Catching Up

Well, after 5 trips to the ER in 4 weeks, I hope we are done for awhile. After Randi's foot and Tucker's stitches we added Kyall getting into cleaner, Charlee's hand getting slammed in a car door, and yours truly tripping over the edge of the sidewalk and face planting. I'm sure it was super graceful. We have still had minor accidents at home so no trip to Disneyland yet:)

Then there was the incident involving police stations and poochie prison. Yes, Maggie escaped yet again, but she actually got caught. For those of you who don't know Maggie, she is part lab part husky. As in run as fast as you can across Alaska husky. She LOVES to run. If the kids leave a door or the gate open she bolts. We used to chase her...for miles. We finally learned that if you just stand in the front yard and call her name she will eventually come back. But don't try to grab her when she gets close or she turns on a dime and runs for 30 more minutes. Just wait with the door or the gate open and she'll run in when she's ready. Anyway....don't know how they caught her, we never can. Randi and I rushed to the police station as they were closing and they showed us a mugshot of Maggie to make sure it was the right dog. Okay, I tried not to, but I ended up laughing hysterically. In the police station. Her mugshot was priceless. She is on a leash, sitting down, with her head turned to the side with the most GUILTY look on her face. She knew she was busted and she knew she was in trouble. I would have given anything for a copy of that...I asked to look at it twice. Then we had to race to the animal shelter (they were already closed but they waited for us). Once again, they pulled out the picture, and once again I'm laughing so hard there are tears in my eyes. It really wasn't funny that we had to bail her out, but if you could just have seen the picture. She was very happy to see Randi and get home. I think we have finally barricaded every possible place she could get out of the fence...we'll see how long it holds her.

We loved being able to see Robin, Mindy and Chris in October. It's always fun to see them, and they were so great to come with Bart and Carol to one of Tucker's soccer games. He had his own little cheering section. He has had a great opportunity playing on a competitive team this fall. His coach is a former pro soccer player for Peru. Tucker has learned so much in a short time and his team is pretty fun to watch...they were their division champs. I do wish I knew some spanish, though. I'd love to know what the coaches are yelling to the players...I think Tucker does, too.

Randi, Charlee, Tucker, my sister and I were lucky enough to get tickets to the Sunday morning session of General Conference. We drove down Saturday and spent some time at Temple Square...way too crowded to be fun. Of course, the highlight that day would be the pool at the hotel. What is it about swimming at a hotel? Conference was great. There is nothing like being in a room with 21,000 people and having it instantly go silent when the prophet walks in. You can't get that on tv. It was a wonderful experience to share with (some) of my kids.

We plugged through October. Kellie and Hayley threw a fantabulous "Ghouls Night Out" party for all the witches in the Shelton family (sorry, no warlocks allowed). Of course I decided to start sewing 4 matching witch costumes 3 hours before party time. We finished just in time and I had a green, a pink, an orange, and a purple witch that were sooooo cute! Of course, I had no camera so I'm hoping to snag some copies from Hayley. Trevor, Randi and I threw a bash for Ryanne's 1st grade class. Lots of fun...we had a pumpkin beanbag toss, bingo, pumpkin bowling, a craft and treats. Thankfully Trevor and Randi had a half day...never would have made it without their help. Ryanne got to lead the Halloween parade at school...so neat! Then we rushed home to get ready for Charlee's SURPRISE birthday party. What a day. We had 10 fifth grade girls watching a movie and eating Halloween themed treats. There were monster toes, witch fingers, mummy heads, witch brooms, goblin teeth...and once again I had no camera. Nice. This time I will be begging pictures from Grandma as she was to nice to let us party at her house. The next day brought Tucker's last game of the season, the ward carnival and trick or treating-in the rain. SOOOOO happy it was Saturday and Wade had, er got to take them this year:)

We are already into November...it seems time goes faster and faster. Ben's birthday is today-14! He doesn't know yet, but he is getting an electric bass guitar. What were we thinking? It was all he wanted and he's such a good kid. Maybe this is the start to our own family garage band...dude, we have more kids than the Partridge family and the Brady's and they seemed to do okay!

When I can round up some pictures I'll post a few...this is my contribution to family history:)

DeJaVu

Once again...this morning we were at 3 days since our last accident and tonight we are 0. Kyall headbutted Ryanne and there was bloody nose everywhere. Why can't we seem to get past 3 days?

ZERO days

0 days since our last accident. Kyall fell and hit her mouth on a chair...blood...screaming...more screaming (from Charlee)...panic (that would be Trevor listening on the phone). I'm not too worried about having to finance a trip anytime soon.

3 Days Since Our Last Accident

I've decided that our family needs one of those signs you see in commercial businesses...the signs reporting safety records. You know, the big number followed by "days since last accident". I am thinking about bribing the kids that if we can make it to 50 I'll take them to Disneyland. We are on 3. Between Randi with a swollen foot from a "nerve irritation" and Tucker with 6 stitches in his knee, we have done our part for paying off those doctor's student loans this week.

Where did August go?

Wade was support car to this AWESOME team!

Trevor ran...and lived!

Randi loves to run...if only I could get her to run AWAY from the boys :)

Tucker gets his birthday breakfast...whatever they choose, made by dad.

Princess Pei Pei's Lemonade Luncheon


I can't believe it is already September! Looking back, August is such a blur...maybe because it was packed with so many things! Ben went to scout camp and "came back a man." We sure missed him that week, he is my biggest help:) Kyall was so excited to see him when he got home! We celebrated Ryanne's 6th birthday. She had a princess lemonade luncheon with her princess friends and ladies in waiting. Randi, Charlee and their friends took care of the princess' every needs and wants (thanks for all the help girls!). Trevor and Caleb were the court jestors with juggling acts, magic, and card tricks. I hope my little Princess Pei Pei had a wonderful day!

We drove to Woods Cross for a Cox family reunion and got to see some family we haven't seen for awhile. On the way home we stopped to see Noah. You know you are old when your kids' babysitter has a baby. What a cutie he is! I know very well that Ally will be a great mom...she "mothered" my kids for years.

After multiple trips to the stores and registrations school started. Usually I spend the week singing "It's the most wonderful time of the year" but this summer I was sad to see them go back. I guess I realize that my time with these great kids is passing all to quickly. Trevor is a Junior, Randi a Sophmore, Ben in 8th grade, Charlee in 5th, Tucker in 4th and Ryanne is a 1st grader now. I remember so clearly when it was just me, Trev, Randi and Ben home all day waiting for daddy to get home from work...no school, no sports, no schedules. I know they will all do great this year...they always do!

Tucker turned 9 ON A SCHOOL DAY! It's the first time school has ever started before his birthday. At least he got a true celebration at school, not just celebrating on some random day of the year.

Somehow we talked Trevor into joining Randi on the LHS CrossCountry team. He wasn't too happy when he had to get up at 4am on a Saturday morning to go run the Grizzly Back. Let's just say 42.5 miles from the highschool to Powder Mountain was just a little insane. Wade went as a support vehicle and got to watch my two babies run up a mountain in a relay. I wish I could have seen it! They both survived:) They have since had one meet and both did very well for their first race ever.

Sunday night we had a fun time at my dad's cousins house. Don and Judy are such gracious hosts! We had dinner and listened to family history stories from Bill and Don and now know why we aren't to friendly with the Bassett cousins (haha). The kids loved going down the fire pole in their home and playing in the hollow. Family is everything. My dad absolutely loved going to the Hollow every year and spending time with his extended family!

Labor day weekend brings SOOOOO many projects, I doubt we can do them all. I think the roof gets first priority. Every time it rains, a piece of my living room ceiling comes down. Hopefully we can get settled into a schedule and enjoy our little (okay, maybe not so little) family!

Long Awaited Vacation

We finally found a week that Wade could get off and work and the kids were free...not an easy task with basketball camps, girl's camp, scout camp, high adventure, cubscout day camp, etc., etc, etc. Things weren't looking good when the friday afternoon before we were to leave the air conditioner blew a switch. Luckily we have an awesome aunt and uncle who came and rescued us from the Walmart parking lot and helped us get back in working order! (We love you guys!)

After packing every inch of the suburban we were finally off. Three hours later our first stop was Craters of the Moon National Park. Interesting. The kids loved the little hikes and climbing the cauldron, but we could barely pull them out of the caves...by far the best...maybe because it was so much cooler down there! Charlee, Tucker, and Ryanne became Junior Moon Rangers.

Another three hours found us in Island Park. We stayed at the Buffalo campground and totally loved it! We were only in our campsite for 15 minutes when a mother moose and her baby came trotting through...totally cool. We found ourselves being "bear aware" ... ask the kids if moose like milk:) Thanks to "favorite aunt Kellie" we had some fun craft projects that even Wade got into. Kyall HATED the tent and screamed every single night (made me think of Taylor all those years ago).

We sent a couple days in Yellowstone seeing the sites and walking the boardwalks. Trevor was happy to see both a black and a grizzly bear. Of course the "meese" were our favorite. They became the mascot of our trip. We would have loved to spend more time there, but we still had to go through the Tetons on our way home. Kyall absolutely loved playing in Jenny Lake. It started out that we just dipped her feet, but she wanted to walk out further. We slipped off her pants and she pulled Randi in futher. We took her shirt off just before she decided to sit and splash in the lake, and she screamed when we pulled her out to leave. This time Randi joined the other 3 to become a Junior Ranger. She was pretty excited that she was taller than the ranger that swore them in!

We loved being together as a family with no outside influences pulling on us...no cell phones, no computer, no tv. I hope the kids will remember all the fun times and laughter (and not so much the fighting in the car). We truly are blessed with great kids and know that our time with them is passing so fast. When we got home we found out that one of Charlee's classmates had passed away, which made us even more thankful for the time we had together. Family is what it is all about and we try to treasure every minute.

12 Road Trip Memories of the Jewkes Family...

12 Dollar Campsites
11 Hundred Miles
10 Miles per Gallon
9 People Squished (in an)
8 Seat Suburban
7 Fighting Children
6 Hours of Sleep
5 Very Long Days....
4 Different States
3 National Parks
2 Moose in our Campsite
All in a tent with a screaming baby.