Summer: "Here's the problem: I don't know if fairies are real. And here's the next problem: I don't know if it's mom or a fairy that sneaks down at night!"
Mette added this bit of information (which might only have complicated things for Summer more): "Well mom said she didn't have any dollars, so maybe it's just dad."
It is a problem.
Even if you can prove definitively that fairies are real, you are still left without proof that you have one of those real fairies exchanging dollars for teeth while you sleep (as opposed to just your own mom, penniless though she seems to be). (I imagine I did say that to Mette after all -- that business about having no dollars. Why are the kids always asking me for dollars anyway?) And knowing your mom has no dollars to her name doesn't really help that much. Your dad might have a few. And it could be him.
(One would think, from all the beachy photos I post on this blog, that we spend inordinate amounts of time there. But we really don't. At least I don't think we do. I suppose I don't actually know how many trips the average family takes to a body of water in a year. We do have the cabin. And, depending on how long the summer lasts up there, that gets us -- with swimsuits and towels and buckets -- to the lake three [and very rarely four] times a year. And, since getting the waverunner, we also head to Willard Bay another two or so times a year. So it's not a crazy amount. [Though one might argue that it is a crazy amount if they ever took a shot themselves at getting out the door with ten kids all set with swimsuits and towels and life jackets and so on. It's why we usually do evenings: to at least get us out of the hours worth of sunblock application our kids require.] But! The large number of sandy, beach photos: I'm simply much more likely to bring the camera along on some outdoor adventure than to get it out when everyone is just home ... making mess. -- Which is what most pictures on my blog would be if my blog was an accurate representation of our life.
This particular batch of photos all come from a quick visit to the cabin last weekend with Abe before shipping him back out as a missionary. [More on that later.] )
The other day, Anders and Jesse were lamenting Abe's leaving us again. They started mumbling things about him coming home and getting married and making me a GRANDMA. ("Imagine! A grandma at your age!" eight-year-old Anders exclaimed to me -- an edge of irritation in his voice at the thought of Abe allowing something so preposterous to occur in our family.)
"Calm down," I told them. "Abe will be home next summer and he'll have a few months with us before BYU, and then he can come home any weekend he wants. And he might not get married for years."
"Yah," Jesse said. "But it's just going to be so weird. Like, what: his wife is just going to be sitting awkwardly on the couch while Abe has a Nerf gun battle with me?"
We all got a good laugh at that image. By this point Abe had entered the room. "Yah," he said sinisterly to the kids. "She'll just be sittin' there. Fillin' the house with her bad vibes."
Anyway. We will read this to Abe's wife someday. And I'm sure her young brother-in-laws will feel ashamed of their hasty presumptions. (Especially when she pelts one of them in the back of the head with her own Nerf gun bullet!)
Also, no one can escape an awareness of all the craziness in the world right now. Not even a three-year-old boy apparently. The other day, after having put all the kids to bed, and then having various kids keep coming out to ask various things, I began to exclaim in exasperation, "I don't know! I've washed my hands of ..." and before I could say, "all of you!" Hans inserted, questioningly, "the coronavirus?" (Yes! Of that TOO!)
Anyway, enough anecdotes. I shall finish this post off with the remaining Bear Lake photos. Including several from my cell phone taken at the marina and hiking a bit of Limber Pine Trail.
Abe built a lengthy track with various sandy ramps for this car to fly over. It was pretty entertaining to watch. (Also, remember how Mike bought that for ... "Mother's Day"?) (Jesse is actually driving the little remote control boat Mike's brother gave us in the picture of him below. Equally fun to watch.)
This little Starling. I have probably mentioned it before, ... but I rather like her. (Seriously. Goodness. I just love love this little soul so much.) And it is fun to begin seeing all the connections she is making. For example, she will see one of our phones lying about and run it to us, or bring me her pajamas at night time. And she must have enjoyed this Bear Lake business a great deal because today, nearly a week after her day at the beach, she spotted the box of swimsuits, began frantically screaming for it, rummaged through and pulled out her very own swimsuit, and then began waving it at me with demanding shouts. Haha. Dear little soul.
More beach:
We love the eight billion fish swarming the marina. (The kids fearlessly try to get them to nibble their toes, and Abe nearly managed to toss one directly onto the dock with his bare hands this time.) But there seems to be zero common sense or caution from the younger crew. And having FOUR non-swimmers makes for some nerve-wracking moments. We finally got life jackets from the car for the little kids, but Starling had to be held (against her will) at all times as she was both furious in a jacket and utterly determined to hurtle her tiny self off into the fish-filled depths.
On our way home we stopped at Limber Pine Trail (we are actually probably there more often than we are at the beach). Anders asked a lot of Bigfoot questions (including: "Does Bigfoot have lips?") and insisted he was more interested in Bigfoot than anyone else he knew. He suffered a great disappointment when he finally thought he was going to be able to claim a Bigfoot sighting ... only to discover it was Abe -- hidden off the trail -- crunching about loudly and making Bigfoot type sounds. And he desperately wanted me to give him a firm answer on where I stood when it came to Bigfoot. (My: "I don't know. It would sure be exciting if Bigfoots were real, but I'm just not really sure if they could be, Anders." was hardly satisfying.)
Which circles this all nicely back around to where we began this post. With mythical creatures. Fairy reality is not the only mystery we are eager to solve around here.
The End. (Except to note that one perhaps ought to buy my boys smaller undershirts ... or larger overshirts. Though, in my defense, the undershirts were tucked into their pants at the beginning of the day. And, as you can see, I encouraged another tucking in for one of the photos below. It did not last long.)
