GAP

My friend Karen is the head of the committee that plans the Canby High School Graduation All Night Party (GAP).  For several years she has warned me that I would get sucked in to help when Emma hit middle school age.  It happened this year.  She called me in the fall and asked if I would co-chair the food committee with my friend Tomika.  Because I like Karen so much, and because she promised me that food was an easy job, and because I knew I would love working with Tomika, I said yes.  It did end up being a fairly easy job.  We didn’t have to reinvent anything because they just have basically the same food every year since there are different kids each year.  We did have to hit the pavement in our community to get the donations and the items we had to buy lined up.  That was actually fun.  It was amazing to see how many people and businesses were willing to help out such a good cause.  It was cool to see the donation pile growing in our food storage room with things we had to pick up before the actual party.

Although, it WAS a little tougher to keep this one stored.  It was definitely a temptation.

Once we got the initial work done we weren’t too terribly busy with it until the week of the party, especially the day before and the day of.  We spent all of Friday morning loading and unloading my van that was stuffed and Tomika’s suburban that was also stuffed.

It was a tiny bit tiring.  Then we spent the afternoon prepping and picking up more food.  A huge thanks to our friend Shannon who has done the food before and who came early to help us and advise us.  This was a whole new experience for me and Tomika.  We were ready to go when the party started.  Unfortunately I only have one picture of the actual party, but we kept the kids stocked with subs, pizza, bento and more.  Lee also deserves thanks for picking up the donuts for breakfast, all 20 dozen of them, at 4:15 in the morning. 

I was worried about being able to stay awake all night long, but once the party got going we were busy and it was fun!  The volunteers put on a great party and the graduates were having such a good time.  It was fun to be a part of it.  We pulled out the next morning at about 6:00 am.  To say the least we were exhausted.  I went home and got a few hours of sleep before a super busy day that consisted of church meetings, two graduation parties, and Father’s Day prep.  I also left a few graduation present projects until the last minute, they turned out cute, but I was a little bleary eyed while I was making them.  Thankfully Kaitlin was at our house to help me that day.  I couldn’t have done it without her!

It also didn’t help that I had stayed up late the night before the party making jam.  Of course I used my cheater method, but it was still a lot of work.

So by the end of the day I was really ready to crawl into bed.  (I really can’t complain.  Tomika had an even crazier day the day after the party that consisted of taking all 5 of her kids to 4 basketball games while her husband was out of town.  My day wasn’t so bad!).  It took me a few days to feel like I recovered.  Even though it was tiring it was a good enough experience that we are up for it again next year. 

 

36

I had a great birthday this year.  It was smack dab in the middle of all sorts of craziness, but we found time to celebrate with my family. 

My parents gave me new Toms.

Emma made me a nice card.

Lee gave me some sinfully delicious truffles to go with the present we haven’t had time to go shopping for yet.

Best of all we had my favorite dessert, strawberry shortcake.  (The coconut lime version with sour cream pound cake from Our Best Bites is one of my favorite versions, yum!)

By looking at Gracie’s mouth you would think all 36 candles were on there!

Tenley Graduates

See the baby in this picture?

That’s my little sister Tenley on the day I graduated from high school.  She was only 2 months old.  So understandably it just didn’t seem right that she was the one graduating this time, 18 years later.  It made me feel old.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that it’s 2012 instead of 1994 (although I am glad it’s not 1994, I like my life now…), time is just going so fast!

Notice the cool ‘12 they made with their caps.

Emma definitely has strong feelings about Tenley graduating.  She doesn’t want to see Tenley move away at the end of the summer.  She was still excited to give Tenley the money lei I made for her and to give her a hug.

Congratulations Tenley!  We love you!

Congratulations also go to mom and dad.  Having five kids very spread out  in age equals a lot of years with kids in school.  You’re done too!

Sorry Lee, you got cut off.

But time better slow down just a little because I am definitely not ready for this:

We continued the celebration for Tenley the next day when we went to The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner with family.

After cake and ice cream at mom and dad’s house we played a game…of course it was Wackee Six.  I think we like that game!

Never-ending

It seems that yard work never ends.  I must admit that working in the yard is not one of my favorite activities. However, I DO like the end result (even if it is short lived) and I also love the memories that we make when we work together as a family to get the job done.  We were really late this year in cleaning out our garden area and in getting the garden planted.  You can see what we were up against by the size of some of the weeds.

Yes, that is the bad thing about having a hidden garden.  Out of sight, out of mind and sometimes the weeds take advantage of that!  But we worked hard and prevailed over all the weeds.

We also had fun along the way.  Isaac and Grace loved looking for bugs and worms.

Now we can enjoy a weed free garden, and you can enjoy this parting shot.

I just couldn’t resist.

Memorial Day

We spent part of Memorial Day in a very special place.  It was pretty amazing to see all the flags lined up on the graves at Willamette National Cemetery where my Grandpa and Grandma Russell are buried. 

We took some flowers to decorate their grave and spent some time remembering them.

It looked beautiful by the time we were done.

I tried to help Isaac and Grace understand the reverence of where we were, but they had a hard time resisting the urge to run down the hill and around the flags and on the lush green lawns of the beautiful cemetery.

What a neat experience it was to be there on Memorial Day.  It prompted some good discussions about remembering those who have gone before and honoring those who serve our country. 

After going out to lunch we went home to find Lee, my Dad and Uncle Dan hard at work building shoe shelves for our garage. 

Isaac and Grace were thrilled to see that Uncle Dan had brought Shasta with him.

The shoe shelves turned out great.  They aren’t super pretty but they are super sturdy and functional, just what I wanted.  They have done our garage a lot of good already.

Once that was done we enjoyed dinner and then played several rounds of Wackee Six.  It was a great day.

Father & Son Campout

This year the Aaronic Priesthood Commemoration Father & Son Campout should have been called Rain & Mudfest 2012.  That’s what the men and boys got, lots of rain and mud.  Isaac was so looking forward to the campout.  He asked me all day when Daddy was getting home.  When the time finally came he was so excited to help gather his things and pack the car.

He peppered Lee with all sorts of questions and even took a moment to pose like his dad.

The day of the campout was beautiful, and the forecast originally didn’t call for any rain. 

But because we live in Oregon and you never know what the weather will do, Lee wanted to take the van just in case they needed to sleep in it.  I convinced him not to take it because I thought I might need it in the morning to take Emma and some of her friends to an activity.  Well, I felt really bad when Lee texted shortly after they got to the campout that it was raining and there was thunder and lightning.  He was ready to tough it out but the rain didn’t let up and it got worse.  Lee quickly realized that the little tent he took had an even tinier rain fly that wasn’t doing any good.  Add that to Isaac starting to get genuinely scared of the thunder and lightning and he decided to pack up and head home.  Thankfully Isaac wasn’t too bummed since he was pretty scared at that point.  He had a great time getting muddy while it was still light and playing with the boys.  They went back in the morning for breakfast and games and got even muddier.

Don’t let Isaac’s face in these pictures fool you, he was having a great time.  Thankfully the bishop took those pictures because the only pictures Lee took were of everybody trying to get out of the mud on the way out. I guess it was pretty entertaining!

 

So while the boys were getting wet and muddy, the rest of us girls at home invited a bunch of other girls over for a girl party.  The little girls played while the moms talked.  We did a fun little craft and had yummy things to eat.  We stayed nice and dry.