Best Friends and Nightmares

I overheard the following conversation the other day between Anna and a little neighbor girl, Rachel. Rachel has moved in within the last few months...so this is the first time Anna has had her over to play. About five minutes after Rachel arrived, I heard this...

Anna: So are we best friends forever and ever and ever and ever until we die?
Rachel: Sure
Anna: Deal?
Rachel: Deal.
Anna: Shake on it?
Rachel: OK

Until they die? Two minutes later, Anna left her new best friend to ask me an important question, "What is her name again?" Best friends that don't know each other's names? It got me thinking, though, about how I long for the days when making friends was that easy.



Another suprise occurred when I was awakened at 3:00 AM a few weeks ago by Anna standing at my bedside. She was complaining of a nightmare. I felt sorry for her, remembering my fear as a child of nightmares. About to invite her into our bed, I asked her what her dream was about. She replied, "Well, I dreamed that I was about to eat some really big, good cotton candy, and then right before I actually ate it, I woke up." Needless to say, I sent her back to bed. Ahhh, that's my girl and my kind of nightmare...like daughter like mother...

We're still here!!!

So perhaps it's time to update my blog and join the land of the living! What a summer we've had...a truly wonderful one, yet largely undocumented due to our broken camera. Finally we have a new camera that is functioning well. Between our new camera and the pictures I've begged off extended family members who have actually been snapping photos, we have this random sampling of our summer. It makes me sad to look at these pictures and realize that summertime is just memories now.











And finally, the crown jewel of the summer, the Grand Canyon. It was an AMAZING, fabulous, death-defying (slight exaggeration) experience. Ben went for the entire 16 days, while I hiked in and met up with them on day 6. It was just a wonderful trip...life-changing for Ben. I sat on his raft through most of the rapids...a raft that most told him was way too small and he was crazy for rowing in the Grand Canyon...but he was flawless on EVERY SINGLE rapid. By the book. I was so proud of him...though still scared spitless. I actually CRIED before one of the biggest rapids out of pure fear. CRIED! I was humiliated as a commercial rafting crew was trying to comfort me before embarking down the rapid themselves. And then, on the very last and biggest rapid of them all, I cried when we finished out of delayed fear. We barely made it out right side up of a monstrous angry hole...but we survived. I'm not kidding when I tell you it took me a lot to face my fears of this water. Here are a couple of pictures from the trip. There are also three youtube videos of some extremely terrifying flips. These videos are NOT of our trip, they are videos of other boats and other trips...and videos of what I was terrified of happening to us. Two of the boats in these videos are 18 foot boats with thousands of pounds of weight strapped in....all to disappear downriver. Watch it if you'd like to see my worst nightmare unfolding. And where are the people who were on these flipped rafts, you might ask? Sucked under and swimming through the rapid. So scary.

Notice their 18 foot raft afterwords...no rowing frame, no gear, one of the tubes lost its air...




This one is a video of a 30' raft with a motor going through a rapid just to give you an idea at how big those waves are...Our was 14'








Presently, we are fully enjoying this time of year and the FABULOUS weather that comes with it. Ben's running the St. George marathon this weekend so we're off to sunny St. George. I've tried training twice for the St. George marathon and my bad knee just can't hack it, so I have to live vicariously through him. Maybe I need to buy a bike or something...

Random Photo

I am posting a random picture of the kids and. Our digital camera broke a few months ago, so we haven't had many pictures. We are buying a camera hopefully soon! This was a random picture taken at Christmastime. Isn't it hilarious that I'm posting this picture instead of one of them fighting? I think it's really funny that everyone's families seem perfect in blogs. If I was to assume that every family was as picture perfect as they appear in their blogs, I'd be awfully worried about my own. Perfect mothers, perfect children, perfect fathers and husbands that never do anything but have fun. But I know blogs are the place for highlights which is what this picture is. I need to blow this picture up to remind myself that they love each other during their arguments during they day. Keep us motivated...

I'm leaving to raft the Grand Canyon tomorrow. Ben's already been gone for 5 days, and I'm hiking in to meet him and his family on Thursday morning. 9 days of camping, dehydrated food, and some of the biggest water in North America. Needless to say, I'm shaking in my boots. I am excited, yet so SCARED!!! I hope I live to tell the tale. I'm also hoping to walk around most of the rapids; I hear it's a definite possibility. Wish me luck!

Cracking me up

I have to say, one of the best things about having young children is the never-ending supply of humor; jokes at their expense, I guess. Lately, for some reason, I've been laughing especially hard. It always gives Ben and me something to snicker at in the evenings. I always think I should be better about writing them down but I never follow through. I heard of a family who wrote the funny things their kids said on slips of paper and then put them in a box to be opened at Christmas. Anyway, some of the funny things they have said or done recently...

The other day, I was weeding in the frontyard (one word?) while Luke was wandering back and forth from the front to the back. He walked up to me with an extremely serious expression while our conversation went as follows:

Me: Hey bud, what's up?

Luke: I was not eating sunscreen.

Me upon quickly realizing that he had indeed eaten sunscreen: Did you find some sunscreen in the backyard?

Luke: Yes.

Me: What did you do with it?

Luke: I did not eat the sunscreen.

Sure you didn't. He definitly needs to work on his manipulation skills. I don't understand how one two year-old child can ingest so many weird things. I have called poison control on him SO MANY times. He even made the front page of their annual community report because of a poison control experience in which he ate mouse poison at one year of age. (Thanks Grandma Cheryl, for rescuing of our little guy) They liked the story so much that they sent a fleet of personnel and photographers to our home a few months later to recount our story for their big old brochure.

On Father's Day, Anna made breakfast in bed for Ben (Captain Crunch and Betty Crocker brownies...I'm either incredibly domestic or he likes weird food...you be the judge). She posted little notes around the house in hidden places about why she loves him, and then watched him open all his little presents. You could see the envy in her eye as she watched him proceed through the fun. After the event, she turned to me and asked quite seriously when it was going to be Daughter's Day. Ah, such a generous child :) I wanted to tell her that every single passing day since her birth 4.5 years ago has been Daughter's Day, that we mothers and fathers have but one day a year, but I refrained.

She also gave her first Primary talk completely on her own. Totally amusing. She was so excited and practiced and practiced with a fake microphone while standing on the fireplace at home. During the talk, she was not the slightest bit nervous and was sure to give cheeser smiles while dramatically gripping the microphone. She loved every second of it. I thought she was stuck about halfway through and leaned down to help her find her place by whispering a cue word. She covered the microphone with her chubby little hand, turned to me and said reassuringly, "I know, Mom." Sorry, darling. She LOVES the microphone...a true blue Belnap. No-one loves to speak to a captivated audience more than a Belnap. I even saw her whisper to her teacher as she sat down that it was SUCH a good talk and she can't WAIT to do it again. At least she's humble. Honestly...