The big old recap

Has it really been 7 months since I blogged? Well I feel like I have to catch you up on our happenings in order to get into blogging again. I'll try to make it quick and painless.

April - 30 days hath September, April, June and November...
Out of those thirty days in April, we had 23 days of visitors -we tried to pretend we weren't on vacation, but had our fill of Disneyland, the beach, Yogurtland and In-n-Out burgers while trying to squeeze in our regular activities, like baseball, not to mention planting a garden (thanks for the help, Ben and Nettie!), celebrating Easter, getting pulled over by a cop on a youth activity, and keeping Kate out of the make-up bags of house guests.




















May - It's mah birthday, it's mah birthday...
I finally got the camera of my dreams after saving up some pennies and foregoing gifts for, like, the last four years. Thanks for your prudent budgeting, hon.
The Nikon D60 has been nothing but fun. I knew I liked taking pictures, but I didn't realize how much. I also didn't know that pictures could actually turn out how I pictured them in my head.
I also got my YW medallion a second time, as a leader. It's silver and shiny...oooooh.
It was an amazing experience, mostly because I was able to share it with six Laurels in my ward.
Ian got two awards in May - one was an art award. A picture he drew at school was chosen to represent the school district at a local art show -who knew he had a creative side! All I ever see is the dominant, Ben-like, engineer side. He also received a trophy for swimming in a meet -where he swam a 100m IM -that's an individual medley, one length of each stroke. We were proud of him just for finishing the race. He keeps improving!










June - Summer, here we come!
We've got two June birthdays in our family -Kate turned three on the 16th and Jake turned 6 on the 21st. The summer officially began on June 18 and I promptly went to YW camp. So much fun! Jacob lost his first tooth. Like Ian, his teeth come in behind the existing one, resulting in two rows of teeth. DUH-nah, DUH-nah, DUH-nah...

July- Road trippin'
We went on a big Western Coast road trip! We stopped in Sacramento, the northern California Coast and the Redwoods, Vancouver, Washington, Crater Lake, Oregon, and San Francisco. We managed to see most of Ben's family, the Bjarnasons, the Blakes, and the Bettingers.
Later that month the boys had hero camp - I made memory books for 130 kids- and we saw some of the biggest waves ever seen in SoCal.











































August- Kicking back!
A great month to enjoy our beautiful surroundings. We went to the beach often, played with friends, went to parks. I organized my second annual Mom's beach retreat at Three Arch Bay, enjoyed a day in LA for a Youth temple trip, and headed to Bakersfield for two days of Youth Conference. We went river rafting and after bracing myself for 120 degree weater, it was surprisingly cool!
























September - Back in the saddle -almost.
We went on a quick trip to Utah to visit family over Labor Day weekend because school started so late this year. A few highlights were meeting our new niece, Claire, and going to Swiss Days in Midway - one of my favorite craft fairs (I do enjoy the atmosphere, too, although they take the Swiss theme a little too far by serving such delicacies as Swiss Tacos), and a trip to Pace's Dairy Ann in Bountiful. The boys started school on September 10 and Kate started an all girls "Princess Academy" the week after.

















And now that you have read my big, boring review, I shall reward you with the reason for my failed attempt at blogging again in September, even though the kids were at school and I should theoretically have loads of free time. Wrong! All I'm doing these days is thinking about food, trying not to think about food, taking naps, and eating more food so I don't throw up. Yep, I'm pregnant!!! We're having number 4 in May!