June 25, 2012

Week in the Heat
Dad took the Varsity Scouts to Moab for the first week in June. While he was gone I decided to take the kids to Grandpa and Grandma Dicks house in Arizona. We squeezed into our little Honda (which saved us probably $150 in gas) - it really wasn't too crowded at all. Aunt Jenny and her kids were there too, so all the kids had a great time playing with cousins. We did a LOT of swimming (twice every single day we were there - probably at least 15 hours of swimming). I decided not to put the kids in swim lessons this year, so I was hoping our trip to Grandma's house would help them all get a little more comfortable in the water. Megan remembered how to swim under water and also learned how to tread water and doggy paddle. She is our most hesitant child in water. She likes to swim, but she gets tired of it after a while and goes inside (while the other kids will stay out there all day long if you let them). She got pretty brave by the end of the week - trying to swim across the pool before I was even out in the water with her. She got the hang of it.
We also took a fun day trip to an indoor amusement park. It was great - small enough to be able to stand up and look around and be able to see all the kids, but big enough to have several different rides that were fun for the age of the kiddos. The very first thing the kids did was run to the little carnival coaster ride, which was actually pretty fast for an indoor ride. It's one of those rides that goes around in a circle faster and faster and faster. Megan got on and just laughed and laughed the entire time. There was a couple of other times throughout the day that I would find her over at the coaster all by herself riding it.

June 23, 2012

Caelan and Ben slept on the trampoline one night. Nathan attempted it but came inside about 30 minutes later because he was too scared (Megan was too nervous to even try it). He and Megan wanted to sleep together. I thought they had gone up to Megan's room so I went to check on them before I went to bed, but they weren't there. I glanced into the boys room and this is what I saw:

June 17, 2012

This is the story of when Megan went deaf. The week before Dad went to Scout Camp Megan came into our bed one night and was thrashing around a little in bed (this is something she does when she has an earache, but I didn't want to ask her about it because I didn't want to bring it up....she struggles a bit when her ear hurts). Anyway she was fine the next day. Later that week I noticed that she wasn't responding when I talked her to sometimes. At first I was thinking she was just getting good at ignoring me, but as the week went on it got worse and worse. Then Dad went to Scout Camp and we were heading to Arizona. The day we left for Arizona was Sunday. In church before we left I looked over and noticed that she had liquid dried near her ear. I thought maybe she had a little drainage and maybe her incident a few nights previous were really some kind of ear infection. She wasn't complaining about anything so we went to Arizona. This week her hearing got worse and worse every day. She literally could not hear me speaking to her in a normal voice from 4 feet away. If she was looking at me she could understand more (I think from watching my lips move), but I pretty much had to start talking in a very elevated voice every time I spoke to her, and we couldn't be too far away. Her ears (both of them) drained the entire time we were there - every day and night. I called the doctor so that we could get in when we got home. We got home on Friday evening. I took her to the doctor on Monday. The hearing thing was really starting to worry me - I read up online and found that this can sometimes occur with ear infections. The doctor told me that yes, both of her ears had been infected and had burst on their own. They didn't look bad anymore, but the hearing loss may last for up to three weeks. During the remainder of that week I noticed a significant improvement and about a week later she was back to normal.

June 11, 2012

Caelan and Megan were both in dance this semester (from January through May). Megan was in a ballet/jazz/tap combo. She loved it. The Spring recital was last weekend. The theme was "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" and they all danced and had costumes that were associated with a fairy tale. Megan danced to the Princess and the Frog (which was perfect for her because they held a little stuffed frog during the dance...and anyone that knows Megan knows how much she LOVES stuffed toys). It was super cute, and I was quite pleased at how conservative the dances and costumes were.

June 9, 2012

This year because Dad had limited time off and he already has to take a week off for Scout camp plus at least another week for our family reunions in the summer we hoped that maybe we could do the Memorial Day trip with Dad's family a little closer to us this year. Anyway after looking at several options Dad's parents found a cabin about 20 miles outside Durango Colorado. None of us had really spent much time there before so this was kind of a fun change. We went to a Gold Mine one day (it's a closed mine, but they have tours - they take you inside the mine in an actual mine train car and then tell you all sorts of stuff inside. When you're done you come out and can pan for gold). It was quite interesting and the kids enjoyed themselves. We found a little hike on the way back to the cabin. On the way back, Megan was tired and sick of walking so Sean let her ride on his shoulders. On Sunday we were in charge of the family devotional. We talked about Lehi's dream - and then we made a little rope course through the trees where each family walked along blind folded. Megan came down with some kind of flu/cold the last day we were there - she was pretty miserable (hot and tired and weak). She slept for a good part of the day, but two days later she was back to her regular self. We love our Memorial Day vacations.

June 1, 2012

Another year of preschool done. This time she actually graduated. She has loved her teachers. In fact, Mr. Chris (who was her teacher all of last year and more than half of this year) moved on and she got a new teacher. One day, just a few days after she told me he wasn't going to be there anymore, I noticed she was crying out of the blue one morning before preschool. I asked her what was wrong and she said she was sad because Mr. Chris wasn't going to be there anymore. This year she has been quite the little singer and dancer during all of the performances they have done. In one of them she had a solo. The class sang "Mary, Mary quite contrary." She was Mary, so she answered their song with her own solo part: "with silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row." It was adorable!! On to Kindergarten for her. Nathan is so excited at the thought of going to "Megan's school" in the Fall.