EFY, 4th of July, Youth Conference, and a Birthday!

We started off this week with the girls going to EFY up in Tacoma. We decided to carpool with another family; Chris did the drop off, and the other dad did the pick up.
Here they are bright and early on the morning of the 4th. I'm happy to report, even after a call from the health counselor, that they both had a superb time! They made some new friends, met up with one they made last year, and loved that they had a lot of teens from Canada. Aeva even had a boy from Sweden in her group.

We missed having the girls here for the fourth. We roasted hotdogs and made s'mores just before dark. Then we got all bundled up to watch the fireworks. The best part about living here is all the fireworks that everyone buys. We just got out our camping chairs and sat out front to watch all the fireworks that were going on around us.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Meg and I decided to go back in the house to warm up. We moved the couch and watched the fireworks under a nice cozy blanket.

 

 The kids and I really missed the girls while they were gone, but we did a lot of reading together, went to the library, and had some play dates to keep our minds occupied. I did some condiment art for Elsa, started on two quilts, and Chris and I watched a cute movie called The Hundred-Foot Journey.

Friday night and all day Saturday I helped out with our Stake Youth Conference. I helped out with the dinner, lunch, and snacks. What a blast!!!! The girls arrived Saturday morning after EFY. Aeva came to find me, and I had to try hard not to cry as I gave her a big hug; I was so happy to see her! It took me a while to find Rhaevyn, but I was happy to finally give her a hug too :) Youth Conference focused a lot on family history and stories from our ancestors. This link, a part of Family Search, finds stories from your ancestry line:

https://stories.familyfoundapp.com/

Today was Myles's 10th birthday. He got his choice of breakfast in bed......oatmeal, toast, and milk. He was excited about all his presents. I even made him his own bowl of mashed potatoes from the potatoes he had planted last year in the garden (we have our first zucchini too). For dessert he wanted Southern Banana Pudding. I decided to make individual bowls rather than one big dessert.

 

 

I was in charge of Sharing Time today. I'm still trying to get used to having to do sharing time in Primary, and I like that it is usually only once a month. Today we talked about the sealing ordinance. I used two visuals. First: the pictures of family members/ancestors and what happens when our life here on earth is over. I put the pictures in an envelope and shook it around upside down. Then the primary kids helped me put all the pictures back inside the envelope and I sealed the envelope closed. All the pictures stayed inside, which represented the sealing power. Second: at the end of Senior Primary I had all of the children, leaders, and teachers link arms. This is often how I like to think of linking families together through the sealing power. I picture generations linking arms together, not leaving anyone out. They all had such big smiles on their faces. I think it made a good visual for them. I am always surprised that no matter how much I think I know how sharing time will go, the questions that the children ask always take the conversation in a different direction than planned. Sharing time always seems to go so much better that way. Today for instance, I had put up a really small collage of my children on the display. Two children wanted to come up and count how many there were. They counted six, but only see five each Sunday. So I got to explain that although our sixth one is not with us here on earth I needn't be worried or sad  Our little one is not lost to us because we are sealed as a family for time and all eternity.

 So glad to have all my chicks under the same roof this week and look forward to finishing up the two quilts.....fingers crossed.

Saying Goodbye to June and Hello to July

I can hardly believe a month of Summer vacation is already gone!
The sands in the hourglass seem to have a way of slipping through awfully fast.

Rhaevyn arrived home from camp on cloud nine. She thrived in her leadership role, and all the other leaders said she just shined. I think she made the right decision not to go as a YCL this year, but a leader. I'm so grateful that everyone in charge made that accommodation even though she was not 18.
The kids were so excited the Saturday we picked her up. Everyone wanted to go pick her up. They were eager to file out of the car and ran to her, throwing themselves at her with hugs and kisses.

Here she is with her YW President

 

While she was gone I made a Blueberry cobbler.

 

I think I mentioned before that Aeva and I had switched their room around. Luckily Rhaevyn has been a good sport and is adjusting to the change. Aeva made this really cute bag for her and wrapped it all up to surprise her when she got home.

Last Saturday Myles and Chris went fishing with some of the other cub scouts. He caught one fish and was pretty excited about it.

Tuesday morning we headed up the road to Lewisville Park. The girls brought a friend along to play tennis and to explore the riverbank. Meg made a little friend, and they walked hand in hand in the water. Myles and Elsa each built a little sandcastle. They tried to reach the rock island that the older girls were on, but then realized that the water was a bit deeper than they thought and had to turn around and head back to shore.



 

 

 

 

Wednesday was a big day!!! Aeva got her braces off. Just a month over two years ago she got them on. What a huge difference. She and I went out to celebrate afterwards.

Before

 

 Just before they came off...

 

 After

 

 Celebrating!!

 

On Thursday the girls and I walked main street and went into the second hand and vintage shops; then we shared a plate at Panda Express. That was so much fun!

Today Meg got to wear her new shoes that she got for Christmas. She likes to periodically get them out and run around the house with them, but today they actually fit. Just in time too because she got her other church shoes all muddy at Christopher's work on Friday. We are practically twins, she and I, with our church shoes.

 

 

Tomorrow the girls head out to EFY in Tacoma. They spent all day yesterday packing and getting ready. I'm super excited to hear all about their week when they come home on Saturday :)

I have been learning so much about my children lately. I love seeing their likes, dislikes, weaknesses; fears, strengths, worries and delights; hopes and triumphs, and who they are becoming.
This girl loves working on cars with Chris so much. She almost can't get enough of it. She says she is going to be a mechanic someday. She plans on going shooting with Chris this month, and she is so excited about that. Last night she helped him mow the lawn at 9 at night. A few weeks ago we were at the gas station and a Chevy chop top hot rod was filling up. She looked over and said "Oh, Mom, I need one of those. I have got to get one of those!" It just cracked me up.

 I'll close with one of my favorite pictures as of late.....

 Happy Independence Day to you all :)