6.16.2008

Camping the right way

On Saturday we got home from a week of camping at the beautiful Ensign Ranch on the eastern face of the Cascades. We had a wonderful time and loved every minute of it! (Aside from the snow-in June!- and the port-a-potties). Here's a collection of pictures...or not. Blogger's having troubles today. So we'll have to do this w/o illustrations. Ensign Ranch is owned by the church and used for Girl's camp and ward/stake camp-outs and the like and thus is very clean (yeah!) and has incredibly nice and helpful senior missionary couples as staff who are willing to do just about anything you ask them and more. Except that I think they forget just when you asked them (they are oldish, after all) so some maintenance things that needed fixing around our cabin took a few days to be addressed. But they were awfully nice about it. We had a cabin that was just big enough for the 4 kids and 4 adults and for the first 4 days we were the only guests at the ranch which was really great. Of course, the first three day we had rather crumby weather, but we were still able to get outside and do some things. Some of the highlights included the horse rides for the kids which Sam LOVED and Grace came to love on our second visit to the stables. There was also a giant slip-n-slid which was SO MUCH FUN!!! Thursday was the first day with sun though the wind was very brisk and made things cold. Sam had to finally quit and sit in the sun wrapped up in his towel because he was shivering so bad. We did it again on Friday when it was a bit warmer and could stay longer. All the kids had the best of times and were sorry to have to leave. We were lucky that all the kids got along so well, especially Grace and her cousin Jayme, both of whom have rather forceful personalities and like being the center of attention and the one in charge. We had great food thanks to chef-in-chief Rob and only had to go the emergency room once when Alaina stuck a bead up her nose. Way up.
So now we're home and the laundry's almost done. Tomorrow is Grace's birthday and then on Wednesday the kids and I are off to Utah. I'm excited to be seeing my family. I'm also excited about coming home and not having any more vacations for a good long while.

6.07.2008

Seriously losing my mind

I've been a 'single parent' since Wednesday night and I'm about to lose it! Rob is at Woodbadge this weekend (intensive scout leader training) and I'm sure he is having a great time and all but it is TIME FOR HIM TO BE HOME!! NOW! In the roughly 60 hours since he has been gone and I have yelled at my kids, yelled at my mom, spent way more money then I should, made a total of 0 real meals (I did make some fab pear muffins though) done absolutely nothing to prepare for our week long camping trip that starts tomorrow, stressed out because I have to do sharing time on Father's day and can't for the life of me find a good dad day thing for the kids to do, my jaw is all out of whack for some reason so I'm in a lot of discomfort, stressed out about the primary newsletter I can't seem to get together, cried because Grace cut her hair, a dress, and a skirt with scissors I left lying around, and bought over 20 boxes of cereal. That last one sounds insane but isn't really. A local grocery store has a day that they sell cereal at $1.79 a box, the good stuff too, not the store brand cardboard stuff. I figure we should be set on cereal for the next 7-9 months. Anyway. I can't wait for Rob to be home tonight. Even though when he is here he usually has to be closed away in the study working on his thesis (almost done!), just knowing he is around and I can talk to him whenever I want to brings me a sense of stability and steadiness that I am sorely lacking right now. 

Hopefully today will be alright. We have swimming lessons this morning and will go straight to the salon from there to get Grace's hair fixed. She didn't do too much damage; she'll just have to have bangs now. I probably should just try to fix it myself, but I really don't believe anything I did with scissors would help the situation. Then we'll get some shopping done and come home to start packing. Oh! That's another thing. I have to have our Father's Day celebration and Grace's birthday all planned and ready before we leave tomorrow because I wont have time when we get home next Saturday. We had cereal (Lucky Charms! the kids are in heaven) and muffins for breakfast, and I'm planning on McDonald's for lunch and Papa Murphy's for dinner. Not really a nutritionally sound day by any stretch of the imagination. 
Also, if anyone has any good ideas that Sam, Grace, and I can do at a family talent show while we're in Utah in a few weeks, please send them along.