Summer summer

Eliza turned 40 this year!  June 18th, to be exact.  We were so excited that a trip to St. George ended up working out for ALL of us to go to at the same time!  We had a ball.  Ashley, Abby, Lindsey, and I all work for the same company called Inthinc.  We just sit at home on our own computers, watching Netflix, chatting via skype, and getting paid to do it.  What's not to love about this job?

I had just a few days before our trip, mentioned while we were working that I thought my sisters would enjoy watching Kody Brown in "Sister Wives" on netflix.  It's baffling and entertaining.  The perfect combination.  We set off from Provo to head down to Georgie, and ended up stopping in Fillmore to get gas.  As we pulled into the gas station, WHO was getting into his car to pull out, but KODY BROWN.  You heard me.  So it's not quite Brangelina, but a celebrity none the less.  I had to talk to him.  I ran over and asked for his autograph.  He was really nice, but said he doesn't sign anything.  Instead, he pulled over to where we were pumping gas and let us take a photo with him.

Sister wives! (I look horrid in this picture, but Kody makes it worth posting:)

And Lindsey and Ashley look great!

You probably wonder how the rest of the trip could match this experience, but it did!  Great food, great shopping, great laughs, all with my favorite 5 sisters in the world.

It was on this trip at the beginning of the summer that I feel like I had a revelation.  I was talking to my sisters about jobs and chore charts for the summer, and how to keep our kids motivated.  I had also been wondering how our family was going to keep up our Book of Mormon reading when the girl's schedules are so different.  I decided on a daily morning devotional.  We started the morning I got home, and it ended up being the best thing ever!  

Every morning at 9:30 we would gather in the living room for prayer, Book of Mormon, and then jobs. We assigned one big sister and one small sister together weekly, and the pair each had a different area to clean.  The first morning we tried this new schedule also happened to be the morning my visiting teachers scheduled a visit.  We had just finished scriptures when my two VT's walked in.  They were amazed to see all six girls washing windows, vacuuming, cleaning dishes, scrubbing toilets, taking out trash....it looked very impressive.  It really was great for us!  I knew we'd be missing Brent all these mornings, but I also knew that if we waited to read in the evenings when he is home, we'd be missing at least two or three of our older girls.  It was a good trade-off, I think.

Hopefully I can post a picture of Summer 2014 Devotionals! I'm on it.