Phew! No knife to my heart!

I went school shoe shopping with Emily. I saw these shoes, and they were marked down to $7!! Now, if I had been a teen or pre-teen and stumbled onto these, I would have considered them a gift from heaven for being a good girl. Also I would have possibly died from joy. Emily didn't necessarily like them--she says she's not a bright color girl. She tried them on and then went to try on something she liked better. I told her to go ahead, break my heart. It would be a sin to pass on a gift like this. Eventually she chose another ok and reasonably priced shoe and DECIDED TO GET THESE, TOO! Phew. Crisis averted.
To my great surprise, Hayden chose these on his own without any encouragement from me. Hooray! Also, his feet are getting freaky huge.

more blah-blah-blah

This is a lovely photo that Hayden took of the Seattle Temple. It's pretty cool and I don't really have any other photos to blog about.

This hasn't been the summer of our dreams for the kids and I. Mike, he has no expectations because he is trapped at work all day, every day. Makin' money for the kids and I to waste on day trips to places like Cherry Hill. If you don't ride the waterslides, that place is a rip off-for how much they charge, there ought to be more to do!

It's less fun because I still hurt some and still haven't gotten my strength back, so I get tired fast. People keep saying I look good and how is it to be back to normal? and I think, "if this is back to normal, I'm pretty depressed about my future". I want to be doing all the stuff I used to do, but I just can't. My kids were thinking I napped every day because I like to nap. OK, it's a tiny bit true, but I have to nap or I can't keep going. It's a good reminder to me to not judge people on what I can see. Maybe I need a big handicapped lanyard to wear when I go out (yes, I can hear you saying how everyone knows I'm handicapped in the head)...

Our fifth of July festivities

This is the unbelievable strawberry Emily had to photograph before eating.
This is lovely Mantua reservoir. Everyone but Hayden went fishing, because Mike had Monday off. It wasn't too catching-ish, especially for me because afterward, I discovered the point of my hook was broken off. sigh. But it was fun to be outside.
Tate and Mike
Mike's huge bass.
We grabbed dinner in Logan and ate it at the park by the first dam. The kids are silly. You knew that.
Way cute baby ducks.
Tate suggested that this would make a good picture. He was right. It was also the only spot at the second dam where no one was fishing. Talk about crowded!
Tate's 25¢ mustache. hayden has one too, but it is scarily the same color as his hair and in the right light, looks like a band aid. heh heh.

Manti pageant (in reverse)

This is an electric perm machine. It is quite frightening in person, used in the 1940's. It was part of a display of beauty shop and barber shop items in the Fairview Museum.

Just part of a collection of hats. I love old hats. They had dress patterns, clothes, shoes, etc.
This is how much the kids loved the museum. They were tired, hungry, too warm, they said. Not pictured is Emily, who was too scared of most of the exhibits. Sigh.
The beautiful Manti temple. After the pageant.
More pretty temple, stupid scaffolding and lights ruining my photo.
The kids, passing around a story to kill time.
Tate must have set his DS down at the moment I snapped this. Otherwise, you'd see four people and four DS's. I took pictures. I have no attention span for games.


We'd never been to the Manti pageant, and we figured the kids were just the right ages to appreciate it. We camped at a joke of a campground (well, if you have an RV it'd be ok) just around the corner from the temple so that we could walk there and back. The time waiting for dark wasn't as bad as I'd expected, except for Mike, who sneezed a lot. The crowds weren't as bad as I'd expected, either. We all really enjoyed the pageant, and that was the important part. We all felt the Spirit, and giving my kids that experience made up for the less enjoyable parts of the weekend.

On the way home, on a whim Mike stopped in Fairview to see the city's museum. It was much more than you'd expect in a place like that. Tons of artifacts, collections of all kinds of things, and a huge collection of Avard Fairbanks' work. Impressive. We didn't stay as long as we'd like to because our kids were not so impressed. Sigh.

The drive home seemed 3 or 4 times longer than the drive there. That ever happen to you?