Merritt is finally here! It's been so nice to have him back. That was the longest we had ever been apart. And it was a long 4 1/2 weeks. He arrived Labor Day weekend late Friday night.
Luke kept saying over and over in a very proud tone, "This is my dad." He just wanted Dad to hold him all night. And he kept telling Merritt, "You're big. You're strong." I think he was remembering how good it felt to be in Daddy's arms.
I could second that.
This is Luke stealing peaches during the peach walk (which was a game played similarly to a cake walk) at Brigham City's Peach Days Festival.
Our cousins Wesley and Riggs riding the train at Peach Days.
Our cousin Hannah's fifth birthday party. (I was jealous of her Tinkerbell cake.)
This is Owen being cute at the birthday party.
This is Collin on the water slide at Hannah's birthday party.
This is Luke discovering he is allergic to mosquito bites. Check out his swollen eye and forehead! Poor thing.
For those of you who care to read more, here is the longer version of the stories that accompany these pictures:
The first thing Merritt wanted to do was spend some time with his family. We went to Provo the next morning for a cousin birthday party (cute Hannah turned five) and a BYU football game. Merritt said it was one of the best days of his life. Not because he had missed his family so much and it was so nice to be with them again, but because BYU beat Oklahoma 14-13. It was apparently a very exciting game for him.
On Labor Day Monday we spent the day with just our little family, swimming at the pool, playing tennis and watching a movie at the theater (Ice Age III). All in all, it was a great way to spend the last weekend of the summer.
On Tuesday it was Collin's turn to bring the snack bucket to kindergarten. Being the science geek that I am I called and asked Collin's teacher if I could make solar ovens and cook s'mores for his class. She probably thought I was crazy but she agreed to let me do it. She even let me talk to the kids for a few minutes before the snack about how I made the ovens.
I told the class that the sun was made of fire (burning gases) and gives light and heat to the earth. I used the heat from the sun to cook s'mores for our snack today! Did you know there are only 14 more days left of summer! Soon the earth (the place where we live) will be further away from the sun. We won't be so close to the hot sun and the temperature will drop. Autumn and then winter will soon be on its way. The kids seemed pretty relieved by this since their school does not have air conditioning and it's about 90 degrees outside every day.
Merritt has resumed his job search and is utilizing resources at the LDS employment services to spiff up his resume and explore career options. He'll also start this week finishing my sister's basement (the apartment in which we will soon live). Meanwhile we are living with my sister and her family. They have been so gracious and we are very appreciative.
Friday night we headed up to Brigham City for Peach Days and to visit Merritt's cousin, Sarah and her family. We hit the children's parade, the free children's activities on Main Street, the carnival and the food tents for some peach cobbler. It was fun to catch up with Aaron and Sarah and see their home in Brigham City. (We had never been there before.) I hope we see a lot more of them now that we live in Utah. Both Merritt and I really enjoy their company.
Sadly, poor Luke had an allergic reaction to a mosquito bite he got at Peach Days. So the next day his entire forehead was a large lump and his right eye was swollen almost shut. He also had a swollen wrist and leg due to mosquito bites. We actually took him to the doctor because he looked so miserable, kind of like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. (His face was that ugly.) But of course it was a waste of a $20 co-pay. The doctor said he was fine and did nothing to help him. I guess we just have to wait it out.
Collin's Primary program was today at church. He belted out all the songs and did very well delivering his part in the microphone. It made me miss Primary. I was really looking forward to helping with the program in November. Our curriculum and music this year has been my favorite so far...all about how to build strong families. I kind of hope they invite me to serve in the Primary in my new ward. We'll see.
Finally, my grandpa turned 88 and we had a little birthday party for him tonight. We had a steak dinner and chocolate cake. Yum. The kids spent the evening collecting acorns from the oak trees in my Aunt Lisa's backyard. They collected hundreds of them. So I'll have to think of a fun activity we can do with them. Collin is really into counting to 100 lately, so even if we just counted them I bet he'd think that was fun.
That reminds me...I'm starting Mom's School up again with Luke this week. I've found a couple of moms to do it with so I'm excited. We'll be reading
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom for our first story time and introduce the concept of upper and lower case letters. I have a real coconut we will explore and talk about how to use our senses to make observations (an introductory science lesson). For art work we'll paint our own coconut tree and add alphabet letter stickers to the top. It should be fun!
