Keeping a history of my days….

August 27th,

2013

So I have reached a major mile stone. I have arrived in the promised land. The land I have been walking towards for over 14 years. My hopes have soared pretty high with all the plans of what I will do when all 5 of my kids are in school. Today I went to the gym because I had no excuse not to and my back hurt because I haven't done Pilate's. Then I ran an errand, then I came home and took a long shower. Then I was tired from the warm water and all those core exercises so I curled back up in my bed and took a 40 min nap. Then I came down and made myself lunch. Lately the thought and process of making and eating a meal seems like too much work. I'll do it for my kids but I just want to go out and have someone else cook for me. This isn't practical, so I have been avoiding meal eating and have been eating snacks all day. Nectarines from our trees, raw green beans from our garden, lots of raisin bran with a little cream…yum. Today I made myself make and eat a real meal. It was good. I wish we had fresh garden produce all year.
It's sprinkling outside. I'm sitting in my sun room where there are windows on the ceiling. It's a nice sound. I have so much to post and write about my summer. I ditched my blog in June and so I'm behind.

October 21, 1013

Hey, here I am. Writing a bit of a blog post while I bottle grape juice. My in laws have grape vines. Not purple grapes but WHITE grapes. Oh they make delicious juice. Since they are white they don't stain my counter and floor. It can get messy with purple grapes.

After dinner tonight we had about 30 minutes of day light left. We left the dinner dishes and raced up to Grammy's house to pick grapes. 

It is still amazing to me that we can sometimes, effectively work together as a family.

 It really is a new stage of life we are in. 

Another example of our new stage of maturity...

We took a little road trip to St. George, to see my nephew give his farewell talk for his LDS mission.

The car ride was easy. No melt downs. No major fights.

What is happening?

I need to post our summer pictures.

You ready?

I 

Hyrum House 

Summer Vacations with the family.

Hehehe……:)

Going out with the sister in laws and momma. 

Painting pet rocks.

Hours of fun for all ages.

The baby cousins in our family love my boy Luke.

He is fun and gentle and attentive with them.

The Amazing Race

My sister in law Carrie planned a game for our family of 33.

It was like that show The Amazing Race.

She planned and set it up for all of us and she was even 7 months pregnant at the time. 

When I'm pregnant I'm proud of myself for going grocery shopping. There is no way I would plan a game for 33 people. I'm glad there are fun, active people in my family.

One of the stops included making and eating an ice-cream Sunday.

Another stop we formed a line to take water from the lake and fill up a bucket. It was so fun to see the little cousins feel like big helpers.

It was a great family party this year with our Morris side.

We also had a family reunion with my Samsel side of the family.

It was great to be with all four of my siblings and our parents and our children and spouses.

My youngest brother David took this cool picture of our neighbor's cow and will tree.

It looks like the cover of a book or CD or Magazine to me.

Sarah makes a darling nerd.

My beautiful sister Melissa, my girl  Gwenyth and my daughters's girl, Camilla enjoying the sunny day.

And here we are. 

The 4 Samsel kids all grown up.

We are even in birth order from left to right.

Melissa, 41, Kristen 39, James 36, David 32

Boating was a blast. 

The funnest was watching my Older sister and my youngest brother get whipped around on the tube.

Nate drove around like this all day.

I'm glad I didn't have to drive the boat.

Sophia, Ella, and Gwenyth.

Somehow I didn't get a picture of my parents at our reunion.

It was a fun time this summer.
My family and Nate's family are pretty different in all kinds of big and small ways.
Some of the differences make me laugh and others make me crazy.
The biggest difference was that with my side of the family the house was always clean.
My dad kept the kitchen perfect at all times, plus we ate out for dinners.
The beach blanket stayed clean because Melissa and David were on guard duty;
Directing the children "Wash the sand off your feet at the hose first!"
The first night as I lay in bed I said to Nate, how am I going to relax with all these people that are more intense versions of myself?
Happily, I did relax.
Nate finds all our idiosyncrasies endearing. Good thing. I guess that's why he can be married to me.

Well, that's my summer catch up.
Back to the present.
The kids are at school and I have lots to do.
I'm trying to find the balance of it all.
Happy Monday to you.
It's my favorite day of the week.