Introducing...

Charlotte! This is my newest niece. And I find it very cool that her name is Charlotte :) I've always loved that name. I can't wait to meet her :)

Songs

I have a lot of favorite songs :) and I blame my mother for that. She forced me to take piano lessons [I survived somehow], and allowed me to take voice lessons [I did better w/the piano, sadly], and encouraged a love of music that I still have today. So finding music that my kids like is important to me. And, because I do not like candy-sweet Barney style songs, I don't always have an easy time finding things my kids like that I can listen to more than once a year.

But who doesn't like a song that starts out, "A is for aisle, B is for bdellium, C is for czar, and if you see him would you mind telling him?"
Pretty much every word begins with the correct letter, but none of them start with a sound normally associated with that letter, and we all giggle every time we listen to it! Which is why it's on my playlist now. Anyway, for our recent trips, I burned a CD with all the Barenaked Ladies' songs from "Snacktime"- the CD that includes the crazy ABC song. I also put a few songs from Shrek, and Meet the Robinsons, and "Ordinary Miracle" from Charlotte's Web. You know, songs that are 'grown-up' but the kids can recognize from the movie. Every darn time I hear that song from Charlotte's Web, I get tears in my eyes. It reminds me of Myles, and how much I value every minute I have with my kids now, because I didn't get much time with their little brother. It's a song that Morgen likes to sing to, so I'm not allowed to skip it, either.

And I got to thinking about memory. I sang "Abide With Me" at my Grandma J's funeral, and every time I sing or hear it now, I get choked up. Morgen sang "I am a Child of God" at Myles' funeral, and now I can't even make it through the first verse without crying. I seem to remember things best when they're associated with a song.

Boy, this place looks strange...

I think I have spent a total of 1 week at home this month. And I'm feeling a bit frantic about catching up- I had THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIX emails in my inbox from just one of the yahoo groups I belong to. Obviously kids are back in school LOL. And I have so many memories [and no photos- I took the camera but was too busy to get it out] and not enough space here to detail them all. So I will summarize:
Thursday- drove up to Park City and hung out w/family 'till 6pm, drove home for meeting, finished that and put everyone to bed.
Friday- got up, packed stuff for all kids and myself, grabbed a bunch of games and some DVDs, and headed up to PC for the weekend. Kids went crawdad fishing, Mom and Melinda and I went shopping. Josh, Brooks, Ethan and Sloan made it in late that evening.
Saturday- packed up stuff and kids, stopped at Walmart for present and wrapping paper, drove to Nate and Caitlin's condo for a birthday party for Saxon. Swam most of the afternoon [after lunch and cake], then drove home and tried to wash everything. Scott, Emily, Kaylyn and Zachary drove from southern Utah for the party, and stayed 'till Wed.
Sunday- church, then I made the kids fold their laundry and pack it. I had a list on the whiteboard for them to check :) Finished up w/all our meetings and headed back to PC with 2 cars [so Jared could leave for work Monday]. Saw Nate and Caitlin again at the condo, played games and stayed up much too late, then shooed all the kids to bed.
Monday- More family time- walks, swimming, games, etc. Jared left in evening for work. Dad had some fun with Capri Sun drinks :)
Tuesday- Walker and I spent the evening w/my friend Karla, in town for a week-long work conference thing. Got some good shopping in, and had a lot of fun hanging out.
Wednesday- More swimming, more grandpa/grandma time, drove to Midway and found the most delicious quilting/home decor shop ever.
Thursday- Swimming again- they're part fish, I think! Met up w/Jared, he and Dad took the kids for a hike and geocaching. Mom and I drove over to Myles' grave, spent time there, drove back to PC, everybody ate together, then we packed and left.

Jared left for the Democratic National Convention [no, he's republican, he's doing security there LOLOL] Friday morning. He'll be home next week sometime.

:)And I have a new niece- my sister Melissa had her [as yet unnamed] baby girl Saturday evening. She was 8 pounds 4 oz [almost 2 pounds heavier than her big sister], and 21 inches long. Hooray!

Goals

One of my goals since Myles died has been to journal, to keep a record of my life and my thoughts on paper. I love people, and being around crowds, but I am an intensely private person, which means a lot of my thoughts I never share. [And why they won't be showing up here on this blog ;)] I've been carrying around a little notepad so I can jot things down as they happen, but I wanted to copy those notes into my journal, and put down the thoughts and feelings I didn't have time to elaborate on when I wrote a quick note to remind myself of whatever was happening at the time.
Part of the reason I've been so motivated to do this is my own faulty memory. I have always had trouble w/short-term memory [part of having ADD]. Another reason is something one of my friends mentioned, after Myles' death, that the summer after her brother died is completely blank to her. She remembers NOTHING about it. And I didn't want that to happen to me, so I started jotting things down in that little notebook. Today, I spent about 3 hours copying from my notebook into my journal, and stopped because my hand was cramping :) My SIL and her husband are here, and they're watching the Olympics, so all my kids are sitting around the tv and cheering on whatever athlete catches their eye.
Jared had to make a quick trip to Denver today- flew in this morning, will fly out tonight [assuming he has a seat]. Next week, his team is working security for the DNC out there, and this meeting is to work out a schedule of shifts and responsibilities for all the units involved.
And I need to visit the allergist today. oh goody.

Updates and pictures

Morgen and Jared before her baptism: she was pretty excited, and we were proud that she decided she wanted to be baptized. We had a family lunch after, at our house, then we headed over to see Nate and Caitlin and their new little baby boy.

Okay, here we see my newest nephew: Bridger. Caitlin heard the name and liked it, but her friend who originally used the name got it from a mountain man named Jim Bridger who spent a lot of his time trapping and exploring out west, and there's a Fort Bridger somewhere near the Wyoming border.

Geocaching our way up to Montana: great way to get out and stretch our legs, plus we love finding 'treasures!'

Walker pointed out this very vintage flag, and I loved that the building looked vintage, too ;) We probably passed it at least 6 times walking, and another 5 or 6 driving back and forth from our hotel to the pedestrian mall in Helena

Kids running up to the Montana State Capitol, where we had an excellent tour guide [Dallas, if you can believe it] who gave us some wonderful stories about the history of the structure.

Jared bravely fording a little creek on one of our exploring/geocaching treks:

I was so busy trying to get the camera timer to work that I forgot I was wearing sunglasses LOL. This is at the beginning of our hike up to the top of Mt Helena:

Okay, last one: the kids in front of Cistern Spring at Yellowstone National Park. Of course, they're just beyond thrilled that I am once again taking their pictures >:O

We made it home about 4:30am Sunday morning [we tried to see more things than we really had time for]. Today has been full of exciting adventures in laundry, and cleaning out the car LOL.

Montana here we come!

Well, I'm using my dh's government property [laptop] while he's geocaching with Hyrum and Morgen. Walker elected to stay in the hotel room with me and read while I did internet stuff :)

Jared noticed [about half-way to Montana] that we were getting lousy gas mileage. Well, lousy for our Durango, which normally does 15 or so. Anyway, we were getting around 7MPG, and he ended up dropping it off at a repair shop and begging them to look at it while he was working Monday morning. They got it fixed, the part was under warranty [hooray!], so we only paid for labor, and it's doing much better now. While Jared was working, the kids and I had a nice relaxing breakfast, then worked on English and Math [W and M] and phonics [H] until lunch. Since we had no transportation, we figured we could walk around and explore :). After we tracked down a map of downtown Helena, and figured out some of the cool shops and things, the kids decided they wanted to walk to Parrot Confectionery. Confectionery means candy ;), which was the motivating factor IMO. The walk ended up being about 2 miles, and my kids were troopers. Montana stays pretty cool until late afternoon, and there are a lot of big trees in Helena, so we had a nice walk. We saw the State Capitol, but didn't go inside because the kids were focused on that candy LOL. We also walked past the original Governor's Mansion, which is restored to approximately 1910, and decided we'd like to do a tour of it when it was open [not open Mondays, which Walker pointed out to me after we'd sat on its front porch for 10 minutes]. Finally, we managed to get to Parrot, and ended up ordering old-fashioned ice cream sodas. Morgen ordered chocolate [that's my girl!] and the rest of us tried the root beer floats. Yummy, and after that long hot walk, definitely a treat. All that walking wore us out, but we did make it back to the hotel in one piece.

Tuesday we did homework in the morning, met Jared for lunch, and dropped him off so we could drive around. We ended up doing a bit of walking, because it wears out the kids LOl, but we saw the State Capitol and had a great, guided tour. We ran [seriously, because we only had 15 minutes to walk there] to the Governor's Mansion, and got another guided tour of it. My kids really enjoyed all the neat things that were included in the tour; the guide had them do a 'treasure hunt' and look for a pair of tiny black boots, and a black darning egg, both were on display in the house, but not in an obvious place. Walker's sharp eyes noticed them both, and he got a huge kick out of being the first to notice them :)

Wednesday we did homework and laundry, played at a park in the pedestrian mall in downtown Helena [it's right outside the hotel where Jared's conference is, which makes it a great place to wait for him], had lunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon [three hours] at the Montana State Historical Museum. And, my kids were fascinated with the displays. In the "Montana's History" display there were some caves: one was a mocked-up wolf den for the kids to crawl into and pretend they were wolf cubs; the other was a cavern with trees and 'stars' in the sky, based on a Native American spirit quest. After Jared finished, we headed out to Mt Helena State Park, and climbed to the top of Mt Helena. We did some geocaching along the trail, so we had our GPS unit with us. A long as it is on, it will keep track of how long you walk, and how long you hold still, and the exact mileage you move. So, we walked exactly 4.6 miles, and it took us 3 hours and 5 minutes. 1 hour and 2 minutes were spent not moving, however LOL. Well, the GPS wasn't moving, which meant Jared and I were sitting still while the kids were bouncing around like bunnies :) They always complain at first, and then they buckle down and hike their little tails off. Morgen especially, since she loves to talk, can be interesting to walk with. She spent the first fifteen minutes sighing hugely, expressing her disappointment that we chose hiking over swimming in the hotel pool. The rest of the hike was her cheerful comments on every single thing that went through her head. I keep reminding myself that I, too, loved to talk as a child, and my mother survived me.

Today was a lazy day: we spent the morning at parks [we walked to them, because they're close by], then drove Jared back to work after lunch, and went back to the museum for another look. Walker's favorite exhibit was a white buffalo- born on a reservation, considered a sacred animal by the Indians, basically they spoiled him rotten and kept him alive for 26 years, then after he died they decided to preserve him by donating his stuffed body to the museum. Pretty cool :) Morgen liked the beadwork on all the Indian artifacts. Hyrum's favorite part was the 3rd floor war room. There's a pocket watch exhibit in the hall, then war artifacts from the Spanish-American War and Civil War up through the current Iraqi war. He liked the weapons- the bayonets and daggers and guns. Did you know that the Special Forces began as a joint army effort between Canada and Montana? Seriously. My favorite part was the art- Charlie Russell [famous and underappreciated Western artist] has a bunch of his art on display there. It was donated by one family, who collected a lot of his paintings, and I loved looking at them. Maybe it's because I was born out west, but his art really speaks to me.

Tomorrow we head down to Lewis and Clark Caverns, then Yellowstone, and Saturday we'll drive through Yellowstone, then head home. Whew!

Oh, and totally random fact about MT: if the US ever passes anything that restricts or bans personal firearms, Montana is allowed to secede- that was part of the deal they made with the US government when they joined the Union. We heard that fact on our tour of the Capitol. Jared's pretty interested in keeping his right to bear arms unrestricted, so when he found out about this condition of Montana's statehood, he was tickled. And I know exactly where we'll be moving if there is ever a successful ban on personal firearms :)

I will post some of my million pictures of this vacation when we get back home ;)