They eat us out of house and home

I'm pretty sure once my kids go back to school, my grocery bill will be cut in half. They eat from the time they wake up until they go to bed at night. Non-stop eating machines they are. Once they go back to school, they'll only be able to eat from the time they get home in the afternoon until they go to bed at night. They like to eat breakfast at school and lunch is obviously there too. It's cheaper to pay for them to eat those two meals at school then it is for them to eat at home. I know, I know. I could try to be budget conscious and clip coupons to save money, but I'm really kind of just too lazy for that.

I shudder to think what the bill will be like when they're teenagers.

I want to say I'm excited

Tonight is our ward camp out. Hooray! I'm so excited. Camping isn't really my thing. I'll do overnighters like this, but anything extended, like 2 nights, is just too much for me. It's not because I hate nature and the beauty and grandeur of it. I just prefer to marvel at it from the comfort of my couch while watching it on my big screen television. Or, being out in it and returning to my hotel at the end of the day. Hotels, to me, are camping. Oh, and for the record, I don't hate camping because I'm not an outdoorsy kind of girl. I can handle myself just fine in the wild. I just hate having to literally pack up my house so I can go sit somewhere and stare at a fire. Now, on to the next reason I dislike camping.

I HATE the smell of campfire. Let me say that again, I HATE the smell of campfire. In fact, I don't think I can overstate this fact enough so, I will say it again. I HATE the smell of campfire. The first thing I will be doing tomorrow when we get home: washing all of the clothes and blankets we took with us. I'll probably wash them a couple of times too. The nasty campfire smell tends to linger. Once those are in the washer, I'll be scrubbing the smell off of myself and everyone else. Eau de campfire is not an intoxicating aroma on any one's skin.

Once this trip is over (24 hours won't be able to pass fast enough in my book), I will have completed my outdoor camping obligations for the year. My next trip (to Disneyland) will be the real kind of camping. The civilized, hotel kind.

I blame Betty Crocker

Perhaps you remember that a can of Betty Crocker frosting fell out of my fridge and attacked my foot a few weeks back. It hurt when it happened, maybe even bringing a tear to my eye. I walked it off and then felt fine. I went on with life which included sitting on my couch and watching a movie with my kids. The movie lasted a couple of hours and when I stood up, I couldn't put much pressure on my foot. It really hurt. I checked for bruises, but there was absolutely no visible sign of injury. I massaged it and worked it out, but by the time I went to bed it was hurting pretty darn bad. I woke up at 1:00 a.m. to use the bathroom and couldn't walk on it at all. It felt like a nerve had been severed. I had to crawl to the bathroom and by the time I got back to my bed I was bawling because it hurt like a blankety blank son of a bee sting. I was a mess and wanted Ryan to do something to fix it. Now, I knew there was realistically nothing he could do, but I wanted him to be Superman. He was trying to be nice and calm me down. I was more interested in being nasty. He asked me how in the world I could handle childbirth without drugs, but I couldn't handle a little bump to the foot. I told him to shut up. He had no idea what it felt like to have a practically full can of frosting fall 4 feet and land his foot.

Now the point of this long story that I originally said was too long to tell: Betty Crocker threw off my exercise routine. The can fell on my foot on a Saturday. I had exercised on Friday and planned to on Saturday night. It didn't happen. My foot felt fine on Monday and so I tried to exercise. I had some stabbing, nerve like pain and so I decided to stop. I waited a couple of days and tried again. Same thing happened. So, I waited about a week and a half before doing anything else. My foot felt fine then, but the deed was done. My schedule was messed up and I let myself get lazy. Yesterday I determined to get myself back on track. I exercised last night and again tonight. My break was long enough. I'm getting kind of squishy again and I don't like it.

In just 2 weeks

I'm not prepared. At all. I'm usually pretty good about shopping throughout the summer. Some pants here, a shirt there, but I've got nothin and it didn't dawn on me that I had nothin until this weekend. Great.

Happy Birthday My Boy!

Happy 33rd Birthday Ryan! Today, we are the same age. (At least until November when I'll pass you up again. Jerk!) You are a wonderful husband, father and friend and you take all of those jobs very seriously. Thanks for being a fantastic provider. You are such a hard worker. I truly appreciate you and don't know what I did to deserve you. I hope today is a beautiful one for you. I love you!

No, he's not crying

Ever since he was born, Peyton has had very weepy eyes. He almost always looks like he's crying. People will say stuff like"oh, what's wrong? Are you sad?" The answer is usually no. They just run. All.the.time. They get infected often because things kind of back up in there and generally look red and irritated. His pediatrician said it was most likely due to blocked tear ducts, but hoped that they would open up on their own by the time he was one. He hoped that because they usually do. Well, that didn't happen. They were still running by the time he was one. I forgot to have him check and see if they opened up yet at his one year appointment. I finally remembered to have him look at his 21 month one. Yep, they're still plugged and will not ever open up on their own. So, what's the next step? The pediatrician referred me to an optometry specialist. We saw him and he confirmed the diagnosis. His tear ducts are plugged in his sinuses. You have ducts that drain from your top and bottom lid and come together at a junction in the corner of your eye, close to your nose. If you push there, you'll notice that's it's kind of squishy, like a water balloon. From that point, the ducts run down your sinuses and drain there. There's a membrane at the bottom of this duct and it's the one that is blocked.

He has surgery scheduled for August 11th. It's going to be a very simple, maybe 30 minute procedure. He has to be under general anesthesia because in the words of the doctor, it would be "hellish to try and do it on a child his size without it". The doctor will run a probe down the duct and poke through the membrane. Once he breaks through, he's going to push a small, finger like bone in the nose out of the way. This is just another guarantee that all obstructions will be removed. The only visible sign that anything was done is the possibility of having a bloody nose. That's it. No extensive recovery period or anything. I'm really looking forward to it for Peyton's sake. Hopefully, he won't have to deal with constantly red and irritated eyes after.

Because Ryan has wanderlust

And our kids complained loud enough and long enough that we never take them on vacations, we have decided to take them to Disneyland. We'll be going in October over UEA (Utah Education Association, at least I think that's what it stands for) weekend. Otherwise known as Utahans Exodus to Anaheim. It should be fun. The kids have never been there and it's been 10 years since the last time I was.

Yes, they are already driving me crazy over it.