Update

I have been the lamest blogger ever these past couple of months. I have been crazy busy with work projects, and so I spend all day being a mom and all night working, and spending every spare minute trying to finish up my projects, take care of the house, take care of church responsibilities, take care of familial responsibilities like dentist appointments and birthday parties, and so on and so on.... I didn't plan to be so busy with work after the baby was born, but in consulting, you just sort of have to take the projects as they come. I'm not complaining - it's nothing I haven't brought upon myself!

Anyway, I've just wrapped up 2 projects, and am leaving for girls' camp on Monday! This year we are doing ward camp instead of stake camp, so each ward gets to do whatever they want. Our group is taking our girls (35 of them!) canoeing and hiking in the Ozarks! It should be a lot of fun, but you would not believe the amount of preparation that has gone into this adventure! We've been preparing since January!

The hardest thing will be to be away from my little girls for the whole week! Madison is going to spend the week with my mom at Camp Grandma. She is SOOO excited, first of all because she gets to go on the airplane (35 minute flight) all by herself! Then my mom has planned all kinds of fun adventures for the week - from Sea World, to boating on the lake, to riding the "ducks", to riding the train, etc., etc., etc. I am kind of jealous - I wish I could go to Camp Grandma too! My mom said she'd take lots of pictures. Maya and Macy will be staying here, but hopefully will have some fun, too, with Grandma Twi and Grandpa, and friends. Plus Dad, of course! Warren will be busy with both girls all by himself every evening after work!

I get back on Saturday, and then on Thursday we leave again for our family vacation with my Dad and Twi, and all the brothers and sisters and grandkids. We are very excited about that, too! The girls all got their passports (that is a long, horrible story in and of itself!) - even Macy got one! She probably will not like the fact that it's a baby picture of her when she is still using the passport when she is 4 or 5, but what can you do!?

Madison had her ballet recital this week - I hope to post some video soon. Warren got this new HD video camera, and so I don't really know how to download and crop the videos yet - hopefully that's a project he can get to while I'm gone. The two numbers were adorable! And definitely there are a couple of bloopers to make you smile. Hope to post them when I get back.

This weekend has been youth conference for our stake, and the service project this morning was clearing out this old cemetery that has recently been given Texas landmark status. It was amazing - when we first arrived, you just saw a few headstones backed up to dense forest. About 150 of us descended on the place, hacking and raking and chainsawing and mowing and clipping, and dragging pile after pile of underbrush to these two ginormous dumpsters. All of the kids were amazing - even girls who normally might complain or not participate just pitched in with big smiles and worked their tails off. We were all big sweaty messes when the time was up, but in place of the dense forest, there were a hundred grave markers that we uncovered! There was still so much more to do, but we made some serious headway. It was a great feeling, despite the myriad scratches all over my arm! It feels good to do some hard physical labor sometimes...and I think it's so good for the kids too! I love working with the youth.