The ups and downs of the week so far

 Saturday night Ashlyn comes downstairs at about 11pm worried and visibly upset that her top front permanent tooth is loose. I look at it, wiggle it, and try to reassure her that it is not loose. She still claims it hurts and feels loose, so Paul takes a look with the flashlight on his phone and sees a lttle blister at the top of her mouth. Ugh…we knew right away what that was. Hand, foot and mouth disease. Luckily, she just got the "mouth" part of it since she is older and not putting her hands and feet in her mouth regularly….or at all. Not like a toddler does anyway. She was pretty sad and knew her mouth was going to be hurting for a while. She stayed home from church the next day. I was super sad for her because this week she had a lot going on. A cooking class was every night and her band camp was starting on Monday. Not to mention her other regular activities. So Daddy gave her a blessing Sunday night. And let me tell you, this girl has a LOT of faith. I'm just so constantly amazed by her strength and desire to be good and do what is right. The next morning she said she was feeling better but that her mouth was still hurting and that she didn't want to go to band camp. She was sad, but hopeful that she could still make it to cooking class that night. By mid afternoon she started feeling a lot better and was able to talk again and even eat something (which she hadn't for the last day and a half). She said, "see mom….daddy's blessings always work". So I let her go to cooking class that night and told her to not get in people's faces. I figured since she's older, she wasn't too likely to pass the germs. 

Monday morning, while we were having a kind of chill morning waiting to see how Ashlyn was feeling, I went in the garage to get on my elliptical. This was at about 9 am. Got in the shower around 10:30 and by noon, went back into the garage to put something away. It felt oddly humid in my garage so I turned around and saw this….water bubbling up out of the top of my hot water heater and spilling all down the sides and on to the ground. I know it wasn't like that when I had been in there exercising that morning, so it must have recently started. Thank goodness I was home because seriously there was NO sign of any problem just 2 hours earlier. And so I have to put in a plug to my in-laws who always encouraged us to turn the water off when we go out of town. Well…I can't say I've ever really listened.  Sorry in-laws…..I feel so sheepish. Lesson learned. And thankfully in not such a damaging way. I called the plumber right away and they were at our house within 30 minutes. Luckily I had gotten the oober 10 year warranty on this water heater just two years ago when our last one broke, so I didn't have to pay a dime to the guy who tried his hardest to sell me on a bunch of other things (including $400 for a pan that goes at the bottom of the water heater to catch leaks if this were to happen again). I went to Lowe's and bought a pan for $20 bucks and "installed" it myself. He pretty much knew I wasn't gonna buy anything else from him that day and quit pressuring me. Although I did have to agree with him that we need to replace our water pressure regulator, which is probably as old as the house. Plus he said if the water heater burst again, it wouldn't be covered under the warranty if I didn't fix the pressure regulator. So I gotta figure that out. But he wanted to charge me $1,000 for it. After the $400 charge for a $20 water pan, I decided I didn't trust him and passed. So after our garage door breaking last week, I can't say home ownership has been too kind to us this past week. 

But on a happy note, Brandon drew a sweet picture for each of us in the family. Looked similar to this one to Carter. Brandon's been tough lately. Very rough and rambunctious. Doesn't listen to me or follow rules much. So when he does things like this, it gives me hope that my sweet little boy is still in their somewhere under his 6 year old angst. Does 6 year old angst really exist? I thought it was only teenage angst I needed to worry about. Hm…..

Ashlyn got to start her cooking class. Hooray. She's learned a lot of great things and has made some very yummy meals (most of which she's had leftovers of so I got to sample). This class is at a church down the street from us. They "forgot" to mention that the last 30 minutes of class is "gospel worship". Luckily Ashlyn is doing the class with Darby, my friends daughter, and Brooke happened to be there early the first night. After hearing from Brooke, I decided I needed to be in attendence for these last 30 minutes to make sure I knew what Ashlyn was hearing. I don't mind her being there, but I want to be able to answer her questions if she has any. After the first night she said to me…"mom, they're not very reverent. I'm glad we're Mormon".  Me too Ashlyn…ME TOO!!!! 

Goodness….I love this girl!

While Ashlyn is at cooking class, Leah and Carter have started swimming lessons. Carter has had some anxiety about participating, but we've been talking about it for months and he loves to swim so I thought he would be fine. And he would have been if it were not for 2 other little girls who FREAKED out the first day. Screaming, tears, hysterics…it was bad. So that made Carter start crying. I tried to console him and remind him how much he loved to swim, but I think he was too upset by these girls that were freaking out. So I had to pull out the "positive reinforcements" and tell him if he could do swim lessons everyday for the next two weeks with no tears, he could pick out a small toy at Target. Well, that dried his tears right up and even though he was still a little apprehensive, he warmed up within a few minutes and has been loving it since.

Leah's doing great as well and working on refining her strokes and swimming longer distances. I can see this girl on a swim team in the future. She really loves it! I'm so proud of her. She's definitely a go getter.

Tuesday we went to the dollar movie to see "Pirates: Band of Misfits". 

Wednesday, after Ashlyn's first band camp (she loved it by the way and said the two hours flew by) we went over to the Shell station to wash my car. Well, McDonald's happens to be next door so we "had" to stop for a little ice cream.

Thursday, there was another free event put on by the city that I took the kids to. This time it was "The Buster Balloon Show". Oh my goodnes, it was SO cute. This guy was an amazing story teller and had the kids (and me too) laughing and laughing. He had amazing balloon creations to go along with his stories and used kids from the audience to act out the parts. I was amazed at how brave these kids were and how much some of them got right into character to particpate. I was so glad we didn't miss this!

Carter was grumpy boy because he said I didn't bring the right snacks for him. 

Isn't that a cute grumpy face though? He fell asleep on the way home. I should have known he was tired. He did enjoy the show though. Was even more into it than the juggler we saw

As his final act, he literally put himself inside of a giant balloon. It was amazing! 

After the show, I dropped the girls off at watercolor class and headed home to swap out with Paul (who major props to him for coming home EXTRA early for me during a very stressful and busy work week), so I could go up to girls camp for the evening. Camp is at a beautiful site up in the mountains this year and even though it's smaller than the camp they were at last year, the girls all seem to be having a really great time. It was SO fun to get to see them. We got there for dinner and Bishop Livingston and his wife came up to do a little ward devotional. Afterwards, we stayed for testimony meeting. Most of our wards girls got up to bear their testimony. We may be very small in numbers but we have some pretty amazing girls and I'm so blessed to get to work with them. I hope they know how much I love them and care about them. It's a tough world for teenagers these days and these girls are trying their best to be good and do what is right. Two girls even brought friends with them!

I made Sharon take a selfie with me. She tried to refuse, but I gave her no choice. 

It was just the two of us that drove up together. It was so fun to chat with her. She's just one of the sweetest, kindest people you'll ever meet. Never says an unkind word about anyone! I just love her.

Today, there is NOTHING on my calendar until 6pm for Ashlyn's final cooking class. So we are being lazy slugs and lounging around the house. The 3 younger kids are playing with water balloons in the backyard and Ashlyn's working on a paper flower she found directions for in her "American Girl" magazine. It's nice to have some lazy summer days among the busy ones. I slept in until 8:30am. It was AWESOME!