Switching

January 1st means fresh starts, right???? So, here we go.... a lot of "technology" updates and then I can hopefully put it all out of my mind and get back to real life.

First, I am moving my "posting" over to my new website here:

http://www.jamierobynwood.com

I will still keep this blog operational so that when I want to post information about my kids for family members and friends there is a place for it to go. Although to be honest most of my pictures are on Instagram now. Speaking of social media....

My private Instagram can be found @boogaliechoo  That is a friend and family account for my children's privacy.

My public Instagram can be found @jamierobynwood  That will have more posts about my writing and such.

I am trying (aaaaahhhhh!!!) to connect my Instagram so that it posts automatically on my Facebook and Twitter accounts.  Twitter is - once again - @jamierobynwood

I don't want to spend too much time logging into Facebook and Twitter, so I won't look at replies or comments or messages there. I must limit my social media consumption so that my munchkins don't think I love my phone more than them, and I am limiting it to Instagram.

So exciting!!!!  Isn't this such an entertaining post!!!!!

Judging Homeschool - Part One

One of the things I promised myself when we began homeschooling was that I would think about it a lot to make sure that it was really the right thing for our family. With five weeks under our belt and a two week break for the holidays, it has seemed like a good time to discuss with myself how things are going.

Fact #1 – We are doing just fine! I do not feel that by having my kids at home they are getting behind academically.

For Math we are staying on target with their school textbooks and supplementing with Khan Academy online. (Ellie is 94% done with Khan’s 3^rd grade Math, and Meg is 46% done with Khan’s Early Math, which goes through 2^nd grade).

With English, our family has always done a lot of reading. We are adding in grammar and memorizing, which I feel is great. And also some skills about summarizing and narrating – which drives Ellie crazy and will certainly help with essay writing. I’ve felt a little bit low on the writing side, but we are joining a “Great Books” seminar for the second semester that will fill in that gap for us.

Fact #2 – I was wrong about the school not getting enough done each day! There’s no other way to say it, I was just wrong! Perhaps not all the teaching was “on level” for my children, but the fact that elementary schools get through all those topics (math, English, social studies, singing, gym class, art, science, etc.) is downright amazing! Obviously my children never ate lunch – which is a problem – but 100 gold stars for all that other stuff. Whew! I cannot possibly figure out how to “get it all done” myself.

Our family has followed a monthly topic for our Science unit. We did Magnets in November, and Stars in December. We have done a few experiments, watched some YouTube videos, and made a solar system out of bouncy balls, but I don’t feel that my science curriculum is blowing their minds.

For history we are reading “History of the World.” I like the text, and there are some great enrichment activities to go along with it. I need to read ahead for the next semester so that I can schedule in more of the “heavily-prepared” activities. We’ve mostly been coloring maps, and I know they would like to do more.

For art, we have done two sewing projects. Um, that seems a little pathetic. Especially since we haven’t finished the second! Part of the problem is that we’ve gone to homeschool activities on “Art Fridays” and I don’t feel bad about having some Archaeology instead of Art, but I also need to do more with the sewing. Where is the time?

For service and family history, boy am I behind! We’ve done a little personal history, but not any family history. And we have not been to the Retirement Home at all. Outright fail there.

We are doing much better on being contributors in the home. The kids each help with a certain category of job all day (household cleaning, household project, laundry) and they also take care of their room responsibilities and fold their own laundry. They are learning how the machines work in our home, and learning to sweep, and vacuum, and wash windows. I never was a Saturday family cleaning kind of person, so this is much more “household help” than they were doing before.

Admittedly, we do have some much more productive scripture study in the morning. And this was an important part of us doing homeschooling. So, that gets a point there. We have more discussions on questions the kids have. They can find scriptures on their own. They memorize, and study both topically and chronologically. Don’t worry they also color and kick each other under the table. The point is that scripture study is going better, and is more useful than it was before. But is this enough? Can’t we figure out how to do that in the evenings as well?

Fact #3 – “The Vision” Hypothesis

This is my main thought about homeschool right now: I am certainly “doing fine,” but our family is sacrificing a lot for this. The girls have given up time with their friends, and great teachers and projects at school, I have given up time, many projects, and cleaning efforts (not so sad about that one) around the house, and Spencer has given up a lot of one on one time with his pretty cool Momma ;) . Honestly, Sterling comes out ahead because he LOVES being with his siblings, and gets picked up way more than when it’s just me at home. He also gets two naps. Hallelujah! Grant will be going to preschool in January, and is doing great at reading – which is my main goal with him. So, those two aren’t sacrificing much. But if the rest of us are just “doing fine” is it worth pulling them out of school where they are also “doing fine” and we’re not making those same sacrifices?

I am not sure, but this much I do know. Homeschooling for our family is only right if it goes “beyond”. And this is where I’m struggling. Part of me wants to cross all my t’s and dot all my i’s.  I want to be able to prove that I’m checking all the boxes off that will make their education what it should be. But I really can’t check off all those same boxes that they check off at school. There is one of me, and I don’t have the energy to do all that. So, if I am just trying to “replicate” public school at home, then this is a bad idea. I should send them back and let them have that great experience and figure out how to add my important “home” stuff in during my “home” time.

But!!!! if I can let go of checking off the boxes and do something "different" then I will be on the way to what I wanted to do in the first place. My main problems with this are:

1    1.  letting go of my compulsiveness and

2    2.  even managing to see a vision of what I want to be doing in the first place.

Sooooooo, the long and short of this initial analysis is that if I can find this vision, and let go of the “busywork” to embrace it, then homeschooling will be worthwhile. But how exactly do I do that???

On Arrogance and Stables

Last night, for scripture study, Justin read me a little pamphlet-book (I’m sure that’s an official term!) by Elder Neil L. Andersen called “Room in the Inn.” (It’s available for free download here, should you be interested.) One particular portion of Elder Andersen’s story struck a chord with me, and also harmonized with another thought that’s been shuttling about in my mind lately.

When discussing Mary and Joseph’s inability to find an inn for lodging the night of Christ’s birth, Elder Andersen remarked how it would have been very easy for God to make sure they found adequate housing that night. After all, this was His Son who was coming to Earth! And yet, as we know, God had other plans. As Elder Andersen says, the experience and story God planned began in a stable, and so that is where Mary was sent for the birth of Christ.

This idea of God’s “planned problems” reminded me of a book I’d been reading when we traveled to Utah recently. I actually read two books by the same author that week, and so I don’t remember which book I found it in, but both books are full of great insights: Donald Miller’s “Blue Like Jazz,” and also “Father Fiction.” The Donald Miller thought I’m going to connect with now is that each of us human beings can have a habit of being “addicted to self” and that because of this we develop an “arrogance” that convinces us that little bad things shouldn’t happen to us. We know that the big bad things happen to everyone in turn, but we become irritated when the little bad things fall on our plates. Not only this, but we allow this arrogance that such a thing should come our way to fester inside of us.

You know, a “little” bad thing like not being able to find housing when you’re having a baby.

I connected to this idea of self-addiction more than I would have liked, but also found Miller’s term “arrogance” to be really helpful when dealing with it. For instance, also while driving to Utah our family hit some bad weather – in Wyoming, of course. We were almost to the Utah border when the van slid and we spun off the road. We were very blessed in that all was actually well for our family. We ran into no one and nothing. No one was hurt. The car still ran.  Our biggest impact included tall prickly weeds. But, oh the inconvenience! Not only did we need to call a tow truck, and wait for it, but we also had to pay said tow truck and eventually get a few things tightened on the car once we made it Salt Lake. Of course, we didn’t want that money anyway! Ha! We also were slowed down on our journey and arrived several hours later than we’d planned. Quite a few “little bad things,” all as a result of typical Wyoming weather.

In the moment, I found myself very irritated. We were less than 30 miles from the border, and I tell you!!! the ice was GONE!! when we crossed into Utah. We had been so close, and yet now we were several hundred dollars down and several hours behind. Why, why, why? Such a “little” bad thing, but I was more than happy to wail about all its results and about how none of it should have happened to me.

But I had just read this essay by Donald Miller about arrogance, and about how it is silly to think that we are above having all those real life experiences happen in our own lives. I realized that I do this all the time. Some tiny thing goes wrong in my day, and I bemoan my existence, I become angry with those around me, I use it as an excuse to give up on further efforts, I even ask God why such a bothersome thing should happen to me – you know, the most important person, ever. (He, by the way, is probably laughing at me the way I lovingly laugh at my own children when certain tragedy STRIKES their existence.)

Like I said before, I am not talking about the true sorrows and uncertainties of life. Those are in an entirely different category of dealing and understanding. I am talking about the teensy things that build up like canker sores on our days. Those things that poison us against happiness in the moment, against enjoying the simplicity and ordinariness of our lives. I don’t want my own arrogance to keep me from taking a breath and moving on for stupid happenstance.

But I also loved the idea that came with Elder Andersen’s thoughts, that not only are these irritants “little,” but that God allows them to happen so we can have miraculous interactions with others, and so that we can learn and grow by small means to learn great things.

And so, with these two thoughts in mind, I am trying now to remember to contain my arrogance, and to also look for the beautiful story God is trying to tell me when he leads me to a stable, instead of an inn.

Attitude

Recently, I read a quote - which, of course, I cannot find now - about how the people we surround ourselves with impact who we become. One of the direct results of homeschooling is that my children spend a lot of time with me. This means - to state the obvious - that my attitude will shape my children to a very large extent. This is not new. And my efforts to have a good attitude are not new. But this is definitely a difficulty for me with homeschooling. I am naturally a solitary type. I like quiet and alone time. I also prefer beginning the day with ordering and smoothing my home and my thoughts. When the children are in school, and I'm having a rough start to the day, I can usually get myself settled by the time they come home. With homeschool everyone is right there erupting in my kitchen. There is no centering moment for me to prepare to deal with them. This means that - toddler-like - I can get started on a roll of grumpiness and then never manage to pull myself out. And this also means that my children are left to deal with it. They are left with it playing as their background music. 

As I've considered how to deal with this, I realized that nothing is ever as it seems, and that things you take for granted can actually just be habits. For instance, I always assumed I would prefer getting school done right away in the morning, but we actually do better if the children play a while and I get my own world put together. This means that often we are still studying in the witching hours of late afternoon. That seems horrible, but it isn't. Because then there is something to do in the witching hours instead of eat each other. And yet, it feels so wrong to put off schoolwork. It doesn't "make sense." Overcoming this mental block of what "should" work to embrace what "does" work is surprisingly difficult for me.

I've also thought a lot about some words of wisdom from my sister-in-law Bekah. She told me once how she really wants her children to know that she enjoyed them. I think this is a definite deficiency for me because I don't naturally enjoy children. I love my children and I do enjoy them, but I can't automatically display this. I have to concentrate and emphasize my efforts to be happy. The joy in their eyes when I dance in the kitchen, or wrestle on the floor, or join in their jokes is much more important than checklists or goals for the day. My attitude and treatment of them affects how they learn. They are more open and capable when there is joy in our home. Their minds grow in ability when they are confident they are loved, and when they are in positive moods themselves.

All of this is to say, that I believe attitude is very important in homeschooling. And that it is one of my weakness at this time.

Kyle

I've sat on this for more than a week now. Not knowing if I should have written it at all. But I'm learning right now that to write I must let whatever is inside me fall out. That if I don't speak with honesty, no matter what people say, then I am failing. And so, I'm going to speak out loud. And I hope it can be taken for what it is.

*****

My cousin is dying. And when I heard of his recent downturn, my heart reached out. It’s so intangible, a heart reaching out. When I thought what to do, I wanted to write. But what could I write? This is what I wrote. It is not my story. And neither sorrow is my sorrow. So in many ways it feels wrong to write what I have written. And yet, I cannot help but think if we would only open our mouths and let what was truly inside fall out, at least the other would realize we are reaching. 

In all our weakness, we are reaching.

*****

A long time ago, my mother’s sweetheart died. He fell from the sky. He stopped breathing, ocean water drowning his lungs. He never came back. My mother was left behind with the world tipping off her shoulders. I wish I could say she always carried it well. That she didn’t make mistakes. That she didn’t mess up and make it worse. I wish I could say it was part of a powerful story arc which showed plainly – after many years – why the fall from the plane came to be. But it can’t quite be said. No matter the desire to make the circuit close smoothly.

There are others, of course, whose planes did not fall from the sky. Others who kept breathing. Others who came back, and fathered children, and bought new cars, and mowed the lawn. There are miracles and prayers heard across the continents in the midst of war. But this did not happen to my mother. Instead, a uniform came to her door and told her that her husband was dead. Instead she filled out paperwork concerned with him not coming back, ever again. Instead her father swore, over and over again, his words and actions passed down in memory, angry that this moment had come to take his daughter’s heart.

It’s strange to live a life that is a product of disaster. So many stories tell of the moment that rang through – at the very last moment – and all the wonder that came next. But my life, my father, my birth and existence, it all came at the hands of an officer delivering news of death. I’ve never thought it was my right to think about it. I didn’t know the man. He wasn’t my father. And the woman my mother was at the time has nothing to do with my mother now.  But I’ve ruminated. Oh, I’ve ruminated. Even if it wasn’t my right. Even if it wasn’t my story.

I’ve ruminated on that airplane falling from the sky. I’ve ruminated on the prayers that were not answered when it blew to pieces and ceased to be. I’ve ruminated on the small disasters and heartbreaks that came in that particular death’s wake. I’ve ruminated on why and what it was all supposed to mean.

In the midst of my ruminations I have sometimes imagined that he chose. That in a strange unknowing manner he decided not to be saved. Not to keep breathing. Not to miss the fall from the sky. Did he decide to give up? To not grasp for breath? To not be the miracle that could have happened? Then, I wonder why he did that to her. Why he left her here to live this messy life alone. Who does a thing like that?

Other times, I’ve thought it had to happen. That it made my mother stand up and become, instead of following in his oh-so-certain steps. That it made her be the power she is for each of us children today. My mother recently had surgery. It was fairly routine, not much to be thought of in the scheme of things. And yet, each of her five children descended upon her hospital room, traveling from near and far, doing only a fair amount of good in the process. I thought of us there, surrounding this woman. Holiness to the mother. Holiness to the woman who pulled us through when it all hit the fan. Oh, how those ropes were pulled tight that anchored her hearts to ours. Because my mom became someone different when that plane fell out of the sky. She became someone centrally important to us.

Of course, I’ve also thought of that other life, the one that didn’t happen. The one where the two of them grew old together, the one where they improved each other – instead of living at the mercy of the world. The one where her progression and softening came at the hands of a man who loved her and stood by her side. I think of this life that didn’t happen, and the utter shamefulness that it didn’t get to be just because a plane fell from the sky.

It seems a mess, doesn’t it? It certainly doesn’t fall clearly, this disaster nestled in the center of my mother’s life. It’s not right, and yet also, it’s not wrong. It just is. The plane just fell. He just went and died. She just lived without him. We just loved her for it. And the other life just never came to be. And is there nothing more to say?

People tell me God didn’t do this. People say it’s only part of living in the world. People say that the war, or an accident, or the slam of a five-year old wind brought that plane down and destroyed my mother’s life. They say God wouldn’t do such a thing, that He wouldn’t seek her pain. And I see the message they’re carrying. Really, I do. God loves us. He wants our greatest happiness. He sent us here with agency and with all that came along with it. And generally speaking, He plays by the rules. This is why there’s pain, despite his love. The argument is sound, and I can mostly believe it.

But there’s a part of me that demands that this sweet little packaging doesn’t ring quite true. Because I still believe that there was something in God that threw that plane out of the sky. His eye on the sparrow, and yet He let it fall. He let it fall and break against the ocean waves. And He didn’t get the Navy seals there in quick enough time. He didn’t offer the breath of life. He didn’t throw the second chance, a life-saving ring around a sinking body. He let it end. He let the heart stop and He let it decompose right there in all that salt with the rest of a dead man’s body.

And He meant what He did.

All I can think, when it comes to this, this failure of His to make it come out right, is that He must have stood there, in the raging storm that followed , and He must have said, I am the one you are supposed to love anyway. Because we don’t get to keep it all. It isn’t ours anyhow. And somehow, after all this time, and all this ruminating, for me, that is the point.

Busy

The next question people ask me about homeschooling is: aren't you horribly busy?

The short answer to this is yes. I have to get up in the morning and get going. We do school in the morning. We do projects and quiet time (my writing time) in the afternoon. And then we still have the house to clean, and dinner to make, and diapers to change. I'm busy enough that most tasks are done in little spurts. I hope that if I do small amount each day it will eventually come to something. And we roll with that.

Of course, the long answer is that I was always busy. It was just with different things. Driving. Waiting. More cleaning than I do now. Now I am more busy with my children. With talking to them. With learning alongside them. The first week, as I sat thinking about this, I realized how gratifying it is. I've always struggled with my time at home. I've never loved cooking or been able to make it a hobby. I prefer keeping the house at level, and not getting into deep cleaning or organizing. I really don't like playing with the toys and kids. But this kind of busy and interaction with them feels good and enjoyable. After 9 years of mothering, I finally felt like I knew I was using my time for the right thing. And that is a relief. I'm okay with being busy that way.

As for interacting with the outside world, I still haven't got that figured out. More on that in my next post.

Curriculum and Schedule

One of the first questions I get about homeschooling is: What are you using for curriculum? This isn't too surprising since when I considered making the change it was one of my primary thoughts. After all, once you decide to keep the kids home, what exactly should you do with them? There are many different homeschooling paths, and ours takes a little from each method. I believe a lot in free time, and reading, and finding education in the ordinary. But I also believe in meeting goals and having rock-solid foundational knowledge. So, our morning is fairly "schoolish" and our afternoon is faily "run-wildish."

The kids wake up and while I read and exercise they get ready and eat breakfast.

We meet for family scripture study which consists of memorizing a scripture together, reading a scripture story, reading a section of the little booklets the missionaries hand out, and doing personal study (I encourage them to read at least one verse). They also color.

At this point, I finish morning household jobs, feed and water Sterling, and get dressed. At 9:00 Sterling goes to his nap, the boys go downstairs to play (they only earn iPad time if they play nicely without interrupting us), and the girls and I do math for an hour. We are using Everyday Mathematics from the school because I didn't want to buy a math curriculum for half a year, and we can get it from the school for free. I read the lessons for the week and pull out the activities I like, but I have yet to make a real long lesson of it. We also do the worksheets associated with those units. This takes about 20 minutes. Then, because I'm most nervous about math we do Khan Academy online for practice and Splash Math on the iPad (recommended to me by my cousin Laura). Ellie does a lot of multiplication drilling right now.

At 10:00 the boys get their 20 minutes each on the iPad. Grant does math, Spencer plays Angry Birds and renames all my files. The girls and I do "English" which consists of Grammar with "Well-Trained Mind," Spelling with "Spelling Workout," and "Handwriting Without Tears." We also have some creative prompts they work on at the end.

Then we break and do lunch and playing. Sterling usually wakes up at this point. Today Ellie made lunch while I did jobs with Grant and Meg. Every day they each get to pick which kind of job they are going to do based on who finishes their morning jobs first (dressed, bed made, teeth/hair, breakfast, room tidied). Because Ellie always finishes first she picks "project" - which is whatever random job is floating around in my mind. She's weeded, emptied the dishwasher, cleaned her desk, and made lunch. Meg usually picks "cleaning." Today that meant she cleaned the bathrooms with me. Grant always gets stuck with "laundry" which makes him cry until he gets downstairs and gets to turn the water on. He likes that.

After lunch we do "Special". On Monday we do Family History, on Tuesday we do Science, on Wednesday we do History, on Thursday we do Piano/Ballet, on Friday we Art (we don't do Math and English on Friday - and I hope to get some service planned for this day also).

Spencer and Sterling go to sleep again at 2 or 3. Before this happens we read. Grant reads me a book, I read him a book. The girls and I read together and then do "Dictation" and "Narration" which is mostly remembering what your read and understanding the story. Spencer picks his book, and we head up to naps. 

At this point the kids can go downstairs and do whatever they want except fight or bother me. I get about 2 hours to write upstairs while the little boys sleep. That's on a good day. After writing, it's dinner and finish up the jobs time. 

I still haven't figured out where to fit my big extra jobs like doing the budget or going grocery shopping. I also haven't figured out how to balance our "schedule" with extra items that get thrown in the week of. There were some activities this week at the co-op, but I didn't know how much I wanted to give up at home to go there. I'm not sure. I still can't decide. I also have a dentist appt tomorrow, so we'll see what happens with that. I have not one clue how to go Visiting Teaching. And I am trying to get some friend time in as well. 

So, that's our basic schedule and curriculum. Next, I want to talk about what has been good and what has been bad.....

Homeschool

This week our family began homeschooling. Some of my greatest advice regarding homeschooling has centered on staying in line with specific goals. Before we began, Justin and I made a list of what we wanted to accomplish with homeschooling, and I am trying to check in with those goals and make sure that the process is successful and purposeful for our family. I decided I would try reporting online because for the many years I considered homeschooling I wished and wished to be able to see inside others' experiences with homeschooling. Maybe I can provide that for someone else here.

First of all, for clairification, reasons we DID NOT choose homeschooling.

1. Bad Schools - Our family lives in the boundaries for a great school. Our kids have wonderful friends with good values and had fantastic teachers. They had access to excellent programs and learned many  wonderful things. When we made our choice, it was not between bad and good, or right and wrong. It was a decision of "better for our family right now."

2. Common Core - I don't have a problem with common core. Shoot me.

3. Those crazy liberals! That crazy curriculum! - Nope. Never had a problem with this. We love meeting different people and learning about them. We are great with figuring out how to hear things at school and come home to learn how that fits into our belief system. Plus, our kids are in elementary school, and this just hasn't been a problem.

Reasons we did choose homeschooling.

1. We have goals for our children beyond academics. Look, I loved school, and I was good at it. Achievement in school is big for us. Doing your best, going to college, learning, learning, learning! But there is so much more to life. I want my kids to learn so much more. Cooking, cleaning, sewing, taking care of family. And I just don't think this is less important, even though as a society we turn down our noses at it. I want my children to find proficiency and value in the tasks they are going to be spending their whole lives doing. I am glad I passed on AP Chem exam, but I still hate cooking with everything in my soul, and it is part of my life three times every day. Oh, the horror! I have a friend who loves cooking because it is Chemistry. How cool is that? I want to give my children more to find in these realities of life.

2. School eats up time. Sending my children to other people for five days of a seven day week and seven of the thirteen hours they're awake has never sat well with me. Add to that increased homework and I start getting a little grumpy. Add to that the fact that - of necessity - the teacher must share her time with 30 children and I begin to change my mind about the efficiency of the program in using all that time I'm handing over to them. We can finish academics in the morning and then use our time for other learning. We can do extracurriculars without running around with our heads chopped off. I do not want to plan my family's life around the one hour left to us each day when school is finished with its requirements. Free time! I truly think my little cherubs need some free time to imagine and create and play. And more then 15 minutes to eat!!!! What is up with that? They are children, and they are so smart. They learn through discovery and excitement. I want to give them time to do that.

4. We value family relationships. My children are so grumpy and tired after school (and starving) that they take it out on each other. Also, they have begun to buy into the idea that their friends are cooler than their siblings. I want my children to be best friends with each other. If I'm going to birth them, they better darn well love each other. This is probably the biggest one for me. We do have access to a homeschool group here, and we have already used it for week one. I have arranged for beloved school friends to have regularly schedule play dates. We will be going to volunteer with the elderly as a service. We are not going to sit home and stare at each other all day. But our primary relationships are with our family members. Already the conflict in our home has been greatly reduced.

5. We believe in spiritual education. The world is a heavy place to live, and there is so much garbage. I want my children to obtain a spiritual education that receives just as much emphasis as their academic education. As a recent conference talk says: I want them to be prepared in a manner that was never seen before. I've always loved the idea of the Jewish Yeshiva (which I'm probably spelling wrong) where children are taught about Faith throughout the day. We now start our days with a devotional and personal scripture time. We discuss at length those questions I always brush aside at bedtime because I'm exhausted and don't want to talk to people under the age of ten anymore.

Well, it's late now, so I will have to give my update on week one another time. Plus, the baby's crying....

More Catching Up...

More swimming and around the house:

Our trip to Utah begins!  We loved seeing everyone because it had been two years since we'd visited in the summer.  My sister Emily flew out to drive back with us (how nice was that? and how nice was Duane for doing without her on his drive down?) and we headed to the Salt Lake Valley for a week and a half.

Meeting the dog:

Trying cheetos:

Watering with Grandma: 

Usually our kids go to sleep at 7:30.  In Utah they stayed up until 10 or 11 (one hour later in Iowa time).  To say they slept in and were tired is beyond obvious: 

Cousin Cody:

Visiting Grandma Andersen and Grandpa Andersen's grave:

Hogle Zoo with our friends Elisa, Kainoa, and Kekoa:

Stealing some of Aunt Libbi's ice.  You've got to be pretty cute to pull that off!

Cousin Eli:

Seeing friends (and their adorable children) from college (Kyle and Julia):

and friends from dance (Annie and Jessica): (We totally forgot the picture until after Trisha left us.)

Cousins:

New cousin Graham Gardner:

Making a float for the East Millcreek Parade.  Three generation of floats in that parade!

Meeting Miles (his mom and I grew up doing everything with each other, even sleeping in the same sleeping bag on camping trips).  Miles really wanted to help Sterling out with his binky.

Visiting "This is the Place" monument:

... more to come later.....