RULES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN!

I spent this last week at Girl's Camp with our ward Young Women. I left the children home alone with Daddy for three and a half days, the longest that has ever happened. Spencer thought he should take the kids to do fun things while I was gone. He said he might take them to Lagoon. I told him that would be fun, but not to lose any of the kids and I suggested not going to the water park.

So, of course, Spencer took them to swim at Lagoon-a-Beach. My stubborn, sweet husband proved that he could take the children swimming alone, without any of them drowning.

They actually spent most of their Lagoon time at Pioneer village--much safer than the water park. But they found rules to break there too. They enjoyed feeding the "wild animals"--notice the sign at the beginning of the video.

They had some harmless fun looking at strange, new things in the village.

Spencer tried to get the boys to pose next to this picture, but they refused. Talmage explained later by saying, "No one but Leia was brave enough to stand by him or her." I asked Ammon why he wouldn't pose with Leia and he said, "Because he was too scary."

After their Lagoon adventure, Spencer decided he could handle anything and took all the children to Golden Corral--a buffet-style restaurant (because he had a coupon there, of course).

Spencer said the kids behaved quite well, until the dreaded balloon-man came. Then the children went wild with excitement.

During this excitement, an older lady at a nearby table chirped, "Excuse me...could you stop your kids from screaming?" With a slow grin, Spencer chuckled, "Yeah sure, I'm doing my best here." Then the old man with the woman replied, "doesn't look like your doing the best you can..." So then, as only Spencer can, he suggested, "you know, you can move to another table if you would like to." Spencer later described the following scene, "I just sat there eating my ice cream and smiled...and let my balloon swinging baby, the sword wielding toddler, the crazy hat-wearing 9-year-old, and the princess with the little bear-heart balloon battle and laugh and sing and squeal with glee...I could feel the old people's stares of disgust burning into the back of my head, and I...I quite enjoyed it."

Words my rebellious husband lives by: Rules are made to be Broken!

Sand Dunes

We had a fun 3-day camping trip to the Sand Dunes last week with my family. When we first arrived, Peter was afraid of the loud noise from the quads. But by the end of the trip, he would cry when we would try to take him off of the big toys.

Leia adores her uncle Steve!

On Leia's first quad ride of the trip, I drove over a hill with too much of a bump and she hit her face on the handlebars. Good thing she's a tough girl and still had a great time.

We got a little chilly from the wind and rain on some of the quad trips. Grandma Collier shared her shirt with Ammon to keep him warm.

Talmage was determined to drive the quads while on this trip. Grandpa tried to resist letting him, but I guess Talmage was too persistant and was able to drive around a few times.

Peter ate a lot of dirt during this trip. (He hurt his eye at home, he's new at walking and falls into lots of things right now.)

Peter, Grandpa & Talmage! My kids were in heaven, out camping in the wild. We're grateful my parents let us come on their vacation. We had a great time!

Hooray for me and Talmage!!

I completed my first official 5k run since I've been married (almost 11 years). My goal was to keep running the whole time...and I did it--3.3 miles, not too shabby! My Mom and Dad even came to cheer for me at the finish line--they're so great!

The 5k wasn't anything amazing compared to my friend who just ran in the Ogden marathon, but for me it was pretty good. My brother Matt was right though, running in the hot sun is a lot tougher than running on my treadmill at home.

The run was a fundraiser for Talmage's school, so he decided he would run in the one-mile race.

Go Talmage! He did great!