Stories from the Summer

Over the course of the summer I tried to keep a couple of notes on what was going on... but instead of turning into blog posts they have all now simply turned into random stories in this one blog post.

I think one of the most tramatic things for our kids this year was the loss of our great dane Apollo. Apollo was a great dog and we loved him dearly, but his medical conditions and our wallets were not getting along very well, which had the effect of keeping him in obvious discomfort day to day and frustrating us as well. It's a long story, but through the Vet's office we found the Rocky Mountain Great Dane Rescue who took him on with all of his medical problems and found him a new home. This all happened right around the time that we dropped Dandy, our lab, off at Amy and Alex's and took off for New Mexico.

Later on Ben was telling the story to someone and said," we were going to give apollo a shot, but then a lady at the shot place wanted him so we gave him to her." To which Kallie quickly added, "we gave dandy away too, but then we went and got her back."

Ben was asking me about Apollo leaving our family later and I said I didn't really have a good answer to that but only that Heavenly Father asked me to (interestingly enough, it was quite a spiritual experience). He surmised that it was a "favor". "A what?" I asked. "A favor," he replied, "you did Heavenly Father a favor." It is always interesting to learn how the children interpret these experiences.

On a completely unrelated note, we were driving back from New Mexico this summer and I was administering voice commands to the GPS system in order to keep one hand firmly on the wheel and the other on my soft drink. I don't know if Katie was feeling a little left out or just a little jealous (the GPS is female), but out of the blue she just started talking to the GPS device. She was halfway through a conversation with it before I had the heart to tell her that the GPS only has a few pre-programmed voice commands and that it can't respond to anything she throws at it. That kept us laughing for the better part of the drive.

This summer Kallie has been testing the limits of parental control a little bit, which more than a couple of nights in a row ended with her sobbing in tears. I would finally say, "Alright Kallie, you've cried, it's over, you're done crying." To which nine times out of ten she would angrily reply, "Well, I'm having oatmeal for breakfast!" I was always happy to let her have the last words on that.

Tonight Kallie was pretty darn cute again as we were driving to dinner. She was telling me all about Aunt SaraAnn's house and how there are baby dolls in the basement and she can ALWAYS find the kitchen. "The kitchen? Why?" I asked, "because it's in the middle of the house?" "No, because it's stuck to the floor, it never moves, so its always in the same spot!" she replied. Makes sense to me.

On the way home, she was telling me how she wants to say the most beautiful prayers. Prayers that Heavenly Father will always love to hear and that will make him happy. I didn't even have to ask why. "That way Heavenly Father will be happy and not shake the earth. Cause that would make the world bumpy!" She explained.