Jill's Wedding

This was the reason for missing Jonathan's award assembly.  For years, Jeff and I had resolved to attend Jill's wedding, no matter where and when it happened.  So, when she set a date, we knew that we had to attend.  My wonderful mom agreed to take care of the kids, and we made plans to get to and from the wedding as quickly as we could.  Jeff's cousin, Jill, chose a gorgeous setting for her wedding.  Amazingly, it had been covered with eight inches of snow the day before, and it melted in time for the wedding.

Here is our little branch of the family that attended the wedding:  Jeff's mom, sister, brother-in-law, and nieces.

The morning of the wedding, we got to do a little goofing around downtown while we waited for the festivities to start. This was my happy place...

and this was Jeff's.

Remember the snow I mentioned?  There was just a bit left!

Jill and Ryan had a beautiful wedding.  We were thankful to be a part of it and hope they have a wonderful life together.

It was a quick and fun weekend, and then we got some bad news.  Our flight had been cancelled, and we would be getting in a LOT later than we had planned.  I felt awful about breaking the news to my mom, but she was a very good sport.

We got to do some sightseeing while we waited for our new flights to happen, and we realized that we should have been taking awesome pictures of the librarian minifig that Jonathan had sent with me.  Better late than never...we started taking pictures.

We were so thankful to get back, and so thankful for my mom's help.  Here are a couple of random pictures of the kids:  one of Grace feeling crummy and curing it with catnap,

and one of her happiness at the souvenir we brought to her!

The School Year Winds Down...

As the school year wound down, the schedule heated up with assemblies, awards ceremonies, and performances.  This one's for Jonathan's recognition in the county science fair.

This was on display at his school's open house.

This is a little sad.  There was an award that Jonathan had been working for and hoping for, and he had to have fantastic grades throughout 4th, 5th, and 6th grade to get it.  He got the award, but Jeff and I had to be out of state during the award presentation.  My mom got pictures of everything, but there were too many kids' names to edit out of the pictures, so I didn't include them here.  We were so proud of his perseverance and just hated to miss this special day.  Thanks to my mom for being there.

This one and the next two are at his school's open house.  He created this sarcophagus for a mummified carrot.

The class had mummified a chicken, and this was the night for uncovering the chicken.  It smelled nasty, but it was memorable.

Now we're back at the night of the county science fair.  Jonathan found this beautiful bird that was lying dead on the pavement.  We think he flew into a window and died, which is common with songbirds.  It was very sad to Jonathan and his siblings, of course.  We used the Merlin app to figure out what kind of bird this was...

Here are the other kids who got Exemplary ribbons at the science fair.  Nice work, Jonathan!  And it is especially nice that this will be the last science project you have to worry about!

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Outdoors for Mother's Day

We took my mom to one of our favorite places the day before Mother's Day.  We all had a great day.  I think the photos speak for themselves.

Except for this one.  The kids had never seen a phone booth with a pay phone before.

After church on Sunday, someone was taking pictures with moms.  It was very sweet.  I wasn't thrilled with how ours turned out, but I'm always thankful to have a picture with all of us together, so here they are for posterity.

This part of Mother's Day was pretty great:  Thrifty's ice cream with my favorite people.  And, truly, I'm just super thankful to be a mom.  I was happy that we were together.  And for the amazing day outdoors the day before.  We get to live close enough for a day trip to a location that most people consider an international bucket list destination.

The kids came home from church with this, too.  What a cute idea!