Mending

I've said before that I hate folding the white batch of laundry. But there is actually a job I loathe more than that. Maybe you read the title of this entry and can guess with accuracy that it is mending. I think, though, that it is kind of love/hate relationship that I have with the mending pile. A month or so ago, Dennis put an enormous stack of jeans in the mending box (and there were already a couple of pairs of Brandon's there.) I procrastinated and put it off and didn’t do it and let it sit and dreaded it and glared at the whole mess for a very long time. Last Wednesday I screwed up my bravery and with a big sigh (or two) sat down to the sewing machine. I zig zagged and zag zigged and zug zagged and worked like a slave. It took me 3 days! But what an awesome feeling to get it all done! Like I'd climbed Mt. Everest or something! I should have taken a picture with my foot on the stack and my arms puffed up. But I would have had to put on makeup. Just use your imagination. The love part of the relationship is the feeling of accomplishment that one gets from doing something hard. I do love that!

Swim Camp

We just returned from a wonderful week at swim camp. This is our 5th year up at Green Canyon. We pulled our camper up on Sunday night and stayed until Friday after lessons. We had Brandon, Camille and Alexa in lessons this year. Brandon passed off level 6, Camille level 3 and Alexa level 2. They really made great progress! Brandon was so nervous about the 20 laps he would have to swim the last day but he seemed to do it with ease and even said it was fun. Camille can now swim across the pool and Alexa can swim part way across.

We took Drew and Mary swimming everyday. We have a little suit that has an inner tube built in for Mary. She did really well. She loved to go get into the hot tub which is 105 degrees! Then she would even get in the cold pool sometimes too! I think she is a bit crazy. Drew liked doing his own thing and just bobbed around with a noodle. The really nice thing about Green Canyon is that the shallow end is really big with plenty of room to roam. I also am glad it is indoors. making sunscreen unnecessary--so nice!

On Monday we celebrated Drew’s birthday. We reminisced about the year he was born. He came much later than expected and was born the week we were scheduled to be at our first swim camp ever. So we had to enlist the help of Dennis’ family to take the kids to their lessons.

Some folks have asked me how much it costs. It is $45 per child. They get 2 lessons a day. Those in lessons can get an unlimited pass to swim for the week for $1.25 a day. Swim campers get 40% off camping (I think that makes it about $6 a day for the camping spot with full hook ups). Many people go together with friends. We have always gone alone but would welcome any who want to join us. Some people have family visit them a day during the week. It would be fun if anyone wanted to do that! Dave and Julianna came up for hot dogs one evening and we loved entertaining! We hope they enjoyed their visit!

Reunions

I just wanted to quickly post pictures of the reunions we attended in June.

Porter's gathered at Sutton's cabin in Ovid. It was so much fun! But we missed having Danna and her brand new baby, Sarah, in attendance.

Getting a picture of the 5 baby girls born in 2006 was comical. I chose to show a shot of them scattering. To see more pictures of the babies, see Darcee's blog.

The lake was so beautiful! The shallow water was also very warm. We enjoyed it so much!

The George Heber Hansen reunion was held in Brigham City. All of Dennis' brothers and sisters were there and also his parents.

The Melvin Hansen reunion was held in Hamer. We had family pictures with all 85 in the family present. Each family also did a musical number. This is us singing "My Heavenly Father Loves Me". (Mary is struggling to get down! She finally won. Then she only wreaked a little havok.)