End of the School year

At the end of May Emily and Holly completed their year of seminary.  Emily's class had a class party on the last day at one of their teacher's houses.  They ate a yummy breakfast together and then walked to the high school which was just down the street.

Nathan Graduated from Kindergarten.  Here he is with his nice teacher.

Megan graduated from 5th grade.  Here she is with her 4 closest friends.  Next year they are all headed to middle school together.

Megan was invited to a graduation party at a nearby country club and this is a picture of all the girls posing.

Emily finished her freshman year of high school and had these 4 nice girls over to celebrate on the last day of school.  We ordered pizza for lunch and then they made a fun video together.

On the day after school ended Holly and I went on a hike with the YW of our ward up Rattlesnake Ridge.  It was a rainy day but we still had a good time.  The only sad part was we didn't get to see this view from the top.  We just saw lots of lots of clouds.  Luckily we had both gone on this hike before and got to see the view then.

                   
 On our way back from the hike we drove through the Issaquah Highland neighborhood so we could see the big houses that are there.  We found these cool slides in a park.  Holly and her friends had a fun time racing down the slides.
                           
 Today I drove Emily and three of her friends from church to EFY in Tacoma.  It was the first time for all of them to attend and they were very excited.  I am the Miamaid adviser in my ward so these girls are all in my class.

 Here is Emily and her friend Heather in their dorm room.

Today I am thankful that:
*I am done with my sacrament meeting talk.  I spoke on fathers day so I hope I am off the hook for another year.
*Holly wrote a book and is reading it to Megan and Melissa each night. The girls love it!
*Nathan reads a book each day for summer learning and likes to read it to Melissa.  It is so cute to see Melissa listening to him and helping him with words that are hard.

Ward Youth Conference

Last weekend I got to attend ward youth conference with my daughters Holly and Emily.  I teach the Miamaid class at church and one of the perks is attending lots of fun youth activities. Youth Conference was held at Ensign Ranch in Cle Elem, Washington.  It is located a little over an hour from where we live.  We had reserved the lodge and the bunkhouses beside it. 

It was a beautiful warm weekend and the scenery was amazing.  These horses roam in the field right behind the lodge.

I got to spend lots of time visiting with some of the other youth leaders from my ward.  

Our youth conference was missionary themed.  I was in charge of a game called Zone Feud.  I spelled it wrong in the picture below but later changed it. :) I made the game and it took a long time (about 4 hours).  I made 9 different boards so it was a lot of cutting and pasting.  Some of the categories were Ways to Spiritually prepare for a mission, foods missionaries prepare for themselves, things missionaries have a hard time leaving behind, ways to temporally prepare for a mission...  Two groups of 10 kids each would play the game against each other and I was the host.  Then I played it a second time with different groups.  I have to admit it did not go as smoothly as I had hoped but that's life.

Emily had a fun time hanging out with her friends.

Holly had fun too.

                            

All the meals were prepared for us by this awesome lady and her helpers.  There was lots of food and it was delicious.

We have a really good group of youth and leaders in our ward.  Here we all are.

Today I am thankful that:

*We were able to get to know Shad.  He is my cousin's son and my kids' second cousin.  He was diagnosed with cancer 2 1/2 years ago and we prayed for him almost every day since then.  He fought a good fight but in the end cancer claimed his life.  He was only 5 years old but he led a wonderfully happy life and has inspired us all to be better and more grateful people.  We love you Shad!  This picture is from Halloween 2014 when he was Kristoff from Frozen.  His talented mom made his costume.

*I was able to find something cute for the top of my kitchen cupboards.  Birdhouses, a sweet sign and 2 colorful little birds.  I smile every time I see them.

*Two sign fair projects were completed and the the boards made.  You can bet I helped a lot with these and was grateful when they were done. :)

*The kids in our cul de sac like to play together and recently started having nerf gun wars. Fun times!