senior pictures

 

 

 When you take Senior pictures, you try to capture who your Senior really is.  I have seen pictures of kids proudly standing with their cellos or in their full  baseball uniform, dirt still on the knees from that last exciting game even.  I have seen some really fancy in tuxedos or ball gowns and some pretty casual.  I have even seen some with kids faces surrounded by candy!

 (that would actually be something that I would do, if they did fancy things like that way back then!) 

 

We started out Kara's shoot at the Thanksgiving Point Gardens, one of her very favorite places.   We took a ton of pictures and they turned out great, but when anyone thinks about Kara and what her passion was all throughout high school, it wasn't the gardens. 

 

 

 

 

Kara's passion was her school.

 

  She devoted 4 years to Student Government.  She was completely devoted to her classmates, to her teachers, to the sports teams, the choirs, the band, the drama department, even the FFA.  She attended hundreds of sporting events, plays and concerts.  She was involved in every pep assembly, spirit bowl, and fundraiser.  She painted her face, her clothes, and what seemed like endless posters in Caveman colors.  She stayed up until the wee hours of the night planning and decorating for every school dance. 

 

She was at that school more than she was at home. 

 

 And so we decided that that is where we should take her pictures.  We grabbed an old desk from a neighbors garage, an apple and that worn out sweater and we made our way to good ole AFHS.

 

And that is when she came alive. 

 

 

 

 

And that is our Senior. 

 

Most comfortable in her gray t-shirt, her worn out Vans, swinging on a swing or sitting on the bleachers of her beloved school. 

 Always smiling, always friendly, always doing her best to make it the best day ever for everyone she meets. 

 

That is Kara.

 

I think they're gonna miss her.

 

nerd herd

 

I was lucky enough to spend the evening of my birthday at the scholarship banquet at the high school.  I was lucky enough to watch my beautiful daughter get recognized for her hard work and her amazing intelligence.  I was lucky enough to spend one last evening with her in the halls of this great school that she loves so much.  I was also lucky to cheer on and congratulate so many of Kara's friends who were also there.

 

  Kara and these friends nicknamed themselves the Nerd Herd way back in 7th grade when they were first grouped together in their advanced  English/History class.  They were a studious bunch.  They were serious about school.  They loved their honors and advanced classes.
 They grew to really love and respect each other.
And yes, they were in fact, a little bit nerdy. 

 

 

As this Nerd Herd grew and matured they remained studious, they still loved their advanced classes, but they relaxed a little, grew into their own, found their little niches in the high school society and their nerdiness kind of faded.  And through all of the changes and growth they always remained close.  Really close.  It was fun to watch their friendship.  It was fun to hear Kara say during her Senior year, "Mom, all of a sudden all of the popular girls are in love with my friends."
 These nerds were nerds no more. 

And so we gathered in the high school auditorium to celebrate their achievements and to celebrate all of their hard work in all of those hard classes. It was a great celebration.
 Here are Kara and Reese showing off their identical scholarships.
  Now isn't that cute.

 And, come on, admit it, a little bit nerdy.

And this birthday girl thinks a full tuition academic scholarship to BYU and a Regence scholarship on top of that is one of the best presents she's ever received. 

Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday.
Happy Birthday to me!


 

 

just call him beckham

 

 

 

There is nothing unusual about our family and soccer.  There is nothing unusual about a typical Saturday involving 3-4 games at multiple fields. 

 

There IS something unusual about us being there to watch this kid.

 

Tyler hasn't touched a soccer ball since he was 5 years old.

 

 

That is no longer the case.

 

Out of the blue, he and a group of friends, decided to join a rec league.

And I don't think this league will ever be the same.

 

They call themselves Liquid Gold.

They have a laid back, but dedicated coach.

They look forward to every practice and every game.

They run and sweat and laugh a lot.

And they are a ton of fun to watch.   

 

 

Tyler is already talking about how sad he will be when the season is over.  He has already planned to play with these guys in the fall and then again in the spring. 
He is happy.
 Soccer is really making him happy.

 And that makes me happy.
It really does, even if it means adding another game to our already crazy Saturdays.

Bring it on Liquid Gold.
Bring it on!






graduation #1

While most people were getting ready to watch the Solar Eclipse, at exactly 7:33 p.m, the first one in I don't know how many years, our family was sitting in the chapel watching instead, a beautiful girl receive her diploma for attending four fabulous years of Seminary.

By the time we got outside for pictures the Solar Eclipse was over, after all it only lasted a couple of minutes.  But the things my girl learned over the last 4 years will truly last a lifetime.

Kara loved Seminary.  Really loved it.

 She never missed a day.  She had incredible and dedicated teachers.

She shared with us every week what she had learned.  

She said she felt the spirit every day, every single day in that class.

She has a lot of people looking up to her, following in her footsteps, listening to what she says, and watching what she does.  I am so grateful for her years in Seminary and for her example to me and her knowledge of the scriptures. It was a priority to her, her most important class.

 And I am thankful for the inspired program of Seminary.  

Four years.

Four books of scripture.

Four years of testimony growth.

And that, my children, is better than any eclipse.

what 25 pounds will do...

....when you drop it directly on your foot.

Weights are for lifting Brandon, not dropping.

Try to keep that in mind next time.

economics fair

Third grade is a busy year at the Elementary School.  

We had barely finished the big Invention Convention when it was time to start thinking about the big Economics Fair.  Alyssa had to come up with some "goods" to sell at this big event.  In the past we have done pet rocks, bottle rockets and gummy sea creatures.  Alyssa chose magic water (a water bottle with a punch packet and a straw taped to it), popcorn, and an exciting game.

She gathered her supplies, made her signs, put on her best sales person smile and she was open for business.

 

The kids had all been earning special money from their teacher all month long to spend at the Fair.  

Alyssa had earned a lot.  

It was all very exciting.

This is the best picture I could get of this game.  It is called Verticon and my kids love it.  There are a whole bunch of different balls with different characters on them. (In the real game you get to attach teeny tiny weapons to the balls, but her brothers were afraid the teeny tiny weapons would get lost, so Alyssa had to go with just the balls.)  Her customers picked 2 balls to go to battle.  They put them both in the game, Alyssa flips the switch and they both dance in the air until one of them finally falls out.  The customers would try to guess which one would win.  If they got it right they got a piece of licorice.  This was a hit.  Boys were gathered around playing round after round.  

Alyssa was thrilled.

After all was said and done this little business woman was happy and quite successful, I might add.  She sold out of everything.  She also very much enjoyed doing a little shopping of her own.

 And I love this picture. 

 Just look at that classroom, full, busy, bustling with excited happy kids. Alyssa is lucky.  All my kids are lucky.  They go to a great school where they learn great things.  

And I was lucky to get to spend this fun day with her.  To watch her interact, to see her smile and to do a little shopping myself!

old

Kara was whining and complaining about her upcoming birthday.  She was excited to celebrate a birthday and to get presents, she just didn't want to turn 18. 

 

 She kept saying her "fun" life would be over.  

She kept saying she didn't want to become an adult.  

She kept saying, "what's there to look forward to after 18?" 

She kept saying, "I am going to be SOOO old!"

So, it was actually quite simple for me to decide on a theme for her big day.

My daughter, at the tender age of 18, was officially

 OVER THE HILL!

She started out her celebration of this dark and dreary day taking a big ole Calculus AP test.  How fun is that? After she recovered from all those numbers swimming around in her head we made our way to Tepanyaki, where we usually end up on her birthday.

Tonight I think she actually caught the shrimp.
Not bad for an old lady.

She managed to unwrap several presents despite her gnarled arthritic 18 year old hands.

She gummed down some cake and ice cream with her 2 besties.

And she even hobbled over to be measured for the very last time on the measuring stick.

(Her notch hasn't changed in the last 4 years.)

This girl, my baby, now joins the ranks of us old women.  

She is 18.  She is an adult.  She is old.

But, what she doesn't realize yet, is that her life is just beginning.  That the best is yet to come.  That she has so so much ahead of her.  She doesn't realize that becoming an adult is exciting and full of adventure and more fun than even she is used to.  

Nope, it's actually not that bad to be over the hill, speaking from experience, especially when you are as outgoing and happy and beautiful as this 18 year old of mine is.

Happy Birthday Kara, you old bag, you!
 

I love you to pieces!

the removal

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

Along with a little sushi to celebrate!


(And we are going to enjoy every minute of this beautiful smile, for six months at least, until he gets braces put back on again.....will it ever end?!)

the big sale

We went to the first meeting in January, not really knowing much about this "Heritage Tours" Senior trip.  But by the end of that hour long meeting, while sitting on the stairs in that cold high school cafeteria, I was certain of one thing.  

Kara had to go. 

I had felt the spirit very strongly that night and I had to hide my tears from the other parents and students and even from Kara. 

 I just knew she had to go. 

 And as I sat there I became determined that I would do whatever I had to to make that possible.  

The price was $2,500. 

 Steep, especially for the unemployed.  

I laid in bed that night racking my brain for a way to make it happen.  I could work at Hobby Lobby until I had saved the money.  Babysitting?  Weeding?  I thought seriously about having Trevor, Kara and I sell our plasma. 

And then in the wee hours of the night it came to me. 

I would have a garage sale.

Now this was not going to be just any garage sale.  Oh, no.  This was going to be spectacular, if a garage sale can earn that sort of adjective.  My sisters and I are frequent garage salers.  It is a past time we love and hate at the same time.  We are often times frustrated with false advertising (don't claim it is HUGE when you have one card table with some knick nacks on it!).  We hate dirty garage sales and we love organized ones. We also have an issue with prices.  If it is a garage sale it needs to be cheap people!  We don't really care how much you paid for it originally or what fancy store it came from.  We pretty much want it for a dollar or less. 

This was my chance.  My chance to hold the perfect garage sale.  Clean, organized, well advertised, loads of stuff and dirt cheap.  I had never had one before (Trevor is kind of against them, he believes all

excess should be donated to DI) but with Trevor's blessing, just this one time, and with the help of my sisters we were up for the challenge.

First, I contacted everyone I knew.  I asked them if they had anything sitting around that they were going to take to DI.  If they did I would take it off their hands for them.  I explained my purpose, pleaded my case and.the response was completely overwhelming.  For the months preceding the big sale, my garage was stuffed and stacked with more items than I could have ever imagined.  

My basement looked like a clothes store had exploded. 

 I was overwhelmed with gratitude for my friends and family, for their kindness and generosity.

In the 2 weeks prior to the sale, my sisters and I worked for hours and hours each day.  We sorted all the clothes into gender and sizes.  We cleaned and sorted and taped up tons of toys, making sure all the parts were there.  We bundled gobs of bedding sets.  We washed strollers and bikes and fish tanks.  We tested TV's and electronics and labeled everything.  We divided all of our merchandise into categories, kitchen, bathroom, decorations, holidays, outdoor, etc. We sorted books, hundreds of them into different genres (are we crazy?).   And then we priced every last item.  And we priced them cheap!

It was long, hard, dirty work.

And believe it or not, we loved every minute of it.

(This is the toy section)

We were up until about 1 a.m. getting ready the night before the big sale and then up at 5 a.m. to get it all set up.  In the dark we pulled out tables and laid out clothes and golf clubs, and power tools and dining room sets and beds and desks and weight sets and skis and snowboards and costumes and cribs and area rugs and lamps and potty chairs.

And by about 6:45 the people came.

And we were officially open for business.

We always had the customer in mind so we also provided baked goods and donuts, soda and water.

(Can you see the line of strollers?  I think we had 15  for sale!)

And you want to know what else we had.  We had lines.  I am not kidding.  There was usually a line of about 5-10 people waiting to pay.  I kept looking at my sisters and mouthing the words "we have a LINE at our garage sale!"  At one point we had 30 cars up and down our street.  We even had Silas working his Spanish magic with all of our Spanish speaking customers.  

It was amazing.

We each overheard several people say that this was the most organized, clean garage sale they had ever been to.  

My little clean organized heart was bursting with pride. 

And as a true and real answer to a humble prayer we far exceeded our needs for Kara to go on her trip.

This trip that I knew she needed to go on.

And I couldn't have done it without the help of so many people.  I am indebted to my good ward and neighbors, to Kara's friends who spent hours helping us, to my kids and husband who practically went without a mother and wife for almost 2 weeks, and to my sisters who worked, literally as hard as I did.  

I am so thankful.  So very thankful.

After it was all over and we had hauled the last thing to DI, swept off the driveway and re-fluffed the grass, Brandon said to me, "Mom, that was totally fun! Can we do it again next week?"

My answer was a tired to the bone, exhausted......"NO!"

 

A blast from two pasts

While cleaning out my closet a while back I happened upon Grandpa Rex's mission journal.  I have no idea why we even had it and what it was doing in my closet.  I flipped through it and a thought came to my little head.  I headed downstairs and grabbed Trevor's mission journal and on a whim decided to act on my little thought.  This little whim turned into a very meaningful, insightful and spiritual evening for our family. 

I love when that happens.

My little thought was this: 

Let's take these two mission journals and have each of the kids look up their birthdays in both of them and read what happened on those days, the future birthdays of their still in heaven children and grandchildren.   We gathered in the basement one Sunday night and we opened up these precious journals from the great Germany Hamburg mission and the mighty Colorado Denver mission, and the birthday reading began. 

Here is what we learned:

First of all we were delighted to find out that both missionaries served over a Leap Year.  And not only that, but both missionaries dutifully wrote in their journals on February 29th.  Now that's pretty lucky.

February 29, 1964- "Leap Day"  The lessons in German were coming slow.

February 29, 1988-  It was a P-day and dad listened to Chariots of Fire on his walkman (the kids laughed for about 20 minutes picturing dad rocking out with a walkman, that is once we explained to them what a walkman was)  Also, an investigator claimed to have seen the first vision movie by ESP.  He claimed Joseph Smith had a sunburned face and he floated over a field.

March 30, 1964-  It was a P-day for Grandpa.  He toured older parts of Hamburg Germany.  He also wrote a letter to Nancy and said, "I still wonder about her sometimes." 

March 30, 1988- Dad was up at 5:00 a.m.  He saw the Denver Temple, met his new companion, wants to work at the M.T.C. when he gets home (which he did for 3 years) and wrote in bold letters "I LOVE MY MISSION!"

May 16, 1964- Grandpa practiced his songs for the mission conference.  He claims his solo was flat.  He also taught a "4th" and someone decided quite suddenly to be baptized.

May 16, 1989- Dad greeted a new set of missionaries, played the piano, conducted a meeting, visited an investigator and ate free at Burger King.  He said, "The church is true! I love my mission!  I am so blessed!"

August 18, 1964- Grandpa tracted, taught a 1st discussion and wrote letters.  He and his companion also took "goofy" pictures with their cameras.

August 18, 1988  P-day for dad.  He went running and played tennis.  He delivered a birthday card (it was his idea to give birthday cards to all the members of the ward) and had a lunch appointment.  He ended the day listening to a tape from Joel and being grateful for the good friends he has.

September 1, 1964- Grandpa got a letter from Merlin and Sally telling him that they were "in love"  He was on a spiritual high after receiving that letter from home.  He also said he knew Nancy was the one for him (how do you feel about that Grandma?)  He closed with this quote, "I could have kissed the whole world!"

September 1, 1988- "We are puny, unpowerful wastes of time here on this earth as missionaries!"  That's how his entry started.  He was very discouraged, very down, very depressed.  A hard day in the Colorado Denver mission, that's for sure.

October 28, 1963 Today was the first official day of Grandpa's great mission in Germany.  He was up at 6:00 a.m.  and was instructed by Richard L. Evans and Boyd K. Packer.  He also attended a foot care class.  He was very excited to be starting the best 2 1/2 years of his life.

October 28,  1988- Dad carved pumpkins at a members house after their dinner appointment.  They gave them a gallon of apple juice to take home and a bag of candy with a $20 bill inside.  Dad was thrilled.  He also did more birthday visits, handed out BOM's and phamplets and studied.

November 26, 1964-  Grandpa attended a district conference on this Thanksgiving day.  He thought a lot about his family who were probably cutting up the turkey as he wrote.  He, wrote, "I am thankful for my many many blessings, especially my family and my testimony.  MY CUP RUNNETH OVER!"

November 26, 1987- Thanksgiving Day!  Dad went to a members house for a Thanksgiving feast, then went to another member's house for another Thanksgiving feast, then went to yet another house for a final Thanksgiving dinner.  Yep, that's our dad!

Together these two great missionaries journaled over 1,460 days. 

 

And out of those 1,460 days we chose only 7 special days to read.  And even though we only read 14 entries, we learned.  We learned a lot.  My kids learned that missionaries get up early, they tract a lot, they need to take care of their feet, they are asked to play the piano, they may get to celebrate certain holidays or they may not.  They learned that learning a language can be hard, that girlfriends may not last, that the spirit testifies and converts people.  They learned the importance of writing and receiving letters, that good friends and their examples are still important, and that some days on a mission can be very very discouraging.  They learned how important members are to the missionaries, that companions can be frustrating, that you can do fun things on p-days and they learned what a walkman was. 

 

 But most importantly, they learned that their Grandpa and their dad were valiant missionaries.  Valiant missionaries who worked hard, never gave up and who testified daily of the truthfulness of this glorious gospel.  Valiant missionaries who truly loved their missions.

And to that I say:

 

Hoorah For Israel!
 

And Hoorah for journals!