May, June, July

Oh my, I might be setting a new record for myself with "days between posting" adding up and up... It has been a very busy summer so far! Here's what we've been up to since May:

May was a mad rush to finish a comic book that was commissioned by my friend Melanie as a gift to her husband for Father's Day. It was consuming, stressful, and made for many late nights, but it turned out awesome. Epic, even. His comment upon receiving it was "this is pretty frickin' awesome," which I guess is quite a compliment. This is a blurry picture, but you get the idea...

It was fifteen pages, including the cover, and the first panel of each page had Richard (a cow veterinarian), talking to the back end of a cow. I colored it with Copic markers, a new experience for me that I really enjoyed. I had it published at a local company called Subia. I love them - I gave them my finished drawings on Tuesday and had a proof by Friday (Father's day was Sunday).
In June I went to girls camp for a week as an assistant second year leader. I loved every minute of it. Except for being cold. But the girls were wonderful, as were the other leaders. My favorite parts were the zip line, archery, nephite/lamanite battle with pvc bows and arrows, the yummy food, and painting my youth leaders faces to look injured and sick for a first aid mock emergency. When I came home on Friday night, I seriously could have slept straight to Monday. You can imagine how my abandoned husband and kids made sure that didn't happen.
On the Tuesday after I got home from girls camp, Rus left for twelve days away at Philmont, a Boy Scout camp. I decided months ago not to mope and mourn through his long absence, and I planned a trip with my mother and mother in law to Pagosa Springs. And I posted already how amazing it was!
Rus came home on a Saturday and the next week and a half was filled with fun normal things like swimming, doing a woodworking project with DeAnn, and playing with kids.
The week of the Fourth of July we left for San Diego for Rus's cousin Tom's wedding to the beautiful Suzy. We left on the night of the second and spent two nights at Rus's parent's house in Lordsburg. Then we drove the long lovely drive on I-10 to San Diego. The kids really liked seeing Mexico from the road. They wanted to stick their arms through the fence. We were happy to finally arrive at our hotel and see numerous Hartmans. Beau said a couple months ago that he wanted to go on a trip for his birthday, so we said that he could go anywhere he wanted as long as it was to the beach. So Beau had his birthday in San Diego, at the beach, the day after Tom and Suzy's wedding.
Truly, the trip requires its very own post, so let me just say now that it was wonderful to see Tom and Suzy sealed in the San Diego temple.

We got home from that trip on a Sunday night and my sister Amy and her kids and my mom came to visit the following Tuesday. We played the whole week, going swimming, celebrating Bekah's birthday at Cliffs amusement park, and making a longboard with Joshua.

 

Joshua designed, cut out, and painted that longboard himself. He did an AWESOME job! He got home on Saturday night, and by Sunday afternoon he was riding it - that's how excited he was about getting it done!
When Amy left on Saturday she only took Joshua with her. I kept her other three kids for the next six days. We went swimming...and I would like to add here that swimming with seven children, four of which can't actually swim, and not having any of them drown, is in my opinion quite an accomplishment. We also visited the Rattlesnake museum and their dozens of live rattlesnakes, went bowling, went for a hike, made homemade ice cream, attended Apple camp (at the Apple store), made Luke and Bekah castles out of scrap wood, and did lots of lizard catching in the back yard.
Here are the kids in front of the Rattlesnake museum:

It was actually really fun to have seven kids for a week. We went to Target, just for fun, and got a couple odd looks...One older gentleman actually stopped and said, "I'm sorry, I just have to ask..." and I finished for him by saying, "No, these aren't all my children." (I figured out I could have actually had all of them, although three of them are just nine months apart and Luke was born a few weeks before I got married...)
And all of that brings us to this week, where I am finding that teaching paper making to seven children is a wet and messy experience. It's really fun too, but I've learned the hard way that deckles and molds are stronger when the wood is cut with the grain and the screen is a plastic pet screen and not an aluminum wire screen. And set-up and clean-up take a long time. And paper takes a long time to dry, which is not ideal for my back to back three day class. But the kids (ranging in age from seven to thirteen), have had a great time, and that's what's important! Here is our garage full of drying papers:

On Saturday I was able to volunteer as a face painter for Smilefest - an awesome celebration for families with at least one child who has a cleft lip. The woman who organizes it works all year to get a venue and coordinate volunteers and procure donations, so that the families are able to just attend and have a good time, free of charge. This is the second year I have been able to attend as a face painter and I LOVE it! Here is some of my handiwork:

Now it's one week of relaxing fun, one week of St. George, and then school starts!! AAAHHH!!! I'm not ready to be back on a schedule, but angels will be singing when I don't have to take all of my kids grocery shopping anymore!!