Our Last Week Of Vacationing

Technically speaking, school doesn't start for two more weeks, and so we actually have two more weeks of summer vacation.  But I have big plans for these last two weeks.  And they involve doing absolutely nothing. I'm hoping to stay home and let my kids get really sick of each other before I have to send them back to school.  This summer has been non-stop vacationing, and so this last week I am officially calling the last week of vacationing.  I should have nothing exciting to tell about in the next two weeks.  And maybe then I can post about our last month's vacation that I haven't even had time to post about yet!

Last week started out with this:

Avery and I took our French Ladies (ooh la la) to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  It was fun to have a little one-on-one time with Avery (plus a couple thousand others, of course).

This is Chris and her daughter, Jinnie, who is also a dancer.
The dancers left on Sunday night at about 6 pm.  And my mother-in-law flew in at about 7:20 pm.  It's always fun when Grandma comes, when Grandma comes, Hurray!

(Nice picture, I know, of all of us having quality family time, watching the Piano Guys on youtube.)
However, my poor mother-in-law came down with pneumonia while she was here, and so I don't know how fun of a trip it was for her.  She always spoils the kids rotten, so they didn't mind her being sick.  And even in her ill state, we were able to do some fun things.  Bless her heart for trying!

Saturday we celebrated Dustin's Grandpa's 94th birthday!  That is only 6 years away from the big 100, in case you aren't up on your first grade math.  He is a rock star, and so I have every confidence that we'll be attending a big party in six more years.  For his birthday we took a drive up to the top of a mountain.  Dustin's aunt and uncle have a Ranger (it is like a little truck/four wheeler).  I volunteered to ride in the back with the kids and Dustin's aunt lovingly suggested I ride in the front (I was wearing a white sweater after all, "and it does get pretty dusty", she said).  So Dustin agreed to ride with the kids.  But then the joke was on him, because he wasn't there for the dusty conversation.  And it got more than a little dusty.  It got "my family looks like light brown ghosts and if they open their eyes or mouths during the ride they will fill up with dirt" dusty.  It was so dusty that their clothes are all currently soaking in oxy clean, with very little hope of ever regaining their correct color.  I, on the other hand, was able to keep my white sweater white and enjoy a fun-filled ride up the mountain.  Actually, the kids and Dustin had a lot of fun, too.  And because they were already so dirty, I didn't even flinch when they did this:

I did, however, flinch when we lost Ryan in the mountains (technically, we lost him twice, but the second time was worse).  There is nothing like knowing your five year old feather weight is somewhere in the mountains, an hour before dark, with a bear on the loose, to make you pray really hard.  I'm thankful for answered prayers.  And you know the ol' saying, "Lose a child once, shame on them.  Lose them twice, shame on you." Or something like that.  And you know that other ol' saying, "All's well that ends well."
It was a fun day and always fun to see family and eat dirt.

Notice how I am holding Grant's body away from my white sweater.

Grandma Lana flew to her home this afternoon, to try and recover in peace and quiet.  And now we are preparing for two whole weeks of no where to go (mostly), nothing to do (kind of) and lots of normalcy (as normal as we get, anyway).