Camp!

For years I have wanted to come to girls camp, and this week I finally got the opportunity. 

This is my home away from home till Friday. It's beautiful!

I'm helping brother Gillingwater and brother brown in the kitchen. Today we unloaded everything and set up shop, made subs for lunch, cookies for a snack, spaghetti, salad, g-bread, and pineapple cobbler for dessert. I'm pooped. 

I've taken two dayquils and am washing my hands like crazy. Hopefully I won't go through the 2 boxes of tissues I brought, though if the next few days are like today, it's possible. I'm hoping to have the same non-germ spreading success here that I did during the pink eye fiasco of 2013, wherein I successfully kept the pink eye isolated to myself all the while cooking and shopping for 23 family members. Just don't want to get anyone else sick. 

In other news, Lexi quit her nanny job today. It's been a rough road since day 1, but I am hopeful that she learned some valuable life lessons about standing up for yourself and not letting yourself be taken advantage of, which unfortunately this family tried to do time and again.  

father's day

fathers day dawned bright and early. I got up and made chocolate chip muffins to take to the early morning youth discussion at the stake center. our plan was to leave at 7, be there in time for the 8 youth discussion, chris and I would leave at 9, pick up the little girls, (lexi babysat) and then be to our church building to watch the broadcast at 10. plans 1&2 worked, but then the youth discussion didn't end till 9:20, so we were stuck at the stake center. Christian was totally fine with that though, so there was absolutely no teen drama about the change of plans. he totally wasn't pouting in the foyer until I came out and made him come him. thankfully. also thankfully, lexi was flexible about keeping the girls and even offered to take them to conference flying solo. what a nice surprise that was. :)

matt sang in the choir and the girls reported being able to see him the whole time as he was right behind the speakers.

we got home around 1:30 and sent daddy for his nap. after naps the girls gave them his father's day gift - an awesome, originally decorated tie. it's definitely one of a kind!

alexis had a vision of what she wanted, but wanted the girls to help, which changed the vision. he loved it anyway, and all the more for the uniqueness of it. he also bought himself some nice flip flops (so he can stop wearing his tennis shoes to the pool) and then his skate shoes. (lexi was still napping)

I made lemon basil risotto with shrimp (pioneer woman deliciousness), fruit salad, and corn on the cob and everyone enjoyed it. here's how they enjoyed it: addie, alexis, and Frankie picked their shrimp out and passed it on to Frankie, and Frankie passed on her risotto to each of them. happy, happy.

at 5, we sent daddy off again to the Why I Believe fireside with Naval Academy Head Football Coach, Ken Niumatalolo. I totally would have gone with him, but since i'm leaving for girls camp in 30 minutes and counting, I felt like I should stay with the kids and finish getting ready. maybe we are an odd family. we enjoy doing things together and try to whenever we can, but we also love and value alone time. we gave daddy lots of alone time for his special day and he really loved it. and he said the fireside was fabulous.

we called papa/gramps and everyone spent some time talking to him. dad and daughters, circa 2000.

and with little lexi-lu circa 1997.

and then me with a couple of my favorite dads. this was when matt and I were dating, 10+ years ago, and he took dad and I for a flight, and dinner. pretty sure dad took the controls for a little while on this flight. what fun!

it was a great day celebrating our dads. they are so important to us and we are so thankful for them.

 

chris had rented MacFarland USA, so we watched that as I finalized camp prep. today I am off to girls camp, (woohoo!) and wouldn't you know I've woken up with a runny nose and stuffy head. worst.timing.ever. tomorrow is suppose to be 97° with the heat index right around 103° and I hope I survive!!! oh yeah, me and my cold are working in the kitchen - awesome! pray for me.

saturday surprise, swimming, and salsa's

I am totally winning wife of the year over here. I didn't plan anything for fathers day gifts or dinner. alexis had a surprise for matt, and with school just getting out, I just didn't plan anything. so on Saturday we sent daddy out to buy his fathers day gift - new skate shoes, and go to the skate park. yup, that's my man hanging out at the skate park on Saturday afternoon. ;) then he headed to the commissary to buy fathers day dinner supplies.

I told the girls we were going to have a surprise and then go to the pool. so we got all dressed in our swimsuits, dropped our pool stuff off at the pool, and headed down the big hill in our neighborhood. the girls kept guessing who's house we were going to. we finally got down the hill, turned right, and went to our new neighborhood park!

it's actually not all that new, it's been there at least a year, but there was never a clear path until recently. and I love this girlie.

she's so stylish and fancy.

they kept saying "a new park! I can't believe it!'

they are excited to have two parks to choose from now. and they were super stoked to find out that there will be a third park as soon as all the houses are built.

addie found a lighthouse and borrowed my phone to take a picture.

after about 20 minutes of new park fun, franks had to go potty, so we packed up, got nice and sweaty as we headed up the hill, and got to the pool, where we were 4 of the 7 people there.

I told the girls to jump in together, but franks tricked ads.

the classic hold-out.

needless to say, addie was not happy and being duped.

so can you guess what happens next?

classic.

only addie chose to join her right after.

and little nervous nelly grandma, worriedly biting her nails lest someone threaten her with the deep end of the pool. girlfriend be crazy. she did though consent for me to take her to the deep end twice, after about 3 hours in the pool. she told me she'd had a dream about the 5ft. tile marker, and she acted all weird about touching it. later, she got out of the pool, walked all the way around it, and touched the 5ft. marker again. i'd love to know what happened in that dream!

#gogglenerd

#jumpingnerd

we left the house at 9:40, got to the pool around 10:20, and stayed till 2. we stayed an hour longer than I had planned.

the extra hour proved to be disastrous for franks and I. I got my second sunburn of the year, and franks her first. I don't quite know when I became such a remedial sunscreen applier, but I for sure am. I think it's that we're able to stay at the pool so much longer that we ever did before. maybe? I don't know, but i'm resolving again to be more conscientious.

we'd stayed at the pool so long and it was still so hot that we decided to do salsa's for dinner.

and you can kind of see how red my arm is here. ouch.

and poor Frankie's pink cheeks and shoulders! neither of the other girls burned, so i'm thinking Frankie somehow missed the second application of sunscreen.

we all love us some salsa's. sophisticated eater franks got her shrimp, vegetarian Delaney got her rice, and addie the eater got her hamburger, and all were happy.

Frankie wanted to take a picture.

love these girls! and lexi, who was gallivanting in dc with her friends, and crabknocker chris who was knocking the crabs.

as I picked up the house that night, I found this picture. job well done, I think. i'm happy too.

this morning we headed out to stake conference at the stake center. at 8 they held a meeting for the youth and their parents and we managed to talk chris into going. elder golden and elder Sinclair from the seventy were there and it was a really good discussion. I was in the halls and happened upon this picture of Christian at the first major 11 year-old scout campout in our stake. chris is third from the left. sooo adorable and small.

friday fun

our school free fun continues. we hosted a playdate with the neighbors on Friday. there were several "i'm bored,"'s to be heard, so I let them break out a game. I am stingy with the games as they require constant supervision to keep pieces from getting lost. i'm not the only weird mom like that, right?

3 crazy trampoline bouncers.

while I hung out in the basement with them, I posted a need for a bedrail since the little witch had fallen out of bed (again) the night before and had split her lip. poor girl gave herself a fat lip! I felt so bad because she'd woken up crying, but I just put her back to bed with a drink of water. I was half asleep and didn't even notice. #momoftheyear

haha.

thankfully we have awesome neighbors and now miss d. has some pretty pink bedrails to keep her safely in her big girl bed. I am happy to report we're on night 3 of safe big girl bed sleeping.

as soon as one bunch left, Maggie came over for more fun. they played and went to the park, then helped me make cookies.

i'm a slave driver, can't you tell? lexi said as they walked away addie said "Maggie, I posed like this. how did you pose?" love these cute girls.

I got a picture of this precious big boy. can't wait to meet baby Ollie in September!

that evening we headed out to st. marys city for the first river concert of the season. we got there around 5:30 and got set up in the shade under a tree. we've never gotten there that early, it was awesome! we were trying to coax Frankie into a family picture by starting with a silly shot.

we finally resorted to a timeout threat which made for a great pic. i'm not sure what's bringing on the picture striking from her, but i'm not loving it.

we got there early to set out in search of the homestead of Nathaniel Pope, my common ancestor with George Washington. he lived in st. marys city from 1658-1679.

I think this might be the place, but there was no marker and though we even tried going to a house to ask if she'd heard of it, and even though she'd lived there her whole life, she said she thought this was it, but wasn't sure. i'm gonna keep trying to figure it out, but until then, we're gonna call this good.

this was matt's attempt at getting us mid-air.

he's a total amateur.
this is how you get a mid-air shot.

or like this:

we walked all around looking for any sign.

such a beautiful bit of land! we couldn't help but think of what those settlers must have thought as they came here from rainy England. I think they must have been quite pleased.

we're big into the silly shots lately.

gorgousness!

more of what we think was pope's freehold.

when we got back over to the concert area the girls had fun rolling down the hill. all except for our scaredy-cat. she's such an old lady, I swear.

we brought bbq drumsticks, corn on the cob, watermelon, and the girls chocolate chip cookies. it was a perfect summer dinner on a perfect almost summer evening.

"cheese."

little reader girl brought her books.

we invited lots of friends, but none could join us. it ended up being ok though, we had a really good time together. :)

we sat next to a group of older couples. they had a pretty sweet picnic set-up, and Frankie had pointed out their awesome fruit bowl. they offered her a few pieces of fruit and she loved the fruit sticks that had little seashells attached to the end.

about an hour later they called her over and gave her the whole bowl, cute seashell sticks and all. middle sister was in heaven!

she took it to the friends she'd made and she was the most popular girl in st. marys city!

then we crossed another summer bucket list item off and caught some fireflies. she'd been running around trying to catch one, when one of our new friends told her to catch one for him. she did, and took it over to him, and he tried to give her $5! she didn't actually take it, but we made us some good friends and they promised another treat for the girls next week. (that's mr. money smiling behind her)

it was such a fun night.

the girls would play and then come back for water, or a quick book break.

another nice lady saw the girls catching fireflies, and donated her cup.

Delaney did some dancing with our seashell sticks.

she's such a nerd. :)

because we'd gotten there so early, we parked close-by and were able to get out quickly.

it was one of the easiest trips home ever.

it was a good start to a fun season of river concerts!