Happy First Day of School, 2013!

So excited to go to school today! Well, mixture of excitement and anticipation... 2nd, 5th, and 7th grades.  Stephen did his first mustache shave this morning! He was pretty happy when he found out today that the principal hand-picked him to be her front office aid "because he was so friendly and would best greet everyone who came into Doerre" - cute!

 

Glad that Kenny was happy this morning; he sobbed himself to sleep last night after realizing that Geneve was taken from her mommy. "How could we do that to her? She doesn't have a mommy now mom! She must be so sad and lonely... why did she have to leave her mom?" It was so seemingly random, but after much discussion, it all came out that this stemmed from him not wanting to leave me for school for 8 hours, and on top of that, not ready to leave for 2 years for his mission. It was all quite traumatic... here they are finally asleep hand-in-hand. Not posed.

 

Helping with an eagle scout project - building a huge deck at a park

 

Stephen's first Missionary splits!

Inspired by his older cousins (Cannon on his mission in Arizona, and Sterling's recent trip to Trinidad with Uncle Sterling where he did missionary splits), Stephen told our elders about his cousins tonight at dinner, and they invited him out to do the same thing... AND HE DID! What a feeling -- watching him bike away with these 2 fine missionaries... very hard to express those emotions! We were so proud that he hopped right on his bike and took off.  I wanted to follow him in my car... 8-)  (I didn't)

Spending the night with Aunt Tiffer is the best -- Kas lost a tooth and forgot her contact case, but Tiff took care of it all...

right after she came and taught a missionary class to our YW! She rocks!

 

Loving going to HP with Dad for "Take kids to work Day"

 

 

CBAW:  Cousin Backyard Airsoft Wars

Nighttime conversation between Maxwell, Kenny, and Mel after they were in bed:

 

K: Mom, were you ever in the navy?

Mel: Nope, I sure wasn't. Why do you ask?

K: Well, it was one of my favorite things when we went to Nauvoo and I got to stand up with Papa when they thanked all the military people at the end of that show, and he was in the navy.

Maxwell: No Kenny, Grandpa spied on the Russians.

K: He did? What does that mean?

M: I just know that my Dad told me that he spied on Russians and couldn't tell anyone about it, and it was a big secret.

K: Hmmm. {pause} Mom, did Grandpa have a sad childhood? (Like, what was the connection there? Maybe that if he had a sad upbringing, he'd move into a delinquent career like spying??)

Mel: No! He was a great little kid, and grew up doing all kinds of fun things, and was a cool dad. I remember when I was younger, he raced me all the way from his office to the car one day and he totally beat me, and Grandma told me he was the strongest man she's ever known.

M & K: Wow. That's so cool.

Summer vacation to Nauvoo!

We may have set a new record with 2000 miles and 76 pics/videos in 4 days on our spontaneous trip to Nauvoo, Illinois this weekend!  Best way to start a roadtrip: just stop off at Aunt Jenny's house to pick up some CD's and get the royal treatment with dinner-to-go, car snacks and trip goodies! Thanks Jen!

Ahh, the memories of Oklahoma Quik Trips...

 

And after 17 hours of driving, we're in Carthage ~ great experience seeing Joseph Smith's Jail

Beautiful Nauvoo temple

 

Lucky us, to meet up with Mom and Dad there too!

 

 

Such fun shops... Blacksmith, schoolroom, brickyard...

 

 

Grandpa launching Kenny in the pool...

 

 

Then Kenny launching Grandpa!

 

 

It was fun to be in the car together for so long ~ it made us miss our weekend European adventures. But this was great too!