Hi all,

Here's the latest from Arizona. 
Sunday 6 July 2008
Fourth of July week meant a nice, short week.  It's too bad every weekend can't be 3 days long. 

Friday Rachel took the girls to Target to buy clothes for a Stake service project.  Troy stayed home and tried to keep Zach out of trouble, which is easier said than done.  We met Martin, Ann, Bob and Sarah Z. at our favorite Carls Jr. with a playground for dinner.

Later that night we went down to the local park with Nate and family and Julie Gist and Jared to watch the fireworks.  The show was scheduled to shoot from the Gilbert town party at Mesquite High School.  Rachel bought 12 packs of glowing necklaces and bracelets at the dollar store for the event.  Once we got there, we started handing them out to our kids.  Suddenly there was a swarm of kids asking for handouts for themselves and their cousins and their brothers, etc…  Next year I think we'll setup a stand and sell some for 4x what we bought them for to recoup our expenses.

The kids had a good time running around the park and watching the fireworks.  Fortunately a bit of a Thunderstorm was blowing nearby and blew some slightly cooler air in.  The daytime high was 113, so it would have been over 100 at 9:30 show time.  The storm cooled it down to around 95.  Still hot, but bearable.

Saturday was spent picking and slicing apples from our apple tree.  There were still more to go on Sunday.  Troy took the girls over to a friends pool for a couple hours.  Troy and Rachel had date night out while uncle Bobby watched the kids. 

The holiday weekend also meant that there were not many people in church.  We were working with a skeleton crew.  Troy even had to sit up on the stand because the Bishop and his second counselor were both out.  Zach came up to visit him during the last testimony, but stayed quiet, and then went back down for the closing song.  Katie forgot that she had to give a talk in church until this morning, so we made her write it during Sacrament meetings.  Teaching her important life skills like that is one is what we get paid to do as parents.  She did a good job

This week instead of swimming classes, the kids went to a city-sponsored summer rec class every morning.  Due to the short, holiday week, the class had fewer than normal attendees.  Far from being a bad thing, this meant they got to do a few extra crafts and games. 

Zach's word of the week is Diego, which he says more like "Hego".   He has added "my turn" and "my seat" as well.  He tried to tell me a couple extended stories this week, but I had no idea what he was trying to say, and I didn't have Claire there to make up a translation for me. 

Next week is swim class again and preparation for our trip to Idaho for vacation.  Take care until next time.

Week of June 15-29, 2008

Week of Sunday June 15-Sunday, June 29...whoops. Looks like we missed a week's update there. So we'll combine all of the good stuff for you into one upate.

The girls were completely fed up with what a lame summer vacation they were having by the week of June 15. Katie was not shy in letting Rachel know just how boring her life was. Fortunately, Aunt Tana saved the day and invited the three girls over for a sleepover at her house. Rachel drove them over about 4 pm (after the girls piano lessons). She dropped them off and after letting Zach and Haydn play for a while took off. Zach was most displeased with the fact that he had to leave and the girls had to stay. Rachel came home where she and Troy had a quiet evening with only one child that goes to bed easily at 9pm. The morning was equally as calm, then Rachel went to get the girls at lunchtime. She ended up hanging out til almost 5pm but helped Tana come up with new designs for her house. Rachel will open an interior design business along with her "life coach" business and t-shirt business as soon as she stops committing to other things such motherhood, accounting and church. Yeah. The rest of the week was ordinary. Rachel took the kids to Target to wander around for a couple hours on one day.

The week of June 22 began bright and early as Rachel had found a swim teacher and signed Claire and Emma up for swim lessons. Monday she left Zach home with Katie as babysitter (for one hour) as she took the 2 other girls. She wasn't sure how things were going to be set up or how crowded the community pool the lady was teaching at would be. Turns out...Claire had one other kid in her class and Emma had private lessons due to the other student's cold. So since it was so laid back, Rachel ventured into the world of swimming with four kids the rest of the week. They all did well and came home and vegged out in front of the tv for the rest of the mornings. We discovered a few things by this latest adventure... (1) Emma appears to be a natural swimmer. According to her teacher, Emma has great coordination for a beginner and can already streak through the water quite nicely, when she's not sucking down water by taking a breath before she pulls her head all the way out of the water. (2) Zach's not big on deep water. We kinda knew this, hence the hesitation on bringing him, but we put a vest on him and he and Rachel hung out on the steps. By about Wednesday he let Rachel pull him out a bit and "float" but by Thursday he was back on his step where he was most happy. (3) Girls have to ALWAYS go to the bathroom at the pool with no bathroom even if they have gone twice before leaving 30 minutes earlier for swim classes. (4) Emma TANS! Who knew? Claire burns. Katie doesn't absorb much color at all. Zach tans like a California surfer and his hair is blonder. Dude... And lastly (5) When a sunscreen says it's "Rub-Proof" don't believe it.

That weekend (27th & 28th) was the Annual Ray 1st Ward Campout. This year the Elders' Quorum (nee Troy) was in charge. We ended up renting a big group campsite just outside Payson. It had a big ramada, picnic tables, toilets and running water. The EQ planned a fun program for Friday night and provided breakie and lunch the next day. The event was a big success and everyone had a good time. There was a creek nearby and some crawdads were caught and cooked and consumed. No word yet on if anyone suffered from that fun.... The girls all had fun at the creek. Claire came back completely drenched explaining, "Sorry, mom, I falled in...six or seven times." It was a good thing I brought 3 pairs of shoes and about 10 pairs of socks for the overnight event. Heavy sigh. Troy was busy being in charge so I had to follow Zach around and keep him from getting into too much trouble. So it wasn't much different from my normal everyday life for me except it was about 20 degrees cooler. There were 10 minutes of panic when we lost Claire and her friend up on the mountainside. About 6 people immediatley fanned out and started looking. It was a good thing I made Claire wear her bright pink Strawberry Shortcake hat because that's what caught the eye of the lady that found the pair. It turns out that Claire had followed the younger girl because she was afraid she'd get lost and kept trying to get the girl to turn and go back down (we had told our girls if they got lost to just head downhill as all the campsites were at the bottom of this valley.) By the time Claire convinced her friend to come back Claire knew she was lost. The other girl had no idea what was going on, but when we found them and I picked Claire up she was really frightened. I was so grateful Heavenly Father heard our prayers and we found them so quickly. Within the hour Claire was doing what Claires do best and driving me insane, but I remembered that feeling of thinking she was gone and I got over it easier. Oh, the lessons we are forced to learn the hard way, eh? Overall it was a fun campout and we even got to stop at Denny's on the way home to eat, which made it officially "THE BEST CAMPOUT EVER" according to Katie, Emma and Claire.

Zach is checking out the crawdads caught in the creek.

Troy's frantically trying to get work done before we head out for Boise in a couple of weeks. He took the manager job but was told that there's no extra cash for the extra work. Bummer. Although he will be reevaluated in March during his normal pay revue. It's probably for the best. Usually the higher paid managers seem to get the boot when times get tough and Intel tightens its belt. At least this way maybe Troy will lose just the title and not the job if another round of layoffs happen.

Stay tuned for next weeks' exciting events and see if Katie's "Insanely Boring Summer Vacation" improves....