Beachy Monday

Our best seven year olds birthday! Laura made breakfast burritos and we celebrated our boy. 

And some out of order pictures. I had roughly a thousand glow sticks so I brought them and we invited all the kids on a nighttime crab hunt, but Josh and I got our wires crossed so it was just Matt and I and the boys. 

Auntie time. 

We finally all made it to the beach at least for a little while. 

The kids loved to play under the house. It’s sandy down there and they could fill buckets and it was nice to have them outside when they were done eating when we were all together. 

See that angry sky? Every. Day. 

We made an Italian feast for Bob. I had made and frozen a lasagna from home and then made chicken Alfredo there. I brought my homemade Caesar dressing and made garlic bread and cheesy  garlic bread. Then I had also made 4 Better Than Shopping Cakes, of which we ate 2. That one was on Lexi though, and they all did get eaten, just not that night. Emmett actually loved everyone singing to him, it was really cute. 

This is off our front deck. At this same time I took a picture out our back window of the dark storm coming through, but it’s like 10 pictures down from here. 

We taught Damian to float and he was all like watch me. 

Laura’s first drip castle! And cute Shauna with her 4 toes. 🤣

We got kicked off the beach shortly after these pics. 

I love an everyone at the beach all day day! We didn’t get any of those, but this afternoon was pretty sweet. 

Presents with just our crew. 

Aunties. 

Here’s the back of the house shot. Storm rolling in. Also, we could see the drawbridge our this window. 

Crabs!

Pappy found a giant toad right in front of our house so of course everyone had to touch it. 

Giant toad. 

Crabs 

Military beaches aren’t always the prettiest but they do the job. 

It was lightning like crazy and I didn’t really want everyone in the water, so we made it a pretty quick walk. 

🤣

Houses on the right, cross the street, over the dunes, and the beach. So close, so perfect. 

We loved celebrating our Emmett Cade! I can’t believe he’s 7 already!

Beachy Sunday

I was up early Sunday so went for a walk on the beach. Beach mornings are my fav. And so are beach afternoons and beach evenings. Why don’t I live near the beach?

So. Happy. Also, my new favorite dress from BJ’s. Sarah B had one like this that she slept in at girls camp and she was telling us how comfy it was and then I happened to see it at BJ’s and I was like, you’re mine. Because there’s never a wrong age to buy your clothes at the wholesale club. 

We went to church and sometime that day the rest of the Pools arrived. Auntie pictures are often the funniest. 🤣

Drake bbq’d that night and everyone made side dishes and came over to our house. I made a Grillo pickle dip that’s supposedly viral with bacon and cheese and our crew (and about half of the giant crew) thought it was really tasty. Katie and drake invited friends from their ward over too, because the more the merrier. 

I’m sure we went to the beach somewhere in there, but really with the exception of one or two days, we got thundered off the beach every time. And also, almost every day was red flag, so swimming was “not allowed,” but we still did. 🤷‍♀️

There was one day that we had swum in the afternoon and then gone back after dinner, and the water was wild. I was floating with Laura, and the current was like a fast lazy river those first few days, and I started thinking, hmmm, my body is pretty tired from swimming these crazy waves for several hours. And then Laura said we should try to make our way in because we were in a riptide. I know what to do, I know Laura knows what to do, but my heart started hammering and I couldn’t catch my breath for a hot minute and I was like “oh no! I’m so tired!”

I have a deep respect for the ocean always, but the water doesn’t really ever make me nervous. But this time I got a lil nervous for a minute. And then I was fine. That feeling of panic has stuck with me though. So grateful all is well and I can still love the beach. 

Beachy Saturday

The first picture I took on Saturday at 5:30pm.

Here’s the thing. I did a terrible job taking pictures at the beach - or maybe I did a really good job because half the time I couldn’t even find my phone and definitely didn’t have it at the beach. Also, with 31 people around and thunderstorms every day, all the days kind of ran together so I don’t really remember what happened what day. And it really doesn’t matter. imma write about the beach and maybe post daily pictures in separate posts for each day, because I did gather pictures from everyone, or at least, like 10 people.

I made up a schedule for every family to make one dinner and one brekkie for the group and one of my brekkies (I took Lu’s breakfast and dinner too since she’s a million months pregnant) was Saturday morning - overnight crème brûlée French toast. Only, when I went to make it I realized I hadn’t packed my vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. I meant to grab those last thing and then didn’t. So then I got to go to Walmart in my pjs at 10:30pn and trust me when I say that was the very last thing I wanted to do. 

Anyway, I was up early making sausage and French toast and then, like only half the people came to brekkie, because that’s how vacations with lots of people sometimes go. Turns out the adult lodge with Cherry, Shauna, Daniel, and Angelica, and then also Katie’s family because they didn’t stay at the beach, they came 30 minutes from home every day, never came to breakfast. Thankfully I decided that however much I thought I needed to cook, to make a little bit less than that. So mostly that worked.

So we had a 3 bedroom Osprey house for our 5 and then the Pool 5. Matt and I had the primary room with Carter and Emmett on our floor, the 3 big girls shared a room and rotated through one of them on the floor each night (they each got 2 turns) and Lexi and Damian and Henry had the other room. It honestly wasn’t bad. It was a little crowded and it would be nice for everyone to have their own bed, but I never felt too squishy.

Laura and David had an Osprey house, but then they had mechanical stuff, so they were moved to a different house with only 2 bedrooms and they had Josh, Michelle, Jasper, and teddy, and then Maggie and Oly. They were squished.  👎🏼 

The Armours has an osprey house two doors down from us with their two boys - Blake, who is Adi’s age and just graduated and then Bash, who is 6 months older than Delaney. They were super fun and if they all could have had a few more days and could have relaxed just a smidge, would have gotten along without the adults great. During our week they got along great with each other *with* the adults. 🤷‍♀️

Katie and drake and their 3 came everyday around lunchtime. Many days they arrived and it either started thundering before they got out of their car or right when they got to the beach. It was a bummer and a co-inky-dink.

Then there was the Cherry & Daniel lodge.

So the Pools were planning to drive up Sunday because Carter and Emmett were with their grandma in Arizona for the week and Lexi is so nice and let her slip into our beach week. They are also so nice because Damian drove 4 hours to Atlanta twice to drop them at the airport and pick them up, and so he was gone Saturday doing that, so Lu decided it would be better to rest and be giant pregnant at the beach than at home, so they surprised us.

We cleaned up after brekkie and hit the beach until Lexi and Henry arrived. Then Lexi napped and we took Henry to the beach. I waded in with him and he loved the waves. I would say “wheeeew” when the waves would come and he started doing that too. Which was funny because later in the week even when he was tired or teething and was grumpy, he’d still kind of grumpily say “wheeeew.”

Matt and Frankie arrived and Katie and Drake brought pizza and we ate at our house because we got the much coveted ADA house and it’s a little bigger. 

That’s a lot of people for a silly one year old. 

Kira Lea is soooo cute! She’s like a little Disney baby with her big eyes and round face. We loooove her!

Courtesy of the aunties. 

A few of the nights we invited the boys to stay and play games. Well everyone really, but the adults were pretty worn out. Anyway, I tried to facilitate those friendships and they were funny and it was fun. We played Qwixx and Skull King and then it was bedtime. 

It was an amazing week even if it did storm every day. 

To the beach!

 It was a good thing I can home when I did that Thursday, because I worked till a late bedtime and then was up early to pack the car and pickup the girls (from 2 hours away) by 9. I did laundry and gathered the last few things and we packed the non refrigerated stuff Thursday night and then loaded the coolers Friday morning. 

Camp and Fsy buddies!

Last girls camp for these 2!

Even though they had already taken group pictures, I made them take a few more. I’ve never been shy about making people take more pictures  🤣

I do love a silly shot. I don’t care if that’s my biggest white person quality. 🤣

At least they went with it a little! 🤣

😍

We left camp and were 4 hours from the beach. We shared alllll our camp stories and then before they fell asleep we stopped for brekkie for Adi and lunch for us at Chick-fil-A. Adi wanted  brekkie biscuit and ordered it al like 10:58, then D and I waited for the lunch menu at 11. 

Our next stop was BJ’s, which the closest one was 2 hours from the beach. It was *so* hot that we busted the move with all our cold stuff and were ready to hustle as soon as we opened the cooler to try to help everything stay cool. An hour and a half later we hit Aldi. We’d divided the shopping list in 3 to be as quick as possible and did the same coordinated attack on the cooler. Then we needed to hit Walmart for just the last few things, and it was so hot that I let Delaney stay in the car with the ac running just to be extra careful with all our food. Thankfully everything stayed nice and cold. Our milk even stayed frozen till the next day when we had to leave it out on the counter. 

So we got checked in and the houses are so cute and we got everything unpacked and the crew was at the beach and the girls were ready to go, so I sent them off and I organized the house. I love the beach so much, but I just needed to put everything in its place and have some order since it had been a crazy week. I got everything perfect and hit the beach for awhile and then Laura and David made dinner and we ate at the Armours. 

There was a beach house out of service and unfortunately it affected Laura and David’s house. So they couldn’t check in until Monday and they were about a 3 minute drive from us and Armour’s. So it wasn’t a late night because they had to drive home to Katie’s that night. After that, they stayed with Armours till Monday, but that first night on Friday Heather had a friend come down and stay. 

Anyway, it was a fabulous start to a fabulous week!

Cheer camp

 Frankie wasn’t able to go to girls camp because cheer camp happened the same week. 😢 That was different from last year and such a bummer. It was a weird week for our family too. Adi and I left for girls camp Monday, Delaney left Tuesday, Frankie left for cheer camp Wednesday, I came home Thursday, picked up Adi and Delaney and headed to the beach Friday, then Matt picked up Frankie saturday and headed to the beach to meet us  so many different directions. 

I followed along with their cheer camp fun. 

Frankie said it was a lot of work, but very fun. 

They had the girls “try out,” to form a camp varsity and camp JV team and Frankie was disappointed to be on the JV team, but disappointments are ok. They make us stronger. 

She’s still hopeful she’ll make the varsity team for the fall, but also will do her best even if she stays JV. 

They had 8 girls qualify for all American and Frankie was one of them! I’m not gonna lie, I don’t understand what that is exactly, but go Frankie!

On Saturday Matt (and the parents) got to go watch their final dance and I was bummed to miss it. And hopefully next year cheer camp doesn’t get in the way of our summer fun. 

Camp kitchen

The kitchen at Pocahontas was small, much smaller than 2 years ago at stake camp. Tony and Sarah arrived Tuesday morning and everyone jumped right in unloading and setting up. Cooking for the week is a huge job and I’m always so impressed with all the planning, packing, and prepping Tony puts into it. I’m happy to be an Indian to his chief.

I really mostly spent all my time in the kitchen, but I did wander out during skits. Delaney loves improv and loves to act. 

All the groups that I saw did really cute skits. All a little different and they were having so much fun. 

Just a girl that hates camp. 🙄🙄🙄 She wouldn’t admit it, but I know she had a good time. 

This was the lady camp kitchen cabin. Sarah Berry from Calvert ward and Karen from LP ward and I shared this. Karen is older and Sarah said she couldn’t climb onto the top bunk, so I slept up top. I had my fan and my phone up there and I was worried they’d fall on Sarah, and my phone did both nights. Not on her, but close enough. Hey, I didn’t want to be up too, I took one for the team. 🤷‍♀️ I slept ok. The noise of the fans mostly drowned out the snoring and the fan made the weather bearable. Actually, our first morning there was chilly, but that was the only chilly morning. The bathroom was a 5 minute walk from our cabin and Sarah went a couple times every night so she would drive and that kind of woke me up a little, but it wasn’t terrible. 

The kitchen crew! The girls loved all the food. It’s cute how excited they were for Tony’s teriyaki chicken and fried rice in particular, but they really enjoyed everything. One thing I love is that the adults truly just love the girls. I love that Tony’s philosophy is just feed them and make them happy. When girls were hungry or needed a little extra care there was always something we could give them. That’s my fav, just loving on the girls. 

The kitchen is a lot of work and we had some mishaps. One morning Tony found that one of the refrigerator shelves had collapsed from the weight and we’d lost a few large yogurts. Then the oven stopped working and while repairing it, the guy made a big explosion - that was exciting. Because of the oven I got to fry many many pounds of bacon on a griddle. My poor bum thumb was prett-y sore after that. And that night was the best shower, just scrubbing bacon grease off. 🤣

Another fun thing was our adult ice cream and a few adult treats. Because we love the girls, but also we deserve some special treats. Girls camp ended Friday morning, but I had told Tony I could only stay till Thursday because we headed to the beach Friday. They had to clean out the kitchen Thursday anyway, and I had planned to stay and help but they let me go after lunch cleanup and I was all like thank, byeee! 

I loved seeing my girls and serving with amazing people and I’m grateful for the opportunity. 

Girls camp 2026

The next day I loaded up the jolly green giant with girls camp gear and 6 cute young women and headed to Pocahontas State Park for girls camp.

Adi brought games for the car and the girls played them almost the whole way. After a few small snafus we made it and I dropped the girls off and headed on my merry way with instructions and a list from Tony.

I went to 3 different stores - this pic is just after Aldi, but I found everything I needed.

That night I shared a cabin with Shannon Ziegler, Tracy Fairborn, and … someone else who I can’t remember. I had my fan and a regular bed, as opposed to the top bunk I had the rest of the week and it wasn’t too bad at all. 

Miracles

Backwards pics again, even though I uploaded them backwards thinking I’d fix the issue that way. 🤷‍♀️

The next day on Sunday (July 12th) i subbed in primary again. I wasn’t supposed to teach, but the spirit told me to have a lesson ready and I’m glad I did because I got to teach and it was really special. 

The lesson was about, among other things, Elisha’s miracles, and I knew that’s what I wanted to focus on. We talked about his miracles and then I shared President Nelson’s miracle quote and then a story about a miracle from my life. Those are my most important talk/lesson elements - scriptures, modern scriptures, personal experience.  

I spent some time pondering on the miracles in my life and settled on Delaney’s bike crash. It’s always a crowd pleaser for kids. 

I told them about her crash and upset she was and how she couldn’t talk because of her jaw injury and chin cut but how calm she was after her priesthood blessing. Then how calm she was when she got her CT scan and I sang I am a Child of God to her, how I thought she might have fallen asleep, but it was just the spirit comforting her. 

I told them about how the doctor was talking about the possibility of wiring her jaw shut because there was just no other way to ensure her jaw and bite were properly aligned. And I was like hold up! I had just taken her to the dentist a few weeks before and they told me she had a 100% overbite and I thought that was so funny so I’d gotten a closeup picture of it - the only extreme mouth/bite close up I have of any of my 5 kids and I took it a month before I needed it. I will never not believe in miracles. 

As I told them the story they asked to see the pictures so I dug them up and sent them to the moms that night. That broken jaw experience  was a powerful one. In present day (August) I am preparing for Inklings and we are studying President Freeman’s talk Best Days and Worst Days and I’ve been pondering how so often they are the same day. Our hard times can become sacred times when we walk with Jesus. 

One of my very favorite President Nelson quotes ever. I miss him. 

 

KD

Looks like my pictures are exactly backwards and we’re gonna go with it.

On July 11th we went to Kings Dominion with the Darrow. We stayed from open to close and caught some of the fireworks and drone show from the parking lot.

We hung out together for a bit and then people would split off and ride rides together. Curtis, Josh, and Frankie pretty much rode everything. The rest of us loved the water rides in particular. Most of the rapids ride got us just a little wet, but our last few times we got soaked. Especially Delaney. 🤣

Also, we rode the log ride and someone paid money to spray the girls log. 🤣🤣🤣 And it wasn’t me, I swear. 

They had a $25 eat all day meal deal and we got our 9 meals and maximizing deals makes me so happy. 

It wasn’t too busy and it was fun to spend all day with some of our favorites. Everyone was happy, which doesn’t always happen so I’m always extra grateful when it does. 

Brandon drove Matt, Adi drove me, and Emma drove Alecia. 

I always try to get car driving pictures and they’re never great. I just can’t lay off them. 

It’s not as much fun to drive the little cars after you get your license, but you know. 

This was only our second trip, so we need to seriously start making tracks there to get our moneys worth. Looking forward to next time. ❤️

The interview

It’s been a busy and lovely few weeks that I’ve been an absent blogger. 

On Friday, July 10th I got up super early and packed up every thing I thought I could possibly need and headed to the Visitors’ Center for my first media interview for my Communications calling. 

I was so nervous, but I did everything I could possibly do to be ready. I studied and practiced and prayed and counseled with my leaders and got a blessing and asked for prayers and served others and took notes and researched. By that day I was so ready to get it over with!

I got to the VC early and checked myself in the restroom and prayed and practiced some more while I waited. I wanted to make sure I was early so I left before 7. We had learned a few days before the interview that filming on temple grounds requires approval, so that was a bummer, but we made it work. We did my interview first and then they did the rest of their segment. 

I had asked to receive the questions ahead of time and was told they don’t like to do that because it’s really just a conversation. But then I was surprised by her questions. It wasn’t what we’d talked about in our pre-interview meeting and I left feeling unsettled and anxious. Like I woke up with an upset tummy because I felt so much anxiety. I just really prayed that the Lord would make more of me than I am. 

Here’s what’s going on in my head - stand up straight, don’t sway, keep your hands below your belly button, don’t nod, don’t slow blink, use your normal voice, don’t make a weird face, keep your gut sucked in, and most importantly, remember your core message. 

I stayed while they filmed the rest of their segment where Markette records the headline news from Montgomery County and then I went into the temple to bring a little peace to my heart. I chatted with the security guards and then Scott Parker at the temple and what a gift it is getting to know so many people outside of my normal orbit. 

I was nervous but then went to girls camp and then the beach and was able to keep my mind off the editing that was happening. I had to coordinate some more filming while I was at camp and questioned if in the future I should do things like go to camp because there were several things for my calling that I was missing. Ginny said it’s not always this busy, so that’s good. 

The first day at the beach Ginny texted me and said the show was so good and she was so impressed. I felt sick watching it. It was just Adi, Frankie and I, and I was holding their hands while we watched. I was *so* nervous. 

And it was ok. 

I don’t think I did great, but I didn’t make a fool of myself or make the church look bad. I didn’t really get to share my core message that I wanted to, but I did remember my facts and hopefully was warm and welcoming. 

And I did slow blink and nod, but otherwise pretty much remembered all my other training techniques. And now that’s under my belt and I’ll never have to do a first interview again. 

The humility and complete reliance on the Lord is something I’m not unfamiliar with but is pretty challenging and why do I have to keep learning this? I love to serve and i love the Lord and I’ll try my best to do what is asked of me.