The long weekend

It's been a very nice long weekend. With the 4th of July, it felt like we had two Saturdays..and boy did we need them. We played a lot on Friday and yesterday we spent the entire day at home. Zig did a ton of yardwork and the weather was ideal. It was really refreshing...a bit overcast and just cool enough to make it comfortable to be working outside. I worked mostly inside getting things organized and going through drawers and boxes from the move.

I tossed all of our soaps, lotions, and other body products with any unrecognizable ingredients. That was fun! I am down to my mineral makeup, Julie's lotion, my homemade exfoliating scrub, coconut/almond oil, and a few other essentials. Next to go will be my shampoo and conditioner! Woo hoo! The baking soda, apple cider vinegar experiement is going very well and I'm about to bid farewell to my nasty expensive shampoos for good. I hung onto them just because it seems too good to be true that baking soda and vinegar could leave my hair feeling cleaner, softer, and healthier than my existing products, but so far so good. This all sounds very granola of me, but I just wanted try it and see. I do care a decent amount about how I look and how my hair smells, so this had to meet some basic criteria for me to stick with it! I couldn't be more pleased with the results though. How could I go back to detergents on my hair if this works so well and there is no smell?! I'm sold. Don't worry, not going deodorant free anytime soon! Still shaving my legs.

Saturday night the kids shot off their puny little fireworks and thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I wanted to tell Sela about roman candle wars we had as kids, but I exercised some restraint. Maybe next year!

Ahhh, Sunday. With so much work done on Saturday, Sunday was such a day of rest, as it should be, but often is not. Neither Zig or I had any teaching responsibilities at church today so we enjoyed the morning so much. I spent the morning outside with the girls walking around the yard checking out new buds, flowers, and fruits. The kids snacked on our first ripe raspberries as well as gooseberries and huckleberries.






Blueberries not ripe yet


Huckleberries

Gooseberries

I love these poppys that just sprang up!

The first ripe raspberry























I was able to fast for the first time in about seven years since Rollin is pretty much weaned. What a blessing to be able to do this again....I was very touched and spiritually lifted during our meetings today and I attribute that in part to being able to partake in the fasting portion of our worship.

Primary Presidency is great! We just sit back and laugh and watch the adorable kids. Our new chorister is fantastic and my days are much less stressful not being in charge of music each week. It's all the prep work that is so time consuming. The actual being up in front of the kids is often quite fun, though a bit nerve wracking from time to time.

Next week we have no big plans. We did join a little tennis/swim club right near our house with an outdoor pool last week. Nothing fancy, but just a great place to cool off on the warm afternoons.

I am going to get back on the exercise wagon this week. I can no longer deny that I have gotten a bit "soft." Getting in a bathing suit was just the jolt I needed!