Sealed

After a lifetime of prayers, every youthful fasting plea, and every childhood wish on every star, I was finally able to be sealed to my parents on October 25th. 

Marlene was so sweet and took such good care of me as she got me all scheduled and set up for my appointment. It was odd to be doing a live ordinance for myself. It’s not often at all that we have that opportunity and I hadn't really thought about it that way before. They just changed the process and I had to meet with Bishop Wiest and President Darrow, and everyone was supportive and encouraging and I just love the gospel.

Everyone at the temple was so kind too and it really did make me feel so special. 

I was so happy to have Alecia and Josh and Chantell and Dan. 

We sealed my dad to his parents first and then my parents together and then me to my parents. 

I had so much adrenaline coursing through my body that I was cold and shivery. I was literally shaking until the sealer pronounced the sealing. And then I was calm. Crying, obvi, but no longer shaking. 

I had prepped myself that I was gonna cry and probably ugly cry (and I did!) and that it was fine. I’m big on no one should apologize for crying, and that goes for me too. Matt did mention later that he was a little surprised that I was so very emotional. It's like he doesn't know me at all.

It's such a beautiful thing to have the blessing and privilege to be able to seal my parents together and to be sealed to them. The Lord answers our prayers, even when those answers come very differently than we hoped and/or take 47 years. 

After, Alecia and Chantell had some family names and the officiator switched out who would serve as proxy. Matt and I were the last couple and the wife’s name was Mary. All through my temple hopping in Utah, since we did so many baptisms and we didn’t bring family names, there was always a Mary. Little precious hugs from my mom, letting me know she was there. 

I had prayed to be able to feel my parents there with me and know they were happy and open to the ordinances we performed. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t have any strong impression or knowledge. But then there were so many little things and as I reflected on the day, the spirit said, but didn’t you know? And I did.

After we went to lunch at Pacci's, the cute little Italian restaurant right by the temple. I’ve seen it there for 16 years as we’ve gone to the temple and I’m so glad we finally ate there because it was delicious. 

It was just a perfect, prayers answered, the veil is thin, families are forever kind of day. 

Rolling Acres

When I drive in Calvert I had seen a newish pumpkin patch I wanted to check out. When I looked online I found that they had a flashlight corn maze that sounded fun. October was wild and the flashlight maze was only a few nights in October, but we managed to pick Delaney up from ballet one night and head up. Unfortunately Adi was babysitting and couldn’t come along. 

The girls headed off on their own and there were middle schoolers running around that bothered them some. Just jumping out at them and making dumb noises. They didn't bother us and even offered to take this bang up picture of us. 😆

We meandered around and it was odd to hear the noises from the busy road as we walked through the corn. It's like we were on a farm in a big city, I didn't love.

There were food trucks that smelled super yummy so we let the girls get food, and I window shopped all their yummy farmstand goodies. It was cute and also we'll stick with Forrest Hall. The flashlight maze was fun though.

One weekend night after ballet and cheer and babysitting I had set up mega couch and put lights around and we finally watched Hocus Pocus together. It's hard to have family time when everyone runs in different directions.

I sometimes don't read the Smore, so I'm always happy when I do and am rewarded with a shot of my kiddos! Also, this little piggy got Student of the Month! I am soooooooo thrilled she is coming out of her middle school funk. 

Also, when Josh and Michelle were here Josh found a little duck and I was telling him how I hide them around and the seminary kids liked finding them and he was so excited that he hid little pumpkins in all our bedrooms. I thought I had found them all, but just recently found this one hidden snuggly behind my dresser leg. Made me smile!

More Navy game and more stuff

The Baynet had an article about Leonardtown and Patuxent high schools cheering at the Navy game, so that was fun to read. They got to meet some of the Navy cheerleaders and they were pretty amazing. We love going to football games and cheering on the cheerleaders. 

Our L-town girls were the point of the V. It was tricky because there was another high school with the exact same uniforms as our Varsity girls, so picking our girls out was almost impossible.

JV pride! Frankie had Winter cheer tryouts this week and made the JV squad again. She was disappointed, but again with the small trials and learning to manage them, she'll be fine. 

And both squads. There are a lot of freshman that came in this year with tumbling skills, so I heard several moms grumbling at the tailgate. I want to empathize with my kids, acknowledge the hard, and move forward, not grumble. I maybe not so helpfully reminded Frankie that she's lucky she has a spot at all because not everyone made it.

So let's go basketball!

The Suitland Stake Christmas tree is up at the Visitor Center and mighty pretty if I do say so myself! This year was the easiest decorating because someone offered to do it and I was able to get her all the decor at our leadership training. Done and dusted! The word on the street is that visitors at the Visitors Center love finding their countries flag so much that we were given a bigger tree in a more prominent location, so I asked and President Boyd approved the purchase of a few more decorations. The tree decor was not my idea, but we've tweaked it over the years, taking it from a missionary tree to an around the world tree and I love her.

We had the missionaries for dinner on Tuesday which I always like to do so they can have family night with us, but this week Frankie had an end-of-season cheer dinner at Olive Garden, so she missed the missionaries and we all missed family night. They shared a lesson with a jenga tower and the girls enjoyed building more towers after the lesson.

I love soda flavors and this holiday creamy vanilla is pretty tasty!

Also this week, Inklings at Debby's house where we talked about Elder Gong's talk No One Sits Alone and it was a really good discussion. Also a presidency meeting and a Women of Light meeting for our area conference. We're meeting weekly for that now and it's a lot but still very exciting. I'm sneaking up Christmas decorations where I can and preparing for our Pie Party and Christmas and also our Thanksgiving trip next week.

October 19th-23rd

I went to our ward that Sunday and my calendar says Bishop Wiest meeting that day, maybe for one of the girls? Idk. What I do remember is a meeting with President Boyd. I had heard from Chantell and some other stake RSP's that their stake presidents had held a meeting with the women leaders of the stake to talk about women and the church and I had been hoping we would have one too. So that Sunday we did. 

It was all 4 members of each stake womens organization plus the wives of the stake presidency. It was a wonderful meeting! I talked first and often, I tried not to talk too much but with only an hour long meeting and so much to be said I didn't want to waste a minute. We offered some suggestions that President Boyd said we could implement and I'm so excited. President Holland said in a recent training about the gospel to dream dreams, and I definitely do, and I shared them, and pray for their positive implementation.

Post scripture silliness. At this season we try to head upstairs for bed by 9:00, all 5 of us, since we all wake up in the 5:00 hour. Except Delaney wakes up at 6:10, but close enough. That's the goal, but the goal doesn't always happen. This picture, for example is time stamped 9:13pm, just for reference.

Was there a temple trip? It's not on my calendar and I can't find it on my camera roll even this morning, but here's a cute shot. Since Matt is a Priest Quorum advisor now, he gets to go to all the things.

I sold this cute halloween shirt and wanted to show the glow in the dark ghost and it's just so cute. 

YOLO used to be a big thing, not so much anymore.

Fun pictures from Leonardtown Cheer!

I love that they've got an amazing photographer hooking us up!

Frankie had her first away game that week at Great Mills. I am not sad that JV cheerleaders don't attend away games. If she makes varsity next year that means we're gonna be driving alllll over southern Maryland and I have been there done that and it will be fine, but for now home games have been lovely.

Anyway, I think Leonardtown had more fans in the stands than Great Mills, so that was fun for us but sad for them.

It was an absolutely beautiful evening and I love that since we don't have babies and Matt doesn't have a Navy weekend regularly that Matt can come to almost every game too.

It was also a v exciting game, but after talking to Alecia apparently thats par for the course. Anyway, we ended in a tie and then each team got a chance at the 20 yard line (or something) and it was all very exciting and Leonardtown won but juuuuust barely so it was a really good game.

Nicole Davis always prints Inklings study books, I know because I've known of Inklings forever and just never gotten to it, so when Jess started it I jumped on the study books and it's so nice to have a place to take notes and feels official. Halloween M&M's at my Halloween table doing my non-Halloween study.
 

Also that week lots of meetings, piano lessons, cheer practices, dance classes, a ministering visit, a bus driver appreciation event (MY LAST!!!), and a sad thing. Delaney tried out for the school play. She wanted to either do makeup and hair, or be in the play so she tried out and figured she'd get one of the things she wanted either way. And then she didn't get either. It's a big bummer and I know she was sad, but I'd rather my kids experience the small disappointments at home and learn how to manage them so they can be prepared for the big disappointments later. And she managed it well. 

A year

 

We made it through a year of orphanhood. 

November 17th. 

I took the one Thanksgiving/Christmas picture to send to Bubba and Lu.

Reba has a song that says "The man I thought could never die has been dead almost a year," and that's been ringing in my head for weeks. I was emotional leading up to the day. I'd be busy doing something and my dad would pop into my head, so I think he was nearby quite a bit. I'll write more about it when I get to that day, but I was sealed to my parents a few weeks ago and that was so special and I cried so much, that I didn't cry on Monday. I texted with my siblings and talked to Amy. 

One more little hug from our dad - a small insurance policy we didn't know about came through and we each received a check on Monday. Not a coincidence at all.

Today was the day I shared about his passing on social media, so I had my blubbering cry this morning as I looked through pictures and read through comments. I miss my dad so much!

I have been saving all of my parents text messages as a PDF so I can keep them, but delete them from my phone, and that has been really sweet to see how much we texted and how often we spent time together. When I am feeling mean to myself I think I didn't do enough, I got frustrated with him too much, I could have included him more, but reading through our texts I see how much I invited him and enjoyed having him around. I know both my earthly father and my Heavenly Father want me to know that I'm okay and to be kind and gentle with myself.

Kings Dominion

I made good on my County Fair promise to Delaney to take her to an amusement park. We had one free Saturday in October, that ended up not being so free and we had to turn down several invitations, but we guarded that as our family fun day.

We talked about Busch Gardens, but I didn't realize that was much further that we wanted to go, so we thought we'd try something new and go to Kings Dominion.

And then, because I'm a sucker for a deal, we ended up getting season passes. 

They can also be used at Six Flags, so it's a pretty good deal. 

I am still sad that our rinky little Six Flags in Bowie closed. :(

Throughout the day different groups split up for different rides.

Adi took me on a fun stunt movie ride thing that was my favorite of the day.

We also got a meal plan and it was fun to taste the different restaurants. 

There were a few super yummy ones and some so-so.

Delaney was excited to walk through the haunted sections, so we stayed all day.

We had to go up their Eiffel Tower! I love the beautiful views and hate being scared of heights.

Thankfully it was a nice day. A little cool by the end but we didn't even need our coats.

It was fun and also so busy! By the end of the day lines were crazy longs and we were all pretty done.

It was a fun family day! We're treasuring these up since our days with our youngest three are numbered.

October 13th-17th

I was waiting in the car in the dance parking lot one day and saw D through the window so I creeped on her. She loves dance and has been working so hard. It makes me so happy to see her so happy about it.

Frankie is in the Teacher training program at the Tech Center and was so excited to bring home an electronic baby to take care of. She borrowed Sarah's baby carrier and we went to the thrift store and procured a few outfits for him. Every expectant momma has to try the gear to make sure they know how to use it. She was so excited!

Jeanne had sugar cookie creamer at her house when Ruby was born and it's so yummy in my sody so I had to send this excitement to her when I found it. Delish!

It's beginning to look a little bit like Christmas. I love my little viral Christmas tree in my bedroom. I got 2 more for the porch because it's such a good price and hard to find.

One exciting thing that week is that we have a new Weis in Leonardtown and they had a big grand opening sale. There was a bunch of coupons and they had freebies and since I was free that early morning, as soon as D left for school I went and got some great deals. I had to laugh at us small towners lined up waiting to check out our new grocery store. Small town excitement!

They had mascots dressed up giving free baked goods and displays with samples of avocado toast and other yummies and it was actually really fun.

And I got all this free! Plus another bunch of groceries at a good price. And then sadly I misplaced the rest of my coupons. They had good ones for every week for the next few weeks and I had big plans, but whomp whomp.

We had an hour and a half parent pointe meeting that week too in preparation for our girls receiving their certificates. Having never danced ballet, I had no clue all that went into going en pointe and I'm here to tell you it is a lot. I grabbed a quick teen photo dodge on my way out.

And finally, a reticent spiderman. The boys were three of the cutest superheros ever for Halloween! It was fun to see them get all dressed up every weekend and go to fun Halloween activities.

Other happenings:

• the girls got out early for Indigenous Peoples/Columbus Day. We still had activities so it was just an extra few hours
• endocrinologist, dentist, and our new General Conference study group Inklings (that I love!) all on the same day
• another early dismissal on Friday. We also still had activities that day, so just another few hours.

McCombs come to town!

Josh called one day and said he had a long weekend and asked if he and his crew could for a visit. Yay! 

We were so excited to meet baby Teddy!

He lived up to all our expectations. 😉 He is such a sweet baby!

We did all the things one does when babies come to town. We went for walks and to the park and watched them play.

Unsure of the swing at first.
 
But then we figured it out! 

They stayed from Friday to Monday and apparently I only got pictures of Teddy really, but we just love Josh and he's such a good daddy and husband. We're planning a good old fashioned McRay beach trip for next year and we're so excited!