March 6-12, 2017

We woke up to more SNOW on Monday morning.  We couldn’t believe it.  Thankfully it didn’t stick around this time.  Crazy!

Isaac and Grace loved learning about the Titanic in school.  They each got to pick a project to do with the information they had researched about the Titanic.  Isaac made a poster and Grace wrote a diary.  Their school is a no homework school and I love that they couldn’t work on their projects at home so that their teacher could be sure that it was their own work.

The state of our craft room sometimes drives me nuts.  But it also means that there is a lot of creativity going on.  I’m glad we have the space for that.

Lee and I went to the temple on Friday night.  Look at that moon!

Jessica Poe is my new YW Camp assistant director.  She and I spent Saturday at Camp Alpine at a meeting for camp directors.  We got great info and then went exploring.  I showed her around camp and we did some planning.   I sure love that place, even if it makes my stomach a little floppy and nervous to think about camp!

We made friends with a one-eyed newt.  Or is it a salamander?  Not sure.

Emma must have had too much fun with the Laurels in class on Sunday.  Love these beautiful young women!

Sunday was an extremely busy day.  Lee left at 7:30 in the morning for meetings and didn’t come home until 10:30 that night.  I spoke in sacrament meeting and subbed as the Primary chorister.  Then I met up with Lee for a meeting with Tad R. Callister who was visiting our stake.  Bro. Callister is the General Sunday School President and has written several books, one of which I had used for my talk that day on the Atonement.  The meeting was wonderful and I was able to use some things I learned in it for our YCL training meetings for camp.  After that meeting we were able to attend a fireside that Bro. Callister gave.  Emma joined us for that.  When the fireside was over we FINALLY got to celebrate Lee’s birthday!!!  He barely had time to breath on his birthday, but I know there is nothing he would rather be doing than serving the Lord.  Jen got him a birthday cake and we shared the cake with our good friends and the bishops of the stake (during one last meeting!).  All people who Lee loves and he enjoyed sharing his birthday with them.

The Parker’s gave Lee a necklace to go with his smolder.  Lee will never live down a picture of him as a 16 year old with a smolder and a necklace that I displayed at his 40th birthday party.  It has been shown all over the stake, even at the trek last year.  Good thing he is a good sport! 

I love Lee so much.  We couldn’t wait to really celebrate him the next day.

January 9-15, 2017

Monday and Tuesday were busy with normal activities, the missionaries coming for dinner, my first meeting with my newly called YW Camp assistant, stake meetings and book group. On Wednesday we woke up to MORE snow and more snow days from school.  Isaac and Grace played outside all day.

Isaac decided to shovel Wade and Sunya’s driveway. 

I helped him a little because it was a big job. 

I think it wore him out!

Love that kid!

That evening was perfect for warm snuggles on the couch.

A lot of the snow was gone the next day, but it was extremely icy. 

See Mt. Hood in the background of this picture?

In order to keep a little bit of schedule in those crazy days, we organized our own school day.  It was perfect.  Some things were completed that I wanted done (Christmas thank you notes!), and the kids had fun.

On Friday night Lee and I went to the temple.  Portland was hit much harder than we were and it was still quite the winter wonderland up there.  It was also pretty scary once you got off the freeway.  A lot of slipping and sliding on the icy streets!

On Saturday Emma was able to swim in the Rumbaugh Invitational.  So many meets had been canceled because of snow and they were relieved that this one wasn’t.  The varsity team has fun at this all day meet.  They leave very early in the morning, swim all day, have dinner together, and then head home late at night. 

While Emma was swimming in Corvallis, we headed up to Portland to watch Skylee Doman play basketball for Southern Utah University against Portland State University.  There was still a lot of snow up there which Isaac and Grace played in to and from the car.

The game was so fun to watch and we were part of a huge crowd of people (mostly Doman’s) there to cheer on Skylee.  This picture only shows a small amount of the people there.

The sunset on the way home was a beauty.

We got a babysitter when we got home and Lee and I headed back up to Southeast Portland to the Harrison church building.  It was a scary and slippery drive!  That area was extremely icy.  But it was worth going there for Lauren Perez’s wedding reception.   It was beautiful and that building is amazing and we got to eat dinner with lots of friends.  We stayed after to help clean-up and take down the reception.

That crazy weather week ended with church on Sunday and a couple games of Qwixx, which is quickly becoming a favorite game!