Flashback Friday

It's Flashback Friday time again. This picture was taken about 10 years ago, Katie is in the middle. Her dance team had picture day every year, they had hair and make-up people come in and get them all fancy for the photo shoot. She loved this dance team 3 of her best friends were on the team with her, and they had a lot of fun together.  I can hear the Elton John songs they danced to in my head when I see this picture!

Every time I see an old picture it just make me realize how fast time goes and how fast they grow up. It is fun to see that Katie has the same quirky personality today at almost 20 that she did when this picture was taken, she is like the energizer bunny and can light up a room when she walks in, and she can talk non-stop at super speed when she has a lot to say. 
BTW Katie Tia found this picture while cleaning out your under the bed box!

Favorite Spots

One of our favorite places to go is down to Boulevard Park and walk along the trail and watch the sunset.  Scott and I usually manage to sneak away for an hour and take a walk. This night we had a tag-a-long, she promised that she would walk the whole way but she fell asleep on the way there and so Scott carried her at least half the time. This trail takes us to the little town of Fairhaven and to a drive-in fast food place. We always joke about how run down the drive in is, I don't think it has been remodeled ever and has the vintage 60's look. Unfortunately the prices of the food are not reminiscent of the 60's we always joke about paying so much money for a little old soft serve ice cream but we continue to go back. So after we had our ice cream and were were walking back Scott decided to have some fun with Avrie and teach her a few naughty tricks. Scott taught her to say, Would you like some of my ice cream?"  and then as I was about to take it she smiled and said, "Just kidding!" And pulled the ice cream back. Once she had that one down he taught her to offer the ice cream to me and as I was getting ready to take it she would say, "psych" and pull it back. She laughed and laughed as she played her tricks on us. Then when her ice cream was almost gone we ran unto some of our neighbors and she was brave enough to try her new jokes out on them they thought it was pretty funny and pretty typical coming from Scott, since she had run into him earlier at the grocery store and he totally scared her and ran her down with his shopping cart and she actually hit him, well deserved I am sure!
Love the summer here in Bellingham and can't wait for more walks to get over priced ice cream! And beware if Avrie offers you ice cream!

It's Pizza Time

Katie made the trip down to Ogden to go to Costco and my sisters and their families met them at our favorite pizza joint, wish I was there.  They have done this a couple of times and I keep asking afterwards if they took any pictures, they always say no. So this time I asked in advance to make sure you take a picture.  Makes me happy to see that big smile on your face Katie! Can't wait to see you in a couple of weeks! We will have to go get some pizza when I come down!
Katie just moved into a new apartment with a friend and 2 other girls. She is really happy to have her own bedroom and bathroom. She started the graphics arts program at the tech college and is loving it. And she is still dating the really cute boy from Hawaii, Jeremy, who moved to Logan to go to school, and she followed him 4 months later, leaving Hawaii behind.  Although, someone asked Avrie today where her "other" sister was living and she said, "Hawaii" I didn't want to correct her it just doesn't seem right to say, "No she left Hawaii to go to Utah" who does that?

Mormon Prom

Kelsie went to her first dance last night, actually it was her first date as well, and her date was a good friend of hers so it was a fun first without the really awkward first date conversations. They went with a group of friends and she had a great time.
They had a progressive dinner first starting out at a friends house for appetizers, then they headed to our house for the main course and to a different house for dessert, before the dance. After I set the food out on the table I went to my room to that I wouldn't be THAT mother hovering over everyone. But I could hear the laughing and chatting all through dinner, I loved that they were all having a great time.

 They had a great time at the dance, so grateful to all the people that take time to make great events for my kids, I know there were a lot of hours spent decorating, planning and implementing to make sure the kids had a great evening!

Crazy Weekend

On Saturday Destina and Avrie had their last soccer games of the season. The day started off early with an 8:00am game. Destina played really good and scored one of the 3 goals and their team played another game at 1:00 for the district championship but lost 2-1. It was a nail biter game and fun to watch too bad they came up a little short, but they played hard and had fun.  Avrie had her game at 9:30 and she scored 3 goals and was very happy.
After the soccer games we loaded up the little girls and made the 3 1/2 hour drive over the hills and through the woods to grandmothers house. Except we stayed at a hotel and the girls swam and thought it was really fun to have a sleepover at the hotel. The next morning, Mother's Day, we showed up on grandma's door step and surprised her. The girls crept into her room holding some flowers and started singing a song to grandma. She was really surprised to see them, and us, there standing in her bedroom. We told her that we came over to spend the day cleaning. They are getting older and have a house that is way too big for 2 people and hard to keep up. We spent the day scrubbing everything from top to bottom and then worked on the yard as well. We were pretty wiped out by the time 5:00pm rolled around and it was time to drive back home.
When I got home I noticed I had flowers planted in my empty flower garden! Thanks kids! When I walked into the house it was spotless Kelsie, and maybe the boys helped too, cleaned my house!  That was the best Mother's Day present ever!
I loved this Mother's Day, I was busy serving, and the old saying you love whom you serve is true, I felt great love for my in-laws, and I was so glad that we were able to help them out. I didn't have time to feel sad that my mom is not here to celebrate Mother's Day. I felt a huge amount of gratitude for my children, I left 3 teenagers at home alone on a Saturday night and I knew I could trust that they would make good choices and they went beyond just having the house straightened up when I got home it was really clean. They never called to complain about anything, and they even made it to church on time.
Feeling pretty blessed, and thanks for the long talk Katie I love talking to you it made the drive home a lot quicker!

Planting Trees Creating Hope

Soccer Season

We are down to one more week of soccer. Yesterday was beautiful weather and I thought I better take my camera and take some pictures. Destina has been playing forward most of the season and usually scoring a goal or 2 each game, yesterday she woke up with a tummy ache and so they had her play defense the first half and goalie the second half so she would not have to run as much, so much for action shots of her making a goal. She has had a busy season, she has been doing an after school art class, taking a basketball camp and doing girls on the run twice a week on top of soccer she has been one busy kid.

Its fun to watch her play she is aggressive and not afraid to go after the ball she has an awesome drop kick and handles the ball well.

Avrie has been fun to watch too she has a fun team and they all are playing really well for kindergarteners, she scored a couple of goals yesterday.
It was really sad that the kids were complaining about how hot it was all of 70 degrees, they never seem to complain when they have to play in the rain but the sun throws them all off.

 This was oh I am so hot and sweaty!

Here we go

Ryan is so much like Scott it is a little scary. Once he has an idea he stops at nothing to figure out how to make it happen.  This would be great if the idea was to get a "A" in Biology or something useful like that, but no his crazy ideas run somewhere else. It has something to do with the ADHD those that have it can hyper focus on something that they are interested in, but that usually doesn't carry over to things like Biology something they are not interested in. Ryan can talk bike parts and specifics all day long, just like his dad.
A couple of weeks ago Ryan saw a YouTube video with guys riding drift trikes, so he set out to make his own. Scott set him loose with an old bike and Ryan had to come up with all the specifics on how he wanted it made and what parts he wanted to use, and he had to use his own money for all those parts. The only thing Scott did was the welding, thank goodness or our house would be burnt to the ground, I am sure.
He finished it the other day and at 7:30 on a school morning Ryan and his friend were in our driveway trying it out, waking me up.
Now I just hope he doesn't get run over by a car.

It almost looks my The Green Machine I had as a kid without a break!