Summer in Paradise....

Well, it depends on your definition of paradise, but if you think warm days with cool nights (NEVER happens around here!), a house full of aunts, uncles, grandparents, great grandma, and of course every Orton cousin there is to date (Marcel + Susan Ortons, I mean), a dog, a swing-set, a 7-seater teeter-totter, a tire-swing-esque rocketship,  a log-cabin play house (built by Grandma and Grandpa's bare hands!), a pink corvette and a batmobile (bought used and repaired by Grandpa just like any other car around our place), a plastic pool lent to us by the neighbor, family reunions, family mani/pedi's on Grandma's tile floor, family dance parties, family night at the Pirate-themed restaurant/arcade, cousin sleepovers (in the basement every night),family swim-parties, family birthday parties, and over 3900 miles of driving...........  is paradise, then that is just what our summer was:  PARADISE!  (or it would have been if only Mikalyn had been around :) )

Our trip went like this: NW Arkansas to Denver to Salem, Ut, stayed there for a couple of weeks, then Salem to Boise, Boise to La Grande, OR.  Back to Salem, up to Park City/Salt Lake to see old friends, Back to Salem, down to St. George, then Albuquerque and finally back to NW Arkansas.   Wow.  The kids got a little tired of being in the car all that time, but it was worth it and they knew it!

Below are only a very FEW (in comparison to the 460 + that I downloaded) pictures of our summer in paradise:

the very beginning!

Our wonderful friends Rex and Edda let us stay at their place in CO on our way-- how fun to get to see the little people their babies have become!

Inside the cabin Gramma and Grampa built

Grampa Orton loves cars.  Even pink ones.

In this picture you can get a glimpse of just how much fun was packed into Grama and Grampa's yard.  Isn't it amazing?

I love this picture of my Dad's barn (ok, it's a shed).  He built this with his own hands, painted it, decorated, and filled it with his personality (which is synonymous with his work ethic.)  By the way, as a Sr. in high school I helped frame this, and when Spencer and I were engaged we helped paint it.

They bought these cars used and got them working again.  This was endless excitement for the kids, and even some of the grownups.

Tyler, Mammaw with Layla, and John.  We got to go bowling with Spencer's fam while they were in town for a whirlwind weekend.  It was such a party!

Gramps got a kick out of the comparison of Campbell's head to the bowling ball whenever she lifted it to put it on the ramp.  He kept trying to get a picture of it.  It's okay, though, since she gets her head from him :)

Precioso!

Cam and Cadence show off their mani/pedis by Aunts Merica, Mignon, and Melanie

Merica orchestrated a lemonade stand and the kids were all over it.  They would dance and sing and yell from the second they saw a car off in the distance until it was completely out of view.  I think they made like $14 or thereabouts!

Reese with the sign, Zavian overseeing sales.

 

Are you dying?  I looove this picture!  Lauren, Cadence, Reese, Avery.  Cookin' up some fun, albeit at the cost of a peaceful afternoon, no doubt.  (a lot of big personalities in a little cabin!)



The kids were playing all together as one big family for once, so we decided we couldn't interrupt that for lunch.  Instead we wrote up a menu, seated them, took their orders, and let them continue making believe.  I think they liked it :)

First ever professional cut.  Spencer will argue that point, but he is, after all, not actually a professional!  anyway, when all is said and done, her bangs were more crooked than usual, so I guess she'll be frequenting Salon Spencerrre from now on.

Cadence, Campbell, Avery, Reese, Zavian in the pool, and Jackson and Ethan (Sister Glenn's grandsons).  This was probably as much for for them as the big aquatic center we went to later.

Grama is so young at heart (and not that old in body, really).  All 3 of my kids are still asking for her.

2 adorably larger-than-life personalities that really grew to love eachother.

On our way to Oregon for the Orton Family Reunion! Worn out from all the fun.

Melanie made it possible for my kids to survive and me to not go crazy.  She was always playing with some or all of the kids.  Thanks mel!

Sometimes if nobody is looking, Cam just starts taking stuff off.  She was a good 20 yards from anybody, just standing on a wooded path.  Alone, and finding she needed less clothing. 

My Uncle Wayne always brings his ponies for the kids to ride. Cadence felt an immediate bond with this one. 

She might not seem like a priss to you, but she is always accessorizing!

You already know I love it when they all wear these tutu swimsuits.

Hanging out together at the Reunion in Oregon.

We got to spend the 4th of July in Park City with the Bentons-- so lucky!  Adam's parents had just come home (like literally, the day before we got there) from serving as mission presidents in Argentina.  The whole family was there and we always feel right at home with them.   We love this family.  This picture is the group watching fireworks in the rain on the golf course in their backyard.

Another addition to my parents backyard.  Campbell is the only one so far to barf from spinning in it.  Let's see how that record changes in the years to come, eh?

We love this boy.  To know him is to love him. Zavian, Sigh.  He is the only grandSON and loved having all "the girls"  around.  He would just walk around and say "Girl, come ride in the car with me!"  Or "I want the girls to come play in the water now!"  "The Girls"  miss, you, Z! 

It was such a treat to see Spencer's Grandma Clark along with the Ludlows (Guy and Ruby pictured) and Spencer's mom while we were in St. George!  We had a fantastic birthday celebration for Cadence and Campbell.

Somehow surprisingly, I ALLOWED Spencer to hike Angel's Landing in Zion's with Brian, Sarah, and Sarah's friend.  I don't know why everybody thought I'd be mad about this.  Am I that much of a jerk :)   We are excited for when our kids are old enough to appreciate and hold their own for this type of activity.

Looking down at the Colorado River at the very beginning of the Grand Canyon.  Note how tightly Cadence is clenching her sisters' wrists.  She is very responsible and I'm afraid, has the same ability to imagine the absolute worst possible scenarios in every situation.

A fun little community swimming hole in New Mexico where we stayed on our way home.  Spencer is the most fun dad and always finds little adventures for our kids.  Gosh I'm grateful for him, since I'm sort of lame :)

Zavian and Reese let the sun warm them up.  Aren't they completely loveable?

wow!  What a great time we had.  Thank you thank you to all the wonderful people who made room and time for us, and for all the help we received in preparation for, during, and after this big adventure.  What fun.   It was so fun to see the people we got to see, although there were many more we would have loved to have seen and didn't get to. 

Stories about my girls

Above: a preview of our many many pics from Utah.  We are having a blast!!

For a second time in a row I (Spencer) am contributing to the family blog.  So, once again forgive the lack of charm that Mardee normally brings to the site.

I'm home alone for a couple weeks as I just left Mardee and the girls out in UT. Abby (our new dog) has been my loyal companion in the meantime. She's a great dog and is perfect for the kids (more on that later).  I have been amazed at how fast my memories fade so I thought I would try to capture some snapshots of my girls' personalities.

Mardee
I wasn't going to include Mardee here, but in mentioning our UT vacation it deserves mention what a fantastic job Mardee did preparing for the 2 day car ride out there. I got back from Scout camp the night before we left and was exhausted.  I was impressed with Mardee's efforts for the trip. She had a treasure box and a box full of treats portioned out in little ziplock bags, as well as carrots and other healthy food. She had printed up some fake money and a menu and as we got started on the trip, she explained to the girls that for every 30 minutes of good behavior they would get a dollar, and they could earn money by doing workbooks, reading, etc. They could then use those to buy treats, toys, movies, etc. Cadence caught on to the program right away, and would ask for carrots and other things so she could earn money faster. Campbell didn't really care about the dollars, but would do what she needed to in order to keep a steady flow of sugar flowing into her system. And Layla was mostly happy as long as there was something to look at or play with and others were happy (she really liked her cookie sheet and alphabet magnets that Mardee gave all the girls). I was really not looking forward to the overall week and half-viewed it as my "sacrificial vacation time" with half of the week going towards scout camp (where leaders walk around making sure kids are where they are supposed to be each day) and 2 days of what I imagined to be screaming kids in the car. In the end I had a great time in the car with the kids and am looking forward to the trip back in a couple weeks. Well done Mardee! (BTW - Scout camp was a good time too).

Cadence
Cadence is perhaps too smart for her own good at times as she has a hard time being a kid and not being in charge. She has a lot of ingenuity and uses it to get what she wants. It will make her very successful down the road, but will make her mother age at twice the normal rate until Cadence grows up.

Silver tights: Case in point: About a month ago Mardee was sick, so I took all three kids to church. I was totally outgunned. In getting Cadence ready, she really wanted to wear these silver tights with pink hearts on them that completely clashed with her dress. I insisted she wear white tights. After arguing about it for a couple minutes Cadence walked off and then came back saying she changed and wearing the white tights. Once we parked the car at Church and started unbuckling the little kids, Cadence jumped up from the back of the car and was laughing with the smug pride of having gotten what she wanted. She proudly showed me that she had stripped off her white tights and had the silver tights underneath! She thought I would think it was hilarious to be tricked like that (I did, but I couldn't show it). She then got in trouble for not being honest.

Fire: On Mother's Day Cadence earned her keep in the family. As usual, she wanted to be very involved in the preparations for the day's celebrations, and that included being a part of the meal preparation. I was cooking a pork loin and hobo Joe's in the fire pit in the backyard, and she was hovering around trying to do anything she could her way to help. I appreciated the company. At one point while the food was in the fire I had to go inside to work on something else for the meal and Cadence was in the backyard herself. About 4-5 minutes later Cadence ran to mom and said, "Mom! The fire is somewhere it should not be!" Mardee mentioned that to me and I bolted for the backyard to see three foot flames shooting out from under all sides of the firepit (the extra wood had caught on fire). It was huge! I sprinted to the hose and hooked it up and within 30 seconds had things under control. If Cadence hadn't brought that to our attention, the fire surely would have spread.

Campbell
Campbell's major achievement of late is potty training. She's not fully there yet as she has accidents frequently, but she gets there more often than not. Right before we started potty training her we had a hilarious experience as she had walked into the playroom, took off her diaper and pooped on it, walked downstairs and then came walking into the kitchen holding it in her hand and proudly declared "Luk edy-body, its a my poop!" as half of the log started to detatch and was about to fall. Mardee screamed and dove for it to catch it with her hands, only to pull away as she realized she really didn't want the poop in her hands.

As Campbell began pottytraining she was very good with #1, but was completely freaked out about #2 in the potty. She got stage fright every time she tried. She did go once (and left me a very cute phone message announcing her accomplishment), but then didn't go for a long time. One evening I walked into the bathroom to find her sitting on the toilet grinning. She was very excited to tell me "I go poo-poo in da potty!". Just as I was about to make a big deal about it and cheer (as this was a major accomplishment for her - her first time doing it on her own), I noticed her hair was wet, but only in the front three inches or so. The reaction she got from her announcement was a very odd blend of extreme praise and dismay rolled into one "That's VERY Good! but did you DUNK your HEAD in the TOILET! WE DON'T DO THAT! IT's BAD! but VERY GOOD with the poo-poo!" Apparently my bipolar reaction worked on both fronts as she is much better at #2 (although not perfect), and I haven't caught her giving herself a swirley since then.

Layla

Layla is a ball of goodness. She is very social, very happy, handles being pushed around or climbed on by her sisters very well, and shamelessly in love with dogs. She gets so excited around them and hugs them tight, pokes their eyes, and for some reason loves to stick her hand in their mouths. We adopted a 9 year old dachsund named "Mr. Peabody" who had not grown up around kids, had a skin infection which made him stink, and loved Mardee deeper than any creature ever has (and would whine, and howl when he couldn't be by her side). Other than those issues, Mr. Peabody was a great dog. Layla could not keep away though, and was too big to hug him without him feeling overwhelmed. He bit her twice, so we had to get rid of him. Now we have Abby, a 3 (almost 4) year old staffordshire bull terrier who is as even-tempered around kids and loving of them as any dog I've seen. Abby is much tougher than Mr. Peabody, so Layla will freqently lie on her in her bed, hugging Abby, or while watching TV. She is so genuinely happy with her.

Layla is also unconditionally happy in water. Baths and pools send her into delirium. She loves to whip her head back and dunk it in the water, so she can be a handful to hold while you are keeping an eye on all three girls and she keeps trying to break away and drown herself. BTW - Cadence has started doing "flips" into pools. She runs, jumps and tucks and rotates about 3/4 of the way and does a backflop (on her floatie jacket) every time.

In spite of her goodness, no Yin is without its Yang. Layla is a biter. It is really funny when she loses it because she will flip a switch and suddenly go from cheerful to scrunching up her nose, opening her mouth (which doesn't have as many teeth as most 18 month old mouths) and try to headbutt someone teeth first to take a chunk out of them. She is, thankfully, remarkably ineffective and has not managed to cause any real damager. That being said, some kid in nursery was able to land a good bite right on her cheek and she had a purple circle on her cheek for a week.
One last funny thing about Layla is that she hasn't quite grasped the No/Yes dichotomy yet. If you ask her if she wants something that she obviously wants, she will give you a very confident "No." while reaching for it. Mardee will then reply "Say 'Yes'", and Layla retorts "Yes." while still reaching for it. No joke, this has been going on for a solid 2 months now and I have not once heard Layla answer "Yes" when she means "Yes".

Joplin Tornado Disaster Recovery

This is a sabotage post by Spencer about the Joplin Tornado disaster that hit our region a couple weeks ago. I cut this post out of my journal... so forgive me for being lengthy and not having Mardee's wit that probably keeps you reading our family blog. The tornado hit on 5/22, and I was there the weekend of 5/28-29. Here is the post:

I spent two days this weekend (including Mardee's and my 7th Anniversary) in disaster recovery mode up in Joplin, MO (about an hour away) where the most deadly tornado on record struck last Sunday.

The night the tornado struck Joplin, we were at Cameron's birthday party at the Flemming's house. As we started to leave their house around 8PM the tornado sirens went off, and we ran back into their house, turned on the news, and started helping them unload their closet under the stairs in preparation to ride out the tornado. The warning subsided and we rushed home, put the girls to bed in our closet so they would be downstairs in a windowless room if anything happened, and kept watching the storm. I have never seen so much lightening in the sky as it constantly flickered with lights. The wind was roaring but it was from far away. From 11:30-12:30 we had to get our daughters up and sit on the uncomfortably small floor of our laundry room with sleeping girls sprawled all over us. It was exhausting for everyone, and scary when we could hear the hail pelting the side of our house with a lot of force. Not knowing what is going to come next or how severe it will be is a chilling feeling. In the quieter moments, looking around at my wife and three wonderful girls in that tight room was heartwarming as everything that mattered in the world seemed to be right there around me. As long as we were safe, the rest of the house seemed like peanuts. Seeing the devastation that happened in Joplin this weekend made me realize how good we had it. Tuesday was a big tornado scare as the conditions were apparently perfect for an even worse tornado according to the meteorologists. They let us out of work early and by the time I got home, Mardee had all our overnight bags packed up and was ready to follow the Flemmings down to Little Rock to dodge the tornados. In the end we drove all that way, stayed in a crummy hotel, and nothing happened by way of tornado.  It was a fun little midweek adventure anyway.

The stake asked for 200 men to spend Saturday and Sunday up in Joplin to help make damaged homes more liveable. There was an astonishing initial sign up of 256 men, and I think even more than that actually showed up on Saturday. The current count is that about 150 people were killed in the tornado, but being up there and seeing the scope of the devastation is seems like a miracle that only that many died. It was BAD.

Stores, houses, parks, trees, billboards, cars... EVERYTHING was destroyed in the main part of town. Fortunately there were also large areas of the town that were relatively unaffected, but where it was affected, there were roofless stacks of rubble, banged up and frequently upside down cars, and stripped trees (many of them sideways) as far as you could see. At our second house it was apparent that there will be repurcussions for years as the lawn was filled with broken glass from that house and others to the degree that we would never be able to make it safe to walk around barefoot again.  Time and a lot of grass growth is all that you can hope for.

Given the exent of the devastation there is only so much that a group of untrained, soft-handed desk jockeys can do. The Church was impressively organized, having rented out a warehouse and sent disaster relief coordinators and tons of supplies from Salt Lake City. They handed out work orders in the morning and we went out and conquered. Our sweet spot was the houses that were too damaged to live in, but could be liveable with a few fixes. We chainsawed fallen trees to pieces, patched up roofs with tarps, removed debris, and knocked down trees that were damaged from the storm and posed a threat of falling over as a result. It was hard and unglamourous work. The pervasiveness of the debris that was there was amazing.

Here is a picture of our team cutting down a damaged tree (Alan Shipman, Bishop Chandler, Jim Dragovich, Pat Smith, Dan Flemming, Jake Edgington, Allen Stewart, and Jaron Chandler).

Towards the end of our time at this house, the owner came out with wet eyes and mentioned how relieved he was that they finally found his 90+ year old mother. They knew she survived the tornado, but she disappeared shortly after and only found her 6 days later. It was a taste of the confusion and upheaval this tornado brought to these people at a personal level.

One great part of the experience was to see the community rally together in support. In addition to the trucks driving around handing out food and water (many of which were people driving around acting on their own initiative), we were approached by women of the 7th Day Adventist Church down the road and invited to come partake of a warm meal. The 10 of us happily went there in our highlighter yellow "Mormon Helping Hands" shirts and had a delicious vegetarian buffet of homemade dishes. These people were incredibly giving, and it seemed like an extra special gift as it was done on their Sabbath. After we left, they mentioned they were going to leave the door to the church unlocked in case anyone needed to use the bathrooms. Very trusting and good people.

One of the more angering aspects of the trip was hearing the stories about Looters. In two of the houses we went to, looters came after the tornado damaged the houses so severely and made off with their TV's, computers, and stereos.

One thought that really stuck with me on this trip was the talk by the local stake president, who quoted from Matthew where it says "If you have done it unto the least of these... you have done it unto me." We really were able to see some sweet spirits of people we would not normally run in the same circles with. One house was owned by an older (mid 50's) lesbian couple whose house had been ransacked by the storm. The entire house visibly slid on the foundation and there were cracks all around where the ceiling met the walls where you could see how the wind ripped the roof off from most of the house, but then was laid back down on the walls. Windows were all smashed and you could see perfect silouettes on the wall where some object between the wall and the window shielded the wall from the mud that was flying horizontally into the house. These women had a great sense of humor about their destroyed house and cars. As we were walking past their crumpled truck with all our tools she called out "careful not to scratch my truck!" It was impressive to see how much humor they brought to the situation. Only a couple minutes later one of them had a swing the other way and was sobbing on the porch about how much they had lost or someone they had lost, or who knows what.  Humor has an interesting way of helping people rise above their situation for the moment.

The last house we went to was another one of the "least of these" experiences. It was an older man's house who was outside when the storm came and started ripping up trees. He made it inside and dragged the kids into the hallway, threw a mattress on top of them and lied on top of it until the storm passed. It knocked down several trees... one of which fell on his house. As we were cleaning up the debris, I cleaned up a ton of empty beer cans that had been in a bag in his back yard before being strewn everywhere. I had sympathy for what this family had been through but the cues all around led to me categorizing him as "white trash" in my mind. As we were about to leave, he came out to his porch and called us all around and asked if we could pray together before leaving. He offered one of the most sincere and humble prayers I have ever heard. First thanking the Lord that they were all okay, then asking that such devastating calamities not fall on them again, and then saying that if they ever have to go through such a trial again, that they will be blessed with understanding and not be mad at the Lord. I had so much to learn from people who fall into the social categories that are the butts of many jokes. Serving "the least" of my brethren /and sisters was truly a humbling experience.

The second to last house we worked on was the most devastated of the houses. There was a doublewide mobile home in the backyard, a very tall workshop, and 3 SUVs/trucks and a large camping trailer. The doublewide mobile home rolled over the cars... smashing one completely, and the roof and walls blew to pieces while the floor of the home blew way up on top of the roof of the work shop. In the picture below, the green floor on the roof was originally just to the right of this picture before it barrel rolled over the cars (losing the roof and walls) and ended up on the roof of their workshop.  The camper trailer also rolled over and sustained a lot of damage. The roof to the main house was severely damaged in many areas, and completely gone in about a fifth of the area up top. It was quite a sight.

The woman in this house asked me if I wanted to hear a miraculous story, and I said sure. She said some people were driving down the road when the tornado came. They saw the black cloud and left their cars running in the road and tried to run for shelter. They said they saw people waving them over to the side of the house and ran to the side and started banging on the door. About 15 feet from the back door was the tornado shelter in the ground, under a sliding steel door. The people from the house were in there and said they could hear people pounding on their steel door. They slid it open and saw the people at the back door of the house and yelled for them to come over and brought them into their tornado shelter. The people from the cars thanked them for waving them over from the road, and they said they had been in the shelter the whole time. When the family that had been in the shelter mentioned that they were glad the others banged on the shelter door so they could hear them, they mentioned they had been at the door the whole time. She attributes the people waving those coming from the road over to their house, and the banging on their tornado shelter door to angels. That just might be so.

Probably the craziest story I heard was from a woman we gave supplies to on our way back to the tent city on the first day. She said that there were 10 in their family in the area and was grateful they all were okay. Her middle-aged daughter jumped in the car when they heard about the tornado watch and ran to grab something before the storm came. 7 minutes after the watch was issued, the tornado came and started to lift her car. She floored it and zipped around a bank drive through, where she rode out the storm for about 2 minutes while the tornado passed through. Once it passed, the neighborhood was a different place. She went to a house that was reduced to rubble and found a pregnant woman. She pulled her from the rubble and found she was dead. She then looked down the road and saw a man lying face down in a pool of water. She ran and flipped him over. He had been unconcious in the water and was drowning. She saved him. She then heard screams and ran to another house were 5 kids were trapped under a refrigerator. She moved the fridge and got them free. It is amazing how suddenly everything turned into a nightmare, and the heroism that every day citizens displayed when faced with that.

Another inspirational character was Ryan (from Littleton, CO). He is a 20 year old LDS boy who jumped in his car and started driving over after he found out that there were people from the church organizing a help effort. He drove by himself through the night and got there with nothing planned out. I met him by the showers and he asked how he could get on a team. I told him to join ours. That boy could work too. At the end of Sunday when our team was leaving he went to the coordinators from SLC and started asking if there was any other thing he could do to help and if he could keep his little tent on the property after everyone else left so he could be there and find more ways to help. I thought missing my anniversary was a sacrifice, but it was nothing to this guy.

Here are some other pictures that show the devastation to the city.

That tall building is the hospital.  The windows were all broken and several patients and medical equipment were thrown around through the halls of the building.

This is just one of many houses in a neighborhood that was severly desimated by the storm.  This is an average house in this area.

too many things to say!

So I'll say it in bullet points:

• We didn't really want to spend another night in the laundry room (and I didn't really think our laundry room would be still standing) last week when the warnings came for more crazy tornadoes, so we hit the road and ran to Little Rock, where we stayed in a crappy hotel with soft beds, and had a good time!

Somewhere between here and Little Rock.  This is not a lake.  Can you see how it is actually a frontage road and a field?

• Cadence graduated preschool on Friday.  Can you believe she is going off to Kindergarten in the fall?  She was a head shorter than the kids standing next to her, and definitely the shortest kid of all.  Just like any performance, she looked in any direction but where the crowd was.  She sort of sang and mostly just kept her head turned toward her friend, Kami.  It was still really sweet!  So proud of her.  She is smart as a whip and loves to learn.
• Her teacher, Miss Becca, told each child's answer to the question "what do you want to do when you grow up?"  Cadence's: "Wear make up" and "Not be a mom--they work too much".
• Friday night Spencer and I went on a date to celebrate our 7th anniversary!  Normally I turn away from and denounce unnecessarily scantilly clad women, or swearing, or men grunting.  But if those things are in the context of fast cars with Vin Diesel, then I welcome them!!  I have to say that Fast 5 was AWESOME!   And Spencer agrees.  There.  We shouldn't be admitting this.  But it was a very fun date :)
• The next morning was our anniversary, and I awoke to a romantic kiss good-bye at 4:50 in the morning, as Spencer ran out the door to answer the call, along with nearly 300 other men in our stake, to help the people of Joplin, Mo. (F5 tornado, less than an hour away) (He assures me his blog post on this experience is coming soon.)  I don't need to even describe this picture below, right?
• Since women were specifically told not to come, I was glad that my contribution could be to support my husband in his service and hold down the fort here with the kids, while also preparing to sub for a couple of the Sunday School teachers.  We went to the Farmer's Market and the Bville Splash Park (with Alyssa's help, thank you!) and enjoyed seeing several other friends who's men were away in Joplin wearing the yellow "Mormon Helping Hands" tee's.
• After the Splash Park, I loaded the kids in the car and we drove to Oklahoma to get a new dog.  Yup, we did!  If you hadn't heard, Mr. Peabody had to move along.  We loved him, really.  But he bit Layla, a pretty good one.  And Layla didn't learn her lesson, and we knew it was going to keep happening.  So we found a new home for him.  He's so happy! It's the perfect place for him.  And then we met and fell in love with Abby.  She's great.  I'll post more on her later. 
• The rest of the day was a little crazy and I had to call in reinforcements in the evening (Thank you, Erin!).  Never bring a new dog home and a potty training two year old when you are all out of paper towels.
• I spent that night preparing a Sunday School lesson for a combined class of 15-year-olds. I was pleased with how I imagined my scripture-dense discussion entitled "Wo Unto You..Hypocrites" was going to enlighten and broaden these teenager's understanding of Christ and our responsibility to be pure in heart.  I went to bed late, but slept well, not fearing intruders, since I now have a dog.
• Church was a mad-house.  Well, it always is, for us.  But with many of the dads being gone, it was a little louder than usual.  I sat behind Tara, who somehow could handle having Cadence, and enlisted a beloved babysitter to come sit with us to help.
• Sunday school started and I handed Layla off to the nursery (finally!!!) to go for the first time by herself, and off I went to teach.  Then some confusion ensued regarding who's class needed substituting, and I ended up in a classroom with 3 nine-year-old boys!  My lesson was NOT geared for them.  But we did it.  Somehow.  And I enjoyed it, somehow :)
• After church we rushed home to get ready for dinner with the missionaries, and Spencer got home 30 minutes before them, with pictures and stories to share.  I was really glad he got back in time!
• The next morning was Memorial Day.  We were really lucky to have that day to spend together, since the rest of the weekend we hardly saw eachother.   We decided last minute that it was the perfect day to blow up the kiddie pool and pull out the baby grill and invite a few families over.  The house was a mess, no groceries had been bought, and we didn't know who was going to be around and who wasn't, but we went for it!  It turned out perfectly, and we hope to have several more days like that day ahead.  We wished we could have invited more friends, but on such late notice, we really didn't have a chance or the means. Note spencer's grillin' set up below.  That night he mentioned to me that it might be time to upgrade to a larger grill. Much discussion is had among some young girls around here regarding who this young man will marry.  I try to remind Cadence that no decision has to be made just yet, but it is still right at the top of her mind.

Above, Cadence jumps from the swing into the pool-- what a feat!

• Later that day we went to see Kung Fu Panda 2, which was funny (although I thought it had a lot of implied violence).
• Oh my, I'm exhausted just thinking about it.....   aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh what a weekend!