Our little girl

Today I was feeling like I needed to "timeline" Mckinley. Sometimes, it feels like she changes so much everyday, and I just want to hold on to little things that she says or does and always remember them. There are so many of these little things that I've already forgotten because I haven't been very diligent in writing them down. So starting today, I will do better.
Everywhere we go, Mckinley takes her shoes off. We notice this especially when she goes to nursery. I always go back to check on her a few minutes after we take her, and it's always the first thing she does.
The past couple of weeks, she loves watching Cinderella. She has also started to sing some of the songs especially the "A dream is a wish...." song. She sings it in the bathtub, and when she is done singing all that she knows she says "oh that clock," like Cinderella says in the movie.
She loves Dragontales and Word world.
She adores Scooby and he is her best playmate during the day. She involves him in everything that she does, (Including dressing him up like a princess.) and she also frequently gets him in trouble.(A while ago she told him to come inside and watch a movie with her, which he did although he knows he isn't allowed in the house.)
The school bus stops in front of our house to pick up the neighbor kids every school day, and Mckinley is always up waiting at the window to see "the friends and the school bus."
Her current favorite food is sour cream...just plain. Disgusting huh? She says it's ice cream. David and I seriously convulse when she eats big bites of it, but she really loves it.
She loves going to "Donalds" with Grandpa.
Whenever she sees a water fountain, she asks for a penny to make a wish. She always closes her eyes and throws the penny in the water.
Whenever we go anywhere in the car, she has to haul several toys with her. She can't bear to leave her babies behind.

We love you so much Mckinley! You are our Angel!

The trip with my seven brothers

No, this is not a real accident. We did this on purpose! I am a recruit with Cedar Fire Department and a couple weeks ago I went to summer fire school with 7 other recruits from my class. It was held in Provo, so you can imagine how busy I was trying to keep 7 firefighters out of jail in Utah County.(Busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.) We had a lot of fun, although I must say that any time you put 7 men together, they all turn into 14 year olds with a drivers license...(Sorry guys, but you know it's true.)
I was in the extrication class and really learned a lot especially about stabilizing a vehicle after a car accident. (it is a lot more difficult and dangerous than I ever thought to get patients out of seriously damaged cars.) But the exciting thing was that I was able to effectively do it! There are a lot of things that I am nowhere near as proficient in doing because I don't have the body strength that a man has. The extrication tools are about 50 pounds each and they are hydraulic tools, some of which have the capabilities of spreading or cutting 350000 pounds of pressure. (So that really makes up the difference in my wimpiness.)
Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and I also realized how lucky my department is to have the up to date tools and training opportunities that we have.

So Long Sweet Summer

We have a firepit. We bought it last year as soon as we moved in to our house. I had all these visions of inviting people over to just chill around it and talk the night away. But we never used it last year. It stayed in it's box because David was gone most of the summer last year, and I didn't feel like having people over with him gone.
Anyway, the other night we used it to cook s'mores. It was fun to cuddle around it with McKinley and look up at stars and eat summers favorite dessert. (We put ice cream on top!) We still have a bunch of wood and plenty of chocolate, mallows, and graham crackers,(As well as Ice cream.) so if anybody is feeling like they need to enjoy one last summer treat, we're open for business.

Primary = crazy

David and I are primary teachers, and we have been since we have been married.(and I have been in primary since I graduated from high school.) We have always loved it because we have been able to hang out with really cute kids who seem to be still unspoiled by the less than desirable things of the world. For some reason, we have always taught the five year olds, who I fondly call the "CTR Superstars." In our class now, we have 8 five year olds, (although, we have had as many as 14!) Each of them have very unique personalities, and the more we pack into our classroom, the harder they are to control. There have been times when they have literally been bouncing off the walls!
Anyway, today in our class we were talking about obeying laws. Quite an important topic, and one that most of the members of our class are a little confused about. We are the type of teacher that tries to uphold the "there are no wrong answers in our primary class, " rule. So we were talking about stealing when all of a sudden one of our kids burst out with " I am so DAMNED!" After he said the D word, I think the quietest moment our class has ever experienced happened. David and I just looked at him and tried not to laugh. But we couldn't do it, and everything just went downhill from there. We have a long standing joke that as soon as we are ready to be released we are just going to teach the kids the F word one day. (Which will never happen, of course, but we think it's funny to laugh about.) The reason he was so damned he said was because he had stolen candy from the store. We ended up letting the kids out a few minutes early because we figured we were less than prepared to teach the class today. That's what I get for "winging" the lesson.

TV addict

Haven't the Olympics been awesome? I rarely watch TV, but I can't seem to turn off the amazing things that athletes are doing in China. Last night, we stayed up til midnight (McKinley included) watching mens gymnastics. As we were watching, David was kindly giving me a back massage. However, I left the room for five minutes and this is what I came back to:

I don't know how I feel about having competition for David's massage attention. This is just more proof that she has her daddy wrapped around her finger.

The Last Lecture

I don't usually do any type of book reviews on my blog because I am usually behind the curve and everyone has already read the books I finally finish. But, I just wanted to sing some praise for the book The Last Lecture. If you haven't read it, it is fabulous and you should. The man who wrote the book, Randy Paush, was a terminal cancer patient who was also a professor at Carnegie Mellon (he just died about two weeks ago). After finding out that his chemotherapy treatments had failed and that he had just a few months to live, he decided to give a final lecture about the things that he felt were important. The book is a beautiful legacy for his kids, who are too young to understand the things that he wanted them to know before he died.
It's such a great book, well written and very entertaining. Read it and tell me what you think.

You can also watch the full Last Lecture on you tube or on Oprahs web site.

Camping Extravaganza 2008

Last weekend we went camping! We only do it once a year now that we have McKinley so we have to make sure that we load up everything that we own that could possibly be associated with camping, throw it in the Xterra and hope that we have enough room for people to also attend the occasion. This time was no different. The car was full to the top with camp chairs, air mattresses, blankets, sleeping bags, David even fashioned a little oven in the back where we put our dutch oven enchiladas,(our traditional camping cuizine.)
We were invited on this camp out by JJ and Valeena. It was such a fun time. Valeena's family was visiting and they had gone up to the campground earlier in the day so that by the time we got there, alot of things were already set up and we only had to worry about our own tent.
As incident commander, I ordered David to set up our tent and prepare our bedding. David always lets me be the one in charge and it makes me feel important, although, I would be sleeping under the stars if I had to set up the tent.
After everything was set up, we ate dinner. Enchiladas and the best hamburgers I have ever had. (JJ eats hamburgers with a hotdog cut up on it, and it's actually surprizingly good. He calls it a Woody burger.) We didn't forget the s'mores either.
Last year, when we went camping, we brought a story book to read to McKinley, because I always remember reading stories when we went camping. This time we also brought a book, and it was such a hit with Jesse that I think he would have stayed up all night reading it. He was so cute and he made me want to have a little boy of my own.(Until then, thanks for letting us borrow your boys JJ and Valeena!)
In the morning, before breakfast, we went on a walk with McKinley in the stroller. There is a trail close to the campground called the Virgin River Rim Trail, which is like 32 miles long that leads to who knows where. We just hiked around for a while on it and it was a really beautiful trail. There are gorgeous views of Navajo Lake and the whole trail is shaded by pine trees and aspen. It started to rain a little bit while we were walking but we were covered enough by trees that we didn't get wet. We just got to enjoy the clean mountain rain smell.
We had to leave early to get back for a wedding but the rest of the crew went fishing and stuck around for some more fun.
This was the best of two camping trips we have taken with McKinley because she slept this time! Once she fell asleep, she slept the whole night. We never heard a peep from her. She also really loved playing with Jesse and Elijah. We had so much fun! Thanks for letting us come JJ and Valeena(and family.)




These two boys are soo cute!!! Elijah and Jesse in their camping chairs.





Mckinley was crying for a little bit because she got hit in the head with a pebble. Just one of several camping casualties.