Chatfield Update 7/18/08

Happy Summer!
This week has been great! No where to go, not much to do, ahhhh. The kids might not be having the time of their lives but I sure am! I’m feeling a little more ready for the commitments I’ve made that come full force with Fall-back-to-school and that feels good. The kids are still in denial about the school thing but are ok with the back-to-school shopping. We bought Kate her 1st grade backpack and she believes she is now ready to be a big kid. The matching lunch box is raring to go as well. We just wonder how she is going to make mac-n-cheese at school.

Bianca’s last couple of weeks have consisted of girls camp, babysitting, vet assisting, and volunteering one day a week at the Old Folks home here in Springville. Girls Camp was a blast for Bianca—see below—Kels was able to visit their cushy camp one night while she was there. He brought pizza and root beer for the girls and leaders, then spent some time enjoying the beautiful setting with them.

Bianca has half the neighborhood vying for her babysitting expertise. She has two regular summer babysitting jobs each week and others that call for the evenings and other daytime hours. Bianca is the kind of babysitter that plays with the kids and she often comes home with little love notes and pictures from the kids she takes care. They love her and she loves making money in such a fun way. She is working hard at babysitting as well as assisting Dr. D. at the animal hospital once a week so she can earn enough money for school clothes. She should have quite the wardrobe if this keeps up. She also pays tithing and puts ½ her earnings in savings. She is quite frugal and often finds it difficult to part with her hard earned money.

One of Bianca’s personal progress goals is to reach out to people in the community. On her own (ok, maybe with a little prompting from mom and dad), she contacted the Springville Retirement Home and asked if she and a friend could come one day a week and perform for the residents there. They were a little unsure at first, but because Bianca and her friend have been reliable and committed to being there they have become very appreciative of their service. Bianca reports that the people there are so cute and friendly. They are even requesting specific piano pieces to be played now. We think that helps cultivate Bianca’s love for the piano!

Jake’s life has slowed downed greatly. He has a awesome cub scout leader that thankfully gives him lots of fun activities to go to and encourages him to keep earning his patches, points or whatever they call them! His den leader is a 60+ year old woman, Dorothy Hinckley, and has been serving as the Bear leader for several years now. Every mother (and father) in our ward pray that Dorothy will not be released until at least one of their boys has been in the den. Last week they had a “feast” at their meeting. Jake came home telling us that was the best ever! They had a table full of little bowls of goodies. They could choose as many bowls as they wanted for their feast but had to apply that to the requirements they were passing off. I guess Jake has passed off enough to come home feeling quite satisfied. The weeks previous to that they have gone swimming at the rec center, biked to SOS Drug for an ice cream, bowling, Kangaroo Zoo (a trampoline events center), and Day Camp where they shot guns, bow and arrows, made boats and all kinds of other “manly things”. Life is good and quite productive in Cub Scouts.

Jake’s baseball season ended with an invitation to attend one of the OWLZ (semi-pro team in Utah county) games to be introduced and invited to come down onto the “Field of Dreams”. He’s excited about that and we appreciate his coach for making the season extra special for these boys. He’s told Jake that he wants him practicing off season…he expects him to come back next year a seasoned catcher or pitcher. Jake’s committed…at least for now.

Kate is just so much fun to have around…that’s good because she’s always around! She’s the first one up in the morning with a “good morning, Mom” greeting and the first one to go to bed at night. She always prays for Grandma and Grandpa on their mission, Grandma Chatfield, all the aunts, uncles and cousins and that Aunt Christine will take good care of all her animals. She also prays for little Maya (Dr. D.’s cute little dog). She has a great fondness for animals and has now added along with wanting to be a grandma when she grows up, she would also like to be an animal doctor. I’m sure she’ll be great at both.

Kels and I celebrated our 24 year wedding anniversary last Monday and feel grateful that life has been good to us. We celebrated by inviting our kids to join us up at Sundance, after all it was Family Home Evening. We rode the chair lift up the mountain and felt quietly amazed at the unspoiled beauty. We know why Robert Redford tries hard keep the tourist attractions out of the area. We enjoyed one of the two places they have to eat there and were quite impressed with the meal. The bill was quite impressive as well. Our kids realized that this was a special occasion.

I’ve been impressed recently with how simple and routine our life is and have felt very grateful for that. Kelsey has been called away for different reasons this week to help, assist and give comfort to some of our neighbors. It’s been made very clear to me how blessed we are to have the life we have. We’re far from perfect around here but so grateful for the things we are learning from the goodness around us.

We sure appreciate and love your goodness! Hope the typhoon misses once again!
Love
Kellie

Bianca’s Camp Experiences:
The bus ride to camp seemed so long. I was tired but I was too excited to sleep. We arrived at Heber Valley Camp around 9:oo A.M.
We then had a flag ceremony and we sang our camp songs, ate lunch, and played some games. At 1:30 we walked down to the challenge course. The challenge course was so fun, especially the zip-line. That was my favorite.
After that we walked back up the big long hill. We had dinner and then did our skits. Our super hero was "Cover Girl"—Our motto was "We got it covered"
The skits were really funny. That night we had a Star Party, Sister Remy showed us some constellations and told us some stories about them. We then went to our cabins and went to bed around 11:oo, boy was I really tired!
Wednesday was a really spiritual day, as my friend pointed out, our friendships were like rubber bands, our "rubber bands" had been stretched far out meaning that we all were sick of each other. After the cake walk it had been snapped back into place. For the cake walk my camp leader, Sister Parkinson had us all hold out our hands like we were offering something to that person, we were told to not talk but to instead look into each other’s eyes and express our emotions to that person. We all did that to as many people as we could and we all felt the spirit so strongly it was so comforting and so amazing. We also went to the lake, 4 people in our ward tipped over in the canoes. I thought it was funny. Around 9:00 or so we had a spirit walk it wasn't as touching, just because we were the last ward to do it and I was really tired. We all were blind folded and we had to hold onto a rope or as they called it the "Iron Rod" we walked for I don't know 3 minutes and they then put a rock in my hands and explained that that was to represent your sins, people were there to help you just like in the world and I had to listen for bad things trying to take me off of the right path. I guess we were blind folded because we can't always see what things are ahead of us, we just have to listen to the Spirit's promptings.
Thursday, John Bytheway came and he was really funny, he just kept going off subject, talking about modesty, his name, what jokes you can make out of his last name to where you can find modest prom dresses. We had testimony meeting and we all got prettied up(Sister Randall works at NuSkin so she has a whole big make-up kit) it was really fun! The bishopric came up and they brought tons of pizza and root beer Yum! We then walked up to our fire pit thingy and started testimony meeting. I did share my testimony but to be honest it took me awhile to get the courage to go up and do it, I was really scared!
It was fun though! The only thing I didn't like about camp was certification that was boring. Oh well, got to learn it sometime right?!
The weather was really nice but it was hot!
On Friday we had a flag ceremony and cleaned up cabins, ate breakfast, and packed up! I got to say I was so excited to get home! Oh and guess what, Friday morning we saw a moose it was really big! We also saw lots of deer and prairie dogs!

Well camp was great but I am sure glad to be home and have nice warm showers!
Love you all so much!
Bianca Chatfield