Mid-Summer Visit from Some of Our Favorites

A few weeks ago, my sister and her kiddos came to visit!  Then my brother joined the fun.    

As always with their visits, it meant life got a little extra chaotic for a bit, but it was a {mostly} happy chaos, so we loved it!  

Highlights of the visit included: 

* lots of time with J, Manuel, and Isaiah!

* Denali LOVED all the extra attention with them there

* With three of the four C. girls (and Mom) there, it meant we got to do a lot of talking time

*  My Legos got well-loved again 

*  We took a trip to the aquarium

*  Silliness and potty humor was abundant

* I got to expand my repertoire of music to way more "exciting" genres (according to I, M, and J anyway)

*   Lots of combined family dinners and culinary offerings not normally found at our house...

*  Pete came to town and we  had a big family dinner down in Provo to include the college kids

* 7 of the 10 boy cousins were all together...just missing Ben, Jack, and Lincoln

* Had 2 of the 8 girl cousins together...just missing Cam, Ellie, McKenzie, Lauren, Bridgette, and Anna

*  4 of the 8 siblings together!   

*  We don't see Pete often enough, so it was fun to have him there! 

* Pete's son, Davin, is a superstar baseball player who had come to participate in a BYU sports camp.

Lowlights included: 

*  I had a  major meltdown that I can only assume was fueled by hormones,  lack of sleep, and lack of routine.  It was of the epic sort I have only once every few years, so that was stupid.  I got to practice all the skills I had recently learned in my emotional resilience class at church (FSITL).  

* Nate came into town a few hours after Pete and Davin left, so we barely missed having 5/8 of the siblings together

In other news:  

* Some big changes are happening and life has taken a turn for busyness in the extreme and the next few months/years are going to be crazy {and good...we hope!}  I'll probably share more details eventually...

********************************** 

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.  

********************************

2018 in Review

There are a gazillion things that happened this year that deserve a blogpost of their own, but, for the sake of not getting so overwhelmed that I end up not blogging again, I'm going to jam-pack everything all into one big "Year in Review" post.  Then I can blog from where I am again.    

Hold on tight....it was a BIG year!!!    

January--Cami came home from her 18-month mission to France.

February--Cami spent February at home, moved to Utah right at the end, and got officially engaged as soon as she arrived in Utah.

March--Wedding planning and a spring break trip to Savannah, Georgia.

April--Cami and Garrett's wedding in the Salt Lake Temple on April 21.

May--Glen, Cami, Garrett, and me take a trip to France to visit Cami's mission.

 

June--WE plan like crazy  for the Virginia wedding reception and after that's over... YW camp.

Random trip to the Bible Museum

YW Camp--2018

July--Trip to Utah for Katy's wedding, EFY for Adam, Youth conference trip to Kirtland (Glen, Adam, and Emma), as much fishing as possible.

August--We started eating the keto diet.  Adam and Ellie performed in a local production of "Lion King, Jr".  Emma was the stage director.  We celebrated reaching our summer goals!

 I make bucketloads of sugar- and pectin-free jam...

September--Started 6-week long road trip around the country
Ugh....this could be twenty blogposts all by itself, so here are some highlights:

Carlsbad Caverns: 

Grand Canyon:

 Hoover Dam:

Las Vegas:  

Joshua Tree National Park:

Southern California (K's house):

My sister surprised us and flew Spencer and Cami into town for the weekend!

October--Spent the month on the road and got home right before Halloween/Emma's 18th birthday.

November--Came home and got back to real life, including Glen starting a job in Philadelphia

December--More real life, getting ready for Christmas, and a full house for Christmas

Ellie's first stake dance...

=