The Heat is ON ... again!

Well, I wrote a post describing the heat wave we're experiencing at the moment, but never published it. Let's just say that the first week of fall has been hotter than summer! We're currently sitting at 104F/40C. It's not pretty! Forget the hopes of the grass going green--it's crunchy and brown.

A few things from this past week--Savannah had swimming at school. It was fun to see her progress. Last March, she was in the beginning group, the ones who are afraid to get their heads in the water. By the end of that week, she loved it and we signed her up for swim lessons. After one year, she is in the top group. She wasn't the strongest swimmer in the group, but held her own considering some of those in the group were also in the top group last year. She did great, learned some new things, and had fun. Collin, Hunter and I enjoyed watching her, even though the pool was like a sauna for us!!

Collin is getting ready for his birthday (and Hunter's). He is making plans and changing them everyday. I am told several times a week that I need to make a ninja turtle cake which changes to a Lazy Town cake which changes to a sports cake which changes to a volcano cake. I think I'll ignore him and do my own thing. He is SO EXCITED to be four! His friend, Jack, at kindy just had his birthday and Collin can't wait until he gets his turn to sit in the front of the kindy and have all his friends sing at him. Luckily, he won't have to wait long--this Friday is the day! He continues to be passionate about sports and extremely competitive (must get that from Kelli :). The kids and Jessy have set up the laundry basket on top of a bar stool in the dining room (you know, the empty room...), and they frequently play basketball. You should hear him when he makes a basket - it's as if he's won the NBA championship each and every time! When the missionaries came over, Collin asked them if they could play for a minute, so they did. Collin chose his team first--picking the tallest missionary and Hunter, and leaving Jessy, Savannah, and the other elder as the opposition. Collin and Elder Black lost and you would have thought it was the end of the world with all his wailing and screaming! It was unreal! The missionary claims to have felt bad all night. Collin is looking forward to being able to play soccer when we get back to Utah, but I hope we don't have to deal with this reaction every time he loses! Another funny happenings with Collin -- the kid loves pancakes and pretty much every morning he asks me if I'll make pancakes. I usually have to say I don't have time to make them because I have to go to work. Well, the other day I made them over the weekend and had some prepared for Monday morning in a little baggy in the fridge. So true to form, Collin gets up Monday morning and asks if I can make pancakes and I open the fridge to get them out but I can't see them. I'm looking around and just can't find them. Collin comes up beside me and points right at them (they were in plain sight!) and then can't resist adding on, "Daddy, you don't have good eyes!" Thanks, kid.

Hunter's birthday is Tuesday, but he has already hit the Terrible Twos!! The past couple of days he has started these incredible screaming fits for no apparent reason. He can scream with the best of them. I'm hoping he gets over it quickly (ha ha). A 15 hour plane ride will not be fun if the Screamin' Demon chooses to show up! Right now Hunter is also going through his second bout with impetigo. It showed up yesterday afternoon, of course on a Saturday with a long weekend ahead of it (we have a public holiday for the horse race here). So, it looks like he'll be missing his first scheduled day of kindy (bummer for me). He's also continuing his interesting uses of the English language. The other day we were on a walk in the park and Collin came running past Hunter and I. As he ran past Collin yelled, "See ya losers!" (once again that competitive spirit coming out.) Well, Hunter began processing that in his little brain and 30 seconds later he yelled, "S'ya losers!" We were also listening to the 'tiki bird' song from Disney in the car the other day and Hunter decided he would rename it the 'ta-waka-waka' (or something like that) song. He also has begun referring to us as Jes and Kel. He's also carrying around the babies that we gave Collin and Savannah when Hunter was born. He's always saying, 'hush hush', feeding them bottles, and sleeping with them. Just getting ready for October I guess :) And a last note -- he's officially acquired the Aussie accent along with the other two. He likes to refer to himself, not as 'Hunter' but 'Hunta' ... and it's not a glass of 'water' it's 'watah'. What a kid!

Jessy is back to training for his half-ironman following the head/chest colds we came down with about 3 weeks ago. He goes on some mighty long bike rides and runs. I think he's spent a little more time in the pool with this heat. He's looking forward to being able to interview "for real" here in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully that relieves some stress.

I am still coughing up a storm from the colds we had. It drives me nuts to be coughing every time I talk or turn my neck. Not much else is going on here. I'm worried about huntsmans coming in the house with all the hot weather--I see one just about every week at church and it creeps me out! We're getting more and more excited to be going back home--we know that once the birthdays start (we have 4 in the next 6 weeks or so), things are going to get busy and we'll be going home before we know it. There are lots of loose ends to tie up, but we're slowly working on what we can and May will come, ready or not! Thanks, Grandma for the fancy dinnerware!