Searching for East of Eden...

Amanda switched classes from regular English, with obnoxious immature boys to Honors English this week. I'm glad she was able to switch (based on her grades from last year). I'm very proud of her! The down side right now, is that the summer reading she was supposed to have done for Honors English is two more books than what she already read for regular English 11, so... she has a LOT of reading to do. She started reading East of Eden yesterday... It is a 700 plus page book, and from what I understand heavy reading!

I had a thought tonight, if I had a copy of it as well, I could try to read along with her, and when she is just too tired to read, perhaps I could read aloud to her (and I would know what it was I was reading...).

So, DOES ANYONE have a copy of EAST OF EDEN, just hanging around on a shelf at home, that they wouldn't mind lending to me? and if so, would you mind bringing it to Church tomorrow so I could get it from you? That would be FABULOUS!!!!!! I will go ahead and say thank you in advance!!!!!

Graduation

Rebekah's graduation from Bob Jones High School was on may 19th, 2009. (So much has happened since then I just haven't had time to blog abt it yet.)

When we got there, and the grad's walked in... Rebekah couldn't find us in the crowd so in todays wonderful world of technology... She texted us a message. ;-) Bill texted back, and so it goes...

Suffice it to say, we watched it from the Nose Bleed section of the Von Braun Center Downtown. They had nearly 800 graduates in the senior class. It lasted for over 3 1/2 hours to hear the speaches and to call out all those names and have all those kids walk across the stage. It was nice.

The band plays pomp and circumstance as the Graduates walk in and take their seats. (and Amanda plays the French Horn in the band so she was there in full support of Rebekah's graduation).As the Graduation went along, and they got closer to calling Rebekah's name she was getting more and more excited and antsy... she was getting the other people around her antsy and excited too... they were all bouncing in their seats, and her hands were shaking and bouncing in her lap. She could hardly sit still until they asked for her row to stand and move to the front of the walkway at the stage.

Bill went around to the other side of the arena, since we of course were on the opposite side of the arena from where Rebekah was sitting. From the other side Bill was able to see the Graduates as they came across the stage and down the ramp and stopped for the Photographer at the end. He tried to get pic's of all of the kids we know from Church, and a few of Rebekah's other friends that we've gotten to know over the years as well.Rebekah's Grandparents (Bill's parents) came down for Graduation. (That is twice we got to see them in a few months. More than most years - Often we have not seen them in several years at a time even - mostly when we have lived over seas.)

Just a few short days after graduation, Rebekah went to Illinois to visit with her boyfriend Ryan and his dad.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon...

We've all been a bit busy lately. Ball practices, games, births, playing Wii, work, school, field trips, etc... Needless to say, we haven't spent much time together as a family, rather than running someone here and there.

This afternoon we took a picnic to the park to eat and we had a lovely time. (thanks to the H family for their recent trip to downtown Madison for the inspiration).

Liam didn't eat much. He mostly just ran around... of course his favorite thing to do is run AWAY from anyone trying to 'catch' him. He ran across the street a time or two. At one point we said, don't go in the street! Dad told him to go look at the train tracks (he meant he could go up to that point and look through the fence). We are all sitting down, watching him and all of the sudden Liam flops down on his belly and goes UNDER the fence!!! He's now on the side with the tracks! Amanda was the quickest, and was able to get under the fence and retrieve him! She passed him back over the fence to Sariah. The other people nearby were laughing at all our crazy antics.

Amanda didn't want to go back under the fence as there was no IMEDIATE hurry any more, so she walked around. As she was about back to us, we heard the whistle of the train heading towards us. WoW! That was pretty close timing! I THINK Liam would have turned around and crawled right back under the fence in a hurry, with all the loud noise, etc. of the big scary train!

Later we found out he could just slip right between the bars of the fence... then, that Marissa, and Hannah (just barely) could also slip through the bars of the fence.

Liam also picked some flowers for me, For his sisters, for himself... he blew the dandy lions...

They all had fun playing in the Gazebo. They danced, and pretended they were in the Sound of Music... I am 16 going on 17...

Liam as usual, climbed on everything...

Later in the afternoon when it cooled down a little bit, we decided to take a walk (the kids rode scooters) through the neighborhood. Hannah (and possibly Marissa) thinks she wants to walk -or ride- to school, instead of taking the bus. So we sort of meandered that direction to see about how long it migth take them in the morning... with having to either wait for Liam, or to have to push him along on his scooter, or to have him walk, and one of us would end up having to carry or push the scooter, we took much longer than I'm sure they will in the morning by themselves.

After we walked to the school (across the street from the school) we went over to visit the H family to see their new baby! She sure is a cutie! Then we wandered through the neighborhood again, and finally ended up back home. We spent about 3 hours on our walk/visit. It ws a very pleasant way to spend our afternoon together as a family.

Tonight Sariah finished off the rest of her project. She had to make a totem pole for herself - each animal had to represent her in some way. I thought she did a great job.

Crazy Life

Yesterday morning, I woke up late (it had been a long night with Liam crying that his foot hurt - and I had to rub it over and over and over), then realized I was late for my dentist appointment, and called to say I'd be there as soon as I could with Amanda for her's 30 minutes later. I got dressed, took my make up with me in the car, Liam in his jammies, and got in the van... click, click... I had a dead battery. I put it in neutral, and pushed the van back a little, till it would roll out of the garage and down into the driveway. I popped the hood, got out th jumper cables, and ran to the neighbors... noone was home! I called my R.S. Pres. who lives around the corner, to see if she was home, she actually sent over the missionaries to help me.

I got that taken care of but with the drive to Amanda' school only taking me two minutes, I didn't want to risk turning off the van yet, until it had run long enough for it to charge back up, so I called the school and thankfully our friend K was the one that answered the phone, and she signed Amanda out for me and walked her out so I didn't have to turn off the van.

I got to the Dentist late with Amanda but they were able to fit her in, and they had a no-show, so I got to go after her as well instead of having to try to reschedule! Yay! We even tried to have her look in Liams mouth - I had hoped that by watching me he'd be o.k. with it. Not so much...

From there I had to feed Amanda lunch, and the strawberries we've been waiting on for three weeks came in and I had to go pick them up at noon. So, then we got taco bell drive thru ate in the car and took Amanda back to school. Then, I delivered some of the strawberries, and raced over to the Elementary school. I had been asked to decorate Hannah's teacher's door for Teacher Appreciation week, so I met up with the kids after school and we cut out letters, and put things together and decorated the door. Sariah had a group project to work on that they had to finish up so she went on home ftr helping cut out letters(thank you S's mom for picking her up!). I brought the kids a snack. We ended up working for three hours (between chasing Liam around, etc...)

Then I raced home, dropped off the kids, picked up Amanda and the sewing stuff and went to the church for an Enrichment sewing night. The R.S. helped the Y.W. work on sewing their apron's for the pioneer costumes for the Trek they are going on for Youth Conference, this summer. Thank you to all the ladies who came and helped (as a mother of two daughters that eed two sets of clothes each..., and a husband that is going as a Pa, as well, that we are going to be gathering clothes and supplies for, I REALLY appriciated the help!

Today has been just about as craZy... runnign running running, and I arrived home finally abt. 4:30 p.m. after working for a couple of hours working on a 'Sling for Spring' fashion show as part of the Celebrate Mama event at the Von Braun Center tomorrow.

The girls were supposed to be going to a pre-camp camp out tonight and amanda was supposed to be going on a hike tomorrow, and Bill was supposed to be going to work at the Stake camp tomorrow, and I am doin gthe fashion show and meeting with a new mom afterward... so tomorrow was going to be a crazy day as well. But there is supposed to be a storm tonight, so all camp activities were canceled/postponed, and so now we have a sitter (Sariah is going to dinner with her friend from next door, Rebekah is out for the night), and we are finally taking Amanda out for her birthday dinner, (before Sariah's birthday next week and we have to take her out).

What a week! From a camping trip and working last weekend at Camp Hulaco, to a birth, to sewing pioneer clothes, to decorating a door, it's been crazy, and I still have Jam to make on eof these days when I have/find the time!