We had a windy, rainy few days early in March and woke up to find this tragedy in our backyard:
Our big old Cherry tree had finally gotten so lopsided (despite pruning over the years) that it just tipped over! I was so shocked and sad that I was speechless. I just stared out my window trying to understand what I was seeing! Amazingly enough, there was virtually no damage to the fence or yard, But it was indeed a very sad day. The kids had a similar response and went outside to pay tribute to it. Before it was cut down and hauled away we saved some wood to make each of the kids a Christmas tree ornament out of it that they can keep forever.
Here’s our beloved tree through the years….
First week we moved in-2013
Homeschooling at it’s best
4th of July with the cute cousins
Making Cade’s tire swing idea a reality-Spring 2015
Libby’s first time swinging on the tire swing
Its last fall
We have so many memories on, under, and around this tree. It will leave a hole in our yard, but it will leave a bigger hole in our hearts.
Liberty and I took a quick trip to Utah the first weekend in February to shop for some shelving at IKEA to go over her desk. She recently moved into Cade’s old room and needs more desk space. We drove down on Friday and picked up some yummy Brazilian fast food that we love and took some to Reagan at work. We surprised him cause he thought we would arrive later. Liberty has changed enough over the last year that when she walked into the dealership he didn’t immediately recognize her. lol. We hung out the rest of the night with my sisters, Cam and Reagan. Libby was looking for a fancy dress to wear to our youth Etiquette dinner and Alli loaned her the perfect dress! She was sooo excited it to wear it. And in my unbiased opinion she had the prettiest dress at the dinner. Thank you, Allie!
The next morning we played some pickleball with Cam and Allie. I love that game and need to play it more! Next, we went to BYU to do some returns and of course, eat at the Creamery. Libby loves going to BYU and dreaming of her chance to go there someday. We also stopped at the Richards Building so she could find a ballet studio. We never found a ballet studio, but we did find these:
She’s now even more excited to go to the Y and wants to major in Elementary Ed and minor in dance.
Next was IKEA. I thought she’d enjoy it, but it was a little too much for her. LOL! She was wiped out by the end. But we found her some shelves she was excited about. My sisters came along and were very patient with us.
They were SO EXCITED to sit in all the chairs they’ve never tried before.
That night Cam and Allie made us some yummy tacos and we hung out with Sarin and Reagan some more. The next day after church we had some lunch, played some games with everyone and then headed home. I wish we could have spent more time with Reagan, but he was busy making money! Which is a good thing.
The Symphony
For our Valentine’s date this year, Rock and I went to the Symphony. The Boise Philharmonic performed a Night of the Cinematic Music of John Williams. I absolutely loved this concert. The conductor gave a little background before each song and not only did I learn a lot about John William’s amazing talent, but I realized that the movies and music of Steven Spielberg and John Williams have shaped my life in a HUGE way. It was basically the soundtrack to my life in movies. It was such a treat! They opened with the Star Wars theme which needed no introduction. They played the theme from Jaws and the conductor told us that when John Williams first played it for Spielberg he couldn’t believe how much fear two little notes played over and over again could instill and- how much that fear still haunts all of us in this generation when we swim in the ocean. lol.
They played music from Hook and Harry Potter (the conductor switched out his baton for a wand when they played Hedwig’s theme). They played the theme from E.T. and he told us that the music was so moving and so perfect that Steven Spielberg actually did something very rarely done-he edited his movie to match the music instead of the other way around as is usually done. I love that! They played the NBC music theme which I’ve heard my whole life but never all the way through. The conductor told us that Williams tried to incorporate the telegraph or ticker tape sound into it and I’d never noticed it before.
When they played the Olympic Fanfare and theme I was transported back to 1984 when Mary Lou Retton and Whitney Houston were my heroes. Before they played the theme to Schindler’s List the conductor told us that when Spielberg showed Williams the first rough cuts of the movie, he said, “You need someone better than me to write music for this.” To which Spielberg replied, “I know, but everyone better than you is dead.” Best compliment EVER.
Before they ended the concert with the theme from Superman, the conductor told us what Steven Spielberg said last year when he presented John Williams with a special award. This really summed up the beauty, magic and talent of this amazing composer: “Without John Williams, bikes don’t really fly. Nor do brooms and Quidditch matches. Nor do men in red capes. There is no force.” The amazing stories of my-our life time told through movies etc would not have the power to move us without the work of these two men. What a wonderful night! Thank you, Rock! And just in case you are wondering as I was that whole night, “When are they going to play Indiana Jones?!”, they played it as their encore. lol.
At church last week Libby was inspired to create something amazing so she came home and designed and baked this very cool cake! She named it the Fire Lemon cake.
That’s a bonfire on top ready to roast marshmallows.
Sweethearts
Levi went to his first formal dance this last weekend-the Sweethearts Dance. He had a great time and looked so handsome!
The kids went back to school after Christmas break on January 9th but had a snow day the next day. They went back to school the next two days, but after another major snow storm, church was canceled that weekend. It was a 3 day weekend thanks to Martin Luther King, so they went back to school on Tuesday only to have another snowstorm cancel school for 2 more days. Temperatures rose quickly after that and the snow has mostly melted. But we got almost 18 inches of snow which is a lot for Boise! And the kids thoroughly enjoyed their snow days.
Snowman evolution from this year to last year.
On the day of the big snowstorm we acquired a new member of the family when a friend offered us a free, runt of the litter baby bunny. Snowball (yes, Wilbur was voted down) is as small as the lego bunny Libby got for Christmas! He’s super cuddly and we are going to try having an indoor bunny and see if it works out. He’ll be allowed in only a few rooms of the house and if he starts to stink things up, outside he goes. Amber, our old bunny is still with us, but probably wont’ be for long. She’s pretty old. So far Snowball has been a breeze to potty train. Keep your fingers crossed.
He is super fast. We almost named him Blaze.
This is called Binkying and it apparently means the bunny is happy. I just think it’s funny.
Levi’s choir has been preparing for a big performance at a music teacher’s conference in Spokane but all the snow days were cutting down on their practices. So the kids organized a snow day practice at someone’s home, which I think is pretty dedicated. When he came home from that rehearsal he found this on our doorstep:
This is how he answered her:
He enlisted the help of a friend who helped him come up with the poster, but using the marshmallows to make the rice crispy treat yes, was my idea-just for the record.
This boy is really enjoying high school life. Someone took this picture of him at a basketball game for their Be Real:
Liberty had her Winter ballet recital this weekend. It’s really fun to watch her on stage and see how far she’s come. She is thoroughly enjoying pointe. I thought I recorded her dance, but ended up only getting the bow. :-(
Her flowers turned out pretty cool.
For my birthday dinner Rock (and Libby) made homemade gnocchi with pesto-my favorite Italian food and a delicious and beautiful peanut butter chocolate cheesecake.
Happy Birthday to me. I also got a fancy new treadmill so it was ok that I ate that amazing cheesecake and gnocchi.
Cade is settling into mission life, though it’s pretty chaotic when you are the district Monkey; the companion of the district leader. He’s learning a lot at a fast pace and is doing really well.
Cade with his mission president and wife.
Trainer-Elder Robinson
They got in a little fender bender.
He described his experience so far (and all of life, I think) perfectly in a letter: “The work has been slow, a lot, amazing, boring, tiring, beautiful, miraculous, etc. Its going to be a long, short two years.” ALL of life is that way, isn’t it?
Reagan had some adventures getting home this year for Christmas. He bought an overnight bus ticket which would have been perfect-get on and sleep the whole way and arrive in the morning. However, he missed his bus coming up, had to stay the night in the airport and then rode the day bus home the next day. We are grateful we got to have him home for a week!
Christmas Eve
On Christmas Eve we made Rock’s yummy pizza stone pizza. Reagan hadn’t experienced it yet and it is our new favorite meal to make! The kids raced to see who could get theirs done the fastest. I think Libby won.
Yes, we are missing one child this year. :-( But I’m happy Cade is where he is so it’s ok.
Levi and Reagan both wanted a sweater like Rock has, so that was the Christmas Eve gift this year.
No, that’s not Cade, that is Rock still going strong with his No-Shave November beard.
This year the new book we opened at Christmas time was actually the Christmas Eve book. I’m sad Cade had to miss it because he would have loved it. There was only one book that my kids would have been ok reading instead of our traditional Twas the Night Before Christmas, and this was it.
The Lego version
Christmas Morning
They left room for Cade’s “ghost” in the line up a the bottom of the stairs.
The picture on the paper is of Reagan on Alli’s banana chair “watching” conference. She suggested it would be a good gift.
GQ boy got a bed, and some hot sauce from Santa.
A whole running season’s worth from Libby.
This is Libby with some of her favorite gifts. Her purple converse from Santa, her polaroid camera from Santa and her purple fleece jacket from Levi.
Reagan made sure everyone got legos to put together that day.
I can’t believe I somehow missed photographing the building process picture this year, but here are the finished products…
My favorite gift that I gave this year was this cross stitch for Allie and Cam. Allie made one for Rock and I our first Christmas and I’ve waited a long time to make one for Allie.
Allie requested the red hair and beard.
We had dinner that evening with my extended family and that was Christmas Day.
Reagan had more bad luck when he tried to go home after Christmas. When he showed up at the bus stop at 11:00 PM, to head home for a friend’s wedding the next day, he found out his night bus had been canceled. He then had to figure out a way to get back to Utah before 11 the next morning. He ended up buying a plane ticket and got to Utah just in time. This meant that I got to get up at 4:30 in the morning for the 2nd time in 2 weeks to take one of my boys to the airport to catch a plane.
For New Years Eve this year we had our standard finger food night. The highlight was cheese fondue and apples, surprisingly enough. After dinner we put together a mystery puzzle. You have to solve the puzzle and then the puzzle morphs into something else crazy and cool. We spent 5 hours on it in total but didn’t actually finish until the next morning.
I won’t tell you how this puzzle works, but it was really cool.
Levi turned 16 and tried to get his license and his first date on the same day. Neither worked out, but he was able to do both very soon after his birthday.
For his birthday he got a bike rack to put on the car so he can do what he’s always dreamed of doing-drive himself to the foothills and bike.
Liberty sang in a duet for her Christmas concert this year. She and her good friend did a great job!!!
Libby also had a piano recital, but the video I took was terrible so I will just have to tell you that she did an awesome job playing Charlie Brown’s Christmas theme song and she got the loudest and most vociferous applause. A neighbor told me she stole the show.
Liberty’s closest friends are two sisters; one just younger than Libby and one just older. They come from a large family with lots of younger siblings. Libby has become like a member of their family and the littles in the family adore her. I’m so grateful for this sweet family that has given Libby sisters and little siblings. They had us over to decorate gingerbread houses this year and here are the results.
On Christmas Eve, Levi and his good friend dressed almost identically for church. It was not planned, but I wanted to show that these two cross country stars clean up nice. Levi can’t resist the GQ look these days.
We started off December with an early Christmas for Cade since he would be leaving on the 13th. Christmas is not all that exciting when you are leaving on a mission-all you get is mission stuff, but we tried to make it as exciting as we could. Here he is wearing or holding every gift he got: a Moroni tie, a Moroni tie pin, a mountain tie clip, snazzy heated gloves, a mission bag, Moroni socks and stripling warrior socks, a framed picture of his family, a mission cookbook with all his favorite recipes and tickets to see Gentri in concert a few days later. (It was an Awesome concert!)
A few days later the MTC sent him a Christmas present in the mail…
On the 10th, Cade was set apart as a missionary.
As soon as the Stake President finished the blessing, Cade whipped out his name tag, which he’d had in his pocket, and put it on.
That night he needed to run his suit coat over to a seamstress for a quick fix. He took his companion, Elder Hymas, with him….
On the 11th he began his one day of at home MTC.
On the 13th, we got up nice and early and dropped this handsome, talented, faithful, stalwart young man off at the Boise airport for his flight to the real MTC in Provo.
He found five other missionaries getting on the same flight and they all bonded before take off. A few hours later, he landed in Salt Lake where Allie picked him up and took him to breakfast with Reagan before dropping him off at the MTC.
I sent Allie a text when we dropped him at the airport that said, “Package delivered” This is the picture/text she sent back when she picked him up: “Package received”
We talked to him on his P-day a few days later and he was LOVING the MTC. He loves his district, his companion, the spirit, all of it. I was so relieved! On Christmas Eve he sent us a picture of what he got for his Christmas Eve gift this year…
Don’t ask me what he’s doing, but his tie has snowflakes on it.
Santa sent him his stocking and his Christmas cereal as well. Elder Cook came an spoke to the missionaries that day and Cade sent us a picture of who he got to sing with at one of the many concerts/devotionals he got to go to on Christmas.
That’s Dallyn Vail Bayles for those who don’t know. He’s an amazing tenor who was on Broadway and in our ward in New Jersey. Here’s a video of one of my favorites that he sings:
We get to Zoom with Cade every week and that is really nice, I gotta say. His aunt took pity on him and made him some of her Christmas truffles, sent them home to Utah with Allie in a cooler, and then Allie found a company that delivers daily to the MTC, so he got a little late Christmas joy from home. He has had an amazing experience at the MTC and will fly out to Colorado on Friday, Jan. 5th. That’s when the rubber really meets the road. Can’t wait to see what awaits him in the mission field!
Rock’s parents came up for Thanksgiving this year and they picked Reagan up on their way so we had everyone home for the holiday.
The first night they were here we went to Bruchis, like we do every time Rock’s parents come visit. But we got there and they were all out of meat. A meat sandwich shop was out of meat?! Frustrated, we went to a pizza place instead. We tried again another night they were here and that time they were out of bread!!! Pretty sure they’ll be out of business soon.
Pizza place
We had some things go really great this year with food and not so great. I brined the turkey this year and it was the best we’ve ever had, besides Cam’s smoked turkey last year. Libby made Cam’s yams-a new family favorite. Rock made lots of a pies; a beautiful apple blackberry pie, an amazing looking merengue topped butterscotch pie and a pumpkin cheesecake pie.
When it was time to break out the pies, Rock went out to the office to get the apple blackberry which had been in his office for a few days. But when he brought it in, it was covered in little tiny sugar ants!!! Didn’t even know we had an ant problem out there! They did their best to brush them all off, and some were actually crazy enough to eat a piece, but I sure as heck wouldn’t touch it. Yuck!!! Derek brought his kids over for pie and every kid, including mine wanted a piece of that amazing looking merengue butterscotch pie. Unfortunately, it was not a fan favorite. Little miss Rosie didn’t let him down easy when she told him what she thought of his pie. Rock says he will definitely try a merengue again, just not the butterscotch part. lol The pumpkin cheesecake was a hit, though!
The Sunday after Thanksgiving was Cade’s mission farewell. It was a really awesome day. He gave an interesting and insightful talk and I had many people tell me his talk seemed like a homecoming talk rather than a farewell. He has grown a lot this year and he will be a powerful missionary.
Two of his best friends, Kendra and Hannah
More good friends who came to share the day, Eric and Devin
Libby and I wore matching dresses for the special day.
I realized this would be the last time all my kids would be together for 2 years so we took our “Christmas” picture.
Here are a few of the pictures a friend took for Cade’s mission plaque.
We had the most beautiful fall here in Boise. The weather was beautiful and warm and fall colors took their time coming and then stayed for along time. Most brilliant and beautiful colors we’ve ever had here. Here’s me enjoying the warmth at the end of September.
We celebrated Rock’s birthday on the 19th. This year he wanted peanut butter balls instead of pie, so that’s what he got.
Levi was busy with cross country. He had a roller coaster of a season this year. Some great races, some not so great. His team made it to state, but they had a lot of injuries this season and didn’t do as well overall as they’d hoped. But he’s more determined than ever to improve and has been planning and working with his off season coach-Rock- on running strategies.
His best running mates-still pushing each other.
The state race was in technically in October in Pocatello on the first REALLY cold weekend we had. It was freezing cold and windy that day.
Rock’s parents drove up to see the state race.
Saw this bus at the race. It’s true-they ARE all insane.
Reagan came up for a quick weekend so we could take family pictures in the amazing Fall colors. I’m so happy with how they turned out! Thanks to my friend Barb for taking them!
The most exciting thing that happened in September was not actually Disneyland, but Cade receiving his mission call. I am so happy he’s decided to serve! Feel free to watch the whole intro-it’s good. Or you can skip to 1:27 to hear where he’s going.
For those who don’t want to watch the video-He is going to the Colorado, Fort Collins Mission, which actually covers as much of Wyoming as Colorado and a small portion of Nebraska too! He reports Dec. 13th at the MTC. We are so glad he doesn’t have to wait a long time to go! AND he gets to do 3 weeks of in-person MTC because of the holiday. Many tender mercies for him.
Our last day in Florida was at Universal Studios. I was looking forward to this park the most because of Harry Potter World. Rock, Levi and Cade took off right away to go ride some big crazy rollercoaster while Libby, Reagan and I headed to Harry Potter World-through Dr. Suess land. It really was like walking through one of his books.
When we got to Harry Potter world the first thing we did was get a Butterbeer. Don’t tell the others because when they joined up with us an hour later to buy Butterbeers, they thought we hadn’t had one yet. It was good, but not as good as everyone claims. We slipped into Olivanders and watched him help a wand choose a wizard-VERY cool. Just in case you wondered, to buy a souvenir wand at Olivanders costs $75.00 or more! We did not buy a wand. Hogwarts didn’t disappoint though.
Hogsmeade outside of Honeydukes
Diagon Alley
Every little while the dragon on top of Gringotts actually spouts fire!
Inside Gringotts Bank. The goblins sitting behind each pillar were truly creepy.
Levi, Cade and Rock rode all the big crazy rollercoasters throughout the day and I rode the Hogwarts ride 4 different times with whoever I could get to ride it with me. It was a great day. But by the end of it we were all ready to be done. 5 parks in 5 days is actually crazy. I wouldn’t do it again. But I don’t really regret it either. We saw every park and did as much as we possibly could while in Florida. Well, Levi was bummed we didn’t see an alligator, but other than that… We ended our last day at Maggiano’s-my favorite Italian restaurant that is only in very big cities. Our flight home the next day went well and I’m so grateful for the awesome memories we made at Disneyworld to take home with us.
Short n Sweet 