Category: Our Family

I volunteered to help out at the Girl Scout day camp again this year. This year the theme was GSI:Girl Scout investigation, and we held it at the Girl Scout building in American Fork. They had a crime scene set up, with some clues for the girls to figure out. The crime? Someone stole the thin mints! We had it set up so that each day there was a clue that the girls were to pay attention to, then each of the leaders at day camp was given a set of answers to tell the girls when the girls asked us about the clues. One of the leaders was set up to be the cookie caper, and all the rest of us were considered other suspects until our answers ruled us out. That went on throughout the three days of camp. There were other activities to keep us busy each day.

One day we had a K-9 officer come talk to the girls and give them a demonstration of how they’ve got the dogs trained to help them.

Another day we had an ambulance come, and the girls got a tour of all the compartments and the inside. The last day the girls got to participate in an obstacle course for one portion of the day, and they got to play cops and robbers for another portion. Cops and robbers was kind of just a twist on tag. The “cops” got to wear a cardboard police car, and chase all the people who weren’t wearing cars at all.

At the end of every day, it was so cool to see the girls form a giant friendship circle.

Our new bedroom furniture arrived today!!! I am so excited and it took way longer than they told us it would, but it’s finally here! A couple of guys brought it and they got it unloaded and set up in my room. Then they even offered to move our mattress from the basement to put it on the bed for me. Kyle and I won’t be sleeping in the basement tonight. 🙂

Here are some pictures of what our room used to look like:

Now it looks like this:

It’s now pretty obvious that we aren’t going to get both the recliner and the treadmill back in there. So we are going to have to figure out which one will get to go back in our room, and where the other one is going to go instead. I’m so excited to get to sleep in my room again! And now I get to start figuring out what I’m going to put in which drawers. 😀

We went to the zoo today, and we invited Debby and Rexton along. We have a membership, and with our membership we can get one other person in free, and Rexton was free because he is younger than two.

We got to see the new African Savannah that the zoo has put in, and we got to see the two male lions. The zoo also just recently acquired two female lions, but they haven’t let the four of them out together yet. The boys and the girls get to take turns in the exhibit, while the other set is behind the scenes somewhere. That way they are exposed to each others smells for now, and they will slowly introduce them to each other over time, eventually ending with having the four of them share the exhibit.

When we were looking at the elephants, Lydia’s diaper fell off so I took her to a nearby restroom to replace it. When we came back I found some of the kids participating in a little lesson on music.

We wandered around some more checking out some of the other changes the zoo has been making lately. Debby couldn’t stay all day because she had a party to get to so she took Rexton and left (she had driven separately). Eventually we decided we needed to eat some lunch. Kyle and I debated whether we should eat at the zoo, or leave too, and go find something else. We aren’t super familiar with the area, and it was rather late so I didn’t want to risk having to drive around for a really long time to find something decent to eat. We decided that eating at the zoo probably wasn’t a whole lot more expensive and we don’t do it very often so we just ate at one of the food places there. We got a few hamburgers and split them for the kids (that helped with cost). Then we walked around a bit more and decided it was time to head home.

Debby’s husband, Jeff, joined the army and left a few days ago to report for training in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I wanted to make sure that Debby didn’t spend her birthday alone with Rexton, so I told her to come over, and asked her what kind of cake she wanted. She decided that she wanted tres leches cake, which is one I’ve never made before. I don’t particularly like tres leches cake, because every time I’ve had it, it’s been just plain soggy. But I found a recipe, and made one anyway. Hopefully it was as good as Debby was hoping it would be.

I hope she had a good time spending her birthday with us. I feel bad that Jeff had to go away right before her birthday, and he won’t be back for a few months. I hope to have her and Rexton over a lot, over the next few months while he’s gone, just so she won’t be alone all the time.