Reaching out...

Parenting: Touching the Hearts of Our Youth

Family Photos

Our friend Lori took our family photos.

She is so nice and had so many good ideas. 

You can visit Lori's website at http://www.calhounink.com/ and she also has a BLOG! 

I wish blogger had higher resolution because the photos came out so clear.
Thanks Lori!!

John's great-grandfather's hat.

Letting Go

Earlier this week I was decluttering the house, throwing old stuff away and cleaning.  I sat down for lunch and thought about my mental clutter.  I had a lot on my mind.  There was lots to do and even more...there was garbage thoughts cluttering my brain.

I decided to write a few things down that were bothering me.  My short list turned into a pile of things that have been crowding my brain like a disease.  Here's what it looked like:

It's a very ugly sight.  Sadly, there's still more mental decluttering to do.

I put them all out on the counter face-down.  Slowly, I picked up each one.

I let myself feel sad, hurt, or angry about each one ONE LAST TIME.

Then I burned it and let it go to Christ.

It was quite amazing.

It's time to move on with a lot of things.

It's also time to start filling my head with goodness.

Please watch the following post video.

Forgiveness: My Burden Was Made Light

Forgiveness: My Burden Was Made Light

First Day of School!

Ella's first day of kindergarten! 

She's ready to go with her butterfly shirt, striped skirt, side pony, and sketchers.

She walked right into that kindergarten room with confidence. 

I was so proud of her independence.

John rocked the hairdo, nike running shoes, and polo.

...And cried all morning that summer wasn't long enough. 

We found out his teacher a great LDS guy.  It's going to be a sweet 2nd grade.

Great breakfast, chores done, and out the door into the crazy world of elementary school.

Hugs and kisses.

It's all going by so fast.

So you may be wondering what I'm doing while the kids are at school. 

Cleaning and cleaning and cleaning

Laundry

Jogging with Mona

STUDYING

Decluttering

Blogging

Taking care of myself

Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon

Several months ago I saw the movie Julie and Julia.  I thought Meryl Streep did fantastic, but I didn't care for the "Julie" storyline.

When my mom and I went to DC this spring, we happened upon Julia Child's kitchen and the very scene in the movie.  I could have spent hours in there.

Tonight I decided to make the infamous beef bourguignon dish.  After a couple hours of slaving, I ended up with this masterpiece.  In my giant le creuset pot given to me by my mom, it cooked so much faster than anticipated.  Let me just say, the meat fell apart in my mouth and the sauce (substituted red wine with Concord red grape juice) was amazing.  I almost cried.

 Bon Appetit!!

Flagstaff High Altitude Campout

We made it up to Flagstaff for the bus convention.  We had a very scary storm coming into town and were glad we made it driving through the flooded streets.

Painted and ready!

While we were there, a guy pulled up to us in a parking lot.  This was the conversation.

Man:  I really like that bus.

Anya:  Thanks

Man:  You wanna' sell it?

Anya:  [shaking her head no, this being the third person wanting to buy it in the last few days]

Man:  Do you think you can find me one of those nice ones with all the windows in it.

Adam:  Fully restored they cost about $30-40K

Man:  I just bought a $420K car!  I don't care about expensive!  Here's my number if you're interested.

 

No money can buy these kind of memories.

John and a Thing.

Hayride time!

Buses here and there.

More hayride time.  It rained 4 days straight.  But we were so glad to GET AWAY FROM IT ALL.

Sunday we went to church (4 Barrys getting read for church in the bus was so funny!)  In between laughing and pushing each other, we finally made it to the 9am sacrament meeting smelling like campfire.  John and Ella LOVED going to church on vacation...something we will continue.  It really made the trip better.  Then we came back to camp for delicious food!

John and Ella played with other camper kids and John learned how to make friends!!!

I think we used maybe 200 matches to get this fire going.  We just kept laughing.

Wowsers!!

The rain let up a bit so we went for a hike on Monday.  Um...ok, we went for a trek.

Excuse these stretchy running pants.  The hike was 2 miles to Elden summit and two miles back.  2,400 feet above east Flagstaff (altitude over 12,000 ft).  I could not believe John and little Ella trudged up this trail. 

It started to rain and we got scared.  Flash floods are nothing to mess around with.  Coming down the rocks was slippery and Adam and I were nervous.  At church, the people had been talking about flooded homes from the monsoon rainfall.  There was no place to take shelter and I was worried about mudslides.  A family of elk were heading up the mountain next to us and the clouds were rolling down the mountain right behind us.  But we made it safely back, soggy and with minds full of memories.  John had us beat.  He was ahead the whole time. 

We drove through Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon on the way home...then I got grumpy because of the continued rain.  I wanted blue skies.  The next day we went to the water park to enjoy the sun again!  We had a blast going down the water slides!  John kept smiling with his cute front teeth and Ella screamed on the family slide.  Overall, we learned and bonded SO much.  Our family is closer and we found strength in each other.