A Thailand Reunion

Yeah, yeah.  It's barely been a month since we got home from Thailand, but if you've been following along with this blog for the last few weeks, you may have gotten the impression that that trip was pretty life-changing for Ellie and I.  

And I honestly just can't stop thinking about it.   

 Not only was what we did pretty epic (the sight-seeing, the long days on the worksite, and the time we spent with locals), but  we also went with some pretty incredible people.   Those 21 young people were exactly the jolt I needed to wake up, shake me out of my comfort zone,  and give me hope for  the future of this world! They are a generation on the cusp of adulthood who gave up a huge chunk of their summer to be a part of something bigger than themselves.    The experience cracked open my heart and I feel like I have 20 new honorary sons and daughters (-1 from the total number, because one of those 21 actually is my daughter) that I want to keep in touch with! 

Since I've been home, I've had a deep desire to...

1) continue to foster friendships among the kids
2)  be a loving, supportive presence in their lives
3)  help them keep alive the spiritual nudgings they felt on the trip
4) continue fostering the feeling of relevancy I gained on the trip (#midlifeproblems)

I've floundered a bit in knowing how to pursue those desires and to redefine my role since coming home, but I'm here to share that I've successfully done two things so far: 

We hosted a Thailand reunion at our house (hopefully helping with desire #1)!  

We had a great turn-out--especially considering that 9 of those 21 people were from out-of state and 2 of them actually flew in for the occasion.

Hosting things at our house is often stressful for me (though not near as stressful as it was in Virginia), but I honestly loved every second of it.   I loved the chance to see their faces again...

And welcome them into our home...even if they all ended up gathering in Ellie's room, which she had not only not cleaned for the occasion, but she had not even made sure the corners of the fitted sheets were in place on her bed!

Haha.  Bare mattress aside,  I love these great kids.  Though they're more like young adults than kids.   Ten of them are high school graduates, two already have mission calls, another one started his papers right after the trip, and all of them were good-hearted and seeking to share their light.    

I love that they even Facetimed Jacob (our Thai friend and worksite interpreter) during the reunion.   It was great to see his face and remember what brought us all together in the first place. 

Right before  the reunion, I found out about an amazing Shutterfly coupon and decided to attempt to make a photo book for everyone before it expired.   Paul (the trip Dad) had offered to chip in half if I made a photo book and though creating photo books kind of stress me out, I went for it.   I knocked myself out for  a few days straight and created this....a hundred pages of memories! 

Design-wise it ended up being a bit of a disappointment, but it's done and that is an accomplishment itself for me, since I usually second-guess myself too much on these types of projects and never finish them.   Unfortunately they were delivered right AFTER the reunion, which meant I had to mail them to the people who live far away and hand-deliver them to anyone within about 20 miles of me.  

All but one of the books have now been delivered and I'm hoping, in some small way, that they're helping to accomplish desires #2,3, & 4 that I mentioned above.   I haven't heard much from anyone since receiving them, but, if nothing else, it was  a meaningful project for me. 💗

What's next to keep those desires alive?   I've got a few ideas, but we shall see.  

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Pics of the Week

In case you haven't noticed by now, I rather like my camera.  Much to the chagrin of a couple of my kids, I keep it slung over my shoulder (or tucked surreptitiously into my purse) almost everywhere I go.   And for those of you who have seen my camera know that it's not of a size to be easily "tuckable" or "slingable". 

So what do I do with all these pictures?

I used to print them all and try to scrapbook them, but I would invariably get overwhelmed with the mess scrapbooking always created and it always seemed like I was a year or two behind the times trying to keep up with the pictures.  Then in 2007 I started blogging, which I instantly loved because it was mess- and cost-free and was so easily shared with family and friends.  Shortly after beginning to blog I not only stopped scrapbooking, but also stopped printing up pictures altogether.  Now once or twice a year I'll print all of my posts into a hardcover blog book, which have become our new scrapbooks for our family.  I'll often walk into a room and find one of my kids curled up with a blog book and laughing about some funny story (this classic called, "Princesses Don't Toot" is their very favorite). 

The only problem with this method is that there are often great pictures that don't fit perfectly into a blogpost, which means that these great pictures often get lost in the archives of my iPhoto never to be seen again.  I'm going to try to remedy this problem by occasionally (possibly weekly) posting a blogpost just dedicated to my favorite pics.  They may or may not have a cool story to go with them, but mostly I just want them to be remembered. 

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I love how you can see the water droplets zipping onto Ellie in this picture as she hunkers down while a sibling sprays her with the hose.... 

I wish I could take credit for this amazing photo of a butterfly and bumblebee resting on our neighbor's flowers, but it was actually my sister, Heather, who took the photo.  Adam and Emma were the ones that had noticed the butterfly in the first place and demanded that I go get my camera immediately. 

My sister, Kristina, and I made some hairbows this week which required burning the edges of polyester circles with a candle.  By the time we were done, the candle looked like this and I couldn't help but take a picture of it.  My family thought I was certifiably weird when I pulled out my camera, but I was just so enamored with how charming and old-fashioned it looked that I couldn't help myself.

Don't know the story behind this photo, but I found it downloaded onto my computer and couldn't stop laughing.  Apparently it was taken by Cami very late one night. 

Here is a picture of Senator Mike Lee (from Utah) eating one of Cami's cupcakes. We have a friend who works in his office who had ordered Cami's cupcakes for a co-worker's birthday.  Cami called me super excited after receiving this picture. 

Cami really, really missed her big brother while he was in the hospital all those months and I LOVE seeing Spence and Cami hanging out together again. This is them at Chinatown (in DC) today. 

No more pencils, no more books...

Yay! School is finally out! I'm not sure who is happier about this--the school kids, Ellie & Adam who finally have their playmates back, or me who will finally be done with the forty things a day on my calendar (after tomorrow anyway)!

I decided to celebrate with a scrapbook page showing one of our summertime staples--popsicles! We go through them quickly this time of year.

Quick note: I was requested to add an image of Emma's yearbook page, so Ellie's "signature" would be visible...so I've added it to the post below.

Girls' day out!

While Glen, Adam, and Spencer were baking in 99° weather at a fathers & sons camp-out at Virginia Beach...I made an executive decision that us girls needed to have a little fun too.


So we threw out all chores for the day and played...and then I came home and played some more with my Photoshop Elements! (Notice how Ellie can't take her eyes off the cheesecake long enough to even glance at the camera.) °Ü°

This page was made with elements and papers from a Shabby Princess kit called Island Chic.

April Showers!

We'll be looking forward to some beautiful May flowers after all this April rain!

The curse of poor genetics!

Twenty seven months without Laffy Taffy's or corn on the cob and thousands less in our bank account...


and here is the happy result! One down, only four more to go!

Ellie's Birthday/Easter thoughts...

The kids love Easter and who can blame them? It's a fun holiday with egg hunts, too much candy, and a week off of school. It's always been a challenge helping them to remember amongst all of the festivities, what it's really all about. With the recent deaths of Cami's friend, a dear friend's infant, and Glen's stepfather, the kids have asked a lot of questions about life, death, and the resurrection over the last couple of weeks. Between Easter and all of these very difficult questions, my heart is filled with an even greater gratitude for the peace and hope that the gospel of Jesus Christ brings into our lives.

We hope you had a wonderful Easter filled with love and joy!

Squeezing in Cami's page this week!

So I've stayed up too late to do it, but here is my page for the week...a tribute to Cami's zeal for everything in life! After a long, hard week like this one has been, making this was just the relaxing distraction I needed!

Thank you for all of your kind wishes and prayers. The funeral went as well as could be expected, Glen's in Denver now, and no one is currently sick (knock on wood).

This week's page: Emma

I used Shabby Princess Tropical Winter kit for the paper and most of the embellishments in creating this page.


Emma was a full participant in creating this page. She picked out the buttons and brads and told me exactly where they needed to go.

I sense a future digital scrapper in the making! :)

Sweet dreams Adam...

Here's my scrapbook page for the week!

I'm a Copycat

Okay. I know I'm a copycat...taking ideas from my friends, Denise and Ashby. But I'm the kind of person who needs ideas...
and motivation. So I'm going to try to post some of my scrapbook pages on here at least once a week...hoping that it will get me moving in the right direction on keeping up with my kajillions of photos. Getting caught up is not even something I can dream about at this point (12 years of photos before digital camera is a little intimidating), but progress has to start somewhere.

Please feel free to bug me if I start to slacken and forget to post one weekly.

Denise and Ashby...thanks for the inspiration . :)