2nd half of June 2009

Monday June 22 we were up early and on our way to take Samantha up to Flagstaff for EFY.




Samantha was soooo excited! I can't believe how grown up she is getting! Thank goodness it was only for a week and not off to college for real! She had many friends that were at the same session she was in, including a cousin, from Mesa, who was a counselor. She also had a cousin who was there from Utah. I met my brother (who was dropping off his son) and picked up a couple of his other kids. Christy (my sister-in-law) was the Stake Camp Director for girls camp and it was this same week, so we offered to take their kids. We were excited to have cousins come and stay with us for almost a whole week! We started off our adventure with a stop at Slide Rock on the way home. Now that was quite the experience! Wish we would have had water shoes to help with the slippery rocks. They call it slide rock for a reason! Everyone got a little banged up, but it was fun nonetheless!





We were talking about Slide Rock just the other day (it is now September) and Lindsay said, "Oh yeah! That place hurts!" We spent a lot of time on our knees and bottoms. Our advice: Take water shoes or wear shoes with soles that don't slip and you don't care if they get wet!

Now with these cute cousins staying with us, I tried...heavy on the tried, to have some fun plans to keep us busy. I thought that the cousins would entertain each other pretty well, and they did for the most part, but unfortunately we had a little (okay a lot) of homesickness. I was feeling really bad until my brother told me that they get home sick when they are at their home with Grandma Hugh babysitting them.

The last day was the biggest hit though. We went to the rec. center in the morning and spent a few hours there and then on to the Cavenee's pool. Thank goodness we ended on a high note!












I'm still not sure if they will ever want to come back and stay with us without their parents again, it was pretty tramatic. Hopefully they will because we loved having them come!

Early (really early) Saturday morning we headed back to Flagstaff to take the kids back to their Grandparents (Christy's folks) and pick up Samantha.

I decided that since we were already on a trip that we should make an outing of it and so Dave planned a hike to the top of Mount Elden right there in Flagstaff.

It all started out great, but slowly deteriorated.

By the time we were 2/3rds of the way to the top we had nearly run out of water and the kids were ready to DIE. I thought Paige was going to have a full on heart attack right there on the side of the mountain (okay I really didn't, but she honestly thought and acted like she was on death's door). The best intentions don't always work out the way that we would like them too, but we tried! It will probably be one of the memories that our children will bring up later to prove that we were really out to torture them.

On June 29th it was time for the performance of the Cinderella play that Amber played Cinderella. Mary does the performances right there in her home. She was very complimentary of Amber and the heart and soul that she put into her character. I was so happy to see her come alive in the play and really display some talent. I know she has a lot of drama in her (I see it everyday:)) and I was glad for a positive place for her to display it!

Amber even got to sing a solo! She did great. I am so glad that most of my kids take after Dave in that area and can actually hold a tune!!

Amber looked beautiful and really shone. She loved every moment of the spotlight. We recorded the whole thing and I am sure that she would love to show it to anyone who asks. We have seen it several times already!

There you have the highlights of June 2009 at the Garner's!

Lindsay turns 6!

Here she is just 6 months old!

Now my 6 year old!

What a sweet girl my little Lindsay is! She is really the baby of the family. We have tried so hard to help her stop sucking her thumb (trips to the dentist are not happy days at our house because he keeps telling us that she better stop sucking her thumb or there will be major problems), but she just has a hard time. She tells me, "I want to mom, but my thumb just tastes delicious." Oh well, life goes on and eventually she will decide it is important to stop.?

Here are some of her other cute qualities:

• She is a great peacemaker. She will usually be the one who gives in and makes everything work. Sometimes she wonders why no one else does this, but not for long.
• She has the most incredible facial expressions. Her puppy dog eyes and mouth in a pout can melt any heart!
• She tells it like it is. Sometimes I wonder if she is really turning 13 instead of 6. She can sound so grown up.
• She is great at entertaining herself.
• She doesn't really like dressing up (I don't even think she really knows this about herself. She tries to like it when friends come over and want to play dress up, but the fun only last about 15 minutes for her and she NEVER just goes and plays with the dress ups on her own.
• She and Kent can be best friends. She really misses sharing a room with him. She mostly likes sharing with Amber (when she is nice that is:)).
  

Lindsay came into the world quickly. We were getting in the car to go to the hospital when I knew she was coming too fast. So, the paramedics delivered her in our bathroom. At church recently, the teacher asked the kids what hospital they born in and Lindsay came home very upset. She asked me why she had to be born at home in the bathroom instead of a hospital like everyone else. I told her one day she would appreciate the fact that she has an unusual birth story, hope I am right:)!

I will be taking treats to her class today. It will be fun to see how she is doing in school!

Happy Birthday!

June 2009

Girls Camp came early this year and we were leaving on Amber's Birthday. She was really bummed that we were going to be gone for her birthday. So we tried to celebrate for several days before we left:)! Here are some pictures of us at Red Robin for dinner.

YUM! Everything was good! It was fun to go out!

Amber liked the ice cream sunday. She even shared some!

After dinner we went home and opened card and presents! It was a great day!

We (Samantha, Paige & I) left for Girls Camp early Wednesday morning, June 3rd. Girls Camp was great. I had not been since I was a young women...so I had lots of reservations and concerns. My biggest concern was that I was going to forget something or not get something done just because I didn't know what I was doing. Well it all worked out and for the most part I was pretty (I am trying to think if I should say sane or in control...neither one really works) okay with how things went. I only got frustrated once and now I look back and could kick myself for how silly that really was. Oh well. I know that life is a learning experience and I am going to keep trying to learn to loosen up. I can look back and see what I needed to have done...next step, do the right thing in the right moment! (Good advice, now how do I apply it to my whole life?). Pine, Arizona is where camp is and it is beautiful. The days were warm and the nights were cool. Actually little cold in the middle of the night and most of us got a little cold. Fortunately there were "real" bathrooms with running water and everything. They even have showers, but we were each only allowed one for the whole week. The stake provided the food and most of the classes, etc. So really it was not very stressful and mostly fun. I think all of the girls had a fun time and I have lots of ideas for next year!

Here we are ready to go! It is off to Girls Camp!

This was Bishop's Day. The whole Bridlegate crew!

When we got back from camp there was not much time to rest. Summer was in full swing. Kent and Lindsay started swimming lessons and Samantha started a two week project that I will get into in a minute. I signed Amber up for a week long performance with the Gilbert Fine Arts Association (GFFA). I wanted her to have some acting experience. In the end she choose to be a stage manager and wasn't on the stage at all...go figure! I can't remember exactly what Paige was doing those two weeks, but she must have kept busy:)! On to Samantha...

Samantha wanted to earn some money this summer. Last year she did a cleaning service. She did several jobs for people, but wasn't very aggressive about getting more work. So we did some brainstorming and she decided on doing a 2 week theater camp for kids. She worked up the fliers and gave them out to lots of friends and family (she was better at getting the word out this year). She had two classes. An older group who met 3 days a week for a couple hours in the afternoon and a younger group who met 2 days a week for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I could write a ton about this, but I will refrain and just try and sum it up. They put a performance on at the end of the 2 weeks. It turned out cute, of course there were lots of glitches, but I think she did a great job pulling it off for her first time! Overall it was hard work, but a great experience. In fact, at the beginning when the families paid her she was concerned because she hadn't done much at that point. Fast forward to the post performance. I asked her if she felt like she had earned the money then and she said she definitely had.

We had the performance at the Church
and spent most of the afternoon getting everything ready.

Here are the boys waiting to go on stage.

In the younger group we had divided the kids up into two groups
and each group did the same two plays.
So the audience had to watch each play twice,
but it gave each child a lot of time on the stage!

Here is the end of the evening! WHEW!! We made it through!
Everyone did great and hopefully they all had fun!

On June20th our stake was assigned to help work on the Temple Grounds, so we took our kids and joined in. Dave and I had actually gone on a long bike ride that morning and so we were a bit late joining the clean up crew. In fact they were just finishing up. However, they were able to find some plants for us to plant and so we were able to serve despite our tardiness:)!


We got our tools and equipment and off we went!


Hopefully we put the plants in the right spots...it was kind of hard to tell.


All in all, it only took about 30 minutes to do our job. Not too bad.




I know Paige had a few things going on in June and one thing I know for sure was that we had signed her up for a guard start class with a friend. She had a fun time learning to be a life guard. There were kids of all ages in the class and she thinks that she wants to do it again next summer.

As for Amber and her acting. I was feeling sad that I had paid so much money for her to be behind the scenes, but fortunately, my friend Mary did a play for her sing and swim (she does this for free for the kids that are her kids ages just for the experience...she is extraordinarily amazing!)this summer. They worked on a short musical version of Cinderella and Amber got to be the lead. In my next blog entry you will see more about this along with the performance pictures.

Well, that is the first 1/2 (actually a little more than half) of June....more to come!

Time to start blogging again!

Now that I have taken a "summer break," I am back. I know that this is the only way that I am going to get a family history done. I have seen the books made from blogs and they are incredible.

Since my triathlon, life has been a little crazy. I am probably going to just have to sum up some of the main events because I am not patient enough to go back through the months and write details about everything. So here is the sum up for May 2009:

CRAZY, CRAZY & CRAZY. I am sure most families that have kids involved in any type of baseball/softball feel my pain. Actually, I know that my pain and craziness did not even touch some of the others I know who had more kids involved, but alas this is our story...so here it is! Fortunately, I had friends with kids on every (scratch that), both (now that I remember the truth...I only had 2 kids playing...it seemed like a lot more at the time) teams. Most of them had 2 kids playing too. We helped each other by taking kids to the games many of the weeks. Some weeks my kids had a parent at their games and some weeks they didn't and some weeks they had two (those were pretty unusual). Of course there were Choir performances, Orchestra Concerts (Paige had 4 this year and I made it to 1/2 of the last one...too many conflicts!), school programs, graduations and promotions. Then to top it all off I had Girls Camp preparation and Dave had "Survivor Man" (priest activity) prep. Dave and the Priests left on Memorial Day and came home on Thursday, May 28th. Samantha, Paige and I left the following Wednesday for Girls Camp. On the last Saturday in May I ran 17 miles trying to prepare for a marathon. The next day my knee (IT band) hurt. UGH! No marathon for me until it heals up.

Here are some highlights in pictures:

Kent and Lindsay had patriotic programs at the beginning of the month. I almost missed Kent's because I didn't write it down correctly on my all powerful calendar!

Mother's day was heavenly!

Dave did this amazing Mother's day card for me. It was the BEST!!!

Samantha at her Choir concert (winning several awards).

This is one intense ball player. Amber really loved playing softball and her coaches named her the "Most Teachable Player". What a great compliment!

I tell you what...WOW! Check out these batting stances :)!

I just had to include this picture! It cracked me up!!

Paige "Graduates from Elementary School", it is onto JUNIOR HIGH!!!

Somewhere on my computer are the pictures of Lindsay "graduating" from Kindergarten and Samantha's "Promotion" from 8th grade, but for some reason I can't get them onto my blog. However it was a very "productive" month!!

Father & Sons

I started this post a few months ago, but thought I would finish it up and post it anyway:)(Today is August 27th)!

This weekend (Friday & Saturday, May 13 &14, 2009) was the annual Father & Sons camp out. Now, I have 4 daughters and one son which means that only two people from our family participate in this event. I talked with some friends who have more sons than daughters and they were talking about doing pedicures, movies and other fun outings without the "boys" around. As I thought about pedicures, the only thing that came to mind was "EXPENSIVE" when there are 5 sets of toes! What could we do that would be fun and yet "cheap"? We decided to go to the mall and look around and then go to the dollar movie. We called and invited the Oversons and met at the mall.

Here are the boys. I didn't get a picture of us:)!

Sherox Triathlon

I have been running for almost two years now and have really enjoyed getting fitter :)! But it was time to bump up the training and try a triathlon! My friend Camille signed up for an all women tri in Tempe and invited me and a few others to join her. I decided to give it a try (no pun intended). The first thing you have to know about a Triathlon is that everyone...and I mean EVERYONE looks goofy in the swim cap!

I figured that I had already been training for the running portion, and on the days that I don't run I have been riding my bike around a bit. However, the swimming was really stumping me. I don't really have access to a pool and outside pools were cold (not anymore, but you have remember I started training in March). I kept trying to figure out how to get the swimming in without spending any money, but not getting too cold. I finally broke down about a month before the race and I joined a gym for 30 days...just so I could get some swimming in! I was glad that they were willing to work with me!

Camille was really good at getting us all organized and getting some group training sessions going. We went on several long bike rides together (including a little running after riding...practical since that is exactly what you do in the race). We also went out to Saguaro Lake (had to practice swimming in the open water) a couple of times.

The were 5 of us that ended up being in the race. That morning we all drove over to Tempe and got set up. I wasn't sure where to put my stuff or how to set up the bike or anything. So I just asked a lot of questions and observed a lot! Jamie (one of the gals that was in our group) brought some nail polish and we all did up our toes while we were waiting for the start of the race. Silly, but I think it helped calm the nerves a bit!

They started the swim in "waves" according to age group. So I guess I really know that I am getting older because I was in the 5th wave. I don't remember how many waves after me there were, but not as many as there were before and some of those were the ones that were doing the tri in teams.

They wrote our number on each arm and then our age on our calf. I was wondering why they wrote the age on our calf, but in the bike and run I was glad because I could tell who was in my age group. It helped me mentally to know so that I knew if I cared if they passed me or not!


I ended up renting a road bike because my bike has virtually no brakes and I did something to Dave's bike a couple of days before the race that took it out of contention. I was really glad to have a nice bike to ride...it made all the difference in the world!


The run was a KILLER! I think it must have been over 90 degrees by the time we started running and it was tough even though it was only 3.1 miles. I kicked it in at the finish and came in just before the gal that you can see in the picture. She was ahead of me the last mile, but she had a 42 (in my age group) on her calf and I was determined to cross before she did!

Here we are having accomplished our GOAL!!! Jamie, me, Yvette, Camille and Sara! It was such an awesome feeling to have finished and had our families there to support us! Later that night we checked the race results on the computer and I was thrilled with my times and place. I could hardly believe it! I came in 12th out 65 women in my age group. That is the highest finish I have ever had in any race that I have run. I was 74th out nearly 400 women total who did the race. I was so happy to have completed the race and done so well too!