a birthday in the house

 Clyde celebrated another year this past week. We sure do love him!

 This watermelon came out of our garden. awesome!

Josh earned his Weblo award on Thursday night. Now onto the Arrow of Light before becoming a boy scout.

youth conference @ ECU

Clyde and I were able to attend the huge 10 stake Youth conference this past weekend. We weren't originally going to be able to go. But the Bishopric member who was supposed to go, wasn't able to. Sitting in the lobby that Sunday was a great choice. Clyde, being a teacher has summers off and so we didn't have to rearrange our work schedules to attend. My parents graciously watched 3 of our babies, while Libby was in the mountains with Maylee, and Erin came with us to YC.



Overall it was a great experience. Would I make changes if I were in charge, YES! But with over 1300 kids in one place, some of the complications were simply due to size. At one of the dances, Clyde grabbed Erin to dance with her. He asked her if she was having fun, dancing with boys etc...her reply was, "Well, not now!" He did wrestle one dance outta her. We saw Thurl Bailey (who played for the Utah Jazz during the Stockton to Malone era), Greg Simpson, Jericho Road, Elizabeth Craig, Jon Schmidt, Troy Dunn, Jon Heder (via Skype), A member of the general YM's Presidency and our area Seventy. I must admit that seeing Greg Simpson and Jericho Road were not highlights, but Jon Schmidt made up for them.



We loved seeing some pals from our Asheville Central Branch and children of our friends. Clyde even had the opportunity to make ammends with his old scout master, to whom he made miserable in his youth. Erin had a blast and that's what mattered the most.

summer adventures

mountain swimming

While visiting the mountains, I took the children to the pool a few times. We all had fun swimming. The first time we went, the boys just swam in the regular pool. The had slash contests and loved to jump in the pool together. The second time we went was a bit later in the day and we didn't have Miss Z with us. The extra money was spent for the boys to go down the slide. Unfortunately, the weather turned rainy and thunderous with a few streaks of lightening. I didn't want to lose all the money spent, due to the weather. So I checked the pool's rain policy and we fit into the category of getting a raincheck for another day. After arguing for a good 5-7 minutes about their policy, we were issued a rain check for another day of swimming. Score!

boone

Clyde and the wardlings met me @ Maylee's house to drop off E and L and to pick me up, to have a little weekend vacation. It was time to squeeze in some us time this summer. Clyde organized the entire trip with hotels and fun sites to see. He took us to Boone. I hadn't been there before and I must admit that I fell in love! I really loved having mountains as the backdrop to our days spent on vacation. One thing Clyde didn't plan was the weather. It was rainy and cold! We had to spend some time and money, for that matter, to buy us hoodies or some sweatpants. Upon entering Boone, the temp was 68* and the second nite there, it was 58*. Crazy temperature for July, in NC. We toured Appalachian, walked downtown with hippies, saw Clyde's brother's new place (since he and his wife are in the process of moving there), and had fun in all the downtown shops and at the General stores. While in Boone, Clyde was attempting to explain who hippies were to the wardlings. Jacob has this thing about being really loud when he speaks, so while walking downtown he was practically yelling, "Dad, is that a hippie?" the whole time. Of course the folks were all smiles but it was a smidge emarrassing at times. Most importantly, Clyde found some yummy cheese curds to share with us. They are pretty good and we all loved the squeak they made on our teeth while eating them. We attempted to visit Blowing Rock, but the weather didn't cooperate...nor did it cooperate for us to go to Grandfather Mountain. I am thinking that we'll have to go back this fall when the temp is cooler and hike the mountain. This was a great time spent with our family.

libby is 13

Libby turned 13 this weekend. It was cool to be back together as a family to celebrate the birth of our gal Libby. Her favorite part was waking up in a hotel and watching Harry Potter. She then returned to the mountains to spend the week with Maylee and family. Happy 13th baby doll!

4th of july

Clyde was so amazing on the 4th! After we visited with my folks, I was so tired.I think it was mainly due to lack of sleep while @ camp. Clyde took the wardlings downtown to the hopper stadium to watch the fireworks and left me sleeping. What an awesome daddy he is!!

baby E

Our new nephew Baby E weighing in at 9lbs. 4 oz and 21 inches long. He is awesomely snuggly and this auntie is in baby heaven.

sleepy newborns

 

I love watching babies sleep. I caught this quick smile during our auntie Ashley/ baby E snuggle time.

campy

This is my latest work in progress. I started it at camp and it is mainly crocheted out of scraps from all the dishcloths i have made. i think it is turning out nicely.

toothless jacob and thunder cats go!

Jacob has lost 2 teeth this week. The first one lost was on his bottom right.  The new tooth was already making it's apperance behind the baby one.  The baby one just had to go.  Some wiggiling and dental floss later, crack, it was out. He wasn't to thrilled about that tooth pulling. The tooth fairy did leave $1 for the tooth. The next tooth pulled was about 5 minutes ago (9:15pm) and it was his upper left. It was so loose, it was dangling. He pulled it himself. Awesome! Hopefully the tooth fairy will make a visit tonight.

We have been on pins and needles this week hoping that Maylee and Jared's new little guy would make his apperance. (This picture was taken on Miss Z's first birthday. Happy Birthday Baby Z!!) Maylee just called and said she was feeling some contractions. Let's hope this is a 'Thunder Cat's Go!'  moment!

camp skit

This years camp theme was based off of the 13th Article of Faith, which is...

We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.


Each ward was asked to choose a word from the article of faith and base their camp skit around it. Our ward chose lovely. My thought was to use the song, "Loverly" from My Fair Lady and have the YW change the words around to make it camp skit worthy. Here's what they came up with and in my opinion, it was so lovely.

summer with the wardlings

I love summer time...mainly because of the pool. We have some very kind friends who allow us to swim in their neighborhood pool. We use it as much as we can. I have a secret motive to using the pool.  Summers can be dull if not constantly on the go. We have found that if our children are worn out then they go to bed easier in the evenings. Swimming wears them out. I love that...and of course getting a nice summer tan.

 Jacob's goal has been to learn to swim better and learn to dive. He's getting better at both.

 Josh is a very good swimmer. He was goofin off with belly flops. This one was a beauty leaving him with a nice pink chest and belly.

girls camp

I have been meaning to blog aboout camp, but needed a week to get over camp to do so. To be honest, my expectations for camp were pretty low this year. We have a new Stake YW's President who wanted to do camp her way this year. It made this difficult for a few of us who are old pro's at this girls camp deal. I should've seen the silver lining in camp being; getting to spend time with my girls and some gal pals and making new friends myself.  Alas, it is hard to see that silver lining whilst in the thick of idiocy.

Libby and I were cabin mates this year. I really enjoyed getting to spend time with these young gals. I did feel bad thought that as a camp 'specialist' that I wasn't able to spend as much time as I have in camp years past. I also learned how princessy, diva-ish our Libby can be.  I also didn't take as many photos as I wanted to take and am trusting on my memory to last and last.. 

The blow slideshows are a few of the highlights to girls camp this year.

I am debating on my decision to go to camp again next year. Good thing I have some time to think on it.

dutch oven cooking

I like being prepared for girls camp. I was asked to be the 1st and 2nd year certification specialist again this year. Last year we attempted to make a spit to roast our chicken on, but failed. I have cooked in a dutch oven outside before, but it isn't a weekly thing. I wanted to refresh myself.  The chicken meal @ camp had to feed about 70 people.  I wanted to make sure I gave the correct amount of ingredients for the amount of people it needed to feed. Clyde prepared a spot while I assembled the ingredients.

 We lit the chimney with charcoal and once ready, placed those hot coals below and on top of our dutch oven.

 Forty minutes and a half turn later, the chicken pot pie was finished.

The wardlings ate every scrap of it. Ready for the camp meal now.

summer knitting

My friend Linda is having a baby girl in August. She found out when she was something like 20 weeks along that she was pregnant.  The baby sweater turned out nicely. I started it when I was waiting in the jury selection room earlier this month. It was a fairly quick knit, only taking about 2 days and only being a few rows at a time.  I wanted it to be simple in the front...

 with some detailing in the back. I have a cool calender with knitting stitches on it and this pattern was one of them. I think it adds such a delicate feminine detail.  I decided to crochet the hat instead of knitting it to save a bit of time. Overall, I'm thrilled with the result.