Monday, December 29, 2014

Oh Happy Day!

July 13-19, 2014

OH HAPPY DAY!!
Emma taught her first primary lesson. She looked through her Faith in God book and saw that she needed to help her Primary teacher teach a lesson. So she talked to her teacher, they planned a Sunday that she could teach, gave her a copy of the lesson {Ruth & Naomi} and she prepared it. We talked about a few important teaching tips and what to do when you're nervous.

Sunday morning she looked over everything she prepared:

She did a great job and I'm so proud of her for taking the initiative to do all this on her own. She gave us her lesson for FHE Monday night. She's prep-ing herself for YW and that makes me smile.
Great kid right here.

OH HAPPY DAY!!
My parents came home from their mission on MONDAY! I debated for months about going or not. But it came down to the fact that I KNEW it would be a high form of torture to be driving distance away when they were back home. So I HAD to go. In true crazy Rachel fashion a quick 24 hour trip. We made it a girls only trip and the boys stayed with Marti {ya, they were pretty much in heaven!}
Working on welcome home signs 
Sidenote:
Jane had a fever all day Sunday. It spiked late that night to 102-103 range and threw her body into intermittent convulsions. This scared her so bad, she would scream with her eyes so wide and scared. It broke my heart. Just when she would calm down another convulsion would come. {This happened once to Spencer at about the same age which helps calm the parental freak out.} It was a very long night. Around 3 she settled enough to sleep with us without waking for a few hours. As soon as the Dr. office opened I called to see if I could get her in before leaving for Utah. 8:45, ok we will take it. That means I had 10 minutes to pack! We threw a few things in the car, left Austin and Spence to finish their chores and rushed out. Jane had Hand, Foot & Mouth. Super contagious. The fever lasted for 3 days. Only got sores in her mouth. After the fever followed 2 days of full body rash.


Girls Trip - ROAD TRIPPIN!

 Banana break, first time she was willing to eat something.

We got to West Jordon a little after 5 pm and stopped at Wal-Mart {shudder} for fresh flowers and balloons. Then we met Elaine at the house to decorate. It was a flurry of activity to get everything ready, including the kids.







I was worried about not being there when they landed. It caused a bit of anxiousness until we got to the airport. It was all fruitless because we then we waited, and waited and waited.


Sam and Lucy even checked another terminal to make sure we were in the right spot. Finally Sam got a phone call - it was dad - we were indeed in the wrong terminal. They had all their luggage and we just waiting, like us. Oh brother, that was extra lame. But all the lameness was forgotten when we saw them!!! Oh Happy Day!





Mom is SOOOOO happy to be home. It was really quite cute to see her excitement. She loved being in her house and checking everything out again. The iPod brought a happy dance reunion in the kitchen hahaha

 Emma really loved wearing Grandma's badge.
 These cousins were so happy to be reunited. Everyone had to sleep by Lorna!
 The grandkids loved all the animals from Madagascar - Thanks grandma!

Sam and kids formed a band, "The Leftovers" that night. After much rehearsal they performed for us Tuesday morning a cover of "You are my Sunshine." It really should have been videoed....classic.
{Sam and Emma on guitar, Lucy on drum, Ruth on knee slaps, and Lorna on interpretive dance.}


We left Tuesday after a delicious lunch. We made it home by 9 pm and I was happy with that. Sooo great to have them state side again. So happy for their experiences, strength and testimony their mission provided our family. So happy to have them home.

OH HAPPY DAY!!
Kurt and I celebrated our engage-a-versary! Last year I told Kurt that we should start celebrating when we got engaged {in July} instead because December anniversaries are epically lame every year due to the sheer busyness of the season. So he listened to me. He told me to be ready at 3 pm Wednesday because he was picking me up for an overnight date. Ooo La La! He had Cindy all lined out to watch the kids and had dinner for the kids. Perfection.

We stopped for parts {naturally} and then went to dinner at "Mount Event Momo Cafe" in Boise. I had a groupon for this joint and figured it was a good time to use it. It was some delish Nepali food. It is amazing how just walking into a joint like that brought back a flood of memories.


We then headed to our reservation at Anniversary Inn. It was our first time there.


Major props to Kurt who booked The Sleeping Beauty Room {which is how he proposed 14 years ago.} The whole thing was romantic and fun. I'm impressed he pulled off a secret. Thanks for a wonderful time and a magical 14 years. Blessed beyond measure!





After Kurt fell asleep I stayed up and read Divergent. Reading is such a treat for me. It may have been 4 am when I finished... Sadly between my late reading and more parts to pick up there wasn't time to get to the temple as planned. That's my only regret. Still a fabulous get-away. Thanks honey.

OH HAPPY DAY!!
We are having fun crossing off things from our summer bucket list. On Wednesday Spencer taught us all the basic moves of karate. We are a house of kicks and grunts now. He was serious about form.

On Thursday while Jane and I rested the big kids prepared their "Romans Big Top Circus." Jane and I LOVED watching this!! We were clapping constantly and can't wait for the circus to come to town again!
The Ring Master


Spencer the "Super Lion"





Lucy the "Pretty Peacock"


Ruth the "Crazy Clown"



Austin "The Amazing French Acrobat"



The Audience 

Romans Big Top Circus

OH HAPPY DAY!!
The boys had a good week of flag football. Because of my Utah and engage-a-versary trips I only took them to and saw their game on Thursday. Spence scored a touchdown. That was pretty fun! For some reason Austin's game seemed a bit slower. The heat was brutal.




OH HAPPY DAY!!
Friday morning we packed up for an overnight camp trip with Marti, Kelli and Jamie to Phillips Lake. I made sure to run that morning {with Rachel Johnson - training for our relay} so we got a later start than the others. Once in Baker I couldn't remember exactly where the camp ground was. After second guessing myself we were headed the right way. We came upon the lake and I was looking for a camp ground that wasn't marked. So we drove for about an hour trying to find the right one. We were ready with plan B when we found them. Phew.

They were down at the lake so we immediately joined them. Its the best way to beat the heat.













We were planning to sleep under the stars {on our bucket list} so that made camp set-up easy. Marti had dinner {walking tacos.}
 Jane struggled to be truly happy with her mouth sores and rash. 


For some reason they were not sure what to do when they got back to camp. We put them in pairs and sent them on a nature walk with the object to find: 
1. the biggest pinecone 
2. most unusual object from nature.

After that they were able to play creatively just fine. The boys used all the oars as futuristic weapons and were fighting some unknown cause/force of evil....
                                        



I heard lots of talk about High School, BBF and being popular amonst the little girls play. I think my daughters have been watching too much High School Musical. Gonna have to stop that.


S'mores are a camping must.

I got the kids all situated on the tarp. They eventually calmed down enough to fall asleep. Marti ended up going home with Bryler. She didn't want to fight him all night. That can be real miserable when you are camping. We convinced her to let the kids stay. Ruth ended up moving into the Bair's now empty tent. I was worried about Spencer's sleep walking and using a long rope tied him to a near by tree.

It was probably the longest camping night I've had to point where I was praying for morning to hurry and come. I was stressing over:
1.  They would stay warm {weather perfection}
2. They would not be abducted {camp right next to us had lots of guys in it that were up late...}
3. Spence would sleep walk {and he did! Because of the rope and my light sleeping I heard/saw him quickly and got him back into his sleeping bag.}
4.  Jane {she didn't sleep great and was quite loud with her cried when she did wake}

But I have to say that I love sleeping under the stars. It was a beautiful, brilliant night sky. When I awoke to light I uttered a prayer f thanks that I'd survived the night. Hahaha. The sunrise was a sweet treat.


I loved the sight of all these sleeping bags in a row. 

 Happy, happy morning faces.
 tied to the tree

Jamie made a delicious pancake breakfast and then we started the process of packing up camp. It was a job to reshuffle the cars to get Marti's extra stuff and kids in. But we accomplished the impossible! 






Jamie and Kelli left after that. We stayed so we could go down to the lake again and play before leaving.






We ate lunch and then packed up our last few items and headed out. I made time to take a picture at this rock. We camped at Phillips Lake 3 years ago - we came back to the exact same camp ground and so we had to take a picture at the exact same rock.

                             2011                                                                       2014


~~~Romans Reflections~~~
- Lucy asked,"Let's sing the TACO song." The correct title is called "The Cup Song." But the lyric go, "You'll miss me by my talk, oooo" hahaha
- Jane learned two new words this week: Happy and Baby. SOOO cute. She will picked up a doll and say, "Baby, baby." She will not repeat them when you want her too but she will randomly clap her hands, "happy, happy." Its soo adorable.
- Jane's FOUR top teeth cut through this week. That's a lot at one time. Yikes!
- And of course some selfies
 post swim selfie 
random traveling selfie

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