A busy week and month ahead

Just a short post today to catch you up on the busy happenings at our house.  Neil, Matthew, Emma, David and I are off to Martin's Cove for the Stake Youth Trek tomorrow.  We will be walking where the handcart pioneers walked until Thursday.  It should be an adventure.  I am excited to go and share this experience with them.  I only wish our kids would be in our family, but I will watch out for them.
The next week the girls go to EFY at the University of Utah.  It will be Emma's first EFY and Julia's last.  I am still trying to figure out how to get them there. Something will work out.

The week after EFY, Matthew goes to BYU basketball camp.  I hope he will love it.  The rest of us are going to stay at Grandma and Grandpa's house until Friday.  The kids will go with Grandpa to do baptisms for the dead at the Oquirrh Mountain temple on Friday.

The next week Emma goes to band camp here in Powell and Cody.

June will be gone after that and we will be into July.  July will be busy with packing and getting ready to move to Virginia for one year.  I am so excited for this family adventure!  I have always wanted to see the East Coast.  We hope to leave the last week of July to make it to Buena Vista by August 3rd so Matthew and Emma can start practice with the high school.

I will post about trek when we get home.  I will also post about the end of the school year activities when I get back.  Sorry no pictures today, but they will be coming soon.  We just bought a new computer and I have had to transfer all the pictures from one computer to the other.  After 4 days of transfering files we are finally done.

Gettysburg

The 8th graders at Powell Middle School do a reenactment of the Gettysburg battle every spring.  We have been in Powell for 21 years and I have never taken the time to stop and watch.  I guess we have never had an 8th grader so I didn't know when they were doing it.  This year I finally got to go and watch because Emma was a Confederate soldier.  I love history and it was amazing to watch the kids portray the Battle of Gettysburg.  It brought tears to my eyes to watch them and hear the story about the battle.  The kids had to build cannons to use and they really worked.  They fired tennis balls at the the other side.  Some kids actually got hit.  Emma and a group from her class built a cannon, but it blew up before the battle.  I am so excited to see some of the Civil War sites when we spend the next year living in Virginia.

Here is the reenactment in pictures:

The Confederate Army ready to march

Emma marching off to battle

Cannons made by the students

Graduation!

Well we officially have another high school graduate, actually we have for a couple of weeks.  Julia graduated from Wyoming Connections Academy on May 16th.  Neil, Julia, Emma and I went to Casper for Julia's graduation.  It was fun to be there and support Julia.  She didn't want me to take too many pictures, actually I don't think she wanted me to take any pictures.  I did get a few pictures.  There were a couple of boys who graduated in Julia's class, but only the girls came for the ceremony. It was kind of funny to have only girls there. Julia did a great job in high school.  She had great teachers that loved her and helped.  She will always remember McCoy and be grateful for her influence.  We are proud of her and the fine young lady she has grown up to be.  We love you, Julia!

Photo opportunity before graduation

Julia and her favorite teacher, Ms. McCoy. Ms. McCoy taught all of Julia's English classes and really taught her to be a great writer.

Senior Pictures

I really wanted to do Julia's senior pictures early enough to have graduation announcements ready to send out. She was in the middle of trying to get school done and didn't really want to do pictures.  I asked a couple of times and then decided to just wait until she was done.  We went and did pictures last week. Julia is a beautiful young lady with an amazing smile!  I love some of the pictures! I think Julia was happy with some of them and that counts for more.  I had a good time taking them for her.  Graduation announcements are ordered and will be sent out soon.

 

Joshua and Lydia wanted in the pictures too

A busy Preschool week

Joshua and Lydia were supposed to go on a field trip with their preschool last week.  The weather was miserable that day so it was rescheduled to this week.  We went to the George dairy farm on Tuesday (May 12th).  It was a new experience for all of us.  I don't think I had ever seen a cow milked before.  It was cool to watch.  Lydia held her nose the whole time we were in the milking barn.  Joshua didn't want to get too close to the cows.  He enjoyed watching though.  The kids had the opportunity to feed the baby calves a bottle.  I helped Lydia and she loved it.  Joshua was being independent and was looking at the baby cows by himself.  By the time I asked him if he liked feeding the baby cows he told me he hadn't gotten to and the bottles were all gone. I felt bad that he missed out on the experience and I didn't watch out for him better.  My friend, Heidi George, lives on the farm and she said he could come back another time and feed the babies a bottle.  It was fun to share this experience with Joshua and Lydia.

Thursday was the last day of preschool this year.  I have loved going to preschool with Joshua and Lydia.  It has been lots of fun.  Miss Holly had promised Lydia that they could have a pajama day at preschool so Thursday was a pajama party and graduation.  Miss Holly called each child across the outdoor stage and gave them a diploma and bubbles.  They made cute graduation treats and played outside.  It was an emotional day for Miss Holly because she is retiring this year.  She was amazing with the children. Joshua and Lydia sure loved her.  What a great preschool year!

Home Improvement Project 2015

When we turned the garage into a family room and storage room about 5 years ago we gained lots of storage space.  The shelves in that storage room are really high and we didn't have a great system to get to the top shelves so I tried not to use them all the time.  I would have to get someone to climb to the top of the shelves and then hand them what I needed put up.  It didn't work perfectly.  We had a small step ladder, but it took up floor space and wasn't high enough.  I have always loved the library sliding ladders like in Beauty and the Beast so I started looking online to see what I could come up with.  I finally found an idea that I thought could work so I talked to Neil about it.  We bought some pipe and attached to the shelves at the top all around the room.  Neil built a ladder and put rollers on the bottom and hooks on the top.  I can move the ladder any where in the room.  It stores without taking up much space at all.  It is perfect and I love it!  Here are a few pictures so you can have an idea of how it works.

20!!

I can't believe Bethany turned 20 on Thursday!  It was a busy, but fun day.  We went clogging and then Bethany came home for a Mexican buffet for dinner.  We made chicken enchiladas, chicken taquitos, chicken fajitas, and burritos to choose from.  It was a yummy dinner. After dinner we went to Dallin's soccer game.  Dallin's team won 7-0.  It was the last game of the year and the first game that Bethany got to come to.  After the game we came home and let Bethany open presents and ate cake.  We made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and Minnie Mouse on the top.  Lydia helped decorate the sides with red, white and pink M&Ms.  It was easy and cute.

Bethany received things for a mission, which she hopefully will be serving later this year.  She also got a tee shirt that I have been very excited to give her.  She likes creative shirts.  I found one that is actually printed with words from the book and makes a picture.  I think she liked it.  We gave her some scarves because she likes to wear scarves and two skirts.  I am grateful for Bethany and her easy going nature.  She is always willing to jump in and help.  Her younger siblings really love to have her home and she is so good to give them love.  She is a natural nurturer.  Love you, Beth! May 20 be a great year for you!!