Watching the Boys - part 1

I think I told you that Beauty and The Beast had some kind of work thing and they asked if we would like to watch their boys for a couple of days. The two days they were staying with us were the ones immediately following the family campout, so they were dropped off on a Monday evening. Little Squire was still struggling with his injury, but to me, it appeared to be healing up quite nicely.

Little Warrior really wanted to play catch the football with someone, so the Dog Walker volunteered. Little Squire joined me in the garden and helped me pull weeds until it was time to go inside. He was really good at it!

We typically have FHE on Monday night, so we figured there was no reason to break with our new tradition. Baby Doll was in charge and she had prepared a lesson with fill-in-the-blank pages from the Bible teachings. I was surprised how willing the boys were to follow along and fill in their own worksheets. 

After the lesson, Baby Doll pulled out the Skull King cards. I was worried that this game might be too difficult for the boys. but they loved it! Little Squire played with me and Little Warrior teamed up with Scout. We had so much fun with the boys. We all got so silly! 

They renamed the Kraken to "Quackin." We just couldn't stop laughing. Little Squire was a bit put out when Scout sabotaged us right at the end and we lost, but that is how the game goes. We talked at length about how "the fun is in the play, not in the win."

I'm not sure we convinced Little Warrior.

Wordless Wednesday -Definitely Bright Eyes

 

Missing SO Many Things - Family Campout 2026

It was hard camping without my sweetie. My boys helped load and gather the camping stuff, so it wasn't that. It was just his presence that I wanted. I wasn't the only one. Most of the kids mentioned him at some point or another. He was larger than life! Without him and without possibilities of a campfire because of the drought, as well as a misunderstanding about the date; I was worried that everything would fall apart, even at the last moment. 

I made our traditional chicken stew before we left home because charcoal was also banned, so we couldn't use the dutch ovens. We brought the propane stove and the new propane firepit that I bought for the girl scout campout. I also had the stew in our roaster, so the only thing we needed to cook was breakfast and s'mores, of course.

We started out with games and dinner. The kids love to play spikeball or volleyball or whatever is going on. I love that they are joiners and they don't have a problem with helping the little ones to learn and play along. After dinner, we worked on a birthday party for Skittles. He opened his gifts and then we did a pinata. That is almost a tradition now. I think we have done one pretty much every year of the campout. After all the kids had a swing at it, Burrito smacked it wide open! Besides the candy, I had little flashlights and gliders for each of the kids.

I was really glad I had a craft planned when Duchess sweetly asked me about one. We used fabric markers to each do a quilt square and when everyone was finished, we drew one out to see who got the finished quilt. One of our littlest guys was the winner! Carnitas!! More games and s'mores, plenty of love and laughter. Even without my sweetie, we enjoyed each other's company, but I missed his stories.

After a while, Dog Walker put up the blow-up screen and the kids watched Moana. As it was getting dark, Little Squire started screaming! He had run into a wire while playing hide-and-go-seek with some of the other kids. Beauty and The Beast ran to him and brought him back to the pavilion. His face was all bloody. I pressed the paper towel to his eye socket to staunch the blood. He screamed louder. The pressure was so painful, but necessary. We could already tell that it missed his eye, but not by much. Someone got him some liquid Tylenol. I asked Bossy to look for a closure in the first aid kit and between the two of us, we carefully put two of them in place. It was poking really close to his eye, so I grabbed my tiny scissors, handed them to Bossy and she carefully cut off the ends of each closure. My hands were shaking so badly even though I felt like we had the situation under control. 

Beauty and The Beast packed up not long after that and headed home. The boys were supposed to stay with us, but given the situation, plans changed. A half-inch closer and Little Squire might have lost his eye. It was serious, but not stitch-worthy. The wire also cut his nose, but much less than near his eye. We would see them again on Monday, but I will leave that post for tomorrow.

Almost all the kids in the valley had come to the campout, but only Bossy's family, me, Dog Walker, Curly, and Baby Doll spent the night. Maybe it is time to come up with a new tradition. Just a cookout? 

Guess I don't have to decide today.

And People Think I Can't Cook...

Happy Pioneer Day!

 Sleep tight!!

Missing SO Many Things - Girl Scout Backyard Campout

I'm apologizing up front for my lack of pics, but last week we had our Girl Scout Backyard Campout. In my backyard, of course.

Because Utah is so dry, we were not allowed to have any open flames in our backyard. I knew the girls wanted to do s'mores, so I had to get creative. Since propane fires were ok, I bought a new little propane firepit. It worked great!

We set up 3 tents, 2 for the girls and one for the leaders.

Curly helped us cook burgers on the grill, we made s'mores and watched an outdoor movie on the blowup screen.

This is the morning aftermath. Baby Doll made crepes before she had to be at work by 9. This is what I did.

The girls also pieced and tied a quilt for the Humanitarian Center. I have almost finished the binding so we can make the delivery.

Love these fun summer activities.

Wordless Wednesday - Looking Like a Missionary

 

Missing SO Many Things - FCCLA Nationals

I know I have been a bit of a slacker at posting this past year, but just scrolling through, I realize I have missed so many things I wanted to share with you! I am going to try to catch up so you know all the amazing things going on in my life.

Just so you know, there was some confusion as to if the post on Curly's graduation was published, so I published in again. I figure it's not a bit deal to remember that I have an amazing son. ;) I have 4 of them, as well as 4 more than I am happy to claim as my own.

But I digress...

It took me so long to get the Orlando posts up that I almost missed something completely amazing in Curly's life. So you remember back a couple of months ago when he competed with his STAR event at state and he was pretty disappointed to place third in his category. That meant he would not be able to compete at Nationals in July at Washington DC. So flashback, the kid who took second place couldn't go, so that slid Curly neatly into his spot. 

He got back on a plane the day after we flew home from Orlando. Then he competed early the next morning. He called me afterward and told me he felt pretty good about it, but hey, this is Nationals and everybody wants to win. 

The little group from Utah had so much fun touring the capitol and seeing the Nationals baseball game. 

Then Curly got the big call. He had made the top 10! He was so excited! He sent me a zoom link (that wasn't free, just so you know), where they would announce the winners. He told me it was ok if I didn't want to pay the $25 to watch the final ceremony. Are you kidding me??

I plunked down my money and glued myself to the screen until they announced the winners in Sports Nutrition. Since only the top 3 would be recognized, the odds were against him. The first place at state in Utah was also in the top 10, so that worried him a little, although he found out afterward that she only placed 5th.

I was so happy when they announced third place and then they handed a beautiful plaque to my really tall boy! I didn't care if he won, I just knew he had missed out on the sterling scholar state podium and I really wanted him to be on this one. 

Do I need to say how proud I am? Sure 💖 that kid.

(I would have given him 1st.)

Seminary Graduation

Curly graduated from Seminary today. He was on the graduation committee and also a speaker. He did an awesome job!!

It's a big week coming up with graduation on Tuesday. I am so proud of my amazing son.

Traveling Together - Kennedy Space Center/Ocean/Coming Home

I'll bet you thought I was never going to get to this post...

We got up pretty early, packed up our things and left Aqua Sol. Teach and her room still had another couple of days, so we stashed all of our luggage there before we took off for Kennedy Space Center. I had been there before with my sweetie, but the kids hadn't, so all 20 of us were on our way. Our car got there first, and we didn't hesitate getting busy with the sightseeing.

We started in the Hall of Heroes.

Sport and Curly took off on their own to do the bus tour. Then Baby Doll and Scout needed pink drinks at Starbucks, so we waited in line, pretty much until the rest of our group caught up with us. 

We watched a cute program with the Fraggle Rock puppets, then we decided we wanted to do the bus tour too.

Conveniently, Twizzler was in his wheelchair stroller so we got to move to the front of the line everywhere we went. 

 

We eventually even caught up to Sport and Curly at one of the stops. Since the kids were hungry, we picked up some food at the little cafe. 

Then we stopped at another presentation. There was so much to see and so much to do!!

Finally, it was time to go. The kids really wanted to see the ocean and play on the beach before we flew home the following day. Unfortunately, finding a public spot was not that easy. When we discovered the route to the national shoreline, it was closing for the evening. 

So we stopped at a little inlet that was almost like playing in Lake Michigan except there were stones as well as shells. We walked in the water and gathered some pretty shells on the beach. 

Bossy's family joined us there. It wasn't long before the 6 of us were hungry. Bossy had already bought her kids some convenience store food and they were heading for the hotel. I wanted to eat seafood while we were on the coast. I looked in my phone for a good place and I found one. 

Unfortunately, it was connected to a bar/cigar shop. Some of the kids were too young to be in there, but business was slow and they were pretty excited to serve us all food. 

The kids played pool while we waited. I was the only one adventurous at all, but they got full tummies and we piled back in the car. After we picked up our luggage, we drove to our new hotel for one night. It was nice, but all we did was sleep until we checked out and headed for the airport. 

There's no place like home.