Hair cuts

We all had hair cuts this last week. It was Evelynn's first in her life! Took 3 1/2 years before I finally let it happen. My aunt Tracy was kind enough to visit us in Provo and do our hair. It had been a year since I last had mine cut, so I was way over due. And I got bangs! That hasn't happened since 5th grade with the whole growing-bangs-out trauma. For anyone who has had to grow out bangs, you know what I mean. I like them, I think. It changes from day to day. I'm glad I did it though. I always do the same thing with my hair, so it was time to shake things up a bit.

Evelynn waiting for her turn. She was so good. Hardly moved at all! I think she was kind of scared to tell you the truth.

The first cut! I think it's cute that you can see Eloise's fuzz head at the bottom of this shot. :) She was the only one not to get a trim.

The results of the trim.... well, most of it anyway. Very little was actually cut. It was really just to even things out in the back, and because Evelynn begged and begged to have a turn once mom and dad got theirs done. Not much at all! I didn't even keep it for a scrap book, cause I knew I would lose it before it ever got in there.

Here is my do. This is my first time styling it, so it's a little rough, but hopefully I'll get better with more practice. Of course that means I have to practice instead of pony tailing it all the time. We'll see if that happens.

Bumped heads and clean gargaes

These two don't go together, but I didn't want to make two posts, so you get two stories together. On Saturday we tackled a huge project... cleaning out the garage. I didn't get a before picture, but I can describe it well enough. The garage was full all the way to the door, and you could not easily walk inside or access anything except the lawn mower, which was in the front, blocking the way to anything else. It took Doug and I a few hours to get it all emptied, swept, de-cobwebbed and then to sort through the stuff and throw a LOT of junk away and put the rest in the front yard with a "FREE" sign for people to take away. We had an old jogging stroller, fish tank, broken bike, broken lawn mover, toys and a few more things in the yard, and they were all gone in an hour. So awesome because I don't know how we would have gotten all that to DI or the dump. Here is the finished product!

All those boxes on the dresser and the big white thing actually belong to BJ who is storing stuff in between moving apartments, so once that is gone there will be even more space!

In other news, Eloise fell off the back steps. Our back door opens up to a small porch with 2 1/2 steps leading down it to the concrete. There is not much porch right outside the door and Eloise was coming out and I let go of the screen door too soon and it knocker her right off the edge, head first onto a rock on the pavement. Yes, it was bad. This was the result, and the expression she has on her face she had all day long. She would not smile almost all day. She must have had a whopper headache. I thought she might have a concussion, but she was much better the next day and the nurse at the doctor's office talked me through my panic and explained what to look for in a concussed child, so she turned out she was fine, minus a bump.

You can see the shape of the rock in the bruise. I felt so awful since it was totally my fault that she fell. Luckily kids bounce back well.

Ward Camp Out 2009

We finally had our first real camping experience as a family with children. Doug and I had been camping once before when I was pregnant with Evelynn, and sleeping on rocky ground and having to go pee at 1, 3, and 5 in the morning was not my idea of fun, so we postponed more camping until last years ward camp out. That was almost a success, because we had both girls in the tent asleep, and Doug was a sleep (I was not, for reasons that will be explained soon) when the park ranger came and told us that we had to clear out because of a forest fire coming our way. So at 1:30 am we packed everyone up and left. Then this year we decided it was going to be the year to make it happen, and it almost didn't. Doug was not feeling well all day Friday and stayed home from work, but rallied enough to take up the cooking stuff that evening. I packed all the camp stuff just in case we decided to stay. As soon as we made the decision to stay, got our tent up and stuff arranged, Eloise started to have a hard time. She cried, and cried, and cried. Turns out she was cutting teeth. Evelynn saved us though (well, at least me because I was stressed) by claiming she really wanted to go to bed at 8:30, which she actually did. I thought she was just fascinated with the tent (which was true) but she also fell asleep in 20 minutes! Eloise was up until almost 10, but hey, one kid I can handle.

The Young Women and Stephanie Brienholt entertained us with songs and dancing. We even learned the Bishop Myrick dance, which I must say was much more hip than I was originally expecting.

Bishop Myrick entertained us with several interactive stories. Doug got chosen to be a babbling brook in one story. This meant that every time babbling brook was said in the story, he had to gargle water until it said "over the waterfall." Doug made a waterfall once or twice, once on accident. :)

The morning after. We had a wonderful breakfast, and Doug tried his hand at fishing in the river, but to no avail unfortunately. Fresh fish would have been awesome. Here's the breakfast crew hard at work.

This is the inside of our tent. Yes, we fit two adults and two kids in this tent. Doug and I were on an air mattress (because I told Doug after that first time camping that I would never go again unless I got to sleep on an air mattress) and the girls were squished over on the edge in the remaining 2 1/2 feet of space. It would have worked out fine (the girls slept all night) but our tent is exactly 6 ft long on the bottom, but then the walls slant up, so by the time I laid down on the air mattress with a pillow, the tent space was 5' 8", and I am 5' 10" and I sleep on my back. My toes did not fit in this tent. I was miserable, because even sleeping on my side I would flip to by back in my sleep... and it was just a little harder than I was thinking it would be.

This gives you an idea as to how small our tent is. But it is still a really cool tent since we got it at DI for $5, all parts accounted for. Not too shabby! We made it through the night tolerably well, at least I did. Evelynn woke up at 6:30 bright eyed and happy because she had almost a full nights sleep, going to bed when she did. We learned a few things on this trip. One, I cannot sleep if I don't have enough room. Two, always pack Tylenol no matter where you are going. And three, we desperately need a bigger tent!

Cascade Springs FHE

Several weeks ago we made the drive out to Cascade Springs for Family Home Evening. I had heard a lot about it, so I was excited to go out, but although very beautiful it was smaller than I had thought it was going to be. I thought we would get to do more hiking and trail walking, but it's a small place. Still, very nice to see cool Utah nature stuff. And the drive on the Alpine loop was very nice.

Near the entrance to the trails. I think the whole experience would have been nicer if Evelynn had been happier as well. She fell asleep 10 minutes before we got there..... so she was happy for about 10 minutes while there. :)

The spring is at the top of the "hill" or path area, and it comes right out of the ground in a huge area, then collects and flows down to make these waterfalls. At the bottom are ponds that have brown trout. No fishing allowed though.

This was part of the 10 minute happy period.