Daisy Cat

This photo has nothing to do with this post. It is from last summer's vacation in CA. Meghan loved playing in the ocean. Last night, our kitty Daisy passed away,  and she was so special to Meghan. I feel so so sorry for her. Two days ago Daisy started throwing up, and acting a little tired--definetly not her   fiesty self. Yesterday at the vet we found out that she had probably swallowed some string and since her intestines were bunching up, she needed surgery or we needed to put her to sleep. We decided to try the surgery (expensive!). She seemed fine for about an hour after we got home, but then started having trouble breathing. Back to the vet at 8:30pm- he opened her outside stitches to make sure no intestine had come out, gave her something to remove fluid and sent up home--very optimistic. But she looked terrible and I just didn't have a good feeling about it. I checked on her at about 2am and she was gone. We woke the kids up so they could say goodbye to her. We prayed, talked about Heaven and talked about all the funny things Daisy always did-so sad, and lots of tears. Back to the photo--remembering a happy time.

Camping

We spent 4 days camping in Greer early this summer. I usually don't think of camping as much of a vacation because it is so much work getting ready for it. Dave makes sure we taking everything we "might" need so we take an incredible amout of stuff. Our 15  passenger van was packed with kids and stuff, plus our dog Ranger.  Once we got there though, it was so fun. It is easier now by the single factor of not having a baby in the mix anymore, crawling through the dirt, to keep out of the fire, etc. The kids explored all over and played great together. We went fishing a couple of times and caught a couple of little trout. This traumatizes Meg, to see the fish die, so Dave tries to throw them back in if they aren't too injured. This works most of the time, but every once in awhile they swallow the hook...poor fish, poor Meghan. I love it that the kids are outside so much, exploring nature since we don't get so much of that where we live. They love sleeping in tents and sleeping bags, roasting marshmallows, being DIRTY.  Finally, after all of these years, the camping is growing on me...

Mighty Mud



Michael--13 now!

 It has been so long since I have done this blogging thing that I can't remember how to do it. I'm going to try to keep up with this through the summer...Here are kiddos at Mighty Mud.  We go every year, but I can't remember a muddier year that this. Usually it is just Michael that gets this muddy. This year all of them slithered around in it a bit. Then, because they didn't want to wait in the very long lines to be hosed off, we walked home like this. It must have felt terrible. Rachel cried the whole way.  First Dave hosed them off in the yard, then they showered, and still had dirt in their hair the next day. Fun!  So far we have gone to Greer for 4 days, swim team has started for the oldest four, and lessons for Liz and Rachel. Right now, Michael, Meg, and Matthew are in Greer again for another short camping trip with Dave. I only had three kids to put to bed last night...it only took about 15 minutes...but then  I still stayed up too late!

Jonathan is eight!

Our Jonnie Boy celebrated his 8th birthday at the end of December and a couple of weeks later came his special baptism day. I can't believe he eight. He was so excited to have his own scriptures. He picked the blue, large print edition. He also started Cub Scouts with mixed emotions...excited to go with Matthew, but a bit bummed out to miss the crazy sibling soccer games that go on in the gym while the scouts are meeting.

New Adventures

For months and months I have wanted to get this blog going again...mostly because it is such a great family journal! I had decided January was a great time to start...a new year, new beginnings. On January 1st we got an unexpected suprise..a new calling for Dave as the new Bishop of our ward. He as been the Bishop (officially) for 12 days...definetly a new adventure for us. He is always busy, but this week, we have reached a new level of busy. He'll do a great job, this is the ward we have lived in since we got married, and we love it.