While driving through Utah we stopped in Richfield to see Eric's Grandfather who is 96 years old. He is amazing. Other then not being able to hear he is doing really well. I can't believe that I didn't get a photo with him!
We drove from Richfield to Salt Lake City where we stayed with my Mom for a week. We drove Haley to softball camp at BYU. This was terrifying for me. The camp is for girls 10-17 and she will be 10 in July. As we were standing in the line to pick up the housing assignment (yes she slept in the dorms for 5 days!) I could not but help notice that all the girls in line for the camp were SOOO much older and taller then her. Most of the girls were taller then me and looked strong enough to throw a 10 year old across a field. I was seriously questioning our judgment to send her when I heard the group of 5 older girls in line talking about how small and little Haley was.... then one of them said "I would never send my little kid to a camp like this- that's crazy"
After Eric was done catching Ruby and Lucy and encouraging them not to hang off the railings and run through all the lines, he came and stood by me. I told him what I overheard and said that I was officially the worst Mom and we just needed to just take her home. He said, let's just wait and see. The amazing thing was that at no time did Haley comment about being a shrimp among the sharks, she was just so excited to be there.
Thank heavens when we took Haley to the dorm I saw several girls her age. Her roommate was a cute 10 year old from West Jordon.
After we unpacked all her stuff we took her to lunch at the cafeteria (the Cannon Center) and both Haley and her roommate headed to the dessert island 1st thing. Again I questioned my parental judgment as I realized I had no control over her eating habits over the 5 days of the camp.
Overall Haley had a great time at the camp. Although one night she called on a cell phone (we loaned her) from the closet of her dorm to complain about her roommate letting too many girls in the dorm.
Ruby especially missed Haley terribly while she was gone. After we picked her up Ruby and Lucy gave her the longest sweetest hug as she was getting in the car. If only everyday was like this!
Check out Haley's clothes. I could not believe how dirty all her clothes were!
While Haley was at camp Ruby and Lucy were in heaven at Grandma Bonnie's house. I need to explain that in the past it has been exhausting and stressful to take my kids to my Mom's house. She lives on the top floor of a super cool old building. So there is no backyard to send them too and the house is full of stuff that is antique and breakable not to mention she has candy all over the house so you need to monitor the consumption. As a kid my Dad used to tell me "We can replace you... but we cannot replace that" when referring to antiques.
Anyway this time was different. The girls are old enough to know how to behave around nice things. When I started stressing about the candy Eric said:
"We are on vacation, I am going with the WWTD philosophy" he explained that was "What would Tiffany do". Tiffany, my Sister is famous with my kids because she lets them eat cake and ice cream for breakfast.
So we did not intervene at all on the candy.
The kids were in heaven and I was much more relaxed.
We got to visit with the Bowmans. Ms Dori actually watched Lucy and Ruby all day so we could go around to quilt stores all over SLC. Later that night we had dinner with the Bowman's and we ended up staying way to late because no one wanted to leave.
The next day we went to Temple Square. The girls were so excited that they saw a REAL bride!
We went to the Church Museum that had a great exhibit for kids an exhibit on The Relief Sociey with some beautiful quilts.
Or that Tiffany embroidered cute matching pool cover ups with their initials...
But I think their favorite part of visiting her house is the ability to consume two gallons of ice cream, two cans of whip cream and an entire container of sprinkles... and it was totally OK.
