Who's Who in the Qof12

104 Days of Summer Vacation

 

I had big ideas for how the summer was going to go: we'd have a cooking day, a library day, a park day. But none of that happened. Here's what we did do: The boys signed up for a Pee-Wee All Stars Sports class. They did basketball, tennis, soccer, and track and field. It was a good taste of a variety of sports. At the end they each got a gold medal. Lance, Luke and Lacey all took swimming lessons. They did pretty well but none of them actually their heads in the water. Maybe next year.

 

This summer I was obsessed with pioneers. As the primary chorister I spent all of July teaching the kids songs about pioneers. I asked my mother-in-law to make me a pioneer dress. I made my kids dress up for the ward pioneer commemoration dinner (which was not actually a dress up event so I'm sure that someday my children will say, "Our crazy mom made us dress up and we were the only ones. How embarrasing!") But they sure were the cutest little pioneer children.

 

Lance spent a lot of time with his friend Nathan who lives across the street and was invited to play dates with other friends. He became fascinated with Club Penguin. Luke was also invited to parties and play dates and spent a lot of time with Club Penguin (online game). Lacey finally got potty trained and learned how to pester her brothers by singing. Lia learned how to crawl and click her tongue louder than anyone I've ever heard. Alex kept super busy at work. As for me, this summer I chased kids around and read three books, Three Cups of Tea, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and The Hunger Games. I also changed the color of my hair.

 

I've been sporting blonde highlights for about twelve years and wanted to give something new a try. It's actually close to my natural color. (Although I hardly remember what that is.) Sometimes summer seems long but then you look back and go where did the time go?

Good Times. . . Good Times

It was the best of times. Memories made that will last forever. Everyone should have a family as great as mine. the Hafens decided to have a family vacation together this summer at our family's ranch. The highlight was the cousin camps: Cowboy Cousins, Hula Hunnies, and Little Squirts.

Each camp came with activities and/or costumes. The boys got cowboy hats and bandanas and learned to ride a homemade bucking bronco (genius!). They also learned some cowboy talk: "Howdy!" "Thank you ma'm." and "Yip-yipee". My brothers Aaron and Brian ran that activity with help form Jordon and Chris.

The older girl cousins were the Hula Hunnies. They decorated flip-flops, made an ocean in a bottle, and made candy leis with Aunt Kristen and Aunt Natalie. Then they learned a hula from Aunt Kortni who played the ukelele.

The littlest cousins got to play in a wading pool and make their own artwork thanks to Aunt Danette, Aunt Mandy, and Uncle Jason.

Friday night we had a Hafen Family Film Festival. Everyone made their own movies. Some were funny (Droolzilla,Cirque du Hafen) some were remakes (Nacho Libre, The Duck Song), some were very original (The Search for Bigfoot, Low Budget Spiderman), and some were touching memories (Muckus History and Let Them Be Little-a compilation of a lifetime of slides).

Saturday we went to the hidden-away Kershaw-Ryan State Park and had lunch and some people cooled off in the wading pool. Saturday night we had a family testimony meeting, which was wonderful.

In all my years of going to the ranch, I think this was the best time I have ever had. It's great to have such a close, loving, supportive family to share good times with.