2013 Calendar

Most of my close friends know that every year I make a calendar for our family as a Christmas gift.  What started out as a nice idea in 1999 has become a tradition that our extended family looks forward to every year.  When I saw my dad yesterday, he said, Hand me my calendar.  :)  Luckily they have progressively gotten better over the years!  I was just looking at the first I made yesterday.. Wow!  I now do it all digitally, I use smilebox.com.  I try to use pictures from the month of the year previous.  So these are January 2012 for January 2013's calendar. (I think you can click on the pictures to make them bigger).

 

                                                    Here is the month of January.

 

 February, we went on a youth temple trip.

 

 

March

Dance Team

 

 

April

 

May

 

June

 

July

 

August

 

September

 

October

 

November

 

December

 

This is our cover, I just didn't get it in the right order.

Merry Christmas

Here is a copy of our Christmas newsletter and the picture we sent with our Christmas card.

Dear Family & Friends
          2012
     This year has been a year of big changes for our family! In March we found out that after 16 years of working for the House of Representatives, Ray was being laid off in July. After a few days of crying, praying, and being upset, we set to work. It was a trying experience, but we know it could have been a lot worse and we know we were blessed! We often heard friends tell us that they were praying for us and I can honestly say that I felt those prayers and appreciated them all!
     June 1st Ray started a new job with Orange Commercial Credit. He tells me it is a factoring company. (I still don’t quite understand what that means). He is on the phone all day collecting from companies that his company sold loans to. It is a new learning experience for him, especially having to sit at desk all day long. It is a nice company to work for. Some of the perks are M-F, 7-3:30 & they bring in lunch once a week.
      When this was happening Ray was in the final stages of finishing his schooling to graduate in August with his Bachelor’s degree in Science Management from the University of Phoenix. We were so proud of him to finish the hard work and graduate! We had a huge party for him in our back yard to celebrate!
     In June Ray’s Aunt Darlene was able to come visit us for a couple of weeks. We had a lot of fun showing her around Seattle and the area. The kids were still in school & Ray had just started his new job & couldn’t take any time off, so it was hard to a lot of things, but we still managed to do a few fun things. It was nice to have her here at the end of the school year for Keagan’s 6th grade graduation and Melissa’s dance recital. Aunt Darlene is now serving a mission in SLC at the family history center.
      On August 1 we celebrated our 20 year anniversary! We got to spend a week in Birch Bay (near the WA/Canadian border by the beach) in a very nice condo. We split the week and had the kids and their friends come with us for part of the week and part of the week by ourselves. It was one of our favorite vacations and we now have lots of fun family memories from it!
      The kids are doing well. Keagan started middle school this year, 7th grade. Now I don’t have any kids in elementary school. Another new chapter of our lives.. It took him a little while to get used to the changing of classes and having all new classmates, but I think he is adjusting well. He did his 1st sports season this year and played soccer. We had a beautiful summer and fall and luckily for us only 1-2 games were in bad weather.
     Melissa is a Jr. this year. It is hard to believe that we only have her home another 1½ years! She is looking forward to going to college and would love to go to BYU or BYU-I. She is on the dance team again this year and having a great time. It keeps us all busy! We enjoy having a reason to go the football/basketball games and watch her perform. This year because of schedule conflicts she couldn’t do her clogging. That was a little sad for all of us.
      I am still teaching preschool with my good friend Marie. I feel very blessed to be able to have a job that works around our kid’s schedules. We have 2 classes 2 days a week. It has been a lot of fun!       We hope that you are all doing well and would love to hear from you. That is one of my favorite things about this time of year is hearing from good friends.

Love from the Shoop family- Ray, Donna, Melissa, & Keagan

 

 

 

 

1st day of school

The obligatory 1st day of school posts and pictures.

Melissa is going into 11th grade at North Thurston High School.

 

She had to wear the purple renaissance shirt today.  She had a few days of training at the school and helped with the freshman orientation.  The whole point of the shirt is all of the students who helped with the orientation are wearing them so the freshman have someone safe to go ask questions to.  She had a great time helping at the orientation.. but was a little sad she didn't get to wear a new shirt today.  And tomorrow there is a football game and the dance team has to wear a team shirt.  So Friday she will get to wear a new shirt!

 This is how she really feels!

Getting up to be at Seminary (a church class) by 6 a.m.!

 How sad it is not even light outside!

Keagan is starting Middle School!  (SIGH!)

Komochin Middle School.  7th grade!  School doesn't start until 9:20 for him.  I really hate the middle school schedule!  He doesn't get out until 3:50.  No more kids in elementary school for me.

 His school doesn't have lockers.  He has to carry his backpack all day long!  He is starting a new adventure and riding his bike to school.  He was pretty excited about that.  Especially since the 1st week of school it is suppose to be hot.  (In the 80s for us in WA).

 He's got the middle school - teenager perturbed look down...  I think I'm more nervous for him than he is.

 

 Aurora, my niece is starting 4th grade.  She didn't make it over this morning, but her mom sent me her picture.  I will have her after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

I can't wait to hear how their days went!

Dance recital

Isn't She Beautiful!!!

 Melissa had her dance recital on June 22, 2012.  Her last number was "Thriller" by Michael Jackson.
It was really good!  So good... that some of the little kids were scared and crying.

 Here is her class she danced with.  Sofie, Jenna, Brooklyn, Melissa, & Jadyn.

 

It's always fun to see all of our "little" friends dance, too.

Of course, our favorite,

Aurora!

Melissa & Amelia Nunn (one of the little girls she babysits)

And

Melissa & Lexi Hills

(another girl she babysits!)

It was so nice to have some people come watch her, too.  Aunt Darlene was in town and got to see her.  Also thanks to Marie & Celeste Martin for coming and to Ezra Anderson for coming.  It's always fun to have friends come watch her.  Melissa's dance team teacher has a friend's daughter in dance, too and was sitting behind us.  It was fun to hear her scream for Melissa, too.  :)

6th Grade Graduation

So Long Lacey Elementary!

We will miss you!

You've been good to us!

 

Melissa started going to Lacey in Kindergarten.. in 2001.  She went her entire elementary school career, through 6th grade.  Keagan did the same.  He started in 2005.  We've had our kids there for 11 years!  We have had a lot of great teachers!!  Thanks goodness my niece, Aurora, will still be going there so we can see some of those wonderful teachers!

 

Here Keagan is walking in for his graduation!







 

Waiting in line for his graduation certificate.

 

His teacher, Ms. Day

 

 Outside, celebrating!  It was one of the warmest days of the year!

 

Some of our favorite teachers!

Mr. Conway - our P.E. teacher

 

 Mr. U! (Ulvenes)

Our art teacher

And my personal favorite..

 

Mrs. Kelley, the music teacher

 

We love her!

Both of my kids had her the whole time at Lacey

& we will miss her!

 

Keagan's 6th grade teacher, Miss Day

(and Melissa too).

The other 6th grade teacher

Mrs. Braithwaite



One of our other favorites

 

Ms. Ryan

 

(Now Mrs. Lynch)

A New Mayor

In June, Keagan got to go on a very cool field trip.  His 6th grade class from Lacey Elementary went to JA Biztown.  It is a small make believe town that has stores, a mayor, most of the things that you can think of to run a town and the students run it for the day.  They are trained at school for a few weeks before they come.  They learn how to write checks, keep a balance in the checking account and apply for jobs.  They get paid according to what jobs they have.  When they have their money, they have to cash their checks, pay their bills, and save a little.  They spend the entire day at biztown.  It was a lot of fun and learning! 

Keagan got the chance to be the mayor of the town.  He dressed up for his job.  He got to give an opening and closing speech and go around and see how things were going around the town.  

 

 

 I got to be a chaparone and go with him.  The store I helped with was Best Buy.

 All of the stores in Biztown are given donations from their stores.  Usually little clearance trinkets.  The kids can use their money they earn at their jobs to buy things.  They can also choose to buy pizza at lunch time.  The Mariners store is one of the favorite places to go.