Summer Memories, Denial, plus a few thoughts about death

School starts in less than a week. I am not emotionally ready and I am certainly not logistically ready. I  bought tons of school supplies on clearance last year, but I don't remember where I put them. 

Plus, I suspect the glue sticks have already dried out.

I will wrap myself up in a blanket of denial and keep writing about our summer break. It has been dreamy in so many ways.

On July 5th, under the cover of a total downpour, we headed out with Sara and Ryan for a camping trip. 

Life list: Ride a Tandem Bicycle. CHECK! 

 Ryan and Grant/Father and Son

Of course I was hollering at George from shore. "Don't get in the water until we put on your swimsuit!" It was a classic example of Picking My Battles and I decided to declare defeat early on. Will my last child ever take me seriously?

Creed announced at the end of the weekend that he HATES tubing. 

The Engine . . . .

. . . . and the Caboose.

You'll notice that we are wearing sweatshirts while our kids play in the lake. George and Stella both ended up in their underwear but I was freezing!

 Axel learned how to crawl about a week after this photo was taken. Sara's days became much more complicated after that.

Stella adores her Uncle Christopher.

A few of Ryan's cousins joined us on the first night. They were completely smitten with my children, which (of course) meant that I was completely smitten with them. The shortest path to my heart is through my kids.

 Maddie found out that Stella was a ballerina and she immediately got out her pointe shoes. Look at those things! Ballet is hard work. Stella dazzled Maddie with her poetry recitation skills, her literary knowledge, and her Kid History Quotes.

 Sara dazzled me with her waterskiing skills, and I have some excellent photographic proof, but I think I would get in trouble for posting a picture of my sister in her swimsuit.

 She is graceful even when she falls! 

Both Jack and Creed were AWESOME at wakeboarding but I don't have any pictures of that because Robert and I left the camping trip early to attend a funeral in Tooele. It was for Robert's sister-in-law's father. Did you follow that? He died while he was delivering a lesson at church. Can you believe it? I feel so bad for Tif. And I miss Robert's dad. That's a whole separate, much less flippant post for another day.

I don't want my parents to ever die. Ever. (But not in an Anakin Skywalker evil controlling kind of way. Just in an "I hope I have another forty years with each of them" kind of way.) Stay healthy, guys! Go drink some juice and take a vitamin!

George wasn't too keen on wakeboarding with his dad and I don't generally subscribe to the "I'm bigger than you and you'll do what I say" philosophy of parenting, but sometimes kids need to be pushed to try something beyond their comfort zone. Don't they?

In this case, George cried almost the whole time he was out there with his dad, but as soon as he was back on the boat he turned to me with a big grin and said "Mom, I was laughing on the inside the whole time!"

Was it the right decision to send him out there? I don't know. I'll tell you what, though, I can appreciate the fact that his dad is able to do that kind of thing. The man is strong!

(Have I mentioned that he took the Silver Medal in the Utah Summer Games Powerlifting event? He was competing against guys that were almost half his age!)

Our whole group minus Vicki and her niece and Lauren and her girls.

Next time I will talk about our trip to Texas where I was able to spend an ENTIRE DAY with my dad. 

We attended Andrew and Ramona's wedding which meant that we were able to spend some quality time with the VonNiederhausern's!

And then, we went to Montana to spend a few weeks with Grandma and Grandpa Jim.

Between blogging about my summer and getting ready to send my kids off to three different schools next week plus some other stuff I won't go into here I am starting to think that I may have to forego some sleep to get everything done there is to do before school starts. 

I do not enjoy cutting into my sleep time.

My Denial Blanket isn't big enough.