Summer

I don't know about your family, but for my family, summer is always so busy.... I don't get a chance to post much. So here is a quick re-cap of our summer this far.

1. We went as a family to the Zoo... It was fun. They have this dinosaur thing going on there right now, and lets just say Camden isn't a fan of the T-Rex (it roared in his face and he was about all done with the zoo after that). We took advantage of the carousal ride there - the kids love Love LOVED it! I took lots of pictures of this family outing, but I haven't yet had time to put them on the computer thus no pictures of the event. We also went on that train ride they have at the zoo. I seriously had no idea about all that stuff you see when you go on it... So cool. The bird show kinda freaked Camden out too. I guess that the birds got a little too close for his comfort. We had a blast despite the lack of the bear exhibits, etc. which is all under construction right now and the serious heat we had to endure...

2. Around the 4th of July Rob was asked if he could drive a local charter school's band through the West Bountiful parade. Camden and I joined him but we let Maysie go with her cousin's to just watch the parade because she wanted to catch some candy. Camden was such a ham, and waved to all the spectators when he wasn't chowing down on his bottle or helping Rob drive. :) Since we had to get up early we let Maysie have a sleep-over with her cousins at Grandma Leona's house. It was her very first sleep over away from mom and dad where it wasn't at our house. My little girl is all grown up - sniff. Maysie had a blast and didn't miss us at all but Rob on the other hand had a harder time and called over there like 5 times. :) LOL.

3. On of my Father-In-Law's wives - Joyce found out she has lung cancer and even though they didn't want the expected life expectancy from the Dr.'s we know it isn't too great because they said that with even doing chemo it would only pro-long her life by a couple of weeks.... Rob has been kinda shook up about it since he has lived almost half his life with Joyce working on the ranches instead of in the city with his mom while he was growing up. When she first found out, she had a bad case of pneumonia on top of it all and so alot of the family took turns being with her 24/7. My sister-in-law Bec, came up to help so I watched her girls for her. Maysie had so much fun with Ambree and Brooklynn and I think the kids liked being over here too since their is actually toys to play with and a yard they can really play in. Luckily, Joyce is doing a little bit better now and doesn't require as much help now which has lifted every one's spirits some.

4. We finally go around to repairing our deck - a job that Rob has put off for the last 3 or 4 years. We had a section of the bottom level on our deck that was rotting so we had to tear it apart and replace the bad with some good wood and then we had to refinish it. It took Rob 2 days to fix it and then basically another 2 days to paint this stuff on it that is basically like a Rhino coating on it (it is supposed to last 3 times longer than just regular stain) now all we have to do is stain all the railing which should be done this next week.

5. We decided that our yard is too small for the kids and we need someplace they can really play besides the driveway so we decided to rip out our garden so we can put a swing set up in it's place. Last week we ripped out all the garden boxes and took out 3 truck loads of cobble stone now all we have to do is level the raised soil for the boxes and put some plastic down to prevent the weeds and decide which ground cover is going to work the best for us. We have a swing set all picked out - we just need to get it but of course we have to finish getting the spot ready for it first. We should have it done by the end of summer for sure! Yea!

6. We went to the Days of 47 Rodeo this last Thursday. We used to always go when we first got married but then we haven't been able to go the last couple of years because Rob has always had to work- bummer. We just got the cheap tickets which of course puts us in the nose-bleed section, but it was still a lot of fun. Camden wasn't a huge fan of all the noise at first and would have laugh and half cry but he got into it by the end. He even managed to flirt a lot with the teenage girls that was sitting right behind us. :) Maysie like the horses and cows but she kinda got board off and on. (Apparently she is not much of a country girl yet) The tradition of this rodeo is that at the very end after the bull riding event then they have these motor cross people come out and show off these crazy jumps and stuff Maysie's response was that they were scary - umm yeah, I could see that considering the fact that they were doing flips in the air as they are jumping X amount of feet at the same time. Camden on the other hand thought they were the coolest thing ever. I have a feeling that in the future, I will have to exercise me mommy powers and not allow him to participate in such activities as motor cross much to his disappointment.

7. We went to Rob's uncles house last night to watch the Bountiful Handcart Day's parade. I love how we have family that live on all the different parade routes in this area because we get to park right next to where we watch the parades at instead of walking blocks. The big tradition is that after the parade (which starts at 6:00 at night) we have a big BBQ in the back yard of his uncles house so we don't have to fight traffic and such. It was yummy, and Maysie loves playing with all of Rob's cousins kids (there is like 5 of them that are all around her age). This year we ended up just watching the big firework show from there house too. Normally we go over to a church parking lot that is a few buildings away from the school where they light them at so we are real close but we don't have to mess too much with the mob of people and traffic before and after the fireworks. It was ok watching them there, but I would much prefer to go back to our regular place because nothing beats the feel like the fireworks are right on top of you. Plus it is kinda weird to have the delay of the boom all the time since it takes a minute for the sound to echo off the mountain.... It's just not the same.

That has basically been the adventures of the Stowell family so far this summer. We have many more things planed and it seems like we wont really catch a breath until maybe September sometime...

"Baby Bird"

The kids and I spent most of the afternoon over at my Mother-in-Law's house for a family 4th of July dinner celebration thing... When we got there, a few of my nieces were outside gathered in a circle around the apple tree. Apparently a little baby bird fell out of it's nest and into the grass below it. One of my sister-in-laws, got something to scoop the little bird up and placed it back into it's nest. A few hours later, the kids ran back inside exclaiming that another baby bird fell out of the nest. The kids have come to the conclusion that there was a hole in the nest.... although we never could find it. ---- strange --- Anyways, after a half an hour or so, this little baby bird went to live in Heaven again. This of course is so tragic to the lot of little girls that were there with the oldest one being 10 or 11. So they decided that this little guy needed a proper burial and in order to do that, it needed a funeral. So, they found a box and put the bird in it, then they dug a hole in the ground and got some Popsicle sticks to make a cross to mark this little section of land in memory of this little bird. (At first they wrote "DEAD BIRD" across the Popsicle stick, then they decided that this little creature needed a name, but the only thing they could all agree upon was "Baby Bird". -So this is what was written on the new Popsicle stick they found. So very appropriate for a little bird, I know. :) ) After like an hour of practicing the funeral, (ok, I may be exaggeration a little bit - but it was quite a while) they gathered all those who wanted to mourn with them to gather around the final resting place of "Baby Bird" to attend a funeral like no other. Luckily, my sister-in-law videoed this for future reference so we can all look back and have a good laugh which of course, would be years from now. I so need a copy of this for our record too. :) They opened with prayer, then each child said their remarks about the life of this bird (Coincidentally, it was all the exact same story, it just came out in a different voice as it went to person to person.) Even Maysie participated in this funeral - she was just so quite I couldn't quite tell what she was saying. Once all the kids said something, then they made all of us adult mourners say our 2 cents too. Ummm, what are we supposed to say that hadn't already been said. Luckily, we were able to inform them that Heavenly Father loved this bird so much that He needed to be back in Heaven with him - that seemed to lift the spirits of the girls some. :) And way to bear our testimonies about the plan of salvation with our children! The older girls of course were very serious about the whole thing and the little ones (Well Maysie and Brooklynn who are both 3) wanted to participate but didn't fully understand what was going on but the sensed the mood so they tried to be all serious too but ended up laughing 50% of the time. This of course made it extremely hard for us grown ups to keep a strait and serious face too. My niece Brooklynn is quite the character and would get all dramatic and say thing like she was going to cry cuz the bird was dead, and the mommy bird needed to cry too but couldn't cuz it was a bird.... etc. Then Maysie would say she needed to cry just because Brooklynn said it (they are 2 peas in a pod- them too). Maysie unfortunately wasn't quite so dramatic at it but I think it was because we had the video camera capturing the whole thing; she is a little camera shy. :) After all the condolences were said, then those who wanted too, could sing a song. Brooklynn, piped up a beautiful rendition of the exact eulogy she had previously given in a sing-song voice. Then Ambree (She is 7) did her own rendition about the little birdie who went to Heaven. Then the only other person who was brave enough to sing was Maysie, but of course, she sang in a whisper and we couldn't tell exactly what she said, but she did say something because we all could see her mouth moving. Then after a short argument of who should say the closing prayer we had a quick moment of silence in memory of "Baby Bird" and then the closing prayer was given. The whole thing lasted like 22 minutes! Seriously, it was like the cutest thing ever but by golly, I don't' think I have laughed that hard in a long time. We were watching it back once we went back inside, and I was laughing so hard I had tears in the corners of my eyes. (We could actually laugh out loud with out getting "the Look" from the girls) In all do respect, I am so proud of the love and care that these kids took part of for this little baby bird, and I know that Heavenly Father is so proud of their sincerity and compassion to one of his many creations - even if He had tears in His eyes from laughing at all their cuteness too. So with much ado- RIP "Baby Bird"!