A great week

First, I need to give Rockwell some swimming face-time. The other boys got their swimming videos on the blog so now it's his turn. He taught himself how to do a back dive on his first try. (Fortunately!) He's quite the little swimmer and diver.

We also went to Sea World this weekend where Drake got to go on something more interesting than the normal round and round kiddie ride for the first time. He was thrilled. He squealed and cheered the entire time. (If you look closely Rhett did not have the same enthusiasm for the Tower-of-Terror-like ride.) It's moments like these that make standing in 95 degree humid weather all worth it...

When we were in the dolphin aquarium, this dolphin came right up to London and stayed for a very long time. We kept waiting for him to leave, but she kept playing with him so he kept staying.

Brad and I were also able to do a tag-team temple visit and then drive out to Tampa to have dinner on the beach with Adam and Brita and their kids, and teach the kids how to body surf. It was the first time my kids have been allowed in or near beach water without their floaties on. They loved it! The actually got to go under the water rather than just bob on top like a buoy. Just more of my therapy!!! We had a great time as a family this weekend. Saturday night driving home one of the boys said more to himself than anything, "I love my family!"

The Swimming Whisperer

As many of you know, I have a horrible phobia of my kids drowning. I don't know where it came from but it has existed since my first child was born and hasn't ever gotten better. Many nights a week I am kept awake with pointless nightmares on the subject, so when we moved to Florida and had a pool in my yard, you could say I was a little psycho about rules and regulations. I had four non-swimmers and a pool. It was like someone had invented the situation on purpose as live therapy for me. Anyhow, swim lessons were a must this summer and we found a swim instructor who, although a little pricey, guaranteed my kids would be swimming by the end of their two week lessons. She warned me, knowing of my fear, that I might not want to watch the first couple of days. So it was THAT kind of swimming lessons. But I was ready for it and so were the kids. (Two weeks before the lessons started, Rockwell just started swimming on his own, doing dives, flips, etc. so he was freed from the lessons. The teacher would have taken London but my therapy needs to be in the form of baby steps...)

DAY 1
Now remember, neither of the two boys could swim, and Rhett would even get upset if you asked him to put his face in the water. So off we went. Drake and Rhett both cried most of the 1/2 hour of their first private lesson. But since they seemed to be under the water more than out, it appeared minimal. When their instructor, Lauren, felt they needed a little security and rest, she would hold them in a tight hug in the water and sing to them and talk calmly to them and then say, it's time to swim again, 1 2 3, and the kids would be under the water in a swimming motion again and again and again. I admit it wasn't as traumatizing as I thought it would be. I know and trust Lauren so I knew they would be fine... therapy... so I sat and watched through the window... therapy... as my children were compelled to learn how to swim. .. therapy. At the end of Drake's lesson, she let him blow some bubbles to calm him down, and that perked him right up. He ran over to me and cheered, "I love swimming lessons!" Appearenlty the lack of oxygen over the last 1/2 hour must have caused some sort of amnesia, for now. Rhett panicked a lot that first day as well, and really tried to get over his fear of putting his face in the water. I knew we had to get over this first before any swimming would take place.

Day 2

Drake and Rhett both were a little suspicious of swim lessons the second day but there was a lot less crying and a lot more learning. Lauren didn't let them give up, and made them do the work, but in a very loving and secure way. I was starting to think this was going to work.

DAY 3


Drake loves swimming! He told me after day 3 that he won't wear floaties anymore.

Who would have guessed just a couple of days earlier this child wouldn't get his head wet? Rhett also has decided I'm not allowed to put floaties on him ever again. He says, "Mom, I know how to swim now. Floaties are for babies." And they still have another week+ of lessons!

DAY 4

I wanted Brad to see what was happening so he came on Day 4 to see what they could do. He was so impressed, he got choked up with pride and amazement and wants everyone to come take lessons from Lauren so they can have the comfort of having their kids know how to swim too! He got so excited and emotional about it, he wants to do a story on her in the magazine so that everyone really will know about her ability. (I like to think of her as the Swimming Whisperer. Her schedule might fill up really quick next year.)

We are both so grateful to her for her work with our boys and my unofficial therapy. It is especially meaningful to me, because I know part of this is difficult for her since less than a year ago her little nephew who wasn't quite 2 yet, drowned in this pool at her home. She's a great example to me of someone who has strength after a tragedy and then helps other people succeed so perhaps the same tragedy won't enter their lives.

The Farmers Market- DUH!

I went to a farmer's market this weekend for the first time. I'm hooked! All of you who already go to a farmer's market are probably saying, "It's about time, Melissa!" Yes I have finally figured it out. Here's my story: Several weeks ago I had to buy 4 red and 4 yellow peppers for two recipes I was going to make. When I got to the check-out, my 8 peppers came to almost $15!!!!!! I was so shocked I didn't have the presence of mind to tell them what they could do with their $15 peppers! They were almost $4/ lb. I didn't even bother looking at the price when I picked them out because I needed them for the recipe and I would have never even thought they were close to that in price. (That wasn't even the main ingredient so it ended up being a very expensive side dish!) Now back to the farmer's Market. This is what I got for less than $15 this weekend:

-7 eggplants
-6 ears of corn
-5 red peppers
-5 large zuchini
-6 small yellow squash
-2 chili peppers
- 1 canteloupe

-1 very large bag of fresh basil that smells devine

-Not to mention the bucket of blueberries we got for $6 that in a store would have cost 10x that much. I will now buy all my produce, when possible, at a farmer's market. I'm hooked!

This weekend we have had the cousins from Tampa over while their mom and dad are in California. Being parents of 8 kids under the age 7 can have it's challenges. But they have had a great time and been remarkably good! In an effort to think of things to entertain them that didn't cost a lot of money, we have taken them fishing, swimming, blueberry picking and to the Farmer's Market. We have had a lot of fun. Chase was the only one who had the patience to wait for the fish to bite and his wait paid off! He caught a huge fish!

While blueberry picking Grace ate so many (her bucket was empty) she got a tummy ache. I kept waiting for London and Maddie to get tummy aches with the amount of blueberries they were eating but they have stomaches of steal! Maddie's bucket would start filling up, then I would look in it a couple minutes later and it would be empty again! Needless to say, we didn't end up bringing home very many blueberries, but ate penty. We did make a blueberry cake when we got home which was a big hit! The kids will be sad when their cousins go home. Last night in his bedtime prayer, Rockwell started crying when he said, "Please bless the cousins will drive home safely tomorrow... (choked up quite a bit here and had to pull it together) and that they will come back again soon." He just had to finish his prayer at this point because he was so sad. Even though we're far away from most of the family, it is so nice to have Adam and Brita and their kids so close. My kids are family-needy just like their parents!

Girls Camp

The next couple posts are going to be out of order chronologically because I'm doing the posts first that I have the pictures for already. So today I'm going to tell you about girls camp.

The first notice we received when we arrived at girls camp is to make sure to keep the bathroom doors shut because they found an alligator in the bathroom the day before when all the leaders arrived. Welcome to girls camp in Florida!

Then we all had to set up our tents next to the alligator invested swamp, I'm mean lake, in 100 degree weather with humidity like I've never felt before.

I don't think I would sweat that much in a two hour aerobic class! But I was proud of these girls for being such good sports. They were all so excited to be here and I was too. Even with the concern of entering alligator waters, it was so hot that alligator or not, I was getting in.

This girls camp was run the way I think it should be done. The 5th and 6th year girls were IN CHARGE. They did all the work when it came to the younger campers. All the certification, flag ceremony, meetings, activities, etc. The adults were kind of like the campground hosts that made sure no one got hurt or dehydrated, and that food was served when the time came. (And that was only some of the meals. The youth counselors were even in charge of preparing some meals at each individual camp site.) I even got in "trouble" once with the Stake camp director when she overheard me suggest something to the girls. "Let the girls do everything," I was pulled aside and told. So I turned into an overgrown 3rd year after that and had a great time while trying to ignore the sauna they call Florida Summers.


Each girl was given a whistle to blow only in case of emergency since we were out in the wilderness and it was a large camp. On the first night, sometime around midnight, a whistle went off. I heard the stake camp director come running and yelling. "Who blew the whistle? I need to know where you are?" She just had to follow the sound of the screaming girls to a tent in the middle of the camp. "Everyone stay in your tents!" I wasn't sure who yelled that but then I heard what was going on. The girls were sure an alligator was attacking them so they blew the whistle. It ended up being a raccoon who was probably a little displaced and put out by our camp and was trying to find his home. And, even after lecture upon lecture about not keeping food in your tent, these girls had treats with them. I had a girl in my camp circle who couldn't recover from this incident and by 1am called her mom on her illegally packed cell phone and had her mom drive the hour and a half to come get her by 2:30am. The raccoon came by my tent later that night, and I'll admit it is unsettling to hear a larger creature roaming around right outside your tent.

I was able to get to know these young women so much better and am excited to work with them even more over the next year.

They're Here!

The baby birds have arrived and they are hungry all day long. Hey that's just like my kids! The boys love to watch the mom feed the babies.

A BERRY Good Birthday

I had a great 36th Birthday this last Saturday. One of the best I can remember. We started off by taking the kids to a strawberry farm to pick strawberries. They were in heaven.




They put as many in their mouths as they did in their buckets. But you won't be surprised to hear who ate the most strawberries of all...



We went with our friends, the Towers, who had more skilled laborers than we did, so their bounty was much more impressive. We always have fun with this great family. (Plus their girls love London so much and she loves them that I always get a nice break :)

But the end goal here was to just have a good time.

And that is exactly what happened.


Then we headed up the road to a blueberry farm and picked buckets of blueberries. In the store blueberries cost like $4 for a small plastic container. We got each bucket we picked for $6. I felt like we were robbing the place! I ran out with my bag not looking back fearing they would realize what they just charged me! We decided that blueberry picking might just become a weekly event. I can eat them like a snack and they're much better on the waistline than most of the other snacks I enjoy. I've also heard they help your body fight off cancers. After the amount of blueberries London ate, she will probably never have cancer!

Then we took the family to the local fish hatchery where they just happened to be giving out free fishing poles that day so each of the boys got their own brand new fishing pole! Drake was the only one who caught anything and it was Brad's thumb, which was holding his cell phone, which slipped into the murky pond... bye bye phone!

After we got home we BBQ'd some hot dogs and went swimming in the pool. This is a great addition to the home and I can tell a lot of hours will be spent in this relaxing and cooling retreat. Brad and the boys got me a tennis raquet and some tennis balls because since moving to Florida I have wanted to learn how to play. Then I really wanted to learn how to plan when a couple weeks ago they finished this HUGE tennis complex in our neighborhood. So Brad gets the Husband of the Year award for a perfect gift.

We started making some strawberry jam, strawberry lemonade, fruit salad, homemade strawberry ice cream, and freezing any leftover fruit for use later. I also finished making my birthday cake and the boys were anxious to eat it so we got right to it. Rhett was a little concerned that there were only three candles on the cake. "You're not 3 years old!" I explained to him that you get to a point in life that there are too many candles to fit on the cake. That didn't work for him because he had the answer, "Then just make a bigger cake!"


Not much later the babysitter arrived and Brad and I were off to dinner and a movie. (The first time we had done that type of date in years.) The Towers came with us again, just in case they hadn't had enough of us that morning. We went to a nice seafood restaurant and then to see Star Trek. I was really excited to see this since my family used to watch Star Trek together religiously. We all really liked it. Bones was my favorite recreation :)

So did I mention it was a perfect Birthday?