Bear Lake

Today I'm hanging out in a hospital room all day while Jason has and recovers from his shoulder surgery. Perfect time to catch up on homework and blogging!

In July we had the first bi-annual reunion of the Don and Karen Rowley Fam! We've had reunions every summer for as long as I can remember with my dad's family, but we're finally big enough (age and numbers-wise) to start splitting off into our own little families. We'll do this reunion every other year and still have the big reunion on the other years.

So! Jen was in charge this year (I'm next! I'm so glad she was the guinea pig) and she worked so hard and made everything so awesome! We stayed in a beautiful house right next to Bear Lake. It was so nice and relaxing and fun! The only sad part was that Jason wasn't able to come.

I don't have any pics of the outside of the house, but here's the view from the back yard. Not bad! (and that's Missy posing for me)
We had a hot-tub in the back yard

and a little park across the street. The kids spent most of their time over there, it was so nice!

The floor of the playground was sand, the kids dug deep holes and I helped them bury each other.
My kids totally bonded with their aunts and uncles. This is Mandie and Bryce (Cherise's hub) how cute are they??
Art projects at the dining room table
Watching Bryce fly his remote control airplane-- so cool!
On the second day we went down to the lake! The place we went to had a fabulous little sand bar that was such a perfect place to play! Really shallow water on one side and deep on the other. The kids loved playing in the sand and looking for shells.



The men rented 2 waverunners and everybody took turns taking them for rides. It was so fun!

Natalie even got to drive one!

Here's Josh being pulled-- he and Jessica both LOVED it!
This is me and Mandie on our walk across the submerged part of the sandbar, seeing how close we could get to the seagulls.




The next day we would have gone back to the beach, but we were all too sunburned! We thought we did pretty good with the sunscreen, but apparently not! So on the 3rd day we just relaxed in the lovely house, then on the 4th day we drove home.

Let's talk about ME

First of all I would like to brag about the fact that despite a tonsillectomy WITH complications during the first 3 weeks of a 10-week summer semester, I STILL got A's in all my classes! Bahaha! My perfect 4.0 record (since starting school again) is still unbroken, and my overall GPA is up to 3.84! Also, I have my associates degree now! Turned out I didn't need to get it after all since I didn't end up transferring, but hey, my generals are done! No more math or anything else unpleasant.

As you may remember, I had planned to transfer to USU and finish my degree online. I applied and got accepted and everything, then found out that the scholarships I'd been planning on didn't apply to online students! And since it costs more to go there, I decided I should just stay at SUU even though they don't have many psych classes online. I'm hoping that this will actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise. The psychology class that I took spring semester online was really disappointing. I realized that, being so subjective, theory-, and people-based, psychology is not a subject that works well in online classes. Also, I'm feeling ready to have actual dedicated school time instead of constantly juggling school, housework and kids.

SO, this semester I'm actually GOING to most of my classes! All 4 of the big kids are now in school all day (!!!!) and since Mandie's 3, I figure daycare a couple hours a day will be fun and good for her. She'd be bored at home with only me all day anyway. PLUS, my school has a daycare grant that pays for most of it! I have 2 classes MWF, and one Tues/thurs, after which I'll stay another hour on campus and have some dedicated homework time. We found a lovely little daycare that Mandie's really excited about, and that's on my way to school.

So basically I'll be getting everybody, including me and Mandie, up and ready nice and early, then we'll all head off to school, and Mandie and I will get home around 11. Then we'll have some time to play together, have lunch, then she can take a nap and I can do homework until the kids get home. Then I can concentrate on being a mom till bedtime, and after they're in bed I'll be working on our business. Of course it'll only be that simple on days Jason doesn't have doctor appointments....and he's averaging about 4 appointments a week.

We moved our business out of the store and back into our house over the summer. We're hoping I'll have enough time to run it as long as we keep it simple. On one hand, I would much rather do it myself than pay someone else. But on the other hand, the idea of trying to do it in addition to everything else is freaking me out! In theory it should work out fine, but we'll see what actually happens!

Jason has been feeling a little more alive lately, and has been able to help get the business set up in our house. He goes to acupuncture twice a week and really feels like it helps, and we're finally to the point that we like all of our doctors and feel like we're getting somewhere. He has surgery scheduled for his shoulder next week. It'll be so great if we can at least get ONE thing fixed, I sure hope it works! He still hasn't been able to get on disability, but according to the lawyers it almost always takes this long. He's been denied twice, and the next step is a hearing, where most of their cases are won. Unfortunately you usually have to wait over a year for a hearing date. Siiiiiiigh.

Okay! I think I'll shut up now. Someday soon I'll try to do posts of the fun stuff we did this summer!