June 2017

June started off with a lot of endings.  The middle school had their year-end awards assembly.  Mrs. Hammond, Naomi's teacher, sent me an Steve and invitation to the awards ceremony to see Naomi get a special award.  We were excited and tried to keep it a secret from her.  She was surprised to see us both sitting there in the audience with the other parents.  The day was full of surprises.  By the end of the assembly Naomi had received three awards:  Top 5th grade Band Student, Top 5th Grade Social Studies Student for the Hammond/Walker class and A Honor Roll for the whole year.  It was a fun day.  

Naomi finally noticed us.  

Receiving her Top 5th Grade Social Studies award from Principal Graham.

Receiving her Top 5th Grade Band Student award. 

Straight A's all year long. 

So proud of all her hard work.  

June 2nd was the last day of school.  Sunny and Bradden arrived late that night in preparation for graduation the following day.

June 3rd we were all up early and getting ready for the big day.  My baby was graduating from high school.  I have done a whole other blog going into the day in detail with a ton of pictures.  Check it out.  In this blog I have included some other fun pictures from our amazing day.

Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Hammond were there supporting their students who were now graduating.  Naomi took advantage of this photo opportunity.   These ladies made her 5th grade year so much fun.  

Cannon craziness

Naomi is getting excited for her graduation day...just not yet, please!!

I love this family of mine.  

Lunch at Razoos after the graduation ceremony.  Nothing like a little alligator to celebrate adulthood. 

That night was seminary graduation.  

Two diplomas in one day!  So exciting and exhausting at the same time.  

Nick wanted chicken and waffles.  I should have warned him about the exploding bags of pancake mix.  We got a good laugh over this one.  The chicken and waffles tasted even better after all this hard work.  

Naomi found this bird at the craft store and thought Jeremy might need it for his collection.  The bird found a happy home in Jeremy's crazy hair.  Time for a haircut.  

June 8th I got to go to lunch with Sandra.  I love catching up with all that she has been doing and we love to talk about her mom and what an amazing lady she was. That night was our Young Women pool party at the Arias house.  The girls had a good time just relaxing and enjoying some down time together.  

June 9th we had two graduation parties - one for Justice Stewart and one for Justin Muller.  I can't believe that all the kids are graduating.  It feels like just yesterday they were all going into Sunbeams (3 years old) at church.  Watch out world!  This is a great group of kids coming your way. 

June 10th all the scouts met at one of the pools here in Highland Creek to complete the scout swim test in preparation for scout camp in July.  Nick was one of the first kids in the pool so that I could get him to his sports physical on time.  A clinic in Huntersville was offering free physicals for kids at LNC.  We ran into Mr. McKay, Nick's math teacher, who told me that Nick got a 4 on his math EOC.  WOW!  Last year Nick got a 2 (out of 5) so this year is a HUGE improvement.  Mr. McKay was an amazing math teacher for Nick.  He had a way of explaining things that was so much easier for Nick to understand and retain than in years past.  

Back at home, after the physical, we all worked in the yard as a family for a bit.  Steve, Nick and Naomi wanted to go to the pool, but Jeremy didn't so he and I went grocery shopping instead.  It was a nice way to end a productive day.  

I think Nick might need a new scout shirt.  

Naomi and her friends took my camera and Lili's bunny, Carlos, out for a little photo shoot.  

They loved his adorable teeth.  

This was voted the favorite picture of the whole photo shoot.  

At work Jeremy was moving some really dusty boxes.  Everyone was given a mask so they wouldn't have to breath the dust.  They had fun decorating them.  He is really enjoying working in the tech department at LNC over the summer.  

June 11th we all slept in until 9:00.  We must have been tired from all the activity of the day before.  That never happens.  

June 13th Steve got up with kidney stone pain at 3:30 am.  We were off to the Emergency Room to make sure this one was passable or if he would need some help.  After 4 hours, a CT scan and 3 rounds of Morphine we were sent home to hopefully pass the 3 mm stone.  Luckily things were busy at week and Steve was able to take a couple days off while dealing with this.  

Later that night I dropped Nick off at the church.  For Youth Conference this year they were going on a tour of church history sites in New York and Pennsylvania.  Nick was super excited to have this opportunity.    

Nick and Josh waiting to get on the bus.  

Abby, Mary, Josh, Sam and Nick.  

June 15th he went to see a urologist as a follow-up.  Dr. Ferraro sent him to the hospital to have some x-rays done prior to the visit to see if there was anything else in his kidneys that needed attention.  Sure enough!!  There were two more stones waiting to make their appearance.  One was 5 mm and the other was 13 mm!!!!  The 5 was going to be tough to pass but Steve could do it on his own.  The 13 mm (the size of a marble), however, was going to need some help.  After Break Throughs (the national conference Steve organizes every year) we were going to have to schedule lithotripsy.  

That night we hosted the Deacon/Beehive activity at our house.  Every year when the older kids go to Youth Conference the younger kids get to choose an activity.  Last year we went roller skating.  This year they wanted to see the Batman Lego Movie and have different kinds of popcorn.  We packed into our front room and had a great night.  

June 17th was full of fun in preparation for Father's Day.  The Young Women were in charge of the ward gift to all the fathers.  We decided to do homemade cookies with a sign that said, "Dad, you are one smart cookie.  Happy Fathers Day!"  The presidency each baked 5 dozen cookies and we got together the morning of the 17th to assemble everything.  While we were assembling cookies, Jeremy and Steve went to our friends, the Maughans, and helped them moved tools and garage stuff to their new house.  Later that evening Steve and Jeremy went to Pippas Cafe to hear Kev Brawley perform.  The Youth Conference kids were supposed to arrive back at the church at 11 p.m.  I got a text from Nick about 10:30 that they were still about 2 hours away.   They finally arrived at 1 a.m. but they seemed to have a great time on the trip.

The next set of pictures is from Youth Conference.  Nick had a great time touring all over New York and seeing the historical church sites.  

Nick's view from the bus.  

Their first glimpse of New York. 

The Peter Whitmer Farm house.

The Hill Cumorah from the bottom

The Hill Cumorah at the top.  

Nick decided to roll down the hill.   This was his stopping point.  He didn't expect the last drop and the paved walkway.  Thank goodness he wasn't hurt.  His friends said it was epoch!

Grandin Press where the Book of Mormon was first printed.  

This is the visitors center at the hill Cumorah 

The Sacred Grove - This was Nick's favorite place on the whole trip.  He was so worried that with so many people going into the grove at the same time that it might be noisy and not sacred at all.  Thank goodness everyone felt the amazing spirit of the grove and it was quiet for all the visitors.  

Walking through the Sacred Grove.

The house where Joseph Smith lived as a boy.  

The road leading up to the house. 

This is the second house that Joseph Smith and his family lived in 

Nick loved this barn on the Smith farm.  

He also loved this pathway on the farm. 

Looking toward the Sacred Grove from the Smith farm.  

A map of the farm and Sacred Grove area. 

Nick's group finished the Joseph Smith tour early and had a minute to wait before loading back on the buses.  The leaders asked if anyone wanted to go into the grove one last time before they left.  No one wanted to go, except Nick.  He was in the Sacred Grove all by himself.  Definitely a trip highlight.  

They stayed in cabins owned by the church.  

This is where Joseph Smith and his wife lived in  

The home where Emma grew up.  

Waiting to get back on the bus

Priesthood Restoration site. 

This is the revised grave of their baby that died early, the original is somewhere else in the cemetery 

Nick took this picture while he was in the Sacred Grove all by himself.  He said it was so peaceful. 

They also visited the Erie Canal, had multiple workshops, dances, games and lots of free time, Over all in was a great experience and he is glad he went.  

June 18th was Father's Day.  We all slept in and went to church.  The cookies were a huge hit with all the dads.  Back at home we fixed a BBQ dinner.  The Maughans joined us as their kitchen was still in boxes.  After dinner was over and everyone had gone home I had a chance to talk to my dad and wish him a Happy Father's Day.  

June 19th, early in the morning, the kidney stone FINALLY passed.  

June 21st we finally went to see Cars 3.  The kids, especially Nick, have been waiting for this movie to come out since it was announced three years ago.  It did not disappoint.  We all loved it.  

June 22nd Steve had another of his scouts pass their Eagle Board of Review and become and Eagle Scout.  Way to go, Sam!!

June 25th the Priests and Miamaids had their chance to participate in the Prepare the Way program our ward missionaries have put in place.  The idea is for the youth to go door to door with a survey asking questions about what the person wants to know more about.  These turn into referrals for the full-time elders.  It has been a great success and the kids like to help out.  Today a new record was made.  Nick and Michael got 4 "golden" referrals.  That means that 4 of the people they talked to wanted the missionaries to come and tell them more.  It was pretty exciting.  

The group having ice cream afterwards.  Nick is not in the picture because he and Steve had to go and mow the Johnson's lawn immediately after they got back. 

When you have a psychology major for a son this is an example of the kind of conversations you overhear at your house.  Jeremy and Naomi were in the kitchen getting some ice water.  Naomi successfully completed the task of getting ice from the automatic ice maker.  It was Jeremy's turn and the icemaker became possessed and gave Jeremy more than he needed.  There were ice cubes all over the floor.  Jeremy got frustrated and said, "We have a passive-aggressive ice cube dispenser!  1 cube...2 cubes...20 CUBES!!!!"  Such a silly boy.  

June 26th Steve left for Break Throughs in Washington D.C.  The kids and I got to take dinner into one of their favorite babysitters.  Allie had neck surgery and wasn't supposed to move anything, lift anything, do anything for several weeks.  We took her homemade chicken noodle soup because Naomi said that would make her feel better.  We also took some of our homemade wheat bread and an assortment of butter braids for dessert.  It was so good to catch up with her.

June 28th Nick helped me move three bushes in the backyard.  We are trying to finally finish off what used to be the kids play area where the sand box and swing set used to be.  We just haven't done anything in the back corner all these years and it was time to start getting it all cleaned up.  

June 29th we did more yard work.  Many hands make light work.  We spent the evening helping the Maughans get the final things from their old house to their new house.  We were all exhausted by the end of the day.  The yard is looking amazing, though. 

I love our gladiolus garden.  All the colors make me so happy.  

This orange is my all-time favorite color out of the bunch.  

We had so many gladiolus this year that I got to have fresh flowers in the house for weeks.  

The final phase of the back yard.  The fire pit area is part of the project.  

The back corner is finally getting a makeover.  Pulling all the weeds and getting it cleaned up may be the death of us but it is going to look so nice.  

June 29th the Young Women met at Sister Miller's house to watch Alice in Wonderland (the theme of this years' camp) and to finish up any last minute things before camp next week.  There is never a dull moment with these girls.

Watching the movie with decorating their capes for the skit.  

Autumn playing psychiatrist and Naomi photo-bombing.  

Megan, Ravyn, Monica and Arias showing off their camp bandanas. 

While the girls were hanging at Sister Miller's house getting ready for camp, the boys were playing in the pool at the Croshaw's house.  Everyone had a great last youth activity for June.  

When Steve got back from his conference, which was a huge success, he and Nick replaced the tailgate hydrolic suspension piece that had broken earlier in the week while Nick and I were loading the lawn mower.  Nick loved working with tools and getting to help fix the truck.  Now the truck is ready for girls camp and scout camp the next two weeks.  

WHEW!  Busy, but memory-filled month.   We will have to see what July brings.