Birthday Week

Monday we decided to head to Trafalga in Lehi for FHE.  It was a little cloudy that day, so I was surprised when Clara picked the boat ride as her first ride.

They were only a little cold.

Clara mentioned that her favorite ride was the race cars because you can go really fast. 

Her second favorite ride was the pirate ship because it's just like a really big swing.  This was her first time going, so she wanted me to go with her.  She soon realized there was nothing to be scared of and I felt like I was out of place.....

Tuesday was my birthday.  It was also the day my sister moved out of her house, so we had some brief time for presents that day, and then had to wait a few days to celebrate. 

But we didn't have to work too hard since my nephew ended up having a baseball game that night.

Thursday I got to go to lunch with some friends whom I used to teach with at Provo High.  It was so fun to visit with them.  I only get to see them about once a year, but since two of them retired this year, maybe we'll get to see each other more often.
Friday we decided to hike to Bridal Veil Falls.  The kids loved climbing all over the rocks and things.

I loved seeing an old friend there.  We got to catch up on life as we haven't been in contact with each other. The last time I saw him was about 8 years ago, when he got married.  So glad his little family is doing great.

Friday night, Jeremy and I got to go to go out to eat and finally celebrate my birthday.  We had a wonderful evening of food and window shopping!
Saturday we decided to go hang out at Scheels.  It was fun to pose for so many pictures!

After Scheels we decided to head to Manila Creek Pond.  We had a fun day in the cold water, which we loved since it was over 100 degrees!  However, we tried to leave around 3:30, and discovered our car wouldn't start.  We hadn't left any lights on or anything, but we jumped it with my sister's car, drove about 50 ft and it all died again.  We jumped it a second time, this time leaving the jumper cables on for about 25 min, tried to leave again, and was only able to drive about 3 ft before we lost all power.  We hadn't ever had any troubles before, so we assumed our alternator went out.  So after much discussion, we loaded all kids under 10, Emma (who had to be at work soon,) my mom (So she could watch all the kids,) and my sister who was planning on dropping everyone off at my house and then coming back to help us.  That ended up being 2 more people than the car has in seat belts.  But since they were are small children, 4 kids squished into the back bench seat, and my sister Emma sat on the floor....
In the mean time, Emma and called her husband (who works on cars) and he said it sounded like the alternator rather than a battery problem since we hadn't left anything on to drain the battery and we hadn't had any previous problems with the battery dying. So we called my little brother who has changed out the alternator twice in his car and he brought his tools so he could help us change ours out.
Jeremy, Jeffrey (my 11 year old nephew,) and I then started walking the 3 miles to a car part store to meet my brother there.  We walked about 1.5 miles and Matt picked us up then took us to the car part store.  After talking to the helpful people who worked there, we decided to try a new battery first.  Good thing we did.  We put the new battery in, drove it back to Autozone, they checked the alternator for us, and it was working great!  We were home by 6:30 that night!
After we were safely home, Rachel informed us that she got pulled over by a police officer on the way home.  I guess she was doing 39 in a 25.  She wasn't even paying attention to how fast she was going let alone a speed limit because of how many hot, tired, hungry, and cranky kids she had in the car.  Luckily, my Mom explained the entire situation, and the very nice police officer let her off with a warning!  No speeding ticket and no seat belt tickets!  Thanks extremely nice police officer!