July 22, 2007

Well the excitement two weeks ago is: Juliette lost her first tooth and Carol got a black eye. I was surprised when Juliette's tooth fell out. She hasn't even started Kindergarten! She is already growing up too fast! Carol got a black eye from swim lessons. I was able to get us all in the pool at the same time this year. I'm doing water exercise, Lucy and Juliette are doing regular swim lessons, Major is doing water polo and Carol was doing synchronized swimming. Today her teacher accidentally kicked her in the face. She had her goggles on. It was a big scene as everyone had to exit the pool while they took care of the emergency. She was bleeding a lot from her nose and it looked really bad! She was very brave and didn't cry too much.

This week Carol had two sewing classes from the sweet little ladies at the Bernina store. They were private lessons since no one else showed up. She made a cute game bag and a tiered skirt. The other day she made a bag for her MP3 player all by herself (almost). Friday night we had a big ward water party in our front yard. It was fun! Saturday I took the girls to see “The Little Mermaid” at the Hale Theatre. It was really cute. That night the kids sang at the stake pioneer celebration. They sang “In Our Lovely Deseret”. Each child sang a verse. Juliette went last and was so cute! She sang really loud. This was her first time to perform, so we weren’t sure what to expect. She also had a small acting part. She had to run out on stage and pretend like she was receiving a piece of bread. She did great on that too.

Aspen Grove

Last week we went to Aspen Grove, near Sundance, in Utah. It was fun, but we didn’t get much sleep so we are all exhausted. The Brown family and a few friends took up two family lodges for a total of 63 people. All of Clint’s brothers and sisters came and all but four grandchildren. We were the biggest family reunion there. They keep you really busy at Aspen Grove. I didn’t have much time to read. My favorite part was learning the pottery wheel. Clint enjoyed the lectures. We knew both the guest speakers. Robert Freeman spoke on his book “Saints in War”. It was really interesting and spiritual. I especially enjoyed him. The other speaker was Chad Kerby. He is a seminary teacher and very entertaining. We had fun visiting with both of them. Carol’s favorite part was making a movie with her group. They showed it on the last day. It was a werewolf movie – lots of running around and screaming. She also enjoyed the miniature golf, soda pop at meals, her friends from her group, and arts and crafts. Major loved his group and made lots of friends also. He loved playing the games at the family activities, board games with his sisters and friends, and racket ball with dad. Carol and Major both saw kids from school. Lucy loved the store. She was constantly buying candy. All the kids brought their own money and bought lots of junk. She also loved sleeping on the top of the bunk bed in our room. Juliette loved the ice cream that dad treated us to several times. They gave huge scoops! She also loved swimming. The other kids thought the pool was too cold, but Juliette loved the baby pool and it was nice and warm. After check out we flew to Seattle to meet my brother's girlfriend. We ate Indian food and visited a park and the troll under the bridge. We flew home the next day. We had a great time!

Musical Theatre

The cousins had a great time doing Musical Theatre! Afterwards we had a wild party at our house. I went to bed after midnight and before the kids. They had such a great time playing games and eating junk! Party on!

The Kittens

Carol has worn me down again and so we took two of Diane's many kittens. The kids absolutely love them! They will play with them for hours even in the heat. They are named "Socks" and "Midnight". They are scaredy-cats but are getting better. I'm annoyed that they are killing my plants.

Kirtland

We had a great time in Kirtland last week. My parents are serving a summer mission there. This is their cute little house where we stayed. Every morning the kids loved listening to the church bells play hymns. Ohio is beautiful!


This is the Johnson Farm. It was beautiful!

The Visitor Center was wonderful! We really felt the spirit. We visited many sites, saw the Amish people and went to the beach at Lake Erie. We had a great time!

The Last Week of School!

Carol had her performance for her drama class. She was a dog food commercial and her friend was deodorant. Carol did a great job! She loves to be on stage! Major won the music award for his grade at school.Then at Pack Meeting he won the gathering game, the on-time prize and received this Bear award. He has red dots on his face for "fighting the mosquitos" to earn his award. Juliette graduated from preschool and received the award for the biggest imagination for all the stories she told her teacher. She loves to hear and tell stories. Juliette and Major have big imaginations. They came up with this airplane. He pushes her around and they laugh and laugh. He made her a hat out of underwear and some swimming goggles. They are always doing things like this. This is not unusual. Lucy had her dance recital. She loved her costume and loved that she got to wear makeup!

    

    

    

    

Palm Beach

This week Clint and I took a quick trip to Florida. We had known for awhile that we were going to go somewhere, but we couldn’t decide where. A few days before, we finally settled on Florida. We left Monday morning and flew to Tampa. We visited with my friend Nancy D. and stayed with her one night. She drove us around in her cute red convertible, took us to dinner for barbecue, introduced us to friends who made a fabulous lemon cake and showed us the school where she is principal. Her home was beautiful and we really enjoyed our stay.

The next day we flew to Palm Beach and stayed at the Ritz Carlton for two nights. It was pouring when we arrived and rained the rest of the day. The next day was clear and windy so we walked around. We found some Cuban food and really enjoyed that. We walked on the beach but never even put on our swim suits which was weird. It was windy enough that swimming sounded kind of chilly even though the pool was heated and the ocean was warm. We watched lots of movies that we brought, Clint watched the Suns games, I read and we just relaxed. It was great!