Yeah! A camera that can do close-up shots (without being blurry and washed out!)
Niles has been busy injuring himself lately. He sprained his ankle really badly a few weeks ago in a mountain biking mishap. His ankle still looks quite swollen but the bruising is gone and he says it doesn't hurt anymore. Then last Friday he was playing capture the flag with Minnie and her friends (she organized a game at the park to celebrate school getting out) and pulled his hamstring muscle. This prevented him from participating in his planned Memorial Day Weekend activities of mountain biking and running in a race, which did not please him. But he did take the kids to a movie and grilled some great steaks and made some yummy homemade ice cream.
Niles also repaired the hole in our basement ceiling from when our fridge recently decided to dump a lot of water all over the floor and it flooded into our basement. Thankfully we were home at the time so we were able to get buckets under the drips and mop it all up so it didn't ruin our kitchen wood laminate floor or the carpet in our basement. The strange thing about it was that the washing machine at Tim & Rachelle's house broke and flooded their basement just the day before our fridge flood and I have another friend whose washing machine broke and flooded from an upper floor to the ground floor of her house just two days after our fridge flood. So keep an eye on your washing machine and refrigerator!
At the end of April, Meagan, Tiffany's mom, graduated from college so I am no longer taking care of Tiffany during the days. Tiffany's dad got a job in Michigan so they are moving soon. Since Meagan is also my Mia Maid Advisor, I'm losing her help for that. They actually already called someone to replace her even though I would have been happy to keep her until the minute they leave. Meagan is also Minnie's flute teacher, so we have to find a new teacher. Minnie and I went to Meagan's senior flute recital and enjoyed that. Meagan is an amazing flutist and a good friend. I will be missing their family a lot when they leave later this month. But I'm happy for them and hope they have great experiences in Michigan.
I'm still babysitting Courtney at least 3 days a week. I've been watching her since she was 6 weeks old and she is 9 months old now. She recently had a few seizures and went through a whole battery of tests to try to figure out why. Thankfully, they didn't find anything seriously wrong with her, but they also didn't find a reason for the seizures at all which can be frustrating. I am very grateful that she had the first seizure when she was with her mom, not with me. That would have scared me half to death! Last week she had two seizures in one day, the second one while she was at my house. It wasn't too awful since I knew it was a possibility and knew what to expect and what to do. She is now on medication and hopefully that will help. She is at the point now where she can get into everything and I am scrambling to get my house baby-proofed!
Last week I also started babysitting a little boy who is just 5 weeks old. His name is Harley and I will have him just for the summer--but for 10 hours every week day. So far he has been very good. He mostly sleeps when he isn't eating and he is a fast eater. When he is awake, he tends to be content to just lie on his back and look around. He's hardly ever fussy. I never have experienced a baby like that! It still gets a little crazy sometimes when Courtney is here and they both need things at the same time. But now that Jumble and Minnie are out of school they can help out with that. Harley is not here today because his older brother is sick so his mom stayed home from work. Jet was actually a little disappointed when he found out Harley wasn't coming. So I guess the kids actually like having all these babies around.
With marching band starting up for the summer, Niles is once again helping with band dad duties. I finished my job as concert coordinator with the spring concert. The new band booster president for next year is in our ward and I served as her secretary in YW for one whole month before they released her from being the YW President. Now that she is band booster president, she asked me to serve as her secretary again. So that is going to be my band job for the next year, along with being a clarinet section support mom. I think that will keep me busy!
Niles and I celebrated our 18th Anniversary on May 20th. It turned out to be one of those busy days so we didn't do much to celebrate. Niles went to help with the band after he got home from work and I had YW meetings to attend that evening. Then one child had a big school project and two others were having a melt down for one reason or another. So it was one of those days. BUT it was a very very good day because we are still in love and very happily married after 18 years:
And Niles made it safely to work that morning, witnessing and very narrowly avoiding being a part of this accident on his way:
See the smashed blue car in front of the smashed double trailer UPS semi-truck and double trailer Geneva Rock semi truck? Niles had to swerve into another lane to avoid being hit by that blue car while it was swerving to avoid being hit by one of the semi trucks. Thankfully, there was no one in the lane he swerved into at the moment he was forced into it. Already enough accident trauma at our house in the past year thank-you-very-much.
Miraculously, no one was seriously injured in the accident, even the occupants of this white car! I don't know how that is possible, but I'm so glad.And we've been blessed with four children, even if they do have school projects and meltdowns sometimes. So I'm not complaining! No I am not.
We are very happy to report that Jumble is doing much better lately. A few weeks ago she really seemed to turn a corner. I'm sure that school coming to a close and marching band starting up again have helped. She's already signed up for two classes on line and started working on one of them. So hopefully she can continue to do well this summer and make a lot of progress on getting caught up from everything she missed the last eight months. We appreciate your continued prayers in her behalf. We hope that 11th grade will go much better than 10th grade did! We were all very happy to leave that school year behind us.
The high school had their spring band concert recently and it was quite a production. Most of the kids wore flip flops to remember Heather (who loved flip-flops and was known to wear them even in the winter). The symphonic band played Amazing Grace (one of Heather's favorites) in her honor. They had a guest conductor for that number and he even wore flip flops with his tux! The wind symphony played a piece that was composed by Barry Kopeck for Heather. He was the band director at U of U during the time that Heather was a student and drum major there. He came and was guest conductor for the piece. They also did a slide show tribute to Heather that night. Another event of the evening was the retirement of Dan and Karen Adams, who have headed the Band Booster and Band Dad Organizations for 25 years! They continued to volunteer even after all their children had finished in the band program and graduated--for 13 more years. They had a slide show to honor them as well. They are an amazing couple. The last event of the evening was that the marching band received the Sudler Shield from the John Philip Sousa Foundation. This award recognizes marching bands that have shown excellence over a period of several years and it is about the most prestigious award that a marching band can receive. So that was cool. It was a great evening but very long and emotional.
This is Jumble at home following the concert:
Unfortunately, despite having a great new camera, we weren't sitting where Niles could get any shots of Jumble during the concert.
We also got the year-end band DVD and photos so I'm including a few good pics of Jumble from that:
This is at the Freedom Festival Parade on the 4th of July last year.
And this is at the Steel Days Parade later in July last year.
This is a shot from Heather's funeral. At the cemetary, most of the kids, including Jumble, gave Heather one of their black or white uniform gloves.
This shot shows Jumble playing at the cemetary for Heather. The girl that is sitting is her friend, Tiffany, who broke her pelvis in the accident. The next girl over is Jumble's friend Emily. Then Jumble is standing next to her. At the funeral that day, both Niles and I thought, "This could have been our family mourning a lost daughter today." If not for Heather, there could have been many funerals that week.
This is a shot from one of their performances at Grand Nationals in Indianapolis in November. Jumble is the one in the back row, back person (on the far left.)Jumble also went on her first official date--she and Ryan went with two other couples and one of the kids took photos so here's a few:
back row: Ryan, Jumble, Ian front row: Evan, ?, KimI don't know the girl's name in the front middle. She's the only one not in our ward.
Kim and Jumble. Can I just say that I love this girl, Kim? She has been an incredibly good friend to Jumble over the past 8 months. She was recently made the Laurel class president and Jumble is her 1st counselor. With the older Laurels graduating, there are currently only 5 Laurels in our ward (usually there are about 10.)Jumble is off to EFY (Especially for Youth) at BYU this week so we hope she is having a good time. She loved it when she went two years ago, so we are expecting her to have another great experience. Tonight the bishop told me that Jumble texted him and said she was singing a duet with her friend at the EFY talent show. Two great things: although Jumble has talents, she doesn't like performing in front of people (unless in a big group like the band) and she went to EFY solo without any of her friends. So it sounds like she has made at least one friend. We aren't surprised that she is making friends, but singing a duet? That has taken us a little by surprise--but in a good way. EFY--if you can possibly manage to afford sending your teenager to it--worth every penny!
Minnie turned 13 on May 1st. It was a busy day. The boys went to my nephews' baptism...
(My Dad and Mom with my nephews)...and Minnie and I went to the senior flute recital that morning. Minnie gave me a list of some things she would like (I request that from my kids) but I was having a terrible time finding any of them. One thing she wanted was new bedding. Her former bedding was several years old and getting very worn out and she wanted a color change, too. Her desired colors? Silver and midnight blue. Not very easy to find! I had finally succeeded at finding one thing that she wanted (a tiger pillow pet) by having the Hallmark store get it shipped in from their warehouse. So I went to pick it up the day before her birthday. I had already told her we would have to keep searching for the bedding and get it as soon as we could, but not in time for her birthday, unfortunately. After I picked up the pillow pet I just had this feeling to go check at Ross next door to Hallmark for bedding. And what do you know, they had a silver comforter and it was very cheap! AND a midnight blue sheet set also for very cheap. Yeah! I had found a silver throw pillow and I then went and found some various dark blue cloth with silver stars on it to make two more pillows (which I actually sewed for her within a week) so I was very excited. Birthday magic managed just in the nick of time. Whew! I love surprising my kids with something special that they really like for their birthdays. And this girl deserves it, believe me!
Minnie had a goal to get straight A's for her 7th grade year and she did it. We are very pleased with that! We had nothing to do with it--she did it all on her own. She also had a year-end band concert. Thankfully, not so long and emotional as the one at the high school and very enjoyable. And this time we were sitting in the right spot to get some good photos:
Jet had a dance festival to end the year, which was my first chance to try out the new camera:
He was clear on the other side of the field from me for this shot. Yeah! A camera that zooms!
Running off the field--hat pulled down over his eyes for the entire dance!
I pushed his hat back for this shot. Best thing? No sewing involved with the costume this year. Thanks for keeping it simple, 3rd grade teachers!
Jet also got straight A's for his 3rd grade year so we can't really complain about that. We are hoping to get a better handle on his medical issues this summer. Jet is happy that it is now summer! Well, at least it's summer in the way that school is out, but the weather is still having trouble figuring out that it isn't still winter. Monday morning, May 24th, the weather looked like this:
I took these photos while the snow was still coming down--we got at least another inch before it stopped. Last week of school and my kids were wearing coats. Crazy.
Thankfully our garden survived somehow and is thriving again despite this:
This was a record for the latest measurable snow of the year in Utah. Hopefully we won't see any more snow until at least November! It has warmed up since then, some days have started to feel more like late May. This weekend was really nice. But we still keep getting small storms where it cools off and rains for a day or two. Hopefully it will decide to act like summer by the time everyone in my family arrives for the family reunion in three weeks! But be warned, Texans! You probably ought to bring a jacket 'cause I bet it will feel like winter to you up here. Especially when we head up to the cabins in the mountains. Take it from a fairly-recent Arizona transplant.
Finally, since I haven't mentioned Atom since he has no school stuff going on yet, I guess I should tell you a little about him. He is looking older these days and getting bigger. He will say, "Look how much energy I have, mom!" and run from one end of the house to the other as fast as he can:
And he likes to demonstrate how strong he is by saying "Look what I can do, mom!" and lifting the gallon of milk off the table all by himself. He is pretty proud of himself and so are we!
(As you can see, he likes bats!)
We had two bar-b-q's for Memorial Day weekend. One with the Cranes and Cambras on Sunday, and another with my Dad and Mom on Monday. We put out flags to remember our veterans and are grateful for their sacrifice that makes our freedom possible.
We also remember many wonderful family members that have left a great legacy and have been the source of many blessings in our lives. And we could never say it enough, we especially remembered one young woman who gave her life to save our daughter.
