February 2016 update!

February highlights for our family:

More Crossfit for Jason
Drumline and Jazz band for Rhiannon
Subbing here and there for Ver
Piano ensemble recital for Wade
4-Day Presidents' Weekend and Valentine's Day with the Houston Sheens here!
Another blood drive for Ver
Jason and Wade running together
Rhiannon and Wade preparing for ward missionary open house

The usual:  Scouts, Mutual, fun with friends, early morning seminary, lots and lots of homework, church callings, orthodontist visits, work, Ragnar preparation, misc. meetings, etc

It's been a surprisingly fast month for us all!

Tomorrow will be a busy day, too.  Wade will go to the stake's Youth Service Day, a community event cleaning up around the stake center.  Jason will go for a run and oversee garden prep when we get a load of manure delivered.  Rhiannon has a master piano class.  And both kids will be participating in the open house at the church.

All we can say is....TWO MORE WEEKS UNTIL SPRING BREAK!


I have been stressed out the past couple weeks over "first world problems," particularly the neighborhood dog that consistently wakes me up with its barking between 4-4:40 am (I guess I should be grateful that no one else in my family hears it?), school calendar woes (our academic calendar for next year is RIDICULOUS), and our ward's Scouting program.  I'm feeling better about things today, but it's a slow process coming to grips with the very irrational feeling that I need to fix everything.  As soon as I let that go, I start to feel better and my neck/shoulders don't feel as tense.  But I'm not gonna lie--it's been rough for me!  I haven't been sleeping well--a sure sign that I need to chill out because anyone who knows me knows that sleep is usually NOT a problem for me, haha!

Some pics from the last couple weeks:

Derrick, Traci, and their kids Max, Maggie, and Moses rolled into town over Presidents' Weekend, and we had a lot of fun with them!  Adults went on a double date Saturday night (Vietnamese food and Baskin Robbins), we got some walks and shopping in, boys shot guns, we played at the park, ate good food, and checked out Classic Burger and the Indian Wells brewery together, too.  It was a fast, fun couple of day!

Wednesday mornings we have an extra 30-40 minutes before school starts.  It's been nice.  One day I took the kids to Starbucks with me to help me use my birthday gift card that a kind neighbor gave me.  You should have seen us newbie-Starbucks Mormons in there.  We had no idea what we were doing, haha!  We got some delicious hot cocoa and enjoyed baked goods, too.

During my big "Minimalism Game" clean-out, I got rid of a lot of unused items but also found some beautiful treasures.  This Hungarian tablecloth was one Jason and I picked up on our anniversary trip back in 2007.  So lovely!

JASON IS THE BEST!!!  He got me and Rhiannon gorgeous roses for Valentine's Day.  So thoughtful!

Another Wednesday morning pic.  Love these cute kiddoes of ours--they are growing up fast!!!!!

Wade with his friend Tucker Anderson and piano teacher Melanie McDonald.  Wade and Tucker did a great job on their fun duet!

Just one of many gorgeous sunrises this month.  Most of the pictures on my phone are sunrises or sunsets, haha!

February is here!

Wow.  It's February already?  We had a good, fast week.  Here are a few details:

Today (Saturday) is a nice busy day.  Wade went and helped with Scouting for Food (there was a good turnout for that and they finished an hour early--yay!), Rhiannon got a haircut, Jason repaired a TV, I did some sewing repairs and ironing.

Silly boy--when you hijack my phone, I put your handsome funny face on the blog!

Right now Wade is playing downstairs with his buddy Jacob Williams, who had a little free time this morning to hang out, so Wade invited him over to play his Lego Avengers game.  Rhiannon has two babysitting jobs later and is working furiously on her math homework for the weekend.

Last night both our kids were gone to separate birthday parties, so after Jason got home from a grueling Crossfit workout (called the "Crippler"--yikes!), we went hot tubbin', haha!  The hot tub had been on the fritz for a couple weeks, so it was nice to get in and enjoy it after it was repaired.  We both thought we needed to make use of that hot tub more often!

Wednesday was a non-stop day in our week.  Of note, Wade got a well-check physical finally and is doing great.  He is 5 feet, 2.5 inches,now, and right where he needs to be.  The doctor was impressed by his maturity--love that kid.  

One day this week the United States Secretary of Defense came to China Lake for a brief afternoon visit.  Jason didn't get to see him, but he did prepare information for him.  Pretty cool to have a visitor like that in the middle of nowhere!

On Tuesday I took a morning sub job at Richmond.  It was a pretty good deal for me because Wade's middle school band and orchestra was coming that morning to do a performance, and I got to see it! I was so impressed by Wade's playing on the mallet set--he was loud, clear, and on target, and his manners were impeccable (there were a few girls in his band that I wanted to take outside, just sayin').  Very happy to see that he is doing well in the concert band and showing those older 7th and 8th graders a thing or two!

Wade is standing in the very back, just to the right.

I asked this beauty to take a math break and go take a picture for me.  She was excited to get a haircut trim today, haha!  Love this girl!  We are so proud of her!