kids enjoyed the regular reunion items, barrel train, horse riding, playing on the playground.
Kevin off-roaded with a number of people including his dad, who had a great time in the truck Kevin built. The first off-road run both Milt and Kevin's trucks got stuck. Kevin aired down the tires and went to rescue Milt. At the end of the run Kevin's truck stopped and Milt had to pull him back. I told Milt to rub it in since Kevin rarely gets stuck.
One Sunday, Derrick just woke up with his ear swollen and poking out more than normal. I touched it all over for pain and checked for bug bites or cuts. Nothing. It felt spongy and thick. Since I didn't think it was an allergy, I gave him motrin. We went to Kevin's cousin's farewell that day and the ear didn't change until the medicine wore off and then got even bigger. Next we tried benedryl. The ear continued to swell with that medication and so we tried some clay to see if the infection could be drawn out. Still, nothing. This was concerning.
We drove home late but luckily our doctor's office has night clinic hours. The doctor examined the ear and declared it had to be celluitis of the ear. He said he had seen a few cases in his career where the ears had actually progressed to blisters or even staff infections. He said it was all on the exterior of the ear and the interior was fine (which was my main concern). He gave him amoxicilan and said to call if his ear got worse. The medication worked like a charm and Derrick's ear was back to normal by the time school started on Wednesday. We feel blessed that we took him in early, so he didn't have any of those bad progressions of his ear. I still can't believe that it was never painful for him. It was definitely an unusual swelling of the ear.
After the kids had helped with that garden for the summer, I told them we could go to the store and get something special for them. The girls picked out fake finger nails. This was our first experience with fake nails and luckily my sister LeAnn called in the middle of trying to put them on. LeAnn is the professional and gave some really great tips. I would never have thought to just cut them to the size and shape of each nail. I would have been content to have them oversized and popping off every now and then. I trimmed down each nail, especially for KayDee and we ended up super gluing them on. I was skeptical if the girls would even want them on for a long time but they really liked them and kept them on for days until the glue slowly wore off and a few started popping off. We had to take them off after a week since we were going swimming. I didn't think the pool would want random fingernails floating around. I was very pleased at how well the fake finger nails turned out. 
Derrick had played with an army set at Rachel and Justin's and had been waiting for an opportunity to get a set of his own. He jumped at this opportunity and we set out to find an army set he had in mind. We looked at the dollar store and Family Dollar and I really was surprised they didn't have sets. We went to Walmart and there was a $3 set but didn't have a tank. We had to make due with what we could find. Luckily his dad saved the day and had a tank for him from his old toys.
This summer we spent a lot of time weeding. The kids are in a music class our neighbor provides and allows us to work for her to pay for it, which has been a great blessing. We weeded their garden while they were gone to the Nauvoo pagent for 8 weeks during the summer. It was a big garden and a lot of work (maybe an acre). Toward the end of the summer, their young cat had kittens in this barrel. The cat hasn't quite figured out how to take care of her kittens so they did end up dying (more like disappearing) but it was still fun to see. We were able to pay for Samantha and Derrick's lessons for the year and about half of KayDee's. We feel so blessed from our neighbor's generosity. I just found out that they are selling food from the garden now since there was so much and have already earned over $200 with more to go. I thought that was great!
