Memorial Day Weekend 2015

I haven't even blogged about Junie having 4 kittens in March. It has been so much fun watching them grow from tiny, hamster-sized kittens into full fledged, crazy, playful, adorable kittens; that will have to be another post.

One of Whitney's friends from school had claimed a grey female from the litter, so sweet Belva Boo (that's what we'd been calling her) got picked up Memorial Day weekend. Whitney made a birth certificate for her and we put a bow around her neck (which she was none too keen on). I may or may not have cried when she left. The good thing is that Whitney's friend started an Instagram account for her so we get to see updates on her regularly and she's doing well.

As for normal Memorial Day activities...Sunday evening we drove out to the Herriman Cemetery with my mom and Lori to put flowers on the graves and pay our respects.

My mom's parents' grave.

My mom's sister Launa showed up with her husband, daughter, and grandson plus her 100 year old Aunt Berniece (who kept saying to us, "Do you know who I am?!").

The boy was looking fly as usual.

I handed my phone to Landon to take a group selfie of us and he surprised us by jumping up onto a bench and snapping this photo. It was so funny and resulted in this very unposed photo, which I love.

This happened.

I couldn't sleep that night and ended up starting many Trivia Crack Challenges with Lori, and named them after my plight.

Monday morning Randy and the kids finally got to work weeding all the flower beds (this is what I wanted for Mother's Day).

It ended up being a beautiful day.

We met up with my parents, Lori, and Adam's family at JCW's for lunch and then came back to our house to hang out and celebrate Tess' 13th birthday.

We sat outside enjoying the weather and chatting for hours.

Memorial Day Goodness

 We piled into my mom's car for our trip out to the Herriman Cemetery.

The flags are my favorite thing to see and it's always windy out there so they are always flying.

Flower wrangling.

 My mom's parents' grave.

Family shot by Lori.

My dad met up with us for lunch at Astro Burger (so tasty) and then we all went to the movies.

Landon snapped some selfies on my phone.

14 thumbs up!

Super Fast Recap

I helped facilitate a kitten adoption for Lori through some neighbors of mine. She named the kittens Suki and Jojo (a girl and a boy) and they're wicked cute.

Landon actually popped into the office at school one of the last few days of 9th grade to work on an assignment. I'm really going to miss him next year when he's at the high school. 

Michelle brought me Cafe Rio for a car lunch during the 2nd to last week of school when I was hanging on by a very thin thread. I love car lunches!

My mom (and Randy, but he'd already left) came to watch Whitney in her final elementary school dance festival.

Adam, Amy and Lori came over for "game night" which consisted of a long, chatty dinner at JCWs and then a drive through visit to Culver's for custard.

The girls slept over and spent most of Saturday hanging out together in the front yard.

We went to the cemetery on Memorial Day and this was the best of our 3 attempts at a self-portrait.

We also went to see Iron Man 3 on Memorial Day. We all liked the movie, but I felt it was oppressively hot in the theater and therefore distracting.

Taking a cue from Michelle's Aunt Denise, I made a thank you card and had Whitney draw a picture and then left a Costco cake in the teacher's lounge at the Elementary School to thank them for 7 great years. I can't believe we won't be going to that school anymore, so sad!

Whitney graduated from 6th grade while posing as a 15 year old!

School finally ended and I'm not going back until the end of August!! I feel beyond victorious that I made it through another year in the front office. It is such a life-sucking, headache producing, strangely satisfying job, but man oh man do I need 3 months off to regroup so I can do it again...especially since Whitney will be there!

Max graduated from high school and will be starting BYU in the fall! I told Michelle I had to blog about this since she hasn't blogged in 5 months!

Amie's daughter Jessica turned 16 (what is happening, we're getting so old) and she invited me to join her for dinner while Jessica and her friends ate across the restaurant from us. Good times.

This picture doesn't do it justice, but Landon spent all day Saturday up at the University of Utah with the football team...apparently he forgot he has an Irish heritage and multiple relatives with skin cancer!

Today was our first official day of summer vacation and we got all kinds of stuff done. We cleared out the flower beds, amended the soil and planted flower seeds.

Woohoo, I love flowers!

This is how Whitney labeled her cup today, I found it funny.

Memorial Day

My favorite part of going to the Herriman Cemetery on Memorial Day is seeing all the flags. It's always windy out there so the flags (except for that one) really get to wave.

 The kids were quite involved with the flower placements this year.

I'm a fan of seeing all those flowers.

My grandparents' grave.

It felt like a big crowd of us this year, my dad was there too, but isn't in the picture.

Beautiful!

After the cemetery, we met up with the rest of the family plus Amy's family and some friends to celebrate Tess' 10th birthday.

Whitney's illustrations really capture her feelings about birthdays, she loves them enough for everyone.

It's nice that we mesh well with Amy's family and with Adam and Amy's friends, they're like part of the family now.

Tasty birthday cupcakes with gumballs on top, made by Amy.

The boy is getting huge!

Whitney wrote this poem for Tess.

Adam was a good sport and pushed the kids on this swing for a long time (no easy feat) and then played a game on the playground that involved tagging the kids with a frisbee, everyone loved it even the strangers who played too.