A new blog

Hello friends and family.  I've reached the maximum number of photo uploads that Blogger allows, so I've started a new blog where I will continue to update about our family's Journey Through Life.  Feel free to join us at our new blog if you'd like.

I love to see the temple.

Our Primary children had a temple visit tonight.  The kids were able to walk around on the temple grounds, and then meet with the temple president (I think he was the president...) and his wife inside the atrium to discuss what the temple is and what goes on there.




4 points if you can find all 4 of my girls in the crowd above. ;)

Afterward, I asked Layla if she liked being in Jesus' house.  In typical four-year-old fashion she said, "It was boring at the temple."  But then she asked me when she'll be able to see Jesus. :)

Michigan Adventure

I was in Michigan from almost midnight the night of June 30th until the afternoon of July 4th.  I cried saying goodbye to Dave and the girls at the airport...I'm such a baby.  As excited as I was for a vacation, I really missed my girls that first day.

The first thing I noticed as I stepped off the plane was how HUMID it was!  It's not humid here in the desert, so all the moisture in the air was very noticeable to me.  My mom loved it; I didn't.  As the days passed, the humidity didn't bother me as much, but I have to say, I love living in an area with low humidity.  Especially when it's so hot!

Friday my mom and I went up to my hometown to get my nephew, Jalen.  He's my brother's son, and he lives with his mom.  Jalen spent Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday with us.  I hadn't seen him in 4 years, so it was nice to see him again.  We celebrated his 11th birthday while we were there.  He was born only 5 months before my own son, and I spent a lot of time wondering what Davey would look like now if he were here.



Mom, Jalen, and I stopped at the cemetery to visit the graves of our family members and to water the flowers.  I missed my little boy a lot that day.



Davey's grave



Saturday was the family reunion at my cousin Charlie's house.  I had a fun time visiting with all the cousins I hadn't seen in a decade.  I was able to see my grandpa (my mom's dad; it was a reunion for my mom's side of the family) and my sister Beth and her family (they drove up from Georgia for the reunion).  I was especially excited to see my nieces, Lindsay and Heather, and my nephew, Sam.  I hadn't seen them in almost a year.  I couldn't believe how big Sam had gotten, or how excited Heather was to see me!  She ran right up to me and gave me a huge hug, and then proceeded to sit by me/on my lap for most of the afternoon.  I loved it!



Me and my BFF Heather



Saturday night, the power went out at my grandma's (my dad's stepmom) house, where my mom and I were staying.  There was a really cool thunderstorm, which I loved, and after flickering a couple of times, the electricity decided to go out.  It didn't come back on until Sunday evening, about 22 hours after going out.  Good thing we spent some time away from the house on Sunday, visiting with Grandpa, Jalen, and Beth's family!  We celebrated Jalen's birthday and then hung out a bit.

Heather, Jalen, and Lindsay



Me and Sammy


I loved seeing other members of my family again, and though I didn't get to spend as much time with Beth as I would have liked, I'm thankful I was able to go at all.  I owe a huge thanks to my parents for donating an airline voucher to the 'Lisa goes to Michigan' cause. ;)

Happy Birthday, Dave!!

Today my hubby turns 36 YEARS OLD!

I love you, Dave!  Sorry I can't be with you on your birthday, but I hope you have a fun time with the girls.  I'll see you tomorrow night.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Dave's birthday celebration

I'm leaving this afternoon for Michigan (the family reunion is Saturday), and since I won't be here for Dave's birthday on Sunday, the girls and I planned an afternoon of fun yesterday to celebrate.

When Dave got home from summer school, we took him out for lunch at Buzz BBQ.  I think that's one of my favorite places to eat.  We both had the $5.99 brisket sandwich lunch special.  It was super yummy.

Later that afternoon, we had a water balloon fight.  The girls and I bought a package of 100 water balloons out of the dollar bins at Target, and we thought it would be really fun for them to have a water balloon fight with their daddy.

It took 10 times as long to fill the balloons as it did to use them all up! ;)

They had a lot of fun, and I love that it only cost $1!

Dave opened his presents.  I love the note from Linnea and the smiley face drawing of Dave from Layla.

 And we had cake and ice cream.

Dave also took the girls out for some bike riding.  We're trying to help Julianna learn how to ride without her training wheels.  She's slowly getting the hang of it.  Maybe she'd do better if she had a bigger bike. ;)

It wasn't a fancy day or anything, but I think we all had a good time.

Happy birthday, Dave!

Swimming fun

Emma had her Activity Days recognition night yesterday evening.  It was held at a pool; the girls were beyond excited.  They are constantly begging me to go swimming, but the pool at our complex is always being used and it's just too hard for me to take them all myself.  Okay, firstly, I don't go anywhere in a swimsuit, and secondly, it's too difficult to keep an eye on all four of them at the same time.  Especially when they don't really know how to swim.

Anyway, the girls had so much fun last night.  We really need to take them to the pool more often.  And get them some swimming lessons!

The Bird Whisperer strikes again

The new library that just opened in our part of town has had an ongoing art exhibit, with all the display pieces made from recycled materials.  While we were at the library on Monday, we stopped by the exhibit.  All the pieces were really cool!  Linnea immediately gravitated toward the peacock.  She is the 'bird whisperer' after all.

Every piece was amazing.  There was a tree made of scrap metal and colored glass bottles that I loved.  It even had an owl and a raven perched on the branches.  I took a picture of the tree, but it turned out really blurry.

When I was back at the library on Wednesday, the exhibit was gone.  I'm glad we stopped in on Monday.  Hopefully you SW dwellers had a chance to check it out, too!

Father's Day weekend

We started off our Father's Day weekend with a bang, by staying home and doing absolutely nothing on Friday. :)  Dave is doing Independent Study summer school right now, and he has Fridays off.  We stayed in our pj's and chilled all day.  It was quite nice.

Yesterday we met out friends at the water park.  The kids all had so much fun!  The girls had been begging all week to go, and if we hadn't already had this trip to the park planned, I most likely would have taken them just to get them to stop whining about it!  Thank goodness the park closest to us has water features, especially in this desert heat.

After the park we went to our friends' house for cheeseburgers and hot dogs.  We're so lucky to have such amazing friends!

We ended the day by taking my parents out for a late Mother's Day/early Father's Day dinner.  My parents are the best.  They spoil us to no end, and I wanted to thank them for the love and support they give us.

Church today was lovely.  The primary children sang on the stand in Sacrament, and Layla was trying so hard to pop her head into any open area so that we could see her.  Linnea had no qualms about pushing her best friend aside and stealing her place at the front of the kids.  (Sorry Brenna!)  We had steaks for dinner tonight (even though Dave had had steak at the restaurant last night) and hung out the rest of the day.  Dave is a great dad, and he loves his girls unconditionally.  We're all grateful to have him at the head of our family.

Happy Father's Day!

Volleyball

Our church ward has a co-ed volleyball team that plays every Thursday night at the church.  I hadn't really ever paid attention to announcements about it at church because I figured my volleyball playing days were way in the past.  On Sunday, though, a big announcement was made.  We were told that if our ward didn't have at least three sisters show up this week, our team would forfeit and most likely be dissolved.  I guess the women haven't been very good about showing up (me included), which is completely understandable since we're moms and have children and other things to take care of each night.  But, three women are needed each week to play, and that hadn't been happening.

I had a meeting to go to tonight and wasn't sure I'd make it back in time, but I got home earlier than expected and decided to show up, just in case there weren't enough women to play.  Luckily, we had four women show up, so we didn't have to forfeit.  It was the first time I've played volleyball since high school (I was pretty good back then, on the HS team and all), and even though I've added plenty of pounds to my body and don't move quite as well as I used to, I thought I played decently.  At the very least, I had a great time!  I'm a bit scraped up, and I'm sure I'll be feeling it tomorrow, but it was FUN!  Oh, and our ward won!

I really look forward to playing again next week.

Summer plans

On our first day of summer vacation (Friday morning), I took the girls to the store to pick up some activities that will hopefully keep them occupied for at least part of their days this summer.

I bought each of the girls a composition book, which will be their summer journal.  They will be writing/drawing in it each morning over the summer.  I think it will be really fun for them to see how they've progressed over the summer, and even more fun to look back at the journals years from now to see what they thought was important at the time.  Plus it's good practice for Linnea.  She's been asking how to spell different words, and now she can look back at the labeled pictures she's drawn and know what the words mean.

I also bought plenty of arts and crafts stuff.  My girls love to color, draw, cut, and glue.  Now they've got enough glue and paper to last quite awhile.

For Linnea and Layla, I bought a pack of dry-erase alphabet cards, to help them write their letters.  Linnea more so than Layla, but Layla finds it fun to color on the cards.  I found some cool dry-erase crayons for them to use, and they've been having a blast.  Linnea knows how to write all of her uppercase letters (and has for some time), but she needs practice with the lowercase letters.  I'm hoping she'll be fully prepared for kindergarten come August!

Emma will be working on a math program over the computer this summer.  If she logs 22 hours, she'll get a pizza party when she returns to school.

As for Dave, his summer plans included getting another mohawk.

Mission accomplished.

At the end of this month, I will be flying home to Michigan for our family reunion.  I'll be leaving June 30 and returning on July 4th.  I'm looking forward to a little getaway!

As I've been typing this up, I've been listening to the new NKOTBSB CD.  A collaboration between the New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys.  Mixing the old stuff with some new songs.  I love it!  I'd secretly hoped that I'd be spending the night of July 3rd at the NKOTBSB concert at the Mandalay Bay, but it looks like that won't be happening, especially now that I'll be in Michigan.  I think that would have been a FABULOUS birthday present for Dave, since his birthday is July 3rd. ;)

Last day of school

Thursday was Emma and Julianna's last day of school. They both received their Distinguished Dragon Awards that morning and also received straight A's on their report cards.

After the awards ceremonies, I helped out with the hot dog picnic that Julianna's class was having.  Julianna's teacher passed out bottles of bubbles and let the kids play on the playground, which thrilled Julianna, Linnea, and Layla.

Emma and Julianna had a great year.  They were sad to say goodbye to their teachers and friends, but I'm sure they'll enjoy their summer.

Until next year...

Park day

On Saturday, Dave and I took the girls to two different parks.  That morning we went to Floyd Lamb Park, which we hadn't been to before.  It was really nice.  More of a 'walk around and observe nature' kind of park than a play park.  The park has lakes, peacocks, ducks, swans and other assorted birds, and grass.  Beautiful green grass.  Online I discovered that fossil remains of extinct mammoths, bison, horses, camels, giant sloths and other animals have been found in Tule Springs, where the park is located.  Pretty cool.

We walked down one of the paths, and it was just covered in bird poop.  The girls freaked out, of course, and were definitely not afraid to voice their opinions about it.  They're such girls. ;)   They loved all the water and birds, though.

The girls had fun chasing the ducks and geese.  Notice that Layla is paying close attention to where she is running.  I think of all the girls, she was the most concerned with the copious amounts of bird droppings.

Linnea would stop at times to 'talk' to the birds.  Dave dubbed her 'the bird whisperer.'  She told us, "I know how to speak bird.  Once a bird speaks, I can understand it."  One time, as she was talking to a duck, she turned to us and said, "He said he wants to be left alone."  She's so funny.

Linnea was squawking to the peacocks, too.  She sounded just like them!

The peacocks were gorgeous.  I really wanted one of them to fan those tail feathers out, but that didn't happen.

Walking around in all that nature sure was hard work!

That evening, we went to the Exploration Peak Park.  We hadn't been there before, either.  It was a nice park; the girls really liked the western theme.

 (I love the picture of the girls with the big snake.)

We had a fun time together on Saturday.  Dave's been gone a lot working grease jobs again and handing out yellow books to every home in our zip code (Boy Scout fundraiser), so it was nice for him to have a bit of a break on Saturday.

In other news, Emma was given a medal and two certificates for scoring above 400 on her CRT tests.  I haven't received her actual scores (and don't know that I will), but she did really well!

Thursday is the last day of school, and it's a half day at that.  I need to get thinking about how I'm going to keep these kids of mine entertained all summer.  Any ideas?

Is it August yet? ;)

Stone Soup

Julianna's first grade class performed Stone Soup this morning.  (Emma's class also performed it when Emma was in first grade.)  Julianna played a spy, just like Emma did.  It was such a cute play, and the kids did a great job!

villagers, spies, and soldiers

I took Linnea and Layla along with me this morning to help get all the students ready before the play.  I worried that after being at the school for an hour and a half before the play even began that they'd be bored and difficult during the play, but Linnea and Layla were really good.  Julianna sang the songs so much at home that Linnea and Layla knew the words and were singing along, too.

We ♥ Mrs B!

She's fantastic with the kids, and her enthusiasm and love of teaching really shines through.  The students adore her.

Following is a couple of the songs the students performed.

Julianna had an upset stomach yesterday (she threw up twice), so we stayed home from church.  I wanted her to rest so she'd feel better for the play.  She ended up falling asleep on her bed at one point early yesterday evening.  I sent Linnea to get her, not knowing that she'd fallen asleep.  Julianna came out to the living room and her eyes were so tired looking, and I just had an overwhelming desire to hug her and hold her on my lap.  She sat on my lap and I threw my arms around her.  Tears came to my eyes, and I thought, She's not my little girl anymore.  At that moment I just wanted to keep her little forever.  I sent Julianna back to bed and mourned her baby/toddlerhood.  Time passes much too quickly.