And Lia's Off to Africa!

After learning about HXP years ago when my brother sent his two oldest children to Ecuador for a church humanitarian trip, I thought how amazing it would be if I could provide the same opportunity with my own children when they grew older.  Although this experience had it in the back of my mind for several years, I realized at the beginning of this school year that this coming summer would be the best summer of Lia's teenage years to go for a few different reasons.  Since Lia always is more comfortable doing adventurous things with a friend at her side, I immediately reached out to my dear friend, Kerry, to see if she would be interested in having her daughter, Lacey, go with Lia.  Since Lacey and Lia have been pen pals since the summer of 2015, they have met in person three times and have become very close friends who are basically in daily contact now with each other.  In addition, since Kerry loves travelling as much as I do and has always prioritized it for her family, I was very hopeful that she would be willing to let Lacey go on this great, big adventure with Lia.  

Much to my relief, Kerry and her husband said "yes" after Lacey decided that she would like to go with Lia.  After a stressful week of registration at the end of November, we learned that our girls had been assigned to the same trip to Mozambique in Africa after submitting a list of Top 20 trips.  Needless to say, we were all absolutely thrilled about this little miracle and began the seven month wait until the day arrived!

After much preparation and a lot of shopping and packing, I drove Lia to the airport bright and early Tuesday morning for her to catch a flight from Seattle to Dulles in Washington DC where Kerry and Lacey would be picking her up.  We were both a little nervous about her flying across the country alone for the first time and having to navigate baggage claim and meeting up with Kerry on her own.  Luckily, she had a smooth flight across the country and managed to find baggage claim after taking a train in the airport all on her own.  Her suitcase arrived safely and Lia only had to wait a few minutes before the girls arrived to pick her up.  Lia then spent a little over 15 hours on the East Coast before catching her flight out of JFK to Africa.  Kerry and I both marveled at the fact that they drove through 5 states (Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York) and the District of Columbia during this little window of time, especially since Lia was sleeping for about half of that time at Kerry's house.

After arriving at Kerry's home in Maryland and spending the night on Tuesday's night, they left at 5:30 yesterday morning to make the 3.5 hour drive to JFK from their home.  Since Kerry's husband, Dave, offered to take the day off work to help drive the girls to NYC, he was able to wait in the car outside the airport while Kerry took the girls into the terminal to meet up with their HXP group for the very first time.  Since it was a little tricky to find their group in such a large airport, I was so grateful that Kerry was there to help them as finding this group alone would have been pretty stressful for the girls.  After successfully finding the group, Kerry quickly said a goodbye to the girls before leaving them to go on the biggest trip so far in their life!  I am so grateful that Kerry was there to help Lia get to the right place at the right time.  It was such a relief to know that she had successfully met up with her group and that she would now be under the care of two college leaders and two parent leaders for the next 2.5 weeks!  Good luck, Lia!  I hope you can go and have the adventure of a lifetime!

Lia saying goodbye to me before boarding her plane in Seattle.

Lacey meeting Lia outside the Dulles airport with a darling, welcome sign.

The girls eating breakfast in the car after leaving Lacey's house at 5:30 yesterday morning to make the drive to JFK.

After figuring out just two days in advance that Lia and her cousin, Riley, were going to be on the same flight from JFK to Kenya, Lia ran into his group going to Zimbabwe right after walking into Terminal 4 with Lacey and Kerry when they first arrived at JFK.  I was grateful that Kerry took this darling picture of these two cousins who have literally grown up together!

A final picture of Lia and Lacey before saying goodbye to Kerry.

Since the girls had to hand their phones over to the leaders at the JFK airport to begin a 2.5 week "digital detox," we are now relying on the parent leaders to post daily pictures and video on Instagram to keep us updated on everything that they are doing in Africa.  Here is one of the airport pictures that was posted of Lia and Lacey and two other girls after meeting up with the group.

Thanks to an airline app that Kerry sent me, I was able to follow 12 out of 13 hours of Lia's flight from JFK to Nairobi.  It was pretty surreal to watch her plane fly across the Atlantic Ocean and then most of Africa all day long yesterday.  When I went to bed, she still had an hour left of her flight.  After landing in Nairobi, her group then had to change planes and then take a 4-hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa.  When I woke up today, she was was in Johannesburg.  Lia is then going to spend one day going on a safari and a river rafting adventure before taking the bus to Mozambique tomorrow where she will then spend the next two weeks helping to build two classrooms on a preexisting school.  It should be an amazing experience and I hope that she grows and learns so much during this time away from home!

Emmett Riding a Big Boy Bike

On June 16th, Ron took Emmett's training wheels off of his big boy bike that he had only been riding for a few weeks this spring.  Although I thought it was a little too soon to be doing this, Ron decided to take off his training wheels while the girls and I were at the annual awards ceremony for NWTL.  While we were gone, Ron worked with Emmett for about 30 minutes on the sports court to help him get the feel of balancing while riding his bike.  No one remembered to tell me about this, so when I looked out the kitchen window the next evening, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Emmett riding around the sports court in circles without his training wheels on.  Although he kept on having to stop to catch his balance, he was doing a great job, especially since no one was helping him!  Fast forward a week and Emmett has now totally figured it out.  He is riding his bike everywhere and anywhere without any assistance from Ron and me.  In fact, the only help he ever got was that first evening from Ron last week.  I have never seen this before as all three of our older children needed help from us for several days before they felt comfortable and competent enough to just try riding their bike around on their own.  It has been amazing to watch Emmett's desire to learn as he has practiced every day without anyone encouraging him and has practiced on his own without any help.  He is so coordinated and brave.  Being a fourth child really does make a difference!  Well done, Emmy!  I am so proud of you.

Emmett cruising down the sidewalk in front of our house.

There he goes!  My big, 5-year old riding down the sidewalk of our street.

Giving me a big grin as he rides into our driveway.

Emmett has already mastered the art of riding over grass which is not an easy thing to do at first.

My cutie posing for me with a big, thumb's up!

Lia's 16-Year Old Pictures

Since I wasn't able to get any of the three older kids into the photo studio over Spring Break (due to it now being open on the weekends), I finally was able to take Lia for her 16-year old photos once school got out and before leaving on her big trip for Africa.  She looked so cute with her new haircut and curled hair along with the darling overalls that she had me buy for her to wear during the hot evenings in Mozambique.  She also did one outfit change during the shoot and put on the dress that we bought for her Sweet 16 birthday party.  Although Lia really does not like having professional photographs taken of her, she did a great job smiling for the camera and produced several lovely pictures to choose from.

Last Day of School!

Well, it's hard to believe that this whirlwind of a school year has finally come to a close.  I can say without a doubt, that this has been the busiest, craziest, and most exhausting school year of my mothering career.  As a result, I am so glad that we successfully made it through all ten months and that it is officially over.  Here is a recap of our year:

1.  Lia successfully juggled seminary, school, and homework with a XC and track season, on top of being in three plays (Bye Bye Birdie and the one-acts at her high school and Mean Girls at NWTL) while continuing with her 10-month commitment as a company member in Matilda.  In addition, she officially started high school at a school that we waivered her into which meant she only knew a handful of friends from running and church which made the transition pretty difficult and lonely for most of the year.  Since she was waivered into this school, there was no bus to take her to and from our house, so it required a lot of extra driving for Ron and me to get her to and from school on the other side of town each day until she started driving herself the beginning of March.  In addition, Lia got her driver's license which was no small feet on top of everything else this year.  Taking her Driver's Ed class, completing her drives with the school, passing two written exams and one driving exam, and logging in 50 hours of driving with Ron and me was a massive undertaking.  But, Lia did it.  She made it through this busy school year, passed her second year of seminary, and earned straight As both semesters.  She is a rock star and I am amazed at how she managed it all.

2.  Although Logan was not nearly as busy as Lia, he successfully navigated his first year in the Quest program as one of only three new students.  He quickly grew to love his teacher and his classmates in a wonderful, positive, and respectful classroom environment.  He managed to qualify for all four Page classes (Math, English, History, and Science) next year at his junior high which is quite an accomplishment considering the fact that he just joined the Quest program this year.  Logan played soccer in the fall and basketball in the winter, and ran on two different track teams this spring in addition to taking his last two sessions of swim lessons before graduating from the Red Cross swim program in May.  Logan also attended his weekly chess club activity and his weekly YM activities starting in January.  He is still the biggest reader around and read a countless number of books this year.  He won an award today in class for being the student with the most AR points (which are earned after taking a comprehension test after every single book he read).

3.  With the exception of having seminary and homework in her life, Ella was just as busy as her older sister this year.  She practiced and competed at Level 3 with her gymnastics team which required her to practice 12 hours each week.  She also participated in two plays at NWTL (The Knight at Dawn in the fall and Annie in the winter) on top of her 10-month commitment as a company member in Matilda.  From the beginning of September until the end of March, Ella had either gymnastics or play practice every day after school, Monday through Friday, and then both gymnastics and play practice on Saturdays.  It only slowed down in April when we decided to take a break and not have her participate in a spring play.  At the beginning of June, we learned that Ella had moved up to the Level 4 team at her gym which is a huge accomplishment.  She is now practicing four times a week for a total of 16 hours.  As a result, we decided to have her take a break from theater this coming year.  I explained to Ella that she can always take a break from theater, but that she really cannot take a break from competitive gymnastics and return to this sport at a later date.  Since Ella absolutely loved being a part of NWTL and performing in three plays this year, she will dearly miss it, but also understands that she can always come back to theater when she decides to quit competitive gymnastics for good.

4.  Emmett attended Prek class three mornings a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays this school year.  He also played on a fall and spring, indoor soccer team and absolutely loved it!  From January to June, he also went to swim lessons and gymnastics class at the YMCA on Tuesday mornings and took swim lessons on Saturdays in the spring at Lia's high school with Logan.  He absolutely loved going to preschool three times a week and dominated at soccer both seasons.  After some reservations from last school year, he slowly came to enjoy swim lessons and loved being in his gymnastics class from day #1.  I also started working on the Kindergarten reading program with Emmett back in March and tried to read with him five days a week while the older children were at school, and he has made great progress in three months.  Emmett is a very social, athletic, intelligent boy who is very ready for Kindergarten and I think he will totally thrive in school when he begins in the fall.

5.  Due to the all of the reasons mentioned above, it is obvious to see why this school year was so busy for me.  In addition, I had some health problems that also made it more challenging.  I have suffered from sleep issues for two school years now which left me very exhausted a few days a week all school year long.  I also completely passed out for several minutes back in November after getting up in the early morning to go to the bathroom.  After being unconscious for several minutes, Ron was able to wake me up.  Although I was examined by a team of firemen and paramedics less than 30 minutes later in my bedroom (which was more than embarrassing), I saw my doctor and received an echocardiogram a few months later and nothing was found wrong with me.  I honestly just think that I collapsed from pure exhaustion. In addition, I was hit by two cars this year--a hit and run in October and an accident at a Stop sign just minutes from my house in March (which the person then blamed on me 15 days after it occurred).  Since I have had chronic back issues since my 20s, both accidents reinjured my back.  Luckily, my back healed in less than 6 weeks after the hit and run in October which I was so grateful for.  However, I was not so lucky after the second accident near my house this spring.  My back is still really bad three months later, and I sadly had to start doing physical therapy every night before I go to bed.  It has helped a little bit, but I still cannot bend over without experiencing pain. In addition to juggling all of my children's needs and dealing with health issues all year long, I babysat a friend's baby part-time every week to help pay for Ella's gymnastics bills.  I will honestly say that it was the worst job I have had in my life as it was so challenging juggling a 1.5 and then 2-year old with everything else I had going on.  I watched Ellie during the worst time of her childhood when she was old enough to be fully mobile, but had zero common sense, was into everything, and wasn't potty trained.  Dealing with her tantrums, massive dirty diapers, and the overall challenges of lugging a baby-turned-toddler throughout my busy day was enough to almost kill me.  It also meant that I rarely had any time to myself as I had to babysit her on many of the mornings when Emmett was in preschool.  Needless to say, I am so relieved that this school year is over.  Although I am so happy for all of the wonderful ways that my children grew and progressed and for all that they learned and accomplished, I am so grateful that next school year will be different with Lia driving, Emmett in school full-time, and never having to babysit someone else's child for pay ever again.  Here's to hoping that the 2024 to 2025 school year will be a bit easier!

Lia on her last day of school as a 10th grader today.

Ella, Logan, and Emmett all lined up and ready to go to the school for the last time this year.

Logan on his last day of 6th grade and his final day as an elementary school student.  Sniff.

Ella on her last day of 4th grade.

Ella and Logan armed with their teacher gifts and ready to walk across the field to their school for the last time this year.

Since it was Logan's last day of elementary school, I had to get a picture of him and Ella walking off the bus for the final time.

Logan and Ella walking towards me while Emmett jumps up on the sidewalk.  I just love the action shot that I unintentionally got of him.  It perfectly sums up his active and go-getter personality.

Shaw Road Awards Assemblies

We received two emails a few weeks ago inviting us to attend the 4th and 6th grade assemblies the last week of school due to both Ella and Logan receiving awards.  Luckily, Ron was able to slip away from work two times today to join Emmett and me at both assemblies.  We were able to watch Logan first receive a character award for creativity and a Silver President's Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement at his assembly, and then Ella receive a character award for courage at her assembly.  We are so proud of both of our elementary age kiddos and the hardworking, respectful students that they have always been since they first walked through the doors of this school many years ago.  

Since our school no longer does a special celebration for 6th graders, some of the 6th grade moms came to the school over the weekend and "chalked the walk" in front of the building.  It was so fun to see all of the beautiful drawings and pictures that they drew with chalk.  I was so surprised when I saw "Congrats Class of 2030" written on the sidewalk as I sadly have never thought about what year Logan will graduate from high school.  What a cool sounding year that is!

Here is another drawing I had to take a picture of as Oh, the Places You'll Go! is one of my favorite Dr. Suess books.  I can't wait to see where Logan will go in the years to come.

Logan's 6th grade assembly was first in the day.  Here he is standing with the other 6th graders who received a character award for creativity.  The message that Logan's teacher wrote on his award says, "Logan shows his peers every day how creativity extends beyond the arts.  He routinely thinks outside the box to infuse any discussion or academic area with diverse perspectives.  Known for his wild imagination, Logan's peers are always inspired by him."

Logan and several of the other 6th graders holding up their Silver President's Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement.

"Congratulations to the Graduating Class of 2030!"

Logan posing with Emmett and his two certificates after the assembly was over.  Just as with Lia, I have absolutely loved Logan attending this elementary school for the past seven years.  With the exception of the pandemic stealing the last three months of his 2nd grade year and over half of his 3rd grade year, he has had one wonderful experience after another at this school with teachers, classmates, and friends.  He transitioned so smoothly into the Quest program this year and came to love his teacher and many new friends that he made in this class.  Part of me is so sad that he is leaving this school to enter the scary world of junior high school, but I know that I can't keep him in this bubble forever and will just focus on the amazing blessing of having his father as his principal for the next three years.

Emmett and I came home for an hour before turning around and heading back down to the school to attend Ella's 4th grade assembly.  Here she is standing in line after getting her award.

Ella and the rest of the 4th graders who received the character award for courage.  The message that Ella's teacher wrote on her award said, "Ella has the confidence to stay active in many activities.  Ella is a brave actress, gymnast, and student.  She is so outgoing both in and out of the classroom."

Ella proudly posing with Emmett after her assembly was over.

NWTL Annual Awards Ceremony

For the second year in a row, Northwest Theatre Lab hosted an annual awards ceremony.  Since their program has grown so much in the past year, they decided to rent the cafeteria at one of our local high schools instead of hosting it at their small theater.  Although it didn't feel as intimate as last year, the girls and I still had fun dressing up and spending the evening with our theater family.  Like last year, the directors handed out several awards for the entire casts of each play, in addition to individual awards for all of the plays and for their scholarships.  Both Lia and Ella received several all-cast awards for the five plays they participated in this year (Matilda, The Knight at Dawn, and Annie for Ella and Matilda and Mean Girls for Lia).  Lia also was a recipient of a $200 scholarship that she can use towards one of the musicals that she will participate in this coming school year.  We enjoyed eating a delicious potluck dinner and spending the evening visiting with many of theater friends.  It was a wonderful way to wrap up our second year at NWTL.

Ella won "Excellence in Voice" for The Knight at Dawn.  Here she is receiving this award with the rest of this cast.  She also won both an "Excellence in Voice" and "Excellence in Ensemble" for Annie.  Sadly, she did not win the "Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role" for her role of Annie in The Knight at Dawn as the directors decided to give this award to the boy who played her brother, Jack.  Both Ella and I felt really bad about this as all of her other friends who played the lead role in other plays this year won this award.  I still feel like she did a better job than her co-actor and should have won this award, but after a good heart-to-heart talk at bedtime tonight, we both felt better and have moved on.

Both Lia and Ella won the "Excellence in Acting" and "Outstanding Voice in a Musical" for Matilda.  Here is the Matilda cast receiving one of these two awards.

Lia also received an "Excellence in Acting" and the "Outstanding Overall Musical" for Mean Girls.  Here she is with her Mean Girls cast receiving one of these awards.

Lia posing with Blair and Jen after receiving her scholarship award.

A mommy-daughter photo.

Lia's closest theater friends, Abbie and Isabelle, were not able to attend the awards ceremony.  Luckily, Lia was able to spend the evening with her two favorite college friends, Braden and Alex, who both work and volunteer at the lab.  Braden insisted that they take a cheerleader picture together.

Ella posing with her two close friends, Neah and Evie (and Evie's little sister, Avalon) who she met during Matilda this past summer.  She has loved spending the year with these two girls and we are so sad to say goodbye to Neah as she moves to New York next week.