Our summer family vacation

 

 

 

July phone pics

These two darlings are waiting for the 4th of July parade to start. Man, I love them a lot.

A quick picture of the Seattle skyline from our trip. I thought that it was odd

that they built it crooked. Because it definitely wasn't my photography skills.

Seattle was so green! It reminded me a little of Massachusetts, as far as how lush it was.

A blurry sunset on the way home from the airport after our trip.

Again, so strange that the sunset was blurry that night.

These sisters are so incredibly sweet. I'm so grateful for both of them and their relationship.

Well, at the least the pants aren't too big and the helmet isn't very pink.

A rainbow during one of Ben's tournament games. After this last April,

rainbows will always remind me of this talk by President Uchtdorf.

The last ten months

(I've written this post more than once and can't make it work how I want it to and finally decided it just isn't something my heart can share the way I want it to. And on the rare occasion that happens on this blog that I use for a family history, I feel strongly I am being told to let it be. To record the actual event as a part of our family life and to let the detailed feelings and experiences stay in my heart, where apparently they belong. And while that sounds pretty dramatic for what I am about to share, trust me that this was such a difficult, wonderful, exhausting, incredible last year for our family. I have felt the Lord's hand in so much of what we have been through, especially in the hard. It is what we needed for many reasons, but how incredibly grateful we are that this particular season has come to an end. You cannot imagine how we feel when we have our dad and husband around a whole lot of evenings these days.)

On the day that Grace turned 13 days old, Jacob left on a business trip to Houston. He returned three days later and the following afternoon, drove to the airport to catch a flight to Atlanta for two days.

And while that was a bit hard for many reasons, not the least of which was taking care of a newborn and her five siblings by myself those days, the real test came in the coming months. Ten to be exact.

This past Thursday, Jacob returned from a business trip. His last one for the particular case he has been leading for the last many months. The case has been turned over to someone else and Jacob will move on to other cases, that are wonderful and good, but should only require a "normal" amount of travel for his job. His being asked to lead the largest case his company has ever taken on, says a lot about Jacob and his abilities, but boy howdy, it was tough going for the past (almost) year.

For 10 months, or 44 weeks, Jacob had 39 business trips, totally 120 days gone. Yes, he had a few weeks where he didn't travel, but they were very, very few (in the single digits over the last 44 weeks). And unlike some situations where you travel often for your job, but you get the time you are at home off, that isn't the case here. There were so many Thursdays when he would arrive home from his weekly trip late (nine, ten, eleven o'clock or later) and be back up early the next morning to head in to work.

There is so much to share about the experience and how difficult it felt (for so many reasons, not just the travel alone), but I will just leave it with my gratitude for the experience. And I mean that sincerely. Of course it is easier now that we are not in the middle of it, but I truly know there was a reason for all that has happened in the last many months. Several reasons actually. And while we only understand one or two of these at this time, that is enough. The Lord has blessed me immeasurably. (With a husband who has a good job and works very hard to provide for his family for starters.) And when we go through something really difficult, and the Spirit tells me that there is a reason, I have to trust. Because my Savior has earned that trust from me.

No it wasn't always easy. In fact, it was harder on me than I would care to admit. But it changed me in ways that our Heavenly Father needed me to change. And for that I am incredibly grateful.

Running another half

Six weeks ago, I casually mentioned I ran a half marathon. Or I posted about it twice (a one and a two) and wanted to hang a large sign in my front yard to let everyone know. Because I'm humble like that.

And within just a couple of days, during a phone call with my younger sister, she said the two of us should run a half together. And apparently all common sense left me and within a few hours, we were signed up to do just that.

And I wish I could say I trained better for the second one, but that would be a lie. I ran well for a couple of weeks again, but the rest of the time was a bit pitiful.

But nonetheless, 5am came last Saturday morning and I got up and then woke Megan up. (She lives a while from my house, so stayed over. She is one fun person to be around. And when it is late the night before we are about to do something crazy and ridiculous, we sure think we are pretty hilarious. Let's just say there was a whole lot of laughing. And eye rolling by Jacob. Okay, not the second one. At least outwardly.) Anyway, we got up and within a few minutes, were on our way to the starting line.

My pre-race sky photo. You are welcome.

The starting line. Both of us were being so positive about how we were totally going to finish this,

but deep down I was scared to death the first one was a fluke and I was going to fail miserably.

This race was ridiculously hard. I definitely wasn't prepared for the number of hills and how much 

more difficult than my first half it would be. But the beautiful views almost made up for it. Almost.

Proof we made it to mile 9. And that my sister is hilarious.

And we did it. For real. And cut almost 30 minutes off the time of my first half.

My sister and I are pretty similar in how we push ourselves and it really made me

work hard, especially on such a difficult course. But when we realized we had made it

under the goal we had set for ourselves, it was totally and completely worth it.

Until I couldn't walk (again) for the next three days.

I really should be used to that part, shouldn't I?

So in summary, I ran a marathon. It just took me six weeks.

I ran a half marathon today...again

And even beat my last time by quite a bit. But my legs are definitely paying for it.

Oh man, I'm pretty sure I have a new addiction. I may or may not have already signed up for another one.

(Race pictures coming soon...)

Love this baby girl so much

Annie and her riding

It will be a year in September, since Annie started taking horseback riding lessons. She still goes

every week. And she still loves it. As do I. I truly look forward to watching her every single lesson.

She is doing amazingly well! She has developed so many skills that I didn't even know mattered

when you rode a horse, has become confident and in charge while riding and will likely be

taking it to the next level come the end of this year. I'll wait to share when everything 

is in place at the end of August, but she is pretty excited and we are thrilled for her.

During her lesson at the beginning of this week, I finally remembered to take the camera

to capture her incredible riding skills. Not only that, but a couple of her cousins were able

to come to one of her lessons and watch and it meant so much to her that they would do that.

And here they are getting Shiloh ready to be saddled. Annie does all of the 

prep work as well as tacking up the horse before she starts her lesson each week.

And here they go, warming up together.

A lot of her lesson this week was learning to pole bend. She had never done it before

and she did it better than I could ever have imagined. I absolutely loved watching her.

And a quick up close photo while she was walking Shiloh on the rails between pole bending

runs. (The horses get pretty excited to compete and you have to calm them down every time

 or two.) I love our Annie girl for a million reasons, but one of them you will see if you look

closely at this photo. Specifically at her necklace. Here is our cowgirl in her boots, riding a

horse like nobody's business, and wearing her Eiffel Tower necklace. She loves everything 

about Paris (her room will let you know that quickly). This girl is awesome in every way.

Love this shot.

And this one. She is going a lot faster than it appears. She controls her horse so well.

And cooling Shiloh down at the end of the lesson.

Done until next week. Time to start counting down the days. Again.

Borrowed pink helmet + borrowed balance bike =

Nate. Driving like a lunatic. And loving every second.
I wish I could say the same for his mother.
More like every ninth second in her case.

Summertime

Here we go again...

 This darling girl took a trip to the orthodontist a couple of days ago. And had braces put on

her teeth. We actually thought Annie might get away with not getting them, and she probably

could have skipped on it, but she did have some spaces that made just a few months worth

of braces a good idea. Just so she didn't have to worry about the spacing getting worse.

Besides, this girl is darling no matter what. And we love her so very much.

Just so grateful

It has taken me way too long to start writing this post because I have tried to plan it out in my head over and over again and it never feels right. It never feels grateful enough. It never feels like I can capture all that they did or how amazing we think they are.

And I finally realized, I was right. I couldn't. So I tried to do that in a thank you note I wrote them and after that was delivered, I realized they would be embarrassed enough that I stole one of the photos that they shared with me to be used in a Christmas gift to Jacob's parents (I couldn't help it, they are so crazy darling). If I went on and on about them and all that they did for us while we were in Seattle, they may disown us (and we like them way too much to chance that). Besides, they aren't those kind of people. They are way too humble for that much attention.

But I knew I had to put something on the blog, because it mattered to me to have it here so that we would always remember their incredible kindness to us and how grateful we are to have them as our friends and our family. So here goes...

Thank you, thank you, thank you Taunya and Jonny! There are no words for how grateful we are for not only being willing to be with our kids for five days while we truly got away for the first time in our marriage, but for acting like it was your pleasure. How you treated our kids and what you were willing to do so that we could enjoy our time is overwhelming to us. We never worried about the kids for a single second and that meant so much to us. We are just so grateful and hope you know we think you are incredible! Sure love you guys.

Seattle ~ The us

If you were just thinking that the one thing you missed during the last several posts

about our adventures in Seattle, is the cuteness of us, do I have a treat for you.

Okay, no one was thinking that, but too late. I've already uploaded the photos.

Jacob and I didn't take many photos of the two of us during our time in Washington.

(I've mentioned more than once I specialize in selfies of the foot variety.) But we did 

take these two. (Well, we took one and some other kind soul took the other.) And they 

make me happy every time I see them. And that is saying something about a photo of me.

Nothing fancy, but I loveth this photo. Because I loveth this man.

And this one I love for more than one reason. (Not the least of which is that my

boat hair is fantastic.) First, as I mentioned, one of my favorite memories of the

trip was our time on the ocean. And this picture captures that time perfectly.

And second, there was a sweet woman on that same trip who came up to us out of the blue and

offered to take our photo. It was so thoughtful of her. And we got talking for a bit and then she

asked, "So, are you two on your honeymoon then?" Sweet chicken, I have found the person

I will be leaving all of my money to. Bless her kind heart. (I really should have offered to

pay for an eye exam for her though. Apparently she hasn't been in a while.) It might have

made my day. Okay, my week. Okay, month. When we told her that we actually had six

children I honestly thought she was going to faint and go overboard. (Obviously because we

look so youthful, I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that six children is a whole lot of

chicklets.) The reason didn't matter. She made my month and took our picture. Happy day!

So there you go. Finally. Seattle in 87 posts. Or six. 

In summary, we absolutely loved it!

(If I didn't make that clear before.)

The end.