Cherry jammmm

This year for the first time I decided I should store some of my fruit instead of just eating them all. I myself am completely clueless about how to bottle things so I asked Jenny if she would teach me how to make jam in exchange for half of my cherries. She said she would so the week after the 4th I started picking my fruit. The first day I picked for 3 hours and filled a big blue tub full of cherries. I thought it would be smart to fill the tub with water and save me having to rinse them later... anyone who cans is saying "oh no" in thier head right now. I got busy and left the cherries, went to billy's double header fast pitch game in monticello and when we got home at 11:00 pm I had forgotten about them. The next morning I went out to pick some more. I found them rotten!! The whole tub foamy and brown and stinky! I called debbie so mad and on the verge of tears. I wasted all that food that could have become a part of my food storage. I picked the rest of my tree that day and filled the tub one more time. I didn't put them in water and I took them imediately inside. I was sure that now I had barely enough cherries for my jam. The next day I went up to Jenny's and we began. We made 7 batches of jam and still hadn't used them all! I was there for 5 hours! Needless to say I learned alot! I called Debbie today and told her that I decided it was a tender mercy from Heavenly Father that half my cherries had spoiled!!

Summer Days...

My kids are so cool. Apparently they are even too cool to do chores these days.
So I have a really funny story. Although it wasn't funny to me until yesterday when I went to lunch with a couple of my friends and Camille asked me if my summer was calming down yet. I heard that question and I was immediately taken back to the events of the day before. Good thing I can laugh at myself...
Anyone who knows me knows that my math is simple, clean house= happy, unorganized house=grumpy & irrational. You would think that by now my kids would know this about me and do their part. But they must have acquired a convenient case of amnesia this summer!
Of the then 45 days that my children had been on summer vacation I was having a hard time remembering a single day that it had taken them less than 6 hours to complete their daily chores. I don't allow them to play, or go swimming, or even go visit grandma mendoza who is in town, until their responsibilities are taken care of and I will tell you that we were having a very boring summer! This was getting on my nerves!! Even a boring mom needs out of the house some times!
So I presented the question to my kids. "Can you guys think of a day that it didn't take you 6 hours to finish your chores? And when you did finish you hadn't cheated on it at all?" They all thought for a minute and then mercedeez said that she could think of 3 days.
She was very proud of herself and so I got out the calendar and we counted how many days of summer there had been. Her voice lowered and her head went down and she said "ohhh".
And that is when my fit began. I moved briskly through the house stomping, and cleaning, moving from room to room, lecturing the whole time. I still wasn't getting the response I wanted and so I did what any desperate mom would do... I assured them that they were all getting spankings when their dad got home!!
Soon Billy called from work and he heard an ear full from me for 20 min. straight. I assured him that I was not mad but that I had been pondering about it all day and decided that the kids needed spankings and that he needed to do it because if I did it it wouldn't hurt enough.
He was probably laughing at me inside and he kindly told me that he really didn't want to spank them but that yes they should have a punishment. "Let's ground them indefinitely" I said very seriously. He probably laughed inside again and he said he would take care of it when he got home. We hung up but I was not satisfied. I went out to the children and I told them they could have the choice of being grounded for 2 days or get spanked from dad. Our obviously naive children all picked spankings!!!! They are totally clueless to the legendary terror of the fathers spanking!! I heard them reasoning that the pain would go away but that they couldn't bear to be apart from their friends. I was a little disappointed.
They are, however, familiar to military discipline tactics!! When Billy got home he gave them the option to be grounded or do butts on the wall.... they ALL chose to be grounded!! ha ha

Here we are at the beginning of one of the most meaningful days of my life. I don't know how many of you have heard of the "run for the fallen". It was started by a group who had a friend who served and died in Iraq in 2005. They decided they wanted to do something not only for him but all the soldiers who had given their lives so they organized this run. They are running 1 mile for each who died. They started in California on Flag day, they ran through Blanding today and they will end in Arlington Virginia in August. Anyone who wants to be involved has been invited to organize a one mile run on thier last day wherever you are! Go to www.runforthefallen.org to get more info!!

Here comes one of thier runners they carry the flag the whole way. Next to her is a blanding local who met with them in Bluff and ran along side of them At each mile they stop and leave a flag and picture of a soldier (sorry I forgot to turn it how dumb) They go in order of death and who would have known that the flag for Quinn, who was from here would end up in between here and monticello! what a neat coincidence.(?)
The first runner handed off the flag and we followed behind the next. All of us who participated here in Blanding ran 2 miles for the 2 soldiers from our area Quinn and Nathan Winder. We will be organizing a mile run to show our support in August on the last day.

Megan Macdonald with he sisters cortney and brittney and their cousin Kelly giving us a warm welcome into camp. She is standing by our Hive made of hose we had a very well decorated camp.
A picture of our group in our black and yellow. We were the industrious pollen jocks (though everyone kept calling us industrial???) We had alot of fun
Here is the cutest bee in our hive talia and justin hunts little girl Nya Jane

this is some wierd rich lady from moab Hee Heee Here is camille and amy who I serve in the presidency with. As you can see they are amazing and it was a priveledge to share a tent with them.

Here we are with our Elders Quorum cutting logs for a service project. We took the wood we gathered to a family in our ward who needed it! Our girls were so dedicated and tough. They found and carried lots of logs over for the Guys to cut. They were begging them to quit gathering!
Alot of teamwork got the job done quickly Our girls were good sports
The stake leaders informed us that we were not to help only cheer so we made pompoms and did a really good job at it. We are the "coolest" leaders in the stake if you ask me.
We were asked to get help from our elders quorum and to gather wood for a family. We had an hour and a half to do it and were required to at least fill two boxes... we were the only ones who invited our elders quorum and we simply stayed busy for the whole time and got 2 pickup trucks full!!! WE OWE A HUGE THANK YOU TO GRANDPA WHO LET US GATHER LOGS ON HIS LAND!!