Bought a violin

Savanna has been making significant progress on her violin in the last 2 months. Granted, 2 months is not a very long trial period, but we couldn't go on borrowing her teacher's violin for much longer without something ill befalling it, so I started looking for student violins on craigslist and KSL and found an affordable one in PG. I drove through a thunder/lightening/rain/wind storm to see it, and it looked good to me, so I bought it. Then I was worried since I don't know a good violin from a crummy one, so I took it to Savanna's teacher's home, who is my visiting teaching companion, and had her examine it. She tuned it up and played it and said it looked really good, and it was a good price. Now I just have to brain wash Savanna into continuing to practice every day. She has been practicing, enough to complain about the sore tips of her fingers. But you never know when the assignments are going to push her over the ultimatum edge of "I'm never playing the violin again!" She likes to work in extremes. Maybe if I let her practice in a wig and with a camera, she made several videos of her playing her violin and took pictures and that seems to help her like playing. Her first recital is the end of September.



Here is Weston. Yes this is Weston.

The kids have been having a creative time at home. They love to get a hold of this camera and capture their creations. This one is Weston being pillow man.

This is Fiora being a zombie or corpse or something.

Weston being a zombie or something.

Savanna dressed up.

Fiora dressed up and posed with her $2 dog from the DI.

Weston rolled up in the rug like a burrito.

And, one day they dressed up little cousing Bailey too.


Since this is the last official summer night, not a school night, I just had to write a post and show what fun the kids have had this summer. Home a lot and just finding ways to entertain themselves. We played games too. Those ended up in lots of arguments. One day we all went outside and played in the sprinklers, then the kids made nachos and brought out otter pops and pretended they were on the beach. Selling snow cones and reading happened a lot less often than I envisioned. But we went to the library every week with high hopes! A lot of music was blared, as that is the #1 motivational force for doing chores around here. FAREWELL SUMMER BREAK!

Farewell

Friday was my last day at LDS Family Services. I was just starting to feel comfortable with my routine going there every day, and now its time for a change. The above picture shows the adoption team, Connie Mason, Pam Taylor, Shantel Pettit, Amber Anderson, Charlotte Jensen, Eileen Romney, and Ruby Rasmussen. I sort of phased out my last week, working only four hours every day except Wednesday. They had me working right up until the minute I left Friday, sending me to visit a birth mom who just had her baby at the hospital as I was walking out the door. I am going to miss my associations there.
The other half of the days this past week I was shadowing the current intern at the state prison whose place I am taking over this fall. What a contrast, I'm sure I'm in for another rough learning experience there, and as soon as I'm comfortable it will be time to graduate. The kids were really glad it was my last day on Friday, they wanted to celebrate. I am having a break now, and will overwhelm myself with home projects I have been putting off all summer I'm sure.
My dad went four wheeling with my husband on Saturday, he had fun but I think Jared wore him out. Jared has been getting up early in the mornings to hike and four-wheel, he summited cascade mountain for the second time Thursday morning. Next week he is going to summit Timp.

Fiora's Future family

This is what Fiora drew in church today. I thought it was pretty funny. She sure is going to catch a fine husband.

Cascade mountain

Jared took me on a little getaway up the canyon. We had Karli take the kids to Grandma Barrett's house Friday, and Jared had his big hiking backpack all loaded with a tent and sleeping bags, small air mattresses, and food and a little burner, lots of water, and two little camp chairs. We hiked two miles with all this on our backs to an abandoned old scout camp by big springs on Cascade mountain, Jared had about 3 times more weight on his back but still my shoulders were hurting. He made me work for my dinner that night. We were the only ones in this camp spot,heated up cans of soup for our dinner, and slept in a tiny lightweight tent, with only the screech owls and the wind to accompany us. It was fun to sit in the beautiful nature and talk. The next morning we were awoken at 5:40 AM by a few vehicles parked 10 yards away, unbeknownst to us our camp spot was the respite point for a 62 mile mountain race. We ate breakfast and packed up and stashed the backpack, then started up the mountain to the summit. We passed those 45 insane runners and cheered on each one of them. It was gorgeous at the top, and we shared some trail mix and patted each other on the back. Steep hike, you go up 4000 feet in 3 1/2 miles. We are sore today. But it was worth it and we had a good time together.
We picked up the kids from eagle mountain that afternoon and thought we'd treat the family to macaroni grill since they were good and we were exhausted. Jared and I quickly came down from our lover's cloud nine as we argued about what to get the kids that wasn't a big rip off. The kids didn't even appreciate their kid meals anyway, I can't wait until their taste buds grow in. We won't be visiting another nice restaraunt with the kids for a while. We will stick with Jason's deli with a coupon so Jared doesn't go into cardiac arrest and the kids eat their food.

PS. Weston sang "The Lord Needs Valiant Servants" in church today and did an excellent job.

Family Pictures

These Schauers family pictures were taken in March while the whole family was in town for Grandma's funeral. The big ones need some photo shopping because of background, but otherwise I thought they turned out really nice.

Montana

Well I may have lost the pictures we took in Montana, but I can still write about our little trip.
We took off Friday morning with Wendy and Seth Snow, as the rest of their crew were getting home from girls camp later and were taking another car, and thankfully Aunt Wendy had a DVD player for the kids. They watched 4 movies all the way up there and didn't fight. Pretty amazing. We arrived around 3:00 and the kids just got so excited to swim and play with their cousins. I read a novel cover to cover that day, I soaked up the time to leisure read. Those pictures from the last post are from our first afternoon in Montana. (Weston is meditating because he has been watching too much of "Avatar: The last Air Bender" and wishes he was Aang.) That night Keith Snow and his 2 girls and Todd Schauers drove into a bull elk on the way there, the car was totaled but miraculously no one was injured. All the airbags deployed completely cushioning them from everything except a shower of windsheild glass. It restored some of my faith in cars, maybe they aren't really death machines after all, except well, the elk died.
We slept in Chad and Robin's camper. There was sufficient room and it was nice to have a space for our family to go with so many other guests in the house. (The kids didn't really enjoy the cold shower the first night, we learned our lesson and went in the house to wash the next night.) All of Jared's family minus one sibling was able to gather in Montana for Miles Baptism. Saturday morning we traveled to Townsend for the baptism and lunch. Savanna and Fiora sang the musical number, Weston was supposed to sing too but refused to do so. He said it was because he didn't want people telling him "Good job Weston" and that it was a "girly song." I was tempted to bribe him to sing but didn't, I just let him decide and decided not to sing. Jared made him stand up there with the girls silent. I think the music was nice anyway.
We let the kids swim in the big pool that afternoon again, a waterballoon fight played out also. Jared took me to McKenzie River Pizza for a salad and pizza while the kids ate hotdogs with all the rest of the family. I felt kind of guilty escaping from the family festivities, but it was really nice to have some one on one time with Jared, and that food was really good. We got back in time to see Lexie, Aaron and Amy's daughter, celebrating her 1st birthday with present opening. They gave her a huge cupcake to dig into, but she wasn't that interested, she only daintily licked the frosting off the top. Her parents and cousins helped her dig in.
We got to have cupcakes and a pinata after that, sugar sugar everywhere!
Sunday we went to church and had lasagna with the family and then we were off back to Utah. There was a little more squabbling and complaining this round, but not as bad as I had expected. We made it home without incident and discovered the bishopric had changed in our absence. You miss one day...
Monday we went back to work, all exhausted. Our friends the Westovers invited us over for ribs and s'mores. It was fun to have something fun after a long trip. More food, fun, and friends.
Tuesday I left the kids to go to the internship, and missed them. That evening another scary incident, Uncle Gabe Carpenter fell off his bike and separated his shoulder. Jared left late that night to give him a blessing while I was sleeping unawares. Gabe was in a lot of pain. We have been told it won't affect his military career, but it may delay his boot camp. Thankfully he wasn't more injured.
Wednesday was the same, except when I came home I was surprised to have Heidi and Gabe's kids, my mom and brother joining us for dinner! And Jared already had the hamburger patties ready for the grill. More food, friends and fun!
Thursday I didn't like leaving my kids. I also went to the temple after work with Jared and didn't get home until they had gone to bed.
Friday I decided to stay home. I had no appointments and my supervisor was out of town. So I spent the day with my children and recuperated from a long busy week. The kids jumped in my bed and we talked and laughed in the morning. We organized the basement, the toys, the clothes, cleaned the kitchen and went to the DI. We had piano lessons and went to the store. By the time Jared came home to take me to a Realtor social I was recuperated and the kids were ready to stay with a sitter again so I am so glad I stayed home. And for the first time in years I really enjoyed myself at the Realtor social! Jared even won a prize.
I have two more weeks of this internship, then a break for 2 weeks. We got see Shrek 4 today finally! WE loved IT!

Lost again

Weston joined the "Lost Teeth Club." We took Grandma Rappleye to dinner last Friday evening, and when I finally got home and finally got the kids and Grandma to the restaurant, and they finally brought some food out, Weston tore into the bread and the bread tore his tooth out. He was a little traumatized pulling out a bloody tooth in the restaurant. We discretely wrapped the tooth in paper and took Weston to the bathroom to rinse. He was very brave and only barely cried. He was really excited to show the girls, he nearly grabbed a stranger girl he thought was Fiora to show her. He was even more excited to leave his tooth under his pillow for the tooth fairy. He asked for a dollar, and the alleged fairy managed to scrounge up a dollar's worth of change for him.

Then the week went by speedy quick and I never found a minute to blog about the tooth.

Now we are in Montana, and I'm writing this on Robin and Chad Schauers' computer. The kids are already having a blast. It's Miles' baptism tomorrow and the whole Schauers family is here for the event. They have a largish pool in their backyard, and although it was too cold for wimpy me to swim, the kids got right in until they turned blue.