June 2012

I think June can be summed up in three things...
School ends & Summer begins.  Beach.  Sickness hits the family.

Aspen finished up 2nd grade and was awarded the June character trait of Patience.

Summer begins...  

I was a little anxious about summer break.  Aspen is the kind of kid that needs lots of activity and stimulation.  Other than first thing in the morning, I don't generally allow the TV to be on, and restrict the Wii time to 45 minutes per day.  That leaves a lot of time to fill!  The girls, Teague and I had a sort of normal routine around here.  They were used to spending much of our time at home playing due to Teague's naps and feedings.  They don't get bored or really even bug each other very often. But when Aspen is thrown into the mix....  Yes, things don't go quite as peacefully!  He wants Journey to play with him at all times, but either he doesn't always play so nicely with her or they exclude Willow.  Both of which cause problems, arguments and some kind of interference from me once things go downhill.  The only thing I've come up with so far to help with this is creating daily work/chores for Aspen. 

Thankfully, being the age he's at, he's also had a lot of opportunities to do fun things:

Bill & Diana had him over to their house for 4 days with a couple of his other cousins.  They had a blast playing outside, sleeping in the tree fort (one night with Papa and one by themselves!), and earned $32 doing chores and hauling brush and tree limbs for Nana.

Sleepover at Peyton's house.  It was supposed to be at our house, but I got sick, and Charity offered to have him come to their house for the sleepover.  So nice since I was feeling so bad!

Sleepover with Peyton at our house.  Peyton and Aspen play so well together.  Aspen really loves and takes care of him.  Mark took the boys to the nickel arcade in the evening, and the rest of their time was spent playing outside, making forts, playing legos, and a little wii time.  When it came to bedtime, I went downstairs, as I always do, to check on the boys, pray with them and say goodnight.  I walked down to see them cuddled together on the floor with Aspen reading Peyton comic books.  It was adorable.

Camping, hiking and rock climbing trip with Daddy, Ryan, Papa, Aaron and William and Adam at Smith Rocks.  Since we aren't campers, I was thrilled that Aspen got the opportunity to go on this 'boys' camping trip.  He had a blast, and so did Mark :)

Beach Trip
Halibut season started at the beginning of May.  Mark did really well this year and limited out on each trip.  When he fishes, he generally only goes once a week on whatever day the weather is best.  The other days we are down at the beach we try to spend as a family doing fun things together.  Most of the time it's simple things like walking to the beach or going to the arcade, but one weekend in June, on a particularly nice day we took the family on a boat ride into the ocean and up to the cliffs by Manzanita.

 Once I moved from this position in the back of the boat (Aspen was really worried Teague would fly out of my arms into the water) to the front, Aspen calmed down, and even enjoyed himself!

 A seal!

I have to note, since this is something I'll probably forget, that Aspen is SUPER scared of going in the ocean.  Any time Mark asks him if he wants to go fishing or for a boat ride, it's a resounding NO!  Of course it's Mark's dream to someday fish with him and Teague so we are trying to 'condition' him into liking the ocean, haha

Group bath time!

Going to the beach requires a lot of baths for sandy kids  :)

Sickness...
Sometime in early June, maybe the first weekend?  Aspen came down with a severe sore throat.  Strep had been going around at school, so I watched his throat carefully for white spots.  I've never had strep, but had heard that you get white spots in your throat as a sign of strep.  He never got the white spots, so I had him on pain meds, gargling and taking lots of Vitamin C.  It took him a couple days, but he was over it pretty fast.  About a week later, Journey came down with it. It seemed about the same as Aspen, except she wasn't able to gargle, and it took her much longer, maybe a week or 10 days to go back to herself.  Of course, near the end of Journey's sickness, Willow came down with it.  And I was getting lower and lower on my patience level with someone always being sick and need, especially since the girls and Teague couldn't or didn't tell me they were feeling sick, they just started crying more and being needier...which looks a lot like fits and whining - something I can't stand and have no patience for!  Ugh.  Once I got it (the day before our 13th anniversary), I realized how bad they must have been feeling, and felt SO guilty for not being more patient and understanding.

Mark came down with it the last weekend of the month, while we were at the beach, and definitely got it way worse than the rest of us did.  After a few days spent in bed, trying to get a handle on it with gargling and tylenol, he realized he needed to head to the Tillamook ER to get checked out.  It was a good thing he did, because his tonsils were so infected and full of puss, they were closing off his throat and close to rupturing!  Poor guy, always gets it the worst!