Family Valentines Dinner & Dance

The YW &YM were assigned the first ward party of the year. The Valentine’s Day party. We have had a couples only party for the last few years and after some discussion decided to switch it up and make it a family party. I think this was a good idea and folks seemed enthusiastic about the switch.The young men were in charge of the decorations and the young women advertising and food. The boys did a great job (thanks Emmalee Silva) and the place looked so cute!  We got big Dale to DJ- which went great. People signed up to bring desserts or salads and we also had a cookie decorating station that everyone loved! I made a fun Valentines Trivia quiz, with a mix of really hard and less hard questions for the adults. The Chronis’ won with 19 out of 30 right, I told you it was hard. Lynlee and I made all the spaghetti. I made the pasta and she made the sauce. 

 Pro tip: when making spaghetti for 100 line your large picnic cooler with foil and dump it in. It stays warm for hours. Also don’t forget the oil in your water. The noodles don’t stick together if you do that.

We had plenty of food and lots of fun dancing the night away! Side note: The elders are good dancers.

Emmalee set up a cute photo booth area too. 

Bub was a big helper and a cheerful party goer. I sure 💕 that boy. 

Korea

Sierra went to Korea with her friend Jin.  They are going to see some Olympic events, visit the DMZ, see the country and hopefully have  a lot of fun.

Luckily she can text:)

She said "it's very cold. And reminds me of New York just with no white people and I can't read anything."

She also said she was prepared for the cold so that's good.

Wednesday

human knot

Commentary does not match the photos:

Monday night we had a nice FHE.  We gathered in the living room and sang a hymn and said a prayer.  Then we read and discussed a couple of chapters of the Book of Mormon.  We ended with family game time.  Grace was the conductor and she said we each had to choose a game and I got to go first.  I chose Kerplunk and it was fun.  Everyone played happily.  Ethan was next and he chose a round of Kerplunk, so we set it up and played again.  Everyone was laughing and having fun.  Dad went next and he chose Kerplunk, clearly a winner :).  Grace went last and she switched it up and had us play Wink.  No one realized it but we were at the table talking and playing for two hours.  This is not our usual and it was really fun.

1 minute charades

Tuesday was super busy.  I am still subbing in the 5th grade class.  Their teacher comes back next week.  So I worked, Rob worked, kids went to school.  Ethan had his second to last soccer game after school.  Grace had choir. Ethan stayed after to watch the varsity team for senior night.  I picked everyone up at 6-6:15, including Brody, we drove thru Carl's for Burgers and then went to pick up Charlotte and Levi for mutual.  

The YM were in charge of our mutual activity and it was a lot of fun.  We played some games, then Jon divided all the kids into groups of 3 and they were supposed to go and prepare some 1 minute skits.  That evolved into as many skits as they could get the other kids to guess in a minute.  They were supposed to pick scripture stories to act out.  Ethan's group was so.stinkin.funny!  They did 7 quick stories and we were rolling.  The one above is Joseph being stripped of his coat of many colors and sold into captivity.  My favorite was when Curtis was walking on water and Ethan (Peter) saw him from the boat (the table behind them).  Curtis beckoned him and E hopped out onto the little tiny water bottle and like a logger in a log rolling contest he shuffled over "walking on water". 

All of the groups were good but the Levi/Curtis/Ethan team was the hands down winner.

On the way home we had to stop at Walgreens for some school supplies for a project and then Ethan and Brody played xbox all night.  Brody spent the night because the high school was out today.  I don't know why.

last one off the field....every time.

This morning, for some bizarre reason both my alarm and Rob's didn't go off.  Unexplainable. R woke up at 7 and startled me awake with a shout of "it's 7!!" I leave the house at 5-10 after.  Yikes.  We bolted from the bed.  I brushed my teeth, hopped into my jeans and ran out the door.  Grace had to get her own lunch and R took her to school.  We all, miraculously, made it on time. 

When I got home from work I took E to practice, no school does not = no practice.  When I picked him up I was a few minutes late but that is not a problem as he is always the last boy on the field.  If anyone wants to stay and kick that ball he is game. This was the last practice.  Tomorrow is the last game. Tomorrow night he starts practice with his tournament team. Half an hour after the last game.  Phew, I was worried he'd have a long no soccer fast.

Today after practice I dropped him off at a new family in the ward's house to help unload their moving pods.  The 3 Harvey boys also went.  Those are good boys. After that he gets to go help R set up for the Emergency Preparedness Fair.

Tonight Grace is making dinner.  We won't eat until 8, when everyone is finally home. But that's okay.

Saturday

Alayna, Grace and TrucMia contemplate

We had to wake up at 5:30 this morning.  On a Saturday morning.  This is later than our normal weekday wake up time but still how rude!  We drove to Bakersfield for a robotics competition.  We were actually delighted, fine with going and had a good day.  It's fun to watch Grace be with her friends doing something she likes. They did better than last year, and better than 2 months ago.

Grace's turn to pilot the bot

We had an eating out day.  When we got there, and the team got checked in, R and I went around the block for breakfast at McDonalds.  I actually really like their oatmeal.  We brought a sandwich back for Lu.  Then for lunch we went to a Korean bowl place that I thought was yummy.  When we got home around 5pm Bub wanted to go to buy donuts.  We went to tasty donut and saw Captain Tony's pizza right next door, which we had never tried and Bub said he didn't want spaghetti, which was our dinner plan...so we tried it.  The pizza was really good.  While we waited for it to be ready we browsed the Mexican grocery store and chose some cola's to try.  The Mexican cola was really good.  The tamarind was not.

Bub and I found some soda to try

We got home with our dinner and found Grace and R working on her first personal progress project.  She is going to grow a garden. When Grace puts her mind to something she is usually good at it so I am looking forward to seeing what grows.

personal progress

Prepping the ground and getting the seeds started was step one.

the dirt is hard

Today was a good day because I got to talk to all the kids!

Jenna is doing well.  She quit her job and is now a stay at home dog mom while she waits for the twins to arrive.  She and Clayton bought a Subaru a few months ago.  (this is relevant in a second).  Clayton is doing well and we had a short but fun chat with them while they made breakfast and got ready for a hike.

Sierra bought a new car today.  An outback!  She is super excited.  Also she is feeling well and Wednesday she and her friend Jin are leaving for Korea to watch the Olympics.  How exciting!!

Dani is good.  Today she bought a new car.  A minivan, which we will drive to Ohio this summer!! So fun!  I'm excited for the girls and their new cars:)  Also look at this cute Penny.  Greg is good too. He and Rob are planning a fishing day when R goes to Utah for work later this month.

fairy tale day at preschool 

Lastly I talked with Hannah and Kenz...who were going to the taco bus, not buying new cars:)  They are both doing great in school and were having a girls night tonight.

vegan Emma, Kenz, Sierra and Han

tonights fun text

Lastly I got this funny text tonight.  I love the sweet faithful people I work with on the ward council.  This year our ward starts at 1pm.  Do you know what that means?  It means we get to sleep in out Sunday mornings!!!

Winterball

Grace is in ASB. This means she needed to go to the dance tonight. It’s her first one.

She didn’t tell me until Tuesday. Then last night she said “can we go to the store and buy a dress? I only have church dresses.”

So no. But fortunately for her she is daughter #5 which means we have at least 12 dresses hanging around. She tried on a couple and decided on this pretty cream colored one. 

She didn’t want me to take her picture but I told her it was mandatory. (She’ll be glad some day). When we got to the school I hopped out with her and took a couple more pictures. 

Now bub2 and I are at chilis reliving the game we just lost and having molten chocolate cake. 

Happy it’s Friday!

Busy

It’s actually quiet in the classroom right now...for the first time in over a week. A teacher had to have her appendix out and I am in her class every day until she’s back. We are anticipating that will be the 3rd week of  February. It’s a 5th grade class that is kind of awful. They are noisy and low and it’s been hard and I can’t wait to be done. 

Right now though, this minute, while I sit exactly next to Steven and remind him every 8 seconds to get to work, and while I field questions from the rest of the class and read the notes that are slipped to me saying “Billy moved seats” or “Felicia is holding a pen” I have a minute of quite and time to catch up.

Plus also I have been sick, just the stuffy nose & cough & cold but the combo is no bueno.

For mutual this week we learned about being the Saviors hands by serving others and turning our face towards him by following his commandments and reading and praying and being like him. Then we gave each other facials and manicures and ate chocolate. These girls are a bright spot. We are dwindling in numbers though, so I worry about the girls we don’t see very often, and worry about the ones that come (are we meeting their needs) and praying for move ins! 

We are nearing the end of this soccer season. We won yesterday and we continue to enjoy the games. It’s been great. 


Other than that we have wedding planning going on, I think I found a dress I like. We have a robotics competition this weekend, we clean the house (always always) and count down to twins and wedding and summer and Hannah’s endowment, and spring break, and Ethan’s court of honor, and warm weather. We are blessed with lots of great things to look forward to and lots of good things to be busy with right now.

Also we’ve been enjoying nature. Yesterday Grace and I stopped on the road and watched this beautiful hawk. Eventually he flew off but we got pretty close. And yesterday was also the super blood blue moon. It looked really neat. Orangey from the eclipse and kind of biggish.

Sunday

We had stake conference today. It was really good. President Crawley spoke and then we had a broadcast from Salt Lake. I really enjoyed the talks and seeing friends from the stake. 

Tonight we shared dinner with the missionaries. The kids worked on homework. 

It was a quiet day, and a nice day. 

Hannah and Sawyer went to Midway to the ice castles. Laynah is a very good instagrammer and it was fun to see their adventures.

Clayton is sick. He sent me this picture tonight. It said “Jenna won’t let us in the bed”. Poor boys. 

I don’t blame her though, neither does Clayton. She can’t get sick.

 It reminded me of the beginning of throwup fest 2002. We were in Ohio for Christmas and Rob got so sick. It was awful. Ethan was 6 months old and slept with us and I eventually took him and we went to sleep in the cave. Nana was left to take care of R. I really didn’t want that little baby to get sick. 

He didn’t but the rest of us did. That was our worst illness. Everyone puking, everyone with diarrhea. Sierra fainted going to the bathroom. When it was my turn I couldn’t even move. R brought E to me and helped us nurse, then he’d take him away until he was hungry again. It was a nightmare, but I digress. Luckily Clayton doesn’t seem that bad off.