I am so proud of Paige today. She had her first "real" swim meet. There were 4 teams there today. She swam in 4 races. 50 backstroke, 50 breaststroke, 50 freestyle, and the relay where she did 50 freestyle.

When Paige first started a month ago she didn't know how to do any of the strokes properly and therefore was the slowest on her team. But Paige has come leaps and bounds and did great today. She shaved time off every race that she did today (36 sec, 14 sec, and 9 seconds) compared to last time her time was recorded.

She won first place (in her heats) in the 50 back and relay, 2nd place in the breast, and 4th in the 50 free! She was so proud of her self.

At the next meet she will be bumped up to a more difficult heat and so probably wont win those but she is still so excited to be improving.

She has worked so hard every day after school and now it is paying off! I didn't take any photos today cause it is kind of crazy madhouse trying to make sure she gets lined up for the right race. Next meet I will make sure I take some photos.

We went camping this last weekend! It was a weekend with real highs and lows. We tried really hard all weekend but didn't catch any fish. Paige was especially disappointed.



We did have a blast just being away from it all and visiting with family for 4 days. The kids were allowed to play with some hatchets Papa had (don't worry, they were dull) and so they hacked away at logs all weekend and thought that was great.

The bad part of the weekend was when Grant fell and got hurt. He started to run and tripped and hit his face on a cement pad. The poor guy's eyed swelled right up. He now has a black eye and a huge scratch/cut on his face. We were all happy that it wasn't any worse. It's two days later and his eye is still swollen and he now has a huge scab. Poor guy!

Mitchell was the Student of the Month for May in his class. This is a big honour and so he was very excited. I went to the assembly to take photos of when they would call him up and give him his award. The cafeteria was so dark that the photos didn't really turn out....sorry.

A couple of weekends ago we went to the beach. We met up with my best friend from high school Laurie and her family. We had a lot of fun visiting and watching the kids play in the sand and water. Grant is doing a lot better when we go to the beach and not eating as much sand! My kids begged Laurie's husband Chris to bury them with the sand and he was happy to help.














If you look closely you can tell Paige is a Mermiad.

Harry and Grant having fun with their friend Alissa.

I am so excited about our new wood floors! I have wanted them for a long time, but once we moved into our new house and realized how shot this carpet was I knew we couldn't put if off any longer.

So for YW last night we did a 5 mile bike ride. About half way through I had to stop. When I got back on my bike I wanted to catch up with everyone so I stood up on my pedals and starting pumping fast. I got about 6 pumps in and was just about to sit down when my chain broke. My foot slipped off the pedal and I went do with a big crash. Luckily I was still in the back of the pack and no one saw me go down. How embarrassing!

From the time I was 12 until about 20 I kept a journal(s). They are funny to read now, but I am so thankful that I have them! They really do help me with insight about how my YW might be feeling about their lives right now. I stopped when I got engaged to Matt and didn't start again until Mitchell turned 1 years old. (I am really sad that I don't have those years recorded!)
Since then (2002) I have kept a "family" journal pretty consistently.
Tonight as I was helping Mitchell with his homework I pulled it all up on my computer. He has to make a time line of his life with all the important dates (born, first steps, first tooth, etc) and so I pulled out the journal and photos to help us.
As I sat and read back what has happened and how our family has changed through the last seven years I was so thankful that I had our Journal! There were so many little things that I had forgotten about. Funny things that Mitchell had said, cool things Paige had done that I had totally forgotten all about. I am so thankful that my parents instilled journal keeping in me. My Grandma Liston has also been a very big example to me about keeping a journal. Thanks G-G!
I have been keeping my journal online here now for almost 2 years! I right click and copy everything here and save it in Word. I also have other things that I didn't publish here because they were private or might embarrass my kids at the time (like the time Mitchell pulled the fire alarm at the temple...lol). I am glad my kids can all print them out and have a copy when they get older! I may not be the best at keeping a baby book or a scrapbook, but at least they will have this.