We've had an eventful summer. Last fall we bought our first boat and it seems like when we're not working we're boating. Everyone has been up on two skis. Even Kenzie who thought she'd never get up and (at the beginning of the summer) thought Dad was the meanest for making her try every time...never mind that she loves it now. Even Jake, who only is up for a second. Brad bought a tool called the barefoot boom that helps the new beginners learn.
It's even helped me get up on one ski. I still can't do the deep water start but I am getting up on a rope off of the bar. Even Jordan and Ben have been able to barefoot off the boom. It's a pretty nifty teaching tool. And of course, since Brad has been skiing all summer long he finally has a picture that he'd like me to put up of himself.
Jordan attended his first youth dance last night. It's strange having kids the age that you remember feeling you were old. I think that is the first time I really felt old, when I was old enough to attend dances. And I remember the boys I liked at the time...Brian and Danny. I remember trying to see them at dances and the excitement I felt if I did actually dance with one. Thinking about all that...I'm not sure I want Jordan going. I'm not ready for any of that romance stuff. If only I could control the rest of his life...
We've discovered that we're not meant to own cats...really. You remember this one:
the one I got for Kenzie for her birthday, we named her Taz. Well, Taz is no more. She climbed in an old camping cooler we were about to throw away and somehow the cooler got shut while she was in it. Kenzie found her the next day...suffocated. She was crushed...as were all the kids. We had a ceremony and buried Taz that evening. The inscription on the cross the kids made for her said: "Here lies Taz loved by Jordan, Kenzie, Ben, Riley and Jake Belt."
So I decided to get her another. I found two, brother and sister. Alex and Jewel. Jewel was the first to disappear. Eaten by a coyote or fox. Alex, well he hung himself. Really. Riley tied him up to a bike on our porch and Alex walked off the porch and well...again the children found him deceased. Riley doesn't want me to write this because he doesn't want you to think that he did that on purpose. He was very upset when they found the cat dead. Me, I decided we're not going to try cats again for a long while. On the bright side though...this all did open up discussions of why we don't climb into trunks of cars or twirl around with the strings of blinds around our necks.
I went to Seattle and had a wonderful, relaxing time without Brad and the kids. When I got home though...this is what I was greeted by:
which I guess looks kind of cool when they're done up but when they go to church and comb them down they kind of look like creepy old guys with combovers as illustrated by this picture Riley took of he and I today.
Brad promised me he'd shave them all in time for school.
Finally, funny story from today. Brad found a place where one of our children had carved on our computer desk. He asked who did it. No one confessed. So, as is common with Brad, until one confessed, he sent them all to bed. Well, sometime while they all sat in bed, the older children convinced the youngest that it would be his duty to confess. And the youngest agreed. After all, he'd rather get spankings than be in bed all day. So he comes down, confesses and because he was willing to take the blame for all the children even though he didn't do it (which Brad found out through his quizzing techniques) he was rewarded a popsicle. Jake then proceeded to run upstairs and came back downstairs seconds later informing us that he had to take off the five pair of underwear he had put on in preparation for the spankings dad was going to give him that he knew were going to be really hard :)
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