New School Year

Peter & Libby at the bus stop

The 2012-13 school year has officially begun!  Peter and Libby were complete opposites about the clothes the night before.  Libby had to model every single shirt with every single skirt/pair of parts that she had, and I had to rate the outfit on a scale from 1 to 5.  Only the 4's and 5's were selected to go on to the finals, and from there she chose what outfits she would wear the first week of school.  I tried to get in some peeks on Pinterest between outfit changes.  Peter, on the other hand, figured out what he was wearing about five minutes ahead of time.  Except for the shoes.  He had those planned out way ahead of time, because they were the boots he got for his birthday!  It took all his powers of discipline to not wear the spurs with the boots.  I wouldn't put it past him to try it one of these days, when he gets comfortable at school.  I'll have to keep an eye on that...

Mary on the first day of school

Mary is in FX Show Choir this year, along with Madrigals. She also tried out for a Ballroom Dance team, and is looking forward to practicing and performing with them.  She also came out of her Freshman year with a 4.0.  Way to go Mary!

Jesse on the first day of school

Jesse is a Senior this year!  She is the only returning alto in Madrigals this year, and was elected the Section head.  Besides Madrigals, she is pouring all her extra time into maintaining her 4.0 and practicing the piano.  She will audition for the BYU Piano Performance Major in January.  Very exciting!  Her claim to fame this week was that she started her Senior year in high school as a 16 year old.

Jesse and Grandma W on Jesse's 17th birthday

But it didn't last for long, because the next day she turned 17.  I told Jesse it was almost a disappointment to have her turn 17, because now I can no longer say, "She's only 16...!.  She accomplished so much when she was 15 and 16, that I was constantly saying that when people asked how old she was.  Grandma W came over with the "art-deco" birthday cake.  I told Grandma that she was creative with a capital C!  We had a good laugh about it, but I thought it looked awesome.

Joseph and Libby at the Street Dance

I love this picture so much I could eat it for desert.  This is Joseph dancing with Libby at the Family Street Dance.  He didn't have many other people to dance with - he was an oldie - but Libby sure was glad to dance with him!  Our Street Dance was so fun, as it always is.  Our numbers were fewer, because there was a football game that night, but we had fun anyway.

Joseph on Stormy

Here's the posture Joseph has been in almost constantly for the past few weeks - riding a horse!  He and Bruce worked together to break Stormy.  This was a big accomplishment, because the first time they attempted it, Bruce got some bruised ribs and a bucking horse show to go with it.  There was some question as to whether Stormy was going to be broken at all.  But, at the insistence of Joseph, they went out and tried again.  It was wild, from what I hear, but they got a saddle on him and Joseph rode him.  They've since been on him several times, and it's working out!  My hats off to them - I would have given up a long time ago!  Yesterday, Bruce took Mary, Peter and Libby out riding, and they had a great time.

Joseph is enjoying his time here, because he is soon off to Rexburg and BYU-I!  Wow - I can't believe the time has come for him to go off to college.  I'll have to admit that it's been hard - thinking of him leaving, especially because we've been through it now, and we know what it's like!  The college part's not so hard, but knowing that the mission is coming up straight after that, well, that's a different story.  Man, we're gonna miss Joseph!

But he's so excited and happy that it's easy to be happy with him!

By the way, I have to add one more thing.  On my other blog, oilslorena.com, I wrote about Joseph getting thrown off Stormy while they were breaking him, and falling on his hip.  That happened on the day of our Street Dance.  So, when this picture was taken above, of Joseph and Libby dancing, Joseph was in real pain, holding Libby like that for that dance.  He told me later that it hurt pretty badly, but during that whole dance, even limping and all, he was a really good sport and danced and made a lot of girls feel happy.  Thank you, Joseph, for your kindness and cheerfulness, even through pain.

Ha ha - after writing that, it kind of looks like he's grimacing in the picture instead of smiling!  :)

End of summer...

Here is Grandma peeling the peaches that she picked off the tree in our front yard.  Add to that the fresh cream from Buttercup, and man, we had us a real dessert.  You would have thought we were back in Grandma Reta's kitchen, excetp for the Agave nectar we added instead of the sugar.  Grandma Reta loved the sugar!

And then we got to visit with my little niece and her parents, Craig & Jenette.  Thnaks for coming over guys!

The Olympics have come and gone.  We watched the Opening Ceremonies, one night over at Grandma's before the reunions, one night at the reunion, and one night with Craig.  That's it!  It was weird - it came and went without us hardly even watching anything!  But we were off doing fun things, so that's OK.  Michael Phelps won a whole bunch of medals again.  It was interesting how much better he handled the press than some of the other athletes.  He didn't fall for their "trap" questions, like "How well will you swim in this race", and other dumb questions.  He said, "We'll see when I enter the pool."  He wouldn't give them the dumb answers they wanted - it was awesome!

Good news about Bruce - his lungs have been better this week.  When I was praying last week, the thought came to me to run a diffuser during the night.  Why I hadn't thought of this on my own before this is beyond me.  It's the first thing I would do with one of the kids, but for some reason I just hadn't thought of it with Dad.  I ran the TheraPro diffuser, which puts out more oil, and I put Eucalyptus Globulus in it.  After about three nights, we started to see a difference.  Then yesterday Dad had an earache, so I did a Vita-flex treatment on his ears with Geranium, Ylang Ylang and Purification, and then he put RC on it several other times.  That has also seemed to help.  Both of these were answers to prayer, but especially the first one - getting over the cough.  That has been a real blessing.

Jesse has been sick this week, though.  I think more than anything she has been worried about school starting.  When perfection is your goal, there's a lot to worry about.  She got a Priesthood blessing on Friday night, and then she sat on the couch all day Saturday and read a book that Shelby had brought over.  She still felt weak today, but was able to go to Church and play the organ.

Mary was so mad at Nathan on Saturday night because he didn't come to the Stake Dance.  She wanted to show off the dances they learned at the Dance Camp.  Oh well, she'll have to wait until the Street Dance this Friday.  Yes - can you believe it - school starts this week!  Joseph has a few weeks left before we take him off to BYU-I!

Peter helped Darren for three days this week doing his Eagle Project.  It was to help build a bus stop with a cement pad and a shelter for the Campo.  He had fun doing that.  He's having a lot of fun being a Deacon.  This week is the back to school bbq, which is always so fun.  Joseph went on a campout with the Singles Branch on Fri night, and had a great time there.

Libby made an experiment with some batteries and a light bulb - and she got to work this afternoon!  Fun!  Dad also gave a Father's blessing to all the four younger children this afternoon.  That is always a great thing.

And we're off to school!

Family Reunions!

I am going to start posting more from our letters to Joshua on his mission.  That has been our family history of late (the letters), so I'll just have to copy and paste some of those, with a few adjustments, of course.

We had so much fun at both of our family reunions. 

First my side of the family:  It was quite an adventure to take 22 people on a pack trip.  Grandma and Grandpa drove up to the trail head with us, but then they went home after that.  I planned it originally with the thought that they could go, because the hike in was only a mile, but they said they weren't going to go.  It turns out that it was a good decision, because it was a pretty arduous mile.

View from our campsite.  Joseph, Jesse and Peter with the horses - Mackee, Cookie and Lady

 

 This is a video of  "Kumcha Kumcha".  Right before I took this video, Curtis was laughing so hard!  I wish I had a video of him laughing.  This will definitely go down in the history as one of the memorable moments.  We will be doing this at every reunion from now on, I'm fairly certain.  I heard it was from Josh and Clarissa - thanks guys!

Here's who the 22 people were that packed into Blue Lake:

Clark
Corbin
Curtis
Michelle
Darcy
Matt
Whitney
Stetson
Lindsey
Adam
Bruce
Lorena
Joseph
Jesse
Peter
Libby
Rodney
Angie
Ethan
Alyssa
Caleb
Carson

Although it was small for a reunion, it was good for the pack trip.  We couldn't have handled many more than that.  As it was, we took in the llamas twice, (six of them), and packed a horse as well (which is about 3x what a llama can take).    Bruce, Joseph, Peter and Corbin went in a day early to secure a camp site.  The first night we were the only ones there.  The second night, a scout troop from Middleton 1st ward was there, and another family.  But the lake was such that it wasn't too bothersome to have other people there.  The scenery on the hike and around the lake was beautiful - really one of the prettiest we have seen.  In was great weather for camping, too.  Not really cold at night, and warm during the day.  We hiked up to Tripod Lookout, which was 8080 ft.  Matt and I took the trail all the way home, while others bushwhacked somewhere along the line.  But Matt and I held to the iron rod and didn't deviate!  Ha ha  It turns out that we should have, because it would have saved us a lot of time, but hey, hindsight is always 20/20.

One of the fun things about the reunion was getting to know Adam better.  He's a really cool guy.  He had really witty comments, and then really insightful, wise comments at other times.  His thinking is outside the box, and it's really interesting to hear what he has to say.  By the way, Whitney is pregnant!!  She is due next March, and Jenette is pregnant also, and due about the same time.  Isn't that fun?

We got home from the reunion about 2 pm, and here came Grandma with meat rolls, ham and macaroni and potato salads.  Wow - it tasted so good!  She is a lifesaver that way.  We had a good visit with the Rodney, Angie and Clark before he had to leave.

So switch to the Oregon Coast for Dad's side of the family for their reunion.  It is painful at this moment to think of me writing you from there last week.  I wish I was there again!  But, no, not really.  It's good to be back and face reality again...  :)

Bruce & Lorena checking out the tide pools near Yachats, OR

Here's who was at the that Reunion:

Grandma
Grandpa
Gary
Heidi
Joshua Wayne
Rachel
Jeremy
Marinna
Kaleb
Zach
Sarah
Gerard
Michelle
Nicole
Shawn
Arielle
Tristan
Philippe
Natalie
Gwenaelle
Daniel
Stephen
Kendra
Bruce
Lorena
Joseph
Jesse
Mary
Peter
Libby
Shawn
Janel.

Both Shawn & Janel, and Stephen and Kendra's kids weren't there.  That was a bummer, but they all had activities for school and such.  Heather just had a baby - Alena.  Stephen and Kendra are grandparents!  That's so weird.  Stephen is only 18 months older than Dad, and Kendra is his same age.

On Tuesday night, we did something that we had done at the other reunion around the campfire.  I suggested that everyone go around the room and say the following:  one sad/hard thing that had happened in the last year, one happy thing, and a goal for the future.  It turned out to be one of the more memorable happenings at the reunion.  One of the reasons it was so special was because when Grandma started to talk, she completely broke down into tears, and had to stop and then talk through it.  No one has ever seen her like that before, so it was really something.  She said "I'm a fighter, and I wanted to be here with you all."

We played some fun games with Rachel, Josh and Uncle Shawn in our Barefoot Sands beach house.  Oh, that house was awesome.  You would wake up in the morning and look out the window at the ocean.  It was beautiful! One afternoon, Kaleb, Mary, Peter, Zach and I were body surfing in the waves.  Zach said to Peter, "Dude, you're freakin' awesome - your Mom's out here!"  It was SO FUN to jump and surf on the waves, although it was FREEZING.  Another day, the rest of the family got out there too, although Libby and Jesse didn't come out very far.  Jesse had fun making designs in the beach with shells and seaweed.  She is an artist.

Grandma & Grandpa with their grandkids

By the way, Peter is behind me on the chair in my office, and he is reading the original edition of the Book of Mormon.  He passed the Sacrament today.  Oh, I should tell you that he was ordained a deacon in the Sandy Shores House in Waldport, OR on Wednesday, August 8, 2012.  Standing in the circle were Gary Morri , Bruce, Stephen, Shawn, Joseph, Joshua Wayne and Gerard.

Our family (minus Josh in El Salvador) right after Peter's ordination to the Aaronic Priesthood

We had a long drive home on Friday, but made it home safely.

We had a great Sunday here together.  We actually sat down and played a card game together.  It's a game called "22" that Joseph learned while going and coming from Nauvoo.  He came home a mad-card-playing-shark after being with the Laren & Caralee's family for 3 weeks.  I guess they played card games non-stop in their mobile home.

In our testimony meeting at home, Peter said, "I know that the Priesthood is powerful."  What a blessing that he is worthy to hold it.