When it Rains....

...the kids at our house take off their shoes and run in it!

You probably thought I was going to finish with "....it pours,"  but while it's true that it has been pouring a lot lately (literally and figuratively), it's also true that my kids have no aversion to getting soaking wet with their clothes on.  In fact, I daresay they think it's way more fun to play in the rain than taking a boring old shower.

Usually it's too dark, or too cold, or too thundery to take advantage of torrents of rain, but tonight it was perfect and they were not about to let a sorry old rainstorm dampen their enthusiasm to play outside.

It started off with just Emma...

and backward shirted Ellie...

both of whom were soaked to the bone in no time. 

But it wasn't too long before their giggles and happy screams drew Cami and Adam out the door to pull weeds, of which we have plenty. 

 

Of course they weren't pulling weeds to make our flowerbed look nicer, but they were merely using the weeds and clumps of wet dirt sticking to their roots as a base for their dam.  Yes my kids like dams as much as I do....except whenever I tried to call it a dam, they told me I had a potty mouth and insisted that it was actually a "darn."  (serves me right for showing them that comic a few weeks ago)

In the process of their dam darn building, they came across a little tiny cricket...

which Adam decided was too cute not to pick up and admire...

and then place as his first passenger in his tin foil boat...

Adam ensured that it was a five-star gutter cruise for his little cricket buddy.

At least that is until the boat crashed into a weed growing out of the neighbor's curb that had created a boat killing little vortex and mini dam.

Randomly the kids didn't call me a potty mouth when I called that one a (damn) dam.


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Too Cute

I am in need of some smiles and innocent adorability today....

#cousinjoy      #whycanttheystaythisyoungandinnocentforever

THAT Mom!

We're in the middle of those last few weeks of school and our calendar is completely jam-packed.  We have five kids' worth of concerts, award ceremonies, recitals, class parties, colonial days, etc.  Throw in a couple of doctor's appointments, new tires for the van, and some major girls' camp/youth conference planning going on and my brain is pretty much in survival mode.

For instance take last Thursday night.  I was in the middle of a Young Women's activity when one of Adam's scout leaders came running breathlessly into the room to inform me that Adam was receiving his Arrow of Light award at that very moment. Since that's kind of a big deal,  I excused myself and bounded out there as fast as I could.  

I randomly had my camera with me and was able to catch the very tail end of the award ceremony.  

Afterward I laughed to think how completely inept I was that I did not even know that he was receiving his Arrow of Light (although I later saw that scout leaders had sent emails about it).  Additionally I did not have him wear his scout shirt and even if I had it doesn't have any patches sewn on it.

Yeah, I am that kind of mom 99% of the time.

I do occasionally redeem myself though.  Fast forward one week to the next Thursday and I got a little chance to make amends with Adam at his school's annual 4th grade Colonial Day activity.  

I got all decked out in my pioneer gear and spent the entire day with Adam and his classmates helping man an Indian necklace making station.   It was my fourth school Colonial Day and it was the first one I dressed up for myself.  I wish I'd thought to have someone take a picture

of me with Adam, but suffice it to say I looked pretty darn awesome in my mid-1800 era clothes.  

Never mind that the colonial days were in the 1700's....you'll just have to trust me about how awesome I looked. 

 Ellie was insanely jealous about not being able to participate in the 4th grade activities, so she spent her entire recess hanging out in the dress-up tent.  She had a big melt-down when recess ended and I spent the next hour reassuring her that one day she, too, would be in 4th grade.  As part of comforting her, I sat with her in the school library while the 2nd grade Skyped with author, Toni Buzzeo.  It was a fun phone call complete with slideshows and Q&A time with the kids.   Ellie got to ask her own question and in the end wasn't too disappointed to still be in 2nd grade! :)

Speaking of sisters....at one point I had to run out and pick up Spencer and Cami from school.  Cami was eager to come peek her head in at her alma mater elementary school and say, "Hi" to a few former teachers.  We watched Adam and his classmates perform some traditional colonial dances, which is where we learned that based on his facial expressions and unwillingness to make eye contact that Adam may not have much of a future in the dance business.    

Rolling Thunder 2013

Each Memorial Day weekend, thousands of motorcyclists gather to DC from around the country to  honor men and women who have died while serving our country.   The Sunday before Memorial Day, they meet at Harley Davidson stores around the DC metro area and caravan to the city to participate in a parade that afternoon.  Our neighborhood happens to be right on the path from the local Harley store to the freeway  and as such we have front row seats to "Rolling Thunder" without even leaving our neighborhood.  It's become a well-loved tradition for us  to walk down and cheer them on as they leave for their ride! 

Foxes and Bottle Rockets...Oh My!

I feel like life is moving a million miles an hour right now and I can barely blog about it fast enough.  With all of the other end-of-school-year excitement going on, none of these events from this past week really deserve a blogpost of their own, but since I don't want to forget them either, I thought I'd just make a little all-in-one recap. 

Human Foosball
At Young Women's this week we did a little spot clean of the church (and passed off a Good Works experience for PP in the meantime), then played a game of human foosball.  It was humorous to watch the girls get really into it.  I also found it  a little funny watching how lost the Young Men looked without access to the basketball courts.  

Really Old Bottle Rockets

During the scout pack meeting this past week, Adam and the scouts were launching bottle rockets.  Each boy was to have brought their own soda bottle for the occasion.  Since we don't drink soda, I thought I was going to have to buy a bottle and just empty it out for Adam to use.  Right as we were leaving though, I discovered a long lost bottle in the garage that I'd long ago filled with water.  On the way to the church Adam emptied it out and removed the label.  On the back of the label was a coupon for another bottle.  It expired in 1999.  Although struck with the fact that perhaps I should clean the garage more often, I laughed when Adam informed me that his rocket had the 2nd highest launch of all the boys'.  Apparently they made really nice soda bottles in the 20th century.  

Fox and Pileated Woodpecker
Now that the weather is nice, we've started walking the mile to school a couple of times a week again.  Despite living in a very suburban area, we love that we still have have wildlife that call our neighborhood home.  On a recent walk to school we almost simultaneously saw a fox and a pileated woodpecker.  It's always a bit disconcerting seeing a fox while on foot, but it didn't seem interested in getting close to us in the slightest, so we just enjoyed watching it for a bit.  The pileated woodpecker is one of our very favorite birds to see and it never fails to stun us with how strikingly beautiful and surprisingly large it is.  We only occasionally get a glimpse of it and it never fails to make our day when we do. 

Photo source:  The Bird Point

Tile 

After months and months of waffling over whether we wanted hardwoods or tile, we have finally made a decision.  Behold our tile choice (color and pattern):

Photo source: Crossville Tile

Celebrating....one more time!

It has been brought to my attention that my last blogpost did not sound celebratory enough for announcing that it's been an entire year since Spencer left the hospital.
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So let's try again.....
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 ♫ HALLELUJAH!!!! ♫  ♫ HALLELUJAH!!!! ♫ 
 ♫ HALLELUJAH!!!! ♫ 
 ♫ HALLELUJAH!!!! ♫ ♫ HALLELUJAH!!!! ♫ 

♫ HALLELUJAH!!!! ♫

 ♫ HALLELUJAH!!!! ♫ 

(my apologies if this post makes you dizzy)
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ONE YEAR!!!!!!

A year ago today (May 31) Spence busted out of the hospital once and for all....

 

 At that point I thought the hard part was over.  But I was wrong.

Everything about leukemia was out of our control.  Him getting it was out of our control.  His treatment was out of our control.  And whether or not the treatment was successful was out of our control.  All we had to do was pray and support him the best way we knew how.

Then he came home and suddenly everything seemed to shift back to us.  The doctors told us that his chance for relapse was quite high, so we've found ourselves celebrating each milestone  with a somewhat reserved enthusiasm and a pervading worry about whether we are doing enough to "help" him stay healthy.

Much to Spence's own chagrin (and teenage appetite) that worry has led me to keep adding things to the list of what  we need to change to keep him healthy.  We've thrown away all of our plastic dishes, I stopped buying processed meats, banished artificial colors and sweeteners, started baking our bread, grinding wheat, and I still sometimes wonder if we should move further away from the freeway.  And yet deep down I worry that it's all too little, too late and can't help but wonder if anything would be different if only I had started all this sooner.

Glen has felt the same helplessness that I have since the end of Spencer's treatment, but has battled it  in a much different way than me.  Instead of selfishly just trying to keep it away from our family like I have, he has chosen to battle against leukemia by putting his heart and soul into finding a cure.  He has tirelessly fundraised over $10,000 all the while training for a marathon, which he ran in March.  Now he is in NY for a 108-mile bike ride which he will ride in the morning.

It seems only apt that he is riding to find a cure,  the day after Spencer's anniversary for being cured.

I think we will celebrate big with some homemade bread and organic peaches....and maybe some ice cream!

Go Glen!   Yay Spence!  

This is the senior ad I created for his HS yearbook.

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four down....only ten more to go

Between the senior roast and meeting a major league ball player last week, it's been a pretty exciting time here at our house.

In addition to all that though, we've had a few more happenings....some of it exciting, some of it not so much.

The two kidney stones Glen had were something we could have done without.  He's only ever had one before, when he was also in heavy training for a long distance event.  As a helpless bystander in his misery, I am hoping he's learned his lesson about needing to guzzle water when his training is this intense.  His 108 mile bike ride for Team in Training is this weekend and kidney stones aside, I am looking forward to his training being done so we can spend a little more time with him on Saturdays again.

Another less than exciting happening is the frequency with which I keep getting calls from the school to pick up a certain child.   I can expect it at least a couple of times a week these days and I think she and I are both  ready for school to be done!

On a happier note, Ellie invented her own recipe and fed us dinner the other night.  She'd been begging to make dinner for a while, but I figured it was just because she wanted taquitos (her favorite meal), which she tells me I don't make often enough. I knew she has a creative spark when it comes to arts and crafts, but I was surprised when she insisted on making up her dinner recipe completely by herself!  I made the crust and she stirred together cream cheese, a can of black beans, refried beans, chicken, some shredded cheese, and a little salt and pepper for the yummiest "dinner pie" ever!  Seriously it was delicious and she's now got a regular spot on the dinner making rotation!

  Another thing I've been enjoying the past couple of days is the opportunity to sleep in a little now that early morning seminary is done for the school year.  It's hard to believe we've been through 4 years of it with this guy...


and only have ten more years of it with the rest of the kids.  :)

Seriously though, despite the early mornings and loads of driving, we love the uplifting start it has given to Spence and Cam each day!  Thanks to seminary teachers everywhere (including my own from back in the day) who sacrifice so much to teach a bunch of sleepy (sometimes surly) teenagers each and every morning.  I am eternally grateful for  their awesomeness.



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Harper's Heroes

Cancer is a two-sided coin.  In the midst of the terror and heartache of watching a loved one suffer, is the startling realization that you've never felt more loved in your entire life.   Since Spencer's release from the hospital nearly a year ago, it has been a struggle for us to reconcile a keen sense of vulnerability we face with the  compulsion to give back in some small way a portion of the generosity and kindnesses that were showered upon us.  And yet no matter what we do we feel it is an impossible task, since the kindness has never ended.  Take yesterday, for example.

Yesterday we were invited by the Leukemia Lymphoma Society to attend a Nationals baseball game with a program called "Harper's Heroes".  Bryce Harper, the dashing young phenom on the Nats, has a personal connection with leukemia and has reached out to give a little hope and joy to those who have already fought or who are currently still fighting the battle.    In addition to taking time out of his busy schedule to meet with us personally,   he also paid for all of our tickets (in the seventh row) and the food vouchers that we all received.  It turned out to be an amazingly fun day and Bryce Harper has at least seven new #1 fans in our house!    Take a look at our great day!  

4:15pm--we arrived to Nationals Park and we met our group of four other fellow pediatric cancer survivors and their families (about 25 of us in all)

5:00pm --they took all the kids to the field, so they could watch the Nationals batting practice up close and personal.  All the parents watched from just behind the Nats dugout.  

5:39pm--we headed inside to the press conference room and met Bryce Harper.   He spoke to us for a few minutes about his personal connections with cancer (a friend who survived leukemia, another friend who died from leukemia, and a grandparent who'd had prostate cancer) and he talked about how important his faith and family are to him.  

5:50ish:  After talking for a few minutes he opened it up to a question/answer session.  It was mostly the parents who did the asking, but once again he talked of his love for his family and how that was his favorite way to spend any free time that he had.  He also talked of how hard he'd worked to get where he was and that he'd graduated from high school after his sophomore year so that he could pursue baseball.  He seemed like a genuinely great guy.

5:55pm--he signed autographs and allowd the families to take pictures with him.

He signed a lot of his autographs with the scripture reference Luke 1:37, which reads "With God nothing shall be impossible."  

Here we are just chilling with Bryce!  

The REAL Harper's Heroes (the leukemia slayers) take a picture with Bryce Harper.

7:14pm--the Nationals vs. Phillies finally game began.  

Ellie was quite excited whenever the Nats would score a "goal" (apparently she's a bit more familiar with lacrosse and hockey, than baseball) and all of us had to cheer extra loud because we were completely surrounded by Phillies fans. 

Although the Nats ended up losing 5-3, it was a very memorable night that we will not soon forget!

Thank you to LLS and Bryce Harper for making it happen! 

Senior Roast (and Video)

Last night was our church's annual Senior Roast, where all of the youth gather together to honor the graduating seniors.  The word "honor" may make it sound serious, but in reality it's more about having some good clean fun and making sure that the seniors know how much they are loved.

Here is the Class of 2013.  Brandon, Spencer, and Ryan have all been together since preschool.  Janessa moved in a few years ago.  They are a great group and our ward will really miss them as they all go off to school this fall.

Each person got to have a display table with some of their memoirs.  I got a little distracted and ended up just grabbing a few things on my way out the door.  My one regret was not finding a jersey from his high school lacrosse team.  Actually I did find it, but it was crumpled up in the bottom of a full gym bag that has been sitting there since the end of the lacrosse season.  I opted not to use it.

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Spencer's display ↓↓↓↓                                                 Janessa's display↓↓↓↓

 Ryan's display ↑↑↑↑                                                   Brandon's display  ↑↑↑↑

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The most anticipated part of the night was each senior's slideshow presentation.  I did not realize it when I started ours, but I ended up doing ours the labor intensive way.  Most people did Powerpoint slideshows and talked through them, while I stressed to find out how to add sound to ours.  I didn't get much sleep the last couple of nights, but in the end I liked how it turned out.  Enjoy!  

We ended the night with each senior presenting their last will and testament.  Spencer bequeathed things like his baking skills and all the young men to Cami, his sporting gear to Adam, a big hug to Ellie, and his music ability and bedroom to Emma.

We are going to miss this kid next year!

Love you Spence!