Friendship and Generosity

Some friends last forever.  It doesn't matter how often you see each other or even how often you talk.  I recently reconnected with my friend that I've known since first grade (that's like 30 years).  We were with each other through the sticky years of Jr. High and High School (including sewing class and cosmetology school).  To say we understand each other is an understatement.  We didn't talk much through our early years of marriage but we still knew that we were there for each other.  There have been many times when I have called her just because she was on my mind only to find out that something tragic had happened in her family that day.  Or she calls me at a moment when I need it.  She also is great about saying what needs to be said like "You know you hate your hair when it gets like this.  Let's cut it now!".  Or (when we were teenagers) "That outfit doesn't work on you.  Where this instead.".  Or "I saw your flower couches, we'll make mine work in your home." .

Well, she is moved to California yesterday.  I went to her house on Tuesday hoping to be of help to her.  I told her I would scrub whatever needed to be scrubbed.  We did some cleaning, some talking and a lot of laughing!  In the end, I don't know how much help I was to her but I came away feeling very uplifted.  And to top it off, she gave me her beautiful living room set- two couches and a table (thus the "I saw your flower couches...")!  We moved them BY OURSELVES down a narrow, winding staircase and out the front door of her house and onto a trailer.  Then we figured out how to hook up the trailer (her neighbor helped us some) and pulled it to our house!  Just like the old days, always an adventure!  Luckily for us, Allen and a neighbor happened to be here to help us unload the new couches and load the old flower ones on the trailer.  She then took the old ones to DI for me.  Before she left, she took inventory of my living room and told me what I needed to do to make it better.  She has a gift for making people and places better (inside and out).

You want a definition of a true friend and pure generosity, it's her.  She has always been willing to help me and others.  I value her opinion and her faith strengthens mine.  I will so miss her.  I guess that is why email, texting and long-distance phone options are so great, we don't have to loose track of each other.  We can still be close.

 The couches are super comfy and look so good!  We are loving having a coffee table as well.  We spent Sunday building a giant marble run.  Ali managed to use every piece (some were just for looks).  That's 169 pieces!

This is my friends youngest (she has three boys and one daughter).  She is so cute.  She reminds me so much of my friend- in both her looks and her adventurous spirit!

Some "classic" mall photo booth shots of me and her.   They are beauties!!!!



taken in first or second grade



Fourth grade (I think)

I miss her already!

Kate's 9th Birthday

Kate the Great is no longer 8!

Her birthday we did celebrate!

She is still wonderful and fine.

Now she is nine!

I love Kate and her free-spirit ways.  She doesn't wear shoes or socks unless she absolutely has to- like to school.  She always has markers on her hands and she regularly cracks me up with some clever comment or another! 
She asked for a marble run game for her birthday.  We gave her two so she can build giant marble runs.  It's been a really fun toy- I'd recommend it to anyone with kids old enough to not choke on the marbles.

At school, they are studying Living and Non-living.  So for her Valentine box, she had to do something living.  She has an excellent teacher.  At first, she was going to do a cow (she makes really cute cows out of heart shapes), then it was going to be an alligator.  But then she found out that a lot of kids were doing alligators so it became a gold fish.  Perfect!  She modeled it after her gold fish, George.  It turned out really cute!

She designed her own cake.  She did a fabulous job!  I love the details.

Allen's family visited on Saturday.  We went skiing and them celebrated at our house.

My folks visited on Sunday.  They brought the kids.  It was pretty wild.  Kate didn't know that Tiffany, Janie and Jentry were coming.  They snuck in while my kids were out back and hung a giant banner that Janie made.  It said Happy Birthday and We love You and Kate is Great and a lot of great stuff like that.  Then, they all hid and when Kate came in, jumped out and yelled "Surprise!". 

It was a fun weekend.

Science Fair Update and Dance

Josiah made it to the district level with his science fair project.  He did well but is not going on to region.  He is okay with it.  I think it was a great experience being interviewed by the judges at the district competition and it was really interesting to see what other people did. 

Last week was also the sixth grade dance.  It was really fun and very well put together.  They had a nice lunch and then a dance.  At the end, there was a balloon drop with four hundred balloons.  The kids went crazy when the balloons came down and popped them all within minutes!  It was crazy fun (and loud)!

The volunteers did a fabulous job decorating and the D.J. played really great, fun, fast paced music.

Science Fair

Square structures and Triangle structures

It's that time of year again... ya know, the time when we were given a month to do a science fair project.  We usually spend the first 27 days coming up with a MILLION great ideas and the last three or four days doing the easiest one we can think of.  I really do love the Science Fair.  I think its good for kids to at least try the Scientific Process.  This year, thanks to our new fascination with Mythbusters, most of our ideas probably would of ended with either the fire department or the FBI at our door.  We opted for a nice, safe (and boring) Structure Support.  I actually thought it was pretty fun and interesting (Josiah thought it was boring and just wanted it done).  Josiah made square and triangle structures with craft sticks and glue.  Then he saw which would hold the most weight- squares or triangles.  I was surprised by HOW MUCH weight they held.  26 pounds!  That seemed like a lot for Popsicle sticks.  Anyway, we got 'er done and it turned out alright. 

Square held at 23 pounds

Triangle at 26 pounds



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Display board

Josiah's buds- Caleb and Matt (and nice Sarah)

Josiah has the funnest group of kids his age.  I think if I would of taken more pictures, eventually the whole class would of jumped in!  A lot of the boys call every ones mom "mom".  So when I walk into the class, about 7 voices say "Hi Mom!'. 

Ali

Ali and Kate are home from school today.  They have a cold- a yucky,stuffy, coughy cold.  So we are playing on the computer.  Ali got a camera a few years ago.  She wanted to make a blog post from her pictures.  She choose this picture, which I love. She was a lot younger and I like looking back.  Now she is a big six year old!

Ali   I AM  Sick BOO  

Live each day as though...

Picture taken by Josiah with Kates new camera, on Christmas morning.

Kate got a camera for Christmas.  Sunday night, we downloaded all her photos and movies onto the computer.  We laughed and laughed!  She has some great stuff!  She is sort of "invisible" when she wants to be so some of the pictures were a surprise.  There were also a lot of incriminating videos of Josiah.  She has been asking if she can have her own blog.  I wasn't sure about this, for safety reasons but now, I think it might just be too embarrassing for the rest of us!  So the new saying around our house is "Live each day as though... it will be on YouTube!" because with Kate around, it might!