End of summer...

Here is Grandma peeling the peaches that she picked off the tree in our front yard.  Add to that the fresh cream from Buttercup, and man, we had us a real dessert.  You would have thought we were back in Grandma Reta's kitchen, excetp for the Agave nectar we added instead of the sugar.  Grandma Reta loved the sugar!

And then we got to visit with my little niece and her parents, Craig & Jenette.  Thnaks for coming over guys!

The Olympics have come and gone.  We watched the Opening Ceremonies, one night over at Grandma's before the reunions, one night at the reunion, and one night with Craig.  That's it!  It was weird - it came and went without us hardly even watching anything!  But we were off doing fun things, so that's OK.  Michael Phelps won a whole bunch of medals again.  It was interesting how much better he handled the press than some of the other athletes.  He didn't fall for their "trap" questions, like "How well will you swim in this race", and other dumb questions.  He said, "We'll see when I enter the pool."  He wouldn't give them the dumb answers they wanted - it was awesome!

Good news about Bruce - his lungs have been better this week.  When I was praying last week, the thought came to me to run a diffuser during the night.  Why I hadn't thought of this on my own before this is beyond me.  It's the first thing I would do with one of the kids, but for some reason I just hadn't thought of it with Dad.  I ran the TheraPro diffuser, which puts out more oil, and I put Eucalyptus Globulus in it.  After about three nights, we started to see a difference.  Then yesterday Dad had an earache, so I did a Vita-flex treatment on his ears with Geranium, Ylang Ylang and Purification, and then he put RC on it several other times.  That has also seemed to help.  Both of these were answers to prayer, but especially the first one - getting over the cough.  That has been a real blessing.

Jesse has been sick this week, though.  I think more than anything she has been worried about school starting.  When perfection is your goal, there's a lot to worry about.  She got a Priesthood blessing on Friday night, and then she sat on the couch all day Saturday and read a book that Shelby had brought over.  She still felt weak today, but was able to go to Church and play the organ.

Mary was so mad at Nathan on Saturday night because he didn't come to the Stake Dance.  She wanted to show off the dances they learned at the Dance Camp.  Oh well, she'll have to wait until the Street Dance this Friday.  Yes - can you believe it - school starts this week!  Joseph has a few weeks left before we take him off to BYU-I!

Peter helped Darren for three days this week doing his Eagle Project.  It was to help build a bus stop with a cement pad and a shelter for the Campo.  He had fun doing that.  He's having a lot of fun being a Deacon.  This week is the back to school bbq, which is always so fun.  Joseph went on a campout with the Singles Branch on Fri night, and had a great time there.

Libby made an experiment with some batteries and a light bulb - and she got to work this afternoon!  Fun!  Dad also gave a Father's blessing to all the four younger children this afternoon.  That is always a great thing.

And we're off to school!

Phelps Phan

OK, I'm a big phan, along with the rest of America. Cavic was so cocky that even after Michael won, he was saying, "Who is the gold-medal winner?" Duh. That's what's so cool about Phelps - it hasn't gotten to his head. That's pretty amazing. I'm pretty sure it would have gotten to mine. I heard a great story on NPR today interviewing kids at a swimming pool about the Olympics and Phelps. It's fun to see kids want to emulate greatness.

Loved the gymnastics last night as well. I thought Nastia was the epitome of grace and beauty. I loved Shawn Johnson, too, but I thought Nastia deserved the gold. She managed to make it look beautiful, like she was floating, whereas Johnson was "muscling" her way through it, or something. It's hard to explain. But I loved Shawn's mid-west attitude and demeanor. Wahoo - way to go girls!

On a different note, Joseph made the JV soccer team and Joshua made the Varsity team at their high school! Another wahoo! I'm so proud of them. They've been in two-a-days all this week, and have really worked hard. I have worked hard this week too, trying to keep them fed on the tail-end of a month of next-to-no grocery shopping because of finances. That was tricky, but we made it through all right, although, sadly, they might contest that assessment! Oh well, they are still alive, and they made the team, so it's all good.

Olympics

I'm just loving the Olympics! This is the one time of the every-other-year that I sit down and watch TV for hours on end. Watching Michael Phelps win all his races, including that incredible 400-free relay - holy cow - has been so exciting! And it was great to watch the men's gymnastics last night.

I have a new favorite quote - it's from the Texan Jonathan Horton, when it was apparent that the USA men's team would take the bronze in gymnastics. In one of those candid camera shots he looked at the camera and exulted, "We're goin' swimmin' in the river tonight!"

What a classic!

And my favorite commercials?

The AT&T "no bars" ones are hands-down the best, especially the "spending the weekend in the hostel with the Techno-Twins. Wohoo!", and the "nobody told us about the beaches in Spain" commercial.

Second place goes to the Chevy commercial with the gas pump playing mean tricks on everyone's cars, especially the one where it unhooks the boat. Very funny!