Leake Family: Summer Catch-Up

Hello!

I bet you were not anticipating another email from me after my novel from yesterday. When I started that email, which turned out to be over 8 pages when I put it in a Word document, I told myself I was going to skip writing about our other weeks at home, but as the days have gone on, there are things I want to capture. I hope to pound this out real quick, so here it goes...

Gretchen: Gretchen has had some time with friends. She played at Harper's house before we left, Genevieve's house after we got home, and this last week she had both those girls over to our house. She has become a little social butterfly and has talked me into a friend birthday party for her this year even though she is turning an even number. All three of the girls did swim lessons the week after we got home. Gretchen's face in goggles is quite possibly the best thing you will ever see. Also the way she plugs her nose; it just melts me. I really think she is just putting her palm over her nose, but refuses to take any nose plugging tips from me. She is more than willing to put her face in the water and blow bubbles and she happily goes all the way under. She has zero concept of pushing off the steps or wall with her legs, so she is not really swimming correctly, but gosh she sure is darling. She invited my Mom to come and watch swim lessons one day, so both my parents came on Wednesday and we all got great chuckles because of Gretchen. I took Gretchen on a date to Lagoon one morning a couple of weeks ago. She and I did the same thing last year and we both loved it and that is what she wanted to do on her date again this year. She and I were in Lagoon at 10:00 am, we rode four rides, she got a stuffed animal and then wanted to leave! I could not persuade her to stay, she was done! So, we walked out of the park at 10:40 am! She did what she wanted, got what she wanted, and called it good! Some funny things about Gretchen I want to remember...a couple of weeks ago I took dinner to a family in our ward and that morning I made a double batch of snickerdoodles to take to the family and keep for ourselves. Gretchen loves snickerdoodles and upon walking downstairs she looked at me and said, "You made my favorite cookies without asking!" Gretchen still rides in a carseat, despite being almost six years old, she is just so tiny! She has to be 40 pounds to move out of a carseat so weeks ago I weighed her, thinking she had to be pretty close to 40. Nope. She was only 34! So now, every few days she asks me to "scale her" and it cracks me up. I have forbid anyone in our house to tell her the right way to say this because I am holding onto every bit of her young ways. So this week she said to me, "Mommy, can you scale me?" Good news, she has put on a pound in the last two months...she is up to 35! Lastly, Bridget has been in Vernal since Tuesday and comes home today. We have all missed her immensely, and her siblings honestly cannot wait for her to come home. The first morning Gretchen woke up after Bridget left she came in bed with me early and I asked her if she had any dreams that night. She replied with, "I had a dream that Bridget and I had a picnic on a cloud! And we packed 1 kajillion watermelons and 100 brownie bites!" Love.

Rachel: Rachel has also loved reuniting with friends. She has had friends over here and gone to their houses. She has had a long break from dance, which she has been grateful for, but it ramps up again tomorrow and she is excited to go back. She is LOVING her new piano teacher. She practices diligently and is having so much fun with it. She has also missed Bridget dearly, but I have loved watching her create her own fun with Gretchen-it has been imagination central for those two this last week. And Marshall and Rachel, despite fighting some this week, have also had a lot of fun together, which is always refreshing! One funny line from Rachel when we were in California...as I mentioned, I took Bridget and Rachel with me to see the tide pools. We parked in a most beautiful neighborhood. As soon as we got out of the car Rachel proclaimed, "Okay, my new plan now is to live anywhere with mansions." Sounds like a great plan to me! Oh, one more, we all came home sunkissed and a tad burned after our trip. After we had been home a few days Rachel ran up to me and said, "I am shedding!" Um...I think you mean peeling. :) Love her.

Bridget: The biggest highlight from Bridget's last few weeks is she just got home from spending the last five days in Vernal with Grandma Becky and Grandpa Bob. She had a wonderful, wonderful time. She rode horses every single day, including a trail ride, she went to the rodeo, had a sleepover with Katelyn, tried her hand at archery, watched movies, played games, and ate her favorite foods. Bridget told me her two favorite things were the rodeo and the trail ride where she tried galloping for the first time and LOVED it. Many thanks to Bob and Becky for taking such great care of her and showing her such a good time. This is the third summer Bridget has gone out there, and she loves it. Two weekends ago, I dropped Bridget and her friend, Cambria, off at Lagoon at 4:00 pm. Bridget took a cell phone and I told her to call when they were done. I fully expected they would call between 6:00 and 7:00 pm-nope, I picked them up at 10:00 when the park closed! Those giddy girls hopped in the car at 10:00 pm, told me they had Dippin' Dots for dinner and rode Wild Mouse 20 times! Because they rode it so many times they started making challenges for themselves, including riding it with their eyes closed, not holding onto anything, and if they wanted to scream, they had to scream like a goat! Oh my gosh. Can you imagine being in the same cart as them?! Someone did ask them that night if they were twins, a question they have been asked before!

Marshall: Marshall is back in the swing of soccer after a three week break. He has also started waking up early to work out some mornings with Richard and I think they are both having a lot of fun together. He met Cooper at Lagoon on Friday and had a lot of fun with him, despite the incredibly hot temperatures. It has been fun this last week to watch Marshall spearhead some fun for his younger sisters with Bridget being gone. He has played Sleeping Queens a couple of times with Gretchen and she has loved that. The day before we left for our trip, Marshall went to stake youth conference. They hiked along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail to Ensign Peak and then drove down to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for lunch and a presentation about the renovation of the Salt Lake Temple. All the kids got a small block of granite from the original baptistry-pretty cool! On June 28th, Richard and Marshall, along with another soccer friend and his dad went to the U.S. Women's soccer game at Rio Tinto. Unfortunately, there was a weather delay, so they didn't stay to wait that out, and they came home pretty wet, but they still had a great time and they are glad they went! A huge highlight for Marshall this last week was I took him driving! What?! Call me crazy, but I did put my 13 year old behind the wheel. Ha! I have actually been thinking about this for a while, and on a whim, I decided on Wednesday morning to do it. Marshall had an appointment that morning, and then he was gracious enough to come to the car wash with me and help me wipe it down and vacuum it out, so I decided to surprise him and reward him. He had no clue what was coming. After the car wash, we drove to the stake center parking lot where I drove for the first time. I put the car in park, and told him to switch me seats. He had a momentary freak out, but I assured him all was well. He just drove a U through the parking lot, parked, reversed, and drove back to where we started. He did a great job! He came home on Cloud 9 and could not wait to brag to everyone in the family about what he had just done. :)

As for Richard and I, I am loving this summer, and Richard is barely surviving. :) When we got home from our trip, he worked 12 straight days, had yesterday off, worked today and the next two days and then on Wednesday he leaves for YM camp, which he is mostly dreading! He has managed some fun though. The Saturday the kids and I were gone he went golfing with a friend in the ward. He enjoyed the soccer game with Marshall and just this week he went to go see Thor with Marshall, Ricky and Duncan. He also got his car windows tinted yesterday, so he is feeling pretty cool I would say. :) I am loving the summer life with these four kids. I feel that we are in the perfect age span. Marshall still wants to hang with us and is always up for fun, and we don't have strollers or diapers or naps to work around. The kids are fairly independent and I can get things done around the house while they are also doing their jobs! Gretchen still needs help, but the other three are awesome at it. Before our trip, I was gone with Gretchen during lunch time and told the other three kids they were on their own for lunch, and they did it! I hate feeding just myself lunch (worst meal of the day in my opinion) so I really don't like feeding anyone else lunch, so this was a major win for me!

Our 4th of July was different this year. Richard worked Saturday through Monday, so the kids and I were mostly on our own. A highlight for us was Centerville's fireworks on the evening of the 2nd. They were fantastic. We sat by our neighbors and had a great time-it was almost 30 minutes of fireworks! Sadly, on the 4th the parade was cancelled because of a fire in the foothills of Centerville. Rachel was so sad about this and had a good cry about it, reminding me it has been three years since Centerville has had a parade. My parents did come over that morning to watch 1776, and my Mom happened to have taffy at her house, so she brought it with them and threw it from our loft down to the kids. That significantly improved Rachel's spirits! That evening we went to Danny's for a BBQ and cousin fun. My kids had a ball with their cousins. Before we left we did pop-its and sparklers. Fun was definitely had by all.

On the 5th the kids and I got a real treat. We drove to Starvation Reservoir and met the Leakes there for an afternoon of boating, kayaking, tubing and swimming. I thought we would stay for three to four hours, but we ended up staying for six hours and had the best time. Rachel and Gretchen have never been on Bob's boat and they loved it. I haven't been on a boat like that since I was a teenager and it was thrilling! Marshall was almost always on the tube with Katelyn and I bribed Bridget with $5 to get on the tube. :) I also did the tube with Marshall and Katelyn and had a blast. It was a well spent day. When we were done, we said our good-byes to Bridget who went home with the Leakes and the other three kids and I got home at 9:45 that night! Ha!