Blessing the Cat!

School starts tomorrow! I hate it. We have had so much fun with the kids this summer and now school is going to get in the way of continuing that fun. I know that the kids are all very excited for tomorrow and have already laid out there new clothes for the first day of school. Boston is really excited becuase he gets to wear his new shoes and clothes. It has become a tradition to give the children priesthood blessings at the beginning of the school year. This year was no exception. The kids all took turns getting blessings. They were each excited to hear what their blessing would be and what they could look forward to.

I started with Aubrie and then blessed each of the children in order. Before we started we spoke about the priesthood and the importance of the priesthood. I hope that Boston and Ethan understand and appreciate the priesthood and work hard to attain it. The kids really enjoyed the blessings. As we finised with the blessings and continued discussing the new schedule for the new year I looked over at Sophia. Sophia had her hands on the cats head and was quietly giving Tilly a blessing. She even finished the blessing correctly. I guess that she had been paying attention to what had been going on! We all got a great laugh out of that. Sophia got a little embarassed, but did not mind and continued blessing the cat. After blessings were done I looked at the kids and told them the only thing that really makes a blessing successful is to finish with ice cream. The kids were all excited and ran into the kitchen to start building their ice cream dreams. We all had ice cream and sat around talking. It was a great time. The kids then ran outside quickly to get one last game of teetherball in before bed. I doubt the kids are going to sleep very well tonight with thinking about school tomorrow. I pray that they will have a wonderful, exciting and safe school year. I am sure they will. We are so lucky to have each of the children that we do. They are all a wonderful blessing to our lives and each one of them is essential to the eternal happiness of our family.

Father and Sons again?

I got a call from my good friend Brett Jarman saying that he wanted to take his boys camping up at Fossil Creek and said that I should bring my boys along as well. I agreed and we decided to head up Wednesday afternoon and then return on Thursday. I was able to get some work done early that morning and then returned home to pack the truck and get Ethan. Ethan and I packed everything up and then headed to Wal Mart to get supplies. Lots of candy and fun food. I even got some nectarines! what is wrong with me? Boston was at a birthday party for his friend Brigham. We picked up Boston and then headed up to the camp site. The camp site is up toward Strawberry. It took us an hour and forty minutes to get to the camp site. We got there and got our things out and set up. We had a quick dinner and then headed to the river. I had no idea what to expect. Brett was going on and on about how cool it was. We appeared to be in the middle of the desert without much around. When we got over by the river we were all blown away. It was amazing. There was a river with lots of little waterfalls and lots of cool pools to swim in. It was cool that this was here and we never knew about it. We were able to swim and go on a rope swing for a couple of hours. The boys had a great time. We headed back to camp and changed into dry clothes. Brett brought his Ipad up and we hooked the sound up through the Titan and the boys sat in the car and watched Cloudy with a chance of meatballs. They thought that was pretty cool. Brett and I stayed out by the lantern and watched the shooting stars and talked. It was a good time. The stars were brilliant out there in the middle of nowhere. The movie finished and the boys were ready for bed. It was still very warm. I thought for sure that it would cool off, but it pretty much stayed warm all night long. I had fun wrestling the boys for position on the air mattress all night. We woke up and had donuts for breakfast and then headed back to the river for a longer hike up the river. We drove a little farther up the river this time and got out. We found the river and began hiking. It was amazing. We would walk up the river to a waterfall and then go over to find a swimming hole. We kept doing this for over an hour. Finally we came to a large waterfall. It was roughtly 30 feet high. The boys were very impressed as was I. We hiked up and jumped off. I jumped off with Ethan and Boston jumped by himself! I know I would not have jumped from that height when I was his age. No way! You could also sit inside the waterfall and it would push you off the edge. It was really cool. We stayed there and swam for a couple of hours. I had to get the boys back to Phoenix for a 2:00 p.m. dental appointment. We started hiking back. On the way back we found a snorkle mask and a frisbee. It was fun to find stuff along the way. The only bummer about the trip was all the trash that people had left behind. There was trash everywhere. It was too bad to see so much garbage everywhere. Brett said that we was going to bring the priests back up there for a service project and clean it all up. The boys and I got back to the truck and then headed back for home. It was a great trip and I was glad to have done that with the boys. We got back home and changed quickly and then ran over to the dentist. I then headed out and got some work done. I love my boys very much and had a great trip with them.