Friday Five. I mean, Saturday One--

I've seen people post "Friday fives," kind of like an end-of-the-week gratitude journal. Mine is only one, and it's really stolen from TJ's blog, which says "I have validation needs/issues so please, please De-lurk. Please." When I read that I nodded my head vigorously and dreamed of squeezing it into one of my own posts....

1. I LOVE it when people actually respond to my posts. Can we say, Kimberly needs validation? Or is it just that I'm a people person? Or, just the validation thing. I want you to tell me how clever my posts are. ; ) Just kidding. Even just responding at all makes you my favorite person. Kara, you made my day when you responded to my last post so quickly!

Too much of a good thing

Too much vacation? Unheard of, right? I love to see family and friends, and especially enjoy the rich experiences my children gain from being with relatives. I fondly remember my vacation experiences growing up.

Still, it does seem to catch up with me. I'm loving my vacation this summer, yet my body can't seem to keep up with it all. Is this another sign of me getting older? I'm turning into this homebody who wants to be lazy and lay off the adventure. : )

Luckily, no one is letting me off the hook, so we have lots of treasured memories that we are piling up. We attended a week-long Cropper reunion at a cabin close to Grace, Idaho that included parachute games (yes, like we all played with at PE in elementary school), lots of crafts for the children like making real Mr. Potato heads, family trivia games, picture puzzles of Grandma/pa Cropper, a slideshow showing the life of the entire Cropper family (including grands and great-grands), a dutch-oven cookoff, pie eating contest, kids making stone soup, a CPR training, tubing down a river, miniature golf, swimming, ping pong and pool, making orange juice by rolling oranges and sticking in straws, lots of board games, a talent show (called "American Cousins"), toffee smores, a testimony meeting about missionary experiences, lots of trampoline time, a horse & carriage ride complete with dinner and entertainment, and lots of catching up with family from all over the US.

We have also been to Seven Peaks with the Wilsons, had Dave's fabulous chocolate chip cookies, gone to an amazing stake carnival that included hot air balloon rides, rock-climbing walls, huge bouncy slides, pony/horse rides, rocket-launching, cotton candy and a reptile show, etc. We spent a day at Bear Lake with Nana, which wiped us both out but was very much a wonderful day anyway (we have the sunburns to prove what a great day it was!). We spent an evening at a new park with the Petersens, catching up. We spent another afternoon with the slip'n'slide out front, blowing bubbles, making snow-cones and playing in the water with Nana and Grandpa.

We still have yet to go to Thanksgiving Point, Brick Oven, go see Wall-E, go horseback riding, and then home to get ready for the start of school on Sept. 4th.

Please still love us if we didn't get to see you this trip; it seems each trip we have less time and more things to do.

Oy!

Who thought being a Webelos den mother was such a hard calling? Oh, wait. Everyone does. It is a hard calling. I was actually comparing it to teaching early morning seminary, and have to admit that teaching seminary, though it required preparing a lesson each day, did not require trying to figure out tons of tiny little requirements that one scout or another is missing to pass off an activity badge. If I'm speaking greek to you, you haven't started scouts yet.

Ay ay ay! After three days of trying to fully update scout records amidst many interruptions, I finished at 3 am this morning, only 4 hours after I finally carved out some "me" time to finish prepping for August's awards.


Phew. I'm safe to leave on our trip to Utah now, after we have a joint den activity tomorrow morning at 9 am. Then pack meeting at the end of August, and then start a new month of den activities along with the start of school, and look forward to September's pack meeting!

*post script: I do love my scouts, and love what Jeffrey is learning through the scout program. It really is worth it. The top picture is of our wolves and bears at cub camp. I'm on the far left, Jeffrey has the red and white hat on. The bottom picture shows my webelos. I've gone down from 9 boys to 5 right now.

How many words can you type a minute?

This was fun to do! I saw this on Kirsten's website and enjoyed finding out 9 years out of college if I could still type fast. Clearly I spend way too much time at the computer!

96 words

http://speedtest.10-fast-fingers.com">Speed test

Budding Virtuoso. Again.

Drumroll......we bought Jeffrey a cheap violin on Ebay! He is now adding to his pianist prowess with another instrument.

He has taken to it like a fish to water. His piano teacher has been teaching him a little with her violin at the end of his piano lessons, and he's been expressing interest in taking violin lessons. He's now already had his first violin lesson and he's taking off!

(Bryce and Nathan are quite offended that I didn't buy them one, too, as if a violin were a $5 toy at StuffMart)

Prisoners at the pool (Really!)

Aaah! There are few stress-relieving moments better than finding something you've lost. Like your keys. Or your cellphone. Ever notice that they're always in the last place that you look? Heh heh. : ) Because once you find them, you stop looking! (Yes, I know, I'm easily amused)

But I'm SO happy that I found my cellphone, an extra addiction, uh, I mean, appendage, of mine.

Last week when we were swimming, I gave Jeffrey the keys to unlock the pool gate so he and Bryce could head home a few moments before me. I was getting sandals on Nathan when I looked up and realized they had taken off--with the keys. The gate had swung shut and locked, and Nathan and I were prisoners, with no one else at the pool, and no one walking by. We waited about 15 minutes, then I remembered I brought my cell phone, so I kept calling the house. Neither boy answered. Finally, when I called Rob, amused with my situation, told me to call some neighbors. Tami (mom of the cute baby Nathan featured on this blog) went over to our house and told Jeff to come unlock us, which he did. It was pretty funny.

The not-funny part is that apparently I put my phone back into our bottomless swimming bag and promptly forgot it. After more than a week and lots of hunting, I have started to get worried that it slipped out of my purse in some store, lost forever. This morning I actually said a sincere prayer to be able to find it.

While visiting teaching my friend Kim Rapier just an hour later, I gasped out loud & interrupted the conversation when the thought randomly entered my head that my keys could be in the swimming bag! Thank you for those quiet little temporal prayers that Heavenly Father answers.

Convenience Enthusiast

Ha! This is a great comic.