Father's Day Flee

We had to postpone Father's Day Flee to July this year because of conflicts with Scout Camps.  Rick decided to have it at Snow College in Ephraim.  I went to SNOW my first two years of college and have a lot of fond memories of that place!  We stayed at Pineview apartments and had games and competitions in the recreation center.

The theme Rick came up with for this year is "Body Building Basics: Understanding the eternal significance of the soul and building a unity between the spiritual and physical body." We arrived Thursday night and checked in.  Rick and Curtis went and bought all of the food while Steph and I visited and the kids played.

Friday morning we had our opening ceremonies with the traditional "Father's Day Flee" dance.  Rick taught a great lesson introducing the theme.  Then the kids voted on what competitions they wanted to have throughout the weekend.  The kids competed and played at the recreation center and Janika and I went and worked out in the fitness center.  After lunch everyone went swimming while I took Janika around the college campus since she is thinking about attending school there.  Curtis taught a really effective lesson that evening on keeping your physical body healthy and then we all went out to eat.  The kids stayed up and played card games like SCUM.

Curtis and Rick brought all of the kids 12 and older to the Manti temple to do baptisms for the dead  early Saturday morning at 6:00 a.m.  We then had breakfast and went to the Institute for our final lessons taught by me and Stephanie. Our topic was "We can choose to keep our body a temple and present it as a living sacrifice by keeping the Law of Chastity, both physically and virtually."  We headed over to the track for races and I realized how terribly out of shape I am!  I ran the 400 and the mile with the kids and did horrible!  We then cleaned up the apartments and checked out.  We met at the Institute for lunch and awards before heading home.   

Father's Day Flee has been a really neat tradition that we do with the Healeys every year.  Our kids are all really good friends and enjoy playing and hanging out together.  The only complaint of our kids was that the trip was way too short!    

 

Surprise Trip to Vegas!

Rick took me on a surprise trip for our Anniversary.  He had told me that he was taking me out to lunch on Tuesday, July 23rd, and when we woke up he said that he had decided to take the day off.   Well, when we went to lunch he just kept right on driving out of town!  He had me open an series of envelopes that were hidden throughout the car that unveiled the plans for the next two days.  I was really touched that he had gone to so much work to do this!  He was really excited as he told me about everything he had planned.

The night before he had taken all of the kids out for ice cream cones at Dairy Queen and told them about the trip and swore them all to silence!  I can't believe that none of the kids let anything slip!  It was great of Janika to babysit for us for two days and two nights.  That is the longest she has ever babysat for us before. She sure does a great job!

We checked into the Trump hotel and then checked out some local spas and then went out to lunch at Johnny Rockets.  We relaxed in a Korean spa in the afternoon.  Neither of us had been to a spa before and so this was quite the adventure.  Rick liked the spas a lot more than I did.  The steam rooms and saunas were way too hot for me.  I couldn't handle the intense heat and pretty much walked in, sat down, and then walked out.  I could only take the hot tub for a few minutes and so I spent most of my time in the "warm" tub.  The upstairs had a work out room and two big rooms with big screen TV's with lots of comfortable couches and chairs.  They had rooms with hot rocks you could lay down on.  I tried it but could only stand it with a towel under me so that I didn't get burned!  They also had a little restaurant area with Korean food but we ended up eating out somewhere else.   

After the spa we went out to dinner, and then went back to the hotel to work out for an hour in the fitness room before relaxing in our room. Wednesday Rick went to a spa while I slept in.  He called me and was going to come pick me up to join him but since I didn't really like the spa, I decided that I wanted to work out at our hotel fitness room and check out the pool and other facilities instead.  We met up again after lunch and drove to another spa where we both got massages and then pedicures and manicures.  I think this was my favorite part of the trip!  I have had a few massages before and really enjoy them.  This was the first time I had ever gotten a pedicure or manicure before and I really enjoyed that too!

That foot massage felt so good!  I told Rick to make sure he paid attention so that he could learn how to give me great foot massages at home!  Rick was carrying on a conversation with the lady doing his pedicure the whole time and I had to smile when I heard him turn the conversation around to gospel topics.  As we left he was giving her the address to the church's website.  I love the fact that Rick takes advantage of missionary opportunities!  I look forward to serving a mission with him some day!  After our pampering, Rick and I went to an all-you-can-eat buffet at the Palms Casino Resort Bistro Buffet and it was awesome!  I have never seen such a huge spread of all kinds of food.  I got full way too quickly!

Thursday morning Rick went back to the spa and I slept in and relaxed in the jacuzzi tub in our hotel room.  We checked out of the hotel and headed back home only to quickly re-pack and leave for our Father's Day Flee Family vacation!  Janika had a lot put on her because she had to pack all of the younger kids' bags and make sure that they had everything ready to go.  She did such an awesome job babysitting and even brought all of the kids to the 24th of July parade in Ivins.  She had to make two separate trips to get everyone there because she only has a small car and she didn't dare drive the van!  That means she spent about an hour before and an hour after just shuttling everyone back and forth!  Kudos to her -- that was going way beyond the call of duty! It was weird for us being outside of Utah on the 24th without any special festivities going on! 

When I got home the little kids ran out and hugged us and wanted to hear how everything went.  They thought it was pretty cool that they knew about the surprise.  I hugged Jenna and said, "I have to hurry and go pack for Father's Day Flee."  She looked confused and said, "You found out?"  I laughed and said, "No honey, I just got back from the surprise trip!  Now I have to pack for our family trip!" 

 Rick laying on hot rocks at the spa.  They were way too hot for me to lay on!!

 I liked staying at the Trump because it was straight up and down which means that everything was easy to find and I didn't get lost!  We stayed on the 55th floor (out of 64 floors).  We had a beautiful view of the city lights at night.  I especially liked it because there were NO casinos at the hotel! 

 My very first Pedicure, so I had to get a picture! 

Tuacahn

This weekend we brought our kids to see all three Tuacahn shows!  Thursday night we saw "Thoroughly Modern Millie,"  Friday we saw "Mary Poppins," and Saturday night we saw "Starlight Express."  Unfortunately Janika was at girl's camp and so she missed the first two shows.  Jase and Jared didn't want to see any of the shows.  We brought Janelle and Jaiden to Millie, the five youngest to Mary Poppins and Josh, Jaiden, and Janelle to Starlight Express.  My favorite? "Thoroughly Modern Millie!"

 

 

Janika Girl's Camp

Janika went with to Girl's Camp with the Red Cliff's Stake even though we were in the process of moving back to our Santa Clara Stake.  She was a Youth Leader and had a lot of fun!  They went to Kolob where they got rained on off and on!

Sisters

Janelle and Jaiden decorated a cake at their friend's house and she let them bring half home.  They were pretty proud of their creation!

Swimming Lessons!

We have a pool in our backyard and the kids all swim for hours and hours every week -- and they still didn't pass their level of swimming lessons!  Janelle and Jaiden were in level 4 together and they both passed everything except for one thing -- breathe to the side only (rhythmic).  Josh was in Level Two Advanced and passed everything except for the "Supine Float unassisted 10 seconds," "Flutter kick on back 5 yards," and "Combined stroke on back 5 yards."

Jenna passed everything except for "Front glide unassisted" (5 sec).  She was in level 2 Beginning.  So either I will move them up a level anyway -- or I will have them all repeat their same level next year!  The kids really enjoyed swimming lessons -- especially Jenna!  She complained that the lessons were too short!

 Jaiden and her friend, Sydney Anderson

Silly Girls

Jenna and Clarissa dressing like twins and being silly!