June

I forgot to blog lately. I have to back way up now --

We went to Elsie's dance recital. She was an awesome flower thing and pink dragon.

Brandon hired Chloe to paint the fence. She's always complaining that she doesn't have any money. She did two sections and then quit. Sophie got the job, but I never took a picture of her painting. Our fence now looks beautiful.

Chloe went to a YW camp clinic to do all her certification. After telling me that Sophie was going to girls camp, the camp director came and told me she can't go because she won't be 12 by the first day of camp. Oh well -- Sophie doesn't really care. She's not real excited to be graduating from Primary.

We crashed South Jordan's community days, and went and played BINGO at the senior citizens center. That was fun. Chloe won a $10 gift card to Chik-Fil-A. She wasn't too thrilled about that. She's hoping she can find someone to sell it to, but I told her she's not going to get full face value for it. She doesn't think that's fair.

I took the girls to a little "concert in the park." It was folk comedy. They didn't appreciate it.

I found several people in my ward trying to learn to eat a plant-based, whole foods diet. Our Stake YW President teaches classes and stuff, so we all went to one at her house. It was definitely a class for beginners (which is where they are all at), so hopefully I can be a good resource for them.

We got our friends to join us at This is the Place Heritage Park for the annual free day. This was the nicest one I've been to yet. The weather has been just lovely lately (if not a little too cold!) The girls have outgrown pony rides, so we didn't do that, but we still got ice cream and went to all the houses and such. They had a bird show that was educational, and we got chewed out by the mean school teacher. We stayed way longer than I had planned, but that tends to happen when the girls get together with their friends. They even talked us into going to Whole Foods together afterwards.

The Stephens weren't gone even 5 minutes when Sophie got a phone call from Makenly (her friend in Lehi) inviting them over that night. They like to set up their projector outside and watch movies on the fence. Both girls went. It was good for them to have a day of socializing. Yesterday we were able to have Makenly come over to our house. Her mother has been begging us to do this, so they may get to play some more this summer. I just need to convince her to homeschool so that they can play during the rest of the year too.

I haven't got any pictures to show, but Brandon has been working super hard in our yard. He got all the sprinklers dug out from where the new addition is going to be. We had someone from the gas company come out to let me know there are no gas lines in the way, so he cleared us for take off, and then yesterday the contractor showed up and said he just got the permit that morning! He's planning to start on Monday morning -- super exciting!! Brandon's other big project to prepare for this has been to kill off all the goatheads in our "rock patch." He went and bought a flame thrower to try to burn them out. He's been having a little too much fun with that thing. Back up for a sec -- he was going to take the girls camping on Tuesday night, but that's the night it snowed in the mountains. It was so cold the whole day, so they cancelled it. They decided to do a backyard campout last night to make up for it. Brandon tried a new fire method called "Dakota fire" to produce less smoke. It's kind of cool, but he did have some trouble getting it started (and then keeping it going). So... he went and got his flame thrower. I'm standing there remembering how much I wanted to have little girls, and how thankful I am for the girls I got, when Sophie walked over to me and whispered, "Mom, can you ask him to stop being so manly?" We're not really sure what to do with men around here.

Since Brandon had already taken work off on Tuesday and now had nowhere to go Chloe talked him into going to the aquarium. This was our second time at the new one -- the animals are filling in. Now would be a much better time to go (for those who had heard there wasn't much to see). I was planning to go to a presentation on Utah ghost towns and abandoned mines that night. I thought with everyone home someone would like to go with me, but nope, I still had to go alone. Now I have some field trip ideas to take the girls on.

I got a ton of weeding done this morning, so I can call it a good day. I now have unlimited access to Ancestry, so I've spent too much time on my family history this week. I found out Brandon's great-aunt lived in the same house that I did when I lived in Laramie -- pretty cool, huh? We have a stake social this evening, and then Chloe wants to go watch fireworks at Fort Herriman days tonight.