BEWARE OF DAWN

It was so fun to have Josh and Dawn come to visit us last month. Fun, until I realized that I left Dawn alone... in Relief Society... with the sign-up sheets.

She admitted to me in the car that she had signed me up to bring some stuff to the Ward picnic. After a few minutes of prying and informing her that I would not be getting a reminder call, she came clean. She had signed me up to bring a "Junk sculpture" and Brenden to bring a "Lego Creation." I laughed and decided that I would just not bring those items.

As time got closer I changed my mind and decided to be a good sport. Here is the "junk sculpture" I created. All it took was some of my recycling items, tape, and some permanent markers. Here is the finished product.. I was going for a car but as you can see, it looks more like a pig. And the only Lego's we have in the house are of Mack and Lightning McQueen from the Cars movie.

I was amazed at everyone else's sculptures that I thought about leaving mine in the bag and not setting it out. Basically, this one family all made sculptures either out of cans or junk food. They were very clever and looked really nice. The missionaries entered one that was a plaque with deer hooves coming out of it, a large tin can for a head with another for a robotic look. It has some missionary quote on the plaque as well. And then, there was mine. I ended up putting it on the table because, well why not. As far as the Lego's went, Brenden's was the most popular with the other kids, and not the only one that wasn't a true "creation."

I'd have to say that we did pretty well, I got a blue ribbon, the only one in the junk sculpture category and Brenden got a yellow ribbon. It was a pretty fun day. Everyone had a good laugh about my "pig car."



So the moral of the story is.... Don't leave Dawn alone with sign-up sheets!!!

Our First Camping Trip

So we had our first ever family camping trip!! We went with some of Matt's coworkers and it was so fun! We arrived at the campsite at sunset, and had to set up camp in the dark. Once all was set we finally got the fire started and enjoyed some s'mores!



Our friend Miles decided that he wanted to open his glow stick and was pleasantly surprised that it made his clothes glow! His dad wasn't so happy about it and was more concerned with getting a strange glowing chemical off of his child!








Our friend Adam was demonstrating how to be a messy eater. He has some strange mark on his stomach and marshmallow in the corner of his mouth. I wasn't paying attention to Brenden at that point, but as you can see in the background he is at the table with the "mo-mo's" (that's marshmallows for you lay people). I also noticed that he has one in each hand and is looking for something more, I wonder if he got was he was looking for.






Brenden decided that he wanted to see who could stay up the longest, and he won. He outlasted six adults, a five-year-old, and two dogs. He played steam-roller, starting on daddy's back and then rolling over to mommy's side giggling the whole way across, and then repeated it about 30 times. Once he finally fell asleep, it was probably close to 1am.

For me, I had another problem, I had to pee. I couldn't bring myself to make the hike all the way to the bathrooms for a couple of reasons, 1) There were huge spiderwebs with huge spiders in both doorways, 2) There were no lights in the bathroom, and 3) The bathrooms were about a 50 yards away. Before getting into the tent for the night I did take a squat just outside the tent circle and relieve myself, only to be awakened a couple of hours later with the urge to go again. I would have gotten out of the tent and squatted again, but after I had heard a pack of wolves howl at the moon, raccoons, an owl, and millions of bugs, I decided to do what any rough and tough girl would have done, I held it and didn't sleep.

The next morning Brenden woke up at about 6:30am, and we maybe stayed in the tent until 7am. I finally decided to make the hike to the bathroom, I let Cricket out of the tent (in hopes that she would be my trusty guard dog). She made it to about the 3rd tent and smelled the other dog and left my side to wake up that tent. I continued on until a huge bug decided to dive bomb my head! I tried to shake it off, and then started running thinking that would get rid of it. The bomber was still with me once I got to the potties and when I realized I couldn't stop moving enough to see where the giant spiderwebs and spiders were, I booked it back to the tents! I kid you not, that bug followed me to the tent and then continued to do a figure 8 around all the tents running into them from time to time, waiting for me to come out again.

Once it sounded clear, and Brenden needed to go potty, we got out of the tent. We had a hearty breakfast of fruitloops (the others made eggs and bacon over the campfire). There were also some banana's and strawberries (Brenden ate more strawberries than anyone). That morning Brenden decided that peeing standing up was not so fun and refused to pee for the entire morning.

After breakfast we all packed up and went to the boat. Here is Jeremy, Miles, and Adam (the captain) on our ride out to wherever.

Here is Matt and Brenden, apparently it was too windy for Brenden's eyes, but he did like sitting with daddy in the bow.











Captain Adam, the coordinator of all the fun camp outs at Mark Twain Lake.














One more of daddy and Brenden, he tried making an effort to look at the camera but still was not liking the wind. Once I was done taking pictures he moved back with me.











Ahh, no more wind!! Now he could look around and enjoy the ride.













We had a lot of fun on the ride out, Brenden was looking forward to getting on the boat for a couple of days. He loves being on the water.











While captain Adam was anchoring the boat, Brenden took his chance to captain and steer the boat, this is one of his favorite things to do on the boat, he asked the whole ride out if he could drive but he had to wait until we had stopped. He was really excited to drive.








I was the first one in the water, and it was not Florida water! It was probably 70 degrees and it was COLD! Okay, not really but it was not the bath water that I am used to. Once I was in the two boys quickly followed. With all of our practice at the pool this summer, Brenden is still a little nervous to swim on his own, he had to hold at least a finger at all times or he wanted to get out.






My life preserver was a little too loose/big and I was constantly pulling it down below my chin so that I could see and not drown. This made swimming a little difficult.










Finally, the doctors got in the water, we all washed our hair in the lake, and the guys just hung out and talked about work! Can you believe it! Here they are in this beautiful lake spending time with family and friends and they were still talking about work! I guess that is all that they have right now to occupy their time. So sad.







Once the boys had had enough of the water we got out and had a snack of 7Up and Twizlers! Talk about a treat! While we were eating Matt became a shark and would come up the the boat and jump up to scare the boys, Brenden kept asking "Again?" So Matt was a shark for about 10 minutes in between talking with the guys. I don't know who enjoyed it more, Matt or Brenden. :)
It was about this time that Brenden decided he could no longer hold in his pee. He finally let loose but unfortunately it was on the boat! The only upside was that he was standing over the slats where the anchor was stored so he did not pee on the carpet. Note to self--Never get a carpeted boat.

The last two of our crew were Adam (yes, there were two) and his girlfriend Christina. She was too chicken to get in the water so he didn't spend much time in the water so that she wouldn't feel lonely. Soo cute! I remember those days.









Finally we got the call that more campers had arrived and were waiting for us at the campsite. We had about a half-hour ride back so Matt and Adam hooked up the tube and we were off. Here is Matt waiting for us to lift the anchor, he was actually very excited to finally get to do some water sports.







And we're off! The little boys thought this was pretty cool. They laughed as Matt was swung to the side of the boat, when he jumped out of the wake, and when the water would get in his face.










An interesting side note--if you look at the base of the trees you will notice a strange line or lack of foliage a couple of feet up from the trunk. The picture of the boys eating twizlers is a better example. This line is where the water line was a month ago. This lake is a reservoir and they have been letting out about a foot of water a day, needless to say the shoreline was completely different when we were last here a month ago.





As I watched Matt on the tube I noticed at one point he was adjusting his wedding ring, I came to find out that it had almost fallen completely off! This was him saving it, and I didn't even know! He spent the rest of the time with his hands in fists for fear of it falling off!








This was a very long tube ride (about half an hour) There were times when Adam would make figure 8's and try to throw him off but Matt held on true. Amazingly, I never heard him complain about sore muscles after that ride.









After only about five minutes of watching daddy on the tube we had finally let go and fell asleep. For those of you who know Brenden's sleeping habits, this was a big deal, Brenden is not one to sleep in public. After a sleepless night I welcomed a quick power nap.