Lovell Reunion

I will start off by saying that because of my lack of pictures lately, I have decided to make it up by putting WAY to many this time. Wow! What a busy weekend! I have been really busy with my new calling as Primary Secretary. We have met every single night for HOURS trying to get things situated. I don't think I was this stressed out when I was Primary President. WOW! We headed up to Idaho on Thursday. Zac invited his sister Barb and her friend Garit to come up with us. We got to Idaho in pretty good time, but the ride up to the cabin took FOREVER! They were doing so much construction! I think Zac forgot to tell Barb how many people normally stay at the cabin. We had a full house on Thursday night, with my Uncle Steve and Aunt Sharon sleeping in their truck even! We introduced Barb and Garit into the world of pirates by playing Pillage & Plunder...Zac was excited that he won the first game. :) Speaking of having too many people at the cabin...Devin told me that he went to the bathroom at night, and when he came back, somebody had taken his pillow! The one he brought from home! So he ended up sleeping on one of the camping pillows, then to top it off, Mike Smith came upstairs and asked if I slept up here. I said "no" and he said "Oh I thought I saw some cute blond girl sleeping up here" Which would be Devin. hehehe First his pillow go stolen, then he got called a cute blond girl. What a way to start a weekend Devin! :)

Our first rafting trip was scheduled at 7 am the next morning. They had 2 river runs scheduled...I was able to go on both of them. Lucky for me, Zac didn't want to go so he got to stay behind and watch the kids! Barb was a little nervous about going rafting, and then when we hit one of the big rapids, Steve (who was the guide) fell out of the raft into the Snake River! If you look in the picture you can see his legs up in the air! I'm sure that made Barb feel a little more safe knowing that the guide fell out of the raft. The next river trip down though, they made Barb the "river princess" where she got to sit in the center of the raft and not have to paddle...she just enjoyed the ride. Garit tried out the double kayak, and he fell into the river once, but other that he did great on it!

After the river trip we had a birthday celebration dinner for Grandpa and my cousin Matt (who leaves for Iraq in 2 weeks). Grandpa got a new grill for the cabin for his birthday, so we tried it out by having Sharon make us bacon bleu cheeseburgers. Yum! Steve and Sharon left their 3 four-wheelers up at the cabin for us to use. The kids absolutely loved them! Aubrey would scream if you tried to get her off one after a ride. She probably went on 15 rides while we were up there. She didn't care who she went with as long as she was going.

Saturday morning we headed down to Uncle George's for the reunion. Eric went with Nathan immediately to the golf course. Dad met us up at George's and helped watch the kids. Justin and Lisa spent the night before at the cabin. I can't believe how big their kids have grown! I'm glad they are closer so that my kids can get to know their other cousins. Aubrey wanted to do anything and everything at George's. She loved the kid's zip line. They modified the adult zip line as well, and Zac made Garit do the first run. But when Garit came crashing into the poles at the end, everyone opted out for going any longer. As I was telling this someone, they said, "Well who was spotting at the end? Who was catching them BEFORE they hit the poles?" Apparently, we were suppose to have somebody grab the rope as the person went by and stop them in time.

Eric could not get enough of Grandma Parry. Whenever he saw her he would run up and give her a hug. I even saw him sitting with Grandma for a good half hour just listening to the conversation she was having with relatives. Aubrey has been really shy around her, but if Eric goes up to her first, then she will go up.

Last year at the reunion I wished that I had brought my swimsuit so that I could go down the water slide with the kids. This year, Aubrey didn't want me to go down with her. I got about 10 rides with her before she absolutely did not want to go with me. So Dad would bring her to the top of the slide, and I would catch her at the bottom. Before we left the reunion, Zac took the kids down the slide. At the bottom, Aubrey was SCREAMING, but I could not find any scratches on her...until nighttime when we were putting pajamas on her. She got burned on her leg by the slide and scratched up. Poor girl. After the big slide, Eric wanted to go on the smaller one all by himself. So he made it to the top looked down it, sat down, and told us that it was too scary, and he wanted Daddy. So Zac ran up the stairs and went down it with Eric.

We left the cabin on Sunday, and came down to Robert's homecoming. Jason came home from his mission on Friday, and Robert on Saturday morning. Lucky for Robert, he got to speak within less than 24 hours after his return. He gave a great talk! We left after the luncheon at Rozie's and the kids slept almost the entire ride home. As soon as I got home, I had to put flyers on everyones house for the primary/ward activity on Tuesday, so I took the kids in the stroller and walked up and down the street and stairs giving people these flyers. While at the cabin, Zac went over to Wyoming and bought a ton of fireworks. He had shopping lists from our neighbors. As soon as we came back from the store, we had a voicemail on the phone stating that ALL fireworks are banned from Eagle Mtn. SO, now we are going to have everybody meet at our house, then we will drive somewhere that is allowed to have fireworks. What a hassle!

Idaho Weekend!

I'm finally rested from this past weekend, ready to get going for this weekend in Idaho. On Monday for FHE I took the kids to Thanksgiving Point farm country. We haven't been there before and the kids loved it! Aubrey squealed while on the pony ride, and they loved being able to feed the animals. Eric's favorite thing was the geocaching activity. They had 6 "treasures" hidden around the farm with the coordinates already in the GPS. Eric handled the entire treasure hunt and we found them all! On Thursday I went down to Provo and picked up Devin, then went to the SLC airport and picked up Chad & Elisa and we went up to Idaho for Tyler's wedding. Eric had Lagoon that day, so Zac went up to SLC to pick up the kids after work and brought them down to Dad's to have Bobby watch them. (Thanks again Bobby!) The kids spent the night at Dad's and Bobby brought them back up to our house on Friday after Zac got home from work.

In Idaho, Devin and I stayed at Justin's. We had a great time watching "Arrested Development" and when Dad came up on Friday, we even got him watching it. At the beginning of the wedding reception line, Dad jokingly says to Justin, "It's still pretty light out, I bet we could get a round of golf in" By the end of the line, they had all the plans worked out, they grabbed a cookie, visited for about 10 minutes, then took off to the golf course. I met up with them after (around 10 pm) and we headed out to dinner. I left first thing Saturday morning to come back to Utah. Dad, Devin and Justin had another tee time Saturday morning.

I got a new calling in the ward...which means Zac and I were released as Sunbeam teachers. I am now the Primary Secretary in the primary presidency. Our ward finally split the primary into 2 primarys, so we have an entire new presidency, etc. I was at meetings Saturday night for 3 hours, last night for 3 hours, they will come to my house Tuesday night (hopefully for shorter than 3 hours) they are meeting on Thursday (which I will miss since I will be in Idaho) and AGAIN on Sunday night. WOW! I know things will cool down as soon as we have our system in place, but that is a lot of meetings! We have to put on the quarterly primary activity on the 24th as well, which for some reason they included feeding the entire ward breakfast. When Zac and I told our Sunbeams yesterday that this was our last time teaching them, the little girl that we have had the most problems with goes "Does my Mom know about this!" Then she started to cry. We couldn't believe it! I expected the other kids to have a hard time with it, but they were completely fine, especially Eric.

The kids slept over at Dad's again last night. (Again Bobby, Thank YOU!) Zac's work is being funny and wouldn't let him take a day off of work. Since we are going to be in Idaho on Friday, Zac needed it off, but they made him switch days and work Monday to have Friday off. So we became stuck between a rock and a hard place, and Bobby came through and offered to have the kids sleep over AGAIN, and she will watch them today and bring them up tonight on their way to work on their house. Eric was asleep by 6pm last night. He fell asleep in my lap. So at least I know one of my children were easy for them last night! (Unless he woke up at 10pm wide awake...I haven't called Bobby yet!) Well, I will see most everyone who reads this blog on Thursday!

Fourth of July Weekend!

For some reason the title bar wouldn't let me add text...oh well.

We didn't realize that the battery in our camera needed to be charged, so absolutely no pictures of this weekend! I even have the stuff to scrapbook my pictures that we didn't take! We went to the parade in Provo on the 4th in the morning. Zac's cousin slept overnight at our spot, so we were able to show up 5 minutes before it started and had a great spot in the shade. We then headed over to Zac's Uncle Cory's house for a BBQ. Eric spent most of the afternoon in the sandbox, with a little bit of swimming in between. Aubrey spent the bulk of the afternoon in the pool...that girl is a fish! She just can't get enough of the water. Later that evening Zac and I went to Stadium of Fire in Provo. We dropped the kids off at my Dad's so we wouldn't have to struggle with them during the evening to keep their attention during the pre fireworks show. For some reason, our kids were wired the entire night. When we got back to Dad's around 11:15 the kids were just bouncing off the walls, and Dad looked exhausted. He was able to get Norma and Tucker asleep, but Eric and Aubrey were wild! They didn't even fall asleep on the 45 minute car ride home!

I had Thursday off as well, so it turned out to be a 5 day weekend for me! I took the kids swimming at the Legacy center for several hours on Thursday. We pretty much had a relaxing day. We changed the time that we play volleyball to 8pm instead of 9pm so we can get home earlier....I ended up getting home after midnight, but Zac was asleep, he didn't know the difference. :) On Friday our friends in Provo had a little party for their son's birthday. Last year there was only us and one other couple that was invited, so we thought that it was going to be the same this year. Wrong, this year they invited around 15 families, which was wonderful! It was all of our friends from when we lived in Provo. It was so great to see everyone. Every single one of them had at least 1, some 2 kids since we last saw them (they were pregnant with their first when we moved from Provo). It was so great to be able to catch up with everyone.

Saturday Zac spent most of the day helping our neighbors build their deck. Eric had a play date in the afternoon and Aubrey slept the entire afternoon. Since the house was pretty much empty, I just sat on the couch and watched a full movie without any interruptions. It has been a LONG time since that has happened. (Zac likes to talk during movies...arg!) Zac and Eric came home as soon as the movie was over. Yesterday as we were getting ready to leave for church, Eric started to yell that he didn't want to go to church. I asked him why and he says, "Because, I HATE my teachers!" I looked at him and said "But Eric, Daddy and I are your teachers." He glared at me and said "I know, I hate you as a teacher, you're my Mommy, not my teacher!" I guess you can't win them all!

12 miles!

I had to run 12 miles this weekend. I did it, and am VERY sore! When I ran 10 miles, I wasn't that sore, but for some reason, those 2 extra miles did me in. I went to IKEA with some of my girlfriends right after I ran, and I was doing the shuffle throughout the entire store. I just couldn't lift my legs up. As we were going down the stairs, I had them meet me in an aisle, it took me forever to get down. ARG! A little frustrating. At church I couldn't even lift my leg to cross them. I am feeling a ton better today. I usually run 4 miles at lunch, and then come home and run another 6 1/2, and I will do a long run every Saturday. The most I have to run on my training guide is 16 miles, so I am almost there. (If my legs don't give out :) )

I had Tucker, Thad and Norma sleep over on Friday night. They did really well. Zac went and bought a little kid wading pool, so they swam for awhile, and then came inside and played with trains for most of the night. Tucker is apparently allergic to cats. Right when they were about to go to sleep, Tucker told me that his eye hurt, I came over to look at it, and it was almost swollen shut. I called Nathan and let him know, as soon as I hung up the phone, he started to get hives. Luckily I had some benedryl, and he is doing much better. Weird that it didn't happen the first time he slept over! Our cats are now outdoor cats too.

Nothing else really went on this weekend. Zac took another practice LSAT on Saturday morning. He has been going to work at 4:30 AM to get a couple hours of studying every day before work, and then he studies for another 2 hours in between work and school. Zac got a great deal on some paint, so we are going to paint our bedroom sometime soon (hopefully). That's about it!