I am already getting sick of this myself so I am pretty sure any readers are. This kind of blogging is no fun. But here's a little more anyway. (I will post the text now and add the pictures slowly as I get time)

Grandpa Fielding has had two strokes in the last few months so I was anxious to check on him at his ranch in Summerville, OR. He was still his honery old loveable self. We got free pony rides too! For the first time I noticed how beautiful his ranch was.

After we spent the night in OR, we stopped off to visit my parents at the mansion. Now this is where we should be spending all our Washington time Brent is thinking right about now. It was his first time visiting the finished B & B and he was way impressed. We tried hard to work it out to come back and have a free stay in the $250 a night rooms but the Casper's wouldn't let us get away for more Fielding time.DARN!

The farm on Casper Lane looked fabulous. It seems that it doesn't need us much anymore. And we had a surprise. End of July and there were still cherries on the trees! That really is a bad thing. The packing plants shut them off and they never even picked any Chelans. But it was so wonderful to pick and eat cherries till we were sick. . and then pick more. We fired up the old blue Ford and drove around our farm checking on stuff. Our wild apricots on the hill above the farm were also ready to be picked. We picked a bag full with intentions of making jam but then remembered we were on vacation and never got around to it.

Casper Reunion
Now the Casper's do things different than the Fielding's. Instead of renting a big house For A Week, we get together and party hard for one day.
There were many things planned, but it was so hot that instead of all those things we just stayed in the pool. Not just lounging about but participating in belly flop contests, swimming relays, and diving over the rope contests. We all had so much fun and for the first time in a long time all got sunburns. (It is practically impossible to get a sunburn during the few minutes of sunshine in Buffalo everyday. Not complaining about that, btw.)

All 9 of the siblings were there.

With the final reunion of the trip over with it was time to head to Idaho for our cabin time at Priest Lake.

For 5 days we enjoyed perfect weather, water, and company. We had missed 3 days of our time slot by the time we got up there, due to the reunion. Lisa and Todd were so nice and talked us into lingering there during their time. We were easy to convince. We had nothing but a long drive back to Buffalo to look forward to. But we were out of food by then -besides the cooler of free beef from Grandpa Fielding of course- that we always had with us. They insisted that it was no problem, they had plenty. Brent and I picked wild huckleberry and raspberry's so we could make a small contribution, and mooched and ate like kings for a few days. After all that fine dining I decided our family should spend a little more money on food in the future. The night before they came we had one can of minestrone soup and a cornbread mix. It was filling but no one was raving.

Finally Thursday we rolled on out of there and set our GPS for Kalispell, Montana. A little out of the way but Brent wanted to check it out. That little decision sent us on a big detour. Instead of I-90 all the way to Buffalo, we spent two days just getting through Montana on a two lane road. For the first day it was all beautiful and worth it. We were up near Canada and had a great drive through Glacier National Park, but by Saturday things had taken a turn for the worse and we went through hours and hours of dried out Indian reservations. Not all of Montana is forested and pretty I found out.

We were so happy to get home to our little place here. It rained the whole time we were gone and so we had a green thriving garden to greet us.

Across the plains

LDS Historic Winter Quarters
Omaha, NE

Crossing the Plains

The best kid for the trip award is a tie between Marcus and Camille. Kennon's thermostat was all out of wack, and Savannah and Caroline's stomach's were. Savannah took Dramamine and slept a lot of the way but whenever she woke up she was growling at the rest of us "Be quiet!" Caroline can't swallow the tiny pills however and instead spent the first day each way holding a bucket.

Halfway through the first day Caroline insisted that she wanted to get out. We told her that we would be pressing on as we were barely in Ohio and had miles to go till Utah. "Can we walk then?" That is one trial that the pioneers didn't have to face that Caroline doesv when she crossing the plains. Carsickness.

And then there was Kennon. She was always hot and complaining. The whole car was snuggling under blankets, and freezing and Kennon in a t-shirt and shorts was begging us to blast the AC or she was going to "burst into flames"! I couldn't figure it out. Is this a puberty thing?


There isn't much to see when traveling through southern Wyoming. We jumped at the chance to stop at this State Penn and tour the museum in Rawlings, Wyoming.
Whenever he was released from the carseat Marcus took off at full speed and it was hard to catch him again. But he was easy to entertain while driving. We just pointed out the zillions of cows and listened to him moo away. He never got tired of that game the entire drive.

Fielding Family Reunion July 14- July 20
An entire week with my favorite people in the world

Andrea, Alainna, Mom, Kashann, Candice, Laura, Ciana

Spencer, Dad Jeremy, Peter, Brent, Dave and sons -just missing Stephen who was away starring in a concert

We rented a house in Midway, Ut (near Heber). It was big enough for all the couples to have a room. . . except for Brent and I. We got a pantry that mysteriously smelled like vomit. After 6 nights stuffed in that room we decided the $400 a week we payed was way too much for our sleeping arrangements. My brother Jeremy refused to give up any of his master suite to accommodate a small spot for his sister and her husband. He just couldn't part with his office, walk in bedroom size closet, and master bathroom. Thanks for sparing a small pantry for your relatives, Jere.

Besides the vomit room, the Reunion Highlights included:

Swimming in the Deer Creek Reservoir and Jordanelle State Park located nearby the house. I love lake swimming. Dad, and my brothers and sisters and I swam laps across the reservoir while mom, who just had a knee operation sat back at the shore and watched all the kids.
SLC Temple square

Though, I wouldn't recommend touring the square with 16 little kids in your group. It really tried my patience. We insisted that Mom let us push her around. She was holding everyone back hobbling around with her cane.

Dad weeding with the grandkids and Maverick runs
My dad couldn't stand a beautiful house surrounded by weeds. So one afternoon in the heat of the day he took his grandchildren out to teach them to work. I couldn't understand the point of pulling their weeds while we were on vacation and paying a hefty price to stay there. But the kids all learned a good lesson and for the rest of the week they were anxious to weed with Grandpa and earn an ice cream at Maverick.

Baby blessing of Laura- Candice and Peter's fist daughter.

Enjoying the great outdoors around the house.
One day Brent made up a treasure hunt for his nieces and nephews. They spent over an hour running all around the place, wading through chin high thistle and finally found the grand prize -One whole dollar bill. . . to share. Ciana's 6 year old came in sweaty, and red faced after wasting the last hour of his life and declared. "That treasure hunt was a rip off!"
The Kid's room in the basement where we sent the kids so we could stay up till 2 a.m. talking and playing games every evening.
On to Washington next.

Ok, so the van still stinks. Brent slaved away on it over an hour on it last night and my fingers are crossed that he was able to work some magic. I have to give a lady a ride this morning and I am going to ask her point blank if she smells anything funny.

The worst part is that I am starting to get used to it. I watched a PBS special last night about how some people don't react bad to certain smells because they are accustomed to them, like bathroom mal odor (their name for poo). Some people would gag and immediately push it away. Others would sniff several times into the bottle trying to figure out if it was that bad. I've always wondered how people who live in houses that are totally contaminated by certain odors that I hate don't notice it when I can't handle to be in there for over 5 minutes. They also talked about how random smells take you back to a memory that you didn't even know you had. That happens to me all the time.

So now we have accustomed our noses to rotting meat and it doesn't seem so bad anymore. Maybe we are even taking on the odor ourselves.

Well besides that lingering odor from our trip life is settling down much like it was while Brent was in Alaska. The guests are gone and Brent is back in school. The girls have another month until school starts so we still have eternity of summer stretching before us it seems. Brent has exactly 9 months now until graduation and that is nothing. Brent and I spent the evening looking for a job online. There are a lot of choices out there and we're having a hard time narrowing it down. Vermont? Montana? Oregon? Ohio? Everything sounds exciting but no idea if we will actually do something so drastic like just start a new life somewhere we pick off a map.

A couple months ago Brent and I took a survey online that determines the best place for you. Out of the whole country without us giving them any preference on states but based on many other questions we answered the final result was . . . Tri-cities, Wa area! We just looked at the screen stunned. Is that a sign?

Well, I know that no one cares but I have got to get some trip highlights on here. So here goes.

Brent's favorite cousin

(Palmyra, NY visit -Brent and I stayed home with the younger kids)

Three days after returning from our BIG trip back home, Brent's cousin Dale from Ohio, his wife Julianna and their three children came to stay with us. Though Brent and Dale are the same age, he has been a practicing dentist for about 7 years now, as I calculate. And he just may be Brent's inspiration.

About 10 years ago Dale was in dental school and came to visit his cousin Brent the farmer. He relieved Kennon and I of our tractor job and helped Brent put up some hay one afternoon. Later that day as he drove off to head back to the fall semester of school in Ohio, Brent was in the middle of changing a tire on his harrow bed. As he tells the story, he was prying off the enormous tire from the rim with a huge crowbar when it popped off and slammed right into his eye brow. It was then that Brent, heard a honk and he looked up with blood and tears in his eyes, just in time to see his care free cousin's dust as he waved goodbye and his car turned down the lane off to an easier life than poor Brent. So here we are 10 years later, Brent still carrying a scar on his eyebrow but very close to achieving what he once thought could never happen as he was once left bleeding in his cousin's dust.

We took them to Darien Lake amusement park and this is my favorite picture there. Their red head son Calvin and his cuz Marcus hating the motorcycle ride we strapped them onto.
Like her father, Eliza their 5 year old is way ahead of the game. She is Caroline's age but can read sentences and likes hanging out with the older girls. Caroline was too busy playing with the boys to notice that she was getting left out.
Now we've become such good friends the kids all said that we need to get together more often. Thanks for coming guys!

Home again!

We did it again! We drove 5000+ miles with all our children. This time we were totally boring and left the doubledeckerbuick behind and didn't spend one single night sleeping in the car there or back. So much for Brent's reputation. He actually offered to pay the kids $10 bucks each one night in Cut Bank Montana to drive on and save $80 bucks on a hotel. They refused. We've spoiled them. (If you can call 2 star hotels spoiling.)

So I don't have near the stories that I told after our last trip home to Washington. . . such as 2440 miles in 50 hours with 6 people and . . . one mouse on board.

I guess you could say everything worked like clockwork this time until Fargo, North Dakota. That was the morning we discovered that in the great midnight hotel rush the previous night "someone" (still under debate) had tipped over the cooler of free beef from Grandpa Fielding and it had bled out in our van all night. So from Fargo on we had Dead Cow on Board. We threw out the beef at a rest stop dumpster (after Brent seriously entertained the idea of a spontaneous rest stop barbeque) once we discovered the spill. . . but that wasn't the end of it.

The first day following the bloody beef incident wasn't so bad. It was still fresh. Some of us complained about the stench, but as Caroline pointed out, it was just "meat and meat tastes good."

But by the last day the meat was soooo dead and we were DYING! Brent and I self detailed the van twice thanks to hotel pool towels, baking soda and Febreeze. Let's just I'll take a live mouse on board any day rather than a bloody dead cow.

I am swearing like an englishman today. As in "That was one bloody road trip" and "I am so bloody glad to be out of that bloody van."

So, that's where we have been. Brent got home from Alaska July 11th at 8 p.m, worked all night fixing everything we had broke (the lawn mower, the fans, the AC in the van) in his three week absence, and we were outa there by 8 a.m the next morning.

16 states in 21 days. Just in case you've been wondering about us.

I will post more later. I am in the midst of the worst thing about vacations right now.

Surviving and Celebrating

I love the 4th of July. The parades, the red white and blue, and fireworks! And since we came here. . . the carnival! Well we really don't go on the rides much but it's still exciting to walk around and see others doing so. We always tell the kids we are saving our money for better rides and they go along with our cheapo ways.

Kennon and Savannah though, were at a sleepover at the Cardon's so I had to do something really fun for the younger two so they wouldn't be too sad. So I said, one ride each. Two rides cost $7! Camille chose wisely and had a great time on the swings.

Caroline, on the other hand decided to be bold and brave the exact same ride that scared her to death at age four. This time she had no plans of screaming at the top of her lungs to stop until they did. Here she is bursting with excitement and courage. No idea what terror she is about to face.And 10 seconds later. (You HAVE to blow it up. Click on it and check out the complete turn of events)

She was way more direct than the "I don't like it!"she screamed at the Carney at age four. This time she never let up screaming looking him straight on, "Stop the ride! I hate it! I hate it!" She knew from past experience that they would stop for her if she screamed loud enough. The guy was more than happy to get the possessed child off his ride. Especially when she started trying to climb out while in motion. He said she gave him a heart attack and muttered about her the whole rest of the ride. We better stick to the carousel with this girl.

And Marcus better find another sport. He took fourth place winner in the Riverside beautiful baby contest, which means he LOST. Another 16 month old baby boy with HAIR, wife beater tank top, necklace, and a big ridiculous looking red, white and blue bow taped to his bottom won first prize. Should've considered the neighborhood and dressed him right. They don't think too much of the farmer brown types around these parts.

Heading down to the park for an afternoon walking around the carnival on Friday. We were babysitting a friend. She didn't like the no ride policy. I had to tell her NO at least a dozen times. My favorite line was, "Awe, Come on! That's what a carnival is for!" Give her a break, though. She's pretty much an only child and doesn't understand how big families work. There are always worms for sale a block away since we live right by the river.

July 4th was Marcus's 16 month birthday.

Brent will be home soon. Not telling when just in case you are a bad guy. It may be even be tonight.

I miss him but love how self reliant I have become in his absence. The day after he left I decided to take the couch apart at the seams. I was missing a library DVD, had searched the entire house and only had one place left. I paused for a second trying to decide how Brent would feel about me pulling out the staples under the couch but ultimately began tearing into it. I can't fork out 31.99 for the DVD until I know that I'm not sitting on it. So I pulled out a bunch of staples and found all kinds of stuff down there -my favorite shoe of Marcus's gone missing last December, our VCR remote that had left us with no abilty to rewind, books, socks, way too much food. . . but NO stinkin' 31.99 DVD. Camille and Caroline's jobs were to feel for objects and tell mom where to pull out staples. Savannah held the flashlight up the crack and showed me where to reach in. She won't let us post any of those pictures because they are all close ups of her behind up in the air. Kennon was the photographer. Marcus grabbed my screwdriver any time it was free and worked his head off too.

Making lots of adjustments and did not like it when his mother disturbed him from some serious tinkering.

Sure is nice to still have a man around the house since Dad's out of town.

Last night we invited guests over for dinner and I BBQ'd for the first time ever. No fires, and the chicken kabobs were perfect. It was totally easy! For now on I may start manning the grill and letting him multi-task the rest of the stuff in the kitchen.

I also blew the breaker the day after he left. The microwave, oven, computer, TV, fridge - everything was off. Usually that means -wait for Brent to get home and flip switches somewhere in the basement- so I initially panicked. But in less than 5 minutes I had us up and running again. If only I could get the lawn mower up and running I would be feeling fabulous.

We even survived the July 4th holiday on our own, although barely. We brought an older lady I visiting teach to our ward party Saturday evening. She called earlier to tell me that she had something for the kids. After dinner she pulled out some "sparklers" for them to set off. She had just got the lighter out of her purse and was holding it out so I could light them up when Taylor Hawes happened by and said, "Those are not sparklers! They are bottle rockets and you're gonna blow your hand off!"

Brent usually lights the sparklers and hands them out. They obviously weren't sparklers once I took a second look but I just took her word for it. Thank you so much Taylor for saving us. Donna wouldn't believe they weren't sparklers though. She called me the next day to see if we had lit them up yet. I told her once again that they weren't what she thought they were, but she insisted that she and her neighbors had used sparklers just like that.

Donna lives downtown and by the time we got her back to her place after the party it was after 10 p.m. and there were fireworks going on all around us. The kids were upset about the downtown detour since now we were sure to miss our firework show in the tree house. I decided to go straight up Niagara Street so we wouldn't miss anything on the way. Two miles from the park/our house traffic slowed to a crawl. When we realized that we weren't going anywhere anytime soon they were all complaining at me for ruining everything. Then we suddenly noticed that we were right in the middle of the show. People packed both sides of the road. We opened the sunroof, hung out the top and blasted the stereo, for our first drive through firework show. They were coming down all around us and we made it home and up in the tree house just in time for the finale. It was a very exciting fireworks show after all.

I am really loving summer! I know it has a lot to do with being in the city rather than on a farm. No canning, weeding, or slaving away in the hot sun around here. You just run out of chores so much sooner and have a lot more time for fun. I don't know if that is a bad thing or not. I like fun. But I don't want to raise good for nothing kids.

Just a couple things then we are racing off to the park to see the tigers and enter Marcus in the beautiful baby contest - All going on at the Friendship Festival. I am not hopeful about his chances but the kids dressed him up and insisted. We are going to watch the fireworks tonight and tomorrow up in the tree house. Can't wait! Come on over if you want to join us.

Also, we were featured in a news story about the holiday weekend on Channel 4 news at 12 noon today. I was out running with my my three youngest when they caught me so I am looking not too fabulous. We will be on the 5 p.m. news also if you want to see us. Caroline does a great fireworks impersonation for the news lady. Camille was a little too shy to make the cut.

And then also just for clarification. My kids swim in an UNUSED garbage can. It is one that I keep in the basement and store winter blankets in. It's not like they are really swimming in the trash. Come on! What kind of parent did you think I was? They beg me to let them wash out the bigger one that we actually store garbage in but I absolutely refuse.

When school is out it usually means the schedule is out too. But I have tried hard this first week out of school to still start the day with family scripture study. We were reading about Zarahemna this week. For those of you who aren't Book of Mormon buffs- He's the Lamanite captian who is scalped by the soldier of Moroni.

Camille wanted to know what scalped meant and while explaining that I reminded them about the time I was pretty much scalped as a baby under the tire of our car. I hadn't told this story for a while and they were all pretty interested to hear about their mother being scalped. (For those that don't believe me I will show you the 6 inch scar as proof). As soon as I got done with the story Savannah scowled and said,

"Mom, you have way more stories! Nothing ever happens to us."

She was complaining. ???

Many times as I drag them off the computer I remind them that someday their children are going to ask them to tell them stories about themselves and it is gonna be sad if the best thing they can come up with is, "Well, I found some awesome sites online." I really do worry about this.

Kids these days!

No wonder nothing exciting ever happens to them. They have constant supervision. . unlike when I was a kid. And they have a computer and TV. . .unlike when I was a kid.


While on the topic of exciting adventures. . . The Sailboat will not be providing this family with anymore. As the new owner drove off trailing it, my neighbor asked me if I was sad to see it go. I was completely honest and said, "No way!" Right now I am trying to break all ties with this place and get ready for the move. Getting rid of a 25 foot sailboat was one big step.

Plus, for the last month while it's been on the market, I have to run over there every time it rains to bail it out. Just in case someone comes to look at it and changes their mind when they find it full of murky water.

But I couldn't keep Caroline quiet as the buyer sat at our kitchen table signing the papers. He was from out of town, had yet to even see the boat parked in the next block at our neighbors, and here Caroline was already tainting it.

She made friends with him right away, telling him this and that -all random stuff when suddenly she comes out with,

"Well . . I think Stacey peed in the boat." (Stacey is the nice neighbor who stores our boat in her yard, free of charge.)

So I hurried and told Caroline that Stacey wasn't peeing in our boat. There was just a little water that leaks in from the windows. But she wouldn't drop it at that. "But Mom, why is it yellow? There's always yellow water in the boat!"

Rainwater or Stacey's Pee, either way Caroline was very sad to see it go. After I finished cleaning it the final time, we were walking off and she suddenly said, "Wait! I just have to do something!" She ran back and wrapped her arms around the bow of the boat and gave it a great big kiss. . . or two. Then said "Goodbye, Sailboat!" with a sniffle.

Even, Daddy didn't get such a big sendoff.

And while on the subject of pee, I have to tell one more story about Caroline and hopefully it's the last one forever about her and and the P word. Several months ago I decided that she was going to be pull up free at night. I knew that the only way to get her to stop wetting was to take away the pull ups. We had a rough patch for a while but finally she made it to the two week mark of no wet beds and she got to pick out a prize at the store.

But during that rough patch, the following happened.

One night, I woke up with the growing awareness that something wet was in my hand. Then I felt something wet on my arm. I opened my eyes and made Caroline out in the dark shadows of my room, just standing there like a ghost not saying a thing but stark naked. "What are you doing? And what is in my hand . . . and on my arm?

She didn't say anything then.

After I came out of the room I found her wet nightgown had been draped over my arm and her balled up pair of wet panties were in my hand.

And why did she do this ?

She shrugged and explained, "I just thought it would be a good way of telling you."

Someday I am going to be in big trouble when Caroline learns how to read, aren't I?

Although she knows barely over half her abc's, I would argue she is a very intelligent 5 year old. Last Sunday Kennon told the story about Heber J. Grant during her primary class presentation. The children listened to how he had once given away a brand new coat that his mother worked many hours to buy for him. His mother saw him come in without the new coat the day after she had given it to him. When his mother found out that he had given it away to a child in the street who had none she was at first dismayed and asked why he couldn't have given away his old ragged coat instead. But then, remembering what kind of boy she had said to him, "Of course, you couldn't Heber."

At this point the teacher asked the children to tell them if Heber had made a choice to follow Jesus. All the kids resounded with a unanimous "Yes!"

Then Caroline, talking out of turn once again in primary, hollered out,

"But his mother made the devil's choice!"

She loves to talk about Jesus choices and devil choices and it was pretty clear to her without any extra explanation that his mother was doing the latter by suggesting he shouldn't have been kind.

Marcus is a little confused about what happened to his daddio. For a few days he went around the house calling for him. I wanted him to understand why he hasn't seen him for so long so I told him a story with hand motions that he could imitate about where he had gone. First, Dad got on a plane (airplane hand zooming across the sky) and then went to work on the Indians (Indian dance while slapping mouth) teeth (point to teeth).

He caught on right away laughing and doing the actions with us, but eventually just shortened it to the "ZOOOM" and waving his little hand across the sky. If anyone said, "Daddy" he was ready to go with his airplane. Well, out of nowhere, Sunday night he changes the zooming airplane to a spinning plane that swivels all over the sky and then usually crashes in his lap. We all looked at each other in disbelief and asked him, "Where's Daddy?" again. Now the plane always crashes. And as the girls laugh harder and harder the crashes have gotten worse and worse.

I didn't like this turn of events at all. Especially since Daddy was getting on another plane Monday morning to head off to a remote fishing village for the week. And as usual he didn't call and let me know he made it. But he did tell me before he left Sunday night that I probably wouldn't hear from him much because he won't have Internet reception while there.
I finally got confirmation on his status by way of an email this afternoon. Apparently they do have Internet in the far reaches of Alaska, but I guess he is confined to 10 words or less. After 2 days with no word, it read, "Made it. Clinic number is __________. Love ya, ttyl" Maybe it's morse code and that's all he could afford.

I am assuming the clinic number is an emergency number, not a "Hi, i just called to shoot the breeze" line.

Oh, well we are doing fine anyway. The only snag has been the lawn mower. First I, then Bill next door, tried to start it. Neither of us had any luck. Bill gave up and let me borrow his. I told Brent about it and he said he was the last one to use it and it was working fine then.

"There can only be one thing wrong with that perfectly good lawn mower," he said.

"OPERATOR ERROR"

The girls called all their neighborhood friends over for a "POOL PARTY" to start off the summer. We have a little pool but the real hit was, of course . . . the dip in the trash can.

There was a big line all afternoon.

Sunday night is garbage night on our street. That's the night to take a walk and see what you can find that your neighbors have sat out on the curb. Just as it began raining late that night Savannah and Kennon noticed a couple boxes across the street. They ran over and rescued some stuff just in time. Sunglasses, stickers, books and craft supplies were hauled home. I was on the phone with Brent and they kept rushing back and forth until they finally decided it was pouring too hard to go out again. They organized all the loot and had a suprise for their younger sisters when they woke up in the morning. A sticker chart that reads,

"You will win a prize when you fill it up! Do not put a sticker on without asking! Follow the rules. . . and BE GOOD! "

They've had two little slaves ever since. The stickers are filling up but Kennon reminded Camille when she got frusterated that she still has yet to pick a prize after two full days working for Kennon, that "You only get to pick a prize about once a week. You have to work really hard first."

So maybe in a few days Camille might get rewarded with some neighbor's garbage for a whole week of hard work. And if she only knew that she only had to be up a little later Sunday night and they would've been her's for free.

Ballet Recital

I had 4 girls performing and only 1 video camera. I kept it swinging trying to give them each equal time when they were all onstage at once. And I also had to keep in mind that Dad was missing it and would be complaining about the swinging around.

Caroline wasn't out there much but she tried her best to steal the show. Even though most of the performance she sat on the back bench awaiting her turn, she was constantly smiling and cheesing for the crowd. When her turn finally came, she did great till she missed her curtsy as they exited the stage. She kept stopping as they left, turning around and informing the audience in her loud voice, "But I forgot to bow!" She shouted this about 5 times before the rest of the girls pulled her off. She wasn't mad. She was just making an apology to the crowd.
She came out once more and danced around a bit. This time she kept her mouth shut on exit. . . but created a scene again when she decided to adjust her ballet slipper while on stage. When she leaned over without warning the next 4 dancers ran into each other. Unaware of the pileup behind her she fixed the slipper and skipped off.

I love having 4 ballerinas. Unfortunately though, besides Caroline, they are bored to death with it and I have been dragging them to lessons for the last few months. I guess this is our last Casper recital.

Schools Out!

It's finally Summer!

Brent's in Alaska . . . Finally had last day of school yesterday for girls. . . and it's at least 85 degrees and stinkin' hot!

Here are the end of the year highlights:

Flag Day
Camille won the 1st grade Flag Day essay contest and she read it for a school assembly.

We sang patriotic songs in the auditorium, marched in a parade with the school band around the neighborhood, and everyone wore the cool hat they made in class.


Or had been ordered from Oriental Trading, I guess.
I kept thinking, "This is so fun. Why didn't my school ever celebrate flag day?"

Till it dawned on me that I was never still in school in the middle of June.

Camille's teacher noticed Caroline dressed up too and coaxed her to join the parade.

Caroline loved marching along with the big kids but was nervous that it wasn't okay for nonstudents. She stopped several times to announce to whomever was passing, "But I am not in school!"

And while Brent was either in clinic in Buffalo (finishing up the spring term) or in clinic in Alaska (starting his externship), I soloed it through three separate award celebrations juggling a video camera, still camera, a 15 month old wild man, and a feverish Caroline. Luckily it was a 24 hour bug and not the swine flu that is making the rounds here in Western NY. A fifteen year old in the buffalo schools died from it last week.

Okay I hate to do this and Kennon told me not to because "It doesn't matter, Mom! " . . .

But here are the many awards heaped on the Casper children at the end of the year assemblies.
(Because -This is my only journal and winning awards is noteworthy!)

We love our kid's school because we stand out. We are different. My husband doesn't wear a wife beater tank top to every assembly. I don't have any tattoos. Nor do I bring every aunt, uncle, godmother, and cousin to hoot and holler when my 11 year walks across the stage with her 5th grade diploma. We have five kids all from the same father. . . .

And we know how to win awards.

I am proud of my little winners. But it's also a little embarrassing to be the Casper mom and know the other parents are sick of hearing "______ Casper" over and over.

Camille took home the 1st grade awards for
Citizenship, Music, and Physical Education
This is her second year in a row that her teacher picked her for top citizen. She is a sweetie. I told her it's my favorite award of all.

Savannah as always was the top dog. And she deserves it. She loves school and works hard.
Her awards were the Academic, Music, and Art awards.
She also was recognized for getting a 4 (top score ) on all the state tests. And a special mention for getting a perfect score on the science state test. Unlike Kennon, she didn't mind blog bragging a bit and told me that she had 9 awards total.

Kennon is done with grade school forever. She had a great last year winning the top class awards for Academic, Chorus, and Violin.
Kennon and Miss Clunie got along great. She's young and fashionable and best of all. . . loves to share. Kennon has some of her old purses and even her makeup.

Kennon soloed at her last orchestra concert. It is always pretty interesting to go from hearing her playing nicely at home and then hear the difference when the other 4 violinists join in for the concert and I hardly can make out a song anymore.

I know I am bragging again, Kennon. Then at her chorus concert she accompanied the choir on piano. This is pretty cool in grade school.

People at this school tell me my kids are so multi-talented. I just say,"Yeah, but you've never seen them play basketball." We don't play a lot of basketball around here. Actually none at all. We do play 4 square in the driveway, though.

But my favorite acknowledgement of Kennon was something I happened upon in the hallway.
I used to hate it that Kennon could beat me in a lap around the trailer. I've gotten over it. I am super amazed that out of slow Kashann could come fast Kennon. Well, at least compared to some anyway. Go Kennon!

I tell the girls to enjoy it while they can. We are moving in a year and they are likely to face stiffer competition in the future. On the last day Savannah poses with her summer instrument.

Savannah didn't get the oboe award. She actually should get the award for "Most Instruments in One School Year". She started out with oboe but we got sick of buying reeds every two weeks at $9 a pop. Then one day she got off the bus with a flute instead. She was ecstatic because this was the instrument she had wanted all along. But then after a couple weeks she started complaining that when she played she felt faint. Her teacher told her if she ever felt faint she should stop playing. So she did.

The next week she came home with this violin. This was in May. By then she was way too late to join the orchestra but they let her keep her violin free of charge over the summer so she can catch up. We shall see.

Another thing I like about this school is the staff. They make me want to work in a grade school should I ever get the chance to finish school and have a career. They seem to think that they work at the best school ever and all hang out like good old friends. Every year when I pick the kids up on the last day the teachers are running around with super soakers having their annual end of the year water fight.

I am looking forward to another Buffalo Summer. Perfect summers, if you ask me. Around here we start complaining if it get's above 85. It rarely does.

It seems like I just get one thing over and done with and I get hit with another one. Last Saturday I was in charge of a booth for a stake emergency preparedness expo held at a nearby mall. So I lugged 10 days worth of my family food storage and my homemade posters and talked beans and wheat for a few hours. . . and hopefully didn't just waste my time on the general public. I am a big believer in storing and cooking with the basics. My wheat grinder is one of my most prized possessions.

I had a hard time deciding that morning on a good booth outfit. Finally I put this on and asked Brent if I looked official enough to be running a booth. He said I was the perfect Molly Mormon. I told him I was comfortable in my Molly Mormon skin. But then I almost ran back upstairs to change.

After cleaning up from my booth I had 24 hours of relaxation before I got hit with my new assignment. My family is in charge of all the talks during sacrament meeting this coming Father's day Sunday. Brent is out of town for the weekend conveniently and so I am left to write the 5 talks. It is a little overwhelming . . . but at the same time I usually have a hard time narrowing myself down to one topic when I speak in church. I brainstorm too many ideas and then tend to ramble all over the place trying to link them all together.

So I am assigning out my ideas to the kids this time. That should help my thoughts to be more concise. Unfortunately some of these kids are convinced that they need to write their own talks. Can you believe it? Savannah for instance refuses to use any of my ideas. Because if I write it down and then she writes it also into her talk it's plagiarism and "you can get arrested for that".

Still trying to decide if I am going to let Caroline have her two minutes or not. You never know what might happen if Caroline gets the mike.

Being a Mormon is busy. One new challenge after another. And I am always way under qualified.

Being the primary pianist continues to take an enormous amount of preparation time. I play each song at least 100 times throughout the week. I think I am making very slow progress learning to play piano. Everyone loves to tell me how well I am coming along. It usually goes like this. "You are doing a lot better. I actually am just about as bad as you when it comes to piano."

And I am branching out. Starting this Saturday I also accompany for baptisms. There are three songs they asked me to play. Two of them if I work hard enough I may be able to stumble through. The third one is "Baptism" and in my opinion is one of the hardest primary songs to play. I finally had an idea. Kennon and I will duet. She plays the right hand, I'll practice the left. Have you ever seen that done before for a simple primary song? I think it's brilliant. I might start using her more often.

I have a few pictures to post of the kids at their end of the year activities. They still have a few more days of school left and unfortunately I have been too busy to enjoy the peace and quiet.

And Marcus is sick. He has been fevering for the last 24 hours and wants me to sit on the couch and hold him while he eats otter pops. I hold the scissors and he takes a few sucks then says, "Zizza's" and "Cut it!" It's a full time job when you have a sick 15 month old and he is ordering you around. Not much working on the 5 talks today.

Caroline got the last of her kindergarten shots this morning. She was so excited! She sat on the couch chanting while I did last minute stuff before we left.

"I can do it! I can do it!"

She would've been fine too if we had been lucky enough to have a nurse with a brain. She came in with the tray and pointed out the two pretty bandaids she had for Caroline.

Caroline said, "But what's the other stuff?"

"Those are your shots! Which one do you want to do first? You choose"

"Well, . . .which one hurts the baddest? Which one is the better one?"

At this point she had my daughter so worked up she almost fainted in fear. She made it through though, said the shot tickled, and earned her happy meal for being brave.