In the past few years I have had the experience of seeing three of my dear friends lose one of their parents. The first was my next door neighbor Lizzi Whitehead, Calvin Whitehead's mom who suffered from heart problems. The second was Michele Pereira, Melissa Peterson's mom, who died July 18, 2008 in a very sad accident. The third was Dan Bishop, Shannon Adams' dad was passed away earlier today following a very sudden and serious health condition. Although I have been trained as a nurse to understand the grieving cycle, and taught how to be "helpful "in these situations it is different to experiencing death in the role of a health professional vs. a friend who knew and loved those who have died. I still don't know what to do to help my friends through these difficult times. Shannon, as the one who has most recently lost you loving dad, know that we are thinking about and praying for you and your family.

What a smiler!

Benjamin is such a good boy! He loves to grin and "talk" to everyone around him, gives open mouth kisses, and has learned to roll from side to side while he lies on his back, but still can't roll over from belly to back. Quincy and Eleanor are great older sisters-- love to give him kisses and hugs (to the point of me getting irritated... Benjamin seems to love the attention, though!)
I'm glad Brandon is so talented in photography! He took this picture of Benjamin, and in my opinion it looks as good as any of the professional ones we've had taken!

Quincy questions

In one session of Quincy and Brandon sitting at the dinner table together Quincy asked the following questions:

Why are we real?
Why is milk sticky?
Why are marshmallows sticky?
What makes simple sugar sticky?
What does 'connect' mean?
Why do we have busses?
What happens if we don't have garbage cans?
What happens if we don't have an oven?
Is that chicken mad?

I was glad Brandon was the one answering the questions, although at times his answers just seemed to generate more questions. I love having a 4 year old in the house.... life is NEVER boring!

The Garden

Before we began....




So, we decided to enlarge our garden plot this year to see if we could make it more productive.... it ended up being a bigger project than originally planned. We pulled up the sod and Brandon roto-tilled the area, but in the process ended up breaking sprinkler pipe in multiple places and nearly severing through our underground cable line! After many weekends of work (and plenty of time and money invested!) we ended up with a nice bordered garden plot that is twice the size of the original and we are finally starting to get some produce! We already have more zucchini than we can eat and I've picked about 4 jalapeno peppers.... sadly, our tomato plants seem to only be concerned with growing into trees instead of getting ripe fruit currently.... lots of green tomatoes (on our 11 tomato plants, but not a single one ready to eat yet!~~~ so much for fresh salsa!)


This is the garden currently.....

Happy Birthday Quincy!

Our Sweet Quincy is 4 years old! Its hard to believe that time has passed so quickly! She informed everyone on her birthday that she was now 4 and that she wanted a "bubble vacuum" (which, FYI, is not made by any toy maker with connections to the internet). She may not have been given a bubble vacuum, but that doesn't mean she wasn't spoiled rotten by her aunts and granparents! Between clothes, roller skates, toys, books, balloons, cake and icecream, party hats, "fireworks", and everything else-- I hope she realizes how very blessed she is! Thank you to all who came to her party! I think she was very happy with her birthday celebration!

Annual Cherry Hill visit

Every year, the weekend before the 24th of July the Haslam family (and friends) get together for a few days of swimming, camping, good food, and fun up at Cherry Hill Waterpark in Kaysville. We had a great time this year! Quincy and Eleanor especially liked the lazy river and the "dragon" waterslides. Quincy attempted the "Cardiac Canyon" waterslide but decided it was "NOT fun!" and she would do it again "Maybe when I am 7." Benjamin even got in the water a few times!

I was surprised how well we avoided severe sunburns (as we were there in 100 degree weather both days!) and also how comfortable and independent Quincy and Eleanor became in the water while wearing lifejackets. We had lots of fun!

Wood Badge

Brandon spent all of last week at the BSA Wood Badge training camp. It sounds like it was a very rewarding experience!