My New Scent.

For years I wore body sprays. Loved them. Coconut Lime Verbena was a favorite. Then I moved to real perfume. Loved it. Beloved is my favorite. Now I'm on to a new scent giver. Because of this...
My new scent is SPF 70. Why? Severe Sun Damage. We'll refer to it as SSD. See that band aid? It's covering up a removed mole. Wanna See??

I just got the results from the biopsy and it's benign. Didn't think it would be anything different. But I've got 2 weeks of serious watching to help this heal. Isn't it pretty? Hey! I thought you wanted to see it!

Here's the real problem. I have many spots of pre cancer on my arms and legs. When the doc said he was gonna freeze them off I asked if it would hurt. He smiled and said, "Definitely not as much as it would hurt to remover real cancer!" Then he froze them all. I know it looks like a boil. By the time I got home they had all turned to big nasty blisters.

He also removed some little thingies from my face. All from the derned SSD. One conversation went like this...

Doc "You Are burned!!"

Me "No. My skin is always that..."

Doc "No you are burned. Look at that. Where have you been?"

Me "We were on a couple of rivers."

Doc "Which ones?"

Me "Lava and Snake"

Doc "We love Lava. Did you have fun? My kids love going up there. [LALALALALA. Continuous lovely talk] YOU ARE BURNED! Look at that!"

So my job now is to wear sunscreen EVERY DAY! I found the one he recommended to be a nice light scent and won't make my face greasy. I also have to go back every 6 months. My skin is a mess. It will take some dedicated daily sunscreen application and several visits to make sure my skin will last a long time more. I am grateful the pediatrition recommended taking my boys in to have their skin checked. Otherwise I would just keep going with Daniel always bugging me about getting it checked but never doing it. And I really love this Dermatologist! LOVE him! Very easy to work with. I would recommend you all get your skin checked. Better safe than sorry!

The Potatoes Are Coming In.

On Sunday we had our first potato dig up. Look at these babies...

Mashed. Baked. Fried. Shredded. Scalloped.

You name it, we'll do it!

Yum.

The Last Hurrah!

We just got back from summer's last hurrah. And boy was it fun. Here is where we ended. But I'll get to that in a bit. But isn't it pretty?!
We'll start here. With Daniel's bu.... Just kidding. We went to Lava Hot Springs. After getting camp set up we walked into town to explore. We found this cave.

We found it in the Sunken Gardens. These guys didn't want to go all the way in. Up there, Daniel was showing them how easy it was. But he got stuck and bumped his head. So these guys felt vindicated.

The Gardens were right above the Hot Pools. See 'em down there? We didn't go to the Hot Pools this time. I think we will definitely go next time.

A picture with some of the gang.

I finally caught Isaac and held him down for a picture. That's why we look so serious. "Stay!"

This tic tac toe game was on the other side from where we were. We eventually walked over to them.

The gang walking to the tic tac toe game.

A look at the other side. Where we just were. Isn't it just pretty?

This pleasant bench surrounded by flowers became a pretty picture spot. Aren't these guys cute?!

All because two people fell in love...

Okay. I'm over that!

Here is the river we went down many times. We rented a tube and rode down then walked up then rode down then walked up.... It went until we were too hungry to keep going.

And you'll notice I only have pictures of an empty river. No one was going down at the time. But more importantly, I WAS ON THE WATER!! Yessiree folks, I went down the river on the tube. And I had a marvelous time! So I didn't get any pictures of us going down.

After the river we had lunch then headed to the Olympic sized pool. Oh yeah. The kids were in heaven. I got over being in water very quickly and just spent the afternoon on a chair protecting our blanket. I tried to read, but mostly watched people. Especially the guy in the orange speedo. Oh, that was interesting.

At one point I looked up on the ladder leading to one of the slides and saw these people. Ruthie and Daniel rode all the slides and had a blast.

But mostly they all swam in the indoor pool. Hey! There I am. And you can see my swim shorts to know that I did, indeed, hit the water.

Isaac doesn't ever stay still enough to get a clear shot. But he had fun.

Hey Sam!

And there's Ruthie.

Now here I'm going to share something very disturbing with you. We had a lovely camp site. Lovely! But then this thing happened. A Train. See it? But it wasn't just one. It was one every 2 to 3 hours. Including through the night! Just oil the tracks! Pleeeeeeease! I wanted to put something on the tracks so they'd have to stop sending them through. Oh how I hate trains.

Okay. Back to more pleasant things. Here's our home away from home. We love this tent. We can stand up in it. Hi Ike!

And the chair set up. Hi guys!

This year we added the pup tent for whoever wanted to sleep in it. Ruthie spent the first night by herself. I didn't sleep because of the trains. Daniel didn't sleep because his little girl was "out there". Long night. The next night we all slept in the big tent.

Okay. Here comes some fun. Last week at work, a co worker, Randy, came to Daniel to invite him up to run the Snake River on Saturday. He said we'd be in Lava and couldn't. Hey, you're almost there. Come on up. So we packed up and headed close to Jackson to the Snake River.

And let me tell you. Again there are no pictures of us in the raft going down the white water! Why?

Because I went down, too. Oh yes, people. I went white water rafting! Randy said he got some shots of us at Lunch Counter. So when I get those I'll post 'em!

So that was our last hurrah! Hurrah! We've decided to do the same last hurrah every year. Lava and Snake River. We are now on our last week of summer vacay. It will be filled with school shopping and planning. And some more hurrahs! From me. Not the kids.

The Last Summer Catch Up.

Finally. I will be able to finally say I'm done catching up on our summer. But then again, it's a blog. It IS catch up. I don't post something until after it happens. Catch up. Never mind.

We had a family reunion for my mom's family in July. One of the fun things we've always done with this side of the family is have a Wild Rumpus. Remember the book Where The Wild Things Are? They have a Wild Rumpus in the book and the king of the Wild Rumpus says, "Let the Wild Rumpus start!" So in years gone by we would bring silly things to wear and we'd all dress up and then parade around and then choose a king or queen of the Wild Rumpus. We would dance to Hey Ricky and be silly. Katie, my sister won one year when it was just our family, because she wore a diaper on her head. Unused, of course.

This year Meme wanted a Funny Hat Wild Rumpus. So we obliged.
Sam was a red bunny.
Sam made Daniel's hat and glasses from pipe cleaners.

Ruthie's hat was made out of a paper plate to which we glued very sparkly shapes from the Cricut. Then she added streamers to the back that night.

Isaac was having nothing to do with this "dumb" tradition.

The winners were my mom and her 2 sisters, Meg and Ruth. Meme crowned them. We cheered. We took our hats off. We had cake. We went home.

Late in June I got an invitation in the mail from our insurance guy to go to the opening of Harry Potter. Okay. Sure. So we got on the list for 2 free tickets and made a night of it. We each got a backpack thingy, a VIP pass on a lanyard, a $10 concession card and free entrance. We had dinner and popcorn and enjoyed the evening immensely.

One afternoon I came home to Isaac on the deck with Vegeta and an apple. Vegeta just ate it right out of his hand. He had already had Biscuit up there before we got home.

And with summer in swing come the zucchini. And when the zucchini get huge, which one or two a week are just gonna do, you make zucchini bread. It will be out of the oven soon and then I'll be busy for a while. Have a great Monday!

Summer Time Fun.

This summer has been busy. Like, really busy. We seem to be going and going. Here is just a glimpse.

We got Lagoon season passes for Christmas and boy, has that been a winner! We go to Lagoon 2 or 3 times a week. The great thing is, we only have to be there a little while and don't have to wipe ourselves out. The kids love Lagoon A Beach. I just like a chair in the shade with a book and diet pepper. So we go to Lagoon A Beach when Daniel comes with us. This is Daniel on one of the slides.
Ruthie on the slide.

Sam just off the slide.

Isaac taking a leisurely float on the lazy river.

Then we hit the park. This is how the park goes. Mostly on days it's just me and the kids. One kid picks a ride. We ride. The next kid picks a ride. We ride. The last kid picks a ride. We ride. We decide if we are hungry for lunch. If we aren't, we pick in order and ride. If we are, we go eat the yummies we packed in. Then we begin the process over. Then we go home.

Definitely the best Christmas gift ever!

Hi!

On the days we stay home to chill, we have other things to keep us busy. This summer we got a pool and it has been great. Instead of calling it the swimming pool, we call it the fighting pool. Never fails. Always a fight. Keeps them healthy and centered. It's a character building exercise.

I'd say it kept them out of trouble. Except for all the fighting. But it has been a great investment. Easy access to water. And mom can stay in the air conditioned bedroom and read. And open the window to talk to yell when necessary.

And then there was the fireworks. The new Utah laws make fireworks accessible all month (July) long, thus making for long and noisy nights. All month long. I think I liked the two weekends only law. But we did do a lot of fireworks. All month long.

Our driveway and the cement slab in the back are fire marked. Another law change made aerials available to everyone. We did many of those.

So. We are now down to 2 1/2 weeks until school begins. I think I'm ready. Ruthie is ready. The boys? Well, the boys think school should be banned. Hah! Our next couple of weeks are still filled with fun.

I just hope to survive.

Did You See This?

Last night the kids and I were lounging on the couch watching America's Got Talent. We're hooked. Sam looked out the back window and saw this.
So we went out to look at the spaceship that came to visit earth. We've never seen anything like these clouds. They were spectacular.

I watched the news later to see if any pictures came in. They did. Mostly from Layton. I like our perspective of the clouds better than Layton's. This is a mammatus cloud formation. Mammary clouds. Google it and get more info.