Maddie Graduates!

June has been a REALLY busy month so that is my excuse for just now posting this.





Here is beautiful Maddie as she graduates from Camas High School. We are so proud of her!

Time for Making Memories

I've always believed that it's important to make fun family memories while your kids are growing up. Maybe I feel the need to make up for childhood devoid of fun family vacations, but whatever the case, Thom and I enjoy taking the whole family on vacation about once a year. Last year we all went on a Disney cruise to the Bahamas and had so much fun. We shared our experience with our in-laws and my mother-in-law decided she wanted to take the whole family on the same cruise this year to celebrate her upcoming 50th anniversary.

So, we headed to Florida the exact same week as we did last year. With the girl's work schedules we decided to not add on an extra week of WDW or Universal and we did SeaWorld instead. We were able to get buy one get one free days admission so we went the day before the cruise and the day after. Lots of fun was had by all!

Our New Family Member

No folks, this isn't an announcement that I'm pregnant, those days are loooonnngg gone. We have ourselves a new kitten and his name is Charlie. We found him at the Oregon Humane Society. He's quite a little lovebug. We've been taking it slow, after all he has 3000 sq. feet to figure out not to mention two very strange looking creatures snuffling and staring at him with quizzical looks. He loves to purr, but right now he is afflicted with a kitty cold, which we were warned would happen. He sneezes a lot, poor kitty. We love him.

Easter

We had a lovely Easter Sunday yesterday. We had a wonderful program in church which was mostly musical numbers with a couple of short talks. Our little family sang "I Stand All Amazed" and I felt it went really well. Even Dallin was able to stand up there with us with minimal distraction and sing the parts he knew. My parents and Hannah were able to come and see us, then the whole family came over for dinner and egg hunt activities. It was a nice time visiting and catching up. All the kids are so busy and it's nice to hear what they are up to.

I am so grateful for the plan of salvation and that my family can be together forever. There really is nothing more important than our families and on Easter as we celebrate the miracle of our resurrected Lord these are the people I love being with.

Maddie's Prom

My baby girl had her senior prom this weekend. It was fun to prepare for it with all the dress drama, hair appointment, manicure, all the things that go into making memories. She and her date Graeme were a beautiful couple. I hope she will remember that night fondly, as I do my proms. Prom is just one of those memories that linger, hopefully in a good way.

Tomorrow is her Senior/Mother tea. Just the first of several "end of year/end of high school" events coming up. Sigh.

Little Purple Pansies Touched With Yellow Gold

My goodness, I have let my blog go to seed! I guess I just haven't felt very inspired to write lately. Today I am home with Dallin, who is sick, again, with a fever. I also happen to have pink eye so...look away! I am hideous!!! Anyway, I'm just feeling so happy about spring. This is the first year I can remember getting tired of the gray and wet days. I love fall and winter. I don't spend a lot of time outdoors anyway, don't like bugs, sweating, sunburns, you know. But this year I'm feeling the need for spring. Easter is in a few days and I've put pansies in my flower boxes and they are so pretty. I've enjoyed getting outside these last few sunny days and just breathing in the fresh air. It's been so nice, so spring...keep it coming...I'm more than ready.

A pic for the last post...

Little did I know that I couldn't save my post and add the picture later before publishing. At least I couldn't figure it out. So, here's the picture of Thom's exciting birthday gift.

In His Prime

Today is Thom's 47th birthday. He doesn't outwardly ask for much pomp and circumstance, but I know him very well. Inside he's just like a little kid who can't wait to see how many presents he has to open and wants to open them NOW! Well, little does he know that I've tried to be a little original, a little surprising this year and he should have fun opening these treasures after work. Even though he likes his "things" this man of mine has an innate desire for things that are practical. Well, he will get his wish, I'm heading out to get his BIG present right now...a wheelbarrow. Yippee!!! Happy Birthday Thom!

Friends for Life

I'm an extremely lucky girl and I know it. The ladies you see in the above picture with me are the best of the best. They are my best girlfriends. We have been friends for a LONG time. Mary (in the blue) and I have been best friends since kindergarten...no lie. Anyway, we have this wonderful tradition that started in high school of having our own Christmas party every year. Over the years it has changed slightly, but essentially we hold our ritual sacred and don't change it. In recent years as our families and our lives have become crazy busy we've moved our party to after Christmas. There are several benefits to this, some of which are more time, sales, something to look forward to after the holidays, etc. The party consists of us getting together sans husbands, children, household duties (except for that year's hostess) and having an evening of fun. We take turns hosting, going from oldest to youngest. The hostess has it at her house and provides a scrumptious buffet or sit down dinner. Then we talk, and talk, and talk some more. One year we even took off to go to the mall...we haven't done that since. We 're usually just happy to catch up and gab and gossip as we snack. As the evening wanes we look over at our presents and think, "gee, guess we should start opening gifts." This process takes us AT LEAST 2 hours as we have our own system for this too and and as gifts are opened we can fawn over them and talk and discuss and compare and on and on and on. Things you can't do on Christmas morning with children breathing down your neck to open the next one. This year I made it home a little after 3 a.m. Oooops!!




We have had this party, without fail, every year, even before we were all married, and certainly through many many pregnancies and adoptions and moves. Our beloved Holly moved to California 6 years ago but I think we've been able to adjust all but one year. We've flown to her house, she's flown up here. The year she wasn't there was heartbreaking.

I realize that this friendship is rare and I consider it a huge blessing and another way my Heavenly Father shows me He loves me. These girls are my lifelines. I always know they have my back. As our lives change, we stay the same. We get together and we are 25 again, or younger! Now instead of having babies, we are seeing our babies go off to college and on missions and even getting married and making us grandmothers. (Well, ONE of us, so far!) What a wonderful gift.

Recognition...well deserved

It's no secret that I love Josh Groban. From the first time I heard his music I was hooked. He's so good at what he does. I've had many opportunities to hear Josh live and meet him. I have many autographs and fun stories to tell about my concert experiences and travel adventures. I have made a lot of great friends along the way and it has made my life a little richer to have these experiences.

Music has always been a huge part of my life. Music touches my soul and sweeps me away while I'm listening to it. Josh's music is soothing, exciting, intelligent, uplifting. It always takes me to a good place, which is something you can't say about most of the stuff you hear on the radio. Josh gets virtually no radio play, except for at Christmas time. This has not prompted him to change his style. He sings what he finds "fits" his voice and doesn't worry about being commercial. And now we have more proof that it doesn't matter.

Josh has been asked to sing at the opening ceremonies concert for our next president's inauguration. Of course he won't be the only singer, or even the headliner, but it just goes to show that you don't have to bow to popular opinion and commercial pressure to be thought of highly by people in high places. It's funny, Josh has sung for Presidents, Royalty, the Pope, Hollywood bigwigs, high profile political figures, for billions of people during the Olympics, and even little ol' me. He doesn't change. You won't find him in the tabloids doing crazy stuff. Impressing the press is not his thing. He's just Josh.

Josh will be performing "My Country Tis of Thee" and I can promise you it will be spectacular. I hope those who hear him enjoy it. I don't necessarily want him to gain more fans because of it, it's already getting more difficult to get face time than it was a couple of years ago. What I do hope for is that he gains a little more respect from the average listener. Unfortunately, when I mention his name 4 out of 5 times I still get "who??" as a response. Oh well, more for me.

Happy New Year!

Yesterday was not a good day. I can't really figure out why exactly, but it started out rough and got rougher before things mellowed out and I could enjoy our little family party. I find that I yearn, yes, YEARN, to have all my children around. This is a different feeling from wanting them all to leave me alone, as was the case during those busy, sleepless, baby and toddler years. Now that Kate is gone most of the year when she's home for breaks I just want everyone home. Maddie has been working a lot this past week. This isn't a bad thing for her or even her "fault." It's just that she wants to continue to do her other activities too. As she headed out the door for Mock Trial practice I wanted to know how long it would last, thinking it couldn't be more than a couple of hours. When she informed me it would be 6 hours I just became so SAD, and cranky. Who are these people taking all my children's time away from me??? Don't they realize that the time I have with them is precious??? Soon they will be grown and gone and with families of their own??? Anyway, my mind went on a bit of a hysterical bent there for a few minutes. Sigh. So, that's how my day started. Then I realized that I had things to accomplish...a couple of items to exchange/return...some food to buy for our NYE party...but most importantly my VT'ing to do. Yep, that's me, Miss Leave it Until the Last Day of the YEAR!!! I was so unsettled at the thought that I couldn't quite get myself calmed down until I had completed my responsibility, albeit slightly pathetically.

Around 5:30 p.m. Maddie informs me she wants to spend NYE at Graeme's house (mind you, she's been home all of 10 minutes) because she hasn't been able to hang out with him FOREVER (mind you, again, she spent the prior evening at a party with him and spent that ridiculously long 6 hours of Mock Trial also with him) and couldn't I just let her do it after she does 15 out of the 50 or so seminary makeups she was supposed to do during Christmas break. I was good, I almost broke into tears but I didn't. I gave her my best mommy guilt inducing lecture on how I wanted us to spend the night together and Kate, ever so eager to add her two cents let her know that she was crushing me because I wanted to spend time as a family and on and on. Finally I walked away and went to read my book, The Christmas Sweater, which at this point is kinda depressing anyway, and to sulk and feel unloved by this, my middle child. Amazingly, after about 10 minutes Maddie calls down to me that Graeme can instead come over to our house, which was okay by me and I again felt maybe my kid did have some empathy for her sad, sorry mother who has a hard time letting go.

Well, a fun time was had by all. I put all the teenagers to work making food then we watched some movies, played some Wii and some Rock Band and The Price is Right, and toasted the new year in. I know this won't last forever but while I can fenagle it, I'm going to spend family time with the people who mean the most to me.

Just for kicks, here's a picture of Dallin. He had informed me earlier in the day that he was going to sleep in the Christmas tree box that night. Don't ask me, I have have no idea, but how cute is this????