What We've Been Doing

These last few days have been Crazy - in a good way. We are winding down our summer and getting geared up for school. Every year around this time we spend a day back to school shopping at Arizona Mills Mall in Tempe. The mall itself is like a race track - one very large oval. If you just walk the oval in a straight line it is exactly a one mile loop. I wore my pedometer and we actually walked four and a half miles in that mall! I try and get everything done and bought in one fell swoop. We were not as successful as in years past - but we did okay. Devon didn't want to go with us so it was girls only shopping. I took Devon out yesterday to get him what he wanted/needed.

tired girls at the mall

Alan was in Los Angeles this week during the earthquake. He e-mailed me a very cryptic message knowing that I would freak out before he called and let me know that everything was fine. On a related note, when he is out of town - we are complete slobs. We don't clean, we don't eat regular meals - it is bad news. I'm glad he doesn't travel that often.

Last weekend our ward had an awesome water party / barbecue. Everyone got soaked and soggy. The firemen came and let the kids spray the hose at each other - they loved that. Alan was completely dry until the very end. I was talking to a family that just moved in to our ward and he asked how Alan had managed to stay dry. I explained that Alan was using his position in the Bishopric as his weapon - he was threatening all of the youth with promises of talking in church every Sunday for a month if they got him wet. This wonderful new brother in our ward went and got a hose and told Alan that since they were new they expected to have to speak in church anyway and then turned the hose full on Alan! I laughed really hard.

I lifted this picture from Valerie's blog. The water coming from that young man's hands in a green soda bottle is about to land right in my lap.

We have been having amazing summer monsoon storms. Over the weekend we sat on our back porch and watched an endless show of lightening. We never got the rain but we enjoyed the show.

My daughter Courtney and I are preparing for the release of Breaking Dawn tomorrow night. We have both re-read the series and are planning to nap Friday afternoon so we can attend the release party at Borders and then stay up all night reading the book. I told her she has to buy her own copy or wait until I'm done. She opted for her own copy. Will anyone be blogging on Saturday or will everyone be reading?