DC Bound!

Millennial Choirs and Orchestras is going on tour. Participants from all 5 locations are gathering in Washington DC to perform a concert and record an album!  The girls and I are thrilled to participate in that.  And we've decided to turn it into our summer vacation trip.  2 weeks total--this should be fun! 

We had a bit of an eventful time getting on the road.  Stephen had already more permanently fixed the bumper, changed the oil and air filter.  We'd had the tires rotated and balanced.  I thought the van was in good shape for a cross country trip.  But the morning we were scheduled to leave Stephen informed me he also wanted to change the spark plugs.  It was supposed to just take an hour.  But it didn't.  After changing them at first the car wouldn't start.  But then it did.  On the road.

Almost an hour down the road, Stephen realized he didn't pack his laptop which he might need for work reasons.  So we turned back to get it and ended up having lunch at home.  Not before checking the back of the van and ultimately leaving Matthew's Nerf football toy on the side of the road.

So on the road again.  Somewhere in about Sulphur Springs a really bored police officer decided to pull Stephen over for going only about 5 miles over the speed limit.  He wasn't so pleased with me taking this picture.  But he didn't get a ticket, just a "warning".  It was ridiculous.

At some point we stopped for a bathroom break and when we tried to start the van it kind of coughed to a start.  That made us nervous.  So when we stopped for dinner we'd deduced that the battery needed to be replaced.  So Stephen dropped us off at Burger King and went across the street to Wal Mart and got the battery replaced.  From that point on the van worked awesome.  Whew!

We got as far as Dublin, Virginia the first day.  Not as far as we wanted but considering our late start it was good.  We found a wonderful place to go to church about an hour down the road and it was great.

We took a bit of a detour to take a scenic route and see some of the infamous Blue Ridge Parkway.  To drive the whole thing it takes hours and hours but we hopped on and drove about 3 hours of it.  You have to go really slow and it IS beautiful.  But when we got off we were ready to be off.

Love my Kaitlyn girl!

I'm so proud of this girl.  Like really really proud.

Seeing this project come full circle is wonderful!  Kaitlyn and her friends from the Young Women's spent an afternoon feeding the homeless at the Carr P Collins command center in Dallas.

She was able to deliver the 1000 decorated lunch sacks.  And what's more in between shifts of food service we got to fill those very bags with lunches that would feed the people we were feeding dinner the next day.

Beehive Camp 2016

This girl went to Girls Camp for the first time.  This year it was a Stakewide Beehive Camp.  She was excited to stay in cabins and go with a really great group of girls from our ward.

Summertime!

Bring on summertime!  I look forward to this time ALL year.  I love having my kids home.  We've on purpose not highly scheduled ourselves to allow us just to relax and play.  We love going on outings and since our annual membership to the Perot Museum was set to expire at the end of June we wanted to take advantage of it before we didn't have it.  We were able to get each person their own tablet to use for extra interactive activities within the museum.  That was really fun!

We also paid a bit extra to see a special exhibit that focused on various collections that people had.  Someone had collected Cowboys memorabilia, someone else had Beatles stuff.  But our favorite collection by far was that of the PEZ dispensers.  They were SO popluar with our kids that I caved and let them go into the souvineer shop to see if they had any.  Sure enough they had 4 different emoji pez dispensers and each of them wanted a different one and it just worked out.  So I became mom of the century!

One of our favorite places to go in the museum is the floor with the robots and electronics.  This floor is normally overrun with kids (who have limited supervision) and it's nearly impossible to do anything.  But on this day we went there FIRST and got to do many of the things we enjoy.  Here is a pizza that Kaitlyn designed that lit up on this fun exhibit!

After spending the morning at the Perot, we did another one of our favorite things, we met up with some of Matthew's special friends from preschool.  These kids have still remained buddies ever since their small close little pre-school group.  We went swimming!  

Stephen has been "Mr. Fix-It" lately right?  Well he was very spent with coming home each night with another thing to fix that the kids had broken.  He left one particular morning with the express request that we not break anything that day that requires his help.  Wouldn't you know that Matthew, who is stronger than he realizes and is ALWAYS breaking something, went up to get dressed.....and this happened! Oops!  My house may not survive the summer!

Matthew is having a very eventful summer already too--that evening he lost another tooth!  And one of his best preschool buddies he'd just seen that day ALSO lost the same tooth.  AND he's been begging me to learn to play the piano so I've agreed to teach him a bit myself and see if his interest holds.  He's probably the only kid I don't have to remind or ask to practice.  Guess who will be joining the ranks of piano players in the fall?  So proud of his enthusiasm!

One thing I'm really focusing on this summer with my kids is getting them to do service each week.  Last month Kaitlyn spearheaded a project for the Stake Day of Service to decorate lunch sacks for the homeless.  She had a few more sacks to decorate AND she wanted to drop them off in conjunction with serving a meal at the homeless shelter so we invited her friends from church to watch a movie and decorate more lunch sacks.  So proud of this girl!

Last Week of School!

Horrray!  We are SO ready to be done with school!  End of year class parties were fun!  Most of them were cut short or moved indoors due to rain but I was able to capture some photos.

 Lindsey with Mrs. Gray who we are going to miss.  She's gotten a job as an assistant principal and it's job she's wanted for a long time.  We're sad for us but happy for her.  Lindsey has had a great year!

Matthew's class party got moved indoors due to weather, good job to the room mom's who were able to change their activities on the fly.

This cute girl graduated from 6th grade.  Don't even get us started on how ridiculous it is for there to be a whole ceremony for them leaving elementary school and moving to 7th grade at the big middle school.  She was recognized by her teachers as being the "sweetest" and "most willing to be helpful".....But this is my gorgeous graduate.

 Obligatory "Last Day of School" Photo

 Her BFF Katie Glaser across the street

And I took her for a milkshake after graduation before she ran to swim with friends all afternoon. 

 BRING ON SUMMER!!

First Lake Day of the Season!

 First lake day of the season and we're thrilled!  What was even more fun was that after we'd been out a little bit we noticed a boat that looked familiar, and it ended up being our friends the King's from our ward.  We did what we could to tether the boats together and the children kept swimming from one boat to the other while eating lunch.

Then we decided to park our boat and all go out on their boat.  They have a wake boarding boat and while the water was a bit too rough to do too much, Matthew did do this with Langdon and had a blast!

May 2016: Week 4 "Mr. Fix it"

We are SO blessed to have Stephen in our family.  He can fix ANYTHING!

He took a week off from work and poor thing spent most of the time fixing broken things in the house.

We discovered the garbage disposal had rotted out and had been leaking under the sink and leaving a puddle on the floor.  Of course it was Wednesday evening so we discovered this just as he was walking out the door to mutual.  So it had to wait a bit before being handled.  

I needed to get the "littles" out of my way while I cleaned up the mess in the kitchen.  They needed a bath so I filled up the tub in my room with bubble bath so they could play a bit.  I cleaned up the kitchen and then went in to check on them and this is what I found!!

They apparently had added a lot more bubble bath and left the jets on.  They were SO SOAPY that I had to shower them instead to clean them off.

So that's how I got to wash every towel in my house one evening.

Another thing he got to fix was my washing machine!  Usually we would have had to buy a new washer but Stephen wanted to try to fix it so he completely disassembled the machine in my garage.

Then of course we order the part and find that it's on back order.  So I depended on some very very dear friends who let me do loads and loads of laundry for the nearly 2 weeks I didn't have a functioning washer.

But, finally, he DID fix it and ta-da! I'm back in business.  So so grateful

Probably the best thing he got to do on his time off was try out the boat.  After it had been winterized and in storage we wanted to give it a try.  We stole away after we dropped off the kids at school and went up.  The boat was great.  We even drove around looking for property to buy (we're dreaming).

I'm published! Ensign June 2016

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2016/06/keeping-memories-alive?lang=eng

Sometimes I just shake my head.

My "Roots Tech" experience of following promptings to record my mom sharing her life story just weeks before she was killed was published in the June 2016 Ensign complete with photos of my mom.  I'm sure she would shake her head too if she knew that her smiling face was going to be shared church-wide.

Here's the text just to have it saved somewhere...

A few years ago I had a powerful impression to start involving my four young children in family history, which evolved into what we called “family history nights.” My parents lived close by, and I invited them to prepare some stories about their lives to share with my children. My parents were so excited! They prepared well and brought pictures, maps, old toys, and cherished belongings. We didn’t know how long my children’s attention span would be, but we were pleasantly surprised that even after an hour, they still wanted to know more. Because my parents have other grandchildren who don’t live close by, they wanted to record their stories on video, and so we did.

First we had an evening about my dad, followed by an evening about my mother. Next they planned to share stories about their own parents, then their grandparents, and so forth. Consequently, our third family history night featured my grandfather’s life as told by my dad. My children really enjoyed the life stories, pictures, and items that belonged to their great-grandfather Lewis.

Less than a week after this meeting was Memorial Day weekend, and my family was out of state for a wedding. I got a phone call informing me that my mother had died in a car accident. A reckless driver had crossed over a center median, hitting her head-on and killing her instantly. She was only 59 years old.

One of my first thoughts upon hearing of her passing was of the video we had made. What a treasure this video of her sharing her life story is to us now! When I told my children of her death, some of the first questions they asked through their tears were, “What about our family history? Who will tell us about her parents?” It was then that I realized what an impact our family history nights had made.

I will be forever grateful that I listened to the prompting to involve my children in family history. Watching that video of my mother brings peace, comfort, and healing.

I now take lots of opportunities to share memories of my mom with my children. I tell them of her favorite things and things that made her laugh. I have found pictures of her with each of them, and the pictures are framed in their bedrooms. On her family history night, she showed us a toy tea set she’d enjoyed as a child. My daughters were fascinated with it, and plans were made for a tea party. Although the party never happened, the tea set is now ours, and when we use it, we think about her. Through these things, my mother isn’t forgotten. She lives on in our hearts through the stories, pictures, and videos that keep her memory alive.

May 2016 Week 3

The Hawks have completed another season!  "Super Dad" coach Stephen is THE BEST.  So grateful he can do this for our children.

The much anticipated arrival of Jackson Stanley and Evelyn Diane McKneely, the "McTwinkies" happened on May 19th.  They're precious and perfect!

There has been a push church wide to have a more concerted focus on keeping the Sabbath Day Holy.  There has even been a hashtag (#) ID of #HisDay that we're encouraged to use and share on social media things we're doing.  So on this Sabbath, Lindsey decided to fill out a pedigree chart.  She learned that her Grandpa Lewis was born on his Great Grandma Lewis' birthday--he was probably THE BEST birthday present she ever got!

BIG NEWS!  A VERY ANTICIPATED EVENT!  

Matthew's first lost tooth!

May 23rd.

2 years.

I spent the day working on something I've wanted to/needed to for a long time.

I turned all the sympathy cards and gestures of service into these books with photos of mom.

I watched the home videos we have of her.

I ate chocolate, and cried, and took the day for myself.

A sweet anonymous friend brought me these....