I can’t say enough how blessed I feel to have a wonderful father, father-in-law and be married to an amazing man who is a fun-loving, hard-working father to my children.

Father-son matching pumpkin-colored ties

Our Father’s Day was a whirlwind. The Primary kids performed a Father’s Day medley of songs in Sacrament Meeting and yours truly was the accompanist. This would have been fine and dandy if I was able to play one of the songs but ended up faking my way through and fortunately nobody noticed.  Turns out they were too enamored with all the cute kiddos, which is a very, very good thing.

In our Ward, we have the best tradition ever: a social after church where everyone brings pies and proceed to stuff our faces with them. Well, not literally. Though a pie-throwing contest would be a pretty fun tradition, too.

We then raced home and drove 1.5 hours to drop the kiddos off at Camp Chief Ouray at YMCA of the Rockies near Granby, Colo. I’ll have much more to come on that but I’m having very mixed feelings. On the one hand, I’m thrilled they are spending six days at the glorious camp, which is the longest-running and one of the most reputable in Colorado that is heaped in traditions and fun.

Bode’s counselors Andres and Kevin; Hadley was too cool for hugs and posing for pictures

On the other hand, I’m missing them terribly. Though Jamie and I have been on couple’s vacations, this is the first time we’ve been alone together at our house in 10 years. Fat Kitty is feeling it, too. He woke us up at 3 a.m.with “the meow of death” and acted like he was dying. When we saw nothing was externally wrong, we ascertained he’s lost without those two cherubs of his. As you can see, he quickly got over his angst-driven, sleepless night.

We all mourn in different ways.

That includes Jamie. As we were walking away after dropping off the kids, we followed the steady procession of parents walking to their cars.

Jamie: “Have you noticed something we all have in common?”

Me: “What?”

Jamie: “All the parents now have smiles on their faces.”

And believe me, so did the kids about spending the week in such a magical place.