The First Half of March

Okay, time to get caught up...!  There was no school on March 5th because of the primaries (no, I'm not even going there), so we tried to go kayaking with Adam.  It turned out to be kind of cold and gloomy, but everyone had fun anyway!  Bonus-- we finally used the two free kids' kayaks and paddles I'd gotten!  We also learned that Ryder is already too big for those little kayaks, and he ended up with a very wet butt after sitting in one!  He wasn't too happy about that-- like I said, it was pretty cold-- but cheered up quite a bit once he got to use one of the bigger kayaks.  Adam was also very generous with his paddle board, so that was fun to watch people try and occasionally wobble precariously on!  No one actually fell in, which was a good thing, even if it was a little disappointing to us spectators!  

Ryder definitely preferred the paddle board!

Colton takes a relaxing nap

Craig looks so forlorn here, but I promise he wasn't actually sad!

Seriously, how cute is this girl?

Camille with her friend Noelle on her birthday (and Noelle's big sister, Nina)

That night, for youth group, we had Southern Virginia University's a capella group, Accolade, come and perform for us!  They were so fun and everyone enjoyed hearing them!

Their beatboxer is named Colton (!) and his family lives in our ward now, so he did a little bit where he showed the kids the basics of beatboxing and then asked Topher, who also beatboxes, to come and jam with him and they were AWESOME together-- I was so impressed!

They started by just doing a much of their songs straight through-- I think it was a nice chance for them to practice, but dang, they were good!

And here they are with our ward-- what a great group!

Two days later, my parents came to visit us!  They'd been up in Ohio for Rachael's oldest son's baptism, and then we were their next stop.  What made this an extra special visit, was they just happened to be here for my choir concert.  I was already excited that they could actually come to one of my concerts (although they are great about livestreaming them from home!), and then my Mom asked if this was our "Together in Song" Concert (it was) and if that meant she could sing with the choir, too.  OF COURSE SHE COULD!!!  So she was one of over 70 community members who joined us for the second half of the concert.  And that was SO FUN FOR ME!  It meant we got to stand singing together for both the 3-hour Saturday morning practice together and the concert.  (We also spent a long time on Friday going over the music, which was really good practice for me, as well!  😂)  What a fun, happy thing to get to do with my Mom, all those years after she spent hours and hours driving me to and from voice lessons!

There's me when just my choir is first getting on the stage

Here's my choir plus the community singers-- what a huge group!!!  If you zoom in close enough to find me, you can also see my Mom standing to my left!

We were doing some fantastic music-- did you know that the traditional "Here Comes the Bride" song is by Wagner???  We were singing it in German, so that was exciting.  And a couple Italian numbers you're probably familiar with-- Va pensiero and the Bell Chorus from Pagliacci.  (What a delightful happy song for such a sad opera!)  We did the opening prelude from Sweeney Todd (and I've been listening to the new Josh Groban recording ever since-- so great!), and a mash up of "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel with "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" from The Sound of Music.  And then, as if that wasn't all amazing enough, we ended with "One Day More" from Les Miserables.  It was an incredible concert and I was so happy to have my Mom there with me, and Craig and most of the kids (poor Kendra had a competition) and Dad and Tom and Donna all smiling at my in the audience.  Truly a delightful way to spend another gloomy, rainy (and cold!) spring day!

The following day, Sunday, we had all our usual church meetings, and then the youth had a fireside that night.  The great thing was, with my parents here, I could leave Colton and Camille home and not keep them up super late like we tend to do all the time now.  The bad news was that I was in charge of leading the discussion for the fireside, something I was excited to do, but had not realized it would be the same weekend as my concert and my parents' visit when I volunteered for that date.  That was a LOT for me for one weekend.  I ended up talking about dopamine, drawing a lot from this YouTube video.  I was pretty nervous about the whole thing, and when I would notice the occasional kid not paying attention it made me feel like I was doing a terrible job, but Craig assured me after the fact that it had gone great.  He's much more used to dealing with other people's teenagers than I am, so I'll take his word for it.  I was glad to have it all over with!

I wanted to get to show off our beautiful temple to my parents while they were here, so we went on a gorgeous warm morning-- and they loved it, too, which made me so happy!  We were able to spend some time wandering around admiring the artwork and stained glass windows and just how beautiful the interior is.  It was a really lovely way to spend a morning.  (And lunch at Chuy's afterwards was pretty great, too!)

The same day we went to the temple was also...  Colton's birthday!!!

He wanted to help decorate his cake

And did a great job!  (I did the writing-- he got to do the velociraptor)

Speaking of dinosaurs, he was thrilled with this amazing lego set from two of his aunts!

Colton had requested that we eat at Mission BBQ for his birthday, so even though I was still pretty full from Chuy's, I made the sacrifice and ate a bunch of ribs.  In honor of my son's birth, obviously!  And then that evening, once the little kids were in bed, I brought Mom and Dad to Kendra's indoor drumline practice so they could see what that was all about.  I had no concept of this until watching it, so it was fun to see their eyes be opened to just how cool it is!  It's especially fun because the group has almost tripled in numbers since last year (33 students, as opposed to 12 last year!)-- and while they worked really hard last year and did a great job, it's just more impressive when you've got a larger group all making noise together!

My parents left the next morning, heading to Leah's house next.  I took Colton with me to drop them off at the airport and then we went straight to his check up.  And once I'd taken him to school, I think I took a long nap!

The following day, Friday, was a Young Women's temple trip.  We were missing a few girls, and somehow everyone ended up in different cars, which didn't really vibe with my vision of this being a great bonding experience, but what can you do?  I try.

Madeline, Liberty, Teagan, Kendra, Marianne, Lilyann, Ember, Lydia, and Julie.  (We're missing Ella and Violet, who left as soon as we were finished, and the Bowes girls, who didn't come...)

Here you can see the girls better!

This is terrible on every level, but I wanted one with the participating Smiths and the angel Moroni!

The next day we celebrated Colton's birthday with Tom and Donna by getting lunch at Tip Top Diner, opening presents, and then having Krispy Kreme doughnuts.  Colton knows how to celebrate!

More legos!

Nice photobombing by Camille there...

A lot of green doughnuts since the following day was St. Patrick's Day!

Sunday was a much more restful day, with Kendra and I sitting out on the deck watching the sunset and chatting for a good long while.  I have to remember that occasionally I just put my feet up and spent time with my kids...

... because things were about to get even crazier!

March Just About Did Us In. But in a Good Way?

Craig and I both agreed that this past March won the award for us getting the absolute least amount of sleep, definitely since we had newborns to take care of, and possibly ever!  What a thing to brag about!  It was a whirlwind of so much fun stuff like visitors, and extra youth activities, and Easter, and getting ready for our spring break travels (and trying to get the condo fixed up and rented out to new tenants-- that part is less fun)...  

And I am just so exhausted.  I have so much to tell you about.  And I'm honestly really excited to get it all written down before I can forget too much!  But I still need to find that tenant (and probably do some painting-- or rather make Craig do some painting) and I haven't gone to my job in several weeks, so this might not be the week that I manage to catch up on the old blog.  (Or, as I think of it in my head-- Ye Olde Blogge.)

But I will get to it eventually.  I promise.  I haven't quit blogging.  I will tell you all about our various and sundry activities very soon.  Stay tuned.

Another February in the Books

I'm always so relieved when February is over.  We did it!  We survived even though we had an extra day thrown at us!  Good job, team!  And even though it won't be green around here for another month or so, it's warmed up enough to trick the odd cherry blossom tree into blooming early.  There are a few daffodils with more getting ready, and the hyacinth I planted by the garage is opening up.  Today I could open my bedroom windows while I fold laundry (and there's no pollen yet).  It's enough for me.

Meanwhile, here are some other things we've been up to...

In Young Womens, we had a "progressive painting party," meaning we put up paper all over the walls and let the girls paint on them, and then every five minutes they'd rotate to the next paper and add to what was already there.  They had a lot of fun and made some pretty goofy artwork.

For Christmas Kendra gave me this picture of Taylor Swift's house in Rhode Island, Holiday House.  She wrote the song "The Last of the Great American Dynasty" about it and it's a great song with one of my favorite lines, "She had a marvelous time ruining everything."  Is it weird that I sort of want that on my tombstone?  Except not really.  I hope I'm not actually that person.  (I might be that person.)  It took me forever, but I finally found the perfect frame for it and hung it in our powder room on the main floor.  And I LOVE it there!  (These pictures are not doing the colors justice.  The wall is the same minty green color as our kitchen, but the lighting is making it look sickly.  Trust me, the real version looks way better!)

Normally I hate stuff that the school makes me go to, but a couple weeks ago they announced that the 3rd graders would be folk dancing for us.  A gym full of dancing 9-year-olds?  YES, PLEASE!  We even got to get up and learn some of their dances!  This is my kind of activity.  It was great.  Wonderful job, music teachers!

Lining up to do the Virginia reel

Do-si-do-ing with Mara like a couple champs!

They had a stake Relief Society activity a couple Saturdays ago.  It's exactly the sort of thing I would rather stay in bed and skip, but I had to be up taking Kendra to indoor drumline anyway, and I feel a deep need to be supportive of Christine (who I worked with a couple callings ago but who is STILL the stake RS president!!!).  So off I went!  I ended up carpooling with friends, so that made the ride to Waynesboro much more enjoyable.  Then they had yummy food and I opted to take the yoga class, which was fantastic.  My version of doing yoga is usually just a 20-minute video on YouTube, so doing a full hour session was really great.  Although I wished I hadn't put myself at the front of everyone-- I much prefer hiding my extremely tight and inflexible hamstrings!

This photo stretched things weird so our instructor looks like she's got 10-foot long arms!  😂
I'm front and center on my purple mat that I bought back in Manassas when Jen de Reus would do yoga classes at the church, before Vangie took over and turned it into a workout class!  Wow, that was a long time ago!  (It also explains why my mat is suddenly falling apart.  It's lasted a long time, actually!)

After yoga, I sat studying up on my Shakespeare until Craig could come and pick me up, and then we drove to Staunton to see the Blackfriars Playhouse's presentation of Julius Caesar, which was excellent.  I also have tickets for Kendra and I to see their production of Pride and Prejudice in May and now I'm even more excited for that!  But-- I don't understand how these actors can put on three different plays (they're also doing A Midsummer Night's Dream) all at the same time!  How do they keep all their lines straight???

When we left the theater it was snowing (!!!) and all I had was a sweater!  Fortunately we were just grabbing a quick (cheap) meal at the fanciest Cook-Out I've ever seen and then heading to Coldstone in Charlottesville, where it was just cold and rainy.  And then we returned home to our youngest kids who were being babysat by Tom and Donna.  Kendra was at her first drumline competition and Bentley had been working all day.  

And then this last Saturday we finally got to eat at the Melting Pot to celebrate Kendra and Camille's birthdays!  It was delicious, of course, and we had the best time!  Thank you for such a fun evening, Tom and Donna!

Craig and I were looking at our planners last night trying to make sure we knew everything that was going on and my goodness, but March is going to be busy!  A lot of fun, for sure, but insane.  So if you don't hear from me for a few weeks, consider yourself warned!

Delightful

The other day, I noticed this folded piece of paper propped up in the window of the living room:

Obviously, you can't put top secret notes out in plain sight like that and expect me NOT to read them.  Inside it said:

This has now become my favorite thing ever.  I especially love how it explains "how it works" with the misspelled, but still slightly snotty, "You ride bikes. (Simple)".

I'm dying.

YMs Camp Out

The young men decided they should do some winter camping.  (Young men have very little common sense, apparently.)  And Craig never met a camp out he wasn't excited to embark upon, so even snow in the forecast didn't deter them.

As Craig was getting ready to leave, I asked him if we should be worrying about Bentley's BYU admission.  He wasn't supposed to find out until the following Monday, but according to friends of ours with college-aged kids, it's not unusual to find out a few days ahead of time.  So I was getting antsy.  But we have a weird history of getting bad news right before we go camping (seriously, it's happened at least twice!), so Craig said he didn't want to risk ruining the weekend on the off-chance that it was bad news.  So far, Bentley had gotten in to George Mason University, James Madison University, and been waitlisted by University of Virginia, so we figured his odds of being accepted were pretty good.  But those other times we got bad news we'd been assured that good news was a sure thing, so why risk it now?  As they say-- Good news will keep!

So we made sure everyone was very bundled up and off they went to the Snow's farm for a night of camping!

Craig is in the bottom left corner holding the camera.  Ryder is in the center in royal blue, Bentley is wearing maroon in the bottom right corner.  I could probably guess who everyone else is here, but I doubt you care, so I won't bother...

Anyway, as they were all standing around enjoying the fire, Jesse (one of three seniors in our congregation) pulls out his phone and says, "Huh, I got an email from BYU.  Oh-- I got in!"  So then Aaron (the other senior) pulls out his phone and says, "Oh, I did, too!"  And then Bentley pulls out his phone and he has... nothing.  No email.  No word at all.

He stands there frantically reloading his inbox and waiting, trying to not freak out.  Seriously, could there be a worse way to be rejected from your top-choice college than to be surrounded by the other people who all got in???  Aaron could see that this was getting scary for Bentley so finally he forwarded his email to him so he could use the link to log in to his own account where he learned...  he'd also gotten in!!!

I don't know what happened to the email he should have gotten.  It never did arrive.  But he's in.  And in spite of (or maybe because of?) those seven minutes of sheer terror, he's really excited.  He already told them he was for sure coming in the fall and we're trying to figure out which dorms he should live in and all that great stuff.

And I am just so relieved.  I feel like we've been working towards this goal for so long and it's finally coming to fruition.  

Bentley is going to BYU in the fall!

As far as I can tell, the rest of the campout was fairly uneventful.  It didn't actually snow, although it did rain a bit.  They all stayed warm enough. 

In the morning, Bentley hurried home so he could shower and get to work, but I made him take a few minutes to tell me the whole story.  (Craig had been texting me in real time as it unfolded and I'd been as stressed out as Craig was, but I still needed the full version!)  Craig and Ryder were a little slower getting home, and then I got to do about ten loads of laundry.  And then that night was the stake dance that you already read about!  Between all of that AND Kendra's birthday, it was a really wild weekend for us!

I just have to say it one more time-- MY SON IS GOING TO BYU!!!!

Stake Dance (and Also, Ryder & Nora)

Speaking of stake dances...  it was also Ryder's first dance!!!  This sort of blows my mind, since he just turned 13 back in November, but the new church policy is that you get to do stuff the year you turn the correct age, so since he turns 14 this year (albeit not until Thanksgiving), he's eligible to go to the dances now.  So crazy!!!

Anyway, to go along with the Hollywood theme, he wore his suit and tie, which I love.  (There was talk of him wearing his top hat, but he didn't.  It would have been cool, but I don't really blame him for not bothering.)  He was so brave and asked several girls to dance!  I was totally impressed.

Here he is dancing with Marianne from our ward and wearing Wylan's cowboy hat...?

And dancing with Nora Cramer, which makes me happy

I should explain a bit: Ryder and Nora have literally known each other since they were babies:

Here they are holding hands

At a ward Halloween party

This is my favorite picture-- they look like they're having the best time at this birthday party

At a splash pad in Charlottesville

So, yeah.  They're so cute together.  Once Ryder gets taller than her again, they could totally be a thing!  😆

Back to the dance.  Originally, of my three oldest kids, only Ryder was going to be going.  A few people asked if their kids could ride with us, but we were kind of hoping someone else could drive!  Our neighbors, the Blacks*, offered to take everyone and I thought we were off the hook until Kendra's drumline competition got canceled and I realized they didn't have room in their minivan for her.  So now I was back to driving!  

More and more kids kept needing rides, and suddenly even our van was filled!  Which is actually pretty great.  But I was worried that Bentley would decide to go, too (he was working an 8-hour shift beforehand and figured he'd be too tired to bother), and then I'd have to tell him I didn't have room in the car for my own son!  So we asked the Blacks to be on standby in case we needed another driver.

Trying to get a bunch of teenagers to commit to going to a stake dance is ridiculous.  The number of times my head count changed for this was insane.  But finally we had everyone rounded up and about to climb in the van.  Will Black was idling his minivan waiting for us.  I hadn't noticed that Wylan was missing (apparently he'd gotten a ride with another family) so I had one extra seat.  And then Aaron asked if he could step inside our house for a minute.  I figured he just wanted to use the bathroom before we drove to Waynesboro, but he'd actually gone in to find Bentley and beg him to come.  Aaron accomplished what I could not, and with Wylan not there, we had one seat left for my kid.  And now I had a van full of teens in high spirits and all my oldest kids.  What could be more fun?

I met up with Sarah at the dance, we looked around and decided they had plenty of adults there to chaperone, so we headed out to Five Guys for milkshakes and fries.  (I guess that's more fun than my van full of teens!)  

It was a really great night.  I know my life is kind of nuts, but I wouldn't trade it for anything!

*I feel the need to clarify here that their last name is Black.  I am NOT describing their skin tone!!!  But every time we talk about them it sounds like we're totally racist.  It's really bad.  Like, they-should-probably-just-change-their-name bad...!!!