A Happy Swirl of Chaos

I've mentioned here on the blog a few times recently, that life has been in a bit of chaos mode the last few months.   It's not that anything is wrong, it's just that we are long on things to do on our calendar and short on routine and spare time.  As part of that happy swirl of chaos,  in the last month we've had the following houseguests stay with us:  

💗Cami and her family 

💗My cousin, Aaron,  and 2 of his kiddos

💗Cami's sister-in-law, Marissa, and her 2 kiddos

💗My sister-in-law, Mika, and my niece, McKenzie, who was just heading into the Provo MTC

💗Adam, who is in between 2 apartment contracts (#byuhomelessweek)


Honestly, we love hosting people and being able to host is one of my favorite parts about living in Utah.   In addition to the bonus it is to live in a crossroads area, where so many people come and go, we also enjoy having a house with enough beds that we can even host more than one group of people at once, which happened a couple times this summer.  

I didn't take any pics of Aaron or Marissa while they were here, but below you will find pictures galore that show a glimpse of the fun we've had over the last few weeks!  

🐔  One of Lucie's dreams before arriving to Utah was to hold one of our chickens.   We aren't quite sure how that particular activity made it onto her bucket list, but she talked about it incessantly after arriving and we decided that was a dream that was easy to help come true, so we brought her out to the chicken coop bright and early the morning after they arrived.   When it came down to it, she was a little too nervous about actually holding one, but I think sitting close to a chicken and being able to touch it more than satisfied her chicken holding dreams.    Finding the eggs in the nesting box sealed the deal and she was happy as a clam about it all!   

🐴  Lucie's other big Utah dream was to ride a pony.  I had taken her to the farm at Thanksgiving Point a year or two ago, and apparently it was a core memory for her, because she still remembers many of the details of it.   She happily got on the pony and was feeling pretty confident about the whole experience, but about 30 seconds into the ride, we had a little hiccup when one of the ponies got spooked and they all stopped suddenly...  

🐴They took everyone off the ponies and let them chill for a bit without any riders, then allowed them everyone back on again...only this time she was very nervous.   We eventually convinced her to get back on (a different pony) and with her Mom at her side, she was able to overcome her fear and try again.  

🏡We also enjoyed frequent visits from Adam, Emma, Heather, and Rosy-Nanna while Cam was here.   I loved loved loved having the sights and sounds of having a houseful again!   

😣I am so kicking myself that Glen and I didn't hop into these photos my sister, Heather, took while she was visiting one day.   We are still missing Ellie on her mission and Garrett, who hadn't arrived yet, but it was an almost full crew otherwise.  I think it had a good chance of becoming our Christmas card photo this year, but now we will have to see.   I'm thinking a collage...

🍛The night after my cousin, Aaron, and his two boys stayed here, we hosted a YSA dinner at our home.  We loved having the extra sets of hands, with Cam here, to help with the cleaning and prep.    Glen smoked a brisket and we served brisket tacos, roasted corn salad, watermelon, and lemon strawberry shortcake.  The food was VERY well-received and we loved having the YSAs in our home for an evening! 

👶Oliver is at a delightful stage of life (around 18-months-old) and I very much enjoyed watching him learn and grow right before our eyes. He's only been walking for a month or two, but he's quite the adventurer now and I loved hearing him try to say new words.  He was obsessed with our toy cars and he ended up adopting one of the few teddy bears we still had left in the house, after hew grew pretty attached to it during his time here.  He is a sweetie pie!   

👸I also really enjoyed my interactions with Little Miss Sassy Lucie!   She'll be four in a couple months and she is a girl who knows what she wants in life...which is made-up stories, dress-up clothes, all the good food, and no naps!   When she's slept well, she's fun, talkative, and silly.  When she's fighting bedtime or skipping her naps, she can be quite the grump, but she's still pretty darn sweet even when she's grumpy! 

👪Some adventures we went on together included, early morning walks to my Dad's grave and the neighborhood farm where we saw peacocks, camels, horses, cows, etc , Thanksgiving Point to see the butterflies and ride the ponies, meals out on the deck, holding the chickens, a visit to our YSA ward... 

🚗And a  visit to Midway to hang out with Cami's sisters-in-law and Lucie and Oliver's cousins.  We visited the Ballerina Farm Store, where we got some good food.  Then we mostly just window shopped at several cute boutiques.     Marissa, Annie Grace, and Jack stayed with us one of those nights too.  

🌄Cami and Adam hiked Kyhv Peak together.  Spence started out with them, but ended up turning back before they reached the top.  I think they both really enjoyed the sunset hike together.  

😐After a few days, Cami and her family took off for a B family reunion at Sundance.  It was sad knowing they were so close, yet mostly out of reach, but we tried to embrace sharing them like the mature adults we are (most of the time).  We did join them for a dinner one night in the canyon, which was fun, because we love Garrett's family and it was fun to be able to spend a little bonus time with them!   (a couple of these photos are from the evening in the canyon, but, sadly, I did not take many).  

💕Then Mika and McKenzie came to stay with us for a few days!   McKenzie had just finished Home MTC and was heading to Provo MTC before her mission to Gilbert, AZ.  It was delightful to have a missionary in our home again for a bit and I very much enjoyed the time to catch up with my sister-in-law, Mika!   We miss living close to them!   Sadly, they just missed seeing Cami and kids, as McKenzie's drop-off time was at the exact time Cami had a couple hours back here at home before we  drove them to the airport.   

👴👵As per usual, we loved the opportunity to be Gigi and Papa in real life.   It's fun to send postcards and do Facetimes with them  when they are far away, but there's nothing quite like the snuggles, giggles, and  general silliness that come with spending time together in the same house

💗💗💗

Cuteness

Some cuteness in my life currently...

Oliver is a very happy baby and he is getting quite vocal.   Of course he can't say anything understandable yet, but he jabbers like he has a lot to say!   He is also rolling over independently and starting to sit up.   I love how interactive he is on Facetime and I think it won't be long before he's chatting it up like his big sister!  

And Lucie continues to be a joy in my life from afar.   I love, love, love my conversations with her and eagerly look forward to every photo Cami sends me of either her or Oliver!    Here she is posing with a postcard I sent for a self-imposed postcard challenge I created for myself. 

Glen  turned on the Westminster Dog Show the other day and we thought it was hilarious that Denali seemed to be very interested too.  She watched the screen intently while it was on.  

  

Okay, maybe we aren't cute, but...  

McKenzie is and it was so fun to be a small part of getting McKenzie settled into her dorm room at BYU.   They were easy houseguests to have and I love that she'll be so much closer now that she's at BYU for the school year!  

Last but not least, I made cookies for a funeral this week and shared the leftovers with some other people.  I thought it was quite cute how Denali kept peeking her head up at the kitchen table to see if she could reach some of that yumminess.  

We may have given her a bit!  :)

So is anything cute happening in your life right now?   Tell me all about it in the comments.  I expect zillions.  

A Little Life Update

Getting ready to move after being in one place for 20-years has been an all-consuming task for me.  So all-consuming that I teeter between never wanting to own a house again, so as to at least prevent all the house stress  and wanting to buy a house ASAP, so that I can guaranteed to be in one place for a while.   Our reality will probably end up somewhere in between those two scenarios.  In the meantime, we still need to figure out where the next place for us is.   Right now, we've got 4 reasonably good options and we need to wait for some things to happen at Glen's work before we can confidently start moving forward with any of those potential plans.  For now, all I can do is get the house ready to sell and our family ready to move...somewhere and hope and pray that the somewhere will be the right place for us.  

 Just so my kids don't forget that we have had some normal life in amongst all the household distractions these past few weeks, here's a peek of what else we've been doing.  

We had one of our favorite missionaries come back to visit...

 Elder Judkins served here 4ish years ago and it was great to see him again!   We took him to see "Amazing Grace" at the National Bible Museum.  It was a powerful performance and we were grateful for the opportunity to include him in this family outing.  

Adam used Rocky to up his seminary devotional game.   He had the balloons for an activity, made this picture into a poster....

and made this picture into a little hand-out for everyone.   But, alas, he still didn't win the devotional contest. 

Ellie and Emma had a temple trip to Philadelphia.  Adam was taking the ACT and had to miss it.  Glen and I stayed home and plugged away at house stuff.  It was probably one of the few temple trips our kids have been on when at least one of us wasn't there. 

Ellie had two of her cousins stay over one night during spring break. 

They enjoyed the time together and even Adam got in on the fun when he took Lauren on a run, since sleeping over meant that she missed her track practice. 

Easter was low-key, but good.  We didn't dye eggs, we didn't hide any candy, we didn't get any new clothes.  Emma did make these cute bunny pancakes though...

And we did have a family gathering with a delicious dinner at Pete and Mika's place...

And on the other side of the country, Cami's been taking off with her baking business...

And pretty soon....we will have all five kids (and their mom) together in one place.  It's only a quick trip and we're sad that Glen can't come too, but a little time away sounds just about perfect right now.  

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A Valentine President's Weekend

February 13: 

 Valentine's Day being on a weekend this year made it perfect for taking a romantic Saturday night to celebrate.   A dinner and movie.   Or a nighttime walk on the town.   Or a show downtown.   

Alas, we did none of those things! 

  First off, Glen was out of town on a business trip, which made anything resembling romantic downright impossible.  However, even if he had been home,  we would have had no time to wist ourselves away on any outings, yet alone a romantic one.  Even the evening got sucked up, because it was our ward's turn to host the Valentine's stake youth dance.   So we ran all day and I ended the night with these lovely ladies as chaperons/food preparers!  All night long we kept about 300-youth fed and happy by cooking up frozen snack foods, decorating cookies, and refilling the water and food trays,  etc.  By the end I was completely exhausted and had a newfound appreciation for waitresses, nurses, and others that spend hours on their feet helping others.   

It was all worth it, though,  for these sweethearts and the rest of the 295 or so teenagers there that night. 

February 14: 

We got to celebrate a modified version of  Valentine's Day (on Valentine's Day) by Glen coming home from a week long trip to India!  He brought us these Viennese chocolates which sent us all into peals of laughter.     

February 15: 

We woke up on President's Day to a few inches of snow and a surprise visit from the cousins!  We were all very much still in our pajamas, but loved the spontaneous chance to talk and play together !  

 

We also had to laugh at their "Wiener chocolate" gift to go with our Viennese chocolate!  

 We had an absolutely lovely (and by lovely, I mean lazy) day "snowed in" together and all in all it was a good Valentine President's weekend!   

Cami's Graduation Day!!!!

June 19, 2015.   

The long awaited graduation day was finally here and Cami couldn't have been more excited about it.  She left bright and early for what was not just the culmination of four years of hard work for Cami, but, with as much planning as she'd had to do for it, it was also the satisfaction of a shorter term job done as well.   She was heavily involved in planning the graduation ceremony,  helped arrange the senior gift, had spent hours and hours polishing her speech, and  had even chosen and invited the guest speaker to give the convocation speech.     

A few hours after Cami left, we headed for the  ceremony  at the GMU Patriot Center.   We took up almost an entire row with our family, Pete and Mika's family, and Cami's friends, Matt and Katy.   

We had warned the kids that the ceremony might feel a little long, especially during the part when they were calling all the graduates' names, so Ellie came prepared with a little neck pillow just in case she needed to take a nap.   

With Cami's name on the program as many times as it was though, there was no falling asleep in our row!    Cami introduced a couple speakers, presented the senior class gift, and gave a valedictory speech.    

Cami wants me to point out that, although what she gave was technically a valedictory speech,  our district  does not officially name valedictorians.   They had chosen 2 speakers from among the 16 graduates who achieved over a 4.0 GPA.   Whatever you call it, it was still quite an honor for Cami and she did a fantastic job delivering it.  

Glen has been right in the middle of a HUGE project at work, which has had him working 80+ hours per week for the last couple of months.     Everything with the project was coming to a head this weekend, which meant leaving work to come to Cami's graduation was actually quite a stretch for him.   He came late and left early, but he was there and I have photographic proof! 

Cami and the other 3 graduates who played a part in the program were saved for last in actually receiving their diplomas.    

She had her own excited cheering section when they heard her name called! 

After that, they tossed their caps into the air and exited the arena as official high school graduates! 

Cami was so excited that she could barely contain herself.  

Everyone in the family wanted their turn to pose with the happy graduate...

including siblings and cousins! 

We are so thankful for Pete and Mika (and family) for sharing in this happy day with us.  

After the ceremony we went out for dinner at Cheesecake Factory, then on to the National Theatre to see Newsies.   The singing and dancing were delightfully AMAZING and we are now hooked on the soundtrack!  

And in a funny story for another day.... we were a little shocked when we realized when we got to the theater that Ellie was totally shoeless.   Thankfully not many people seemed to notice her shoelessness, and  I am happy to say that she didn't contract any strange diseases walking through the streets of Washington DC barefoot.    

It was a wonderful day and we couldn't be prouder of our Cami Rose!