July, part one

I haven't done a good, solid blog entry in a long time.  Things have been busy!!!  Maybe you can tell by Hannah's hair!

I had to laugh when Hannah came home from the pool the other day.  She road home on her bike and this was what happened.  ;-)  She and I had a good laugh.

Yesterday we sent Hannah off to Girls Camp.  I spent a lot of the last two weeks receiving and sending emails regarding camp, collecting papers, organizing things, etc.

I was a little disappointed with how some aspects of camp were dealt with.  For instance, each year level at camp usually has a theme.  Our ward never heard anything from any leaders (not the stake leaders, not the level leaders) about what the girls' themes might be.  In fact, I didn't even think of it until one of Hannah's friends called asking what their theme was.  She called someone else who told her one thing.  Hannah remember WAY back to May when she'd gone to a quick meeting where she thought the themes were chosen and remembered it being different than what the other girl had thought.  So we called a leader.  Hannah's memory was correct.  We called Hannah's friend.  We called the other beehive in our ward to let her know (she had missed the meeting in May).  Then we realized that meant that the girl in our ward who's a 4th year probably didn't know what her theme was (she didn't).  We called her leaders and ALSO found out that she was going on an overnight hike and to be prepared for that.  They didn't way what she might need to be prepared other than a backpack (but then we wondered what kind of backpack).  Anyway, based on this experience I know of girls in at least three wards who had no clue what their theme was.  That tells me that information was not getting properly disseminated.  Lesson - put everything in writing, and give it to the adults.

While I was getting packed I was shocked to find out that a)she is only 1 inch shorter than I, and b) she wears the same size shoe now (her feet grew in the last month or so because I JUST bought her new shoes).  Luckily, I had extra shoes to send with her for camp!!!  She needs new church shoes though.  I'm thinking she should be about done growing.

Bellflowers at the Botanical Garden this month

Brynne is back from Utah and what a great thing that is!  She babysat for me last night since Hannah was gone.  Josh, Shannon, Devon and I ran to Piaci's to get tasty pizza, to D'Aurelio's for the best salad in the world, and then to the movie store to rent RED.   I told Brynne that the little girls could just watch TV till we got back and I would put them to bed.  Brynne ended up putting them to bed herself because she said they were tired.  And they were.  Yay, Brynners!!   Brynne had fun talking art with Aunt Shannon who taught her a little about perspective in drawing.  Brynne and Hannah got to help release some baby ducks that they've been babysitting off and on for a woman in our ward.  Brynne took pictures of those - I'll have to get them on the blog later.

Logan has been valiantly dealing with being the lone male around here for the most part (except when Josh is here, of course!!).  He was SO cute with his cousin Peyton.  He's really the most nurturing little boy.  He is super excited to go to Oregon and play with his boy cousins.  Cars and trucks and wrestling, oh, my!!

Shannon and I had a project while she was here.  Shannon drew the butterflies.  Hannah and Brynne helped us cut them out.  I cut and assembled.  Shannon was the expert in charge of placement.  Josh was the master responsible for figuring out how to hang the ball from the ceiling.  The little girls LOVE it.

Kenna and Natalie loved having baby peyton visit.