July 11, 1983 Journal Entry

I have a lot to catch up on in my journal. I helped landscape my parent's yard. Alan and I dug up a lot of the lawn.

On July 2nd we drove to Fort Belnap from Helena through Lewistown and stopped at Buffalo Hot Springs to swim. We came on to Jan's house where I have been staying with the children since then. On the 3rd we went to Rachel's blessing.

Jan's branch is very small with an average of 15 people out to church each Sunday. The Relief Society President drives 70 miles to church each Sunday across the Canadian border.

On July 4th Mom, Dad, Alan, and albert left for Helena after the men went fishing for the morning.

An interesting point just made to me is if you cannot be trusted to use earthly wealth wisely, how can you be trusted in governing more spiritual matters?

This past week we have taken the children to a museum and park in Chinook, a ranch with animals (chickens, pigs, cows, bulls, horses, geese) and they rode a swather and three wheeler. We took them swimming, camping and fishing.

It has been miserably hot here...over a hundred degrees F.

John has done extensive dental work on my mouth. He has filled so many cavities it looks like a war happened in my mouth.

Jonny misses Kerry and home terrible. When we were coming home from camping, he said, "I don't like to go on vacation and miss my daddy."

Kent has started laughing and last Monday got up on his hands and knees and started rocking back and forth. He has also in the past two weeks, been becoming more dexterious with grasping objects and putting them in his mouth. I was playing with him today and blowing on his stomach and he was just laughing.

Cherie has started sying "I don't want to." every time I ask her to do something. Her talking is becoming more clear. She grinds her teeth at night and keeps me awake. Jonny is a rough sleeper and is all over the bed and everything. I've had to sleep with them both since there are not enough beds. I put one in the crib and Kent sleeps in a camping bed.

I have never seen the misquitos so thick as they are here. Jonny and Cherie are just covered with misquito bites. I counted 25 bites on Jonathan one day and the next he had twice as many, it seemed. Cherie gets them and they swell to the size of a quarter. Kent hasn't had any.