3.14

Happy pi day everyone!! Sierra has been home this week! I am happy Sierra is in college. She loves it and I love it for her.  I am grateful every day to see her determination to do well and not let her disorder get in the way of her having fun and doing what she wants to do.  I love watching our relationship change and grow.  Becoming more friends than parent/child. It has been a pretty easy transition with both of the older kiddos. I hope it is as easy with Haylee.  I sure do miss her while she's away though!! She has had a few doctors appointments and we have been shopping and hanging out. I will be sad to have her go back on Monday. We saw a new orthopedic surgeon this week and really liked him. She had an MRI and an X-ray done of her wrist. She has a cyst there and it is causing her all kinds of extra pain. She will have surgery early June hopefully. She is anxious to be rid of the dang thing.  Tomorrow Haylee has cookie booth in the morning for Girl Scouts then Joe will be getting home from his trip to Albuquerque.  We have stake conference tomorrow night. Sunday is more stake conference and a trip into the city. We don't usually to anywhere (besides meetings lol) on Sundays but it is the only day we will all be home together. Monday will bring an appt with the pain doc and taking Sierra back to school.  Here are a few pics from our week thus far:

Pretty sunset 

Haylee spending quality time with Jazz

She loves riding and is doing great! 

Date night at Volcano Hot Stone -think melting pot but you cook your food on a lava rock. 

They also have exotic meats I didn't order anything exotic but others did I tried kangaroo-tastes like steak, alligator-tastes like chicken, camel-it was ground and tasted a lot like a very seasoned hamburger -there was elk and wild boar too but those weren't terribly exotic so I didn't try them.  It was fun! 

Clothes shopped for this child who will not stop growing. 

Were in the middle of a big storm system. 

Shopped for cute clothes for this girl.  LOVE this dress on her it was a bit out of our price range but I had to see her try it on. 

Cat sat- well not really since we took care of them at their house 

Bought this kid a cute dress

Took her out to lunch. A lot :) she is great company and it does a mom good to see her almost too skinny kiddo eat! 

Today we celebrated pie day. 

Sierra also got her haircut but I didn't take pics.  I swear we don't go anywhere that someone doesn't compliment her on her hair.  She is the cutest!  

So happy to have her home with me this week!! 

It's blogging Wednesday :)

Or waiting in the car piano lessons Wednesday; you decide.  :) 

Busy does not begin to cover life at the moment.  Tonight starts one of five nights of church things this week.  I love it and have so much fun even if it takes up a lot of time.  Just for posterity's sake I will write the next few days activities church and otherwise so when my kids have kids and they say why are we so busy? I will be able to remind them that this is how it has been thru the ages: 

Wednesday: work, student counsel for Haylee, mutual -youth group at church, Joe home from TDY. 

Thursday: breakfast with friend, run errands to get ready for the Priest/Lairel dinner dance Friday night.  It is basically a prom and I am part of the event committee :) our theme is under the sea buy live fish for the flower arrangements- keep said fish alive until Friday at 11pm. 

Haylee has art club, go to church at 6:30 dressed as the cowardly lion for the ward camp leader training. 

Friday: 8:30am until midnight decorate for priest laurel, attend PLDD, clean up PLDD :)

Saturday: 10:00am clean the church, be back at church at 7pm for the young women's new beginnings program. 

Sunday: possibly my own sacrament meeting at 10, attend ward council in the Capitol Hill ward and go to their ward conference until 3:30, drive to Waldorf for our YCL meeting at 5:30 -I possibly have another meeting before that, 90% sure I have a stake committee meeting after that. 

Busy few days.  Even though it is a lot I am excited I get to do these things.  I love the ladies I work with at church there is always so much fun and laughter when we are together.  

Some pics from this last week:

A foot of snow.  Woo hoo! 

Our Valentines day snowman dog walker :) 

Sierra was home for the weekend to go to the doctor.  Look now skinny she is! She has lost 15 pounds since going to college. Isn't she supposed to gain 15 pounds? Oi. Bunch of bloodwork done at the docs.  Battles her pain daily like a champ but still needed her momma to hold her hand when they drew blood. She has also been having severe muscle spasms so she is staring new meds for that.  They also gave her nausea meds. She probably won't be happy I put her Jammie pic on here. :) 

Girl Scout ceremony 

Getting her Girl Scout pin 

Girl Scout buddies 

What is left of our snowman after less than a week!  

A blogging lull

I do not like blogging lulls!  When I am too busy/don't take the time to blog it is annoying to myself. But here I sit waiting for Haylee at piano lessons and what else can I do in the car in the dark!? Lots of FB that's what and sadly it has taken up most of my time already!  So I will blog some pics of the last few weeks 

We went to the DC car show. My favorite car was this Jag it cost $125,000 dollars. That is about $100,000 dollars to much.  Darn it! 

Me and my bestie with the hamster from the Kia commercial.  Those hampsters were chubby now they are fit. Looking at this picture really reminded me that I am also chubby and need to be fit. I am working on it. 

This week I went back to calorie counting.  It worked really well for me before. It's only been a few days and it is working again already.  Happy to report that I feel the mental "click" that needs to happen and things are going well. We will see how I do on the snow day tomorrow with people home all day who can eat whatever they want.  :) 

But I ate veggies and 3 pieces of turkey for lunch yesterday.  That's it.  Go me! 

Bub's happy birthday sign and his cupcakes I sent :) next year his cupcakes won't make it.  Brazil is getting close!!

A photo to show Haylee's very long hair. 

Man's best friend.  :)

Haylee won first place in the science fair!!  Woot woot!  Go Haylee!  She will go onto compete in the county. 

With her project 

With her dad.  She was so happy he came and that he was in his uniform -she said "Dad! You look so official!" Lol this is what he wears everyday.  He must look much fancier at school :) 

She looked extra cute to me on this day for some reason.  Sure do love this 12 year old. 

A pic of bub and elder Raveneau from France. Latest and greatest from his mission pics.  Miss him so much!! 

That is it for now friends.  Life is BUSY!  My calling is extra busy right now but I am enjoying it.  Haylee is busy with her four million activities.  Joe is traveling about every other week.  Sierra loves school and is busy.  HD is busy with missionary work. Everyone is happy and doing what they should be doing.  

Long day today.

Don't want to post all the details but sometimes life isn't easy.  Ha!  That is my big revelation.  Lol. I just wanted to post that I am thankful for friends who get me through and listen and don't judge but just let  me vent from time to time.  There were also so many good things today.  Smiles and hugs and am awesome 12 year old who can be typically challenging at times but when I am having a moment is always willing to do just what I need her to do.  I will update soon.  Lots going on HD is going to BRAZIL!!!!!  Like for REAL!  He should be there in the next few weeks!!!  Amazing!  And scary!  And amazing!  And scary!!!!!  :) 

Wonderful Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas.

This was the best part....

I teared up when I saw his face and he did too.  My sweet boy.  We got to talk to him for about an hour and a half.  It was so fantastic.  He told us some stories and we all laughed together.  Saying goodbye was awful.  I cried and could barely tell him Merry Christmas and that I loved him.  I tried so hard not to cry.  I know that made things harder for him.  He is doing so great and looks good and sounds so happy.  We could not be more proud of him and all he is doing.  Love you HD.  Merry Christmas everyone. 

Fun day out with the girls

To celebrate Sierra being home and the first day of winter we headed into the city.  Where people were wearing shorts and flip flops because it was 73 degrees!  Record breaking highs today! I still need to wrap a ton of stuff but we simply could not pass up the weather!  We went to the Museum of Natural History.  One of our favorites.  Happened upon a really cool interactive screen that had dinosaurs that looked like they were right there with you.  It was really great. Then we wandered through insects and got to our favorite part of that which is the butterfly exhibit.  Sierra didn't want to go in so Haylee and I walked through. Haylee had three butterflies land on her. She was ecstatic and the butterfly lady told her she would have good luck all day.  :) after that we went onto gems and minerals -my favorite- we saw the hope diamond and tried to see the other crown jewels that are there but that part was crowded and it was near impossible to push Sierra through in her wheelchair.  We gave up after a few minutes and walked through the rest of the beautiful things. We are cheeseburgers from a street vendor for dinner.  So yummy! We ended the day at the National Christmas tree.  There were 8 million other people who decided to take advantage of the weather and it would have taken us hours to get through the crowd so we viewed it from a little further back and will see the state trees after Christmas.  We were best when we got home but we watched a couple of Christmas shows anyway.  Great end to our fun day!  Tomorrow will be church, football and wrapping! We are all missing HD so much.  Can't wait to talk to him in a few short days!  

It looks like the t-Rex ate Sierra jn this pic! :)

A little Dino by Sierra.

Butterfly whisperer

See the baby starfish?  It was so cute! 

Dinosaur bones.

In the fossil lab window.  Dinosaurs excavating people. lol 

Not a great pic because Haylee was laughing so hard but she is eating frozen lemonade; in December; outside; at 6:00 at night!  It was so warm!! 

It is still really warm. I was just outside unplugging the Christmas lights and it is warm enough to sleep out there!  

Tis the season to be BUSY

My last few posts seem to involve some type of busy-ness :) it's that time of year. On Sunday our gospel doctrine teacher said we needed to make more time for the Savior and having peace during this time of year and not get so caught up in the bustle and bustle.  While I strive to make time for the Savior always I just cannot commit to peace.  At least not this 10 days or so!  Saturday was the kids Christmas party at the hangar.  Always a huge hit!  Crazy to live somewhere for nine years and be able to see the littles of all your friends grow up right before your eyes.  -I suppose that is normal for non military people lol not so normal for is usually.  It is super cool to eat lunch under the wing of that beautiful plane. They turned the tug into Rudolph this year so cute! No pics allowed but they do have a photog for these shots. 

Super fun, I mean Santa comes off of Air Force One- that's awesome and can't be missed.  Saturday night we got to go to the White House and do the Christmas tour. So beautiful!  We have been blessed this year to attend a few functions at the White House and we are so thankful for each opportunity.  It is not usually like that. Here are some photos: 

Haylee with the fallen soldiers tree.

Stunning! 

Us in the green room :)

Beautiful red room fireplace all the fireplaces had real fires burning in them! So cozy. 

Love these two and I love that my hubby carried our coats. 

Us :) 

It was just beautiful we hadn't gone since Haylee was really little. Glad she is old enough to remember now. 

Tuesday we got snow!! Yahoo!  No school!! I spent the day getting D's Christmas ready to mail. Tonight we got to go see the Nutcracker ballet by the Washington Ballet Company courtesy of the USO.  Again, so thankful!! Haylee LOVED IT.  I mean LOVED!! So happy she has an appreciation of the arts.  The cherry on top of the Sunday was Haylee meeting the Vice Commander of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral James A. Winnefeld, jr.  He is the second highest ranking military person in the nation!  Wow.  Super cool honor.  He was very nice and let us take a picture with him. 

Haylee and Gav thought it was pretty fancy to meet this guy.  He was fancy.  He had his own secret service agents!   

Tomorrow is a favorite things bday party for a fantastic friend and getting Haylee to a Girl Scout babysitting thing tomorrow from 5-10pm, Friday it's the adult PAG party.  It's always a great event and I look forward to dancing the night away with our amazing friends.  Pics to come later.... Saturday is the ward Christmas party and Sunday I am speaking at a young women's event at another ward.  That sounds major it's not  I am giving a five minute talk for their program :) Monday is a cookie exchange and the chaos of the week Friday I pick up Sierra and it's time for Christmas!!  CrAzY!  Super fun though!  Merry Christmas everyone!!