Finishing School and Starting Summer

May kept us hopping with lots of fun (and exhausting) activities!  Brenna continued her dance competitions and conventions.  She had a solo this year and a front aerial in a dance-both of those pushed her pretty hard.  Through blood, sweat and some tears she grew a lot!  

She had a lot of supporters at her recital, where we learned that Dave does not want Harrison to join Brenna's dance studio,

so good thing his interests lie elsewhere.  He's been playing hard with this group of boys.  

Grant left to try his hand at another round of summer sales, this time in Minnesota.  Thus far, he loves the land but not the people.  

We've been living lacrosse here and mostly loving it.  It was such a roller coaster ride the end of the season.  Katelee's team made history taking region and being ranked number one in state! 

But they had a huge heart break in the playoffs losing in the semi finals

 to a rival local team.  It was a hard one to swallow because there was some sketchy things that went down, but our girls had an amazing season and we loved watching them all, especially cute number 22!

Katelee even made the All State 2nd team, which was super exciting to see.  

She will play over the summer a little bit before she leaves for her HXP trip, so she can keep up those stick skills for senior year! 

The lacrosse gals all went to the girls choice MORP dance together following a game one Saturday.  Katelee took Bryson and had a great time with him.  

Cute cow folk looking swell.  

Finals, projects, presentations, reports, phew...we did it all.  Katelee had some tough classes and survived it all.  The cute caboose rocked his county report and 

designed these letters for his elementary school display.  The kid has some serious art skillz that are used not only for designing jerseys! 

We were all happy to start summer break...well, mostly.  Our man Harrison was teary on the last day of school.  He was reflecting on how fast he is growing up and feeling nostalgia laced with sadness because he says he can't remember being little.  He told me he wished he had just loved being little and understood how great it was.  

Our tender hearted deep thinker has to say goodbye to 4th grade, ready or not.  That pic was taken on a random spring Sunday when, unplanned, the kids were all matchy matchy for church.  

Our very first weekend of summer was a celebration for Caleb and Adri!

We loved getting to be there for their special day!  

It was too bad Grant was already in the midwest for sales, but the rest of us had a great time congratulating the newlyweds.

Brenna took her job as the soda barista very seriously.  She designed a menu and was a natural soda-rista.  She had one minor breakdown when she ran into the woods after she realized she forgot their Taylor Swift hand towels gift but she left the station in good hands with her assistant, Harrison.  

Yay for weddings! We were sitting in the sealing room, where the brides family and friends face the grooms family and friends, with the altar in the middle where the couple will come and kneel.  Toren, Rachel's husband leaned over and said, "we could take them."  I was pretty confident in that until I realized who would be on my team.  Our physical prowess is not mighty, but boy am I grateful for the steadiness and support of our families! 

While we had started the break, we still had at least one school related task to attend to-the ACT test for Katelee.  We had it scheduled and unfortunately, it was only being administered an early Saturday in the beginning of June and hour away.  We made plans for Katelee to go to bed early, make all necessary preparations etc and be calm for her exam.  

Well...then Katelee got invited to a concert- for free.  She wanted to go so badly and promised she'd be home early.  Was she?  Of course not.  Did she miss the last train home?  yes, yes she did.  So, Dave had to go pick her up and we just kept saying everything would be ok.  Her calculator, pencil, ID, confirmation paper, everything was ready to go, we would get enough sleep and zip up to the test early.  When she and I left the morning of the test, all seemed well.  I decided I would go to the temple while she was testing to burn time.  As we were about 30 minutes into the drive, I notice Katelee shuffling around on the ground in the car.  I inquired if she was ok and had everything.  Katelee hastily replied, 'yep, yep. I am good.'  I could tell something wasn't right, so I did a mental check list sure we had grabbed everything on the list.  But when I looked down, I just saw Katelee's cute feet in socks.  I said, "Katelee...where are your shoes."  She frantically emphasized she had grabbed them, then stopped in shock and slapped her hands over her mouth saying she put them on the car.  Whelp...those suckers were long gone.  I was going to have to let her use the sandals I was wearing to the temple and maybe I could borrow shoes from Rachel who lives not too far away from the school she was testing out.  But then I said, "Katelee, what shoes were they."  Yea, they were mine.  My adidas that I wear all the time. 

 I was hoping maybe they flew off in our hood and we would get them as soon as returned so I stayed calm, sent the girl off in my shoes and ended up walking the dirty aisles of Walmart for flip flops to wear to the temple.  The checkout lady would not help me cut the packaging so I moved on over to customer service hoping someone would have pity on me.  Good thing I know Jesus didn't care what shoes I ended up in at his house, I was there, it was an adventure  and no, we never found my shoes.  Bless this child and her speedy pace of life. 

This child continues to be our extra organized, structured woman.  She came in my room one night showing me the heatless curls she was trying and I busted up and had to snap a pic.

Brenna has an extensive bucket list for summer that I have to remind her do not have to all be accomplished, but it is a good list to give her ideas of what to do when she is bored. 

This giant cake was on the list...it was decorated with chow mein noodles, pretzels, raisins and nuts.  It was a sight to behold. 

Brenna did get to go to her first FSY with her friend Luella in June, starting her summer with something so fun.  She had a great time in the dorms and learned a lot!

Another bucket list activity was the drive in... 

Brenna, Harrison and I had a great time at Inside Out 2.  We snagged pizza and treats and had a perfect summer evening.  We made sure to do it when this guy

was at his YM camp because he does not enjoy the drive in movies.  He was having a great experience rock climbing and adventuring with our church young mens group.  

Dave was the only adult leader that made it to the top of the rock climbing/rappelling wall and he was rightly stoked about that.  

He was away for his birthday doing what he does not love at all (camping) but we made sure to celebrate him later.  

While Brenna was busy at FSY one day, I decided Harrison and I should venture out to explore.  We went to the Golden Spike monument, somewhere neither of us had ever been.  

It was a fun one and done location for us.  I had told Harrison we should go take the drive without any electronics for him...2 hrs there and 2 hours back (I didn't realize it would be that long!) and he survived.  It was a long day but we had fun and stopped at Maddox's for some delish food on the way home.  Bucket list item completed.  

We have still had some tournaments (lacrosse and basketball) and Harrison got to do the BYU basketball training camp which provided him with some swag he was stoked about.  Two camps down and a whole lot of fun so far!  Summer is sizzling!