Summer...

We have been enjoying our summer since we got back from our trip.  Ashley went to girls camp, Alex went to Youth Conference.  This week everyone is at home and we have celebrated Angela's birthday with the family, and had the first swim meet of the season.  Just a few snapshots...

I had a worldwide leadership training meeting on Sunday (which incidently highlighted my ward and my friends conversion ( Edmond III Ward Video), so the girls went to town decorating the cake I had baked earlier for Angela's birthday.  I'll still get to play with decorating for her friend party cake. :)
She got a build a bear (and clothes and accessories) on the trip for her birthday, so we just had grandparent and great grandparent gifts for her to open on the actual birthday. :)

 

On Monday was the first swim meet of the season.  The team this year is big!  This isn't even half of the kids on the team, but the girls are having fun.  Angela was thrilled to be at her first swim meet after years of sitting on the sidelines watching her sisters participate. :)

Alyssa- Breast stroke

 Ashley- Breast Stroke

 Angela- Frontstroke

 Angela and two other friends- they live across the street and behind us- so fun that they get to do swim team together.

 Ashley- Swam the anchor leg on the relay- she smoked the boy on the other team and they came in first!

Family Trip

Last week was all about catching up after our big family trip.  This week my goal is to get the story of the trip blogged about.  I love to be able to go back and relive the memories and remember what we did and how we divided our time on our vacations.  Check out the family blog newtonaaaa.blogspot.com this week to see pictures and stuff. :)

The kids are staying busy here at home to with swim team, gymnastics, girls camp, scout camp, band camp... we are enjoying the slower pace of the summer, but still feel plenty busy! 

The girls always have a fun time with the camera- as long as its not me trying to take the picture.  :)

Jornaling

I want to journal a little bit about the Moore Tornado that happened this week.  I don't want to forget the multitude of emotions I have felt this past week.

Monday May 20th.  I had a long list of errands that I had to accomplish.  Alex had testing at the school and then a dr's appointment.  I had to go to the store and drop off dry cleaning, go to the post office, and the library.  I had an appointment for my hair to get done after his dr's appointment so I took Alex home, picked up a snack for myself and got my hair done.  Then I ran to the store's and was dropping off library books when I noticed we were starting to get hail.  I decided to skip the post office and was looking up the storm track on my phone as I was driving home and hoping I got home before the big hail hit the area. 

I got home, and turned on the tv to watch the weather.  We were on the north east end of the massive storm and the south end was down past the airport on the southwest side of Oklahoma City.  Within 10-15 minutes of turning it on, I knew our house and where we were wasn't in any immediate danger.  Suddenly they were showing the formation of a funnel and right as I was watching on tv a tornado formed.  I watched as it formed and grew in size and they showed from both storm chasers and from the news chopper the tornado as it slowly chewed it's way across the city of Moore.  I won't deny it, at first it was fascinating and I watched in Awe at the shape of the tornado.  Then I realized how big it had gotten, and how long it had been on the ground and the magnitude of what would be found after the winds died down- became much more real.  I spent much of the afternoon in shock- I couldn't get enough of the news- watching the tv stations, refreshing the websites, scanning through facebook and twitter...

We had planned on having a family walk that evening and it was a much needed break from the horrible destruction we had witnessed that day.  That night as I went to bed there were rumors that the death toll was up to 100... I didn't sleep very well- just tossed and turned and felt a surreal feeling that so much sorrow and destruction had happened.

The next morning we woke up and checked the news right away- the death toll had been inflated unintentionally- through bad communications and multiple fatalities reported multiple times through different channels.  Only 24.  Every single one of the 24 was grieved for and missed, but relief was felt that it was only 24.  Stories started emerging of the heroic acts of those that rushed in immediately following the storm.  Teachers that shielded children, bystanders that tore through rubble to rescue those that were trapped.

Tuesday was a day that I felt proud to call Oklahoma my home.  I can now call it home- I've lived in Oklahoma for more years than any other state in my life and definitely more years as an adult than anywhere else.  I am proud to be an Oklahoman.  My heart swells with love as I witness the donation centers popping up everywhere.  Shelves were emptied of water within hours of the storm where people bought water for the survivors and all the rescue workers.  Armies of volunteers were itching to be able to go in and work.  They did everything they could to line up supplies and donations so the instant they could go back in- they would be ready.  I would drive around doing errands with the AM radio stations on and listen to the stories from the storm and would tear up and have to change the channel because I was feeling so emotional listening to them.

We had a trip planned to leave this week.  While I had been looking forward to the trip, a part of my was sad that we would be gone for the cleanup efforts I knew were being organized.  It was hard to focus on all the end of the school year activities and taking care of getting ready for our trip, while the tragedy took up so much of my mind.  It was in my thoughts and prayers all day long.  We are on the trip now and I am happy to be on the trip, but part of my heart is back in Oklahoma.  I long to be there serving and helping the people there.  There will be many clean up efforts.  There will be many opportunities when I get back home to help and I will cheerfully participate in those. 

And by next year we will have a tornado shelter... because we are now oklahoman's and we don't plan to move anywhere else anytime soon.

Three weeks...

Three weeks of school left, and this momma is ready for summer!! I can always count on finding interesting pictures after the kids have played with my phone.

Conflicting Seasons

Spring? Winter? Spring? Winter? Happy, sad, happy...

The last week has shown gorgeous 80 degree weather, an ice storm, beautiful 70 degree weather, cold rain, warm rain, tornado warnings, hail storms, flooding, and back down to 40 degree weather today.

Along with the varied weather patterns we have had highs and lows emotionally in our lives this week. As I was returning home from some stake meetings Saturday I found out that a new family in our ward had just lost their dad (husband) in a tragic accident. The spiritual filling of my bucket that morning helped as I was blessed to serve the five kids and mom through the afternoon until family was able to arrive.

Ashley had her cotillion dance that night and had a fun time. Monday brought the sadness of the Boston marathon tragedy, Tuesday Alyssa was thrilled to be invited to a higher level gymnastics class, wed one of my closest friends had an emergency hysterectomy, i had some minor problems that sent me to a drs apt and i was able to spend a-while visiting with two wonderful friends and refill my emotional bucket. We had severe weather storms all evening which meant kids didn't go to bed until late.

Today I was happy to be needed by a friend and able to help out, and saddened by the news out of Texas of the fertilizer plant explosion.

Tomorrow is no school- it's "Oklahoma day" on the school calender- it's also the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. We will enjoy a day at home without a school schedule to relax and recharge. To remember those who are mourned, and those who are mourning.

The sadness makes us appreciate the happy times more. I'm just hoping next week bring more happiness and less sadness.

They say....

They say in Oklahoma if you don't like the weather, just wait till tomorrow...

Well I'm loving the weather today, but not what is forecasted for tomorrow!

Speed bumps, Detours, gratitude and happiness

Lately I feel that with every conversation I have with friends and family I hear of the speed bumps and detours and difficulties that have been going on in their lives. Some are just speed bumps. Little things that slow them down that they learn from and pretty quickly get right back up to speed and back to "normal". Others have detours- things that bring them to a stop, and cause them to have to really figure out what direction they are going to go in to get past their detour.

Through all these conversations I've felt immense gratitude at what speed bumps and detours our family has faced compared to some much more serious and dangerous things they are facing and the things we have learned from them.

What I've also observed is the happiness people display as they face these detours in their lives and overcome them. I know we will face many more of these speed bumps and detours. I hope I can remember the gratitude and happiness I've been observing from those around me as they are going through their hard times.

Blogging vs Facebook

I think with facebook I stopped blogging as much.  I've decided that I want to get back to blogging more.  So many times I look back at what I've put here on my blog as a log of what the family has done and how we have handled different things in our lives.  Facebook is fun to post updates and small cutsie things on, but I really should be putting them on here as well.

As is normal in the relationship between a teenager and their mom- Ashley and I disagree on the level of "picked up" her room should be.  Most of the time her clean up jobs are not to where I would like it to be, but I compromise since she is the one that has to live in the room.  Today she wanted to hang out with a friend.  I told her that's fine once her room was cleaned up.  Her friend was in the car and said she had to clean her room too, so Ashley should go home and clean her room and she would clean her own room and then they could get together.  We came home, Ashley dissapeared into her room and I fully expected her to come out in an hour with the bare minimum picked up ready to go to her friends house.  Imagine my surprise when she came out and told me it was clean- and I looked and it really was clean!  I think maybe I need to coordinate with that friends mom and have Ashley and her have the same chores on the same days... I might have less arguments from her about what she needs to do! :)  I also snapped a picture so next time she doesn't understand what needs to be cleaned up in her room I can text it to her and tell her it needs to look like the picture again.

On another note... I'm ready for winter to be done, over, in the books... I know we don't have snow on the ground like others in the country, but it's still much colder than we should be in the south when April is next week! :) I cleared out the gloves and scarves from the car, and had to dig them out again...  I'm afraid we are going to skip right past spring and before we know it will be in our 100 degree summer... I just want spring... weeks and weeks of weather in the 70's or even low 80's... that would be a great birthday present! :)

Spring

Spring Break has come and gone...  We started the week with my startling discovery that the four letter word (Lice) was back at our house.  Frantic bagging of items and cleaning and scrubbing the house down and lots of shampooing and treatments and combing through the infected heads and we got a good jump on our spring cleaning. 

We had a cold overcast week forcasted and thought it might be a little warmer a little south in Dallas.  We did a last minute trip and played at Six Flags for a day and a half.  It was nice to get away, but we didn't have warmer weather down there... it never got up past the low 50's... oh well.  I put up a few pictures on the famly blog (link on the sidebar) of our trip, but I really didn't take many.

10 more weeks of school and then we will be out for the summer... which is turning out to be very scheduled as well. 

I've spent the last hour going through and adding all the summer camps and activities onto our calender.  We should have a pretty busy and fun time between our long family trip to California right as school get's out, girls camp for Ashley two days after we get back, youth conference for Alex the following week and then birthdays and parties to plan, marching band and Alex's first parade on July 4th, Angela's baptism, Scout Camp, High Adventure Camp, Band Camp, more birthday's and parties to plan, and all of a sudden the summer is gone and it will be time for all the back to school hoopla...  And that doesn't even include any softball Ashley wants to play or swim team the girls want to do... I'm sure we'll still find plenty of time to go play at the pool as well! :)

Day in the life... Still going...

SAMs club, unload SAMs club, homework and snack time....

What's for dinner? I've got an hour to figure it out and these clothes that have waited half a week to get folded...

A day in the life... Continued...

After the school program, time to fill the car with gas and grab a drink, and then off to practice a song two friends and I will be singing in sacrament meeting.

Then dropping off schoolwork since Alex has been home with allergy stuff and picking up the next round of work for him.

And then an hour of relaxation with a massage I finally scheduled since i got it in January.

A day in the life....

My kids always wonder what i do all day long, so here is my day in the life...

I'm skipping the wake up, getting kids up and dressed and finding clothes and shoes, backpacks and making breakfast and lunches. And dropping off kids at the schools.

After doing carline at the school i had a half hour to hang out and wait till i had something on my calender. These bleachers won't be empty for long... Dropping in on Alyssa's 4th grade PE program that the 3rd and 5th graders are watching. :) first of a day of multiple things...

Whoa... Sorry!

I haven't posted anything since the cruise last September!! I promise that doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything! :)

The kids are doing well at school, I'm staying busy with primary, volunteer stuff at the kids schools, taxi cab driving, and trying to be better about exercise.

Ill try and get back into a better habit if posting on here... And add some pictures soon. :)