Basketball Camp.
Lots of
Basketball Camp.
This week the High School Coaches held their Basketball Camp.
I had three different kids in three different sessions. I ran back and forth to the High School all day long!
At the end, they were exhausted and sore.
But all of them felt it was a good monetary investment.
On friday night Shane and the boys had the Father & Sons Campout with our church. Shane was in charge of the entire activity, which inculded a Breakfast for Everyone in our congregation (we call it a Ward) the next morning.
In case you haven't gotten the picture, (or lack of pictures, or pictures with a phone surgically attached to his ear) he is a very busy man. Things that he cannot do usually fall to me. This was very much the case with this.
However, since I have now had several years of several activities per year as far as throwing together a party for several hundred people, I can throw together a party in less than 15 minutes now.
Except for the shopping. That takes longer.
In the end, it went well and there were very few leftovers. That's when I know I have done well.
As a family, we have discussed planting a garden this year.
There are a few problems with this.
#1 - I have never gardened. I have planted flowers, that was fun. One year I planted lettuce in between my flowers as ground cover.
There was a lot of lettuce.
Good thing we had a guinea pig then.
I quit planting flowers the summer I was in a cast from my achilies tendon rupture. I couldn't do it and my flowers beds were in such disrepair that I just let the grass take them over. It made me sad.
#2 - Shane and I have completely different ideas on what a garden is.
He thinks it is a big plot of land with lots of rows that requires a lot of weeding. It produces WAY more stuff than you can eat so you need to CAN the rest. Canning to me is going to the store and picking up a can. That kind of garden takes up your whole life. I think gardening is some pretty constructed boxes with weed barriers so the weeding is minimal. It grows only what you can eat fresh and only takes a little bit of time.
So we 'discussed' this long enough that there will be no garden for us. However, one of our friends has hurt his knee and he & his family have one of those extra big, have to live gardens. So, in an attempt to give our kids the gardening experience, we offered to help them.
'We' isn't EXACLTY what happened.
Dallin was fairly sick by the time he got home from the campout. He was just plain exhausted. He had been at the Senior Basketball Camp all week (7th-12th grade). That would have been enough, but then Shane had gotten him up every morning to go to work with him. THEN they didn't really sleep at the campout. We left him home.
Tacey hadn't done anything except chase boys and go to Camp, but she threw one of those 15 yr old girl hissy fits and frankly, we didn't want to deal with it. So we left her home.
McCade jumped in the truck all happy.
We = three.
Shane rototilled while Ken hoed the rows and the kids picked up the weeds. Well, they kind of picked up the weeds. They will really regret not being more diligent later this summer. But that too, is a lesson.
Ken's wife, Jen & I planted the seeds.
This is a BIG garden. It is 80x20.
In the end, it looked like this.
I know it doesn't look like much; yet. In a few weeks it will have corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, radishes, cucmbers, zuccini, squash, onions, peas, beans and carrots. There will also be a row of sunflowers to offer a bit of shade while we work.
We plan on helping them all summer.
These are the gardeners. That whole thing only took about 2 hours with al the hands working.
I was also told that our presence made for less yelling.
I am all for increased family harmony!
This is Talon. He said he was sick and didn't really help. Sometimes he forgot he was sick. But he did take a nap.
So, backing up. . .
This little cutie is RIGDON. He is my friend Mindy's son.
Mindy is a ROCKSTAR as far as I am concerned.
Her husband left her with her 4 children and went to fight for freedom in Iraq. They have really worked hard and been strong and positive during their separation. They get to see their Dad a lot; Skype is a wonderful thing. But there is a difference between seeing someon, and actually talking face to face; especially when you are going to be away an entire year.
Rigdon's dad got 2 weeks leave and came home for a short vacation this week. The morning after Mindy picked her husband at the airport in the middle of the night Rigdon looked at her and said in his super-cute 3 yr old voice with his super twinkly, innocent (but full of mischeif) eyes:
Mom, Thanks finding my Daddy!
yea, pass the kleenex.
But that is kind of what I have been doing this week. I have this goal; I want to put together a book with pictures and documents for my great-grandfather and his descendants. So I have been doing a lot of online genealogy work. I have found a lot of people.
I found out my grandfather had a younger brother that was stillborn.
I found the great-granddaughter of my great-grandfather's sister.
We have been emailing each other.
I have found that I am frustrated that I can't just get the documents;
they HIDE
they are HARD to FIND.
I am going to keep looking.
Someday, someone is going to say;
"Danielle, thanks for finding me!"
Danielle
