probably never forget it!

Look what I can do!!! (already)

As I was packing for our campout, Erika made good use of the lack of supervision and taught herself how to crawl up the stairs!  SO exciting :)  At least to Luke, Brad, Noah, Kelly, and Charity!  They all couldn't get enough of it :) 

This remains one of the most nerve-racking positions a toddler can get into, in my opinion

She is pretty cute when she's feeling cool though :) I must say....

A Field Trip to the Airport

I'm not sure why I'm the one posting these pictures :)  I guess I just wanted to get them on Picasa so that I could play with them a little.  Nate and his training class "got to" go on a tour of the airport.  Nate wasn't really looking forward to it all that much, but he did have an okay time :)  And he got some cool pictures for me......

This is an Airport Fire Truck!  Pretty cool.

A few of Nate's friends

Future Memories

- Favorite thing in Grandma's journal tonight "No more pain in my side. Guess it figured I was too busy and left. Thank goodness."  Is that not adorable!

- Ran my errands with only 3 kids on Tuesday (8-30-10).  Grocery shopping was like a dream with two kids in the cart and only one to keep track of.... if only I could talk Noah into sitting in the cart..... better luck next time.  Still though, I don't want to press my luck.  It beats having 4 little ones swarming around me, getting in people's way, pretending to be horses, galloping through the aisles (sure, it makes me smile now while I'm typing it :) but it's more of a pain when I'm in the moment :)).  Actually, I love that whole scene, it's everyone ELSE'S reactions that I dislike.  It was a good trip to the store, very uneventful, and everyone had to have a little treat for some sugary, positive reinforcement :)

- Wednesday I went to the Care Center to do Relief Society.  What a neat experience!  I never thought I'd EVER say this, but it made me miss my CNA job at Crestview Care Center.  It's a much different place when you know the residents and their backgrounds, their "stories", but old people are just amazing.  I met a lady named Esther.  She was a sweetheart and apparently somewhat new.  She took a while to finish her breakfast before we could take her.  She sat and talked to us while we waited.  She told us that she wanted to teach us something and proceeded to tell us how there are no mirrors in the place.  The only one she's ever seen is the one in the shower room and you don't get to go in there on your own.  So one day, she was getting discouraged with not being able to see how she looked, and she said a prayer.  She said that immediately following her prayer, she looked down and saw her spoon sitting right there in front of her and realized that she could see herself in the back of the spoon.  Then she proceeded to tell us how sometimes what we're looking for is right under our noses.  Cute huh!!!!  She was a sweetheart.   When she found out I have 6 kids she insisted that I take home one of her many packages of Peeps to them.  She made me promise that I would eat them the Auntie Esther way.  When her neices and nephews were young she would always pull the eyes off the peeps before eating them.  It took a while but finally someone asked her why she did that and she told them, "I don't want them to see what's going to happen next!"  And then it just stuck, they all started doing it like Auntie Esther.  SO CUTE!  She was the third child of 6, she has never been married and never had children.  Her Father was a "Joseph Smith" and she was actually a decendant of Hyrum Smith (Joseph Smith's brother).  Kinda cool.  She was in the Care Center because she had slipped on some water that someone had tracked onto her kitchen floor, and fell, then laid there for FOUR DAYS!!!!  She could hear the mailman come, the newspaper come, they all stacked up, and the mailman actually hooked a plastic bag onto her mailbox because it was too full to put more in..... it wasn't until her neighbor got suspicious and called the police before she was discovered.  Isn't that awful!!!  She broke her ankle and then suffered some blindness and paralysis on one side.  I still can't believe it and wonder if it wasn't embelished a little :) sometimes old peopled do that, but wow!  I really would like to take my kids over there to meet her.  She would be a fun old person for them to experience :)  I do feel kinda bad that my kids haven't had the exposure to the Rest Home scene that I did as a kid.  Kids just aren't as welcome in those places anymore.  I'm going to have to fix that.

The Spirit of Elijah

K, so ya know how I've been typing up my Grandma's journals.  Well, I came across some more histories when I was looking for more journals.  There was one for a Sophronia Kelley (my grandma's, dad's, grandma.... I think..... now I'm second guessing myself), when I saw her name I knew Kelly would love to hear about her (I had no idea we had any "kelley"s in our history, it was fun to tell Kelly that she WAS named after someone afterall :)).  She and I read that on Sunday and loved it.  She was a pretty amazing lady.  She gave up a lot for the church including a wayward husband.  She had a few near misses with death, one including falling in a river with her baby in her arms and being found completely unconscious with the baby STILL in her arms.  Pretty cool if you ask me.  Then we read about Noah Mormon Williams, he was also one of my Grandma's, Dad's, family.... I would have to look at it to know how we're related now.... he was pretty cool, and again, someone with the same name as one of my kids that I had no idea of.  We all got a kick out of that :)
The biggest one I read, and clearly my favorite (if you can say that) was of Jensine Katherine Marie Pederson (wow, I hadn't noticed this before, but her middle name is the same as mine.... go figure!).  She is my Grandma Mottishaw's, Mom's, Mom.  My Great-great-grandma.  She was the most amazing person I have ever heard of!!!!  There's no way I could do her history justice by retelling it.  You would have to read it.  But she was such an awesome example of enduring through hard times.  She was abused by her father quite extensively and mainly in the end for her being baptized into the church.  She actually suffered a lot from joining the church.  I don't know the politics involved there, but in Denmark it was pretty frowned on at the time.  She lost many jobs, friends, family, you name it for being baptized, but not once did she deny it or back down from what she stood for.  Amazing.  I kept thinking, just TELL them you're not going to believe it any more but keep believing it, just to stay alive!  But that wouldn't be enough.  She was so strong!  Then when she finally had a chance to come to America, she gave it up to her mother and younger siblings so that they could get away from the abusive father.  She stayed back all by herself.  With just the missionaries to go to.  She had all kinds of jobs but mostly she worked as a midwife.  She did people's wash a lot too (which for some reason I found interesting).  She was very honest in her dealings with people.  Even when she had no money, and was told by the local store that since she was such a giving person she could have anything she wanted and never have to pay for it, she STILL saved up the money and eventually paid the storekeeper back, in full.  I love that.  She did the same with a doctor who delivered one of her 10 children.  She didn't take handouts from what it sounded like to me.  My Grandma was the youngest of the 10 and was from a different husband than the rest.  She almost died many times from illnesses that she would contract from people she was caring for.  She prayed many people back to health and did that with the Relief Society Presidency many times.  She received many blessings of healing from the Priesthood as well.  It felt like she would talk about helping someone who was REALLY sick, almost dying, then she was sick, and then the next sentence was, I gave birth to my ____th child.  She was really just so cool!  I need to read her history again so that I can put these things in my memory to tell my kids about.  I'm really proud to be a descendant of this woman.  I hope I can learn from her examples and be more useful than I am. 
While I was reading this, and funny enough I had only started glancing at the beginning to see when she was born and make sure she was the person I thought she was, but I couldn't stop reading!  An hour later I was still reading and bawling and just couldn't stop!!  The Spirit of Elijah is SO STRONG!!!  As soon as I read another one I get anxious to find more!  I just love that these people have kept such good records of their lives.  Makes me want to do better at it.  Anyway.  I'm sure this is less interesting to anyone else, it is MY family afterall, but really, it's been so interesting to me, I have to bear testimony of the power of learning about those who have gone before us, and making it part of us.  I now know this important, and I want others to know that I know it.  And I love the Spirit that is present.  I love wondering if Katherine is here with me while I'm marveling at her life.  Maybe.  Oh, and I bet Grandma Mottishaw is here with me, smiling, wishing I would have been more interested in it when she was telling me, but at the same time, knowing what I'm feeling and being excited that I am finally experiencing this for myself.  I know she was close to her ancestors because of how much she studied their lives.  I just love it!