Camp Neuro Revolution, Girl's Camp, Flooded Bathroom, Red Butte Gardens, Eating Jalapenos

We have had a busy last 10 days since the last blog post.  In trying to catch up here's our happenings:

 

Josh had an awesome chance to attend Camp Neuro Revolution which is a camp for epileptic kids.  We haven't sent Josh before since we were hoping he would outgrow the epilepsy and be able to get off his medication.  Seeing as that didn't happen we thought we would embrace it and send him this year.  I am glad we did.  It was a wonderful experience for him.  It was nice for him to meet other normal 'typical' kids who have epilepsy and see that they can lead normal lives that include an occasional seizure and medication.  I was really nervous to drop him off when the time came, though.  Camp Neuro Revolution took place at the National Ability Center in Park City.  Josh was paired up with a roommate in his room which was fun.  I told Josh to sleep on the bottom bunk for safety reasons (seeing as his last seizure he got his head wedged between the bookshelf and his bed), but as soon as I left he moved all his stuff up to the upper bunk and slept there--crazy kid.  Luckily, he didn't have a seizure while he was there.  Here's Josh sitting on his lower bunk where he was supposed to sleep, but just like a typical tween didn't listen to his mom--the stinker!

 After dropping off his stuff in his room we said our goodbyes.  Josh wasn't nervous at all.  He just hugged us and went off to see where all the action was.  I was really nervous to leave him, but that's just normal for a mom I guess.

 While Josh was gone we had some fun at home.  Our garden has been producing and we have a lot of jalapeno peppers.  Daniel bet Sarah to try some and Sarah bet Daniel to try some.  When I heard that conversation I knew it would probably make a good, entertaining and funny video.  They first both tried two small peppers and since they weren't too hot (because they didn't have any seeds in them) they decided to try two of the big peppers.  Here's their reactions with the big jalapeno peppers:

Daniel tried to stay strong and macho, but in the end the heat got to him and he had to run to get a drink.

 

Wednesday of that week for the young women/young men combined activity we went on a hike.  We hiked part of Burch Creek (yes, it is spelled correctly) up in South Ogden.  I had Matthew along with me.  He doesn't enjoy hiking all that much, but he still did ok.  I must say that was quite the workout, though.  It was a really pretty hike and will be even more beautiful once the fall leaves hit.  It also showed me how out of shape I am as I huffed and puffed up the trail.  

 While Josh was gone we did a few runs to Lagoon as well.  We stayed busy that week--I had to stay busy to keep my mind of wondering how Josh was fairing.  Luckily, Camp Neuro Revolution was on Facebook and posted photos of the camp's happenings throughout the week.  Here's some of the photos they posted which were nice to see to let me know Josh was ok and having fun.  They got a turn at the archery station:

 This was during the bike riding activity.  They even used this picture on their homepage for a few days which was pretty awesome:

 Josh playing games during some free time:

 They got a chance to ride the reclining double bicycle which Josh said was fun:

 Saturday, it was finally time to pick him up.  I unfortunately, couldn't go because I had to tie up some loose ends in preparing for girls camp the next week.  Sarah and Matthew stayed back with me--Sarah had a birthday party Saturday afternoon.  Aaron took Daniel and Noah along for Family Day for Camp Neuro Revolution.  They all got a turn to try out the different activities.  Daniel tried archery:

 Josh did archery again, too:

 Even Noah tried his hand at the archery station:

 Then it was time for the ropes course.  Josh went first:

 Daniel tried it, too:

 After seeing his brothers do the ropes course Noah decided he wanted to try it, too:

 Josh and Daniel climbing the net:

 Noah climbed the net, too:

 I was shocked to see that Noah made it all the way to the top of the net climb!!

 Noah was pretty proud of himself, too.  He was excited to give the leader a high five when he came down:

 Daniel tried the high ropes line:

 Here's Josh doing the second ropes line:

 Josh doing the high ropes course:

 After the activities and lunch they had an awards ceremony.  Josh got awarded the earliest riser award and the one who ate the most.  There were no surprises on those awards--haha!!  All I can say is sorry to Josh's poor roommate who was awakened at 6 am every morning even though breakfast didn't start until 9 am.

It was nice to have Josh back home Saturday afternoon.  I was able to enjoy having my whole family back together until Monday morning when it was time for me to leave for girl's camp.  It was a whole new world having to help plan girl's camp this year instead of just attending!!  Luckily, I was only the assistant camp director and not the camp director!!  However, the Camp Director and I were both were on the same wavelength and worked great together--You're Awesome Liz!!  We spent lots of time planning and executing camp.  We also had lots of fun during the week with all the girl's and leaders.  Here's all the girl's happy smiley faces before we 'Embarked' on our drive up to girl's camp: (I am on the back row second from the right.)

 Our camp theme was 'Embark' so at the beginning of camp we all received a passport that got stamped at each place we visited.  Our first day we stopped in Europe where we had a Louvre painting course, a French baguette making class and other stops.  We had lots of planned activities because it is better to be busy than sitting around.  I got to teach the Louvre painting class.  All the girls got to paint this picture along with me while I tried to teach about painting (tried being the key word--haha!):

 I also got to teach the baguette/breadstick making class as well.  That was lots of fun to eat our bread as part of dinner.  We stayed busy while at camp.  A few highlights of camp were we got to tube down the Weber River, do a few skits, do a Faith Walk, enjoy snow cones and awesome devotionals, eat yummy food, play murder in the dark, work on Personal Progress, hike, testimony meeting, human foosball, setting goals, meet Confucius (aka crazy homeless guy), do some snipe hunting, etc.  We had lots of fun.  At the end of camp the Youth Camp Leaders were in charge of assigning the camp awards.  They were all really creative, too!  I got the 'Most Likely to Have a Painting in the Louvre Museum' award.  Like I said the awards were all pretty creative ;).  I must say by the time we came home Thursday afternoon I was exhausted, but it was worth it.  Seeing as that was our first girl's camp to plan we now know some changes to make for next year, but it was a big success for us newbies!!

So I could go to Girl's Camp G&G T came over to watch the kids during the day so Aaron could go to work.  I am so grateful for that!!  They earned their keep, too.  One of the days I was gone and while Aaron was at work one of the boys left the faucet running in the downstairs bathroom which flooded the whole place.  Not cool, but, thankfully, they cleaned it up for us. Also Grandpa T helped make some bike stands/hangers for us in the garage so our family's bikes have a place to hang and not take up ground space when they are not being used.  Grandma T helped catch up on the boys laundry downstairs. G&G T also found time to play with the kids during the week.  All in all it was an amazing week for me at girl's camp and for the help I got at home.  I am so grateful!!

The next day was Friday, July 24th, which was a holiday and Matthew wasn't about to let us stay home and not celebrate.  Luckily, it was a free day at Red Butte Gardens down in Salt Lake so we went to check it out.  Aaron is a Federal Employee which meant he had to work that day so I did it solo in my exhausted post girl's camp state.  It was lots of fun, though.  I hadn't been there for 20+ years so it was fun to go back and see it again.  I didn't realized how BIG that place is!!  We spent a big portion of the afternoon there and still didn't get to see everything!  One favorite place was the huge hill at the entrance.  The kids loved rolling down the hill.  The picture doesn't show how steep the hill really was so the kids got rolling pretty fast.

 Another favorite was the interactive fountain the children's garden area:

 Checking out the adobe mock up:

 Resting on the lizard benches:

 I showed Daniel and Sarah how to make Snap Dragons 'snap' and they spent a good five minutes playing with them:

 Taking a break in the tree tunnel:

 Noah really got into smelling the flowers.  There were a bunch a lilies that Noah smelled and got pollen all over his face and shirt in the process:

 Playing on a bent tree across the trail:

 Sitting on a moose sculpture:

 Seeing all the fish in the pond while cooling off their feet:

 The next day we met up with the Einzingers to go to Lagoon Saturday night.  It was so much fun.  We took turns sitting with the kids who didn't want to ride certain rides.  Erin took Matthew and a few others on the JetStar roller coaster:

We all had an awesome week.  As I was tucking the kids in last night, Noah had crawled in Sarah's bed and fell asleep.  He also found his super hero cape and wore that to bed, too.  I guess all superheroes need a good nights rest, too.  He looked so cute!!

I will add more girl's camp pictures in another post :).  It has been a crazy couple weeks for sure!!  I must be getting old because it is taking me a good few days to finally recover from all the craziness of the last week!

Camp K Week #2, Impromptu Vacation, Graduation, Cannibal, Day Camp, Cows

Last week Matthew went for another week of Camp Kostopulos.  He really loves that place and I do, too, for that matter.  Since he had just been there a few weeks prior to this week, a lot of the camp counselors knew who he was and shouted out a big, "Hello, Matthew!" as we walked by.  After checking him in he was so excited to get started with all the activities he disappeared before we left.  I am glad he was so excited to be there!  Before he disappeared I did get a quick picture with one of his leaders:

 Here was his sleeping bunk in the cabin at Camp K:

 Since Matthew was having a week of fun, we thought we would go on an impromptu family vacation to have some fun, too.  On the way down to St. George we drove through the Nebo Loop scenic drive in Utah County.  It was so beautiful.  We stopped and did a small hike to the Grotto waterfall.  There were some fun bridges to cross:

 The waterfall was really cold!  Josh and Daniel were the only ones brave enough to walk through it.

 After that hike we drove the rest of the way to St. George.  After checking into the hotel we went swimming the rest of the afternoon and evening.  I am happy to say that Noah can now swim underwater for about 20 feet all by himself.  Yay!!  We now need to start working on learning the swimming strokes, but  I am glad he is not afraid of water anymore.

The next morning we got up early and headed over to Zion National Park to do some hiking.  Here's the smiley bunch as we were trying to figure out where we were going to hike that day.

 We did a really fun hike that gave awesome views.  We stayed together for the first part of the hike, then me, Josh and Daniel wanted to go a bit faster so we split for a bit.

 Before we split Aaron was being our comedic relief with his sweet dance moves:

Notice the smiling faces? However, I must admit they weren't smiling the whole day, though.

 The views were really pretty all around:

 At the look out point Josh and Daniel sat on a rock and waited for Aaron, Noah and Sarah to catch up.

They were about as close as I could let them get before I had a  panic attack since it is a straight fall right in front of them.  It was really pretty, though.

 

We had lots of fun teasing and playing with each other while we were hiking:

 While we were waiting for Aaron, Sarah and Noah to catch up they were busy checking out a deer on the trail.  The deer let them come pretty close to it which was interesting.

 

 

 

Towards the end of the day we rode the shuttle to another hike and all the kids crashed on the drive.  Josh's head was bobbing all around as he was trying to fall fast asleep, poor guy!

 Daniel curled up in Aaron's lap and fell asleep:

 After a quick power nap we hiked another hike that lead to the entrance of the famous Zion Narrows.  When we got to the end of the hike before it starts out into the Narrows, Noah announced to Aaron and I as well as anyone else within a football field radius that, "I NEED TO POOP!!!" multiple times as he grabbed his bum and did the potty dance something fierce.  There was no putting that off.  Aaron was nice enough to turn around and take Noah all the way back to the entrance (about 1.5 miles away) to the potty.  I stayed and let the kids play in the water for a bit.  Josh was a gentleman and helped Sarah wade into the water:

 Daniel didn't want to get wet until he spied the most perfect walking stick out in the middle of the river.  He waded all the way in to get it.

 He was pretty proud of his walking stick:

 When we turned around and caught up with Aaron only to find out that Noah got stage fright and only went pee.  It wasn't as much as an emergency as Noah led us to believe--the stinker!!  After that hike we went back to the hotel and went swimming to cool off.  Then we headed over to see a show at Tuacahn amphitheater.  We saw the show When You Wish.  It was amazing.  While we were waiting for the show to begin we got some photo ops in--I don't think Daniel realized he was being Belle until after the picture had been taken--haha!

Sarah and Noah had to get in on the action, too:

Here we are in our seats waiting for the show to start:

The kids did pretty well doing the show although they were all exhausted from hiking and swimming all day.  Noah lasted until the last 15 minutes of the show until he curled up in my arms and fell asleep.  It didn't help that the show started at 8:45 pm and finished at 11:00pm.  When we got back to the hotel Noah crashed.  There was no waking him up for pajamas or brushing teeth--poor guy!

We were pretty busy that whole day.  Here's what my FitBit showed at the end of the day:

We hiked around 9 miles--no wonder the kids were worn out!

The next day we headed over to spend a day at Bryce Canyon.  On the way there was a lot of road construction.  We were stopped at one intersection for over 45 minutes with kids that HAD to go potty.  Finally the kids couldn't hold anymore and since we weren't stopped by any restrooms they 'watered' the grass.  Josh took Noah out to show him how to properly 'water' the grass.  Yes there were cars all around, but when you're stopped for that long what can you do?!

When we finally made it into the park it was raining really hard.  It was also only a chilly 47 degrees.  Too bad we only wore shorts and flip flops!!  Whoops!!  Anyway, we took a picture by the sign.  Aaron and I had to trade places to prove we were both there.  Here's my family picture:

Here's Aaron's family picture:

Since it was so cold Sarah and Noah were not happy.  The didn't last very long before they were begging to go back to the car.  Josh, Daniel and I did a little bit of hiking, but not too much.  We saw a cool arch:

Josh and Daniel went down a trail part of the way.  You can see them in the middle of the picture waving their hands:

As we were hiking we noticed the sign that said boots were recommended.  Good thing we only had flip flops on--haha!

It was really pretty, but we couldn't stay for too long since it was really stormy and cold.

After that we drove the rest of the way home.  There was not problem getting kids to bed that night. 

Friday morning we went and picked Matthew up from Camp K where he had lots of fun.  He got the 'Most Curious' award which is fitting for him.  The previous visit to Camp K he got the "Question Master" award which was also fitting.  After picking up Matthew I took the kids bowling since I had some free coupons.  They all had lots of fun after we got the bumpers put up.

That evening Noah had his Upstart preschool graduation.  Noah has been participating in an online preschool which just finished.  He did great!  He was so cute wearing his graduation hat and holding his diploma:

Yay, Noah!  I can't believe he will be starting kindergarten this fall.

Monday Daniel had Cub Scout Day Camp.  He looked so handsome in his scout uniform!

While Daniel was at day camp, I took Josh, Sarah and Noah to Lagoon so we could try out the new Cannibal ride.  It was awesome!!  Sarah was too scared to go on it and Noah was too short so Josh and I took turns with their baby swap pass.  It was lots of fun.  Here's a picture I found of what the ride looks like:

When Daniel got home from day camp and found out we had gone on it without him he wasn't very happy.  To make up for that we went back for Family Home Evening that night with our whole family.  Matthew even offered to go on it without any coaxing from Aaron and me which was amazing.  However, half way through the ride he yelled out to me, "I HATE THIS RIDE!!!" and refused to ride it again.  The rest of us loved it!

 

We also went on many other rides, too.  Here's Aaron and Matthew riding Bombora together:

Saturday morning was the Clinton parade.  We went to it with some friends, the Einzingers, which was lots of fun.  It replenished our candy stash--wahoo!!

Here's Aaron and I sitting back in the chairs while the kids gather all the candy.

That evening we had the Einzingers over for some pizza and games.  We had a fun night and love spending it with great friends!!  We even played some new games which were a lot of fun!

Tuesday was Customer Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A.  If you dress like a cow you get a free meal.  We all decorated white garbage bags with black dots and drew cow faces and so we all got dinner for free!!

Even Aaron dressed up along with us!

This summer seems to be flying by!  I can't believe it is half over already!!