Two things we lost this summer.

As school ended this year, we looked forward to our traditional summertime activities: end of year school wrap-ups, awards and such,three immediate birthdays, two major summer holidays, minor trips to visit Aunt Terry, the highly anticipated Jenkins Family Thingy, and family picnics, hot dog roasts,etc. plus milestones for Avonlea and Jacob. And all the crazy antics the kids come up with in their boredom, along with our garden's progress.
We, of course plan to store these memories on our computer, which holds a crazy amount of other memories, not to mention all of our passwords, access to websites such as Blogger, and other information that I don't want to look up each time I access the sites. So of course I over loaded it with pictures and it died! Well, actually I think it had more to do with the fact that it is over five years old than what I stored on it. Regardless, it has been a test to not have a computer!
Just to teach me not to get comfortable, or how important a backup of our pictures is, I lost the memory disk to our camera. Full to capacity with all the above listed activities. It was carefully stored in the pocket of the camera. But no more. Sick does not describe it. Sorry can't come close. Sad doesn't begin to express my feelings. Gone are the 10 year old birthday pictures, one of the last few years of Spencer as a young boy, not even a little boy anymore and this the year he told me he was too big for a theme birthday party and wanted just an ice cream cake instead. Gone are the darling pictures of Olivia and her "wedding birthday" cake, dressed in her wedding dress-ups. Only at six would you want such a thing! Gone are the pictures of Jacob's birthday cake depicting his obsession with Buzz Lightyear, and maybe even more sad than his birthday pictures, the pictures of his last day of one, along with proof of the HOURS I spent on birthday cakes during July.
Each time I think about it, I realize more of the memories we no longer have documented: Matthew's Cache Children's Choir performance singing "we all know frogs go la dee dah dee dah", Olivia's end of year ballet recital at the Ellen Eccles theater with her bouquet of flowers she was so proud of. Olivia's haircut: from waist length to shoulder length. And home improvement project before and after pictures.
I guess I should be grateful it wasn't full of blessing or baptism pictures. But dang it! Has anyone seen a memory card sitting around anywhere?!

Time out.

I need to take a moment. Something I have been dreading for a while and let myself think, and feel, and cry.

This is Alena. My dear friend, my best friend. Well, besides John.
These aren't great pictures and I searched for better ones. May have some somewhere. But I couldn't pull them up. And then I realized something. These pictures preserved for me what Alena was...is: sincere to the core, real, humble, a bosom friend. We are cleaning out her house on this day. Junking all those "treasures" we all collect in our homes and then realize at major crossroads of our lives what really matters. We took a moment to be silly, to jump on the mattresses in this dumpster, and we laughed! Which was a hard thing to do, because like so many other times in my life, I was losing a close friend to a move. This time Alena, Trevor and their sweet children to Louisiana. When you move enough in life, you begin to think that friends are expendable. They come and they go. But family is around forever. Over my life I have done what I feared I would do this time. I withdraw as a departure looms ever closer. It's never the same. Never.

But Alena is different. I thought I had best friends in the past, and they are good friends. But Alena would listen to me, never judge me. We were so similar in so many ways. I can't express the gratitude I feel for having been given this gem of a woman for my friend.

So this is how these pictures represent a friendship. There are a few quotes about friends that help sum it up: "Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind", and "People come into your life and people leave it... you just have to trust that life has a road mapped out for you". So thanks, Alena for being that kind of friend. I hope to have many more memories with you! A friend as dear as you IS family!

Our cat Megumi...

This is our cat Megumi. She was following two girls down the street this summer as they asked everyone they saw if she was their cat. I couldn't bare to see this pretty little thing get hit on our VERY busy road, so we became cat owners...after we swore up and down we would never have a pet.

As you can see, the kids LOVE her. She is such a sweetheart, so gentle and a perfect "kids" cat.

By the way, "Megumi" is a Japanese word for "blessing". We named her that for two reasons: #1, she was blessed to find a home and not get hit on the road, and #2, we figured John would be more likely to let us keep her with a Japanese name! He he he!

She is MUCH bigger than this now, super fluffy and actually a boy! But we didn't know this when we named "her"!

The Lazy Days of Summer

One of those beautiful, nothing else going on days of summer. We were awakened bright and early by the sounds of construction work going on outside. What better than to watch the road being repaved? Matthew was thrilled to watch a "real, life Bessie" (from the movie "Cars") being pulled along the road. Jacob loves big trucks! Unfortunately he says "truck" with an "F" instead of a "t" and he likes to say it very loud. The more I try to get him to say it in a whisper, the louder he yells "LOOK AT THE BIG, HUGE (TR)*UCK".  Oh well, cute pictures, funny memory!

Family Home Evening activity

Choosing the activity for FHE is the favorite assignment.

This summer we planted 6 zucchini plants. Now don't laugh, I'm not new at this.I knew what I was doing.

If you miss a day of picking zucchini, the next day you will come back to find this...

and what do you do with zucchinis the size of torpedoes?

Have zucchini boat races!

and that, my friends, is exactly the reason we planted 6 zucchinis

FHE activity planned. No fighting over whose game we will be playing!

The best part: some neighbor kids came over to watch what we were doing, and we told them about Family Home Evening. Then we passed the boats on to them at the end of the evening, and pointed out to the kids our opportunity for missionary work. Two lessons in one evening! And they didn't even know they were getting the second one!

Avvy at 6 months

Avonlea's milestones at 6 months: she sits alone, still sucks her thumb, can roll from stomach to back and almost from back to stomach. She doesn't care who holds her, she is such a happy baby! Soon we will be trying baby food! We can only guess at her weight...about 16 1/2 lbs. She is a very "healthy, chubby, Gerber baby"!

Little Patch of Heaven

This is our home. 1400 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. Quaint, close... cozy. Within these walls homework happens, and hugs, and tears. Laughter, family home evening. We also have deep discussions and life's lessons and scripture study. We're raising future missionaries and children who know their Father in Heaven. We pray here. We pray for our children and our neighbors and our family. We pray for each other and the prophet and the bishopric. We pray for strength and wisdom and help. In this home we sing really loud - and off key- but we sing! We celebrate, we practice, we learn. Sometimes we disagree, but we hope that a disagreement teaches a lesson; if nothing more than how to disagree pleasantly and then love again after a disagreement. Sometimes we have time outs. Mom and Dad need them, too. Here we have sewing lessons, and cooking lessons and gardening lessons. We play games and run and squeal. We practice the cello and ballet and gymnastics. We have campouts and cookouts and stargazing. We are constantly doing home improvements. Sometimes we check the water. We weed together and plant together and harvest together. Then we offer thanks for our blessings. Our home has a roof and doors and walls just like other people's homes. It may be small but it's what happens inside that matters most. We dubbed our home "Little Patch of Heaven" when we first bought it, so thankful for a place to celebrate our family. I think of the book "The Little House" about the little home that was so loved. That's our house. Our home. Good things happen here.