Caden's San Diego trip

This spring, Caden went to San Diego with the school choirs and orchestra, and had a great time.  He isn't one to share pictures with me, but his friends moms are!  Hooray for that!!  He had a great time with these super friends:

Caden, Ashley Burt and Christian Packer:

Caden doing a (no doubt) impressive whale call on a dinner cruise:

The beach!:

Ashley Burt, Sarah Holloway, Kalli Whiteman, Caden, Anna Chapman, Christian Packer

Christian Packer, Caden:

Ashley Burt, Caden, Anna Chapman, Christian Packer:

Ninja or yoga...who knows??:

8 pull-ups

Back in October I decided that I wanted to be able to do 10 pull-ups by my birthday.  At the time, even though I lift weights almost everyday, I could only do 3.  I started by doing a lot of negatives every other day or so.  This was soooo incredibly HARD!!! After months of this hard work, I happened to be at my parents on my birthday, and I took a test there.  I was able to do eight, which was less than I hoped, but I am still really happy with it!  These pull-ups are the real deal.  I try to drop until my arms are almost all the way straight before going up again. The move has disrupted my routine, but hopefully, I will be able to increase it when things settle down a bit.

Pull-ups turn out to be a great upper-body toner.   Isabelle took some pictures and I sent these pics to Shawn and Kami to ask their opinions about this swim suit I was considering.  I have a hard time deciding things like this on my own...anyways, Shawn texted back and asked if I was flexing my back.  I said, "How do you do that?"  I really didn't know. I was pretty happy about that!

projects

During the process of moving, I fixed up a few things for the new house.

I figured out that you can paint old outdoor cushions and keep them soft by using fabric softener with acrylic paint.  The outdoor furniture looks like new:

I really liked these decorations (below) but am tired of red accents inside the house.  So I put clay all over the unpainted places on these vases spray painted them the new color and then peeled the clay off.  I really like the end result!  And I love transforming things and seeing how long I can make things last by fixing up and recycling:

That time between moving and being moved...

In January, Shawn went over to Pendleton, Oregon to interview for a job there, and I got to go with him!  Everything about it felt right - we really liked the people there, it felt like home and the schools had most of the activities that our kids are into.  We even looked at houses while we were there, and one of the houses immediately felt like the house we were supposed to be in.

Shawn started the job towards the end of February.  He took Evan and Jodi's camp trailer over and lived in it outside of my brother Aaron and sister-in-laws Tia's house.  Then he made the long 9 hour drive home every weekend.  There was a lot of moving things we needed him for, and he was also still the bishop clear up until a week or two before we finally moved out of the house!  While he was gone, I got the house on the market, sold it twice, packed everything up and sold a whole lot of stuff on Craigslist.  It was a busy time, in fact some days were down-right horrible for both of us.  But we made it.  Whew!

This is blurry Pace and I when we took a shuttle to Boise.  I met my mom and dad there after their temple shift one Wednesday, they took me home and Shawn met up with us there. Then Shawn and I went and looked at houses again.  Still felt good about the same one and made an offer.  It was nothing spectacular, but it felt right and nothing else on the market at the time looked even a little bit appealing to us.  Mostly because they all needed gutted and started over on...

This ride with Pace was an adventure.  I packed a lot of snacks for him and also some dollar store toys.  Early on in the ride I offered him a snack, which he accepted.  Then he asked me if I wanted one, and I declined.  He talks very loudly and this time was no exception.  He asked, "WHY?!?? Do these give you DIARHEA???"  Later I had to walk past him in his seat and he loudly announced that I had a very big bottom.  He made the trip more entertaining for everyone, I think!

Shawn was good about skyping the family every morning at 6:00 am.  (5:00 Oregon time, so this was a sacrifice for him) This particular morning, and many mornings, the boys would say, "I get to pray by dad!!" , when scriptures were over and it was time for family prayer.

After prayers, the kids would dive in to talk to Shawn for a few minutes before the morning really began.

One weekend Shawn and I decided that we needed to go over to Pendleton and find a house.  The day we left was HORRIBLE weather.  We counted about 20 cars and two semis off of the road on the way to Boise.  When we were about two hours out of Boise, my dad called to see where we were.  It was their day to work in the Boise temple, and the freeway between Boise and their home had closed during their shift!  He told us that they had gotten a room for us and them to share :D

This ended up being so much fun - I had never had a slumber party with my parents before!!  Once we turned out the lights we lay there talking and laughing.  This was such a fun and humorous event!

The next morning the freeway was open again, and the roads looked just great!  I thought this was particularly beautiful as the sun came up:

brother love

I am loving watching these three boys on the end grow up together! They definitely have their moments, but for the most part they are each others best friends.  They share everything - even their clothes, and play and wrestle nonstop.  Sometimes it feels like I'm surrounded by a bunch of hyper puppies!

I'm glad I caught this one.  Everyone excited to see each other when Pace woke up one morning:

Always lots of time playing with cars and "guys" all over the house and in the dirt:

Pace also loves his grandpa Gee and I need to throw this picture in there somewhere:

group hug:

One of many pile-ups:

Abe was always excited to see Pace when we would come to help in his first grade class:

Goodbye house

We've been moved out of our "Yellow house" for about 3 months now.  That was quite the ordeal; I sold the house once and the family that was going to buy it ended up backing out a couple of days before we were supposed to sign.  We already had packed up and moved out and shipped EVERYTHING to Oregon. I had to quickly get the house back onto the market, and we were blessed that it sold quickly once again.  It was sold in a couple of days, but we still had to stick around, first to show the house, then to keep up with the yard, get all the inspections done, sign papers, etc.  So we all moved in with Shawn's parents for a month, while Shawn continued to work in Oregon and come home on the weekends.  Crazy times, but I am grateful to Shawn's parents, and grateful that I was able to be there for Caden during his last month of high school, and also Maddie.  The original plan had been for them to live with Shawn's parents while the rest of us moved for the last part of school.  I had already pulled the younger kids out of school for the move, so they got an extra month of summer vacation!

We have the BEST memories of this house, and I will probably be documenting this with a tear in my eye because we are currently remodeling a lot of the "new" house we are in and I never enjoy living in the middle of a remodel...

A lot of these pictures I took off of zillow. I really need to get pictures off of Caden's phone and replace these because I can see them so much better

Dining room:

living room looking towards kitchen:

kitchen:

view from the front door:

kitchen towards living room:

View from "the land" towards the house:

kitchen - I probably miss this room the most!:

laundry room:

music room:

I'm missing a lot of rooms that I know we will want to remember.  I definitely will have to revisit this page sometime in the future and add better and more pics.

Friends

My friends are such that we will be friends forever, but as we got ready to leave the area, we tried to get together before I left for good.  All of these friends mean so much to me and I have learned so much from them through the years.  I realized I had no pictures with them and made an effort to document this moment in time:


Amber and I have gotten together at *least* three days a week for the last 8 years!  She is my exercise buddy, and we have had so many great morning discussions about everything under the sun and also solved so many household/family relation problems during our morning exercise sessions.  It made it a little easier to leave knowing that she was also moving a couple of months after us...

I've been friends with CodyAnn ever since I was her visiting teacher clear back when we both had just two kids!  We have spent many the morning on the phone talking while we simultaneously clean our houses:

Tara is such an incredible person!  She always knows when something is going on in my life and gives me a call.  She knows the perfect thing to say or do, is so perceptive and makes anyone around her feel like a million bucks.  She is also one of the most talented people that I know, and has the best laugh.  We always have great discussions when we are together.

Susan and I met in a stake choir practice.  She was one of those people that God orchestrated me meeting right at that time because we both needed each other!  We were both wondering about having another baby - feeling like we probably should.  We were there for each other through that subsequent pregnancy and new- born stage, as both of our husbands were gone so much. Not long after we met, we were in the Stake Presidents office with our spouses at the same time.  They were coming out just as we were going in!  Her husband was called to be the bishop the same time that Shawn was.  We helped each other through that phase too:

I wish I had gotten pictures of a couple more of my friends, but maybe next time.  Also, moving is interesting, because I suddenly realized that I felt so close to so many more people.  Women from my ward.  I know that those friendships will continue to grow and build as they are already making plans to come visit.  I am so grateful for my friends and the many ways they have enriched my life and helped me through trying times.