Going through withdrawal

We always love having people visit us, and for the past two and a half weeks we've had someone staying with us, giving my kids something to look forward to each day. First, we had my dad for a few days when he came out for my brother's Doctoral graduation at NAU. We didn' t do anything exciting for the bit of time he was at our house, but we had a laid back Sunday with the kids climbing and clamoring for his attention. We thought it was nice of him to hang out with us while he was around.





Then, my brother Ben and his family arrived to spend a quick couple of weeks with us while working on the next step in their adventure to settle down with a "real" job. Hopefully they will be starting out with that new job in about a month--congrats Ben (and Em for keeping him motivated, organized, happy and managing to stay sane through it all)!



Now they have moved on to a place with more space. For the past day my boys have wandered around the house acting bored (even though we have things to do and people to see) and today Andrew said, "I miss Charlie and Myles." I think we've all been feeling it. Our dinner was blah yesterday and I was less motivated to throw it all together. We didn't play games and Christopher had an even more difficult time than usual doing his homework (meaning pure agony for 13 simple math problems). David didn't have his buddy "Awwie" to run around with even though he asked me to come follow him around for a few minutes. Natalie and Andrew didn't have sweet Myles to coo at, and they didn't really bother to tell everyone else what they should be doing, and weren't so motivated to be helpful either. While we may be missing having them right in the same house, the good news is the fun-meisters will likely be living within thirty minutes of us, for at least the next few years! We can't ask for more than that--unless there's anyone else hoping to come join our fun!



In other news, these three were thrilled to tour a fire station, as part of a jam packed schedule of Memorial Day activities. Christopher needed to pass off one more item to earn his Wolf badge, and it happened to be something the others could enjoy. We also got to enjoy some grueling yard work, quick errands, and a refreshing swim and barbeque with Bemarlyes. It was definitely a day to remember!



For anyone who actually reads this blog, I have some disheartening news. I may be changing our status to private soon, as our little internet world seems to have weirdos coming in and sifting through pics of my little girl and any other little girls he/she/it can find through links on this blog. So let me know if you'd like to continue being a part of this blog. I appreciate those who have included me when they chose to go private, so I need a reply to this blog or an email to let me know. Thanks, and sorry if you have a cute little girl who might have been leered at by random loser.

Pavers in the backyard

For the last few months, we've been doing some work in our backyard. We saved up the money to put in a paver sidewalk, but had to wait until I learned that my job was safe before we felt comfortable spending it. So a couple of weeks ago I got word that I was safe (such a relative term). I excavated the ground so the pavers could be the same level as the grass and patio. Then the dad of one of my scouts helped me out with the pavers. Truthfully, I just took drinks out to his workers and occasionally dug here and there. Anyway, we're happy with the result! Less dirt in the house, we hope. :)

One in a million

We have an interesting situation that has now occurred in our neighborhood. There have been four confirmed cases of Swine flu in our not-that-little state, and one of them happens to be from our elementary school. So our school has now been shut down for the next week and we're supposed to not "congregate with other children in large gatherings during this time."


For almost two weeks, we have had hundreds of kids being sick daily at the school, (Natalie even got really sick last weekend having symptoms that are the same of those described as the Swine flu: high fever, headache, nausea, vomiting.) The list of symptoms also includes aches and pains, exhaustion and chest discomfort which Christopher has complained of having.



Supposedly, the only way to determine if we have a typical flu virus, not H1N1 would be to get some lab tests. Our doctors office encouraged us to not overreact, but to go to the ER if one of us has a high fever and is not doing well. Natalie was the only one of us who has seemed miserable, and she asked for a Priesthood blessing when she started feeling awful. She had an intense 12 hour bout of yuckiness, and then bounced back to her normal state. We are grateful for her faith in knowing that a blessing on the sick would help her. I had just barely heard about Swine flu on NPR that day, and she improved quickly enough that it didn't occur to us to get her tested for the virus.


We're bracing ourselves to see if our family is now through the worst of this. In other news, this week, David had a nice field trip. See the picture below.



You've probably already had this picture forwarded to you, and it's not that funny to me. We're just trying to not take this all TOO seriously. Perhaps people are dying in Mexico City because the pollution and over-crowding would cause most of us to get sick and die too. We hope that those who are reading this don't get any sort of sickness, even swine flu!