Our Lax Lady

And things are wrapping up in Miss Katelee's high school career.  Most of the next bit of pictures and entries will be about that...so I better throw in a couple of updates on the other people that live here..

Brenna is still working on recovery.  She skipped a couple of performances, which was hard on her, but was able to dance in the end of the year recital with a couple of modifications.  We are just happy she is up and moving again.  

Harrison still has plans for world domination as exhibited in our game of RISK.  He was channeling his inner Kaiser.  

He is really enjoying basketball this year- he finished up with his bantam team but still gets to play with is invictus club through the summer.  They have all become great friends and love doing it together.  They are all sorts of levels so we will see what happens next season.

 

Katelee's lacrosse season/HS career has officially come to an end.   

This girl picked up a lacrosse stick in 8th grade after bouncing around a lot of activities/sports-which we loved but couldn't put it down after.  

She had a couple of hard years of tryouts- being injured for both 9th and 10th grade tryouts.  She had broken her wrist right before tryouts and had to duck out that season.  It was so sad.  She pushed through a broken toe and loved playing her sophomore year and she has only said she wished she started sooner.  But girl got so good!!

Last year she got 2nd team all-region, this year she played strictly Defense...which she didn't love at first, but her team relied on her and she was the anchor back by our goal.  This year she made 2nd team ALL STATE!!!

She has already had the USU coach asking if she thinks she might be interested in playing in college.  She has big adventure/snowboarding plans so we will see about that.  But it is still so cool.

The team celebrated their seniors a couple weeks before playoffs.    Some of us parents sported shirts of our player and they are a big hit.  I probably will wear Katelee's face on my front weekly...especially when she moves away.  sniff sniff.  

Senior night was a fun night with some of Katelee's biggest fans!    

We have loved cheering this girl on and her cute friends too.  It has been the best having Katelee get to play with Izzy and they have become more than besties.  Buffy and I have been the bleacher cheerleaders/dancers.  So, good luck to the crowd next year.  

Riverton had a more challenging year with the team- just girl drama and situations that translated onto the field.  Last year they took region and made it to semi-finals...with expectations of playing (possibly winning) state.  This year we were blown away when we barely beat Davis in the playoffs to snatch a spot at semi-finals.  

Izzy made the winning goal and Shannon snapped a good photo of our reactions!  On to the next playoff...

where we fell apart at semis again.  It was a bummer and Katelee had mixed feelings about wrapping up.  

What a great experience lacrosse has been for our girl through high school.  

She learned she could do push through pain- boy was she bleeding and sore and broken a lot but she kept going.  Great life lesson there.  

She learned to believe in herself and be open to trying new things-lacrosse was never on our radar in her childhood.  

She learned to be teachable/coachable.  Katelee really wanted to be up on offense and she started out being able to play both sides but they knew where they needed her and she took one for the team, being where she was needed most.  Like we all come to terms with we have strengths to offer and can best be used sometimes where we don't even realize.  

She learned to laugh and enjoy the experience no matter what happens.  Some of her greatest memories are of the bus rides, the funny practices, the inside jokes, mic-ing up, dancing on the field to get hyped up.  We loved hearing all the starting lineup announced at home games- Berkely 'the Assassin' Elsasser, Reese 'Grease Lightning' Lewis, Izzy 'The Rizzler Blunck', Grace 'in your face' Jenson, to name a few.  

Katelee 'Shake and Bake' McArthur will forever be our most loved player.  

We learned that lacrosse is played during some of the most freezing conditions ever experienced.  This year the girls nearly had frostbite at one game with sideways blowing snow, it was a complete windy white out.  Their little fingers/toes/bodies were red and wind rashed. They were completely drenched and while we were miserable in our wet conditions, I couldn't imagine what they felt like.  

We learned that Utah has beautiful backgrounds and stadium lights are a great setting to be amazed by the earth's beauty.  

We learned to buy stadium chairs with a back, we learned that we aren't sad the next years of cheering on our kids at sports will mostly be inside (thank you basketball and dance...although there is talk of track and I know halftimes at football games).  But we mostly learned that we love cheering each other on and we will ALWAYS do that-rain, shine, heat, cold.  We will be the loudest cheering section whever life takes us. 

 

It's All Gonna Be Alright

Despite Harrison's response to the question what have you been doing lately, April was a roller coaster of a month.  When asked what he'd been up to, he said he was spending a lot of time scrolling the internet with his mom.  Maybe we needed some brain rot time with all the emotions of the month.  

Katelee had her last prom(s).  After the Herriman with Angel, she also went to another school's- Mountain Ridge with a blind date and her friend Izzy was in the group as well.  

These girls are getting the most out of their senior year and getting fancy.  Most of their days are spent in lacrosse uniforms, 

and covered in bruises and battle scars...

so it is fun to see them all gussied up.  Her Riverton prom 

was spent with her guy Bear, who drove all the way down from Boring, Oregon to take her.  

They looked stunning and were turning heads at the capital building, as well as his famous tik tok sister who was doing the photo shoot.  This girl is worth the drive. 

It plucks at my heart as I think of all Katelee's "lasts" or senior experiences.  We walked by the field and there was her cute face on her senior lax banner.  

She has had a challenging year and is just barely developing the senioritis, hopefully it doesn't get too debilitating- but she is oh so close!  

Harrison, too has been caught up in the emotions.  He and I have been working on his Battle of the Books reads for his school competition.  We were wrapping up one of the novels and I had to run out while he finished it.  I came back to him choked up with tears.  He was hardly able to express what happened and he kept wondering why they would write such a sad story and make kids read it!  I felt bad I left him alone to deal with the trauma, but we talked it through and spent some time in our zen modes re grouping.  

Now that the weather is turning warm again, one of our relaxation zones (especially mine) is our backyard hammock zone.  

I mean the whole grounds are looking springy

and while you can't smell through the computer, if you could it would be a most flowery fresh aroma.  We love going out and taking some deep breaths! 

We spent much of the month trying to stay upbeat and lift Brenna's spirits as her back struggle continues.  We got to see Wicked-phenomenal of course and so fun since Brenna had seen the movie in the fall.  Now she has a spoiler for how the whole story wraps up.  

We took her to get an MRI to make sure there was not a fracture that she should be rehabilitating. 

Luckily, the injury is still consistent with the initial muscle tear/strains diagnosis.   But we have had to lay low on dance and her spirits were suffering.  Especially with auditions approaching.  We contacted the coach to see if we could send in some recent videos (pre-back breaking situation) of her tricks and she would still attend auditions and push as much as she could.  The dance company director agreed and had remembered her from some pre-audition classes and we were so grateful.  AND....

SHE MADE IT!  It is a scary audition-where they keep sending girls out after different steps in the process.  At the end, I was just circling the parking lot and watching dancers come out in tears, with parents holding them up and comforting them.  I kept hoping she didn't come out and Katelee texted me saying Brenna had made it (her senior friend helping run the try outs messaged Katelee).  

We were so relieved and happy and she is beyond thrilled to get to continue dancing through HS on the school's dance co.  She made it with her childhood chum, Kate.  

as well as all the gals auditioning from her studio.  It is going to be such a fun ride! 

What we did learn is that the ride is so unpredictable.  I mean we all know that, we understand that life's roller coaster ride throws curves and loops that weren't on the route originally.  All Brenna has been working for her dance journey was to be on this team; however, we realized that rides can alter and it would be alright.  It would be hard and an adjustment, but when we are built on Jesus and He is our rock, he will be right there with us to see us through.  

Now...continuing on to heal that girl's back!

 

Ya Man

Marching on to some Epic Adventures this month!  It's a big one for Miss Katelee!!

Our little leprechaun is now 18!!!  

She is a delight and we adore her.  She celebrated with us and also with a little overnighter with some close friends downtown.  I want to say I can't believe she is an adult, but the truth is I can.  She is strong, motivated, smart and killing it at lacrosse this year.  

She's permanently on defense and while it wasn't her first choice, she is embracing it and started out as a captain on the team. (then there has been some girl drama-bleh- and now every senior is a captain).  Anywho...she is a leader and is pushing through hard classes, challenges in life and looking forward to college.  Ahhhh...can't belive that's getting close.  She went to another school's prom...

with Porter Sorenson's friend.  We love Katelee and Porter reunited our families at their chance meet up at In-N-Out.  Here she is with Angel looking dapper and gorgeous.  She is growing up in the best way and 18 looks good on her!  

Our poor little Brenna is still struggling with her back injury.  She pushed through the last convention, 

but now she is out for the next one.  We've been doing PT, a massage and went to a chiropractor after a suggestion from another parent.  Brenna liked it originally, but when we went back a second time, we are certain she was more severely hurt.  We are just doing all we can (and praying a lot!) so she can rest up and hopefully be ok for auditions in April.  

Her back was suffering and this kid's eye turned red and goopy.  We have never had Pink Eye at the McArthur house.  We almost made it through 4 kids without that experience.  Harrison busted our record.  We had to get that cleared up before our Spring Break trip, which we did but then Katelee got it right at the end of the trip, so we were pretty lucky.  

Our Christmas present to the family was a trip to JAMAICA!  We wanted to do something fantastic for Katelee's last high school spring break trip- and boy was it ever!  

We started off the vacation in true McArthur madness...forgetting Harrison's luggage.  We even said before hand, make sure to get your luggage to everyone! (we have had more than our share of mishaps-but the luggage forgetting of the mcarthur cruise was coming to mind).  When we got to the car park, we all searched for the silver suitcase with Harrison's belongings, but with no success.  He had brought it out to the car, but placed it on the side to be loaded and it was overlooked.  So, it sat in our garage.  

Luckily, we had noticed our neighbor, Matthew pulling in when we left, so we bribed him to speed over to the airport and he arrived just as we got checked in and needed to head to security.  Phew...we like to stay on our toes! 

We spent the night in Atlanta and Anna and Curt were able to meet us for breakfast before we left for the island.  That was fun!  Brenna had been saving her turn for the window seat so she could fly in and have a tropical view...not quite what she saved herself for.  hahahaha

We didn't get a bird's eye view, but once we did get to reggae land, we loved it!  

We stayed at the same hotel Dave and I did in 2017-we even upgraded one of our rooms (us girlies') to the swim up for the last couple of nights, like we had on our ADP trip.  

Our first night we jumped right into the swimming...

and the partying.  The resort dancers put on a great show and then it was a 'silent disco' where Katelee and I had a blast with Brenna while trying to constrain her and not cause further injury.  ha! 

It is the most bizarre party cuz it feels like a club, but you take off your headphones and it is silent.  Everyone looks off beat and ridiculous so you can just go for it! 

We woke up and went to church-same building as we went to 8 years ago- new paint, same great people! 

This little gal wanted to be in our pictures.  She must be just like our girls because half of their waking moments seemed to be a photo shoot everywhere we went.  There are currently hundreds of photos of McArthur ladies (sans mother) posing throughout the island.  

When we got back to the resort, we took it easy and enjoyed our time.  We had awesome dinners together each night, at a hibachi, a french restaurant, 

an italian place and we ate a lot of jerk chicken with our fruity drink concoctions as we lounged around.  But out favorite things to eat came from the locals at the fruit stands.  Our driver would pull over and let Dave shop around and we also bought a whole bunch of produce at one of our excursion destinations.  

The Jamaican apple and star apple initially made Harrison gag a bit in their texture being similar to snot, but even he came around to the heavenly taste.  

We brought it back to the hotel and they cut it up for us.  We left them the cocoa seeds and our server took them home to grind.  It worked out for everyone.  

Besides church, we left the resort for two places.  One of them was for our swim with DOLPHINS!

It was so fun!  

Each of us got to pet one of the dolphins, touch their noses and dance with them (mostly they just splashed us all), 

get kissed by the slick creatures 

get pulled by two at the same time, (Harrison tried to pull this mewwing face in EVERY photo, gotta keep the memories)

and get rocketed in the air by them with their noses at the soles of our feet.  

They are so well trained, 

so fun

and really helped Brenna prepare for her first smooch.

The water color was a little sus right up against the building...we witnessed why with the feeding and the processing of that food by the dophins ;) 

but you can't beat these genuine smiles.  

We didn't even need to stage a photo op, cuz they sucker you big time.  Totally worth it - we loved every minute.  

We showered off the salt water and fecal matter and chilled at the hotel but did not want to miss out on the exciting/terrifying Michael Jackson impersonator.  That was something.  

He had children in the audience screaming in fright during Thriller- I guess it was just so authentic.  He sat by Brenna for a brief moment, but she wasn't scared, Harrison however, looked unsure.  

The other time we left the resort was originally to go to the tourist spot Dunn's River to swim and hike around.  Katelee's friend had told her they went to a different place close to and similar to Dunn's River.  When we asked our driver about it, he said Dunn's River is great but Blue Hole is best of all.  So...we changed course and ended up at Blue Hole.  

It was such a stellar move because it was the highlight for all of us.  

You hiked up the rocks through the waterfall and had a great place to jump into the falls.  It was a lot higher than this picture makes it look.  There was a couple that was there at the same time and Dave ended up jumping with the lady to help her overcome her fears.  

Our river guide had asked us if we wanted to try and swim under the falls and into the little cove.  We thought we could do it...false...only Grant and Dave could actually swim there.  That current was a bugger and we are apparently not the strongest of swimmers.  With the help of our guide and Grant, we made it under and it was incredible!

I lost a shoe, which was later recovered, swallowed a whole lot of water and thought perhaps I just might tread water against the current for all of time,

 but we all completed the entire course.  

The water was perfect, the scenery was pristine and the adventure was spot on.  

There were a lot of vendors all over and Grant and I were joking that Harrison should as Dave if he could get some brownies.  Dave said yes without a second thought.  We were giggling and I had to explain to him what type of brownies the Jamaicans were selling.  He was going to get way more than chocolate in that treat.  

We loved watching the sunset, walking the grounds, taking a catamaran out into the ocean where the boat captain laughed at Brenna when she asked if there were sharks.  It was a fantastic blend of thrills and relaxation.  While we loved the activities, I mostly loved getting so spend time together!!  

We Love Jamaica!

But mostly I love these people of mine (yes-please note the mew on the youngest's face)!