What  a great week we've had!

Rhaevyn, Aeva, and I got our haircut. Rhaevyn went shorter than she has gone in quite some time. Her hair was down to her waist, and she got quite a big chunk cut off as well as layers. Her curls really show up now!

 

Look at all of Rhaevyn's hair!!!

 

I wanted kind of a newer do, Cindy Lauper-ish, but instead it pretty much just came out like my usual cut, but maybe a bit shorter. Oh well, it's just hair, and it will be super easy to take care of.

Aeva just went for her normal: short, easy, low maintenance.

Friday we had two beautiful sightings.

We think this is a Cinnabar Moth. 

This beautiful swallow tail had a rest on my clematis. It sat there for a very  long time.

Wednesday we took the girls to school, and while Aeva was in her guitar class we sat and did some schoolwork. Once Aeva was out of her class we drove over to Officer's Row. Aeva took a nap while the kids and I toured the Marshall House. Then walked all the way down to the Fort/Airplane Museum and back. We learned some interesting facts about the Marshall House and about George C. Marshall...............think the Marshall Plan of WWII. We were given a flyer while there regarding an aviation summer camp. Myles's eyes lit up at the thought of attending a camp like that. We are looking into it and hoping he might be able to participate in that. 

Next week we are planning to take a tour of The Academy building. What we've heard so far about it is pretty interesting.

 

Walking, jumping, and skipping down the lane to the Fort.

 

 

 

 Aviator Statue at the Pearson Air Museum

 The kids had picked a wildflower bouquet along the way and left it at the statue.

My quilt was finished this week, completely. I always get so excited when Pat Holling posts pictures when she is done because I love seeing how beautiful she makes my quilts look. 

 

 

Here I am getting the binding ready while listening to:

The Mamas and The Papas

 Peter, Paul and Mary, 

The Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison.

 

 Voila!

 

This is pretty much Aeva when she comes home from school everyday, and she loves it when Molly curls up with her.

Me and my little spitfire

Rheavyn was invited to a campfire get together with several young adults last night. They roasted hotdogs and marshmallows, and it was quite windy. She had a pretty good time. She called me when she was leaving. I ended up having to escort her home because a back light and headlight were out. Chris was camping with Myles, so I was praying really hard a miracle would occur for the lights to work. Luckily her brights worked. It was mostly back roads that she had to drive, and the brake lights worked. So I guess I could say "prayer answered." I followed her home and all was well. Chris fixed all the lights today 😀She has a swing dancing party to go to tonight.


Myles and Chris had a scout camp out with a five mile hike. They parked at the church and walked the back roads to Battle Ground Lake. They were supposed to get certified in swimming at the lake but I said we'd pass. People routinely get sick after swimming in it with E coli and hepatitis A. No thank you! My good friend at church is going to get me into the YMCA, and Myles can pass off his swimming that way😀

  I hadn't seen these pictures from the Camporee. I thought they were sweet, and decided to go ahead and post them.

 

School is winding down for the girls. Aeva informed me she only has three more guitar classes. Rhaevyn had her geography presentation this past Friday. It was a group project. She is not a big fan of group projects, but this one proved to be very difficult. Each group consisted of three classmates. In Rhaevyn's group one lady decided not to show up for their last meeting  to finalize the project because she was super stressed out and didn't have any of her work done, didn't upload any of her work, and then didn't even show up for the presentation. Luckily Rhaevyn had addressed this with the teacher Thursday night, and the teacher was very understanding. At least her grade will not suffer for the lack of participation on the other class mate's part. Needless to say, Rhaevyn is very thankful to have that done!

And I think that wraps up this week.

Big Event of the Week: Myles's Recital

We've had a great week despite Meg and Chris being sick. 

On Monday I took Rhaevyn to her geography class. Aeva didn't have her guitar class because it was midterms, and her midterm would be Wednesday. Chris had stayed home that day because the "man cold" was keeping him feeling pretty miserable. The weather was magnificent, and he went out to sit in the sun twice. Meg and Myles joined him.

Elsa has been begging to sew something, anything, for weeks. She and I took the opportunity to pull out the sewing machine and material. She decided she would like to sew a new skirt. She went through the material, and I cut it into strips for her according to the width that she wanted for each material. She helped to iron the material and then sat down to sew the strips together.

 

 

The finished result:

 

 

 

While Elsa and I sewed, Aeva was making origami with the butcher paper. Meg is modeling one of Aeva's creations.

Monday night Meg coughed so hard she threw up in our bed. I spent the night doing laundry and sitting up with Meg since she was no longer tired. She discovered Mr. Rogers as we sat up until 3 am. Since then she has been carrying around the ukulele singing the Mr. Rogers theme song and strumming away.


Aeva's Japanese class was canceled on Tuesday, but she went with Rhaevyn to school so that she could attend the conversational group that gets together to speak only in Japanese. She is sad that one of the volunteers will be moving back to Japan before the end of this quarter.

Wednesday the little kids and I sat in a secluded part of the college parking lot and did some school work while we waited for Aeva to be done with her guitar midterm. The teacher accidentally skipped over her, so she ended up being the last one out of her class. After she was done we went and parked by the old hospital, dental office, and Red Cross building at Fort Vancouver. We had not been there since last year when they were in the process of redoing buildings in that area. We popped into the dental office to read the plaque and history behind that building. It now houses a gem business. The lady running the shop was so very nice. She opened up the cases and let the kids get a good look at all the gems, and she even let them hold a few and gave them a little bit of information about some of the gems. When we went to leave she gave each of the kids, and me, a small piece of amethyst. The kids thought that was a very cool shop and were so surprised to get such a treat!! Afterwards we popped back by the school to pick up Rhaevyn and the girls' friend Marina.

Myles had bought himself a really cool animal book at the Goodwill and has been freehand drawing animals all week for Sister Lee and her family.

 I bought myself two birthday presents....................new fingernail polish in my favorite color and a new glass water bottle.

 

 The suburban has kept Chris busy this week. We were thinking about selling it and downsizing back to a minivan, but for now I think we are going to hang onto it and maybe downsize next year. Chris is getting it ready now for our trek to Utah in August.

On another note, things seemed a bit amis at Chris's work this past week. We new something big was going down, but no one knew exactly what. The good news is is that only one person lost their job, and that was the plant manager. He was replaced by a guy who has worked at this particular plant for over 20 years, worked his way from the ground up, and sounds like he knows what he is doing. He is a down to earth, no frills, and get the job done kind of guy. I think this gives new hope to the workers there.


Rhaevyn bought a shirt, printed, and cut out the lettering and logo for this......

If you read the book series Heroes of Olympus you'll know what it is.


Myles has been busy practicing his cello recital piece all week long. Chris got to hear the whole piece on Tuesday at his lesson. His teacher had him play it in the music shop to help with his nervousness.
This clip to the Music Man pretty much describes what Chris wanted to do as a parent when he heard Myles playing the duet with his teacher 😁

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdd6q0pW4DM

Saturday afternoon Aeva and Myles cleaned the back patio. They swept it clean, and then they made me cover my eyes as I was guided to the back yard for the big reveal. I was very surprised. It looked superb. Saturday night Chris and I had a hot date looking for a new toilet seat.  Ours cracked during the week, so it was pretty vital that we get a new one asap. We treated ourselves to Mexican food after the hard job of finally deciding on a seat. 

We've been watching the Thin Man movies as a family. We've really enjoyed them. I love hearing the kids laugh as they watch it, and they try to guess who the culprit is in each movie. Aeva says her favorite character is the dog, Asta. 

Today was Myles's recital. One of my most favorite sounds is listening to the tuning and practicing going on before a recital. When Rhaevyn was in the volunteer orchestra I loved listening to all the instruments getting tuned and warmed up.

 This is a link to listen to Myles playing Pachelbell Cannon in D with his teacher.
I will admit I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from getting too emotional. Yes, I was one of those parents with my eyes brimming with proud mamma tears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YstYqNvMVg&feature=youtu.be


And yes, that is Chris at the end telling me that it was a bawler. He had to keep from getting choked up Tuesday at Myles's lesson.

 Sister Lee and her husband were so sweet to come and support Myles.

 Myles's teacher, Annie.

The violin and cello students and teachers.

I am hoping this is a good synopsis of our week. I can't think of anything else, offhand, that happened this week. If I think of anything else it will appear in the next post I'm sure.