Memorial Day and the Last Week of School . . .

Hey, y'all! Emily here. I'm acting as scribe for my mother dear because she is busy at the moment . . . so if this writing sounds more like a teenage girl than my mother dear that's because it is.

Okay, so on Monday, it was Memorial Day. My mom and dad ditched us in the morning to go have breakfast, and then we carried on with the normal festivities.

The tradition in our family is that on Memorial Day, we visit the cemetery and find war veterans with nothing decorating their graves. We usually put flags and flowers on their graves, but this year we didn't have the time to get flowers so we just used flags. We tried to use flowers at first . . . but the irises we cut from our yard were really droopy from the hail storm earlier in the day. Half the time someone was shuddering at the thought of stepping on dead people, but it was a good experience to feel a little closer to people on the other side of the veil. It even started raining for dramatic effect!

ANYWAYS, after that soggy adventure we headed off to my grandparents' house to have a barbecue. We also celebrated my uncle Keith, my aunt Katie, and my cousin Anderson's birthdays. We had delicious food and got to watch sports.

On Tuesday, my mom says Gwen had a fever so she couldn't leave her with the neighbors to go to the temple. When Taran and Timo got home she tried to go to Draper, but it was going to take too long. She needed to go to the dentist to get a new crown on her tooth! Then my mom decided to be crazy and make tye-dye shirts last minute with her scouts for their camp out. So at about 7:30 there were eleven year old scouts running around our kitchen. The floor, counter and stove were stained, but my mom cleaned it with bleach. I had to make pudding for a party at school, but my dad wouldn't take me until my mom was done with her scouts. So around ten o'clock I ran to Walmart and got supplies to make a pudding cake, which I put together that morning.

Wednesday Gwen was better, so my mom took her and her friends Zoe and Sophie to Thanksgiving Point Children's Discovery Garden. They had a blast and they had story time halfway through with a story called Harold and His Purple Crayons. I sure hope it was a good story. It sounds a little . . . well . . . I'm back, Rachelle...after we had some lunch and more playing I headed home. It was Zoe's birthday and her party was at 1 PM so we got back in time for it. It was a water birthday party so they were all ready in their suits. That afternoon I took Izak and Timo for their scout check ups. Gwen ended up staying at Zoe's all day and even ate dinner there! She felt so special to eat over! It was my parents 45th anniversary so we took some flowers over--my dad was in no mood to celebrate. My dear mother...such a bummer to deal with the uncertainty of his Alzheimer's. That night was a black light dance at the high school, Taran and his friends went but Timo and the friends he was with did not. They went to Orange Leaf a new frozen yogurt place that's the place to be right now! Emily had a swimming party for young womens--one of her leaders has a pool. I did some shopping after the kids were in bed.

Thursday was the big graduation day! Timo & Taran went to school around 9:30 AM and signed yearbooks. Taran ended up being there until 2 PM and then going to a friends. He wasn't planning on being gone so long. Timo didn't last long he and some of his friends hung out on our old swing and played basketball too. They sang for me and it was amazing! They are really good too bad not all of them are doing A Capella next year. We met Tim, my mom, and Tim's parents down at the Creamery on 9th at BYU for dinner before. Tim ordered for us while we were on our way by the time we showed up the food was ready! We took photos and then Timo drove the little kids home--we figured why torture them and everyone at the Marriott Center! Emily watched them while Timo worked for Taran at the school--he said that the garbage was totally full in every room! Not surprising! Meanwhile the grandparents left and we went and hung out at the bookstore. We got some snacks and ran into one of Taran's friends, Sara and her family. It was fun to chat with them. It was nice to have time to just waste time instead of feeling rushed to get there fast! The program was fine until the reading of over 700 students. Taran was singing with the choir so he didn't get to choose where exactly he could sit so it wasn't super fun for him after he walked through and he was one of the first. Owell. I am thinking he has convinced Timo not to attend graduation and we are good with that. Not that we didn't love graduation but we just don't feel like it's a necessary tradition. We feel if a kid wants to go we'll support him but we won't make him go nor our other kids. We realize we are setting a precedent with each milestone so we have to be careful to not over do it or we'll have to for every kid after that! After taking pictures we got home around 10:40 PM and then Taran had his all night party and got home after 5:30 PM. The party was at the Hollywood Connection and it was a lot of fun. A school bus drove them up and back.

Friday was the last day of school and Tim took the day off. Emily had to be at the bus at the normal time 7:45 AM and the little boys didn't have school until 8:45 AM. It was pretty low key. I was getting ready for our campout that evening. The kids got home at 10:30 AM and the End of the Year Neighborhood party was at 11 AM. We all pitch in and have a hot dog BBQ with chips, fruit...waterslides and a dunking booth! It's super fun. Timo and Taran slept in and then Taran had to go to work. Timo had a mellow day. The kids had a lot of fun. I got sunburned while I watched Gwen and Zane but mostly Gwen. Emily and some friends walked to the Pizza Pie Cafe for lunch and then Orange Leaf for dessert. They had a lot of fun. Tim picked them up and brought some of them back to our house. They were going to go to Trafalga--they should have done that because they ended up watching half a Harry Potter movie, having a water fight in our backyard. The girls borrowed Emily's suits and her guy friend borrowed one of the boys! They used the dunking booth and came back after. They finally went home at 9 PM! Tim and Izak left at 3:30 PM to find us a campsite at Mutual Dell for the district camp out. We met at 4 PM but didn't leave until 5 PM. Taran had a party that night so he made dinner for the kids and then my mom watched them since Emily and Timo couldn't give me a definite that they would be home to babysit! The camp out portion we went to was fun--hopefully the dads and boys enjoyed it, think they did! There is a photo in the collage of Julie and I with our troop in front of our knight flag. You can see our tie dye shirts too. I got home about 9 PM and my sister Teresa was here. We chatted after my parents left. We are worried about them. I stayed up making a diaper cake--a cake wedding style made from new diapers for the baby shower for my niece Anna! I think it turned out really cute. But I got to bed late and woke up pretty early Saturday and got going.

My friend's kids were coming over because her husband had a Trek meeting up the canyon and she was taking the WEBELOS up to WEBELOS extreme! Her mother had a surgery a couple of weeks ago and has not totally recovered so she couldn't ask her. I was planning on taking the kids to Anders, my nephew, soccer game. Alas they did not get all their stuff done in time so we did not go. My friend said that I could take them with. We had guests from California coming over that night so I wanted the chores done before any playing. Micah was done so he was bummed he didn't get to go. I also made favors and did stuff for the shower in between laundry and helping kids. Izak and Tim got home at about noon. There was a hike that morning for one of their requirements. They went on that and came home. Tim spent a good part of the next few hours cleaning up the camping stuff one of the many reasons he doesn't like camping! After I showered I went to Amy's with Emily to get ready for the shower. It took all the time to get ready...I realized I had miscalculated how many sherbets to buy for the punch so Amy ran to get more. The bowls we were using couldn't handle the amount the recipe called for and we made less but it was still too much. It still tasted good even with out the last extra sherbet we didn't fit in the punch! The shower was fun and Anna got a lot of great stuff! We are so happy for her and Buck. I got home about a half an hour before Dwayne and Janis and clan made to our house. Their 3 oldest had gone to EFY that week so they were having fun visiting but their son Benjamin likes to jam with Taran so they came by and we had a fun visit until 11 PM! So we are beat after a crazy week of late nights!

We are all made it to church but Emily who had a bad sinus headache. I had a hard time staying awake today. No rest insight either. We have spent today trying to get the kids organized with their goals for the summer. We want them to have a more productive summer than we have had at times! I still believe in down time, don't get me wrong they aren't going to learn Finnish this summer! I am glad we are out of school, some of my goals: get Timo to finish his merit badges and do the Eagle project and do one online class! Taran get another job or full-time job this summer. It would be huge if we could get that all done! Have a great week! I will now focus on getting Taran and Timo ready for Trek Thursday-Friday!