Time to catch up!

We had a busy week last week! Tuesday was my 42nd birthday (yes, I can say that without too much cringing). When I got in my car to go to seminary, John had put a card and my favorite Dove Dark Chocolate on my steering wheel. Then Kam and Parker brought in a dozen roses and a bag of Dove Dark Chocolate to my class. Then when I left seminary, this is what I found in the parking lot:

John had come during seminary and put 2 signs and 42 heart post-its all over my car -- one for every year! All during the day I had phone calls and visits from dear friends, phone calls and cards from family living far away, and a cute little wooden chihuahua from my parents which my dad had carved, and I received more Dove Dark Chocolate (do you notice a theme here?). John surprised me by working from home and we went to lunch and then he made me dinner and we had my favorite Dairy Queen Blizzard Cake (chocolate extreme made with chocolate ice cream....of course!) for dessert. It was a great day! :o)

Friday we went to our ward campout. I love to go camping. It's a vacation for me because John loves to do the cooking and the clean up. He'd gone up before us since I was waiting for the kids to get out of school, so when we got to our campsite, everything was already put up and ready to go. Nice!

Our home away from home for a couple of days.

Kam and I -- all bundled up against the cold. And yes, it was cold even though we're in Arizona! :o)
John, our own camp chef. He is a great camp cook and loves his stove and dutch ovens!

Saturday morning we had a camp visitor - a javelina - who helped himself to potatoes and onions. He didn't really seem to like the onions, but loved the potatoes!

We took our quad and borrowed one from our friends, the Mileys, and had a great time riding all day Saturday. Madelyn Miley is on the left, and Kam is on the right.

It got quite cold Friday night, and we had wind gusts between 50-60 MPH, so it was a long night with little sleep. We slept warm, though, which is a very good thing. Here's Kailen Saturday morning keeping warm by the campfire with her multiple layers of clothing on.

We were going to camp until Monday since the kids were on Fall Break, but by 5 pm on Saturday it was already 36 degrees, and the weather reports said it was going to get into the 20s. That's like....cold enough to snow! We decided to pack up and go home since we weren't really prepared for 20 degree weather. We got home around 10 pm and to bed by midnight after unloading and putting everything away. I checked the weather report Sunday morning, and it was in the teens where we were camping! Way too cold for me!

Yesterday I got to run with my running group (yeah!!!), we had a family lunch at Taco Bell (a favorite family dining establishment), had pizza for dinner, and rented some movies. Today we went and saw "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" and loved it! It's cute, funny and a tiny bit tense -- a great all-around family movie. Then we got frozen yogurt at our new favorite frozen yogurt place (which is, for the month of October, offering all their yogurt at 1/2 price! Can't beat that!). John left for Florida today, so he missed out on the fun Fall Break stuff.

Even though we had to cut our camping trip short, it's been a fun few days without school and we've been able to do some much needed sleeping in. We love Fall Break!