Dance Performance

Savannah had another dance performance in June.  She only has 2 performances per year, and she had to miss the fall of 2022 due to soccer season.  So she was excited to be able to perform again.  Her hip hop team did a Pump up the Jam / Girls Just Want to Have Fun combo dance.  They were dressed 80's style.  She did a great job!  The hardest part about performances is the make-up.  She was required to wear fake eyelashes, which almost seemed like child abuse trying to get those on.  We figured it out, but she still didn't like wearing them.  One of her rehearsals was during our youth camp week, so a friend of mine actually had to do Savannah's hair and make-up once while Savannah was staying with them. 

I couldn't record the actual performance but got a video during rehearsals.

Fathers Day

We had omelettes and bacon for breakfast, lasagna for dinner, and Twix cheesecake bars for dessert.    Weston created a dinosaur for Alex, a Bonumpaterutrumsaurus, which means "good father shoveling lizard". 

Owen gave a talk at church and did a great job on that.  He talked about 3 guidelines on what a father should be: an example to follow, a leader and provider in the family, and someone who lifts others burdens.  I love this story he shared for an example of lifting others burdens.

"I am reminded of a personal story that I have had in my life. A couple years ago I had the opportunity to go on a backpacking trip with my 2 older brothers and my dad. We went to Hurricane Deck, 20 miles round trip in 2 days, 2200 feet of elevation gain, and rain and hail. At this time I am around 11 and this is my only my second backpacking trip ever, with my first being a 2 mile round trip with about 0 elevation gain. Now my dad has only heard me talk bad things about this trip but what he doesn’t know is that I had a really impactful experience on fathers. This moment has taught me that my dad could have just taken us on a shorter trail but he didn’t.  He could have carried me the rest of the way because I couldn’t go any farther, but he didn’t. All he did was take enough of my load so that I could make it the rest of the way. He did what he could do so that I could make it to the end of the trip.  He helped and supported me the whole way. This is what all fathers do and what our Heavenly Father does. Our Heavenly Father gives us our trials, our 20 mile backpacking trip with 2200 feet of elevation gain with rain and hail and lifts our burdens just enough so that we can make it through. And he is always there to be that support we need. My dad never left my side and I know that our Heavenly Father will never leave our side."  

End of School

Well, it's almost time for school to start again... but here's the end of last school year.  Owen had a couple of concerts, one in May and another in June.  Owen sang another solo in the spring concert.  He sang Knee Deep by Zach Brown Band.  A few of his friends joined in for a little choreography.  The choir also sang at the 8th grade promotion. It was sad to see him say good-bye to friends who would be going to different high schools the next year.  His choir teacher also was not returning, so she wrote a song about the things they had taught her and sang it at the last concert. 

Owen had fun at his 8th grade party.  He won a fish, named him Mike, and then gave him to Savannah to take care of.  It actually lasted quite a while.  His friends' fishes died within about a week, but this fish lasted all summer.  

Weston also had a promotion ceremony, graduating from elementary school on to 7th grade.  He had to say a favorite thing about school, which had to do with kickball of course.  He had to learn a couple of songs as well for the ceremony, which was hilarious listening to him practice.  He had a hard time getting the beat - we'll see how that goes for band next year... We loved his happy dance at the end of the ceremony.  Funny kid!

Jared didn't graduate this year, but there was an end-of-year seminary breakfast.  He finished his 3rd year of seminary. Kat and Julie were his teachers, and they were amazing.  They shared a little bit about each of the students.  They said that Jared "talks prophetically" and shared something that Jared said: "It's easy to have faith when things are going well, but it's more important to have faith when things are not going well because that's when you need it the most.  Even though there is uncertainty, you can have faith that everything will be okay."

I organized gifts for the 4 teachers (flowers, chocolates, and gift cards collected from families) - two individual teachers and one couple who taught the younger class. I also made 2 pans of overnight French toast for the breakfast. 

It was sad to watch Weston and Savannah walk off to their last day of school - their last day walking to school together.  (Savannah had a pajama day on the last day.)  Weston called me mid-morning.  I missed the call, but the message was to bring a kickball.  I didn't know what he wanted it for, but assumed maybe they were going to play kickball one last time.  However, he came home with a signed kickball.  Apparently, he wanted all his classmates to sign the ball.  That was a fitting keepsake for elementary school since he loved playing kickball.

As a family, we went out for lunch on the last day of school. 

This last picture is just a few random things for the first week of June.  Bike riding, flowers in bloom, teacher gifts, and graduation leis.  We had 5 graduating seniors in our church congregation this year.  We did a little celebration to honor them, and we were all supposed to bring some kind of lei for them.  We decided to do candy leis.