Allen Celebration

Over the weekend we went to our 4th annual Allen Celebration.  Oh how I love this event!  It is ridiculously huge and SO much fun.  We look forward to it every year, not just because of the great music and the fireworks at the end of the night, but also because we get to see our friends, especially the Rodriguez family.  It's been way too long since we've gotten together, and I loved getting to connect with them for a little while in between all the celebration festivities.  

Savannah worked the event this year, so we took full advantage of her VIP parking pass and she loved being in the center of everything.  

And who wouldn't want to be in the center of this!?

Every year, we have an awesome show.  We've had Foreigner, Styx, and the Bangles in previous years.  And this year it was Pentatonix!!  Seriously...so exciting!  We opted to sit a little closer to the stage this year because we love them so much.  

I love this time of year.  I love staying out late at night and sleeping in the next day.  I love lazy weekends, and friends finding any excuse to get together.  I love live music outside.  And I especially love fireworks! 

This is the first of lots of fireworks shows we'll get to watch this summer, and it's only June!  

I love summer.  

And here's some Pentatonix music just in case you haven't heard them before.  

High Five for Friday

I haven't done a Friday recap post in months!!  It's about time to get back to that routine, I think.  Here are the highlights of this week according to my iPhone, which is getting a lot more action than my camera these days...

1.  7 Days of Inspiration.  Have I mentioned how much I love social media?  This was on Instagram on Sunday night, so I happily took the challenge this week and posted pictures, quotes, and general conference talks that have been inspiring and uplifting to me.  (And if I could figure out how to download a video from Google+ or youtube and post it on Instagram, I would have done that, too...but so far...it's just been frustrating.)  I love that there are so many opportunities to share, uplift, and connect via technology.  I love that this little iPhone is convenient and handy, and has access to a wealth of uplifting information that can be shared in an instant, whenever inspiration strikes.  I love that technology can connect us to people we might not have met before, and start conversations we might not have had.  In fact, my post on Wednesday launched an awesome discussion with my visiting teachers yesterday morning on gratitude.  Love those women.  Love #mormonchannel.  And LOVE using social media to uplift and connect.

2.  The Beehive Campers are home!  I missed my girl.  It was so nice to be able to pick her up and see her cute, energetic, happy face.  Our house is different when one of my little chickens is missing.

3.  Mini Fruit Pizzas.  Craig and I combined our Deacons and Webelos this week for a fun swimming activity.  We snuck in a few opportunities for working on requirements, but mostly we just let them play and have fun in the pool...after the thunderstorm passed.  And you can't have a scout pool party, and not have treats.  So Megan and I whipped up a few flowery sugar cookies and threw some fresh fruit on them.  Instant hit!  And I'm pretty sure the fruit cancels out the sugar and butter in these cookies.  :)

4.  Million Dollar Arm.  I took McKay and his two neighborhood besties to see this movie this week.  They loved it and I loved it!  Cute boys.  Awesome message.  Baseball.  And Bill Paxton.  It's kind of a combination for success, I think.  Can't believe we missed this earlier when it first came out.  

5.  Forts.  This has been my view of McKay's bedroom all week.  Sometimes when it's really messy in there, I like to close those doors so I don't have to look at it.  But I've kind of loved looking at this little creative space he's made.  I've been invited in a couple of times...and I have the code word, so I can actually come in there whenever I want.  He and his friends divided it into "rooms" for each of them.  He's slept in there all week.  And I just really love having a 10 year old who wants to do something interesting and fun with his long summer days.  

Hope you're having a great summer!  

18 Summers

My bloggy friend, Amy, wrote a post yesterday on her delightful blog that made my heart ache.  18: How Many Summers Do You Have?  You should wander over there and read it because it happens to be the inspiration for this post.  

Isn't that the thought weighing heavily on everyone's minds lately!  How Many Summers Do You Have Left?  That seems to be the topic of conversation with everyone I meet these days...perhaps it's because I'm the one always bringing it up.  But even after I do, my friends chime right in with their own lamentations about how quickly time has flown in their families, too, and how few years there are left to fit it all the things that still have to be done.  

Savannah is graduating in December, so this is our LAST summer with her!  This may have been a big part of the reason for the impulsive Memorial Day church history trip.  There are clearly NOT enough summers left for all the trips we wanted to take with the kids.  When they were little, Craig always talked about taking a family vacation to France so the kids could see where he served his mission, and so his mission could see the kids!  We haven't yet made it to France or to a lot of the places that were on that original list...Canada, New York, Washington DC, or...Hawaii!  (ugh...how many Hawaiian kids do you know who have never been to Hawaii?? I'm pretty sure that's some kind of cultural irresponsibility that I'm going to be accountable for at some point in the future.) 

It feels like I'm trying so hard lately to hang on to the little pieces of today without fretting too much about how they're going by faster than I would like them to.  But as much as I try to suppress the desperation, I can still feel it lurking beneath the surface.  Every shopping trip...  Every last day of school tradition...  Every family prayer... makes the countdown in my head more and more apparent.  18 years seems like a shockingly short amount of time when your oldest daughter is 17 1/2, and the others are not far behind.  

But...as I was writing my very long comment on Amy's blog post, I had this little moment of clarity and personal revelation...

Craig and I may not have covered the whole list of stuff we wanted to accomplish before our kids leave the nest, but we've done a lot, and they have seen and experienced A LOT in those 17 1/2 years.  They've been to the Everglades, Rushmore, Carlsbad Caverns, Zion, the Grand Canyon, Teton, and Yellowstone.  They've slept in a tent, caught a fish, driven a golf cart and a tractor, and hiked for miles.  They've seen oceans and mountains, lakes and deserts.  They've experienced snow pants and snorkeling gear, ferries, cruise ships, and jet skis.  They've seen alligators up close, had monkeys untie their shoes, and had a picnic with a bear.  And in 2012 they saw the world's largest ball of twine!  But while all those trips are definitely memorable and fun, they're not the only way we can make an impression on our kids.  Even though our days are flying by and filled to the brim with so many demands and responsibilities, these kids are STILL HERE.  No one has actually left yet.    

So, instead of regretting what we don't have time to do, I've been trying to look for the things I CAN do.   I've said yes more often.  Yes to otter pops.  Yes to snuggling.  Yes to staying up a little later.  I've been trying to flop on their beds a little more often, and hang out at the pool WITH them instead of sending them off with friends.  I take the long way home when I have just one kid in the car with me and look for opportunities to hear what's on their minds.  I crawled into a fort made out of blankets last night and just listened to McKay tell me all about his dream car.  And hopefully, one day when they're all out of the house, we can look back and say, "We didn't do everything, but we did enough."

Perhaps those unchecked adventures are still possibilities in our future.  Maybe one of the kids will want to go to BYU Hawaii and we'll get to make a family trip out of setting up a college dorm room?  Maybe we'll just have to take some sons-in-laws and a daughter-in-law with us to NY or DC.  Maybe we'll take GRANDBABIES to DisneyWorld!  Or...perhaps all the things we didn't get to do will become the things that make it on our kids' FUTURE bucket lists for their own families.  

There are lots of stages of our lives that are over, and many exciting ones left to come, but oh, how happy I just am for today.  For this summer.  For these days.  And for the way life looks at this moment.  

Pool Friends

Savannah has been working as a water safety instructor at the Natatorium since March.  She teaches the Sharks and Minnows who are primarily elementary aged kids, and also an occasional water babies class.  And she loves it!  I think we've all known that she has a skill for leading people, but I don't think she would ever have listed "teaching" as one of her talents.  It turns out, teaching is definitely one of her talents.

During the last week of school, she and McKay were the only two at home one afternoon, so she decided to spend some time with him at our community pool.  She wanted to practice her teaching skills, and he just wanted to swim.  They were there for a couple of hours before we got this text from her...

and these videos...

I can't tell you how much my heart fills with gratitude to know that my kids are friends.  The following day, I had a chance to talk to McKay and he said the exact same thing about Savannah.  "She's so cool, Mommy!"  I don't know what about the swimming experience helped them to see each other a little differently, but I'm so grateful for it.  Whatever it takes to help them discover each other is a great thing.   "...just keep swimming..." - Dory 

Summer Goals

Well, the list is up!  That means we're one step closer to summer. 

I LOVE the unscheduled, lazier days of summer, sleeping in a little, and mostly playing all day, but I also like a little structure and some plans, too.  Craig and I started helping the kids with Summer Goals years ago when they were little.  We encouraged them to have a few things they wanted to accomplish during their break as well as some fun things to look forward to.  The kids have made homemade popsicles, hosted a movie premiere party, and opened a lemonade stand in past summers with the help of those little lists.  Planning is a good thing.  Lists are good things.  And combined with a little flexibility and some spontaneous fun thrown in, a few goals make the summer so much better.  I think it's a good thing to be able to look back at the end of a summer and see that's it's been fun...and productive.  The kids still have their individual lists, but we've added a FAMILY SUMMER GOALS list to the kitchen also, mostly to keep us motivated when the summer seems endless and everyone starts to get bored.  (Although with our schedule this year, I'm not sure we've left much time for boredom...)  We sat the kids down earlier this week and asked them what they wanted our summer to look like.  We let them toss out anything and everything, and we mostly included it all on the list.  We may not do all of those things (like Lagoon...blah...I'm kinda hoping we don't have time to fit that in) but it's nice to have some direction to the lazy days and weeks ahead.  

Have I mentioned that I'm REALLY looking forward to the end of the school year?  

smoothies for breakfast...visits to the pool...early morning walks instead of early morning seminary...lots of picture taking opportunities...family vacations...

Hurry up, summer.  I wish you'd just get here already.  

Everglades National Park

On our way back from Key West, we decided to detour through Everglades National Park.  We had all been looking for alligators for over a week and not seen a single one, so we thought the best way to ensure an alligator sighting would be to drive through the park.   

That turned out to be a pretty good idea.

These little walking paths stretch all over the swampy marshes once you get in the park.  Yep, they are technically bridges, so I wasn't thrilled about walking on them, especially knowing that alligators might be lurking below.   But I devised a great plan to only walk on the nails.  That way, if a board came loose or the railing became unsteady, we would be standing on the most stable part of the bridge.  I know...I'm a little paranoid.  But the plan worked, and none of us were eaten by alligators that day.  

McKay looked and looked under every lily pad for one of those alligators, but couldn't see anything.  

We did see tons of these pond apples though.  They just grow wild in the middle of the mangroves and the swamp.  Apparently the alligators and other wildlife like to eat them.  They're very seedy, though, so I don't think they're very delicious for human consumption.

Finally, we saw a little alligator swimming around in the dark water.   Isn't he so cute??  

I was perfectly satisfied to call that an alligator sighting and get off the bridges and back to the safety of the car, but the kids kept walking.

And I am so glad they did!

Around a corner and under one of the bridges, we found these guys...

I did have my zoom lens on for these pictures, but it's not that zoomy.  We were actually this close to these beautiful giants!  We could have reached through the railing and touched them.   Don't worry...we did not do that.  

We lingered for a really long time and just watched these guys.  (We named them Fred, George and Lily.)  They are absolutely amazing creatures.  Unbelievably calm and still...until of course, they decide they want to eat you, and then they become lightning-fast beasts that can bite your whole hand off in seconds.  We gained a great respect for the gator on this little side trip and the kids talked about them all the way to Miami.   Just one more memorable experience to add to the many others we had on our two week adventure in Florida.

Road Trip Day 2

This is what Mobile, AL looks like at 6:00am...

Isn't it beautiful?  We watched this barge come in while we ate breakfast.  Amazing.  McKay was glued to the window the entire time.  I love that the kids got to see something completely different than anything they would see in a normal day at home.  

After breakfast, we took a very long and leisurely drive down the panhandle coast toward our next destination and stopped at Perdido Beach so the kids could put their feet in the sand.  It's like walking in fairy dust.  It's so soft and perfect.

they're all trying to spot crabs in the water...there were tons!

We are loving these Florida beaches and we're looking forward to a few days outside of the Yukon so we can enjoy them!  

 
We arrived at our destination tonight, but once again it's too dark to see what's outside the hotel room.  We drove over so many bridges, though, that I'm pretty sure we're entirely surrounded by water.  We'll find out in the morning. 

Stay tuned...

Weekend Surprises

I didn't even think we were doing anything this weekend, and then all of a sudden we were swamped with invitations for all these fun things!

Friday night, our neighbors invited us to a small town rodeo in Blue Ridge, TX (about an hour from here.)  Their daughter is a barrel racer...very cool!  

While we were at the rodeo, my friend Jill and I made plans to go antique shopping in McKinney this morning.  We got up bright and early so we could be there at 8:00am and start digging through treasures.  Unfortunately I didn't find a reading chair for the bedroom... :(

And about halfway through the rodeo, I got a text from another friend that said, "The boat is free tomorrow.  Wanna come??"  Um...heck yes we wanted to come!  We met our friends at Lake Lavon around noon and enjoyed the lake for almost 3 hours.  

Unexpectedly perfect weekend...friends, treasures, sun and water!

High Five for Friday

What a great week it's been.  I love lazy, unscheduled July days.  Here are a few of the memorable things we did.

1.  Despicable Me 2

I absolutely LOVE going to movies.  And we ALL loved this one.  So funny.  So cute.  It was a great way to spend a belated Family Night this week.  

2.  Patriotic Hymns

I only get to let loose on the organ and play these loud, bold hymns one month out of the year, so this week I picked the BIG ones!  The Star Spangled Banner and Battle Hymn of the Republic.  I LOVE patriotic music at church.  And I have LOVED practicing these all week.  

3.  Festive Fingernails

I NEVER paint my fingernails.  It's too hard to pay attention to the music when I look down and see all that flashy color.  But since it was the Fourth of July, I decided to be festive and try one of those fun, funky ideas from Pinterest.  (The blue ones are supposed to be striped, but I can barely get the paint on without making a giant mess, so I knew stripes weren't going to be a success.)  I got lots of compliments on them last night.

4.  Masses of Cupcakes

I pinned this cute recipe from a blog I love and saved it for this week.  These are the cutest cupcakes and SO yummy.  There are crushed up cinnamon red hots in the frosting!!  And those fun little star shaped marshmallows on top.  Huge hit!  You can find the recipe here.

5.  Fireworks with Friends

Every year, our awesome neighbors have a Fourth of July picnic.  They make brisket and BBQ and provide drinks and chairs, and we bring all the sides and desserts.  And then as the sun starts to set, we throw kids, chairs, and blankets into cars and drive as close to McKinney as we can get, to watch their fireworks show.  This year our smart neighbors brought their truck and we all piled in the back of it to watch the fireworks in the distance.  It was a perfect night.  This unseasonably cool July weather has been such a nice change.

I love fireworks.  I love neighbors.  And I love that Dallas is flat enough that we can sit in Allen and watch fireworks shows in both McKinney and Plano.  It's the one time of year that I don't miss those Utah mountains.  

Hope your first week of July has been amazing and filled with fun, friends, food, and fireworks!

The Pool

Savannah has been nanny-ing this summer for a cute little boy on the other side of town.  Today was a long day, though, and by 1:30 they had run out of stuff to do at his house, so she brought him to our house.  We have more kids, different Wii games, a dog that we're sitting for the weekend (I am NOT happy about that, but it's too frustrating a story...) and a neighborhood pool!  

We grabbed McKay, some snacks, and spent the afternoon playing in the water. 

This is Ezra.  He's 4.  He loves Savannah.  And he loves the water.  

Ezra jumped...

and jumped...for three straight hours.  He's going to sleep so well tonight.  

About 100 of McKay's friends were at the pool today, too, so they all had a blast playing together.

Racing...

Eating...

(they're negotiating the last cracker)

Playing sharks and minnows...

Playing that chicken game that boys ALWAYS play in the water...

And jumping with Ezra...

It was a good day at the pool.  Have I mentioned that I love the water??