Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Archery

Everyone needs a hobby.
Gary's is archery. Typically, as part of the deal of "letting" him go practice he takes the two older kids with him, they have this worked out pretty well by now. Sometimes I go with them.

Zurich acts as arrow caddy for Gary. (and yes, that's two bulls eye's in the second pic)

Olea hunts for a grasshopper, and finds success.

Sometimes the kids ride their bike and scooter behind him while he shoots. They both look forward to going with him and I look forward to quiet time. :)

Friday, July 9, 2010

FHE, Temple, and Art

June 21st we had a very simplistic FHE due to the fact that I had had surgery that morning and Gary and I had been in the ER/ hospital for the past 15 or so hours. I don't even remember what the lesson was on. I was that out of it.

The Sunday after that though I attended church and our new bishop extended a challenge. Given the current status of my healing we chose to hit a few birds (metaphorically of course) with one stone. Part of the challenge was to have a meaningful FHE, go to the temple (and if we couldn't attend a session to dress up and visit the grounds). So Gary and I decided for FHE June 28th, we would get all dressed up and drive to the temple grounds with the kids and walk around and talk about the temple. While we were there we figured we'd make use of my Dad's skills and have him take a family picture for us. Since I had just made us all matching outfits for Father's day we used those.

Zurich really likes churches and temples and calls them castles, he is slowly learning temple and church differences. We chose to go to the Draper temple since none of us had been there. We had Olea read the words on the temple and we talked about what they mean. Olea was very disappointed that she didn't get to go in (we took them to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house).



Afterward we drove around Suncrest to look over the valley and then went out for ice cream at JCW's (their Mini's are HUGE, for the record, and would could have shared one or two around the 6 of us there and been just fine) and put some very tired kids to bed.

This last Monday Olea had an artist's reception in Provo for entering the children's art show. I had forgotten till pretty much the last minute and we'd been out gallyveranting all day in the wilderness so the kids were totally filthy, but we went anyway. Olea was thrilled to get her face painted and Zurich was excited for a spaceship. We tried to have Nev's face painted but all we got was a blue check mark. :)

I'm glad we made it to the Reception since Olea got Honorable Mention.


It was unorthodox so far as typical FHE's go but we got to talk about doing our best and being happy with that. That it doesn't matter if we win or not. Olea really wanted a trophy. Gary and I reflected on how your ideas of value change as you get older. We wouldn't want a trophy now, we'd want the water bottle she got way more. :) For the record she does love her water bottle and takes it everywhere. We talked about how it was the best that she did her painting all on her own so that she could feel happy that it was her work and her's alone.

Afterward we took the kids to McDonalds, ONLY because part of her prize was 4 free icecream cones. She decided to share one of the coupons with her brother. So we picked up icecream for them and Nev was MAD.

She didn't scream or cry, but check out the look on her face. In between leaving the reception and getting the kids ice cream Gary and I decided we wanted Lassi from the Bombay House so I had called and ordered some for take out. On our loop back to the Bombay House we realized we HAD to get Nev some ice cream. We stopped at Arctic Circle and ordered a regular cone so we could get a courtesy cone for Nev. She was THRILLED. She dug into hers so fast the next time I turned around she was already eating down the napkin that held the cone. She ended up finishing of Zurich's as well and was SO happy about it.

Time to wash the car seats!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Climb a tree

Where we live, climbing a tree is rarely an option since the trees are VERY young. So after my post op appt my Dad and I took the kids to a park. It had "real" trees and Olea was very excited about climbing one. She did show some fear over going very high. Zurich needed help to get up but liked it while there. Nev was content picking at pine cones and grass.


Gary and I were talking about how Opa was here for about 2 weeks and how much the children were able to develop a relationship with him and Gary commented that even in our trials there are blessings. It was a blessing to have him here and a blessing for my children to get to know him and enjoy him so much.