Chicago Pictures

We're going through the summer kind of backwards! Here's some pictures from our trip to Chicago.

It's an UP week!

Last week was my down week, meaning; the girls were at EFY, I didnt' have anything major to do, most of my summer responsibilities were over, I had a down week! I had a cold, so I simply CHILLAXED! I read about 5 books, I did only the minimum I had to do, basically I took the week off.

So fast forward to this week. Life is catching up to me, and hence to my kids. This is the UP week. We have one week until school starts. I know, I know...we homeschool. We can set our own schedule. We aren't at the mercy of the local school board, we can start school any day we want. That's all fine and good until you factor in seminary. If we have to get up at 5:30, we might as well do school! So...since seminary starts August 3, school starts August 3! YIKES!

During my "down" week Anna, Clint and I (with some last minute help from Blake) painted Lila and Anna's room. All of their stuff was moved out to the bonus room a.k.a. the school room. Oh yeah - we might need that room! Nothing makes me crankier than an unorganized school room the first week of school (eventually it gets like that by Christmastime, but honestly it should be organized until at least Columbus day!)

Then there's that nagging little issue of Clint getting ready for his mission...socks, suits, coats, a bike to buy that list seems endless! And anything I might need him to do before he leaves for the MTC, things he can do that could help ease the pressure off of Blake...

Oh yeah....this is an UP week.

Wake up kids. We have LOT to do this week.

Colorado, Colorado Springs Mission

Clint received his mission call while Blake, Brooke, Lila and I were on the stake handcart trek. If he would have received it one day earlier, he could have brought it out to the trek to open it with us all. But he received it on Friday, which he had to work. So he had to wait until we arrived home on Saturday to open his letter. He didn't get off work until that evening.

We anxiously awaited his arrival home from work! When he finally opened his letter - Colorado, Colorado Springs Mission!!

Once he actually looked at the envelope, he knew he was going English speaking based on the postage. A friend at BYU had figured out the postage of the English speaking missionaries and the foreign speaking missionaries. (The foreign speaking packages get one additional page in their packet - we compared BJ's to Clint's!)

He's very excited and now we're in the process of getting his things together for him. The luxury of going stateside is that we've already received 2 different letters from his mission president - one for him and one for us his parents. We didn't receive one from BJ's mission president until after he was in the MTC.

Now on to the preparations, the list making, and saving money - well, spending it too.

More Cousin Pics

Just a note of explanation....the kids had a "theme song" during the vacation. It was Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me." It sounds really cute until you realize that we live in the South and people here used to marry their cousins. So just to clarify...the lyrics to the song have nothing to do with it being the theme song. It's just that the kids heard it a gazillion times every time they were in the car, so it became the theme song!

The Cousins Came!!

We were so excited to have the cousins and Auntie Sharon come visit!! We tried to squeeze in a TON of fun in just a few short days. I'll hit the highlights and then add more pictures as we go.

Here's a picture with Andrew and Brooke. They had so much fun together. Brooke barely let Andrew out of her sight...and kept his scratching her back the whole trip. He probably has carpel tunnel syndrome after leaving here. Hopefully he won't be injured as he leaves on his mission!

This is a picture of the two at Nashville Shores, one of the water parks in the area. The kids had so much fun. They went on one of the huge water slides continually. Then that night, we watched Iron Man next to one of the pools.

The highlight of the trip has to be our trip to the temple. We were able to go do baptisms for the dead at the Nashville Temple. We went with our ward's youth. It was so great to have this much of the family gathered in the temple. What a great experience to have the cousins together serving in the temple. Blake was able to baptize the kids and then got to confirm some of them too. Sharon and I stayed and did the laundry. Even that was fun. There's just something wonderful about serving together! The kids were so cute riding in their own car. They stopped and ate at Wendy's and then went bowling afterwards.


We had some family names to do, but I forgot to take them to the temple with us. Trust me, I'll never live that down. Now however, Sharon and the boys have some to do in AZ and we have some here in Nashville! Kenny was kind enough to be forgiving. My whole ward knows the story and still teases me about it, but I can live with that.

A few days later we rented a pontoon boat and went out on Percy Priest lake. We rent a tube which was hilarious because the boat was so slow. But the kids had fun anyway. The could do all kinds of tricks since the wake was small and they were going slow. We barbequed hamburgers and had a picnic out on the lake. (We sure know how to eat!)

The boat had a slide on the top. The most fun they had was having contests jumping off the top deck of the boat. I think Austin won the belly flop contest - but at what cost? He also won the biggest splash. Parker won the smallest splash. Then of course Andrew had the craziest flips.




I had to add this last picture just to prove that you can dress them up and they do look pretty good! Grammy made them promise not to change clothes after church so we could take pictures. Then what happened? She went right in and changed her clothes after church! We made her change back into her church clothes so she could sweat just like the rest of us. And of course Sunday was the HOTTEST MOST HUMID day of the whole week! We were all glad to get out of those dress clothes. But don't they look great?