Picture day at Birch Creek Road

 

Well, Saturday morning I was running (I'll clarify, jogging SLOWLY, jiggling, etc.) up the road into the Forest and I noticed that the waterfall that Jeff always wants to take a family picture at had just about the right amount of water. So in my hurry to get back home and grab the kids before the light was bad (the run back is all down hill), I was going a little faster then my usual jiggling pace and I biffed it so bad---right on my face! Actually, I felt my ankle go down as I skidded on the lose gravel and then I went down hard. I was stunned----I've never fallen that hard before, and I was literally stunned, I couldn't move. I wondered what to do.....so did Charcoal. She just looked at me like, 'why did you go and mess up our nice run?' Anyway, after a few minutes I hauled myself up and SLOWLY, hobbled down the last mile to our house. So.... by the time I got the kids fed, dressed and back up to the Forest (NOT on foot, this time!) It was about 11:30 and the light was not good. But since we made the effort, we took the pictures anyway. This is about the only one where everyone is looking straight ahead. Not the best, but at least the picture got taken. I'll put a few more on a slide show.

Yes, I'm still hobbling about with a very swollen ankle. Dang it! Oh well, next time I'll try to remember that I'm a middle-aged, out of shape runner (make that a jiggler), when I'm going down hill, instead of Superwoman, leaping potholes in a single bound!

Samuel develops Bass attitude!

 

Samuel had a great time with the basses---all 8 of them! He had a great teacher---Dominick Fiore, who put up with Samuel's dry humor and tendency to drape himself all over his Bass! Samuel was part of 2 orchestras and played in a master class and repertory class, plus his mom also made him take the Fiddle class, so he had to drag his violin around as well. Samuel had a great time although he thought the concerts were a bit too long and wished that he had more time to play at his cousins' house!

Benjamin--viola man

 

I can't believe this is the only picture I have of Ben from the whole week! I think I counted on Ben to take care of himself. He did a great job. The viola group is pretty small but they had lots of fun together. I think Ben's favorite part of Institute was Denise Willey's orchestra. They played some fun south of the border tunes and did a great job! She was hilarious! Benjamin also enjoyed hanging out with his cousins in the evenings---playing Wii, basketball and night games. Thanks to Mary and her family for letting us stay with them! They took such good care of us!

Joseph fiddling with Aaron Ashton's band

 

Joseph was a good sport to go to ISSI this year. He's feeling that he's getting a little old for it, but I think he still enjoyed it this year. His orchestra was amazing. He worked with the Fry Street Quartet and Michael McClean. In this picture he was playing with Aaron Ashton's band, with whom he had fiddle classes all week. His performing group did a great job with Dvorak's Hungarian Dance #2 and Romance by Wieniawski. He played 1st violin in his string quartet and also learned that it would have been a great idea to have his music mounted on stiffer paper since he lost it 3/4 of the way through the quartet, but recovered quite nicely! His master class teacher was Jenny Oaks Baker. I think he was a little scared of her----she packs a lot of energy into her petite body. She was wondering why she could get more sound out of Joseph's violin then he could---so they compared muscles----Joseph SHOULD be able to get out more sound! I think he didn't quite know what to make of her since he's in reserved teenage boy mode and she was in let-it-all hang out artist mode. But still, quite an amazing experience to be coached by someone of her caliber---she is truly an amazing violinist!

David at Suzuki Institute

 

David went to Suzuki Institute this year for the first time. He loved it! He especially loved his crazy master class teacher, Terry Durbin! Mr. Durbin can make any sound on the violin from race cars to seagulls to laughter! He was an amazing teacher and David just ate it up!

Jacob's car ride

 

Jacob is relaxing after a stressful first haircut!

Jacob takes his car for a spin!

 

Jacob got his first haircut and car ride on June 5. He's pretty impressed with his driving skills!

The empty nest

 

At the beginning of Spring, we discovered that a mama Robin had built a nest right outside of Jacob's window in the lilac bushes. Jonathan excitedly checked the nest every morning and night to make sure that those little babies were okay and that the mama was doing a good job feeding them. Every morning Jonathan would beg me to take a picture of the birds....so I would start to go and find my camera to take the picture and then of course, I inevitably got off track and forgot about it until the day I opened the shades to look out at this scene and discovered that I had waited too long and the birds had finally flown away.

So....I decided that the empty nest is a metaphor for my life. I sometimes feel like the mouse in "If you give a mouse a cookie". I head for the bedroom to grab my camera and notice the laundry on the floor, so I scoop it up and head downstairs to throw it in the washing machine. While I'm down there I notice that the garbage has been dumped over so I head out to the patio to find my broom to sweep it up and while I'm there I notice that I need to put one more coat of paint on my flower pots. I stop to give them a final coat and notice that I need more newspaper to put underneath them so I head out to the garage to get more newspaper and when I get there I find the bottles I meant to store up at Big Pa's house so I put them in the back of the car. I mean to head up the road, but notice that the weeds are overtaking my flowers so I stop to pull a couple of them out. By this time Jacob is tired and hungry, so we head back in the house to feed him and change a diaper, but then the phone rings and.......

Sometimes I wonder why I'm so tired at the end of the day and I have nothing to show for my efforts. That would be focus-----I haven't got much! I hope that I don't miss out on this season of my life, because I'm so easily distracted by the multitude of tasks that are continually before me----just as they are before any mom! So...I guess my hope is that someday I don't wake up and find that all my little babies have flown away and that I have missed the moments that I was going to share with them watching the robin mama feed her babies and teach them how to fly. She seems a lot more focused then I do!

First motorcycle ride of summer

 

Jeff finally got the motorcycle out for the summer and of course, everyone begged for a ride. I thought I was going with him, but everyone else beat me to it!

Benjamin's first 5K

 

Benjamin ran his first 5K! It was a hot muggy morning and poor Ben was purple when he finally crossed the Finish line! Some other runners in the race tried to persuade him to stop and rest, but Ben just kept on going! Yey, Ben, you are amazing!

Jonathan's first 1 mile run

 

Jonathan started out in the stroller with Jacob and me, but he soon hopped out and ran the whole mile run by himself! Way to go Jonathan!

Joseph breaks his record!

 

Joseph came in first in his division and third overall in he 5K. He has a new personal best in 19 minutes 33 seconds. Unfortunately, they ran out of medals when they were awarding the winners, so Joseph is posing here as his winning medal!

David's first 1 mile run

 

David surprised us all with his very speedy mile run! He's a natural! Joseph was quite impressed (intimidated?) with his time! Way to go David!

Seamons boys sweep the FCMC 1 mile/5K run!

 

Okay, so it's hard to be modest with all these 1st and 2nd place runners! Way to go guys! (Samuel was at a Scoutarama in Ogden---but he's sure he would have won, if he'd only had the chance----hmmmm---such confidence!)