June Birthdays!

We celebrate a lot of birthdays in June in Geoff's family. The first celebration was for Erica, and she kept it simple by declaring a picnic in the canyon.

We started with a very non-competitive game of whiffle ball, the kind of game where there are no teams, no strikes or outs, and the kids always make it to a base and or score. This picture gives a good sense of the game.

My mom even showed her fine form with a solid hit and run around the bases. I have to include this blurry picture just to prove it!

Em made a delicious cake.

The kids put on a theatrical dance performance for our pleasure.

Britt and Hunter's new dog, Finn, got a little training lesson from Geoff. He is so scrumptiously soft and cuddly!

Over Tennie's graduation weekend we had a late celebration for Nikki, since she was out of town on her actual birthday. All family in town gathered for cake in her small condo, and a few helped plant her patio pots all afternoon/evening.

And yesterday we celebrated Emma and Hannah's 2nd birthday at Wheeler Farm. It was a party of farm animals, train rides, face painting and yummy, healthy cake. Just take in the cuteness!

Little kid birthdays are the best.

Tennie is a High School GRADUATE!

What a whirlwind of happy activity we've had around here! After a 9-day road biking trip with the advanced road biking intensive, to wrap up the school year (more on that coming soon), Tennie graduated from high school last Friday.

My mom, Geoff's dad, and wife, Robin, and Geoff's sister Ingrid and family came into town for the event. We could only get 7 tickets, so grandparents joined us for the pomp and ceremony of graduation itself.

Ceci and I tracked Tennie down to give her her cords. Tennie was feeling all kinds of mixed emotions.

Ceci wanted to stowaway for a walk across the stage.

We grabbed a picture of the gathering of the 2018 graduates. Tennie is right in the middle.

We got there early and got pretty good seats with a direct view of where the graduates would walk. Here she is walking across the stage...

 

And then right as she neared where she would get her diploma, some young people stood up with large poster board signs to cheer on their graduate whose name was just called. I couldn't see a thing! I missed her getting her diploma! I sat through a 90 minute graduation and missed the 10 seconds I was there to see! Oh well. Thankfully Geoff's dad got a distant shot. The principle, Nathan Justis, is in the tie, and is a good friend of Tennie's. He wrote her BYU recommendation. In the vest is Tennie's teacher, mentor and friend, Trevor Huish. He introduced her to road biking, and they rode to and from school every day for the last 18 months. He also wrote her a BYU recommendation. Too bad the pictures are all so blurry and/or dark!

Adele ran into her favorite AISU friends, Raja and Alexa.

We met up with Tennie for a few minutes after to get a few pictures. Here Keenan is videoing Tennie's explanation of each of her cords.

Tennie was in the top four in her class with a perfect 4.0. We're so proud of her natural curiosity and hard work.

On Sunday we gathered family to celebrate.

After eating taco salad and strawberry shortcake, we gathered around while the adults gave advise, everything from paying your bills on time and reading the assignments before class to staying humble and relying on the Savior in difficult times that are sure to come. There was so much love and support and encouragement in that room!

Geoff and I gave her four symbolic gifts, each representing something we have tried to teach her throughout her life, as well as our greatest tools/resources to encourage her to use going forward.
1. A copy of all of her father's blessings, a reminder to remember who she really is and why she is on this earth.
2. A new set of scriptures (a step up from the basic paper ones she got when she was baptized!) This was to symbolize holding to, and feasting on, the word of God.
3. A new iphone 8. (Let's not pretend this wasn't her favorite gift.) This was symbolic of the power of prayer and constant communication with God.
4. Lastly, she opened the quilt I made her with pieces from her childhood clothing, a reminder to wrap herself in the comfort, direction and testifying power of the Holy Ghost. And it might just remind her of a happy childhood.

And just like that, in the midst of hoopla and friends and family and love, a chapter ended.

Her future is bright.

Adele to Ourselves

While Tennie is off on a 9-day biking trip, and Ceci was at a 4-day 7th grade camping trip, Geoff and I had Adele all to ourselves. Normal schooling, driver's ed and work went on as usual, but we tried to take advantage of the time with her. We went out to Thai and Indian food.

Adele and I worked on several projects, like typing up favorite family recipes for her own cookbook and digitizing some of Babs' photos in preparation for her life-story book. Adele decided she wanted to learn to weave, so for starters we spent several hours stick loom weaving, which turned out to be pretty fun.

The three of us also decided that we would tag along with Geoff on a business trip to Ghana this summer. He'll be gone for a little over a month, while we'll be there three weeks. It was a decision made in a day, and we leave in two weeks! Adele loved picking up Ceci and telling her the news, and Tennie gets home tomorrow, so we'll find out if she wants to join us!

To know and be around Adele is to love her. She is an amazing human.

May Wrap Up

Wow, May was a busy month that flew right by! If someone were to ask me why it was so busy I couldn't give a specific answer, but it might include loads of random appointments, finishing up Tennie's quilt, several opportunities to serve others (which I'm trying to seek more of), family outings, field trips, doctor appointments, birthday parties, graduation hoopla, doing a major storage unit clean-out, schooling at home, in addition to cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, etc. Life is just full of STUFF to do! Overall, though, life is busy but not stressful, and I'm grateful for that.

One sunny Sunday we created some Whatcha Got Tinfoil dinners in the oven, took them to the park for a picnic and some frisbee.

Mila got her stitches out.

Adele, Ceci and I spent an afternoon in The Leonardo museum.

I came home from somewhere one day to find these two painting. Seriously, painting instead of Instagram? A mother's dream.

Another afternoon at home they carved soap.

Ceci documented the realization that when she goes cross-eyed only one eye goes in.

A youth activity involving ice cream turned into a stack-ice cream-on-Ceci's-head activity. I saw a video of the piling of scoops on her head. I think the record was four. Brrr and gross.

We got to watch our friend's girls for awhile one day. Having young children energy in the house was so fun!

A full but simple month.