The girls and I had a perfect day today. We packed a lunch and headed up to Hanging Rock State Park. We picnicked and then hiked to a waterfall where there is a pool of water to swim in. The weather was perfect, all the kids were well behaved and happy and we just simply had the best day ever, according to Lillie.
Whit is one lucky guy. He will always be surrounded by beautiful women who adore him. Us girls are really the lucky ones. Whit is the perfect dad for all these girls. They definitely came to the right family.
I am so blessed to have Whitney by my side raising all these wonderful girls.
To show our dad how much we love him we combined two of his favorite things, Oreos and popcorn. Followed by his favorite soda, Virgil's Rootbeer.
My plan is to take the kids on a field trip once a week this summer. Friday we were able to go on our first one to our local Science center called Sci Works. We haven't been there in a long time and they have a few new additions that I was pleasantly surprised with. The girls had a great time and I was able to spend some real quality time with them. The best part was a room full of these cool flat blocks that you could build with. I am pretty sure Lillie could have spent an entire day in there and never been bored (I think I know what she is getting for her birthday.)
We followed up the trip with chocolate dipped ice cream cones from McDonald's. These brought back some great memories. I remember getting them when I was young. We got ours from Dairy Queen and not to call my Dad (the stake president) out or anything but I am pretty sure we would get them on Sundays on our way to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Wherever and whenever the yumminess I remember is still the same.
I am not sure I can adequately describe a swim meet here on the blog. All I can say is Holy Cow!! Our first swim meet was probably one of the most stressful things I have been through in a really long time.
The prep work was insane because I had to go to the pool prepared to feed and entertain my entire family for four+ hours. I wish I would have taken a picture of the house when we left. There was flour all over the floor from Jaynie using the flour conatiner as a stool and having the lid collapse on her, there was sugar all over the floor from Penny getting into the sugar container that was left open by Jaynie when making cookies, and there was salsa all over my rug from Addie trying to help clear the dirty dishes and not quite getting the bowl in the sink. All of this happened 15 minutes before we left the house so needless to say we left a mess.
Once we arrived at the pool I was frantically trying to read this insane heat sheet and write all the girls races on their arms with permanent marker (yes I said permanent). All the while trying to explain to the youngest two why we were at the pool but not swimming. Just try to imagine me trying to keep a toddler away from the pool when her older sisters are swimming in a race. Then to top it all off about an hour into the meet it started to thunder. We waited at the pool for over an hour until they decided to reschedule it for the next night.
Lets just say I left the pool feeling pretty defeated and terrified that I had to do it all again tomorrow.
But, despite all the craziness the next night went much more smoothly (I learned a few things from the night before) and it was pretty awesome watching the girls swim their races. They all did so great. I was so proud of each one of them and I can't wait to see how their times improve as the season goes on. I like swimming because although they are part of a team they are really only racing against the clock and as long as they can improve their individual time then they are winning.
We we're lucky enough to have the Ruberts come and visit. Shaunna, Russ, Lindzy, and Kaden drove out the second week of June.
Here is a quick recap of their trip as told by Whitney.
They got here on tuesday night and we had a good dinner and some good chat. We then watched mr. South Fremont and saw kaden in all his glory. That was pretty darn funny. Then next morning we had some breakfast and the ruberts headed to charleston south Carolina and spent wednesday and most of thursday looking at civil war and other early American history stuff. We made sure they left most of their luggage so they'd have I come back. The ruberts had a great time in charleston and got back late. Friday I went to work while everyone got ready then we went and had some bar b que for lunch. Then we went and toured old Salem. Uncle Russ bought the girls ice cream. My girls think Russ is about the coolest uncle ever. The ruberts had just come from Nauvoo and we decided that old Salem was the nauvoo for the Moravians. On the way home we stopped by the Krispy kreme that is near the Krispy Kreme headquarters. Then we headed to the pool for a bit. We finished the night cooking out and having a firework show thanks to Kaden and a stop at the worlds largest fireworks warehouse somewhere on their cross country journey. Saturday we had some swim practice, then headed to the mountains, we went to the old mast general store in Valle Cruisis and had lunch at a nice little park. Russ and I found some great pickled okra which we were pretty fond of. Then we went for a hike off of the blue ridge parkway. We headed home just in time to leave the younger 3 girls with a sitter while the rest of us went and got some pizza from mellow mushroom en route to bowman grey stadium to watch some minor league NASCAR. It was amazing. So hard to describe... The people the tobacco the noise the whole thing was a lot of fun. They had several different classifications of racing, but for the most part is was like a controlled demolition derby with really fast cars. My favorite moment of the night was when the guy behind us yelled 'rubb'n is race'n' as the second place guy nosed the first place guy out of control and into the infield. Well actually my favorite moment was the last race which was a chain race. They had 7 or 8 teams with 2 cars chained together. The front car had an engine but no brakes and the back car had... You guessed it, brakes and no engine. It was pretty much the coolest thing we'd ever seen. Then we went home and woke up and as quick as they came The Ruberts were gone.
I always get pretty homesick when people leave us but I wouldn't trade their visits for anything. Thanks so much Ruberts for making the trip. We love you and miss you already.
School is finally out!! I am so excited for the lazy days of summer. Although as I look at our crazy schedule of swim and yoga I am not quite sure they will be such lazy days. Oh well I am just glad I get to be with my girls more.
When the girls got off the bus on the last day some of the moms had made a sign and some fun activities for the kids. It was a great afternoon. We have such a great neighborhood.
Whit had a golf tournament at work and they needed some extra players so he asked if I wanted to play. I was so excited, I got off the phone and immediately called my neighbor to see if she could watch the younger girls that day. I called whit back and told him I was in.
We had so much fun. We started in a group, but then ended up by ourselves. I think we could both be pretty good golfers if we played more. I wish we could play more often, but as I tell myself a lot these days, "there is a time and a place for everything." Someday we will play lots of golf together.
I will take what I can get for now. It was definitely the best date we have had in a long time.
The oldest three girls are doing swim team this year and in order to join swim team we had to join the pool. The problem is we already get a pool membership somewhere else they just don't have a swim team. So to offset the cost the girls and I decided to have a yard sale. The girls went through their toys and got rid of some stuff to help out and Whit and I cleaned out the garage. We had a pretty big pile of stuff to sell. The problem was I had to go camping with Jaynie that weekend and Whit wanted the stuff gone before the Ruberts came to visit. Instead of hauling it all of to Good Will Whit actually held a garage sell without me. He listed it on Craig's Listand made signs. He even priced everything by himself. I didn't do anything for him. There were a few things that I cringed at when he told me how much he sold them for (some people got some really sweet deals) but we got more for it than if we had sent it to Good Will.
As if that isn't enough to make Whit the most amazing husband ever he pulled out his amazing Martha Stewart skills at the last minute on for me and I couldn't be more excited about it. I have wanted a moss G to hang on a mirror on my mantle for a long time but they are expensive and I didn't want to spend any money. Whit kept telling me to just make it but I couldn't find the right stuff and I knew I wouldn't be able to do as good of a job as the lady on Etsy. I really wanted it before our guests arrived but I waited to long for it to get here in time. So what does Whitney do? He comes up with this awesome idea to make it out of a foam insulation board from the job site next door (of corse he used building materials), he goes to Joann's and buys the moss, and creates this beautiful masterpiece. I mean seriously he is Amazing!!
