Apples for sale

The other day I was working out in the shop and the boys were running around outside. I noticed they started dragging our camping chairs around and this is what I found.

The fact they were so close to the road startled me but what was really worrysome was the question, why are they sitting down? Something must be going on. This was prime run around time. I investigated further and found them each with a bag of cut up apples from our tree out back in a bag.

Q "What are you guys doing?"

S "We are selling apples."

I thought this was funny and cute and thought it might entertain them for at least 20 minutes, so I encouraged them.

Q "You need a sign Soren. Go draw a picture of an a apple and write the word sale."
Quick to do a craft Soren ran off to accomplish the task. Ah - entertainment for 5 more minutes. This is great! I didn't think anyone would actually stop by, otherwise I would have coached them more and helped with the sign a bit. So about 10 minutes later I was surprised when I heard talking on the drive way. I went out to see what was going on. An older German woman with a great accent was haggling with the boys.

This kind woman said, "You have budding entrpenueres on your hands. I had to bargen down from 2$ an apple slice to 50 cents an apple slice."

I sheepishly laughed and then praised her on her generosity. Once she drove away I quickly wrote an appropriate price on the sign. 5 cents a slice or 25 cents an apple. The boys were so thrilled by their business deal they ran off picking a whole bowl full of apples.

Their next and final customer was a friend dropping off some things of mine. she bought 4 apples for a whole dollar. A whole bill! Soren was in Heaven. He carried the dollar around with him for days.

This is definitely Ryan's side of the family coming through. Apparently Ryan was know around the neighborhood to sell dirt.

The Coin

Last weekend we went camping with 6 other families. It was so fun and we are repeating the adventure this coming weekend. We camped at a luxury campground where they had a swimming pool, miniature golf, a little pond/lake that you could canoe on ect. There was also a near by lake that we jet skied and tubbed on. It was really fun. When I think of this trip the biggest constant for me was how funny Soren was. He is in this stage where he says the funniest things.

On the first night we are at the lake and having a picnic dinner and swimming. Soren is at a different picnic table from me. A few minutes later he come over,

Soren, "Mom, I swallowed a coin and my throat hurts."

Q "What?! You swallowed a coin? What do you mean you swallowed a coin?"

S "I was sucking on a coin and it accidentally slipped down. Last time when I did this I could get it back out. But this time I can't."

Q "What? What do you mean last time you could get it back up? Why are you sucking on coins? Here drink this water. "

The coin passed further down slowly. 15 minutes later he is feeling much better and ready to play. Through more investigation we determine the coin is a penny. Before he runs off to play we review wise council.

Q "Soren, what are you going to do if you find a coin again?"

S "I am going to throw it back into the ocean."

Q "Are you going to ever put it in your mouth again?"

S "No."

Q "Why not?"

S "Because I already have one in my body."

..........not instilling confidence.

Wanting to make sure the coin passes without problems I instruct Soren to let me know when he poops so I can investigate. Ah the glory of motherhood. A day in a half later at breakfast Soren comes running from where he is playing and yells,

"Mom, I need to go to the port o potty. The coins going to fall out!"

Nice.

On a less gruesome note, Soren got a lot of "girlfriend" time in. McKenzie was at the campout.

Some of my favorite lines of his were,

While carying a plate of fruit yelling, "Kenz, Kenz, I want to share some food with you. Kenz, come here!"

After a full day of play at the beach with McKenzie, while we drove away Soren says with a big sigh, "Tomorrow I am going to just spend some time with my girlfriend."

Q "Oh? What are you going to do?"

S "Just spend time with her and having fun."

Is he hearing these lines somewhere?

At one point it was starting to get dark and we were all packing up to go when McKenzies mom said a bit worried, "Does anyone know where McKenzie is?"

Q "Hmm, well where is Soren?

Sure enough, down the beach was Soren and Mckenzie just talking and sitting in the sand and sort of playing in it. I need to hang around those two more. Ease drop a little. What do 5 year old love birds talk about anyway?

Girlscamp

I went to Girls camp this year as the camp nurse. I haven't been back since I was a 4th year leader when I was 6 months pregnant with Soren.....for 6 years ago. Man it was so fun. I really am made for girls camp. It is strange because the type of "camping" really isn't my cup of tea. I veiw myself as a "real" camper - or more ideally I would like to be backpacking. But getting together with a lot of awesome woman and girls joking, laughing, being goofy and loving each other compensates for the style of "camping". My co-nurse was Cathy Gilman and I LOVED her. She was perfect. She is a labor and delivery nurse and so I assigned her to comfort anyone who needed some TLC and I would do any life saving or procedural interventions. But the best part about Cathy was on the first morning when she walked into the medical tent and said, "Whatcha doing?" "Oh I am writing a song we are going to sing at role call." and she replied without missing a beat, "Okay." She was the best partner EVER! We did these medical song each morning reminding the girls to drink water and eat healthy and do morning excersizes. The girls loved it and we were superstars. It was so much fun. When I would go to the stage I would just raise my arms up in the air like they should be screaming for me and they would just scream and cheer louder. I seriously felt like a superstar. It was strange and fun all at the same time.
The leaders get to camp a day in advance to get ready for camp. I was itching to lash something. My mom was my leader my first year at girls camp and she taught us how to lash water stations, wash stations and the like - something she taught me in normal camping too. I always thought it was so cool to make stuff out of rope and sticks and limbs. And so, coming back to girls camp, I knew I needed to lash something. I didn't know what until I got there. I realized we needed more organization for our medical supplies.

Meet my shelf. It was awesome. For the first few days people would come by just to see the shelf. it was that cool.

Girlfriends

You may think this title is for me. Where I blog about all the girlfriends I have and love. Well, although I should do that, that is not what this title is for. This title is for Soren's girlfriend. That is right, by son has his first girlfriend. He has asked several girls to marry him last year in preschool, but this is his first girlfriend - or so he tells me. Today after church he comes running up to me and whispers, "McKenzie and I are boyfriend and girlfriend.

Quinae, "Oh? How do you know that?"

Soren, "We just decided now in the hall. We both said we would be each others boyfriend and girlfriend."

Not knowing what to say I just said, "Well, congratulations Soren."

McKenzie is our 6yr old neighbor directly behind us. We don't have a fence between us and the kids go over to each others houses freely. She is adorable as all the kids are over there and there is no way he isn't going to fall in love with her and perhaps all her sisters. The first thing I thought was, "Awesome. My son is already in love with the girl next door. His life is going to be filled with drama and heart ache." After getting home from church and thinking more of this I thought we should talk more of the subject.

Quinae, "Soren, did you know the prophet taught us we shouldn't date until we are 16?"

Soren, "Yeah, primary taught me that."

Surprised and doubtful, I decided to investigate this more.

Quinae, "What is dating?" (we have never talked about dating or girlfriends for that matter)

Xander jumps in with, "I know what dating is. Dating is when 2 people go off with each other."

Soren, "Yeah and they go to a movie and eat dinner.

Wow, maybe primary has taught this.

Investigating Soren's knowledge more I ask, "What do boyfriend and girlfriends do?"

Soren, "I don't know. Well, actually I do but it is a secret."

Trying to get some early brain washing in I say, "Actually real boyfriend and girlfriends always tell their mom's everything they do."

And without missing a beat Soren said, "Not this boyfriend."

I laughed out of shock and stress.

15 minutes later Soren shows me a card that has hearts and his name on it. He was trying to spell the word dancing but screwed up and ended up cutting it out. He then announced his intentions.

Soren, "Mom, can I run over and give this to McKenzie?"

Quinae, "What is it?"

Soren, "It is a card for a dance show."

Quinae, "What is a dance show?"

Soren, "A dance show is when she comes over to my house and I dance for her..........and then we eat dinner."

Quinae, "Is that a date" That kind of sounds like a date."

Soren, "No, it is just dancing and dinner."

I promptly called McKenzie's Mom to relay this whole story as Soren gives the card to McKenzie in the backyard.

Alita, "Wow, good luck with that"

Quinae, "Hey, I am calling you for advice!"

I never in a million years thought I would talk about dating with my 5 year old boy.

He really does love girls and beautiful girly things. When I came back form girls camp my fingernails were painted and I was wearing a necklace, but my hair was disheveled and my clothes were dirty. Upon my return, in true awe and appreciation Soren declared, "Mom you're so beautiful!" And then he touched my necklace and stroked my nails.

That evening we went to a friends for a BBQ and there was a pretty woman with painted nails, nice makeup and done up hair. At some point in the evening he picked a perfect rose from the garden, walked up to her and smiled and gave it to her and walked away. She was so amazed by the gesture she couldn't help but talk about it for 10 minutes. Later I was talking to her and Soren came up to me to ask a question. Before he could I said, "Soren, I heard you gave this lady a rose. That was so nice." He embarrassingly smiled and briefly buried his face in my elbow.

He is so cute........and I am totally scared for the future.

Hiking Hiccups

We have been trying to go hiking at least every other week this summer. The boys have loved it and so have I. We go on 2 - 4 mile round trip hikes. Soren hikes like a pro but Xander get tired easier and at times can dawdle.

One hike we hiked up to a lake with poor access. I am always trying to find a 2 mile hike fairly local up to lakes - this is not that easy. I was so excited about this one but the final destination was a little less then picturesque. The only access was this area with a log jam. The boys thought it was great though and wanted to walk out on the logs and eat their lunch. These logs are floating in shallow water. Although I knew they wouldn't die, I was worried about them falling in, getting soaked and freezing the rest of the hike. However, keeping off the logs deemed too hard.

They did great balancing walking on them, which was good because despite repeatedly reminding them of the looming threat of getting wet, they kept going back and forth from land to log. Finally it was time to leave and head back down. I called them to come and they delightfully obliged. Soren got on land like a pro and Xander was right behind him. 12 inches from land, he fell of. HE FELL OFF! Into the lake. It was only 12 inches deep but he fell sideways and totally submerge himself. That is not easy to do. The fear had been realized. I sighed as he screamed in horror at the flash of freezing. I stripped down a screaming Xander slowly taking in his clothing options. This is what we came up with.

Luckily he didn't have his jacket on at the time of the fall and I wrapped Soren's windbreaker on like a skirt. He had to wear his wet shoes and underwear. After giving him a sucker Xander didn't complain much.

Year one of brain washing my kids into loving the great outdoors - check.

Working Mom

I got a new job working at Good Samaritan Hospital in their ICU. I had been working at a long term ventilator specialty hospital for the last 1.5 yrs as there were few positions open in other hospitals. Regional Hospital (my old job) was fairly close to my house, paid well, and was very accommodating to when I wanted to work. However the patient population was not my favorite. I worked with people who were very difficult to get off the breathing machine and so they were often all around very sick and had sad stories and most, with poor outcomes. Before I went to work there, I was thinking of not working in the ICU anymore because it was so sad and draining. Well, now I am so excited to work in the ICU again where there is so much hope and happiness.

Good Samaritan puts their new employees through a very thorough orientation. It lasted 1.5 weeks of full time 8 hr days. Remember I have been an agency nurse for years so I am use to walking in to a new hospital, not know where anything is, how to chart or who anyone is and get a 5 min orientation around the unit and begin working. Although it was long and at time boring, I am very glad to get some orientation. It makes me think the hospital is smart and cares. So far I have been really impressed with Good Samaritan and am very excited to start on the floor on Monday.

So for this last week and a half, it gave me a taste of what it would be like being a working mom in "real life" meaning, the hours normal people work - 8-5pm everyday. One day I went to work, came home and ate dinner and spent about an hour with my family and then went to a meeting. It was wild. It gave me new perspective about what the Dad's go through as it was a typical schedule for a lot of my friends husbands.

So this is what I got out the week in this new perspective.

• When you work full time it shifts your whole perspective. Instead of thinking of my kids and family and what needs to be done at home, I thought of work, since that is what I was doing. Soren had his first field trip and I didn't send him off or welcome him home and I wasn't a volunteer. Instead I was behaving like a working professional in my business casual clothes reviewing Good Samaritans policy on running a code.
• My kids are loyal to the one who they see the most. Just after 3 days of me working and Ryan home, they didn't want to have anything to do with me. What?! "I want to sit by Dad." "No I want to sit by Dad."
• There is very little to no free time. The last 4 days of my training, Ryan worked too so we had Grandma's and a friend watch the boys (thank you all!!). I would pick up the boys at 5 or 5:30 and then do the dinner bedtime routine and then get ready for the next day.. The weekend Ryan had to work so I was just doing boring maintenance stuff trying to get caught up over the weekend.
• I am so lucky to get to stay home most the time. I love staying home with the boys, even when they drive me crazy and I call one of you up exasperated from the last event. I could very easily work full time or even more then just a day a week, but I do not want to. Sometimes I feel like I have to defend that position even to some surprising people in my life, but defend I will because no matter how enticing advancing my career may seem, advancing my motherhood seems even better.
• I am so lucky to be able to work a little at a job that I love, pays well and is very mom friendly. True there are times when I feel like all I do is take care of people at home and then escape to work only to take care of more people, and yes there are parts I could do without, but over all I am very very happy to be a nurse and so lucky to be able to make some money for my family if/when they need it.

Overall assessment - working full time 8 hr days is terrible. I love my normally abnormal schedule.

Biking Orcas Island

Over memorial weekend the boys and I went on a 4 day bike trip to Orcas Island. Ryan had to work and didn't want to come anyways so it worked out well for all. This is a trip that my sister Rochelle has gone on for years and their family loves it. I wanted to go last year but without Ryan I thought Xander might die with a 2:1 ration child to adult. I decided this year he was better at following direction and felt more comfortable going by myself. I am glad we did because it was a BLAST! There was a group of 63 this year (smaller then years past). The group consists of families - boy heavy in gender. No problems for me because that also describes us. The ride is 13 miles and incredibly hilly. Despite my drive to find a double tow behind, we continued with our usual bike set up - Xander in a chair up front and Soren in the back peddling. I have done this bike set up for the past 2 summers, however turns out every year kids get heavier. I calculated I was probably carrying 110 - 120 extra pounds. There is a hill that is a mile long. Needless to say I did some hill walking, all the time resolving to get in better shape - I don't believe in hill walking. Riding to the campgrounds pretty much kicked my hinny hoe. But, it was sunny and beautiful that day and the san juan islands with sun is probably one of the most beautiful places. It is so charming that you temporarily forget the horrific reality of ferries and lack of employment and think to yourself, "I wish I could live here."When we arrived we saw this beautiful campgrounds and facilities. Camp Moran is delightful. These picture are particularly for my local friends in trying to convince you to go on this trip with me next year. Isn't dreamy?? There is hiking, swimming in the lake, fishing, canoeing, campfires, games and more. All breakfast and dinners are provided and you only have to help once in the kitchen either cleaning or preparing. My kids had so much fun helping clean up that they wanted to help out every time after that. The people who put this one are so friendly and nice and were always happy for extra hands - even little ones.

The camp is on a cute lake. It had a great dock and the kids enjoyed unsuccessful fishing and swimming in 65 degree weather. I enjoyed watching.

There seem to always be people playing games in the lodge. Soren learned about chess from his 6 year old cousin. I was busy with the 3 year olds so I don't know the sort of rules they decided on but whatever it was Soren loved it. Soren now can set up the board correctly and plays away - not always with an opponent. Kings, Queens, knights, castles - that is right up his alley. My boy looks like a genius in this picture as he contemplates how to crush his opponent. Your going down Jaden!

We wiped out Xander every day and by 4 or 5 pm, no matter where he was Xander couldn't seem to keep his eyes open.

There was a large group of teenage boys. These were the nicest teenage boys I have ever meet. They were so cooperative and pleasant. They ran together in a group and no one was left out. By the last night Xander caught wind of them and wanted to hang out with them the rest of the time - the amazing part was how nice and willing the boys were to play and talk with my boys. I found it fascinating that even though Xander didn't know these kids at all and they were all so much older then him, he had no problems dominating the conversation the WHOLE time he was with them.

We had a campfire one night and they put on an impromptu talent show. People stood up and told jokes, stories and lead camp song. Everyone was more then happy to participate. Even when the official campfire was over a group of teenage boys and a seperate group of adults stayed behind singing different camp songs. It was like the wholesome fun out of leave it to beaver.

We did have a little incident the first night. Soren fell off the top bunk on to the cement floor in the middle of the night. We are so grateful to God we didn't have any neuro injuries or bone fractures. This story is a wee bit longer then the version I am giving you but know that we were truly blessed.

Look at that. All smiles only 10 hrs after the fall. One tough kid.

We went on a hike one day and saw 3 water falls. It was a bit overcast and cold this day and I made Xander wear pants and a light fleece jacket. In true Xander form, 5 minutes after taking this picture Xander striped down to look like this the rest of the hike.

I love this picture with Xander running in the background. Who let him loose? This picture also features Soren shiner.
One of my fellow campers offered to take on of my kids on his bike for the ride back. It isn't as weird as your thinking. I knew this guy from a neighboring ward and we biked together the whole way back.. It was awesome being 70 pounds lighter (he took Soren). I felt like super woman. There was no hill that could defeat me!!! (granted it is more down hill compared to the way there - but shhhh my psyche does not need to know that.)

Like clockwork Xander fell asleep on the ride back just a mile from the ferry. 40# of dead weight is not the same as 40# of weight.

My sister and our family at the finish line. They were great to spend time with on the trip. Xander asks if we can go back about every other day. "Noted. You loved it. But we have to wait a year."