weekly 2014.7.6

Rebekah has spent the afternoon walking around the house singing at the top of her lungs, “Ron-ALD Rea-GAN had a farm. E-I-E-I-O!” Rachel taught Rebekah to ride her bike on the fourth of July. She still needs a little practice, but she’s feeling like a big girl now. She’s now pining for a girl bike instead of the red rocket themed boy bike that she’s inherited. (It’s hard to follow four big brothers…..)

Harry is feeling so very excited that this is his birthday week.  I didn’t understand why he was looking high and low for a “program” paper at sacrament meeting today.  Then I realized that he wanted to see his name listed under the birthdays. Cute boy. Since Thomas was gone all week, Harry slept in his bed down in the basement. It was a fun change for him. It’s been so hot, I’m about ready to haul our bed down to the basement too. Walking down the steps you can literally feel the temperature drop.

Spencer, Harry and Rebekah went swimming every single day this week. I’ve decided that the next best thing to having your own pool is having next door neighbors with a pool, that have kids the same age as your kids. All the fun, none of the work!

Thomas and Stick spent all week up by Grandaddy lakes. As I mentioned last week, Thomas was feeling pretty nervous about going. They came home successful and happy. Walking in the door, the first thing Thomas told me with a smile beaming on his face was, “We had no thunder/lightening the whole week. We saw it all around us but it was never over us.”  I’m happy that all our prayers were answered and he knows that Heavenly Father was looking out for him.

All in all they had a fun week of dirt, hiking and fishing and lots of mosquito bites. Thomas caught 7 fish, (more than any of the other boys). They were both happy to come home though and I had to laugh when they both expressed their great appreciation for the wonders of indoor plumbing.

Aaron’s had fun this week hanging out with his buddies, T and S. They always seem to have free deals on things like Boondocks and Cowabunga Bay, so he goes to have fun, but never has to spend any money. He and Rachel are getting ready today for Trek this week.

Rachel worked every single day last week in the afternoons. She gets one free item each day and always brings home something sweet and icy to give to an eager sibling. I’ve sewed her two pioneer skirts and an apron, and tomorrow I’ll work on the bloomers and she will be all set for Trek. She’s trying to be excited about it. Ha! Rachel got her scores from her two AP tests yesterday. She got a 4 on the history test, which is really awesome and will give her some credit at BYU (are we assuming at this point that she's going to get in? I'm not sure.) She got a 1 on the Calculus test, which is not awesome. We feel pretty grumpy that her teacher was SO bad this year. Rachel is very gifted in math and always a good test taker, but she knew going into the test that she was in trouble. She’s heard through the grapevine that everyone in her class scored a 1, except for one kid who got a 3, but he was at a different school all year until the last two months. What a waste of an entire year of class, with nothing learned.

I feel like we need a revolving door on our house this summer with kids coming and going every single week between girl’s camp, Cub Scout day camp, Boy Scout camp and now trek. After that we will take a break until Aaron goes to Flaming Gorge in August with the teachers.

Today I shared a family history moment in RS about our great grandma, Frances Catherine Frankland. I told briefly about her early life, which was pretty hard. I told how later on, one man proposed to her but she said no, because, she “wasn’t thrilled enough with him to want to marry him.”  I talked about how she was so happy to get curtains in her first house when she was a newlywed (married to Leonidas Hamlin Kennard, Jr.) and then how she drove a Ford car with a soft top and took a turn too sharp and rolled it. Miraculously she and all her children inside walked away. Finally, I told how she went out one night to the water pump and get water for a thirsty child and saw something white floating towards her that scared her to pieces. Eventually it got closer and closer and she discovered it was the white face of a horse. She said, “After that, I saw there was water in the house before dark.”  It was fun to share her story and the sisters seemed to like it. I would have liked to know her.