Logan Nicholas Balmforth

Born August 15, 2010 6lbs 13oz 19-3/4 in. Logan was about a week and a half old when these pictures were taken.

Snuggling with Papa

Proud daddy

I love the contrast between Nick's hand and Logan's.

It shows just how tiny he is. How much safer could he feel

than all wrapped up in daddy's arms?

Mom, Dad & Logan on blessing day

We had to find an extra small blessing outfit and it

was still huge. Kaitlin, Riley and Kevin made this blanket for him.

We are grateful to have another grandson arrive safely and ever so grateful that we could be there for his blessing.

Soccer Ty

Tyler starts soccer this month so mom & dad got him all outfitted and we headed off to the park for some pre-season practice.

I have not been very consistent with this blog and I didn't think anyone really read it anyway but talking to my mom the other day she said she checks it all the time to see what's up so I promised her that I would do better at updating it. So here you go mom:

Logan Nicholas Balmforth made his debut on Sunday at 1:44am weighing 6lbs 13oz & 20" long. Alex is doing well. Logan has had a few struggles as he arrived 3 weeks early but he was able to go home on Friday and so far all is well. We are heading up to meet him next week.

Week two of seminary just ended and I almost have all of the kids names down. I still mix up a couple of the guys who look alike to me and there are a few kids who I just cannot remember yet but considering we have 120 students I think I'm doing pretty well. However I will be gone for the next few weeks visiting Alex, Nick & Logan in Idaho for a few days and then it's off to Denver to stay with Amanda while she recovers from back surgery so I will probably have to start over when I get back.

Joe tore his left miniscus a few months ago and thought it had healed. He went on a 50 mile backpacking trip with Kevin's scout troop and while trying to be careful of his left knee he managed to tear both the medial and the lateral miniscus in his right knee. He is probably going to need have surgery to repair both knees. He meets with the orthopedic dr on the 30th and we will see if he can wait until I return from Colorado to have it fixed or if Brian & Katie are going to get to play nursemaid for him.

I am still having problems with my right arm. It turns out that constant stress is not good for you! I carry stress in my neck so my muscles are tight which is now affecting the tendons and nerves in my right shoulder, elbow and fingers. Wednesday at physical therapy they were working on my shoulder. He told me to relax my arm and I replied "It is relaxed." He assured me that it was not relaxed and that I needed to do "spaghetti arms" like they do on the Wiggles show. I have never seen the Wiggles but it appears that I have forgotten what it feels like to be relaxed.

Tyler asked me the other day if he could have a cow. A few years ago that would have meant he was asking if he could have a temper tantrum but he was really asking if he could have a live cow to keep in the backyard. He also said that he would build a small pen for it to potty in so that it wouldn't get all over the yard. Isn't he thoughtful?

So long to summer and sleeping in

What ever happened to summer including June, July AND August? School starts on Monday for the kids in our school district, which means seminary starts as well. While I'm excited to see the kids and be back in the swing of things I am not looking forward to the alarm going off at 4:30 - yes 4:30am. We have five seminary classess at our building. Two of them meet at 6am and three meet at 7am. Being the seminary principle means that I can choose when I am there and what time I arrive. In the past I have gotten to the building about 6:40, in time to say good-bye to the early kids and hello to the later ones, but for the last several days I have felt impressed that I need to start being there in time for the 6am classes. This was not good news as I am NOT a morning person, however I have found that if I am faithful and follow the promptings I receive, good things happen. So every monring I'll be heading to the building about 5:40am which seems so insane to me. I don't think anyone should be up and out that early in the morning - it's not normal!

Summer fun

It's July 4th already! Where is the year going?

At the beginning of June we went to Utah for a wedding and stopped by Wyoming on our way home to visit my family. Yes I know that Wyoming isn't on the way to California when you are in Utah but Las Vegas wasn't on the way to Idaho when we went that direction a couple of years ago either. Sometimes you just have to throw away the map and follow your heart to where your family is so you can see them. We were only able to stay for one day but it was so worth it! I got to spend time with my parents, be with all three of my sisters and one of my brothers as well as some of their families all at the same time! Can't remember the last time that happened. Short but sweet! I hope it's not another 3-4 years before it happens again.

Kaitlin went to girls camp a couple of weeks ago. It was her last year and now after 17 straight years I am done sending girls to camp. Hard to believe that 17 years ago Amanda went to camp for the first time and now 7 girls later we are done. Another chapter of life finished.

Happy Birthday! Kevin, Kaitlin and mom. They all have birthdays coming up this week. Kevin will be 15 on Tuesday, I won't tell on my mom but her birthday is Wednesday, and Kaitlin will be 17 on Thursday. This is the second time my youngest has been 15. The last time around we were blessed with six more kids shortly after Greg's 15th birthday. This time around I know Heavenly Father will continue to increase our family's size through grandchildren.

Kevin has decided to compete in a triathalon in two weeks. He will run 5.82 miles, bike 12 miles and kayak another 6 miles. He met with a trainer to get a workout program that will help him be more prepared but time is short so he will have to work hard. I have been working out with him to keep him focused. I think he is somewhat surprised that I can keep up with him and while he is often sore the next day I have not been sore at all. Hmmm wonder what that means? Could it be that I am in better shape than my 15 year old son?

Kevin and Joe will be leaving on a 50 mile backpacking trip the last week of July. They are going with Kevin's scout group. Hopefully they will both make it back safe. I love backpacking but 50 miles of it is nuts!

Kaitlin and Kevin will be attending EFY the first week of August. They are both excited about attending. At first they were not thrilled to go to the one in Sacramento because it wasn't far enough away for them but now they are getting more excited about it as some of their friends have been to other sessions and have shared how great it is. What on earth will I do with no kids to run here there and everywhere that week?

Camping in the rain

The week before Memorial Day Joe ended up with 6 days off in a row. Looking for something to do close to home we decided to go camping. I love camping and was really looking forward to this trip but as we watched the weather forecast it wasn't looking good. Lots of rain. :( Being adventurous and REALLY wanting to go I convinced Joe & Brian to go anyway and give it our best effort - after all we were only going 2 hours away how bad could it be? It started raining on the way to the campground but it was just a few sprinkles. We had a great dinner and sat by the campfire just relaxing. Over night the storm let loose and we were treated to lots of wind, rain and thunder. In the morning the rain had stopped but Kevin and Kaitlin were soaked as the tent had leaked. Apparently we have never camped in such rough weather before as we have used the tent countless times with no problems. The morning looked good so we had a hearty breakfast and headed out on a hike. It was absolutely beautiful! I LOVE being in the mountains. During the hike it started to sprinkle again so we headed back to camp. By the time we got back the rain was in full swing. I sat in the car with Tyler as he took a 3 hour nap while Joe, Brian, Kaitlin and Kevin played games and tried to keep a smile on their faces. Meantime our poor dogs were freezing. I looked out the car window to see Tank - Brian's boxer walk by in a garbage bag! We had gone up to the nearest town to see if we could find some doggies coats but alas little towns have no pet stores so they bought a beanie and cut a head hole and leg holes for Harley - Brian's Boston Terrier & put old Tshirts on Tank & Cleo to keep them warm, then put the trash bags over the Tshirts in an attempt to keep them dry! When Tyler woke up from his nap he was not a happy camper. He loves camping but had had enough and begged us to take him home. Brian my die hard camper looked at me and said he was ready to call it quits and Joe who was only there to humor me made his opinion clear as well. We checked the local forcast & discovered that the previous nights storm was nothing compared to one the headed our direction so we headed back and in a record 45 minutes had camp broken down and packed in the car ready to head out. Guess we'll have to try another time. I so appreciate my guys who were willing to go out in the rain just to give me a chance to be in the mountains. I am so lucky!!!


The whole reason for going! Need I say more?

Me, Brian, Ty, Kevin, Kait, Cleo, Tank & Harley at the trailhead

Cleo & Harley trying to stay warm together

Heaven on earth!

For Carinna

I gave Andrea a hard time the other day for not updating her blog and then Carinna called and gave me a hard time for not updating mine! Lots has happened since that last entry at the beginning of March.

March -
We celebrated Joe's birthday by driving to Vegas and spending the weekend with all our girls. Amanda flew in from Denver and Alex & Nick drove down from Rexburg. We had a four person birthday celebration as we helped Papa Joe turn 53, Andrea turn 28, Avery turn 3, and Kaeden turn 2. Riley was supposed to catch a ride back up to school with Alex & Nick but decided to stay and spend a few weeks with Britt & Derek before heading back to Idaho. We had loads of fun but had to come home way too soon! I would post pictures but we left the camera in Vegas by mistake and someone - I won't say who - has not mailed it back to me yet.

April -
Joe and I spent our 31st anniversary in Hawaii. We have the benefit of having great friends serving a mission at the Polynesian Cultural Center on Oahu so we had a place to stay and easy access to the best places to visit. We climbed to the top of Diamond Head, went snorkeling at Huanama Bay, took a glass bottom boat out to see the coral reef and the sea turtles, toured the Dole Pineapple Plantation (ate enough fresh pineapple during the week to make me sick of fresh pineapple!), toured several botanical gardens and a few museums. We toured the Arizona, the Bowfin and the Aviation Museum, bought souviniers at the famous "Aloha Swap Meet", and visited the PCC. Neither one of us are beach people so we spent very little time at the beach but we did take the time to sit and watch the sunset at Sunset Beach. We got to eat lots of fun food as we tried several very small local restaurants and while the temple was closed for renovations we got to tour the grounds and the visitors center. Charlene & Terry (our hosts) have a grandson named Parker who is reading Flat Stanley in school. He had sent a Flat Parker to them and asked them to take picture of Flat Parker wherever they went in Hawaii and then send them back to him for a class project. Flat Parker went with us everywhere we went and is in more pictures than either Joe or I but it was lots of fun to get shots for them. We had a really wonderful time. Not much relaxing but lots of different activities from our usual daily routine so it was a nice break. Again no pictures but this time I'm blaming Joe. We still don't have the camera back from Vegas but we had had so many problems with that one we went ahead a bought a new one for Hawaii. When we got home he downloaded all of our pictures onto his computer and cleared them off of the camera card. He copied them to an external drive for me but I haven't been able to get them to copy onto my computer so I can resize them and upload them on the blog. Hopefully I will figure it out soon!

May -
We found out that Kaitlin has enough credits to graduate at the end of first semester next year. She will be done with high school in December! That is a bit scary to me!
The end of seminary! Today was the last day of seminary for the year. What ever will I do next week when my alarm does not go off at 5:30am? The sad thing is I will probably end up waking up at 5:30 anyway for the next few weeks until I adjust to not having to be up. I have loved being there with the kids and the last few days have been very nice as things have wound down. One of the students baked me cookies as a thank you for being there every morning, another one stopped and gave me a hug and said thanks for being the principal - this particular student is one who I had had problems with last year when I had subbed for his class so it was especially nice to have him stop and say thanks for everything. This morning one of the classes gave me flowers and a thank you card which was very sweet. Four of our five teachers are not returning next year, I will miss them dearly! They have strengthened my testimony and it has been so nice to serve with them. All of them thanked me for always being there to help and said that I spoil them. One of them said he thinks that attendance has doubled since I took over as principal because the kids know that I care. That meant a lot to me as I always wonder if it matters whether or not I'm there everyday or if I stay the entire time, but I realized this week that the teachers and students do notice and it does matter to them.

We are going camping next week and I can't wait. I love being out in nature and really having a chance to enjoy all the beautiful things Heavenly Father has blessed us with on this earth. I'll try to take possession of the camera when we get back so I can post pictures. I make no promises but I will try to post more regularly over the summer!