And She's Off....

This week has been full of awesomeness and some tears.  Wednesday morning (at the crack of dawn) Dan and I took Anna to the airport to head out on her mission.  We left the house at 3:45 am and got he there is plenty of time for her flight - she slept most of the flight and arrived safely at the MTC - met her companion and got settled in before starting classes and all the amazing parts of the MTC.  

Evelyn had a track meet on Wednesday as usu and did a great job on her pole vaulting - her friend Megan also had an amazing day pole vaulting!  It was great to watch her and see her cheering on her friends.  

We are super excited for Aaron who was accepted into the CDL program for this summer - he will get to go through the whole training process to get his CDL for free - it will be a lot of work, but such an awesome opportunity for him - we are so excited and so proud of the initative he is taking as he approaches graduation! 

The weather this weekend was great, so Dan took him up to skydive again and he got to do his first solo jump!  He was so excited!!  

This weekend was the THills age group tournament.  David played for the 10U team and Paxton played also - we needed more kids to make sure we had numbers for a team, so Blake asked me to see if Paxton was interested - and he was.  The boys and I had a great time hanging out at the pool all weekend - they played so well - 2 games on Saturday and 2 on Sunday.  They didn't win, their team was mostly new and less experienced - but they did awesome!  David and Paxton and their friend Aiden were all rockstars and they all worked hard and learned.   They both had to "iron man" their second game since they had no subs.  David got out of the pool complaining that his arms felt like noodles.   But he was a super speedy rock star winning 3 of 4 sprints.  Paxton was also an amazing passer - he would get the ball - David would spring down the field and Paxton would pass it to him.  They played hard and we had fun.  

I also had games - they ran some masters/high schoolers exhibition games - we had a good turn out and put together some great teams and had a lot of fun.  David decided to act as coach for one of the teams and the hillarious part was that he was usually right with what he was saying!  LOL  funny how much they absorb!  Between games, the boys played in the warm up area of the pool - so by the end of the weekend, they were exhausted and chlorine soaked and happy.   They did so good, so I took them for ice cream Saturday after their second game - and Sunday, Nicole brought donuts for the team!  

This weekend was also Stake Conference.  Lots of amazing-ness!  Sunday afternoon, The Wilde's invited us over for dinner and games - so I went over as soon as clean up was done for the tournament and met them there - the food was amazing and we had a great time!  

Finally, we went to Evelyn's Encore concert - she did amazing!  

Home MTC

This week has been a busy one. 

Tuesday evening, after I got back from coaching Score, the Stake President came over to set Anna apart as a Sister Missionary.  It was a wonderful experience! 

Anna has been doing Home MTC this week - she's up early and on zoom classes most of the day.  She gets some time off to exercise and eat, but mostly she's had to sit at a computer - which is hard, but still exciting and she's says she's learning lots.  

On Wednesday I was chaperoning David's field trip.  It was fun!  We went to the Tualatin Hills Nature Reserve and they got to do a Bug Safari.  They had fun finding bugs together and the kids were all great!  It was funny - one of the girls in my group while standing near me said "something smells like the pool" and I was just like " yeah, that's me....." At least there are worse things to smell like!  

While we were walking around the nature trails - we got to see Dan who goes for a run there often, and so he timed his run to bump into us on the field trip!  

After, David came home a bit early with me, so we met up with Dan and went to Cold Stone for some ice cream.  David said it was the BEST DAY EVER!

Dan has been taking Aaron skydiving quite a bit on weekends - this is kinda serving as his Senior Trip and he is LOVING it!  

It's gettin' real...

Monday, the kids didn't have school, so I took David to get his hair cut like I promised him I would - He just wanted a trim around the edges - and I got mine trimmed too.  The lady who cut our hair was very sweet, but had a VERY hard time understanding that it was David and I getting our hair cut and not 2 people named Dan Jones....  

We've had our usual crazy busy week with school and work and friends and sports.  Evelyn had a meet at Beaverton on Wednesday - she struggled a bit on this meet, but hurdles went better than last time!  She's so brave!! 

Aaron had a Auto Tech competition this weekend as well as a water polo tournament.  He competed in the auto tech thing Friday and Saturday and took 3rd, then today he went and played in the two games his team had today.  

David is still doing water polo on Fridays and Saturdays and he's doing so well - it's obvious that he is now the more experienced water polo players in the begginner group and he's starting to think about wanting to move up to the next level, so I talked to Blake and we are thinking maybe in the Fall would be a good time - then he'll be 9 and ready to join the 12U's.  In the meantime, I will bring him to a few Monday's here and there to get ready before tournaments.  

On Saturday, Dan asked Anna if she had recieved her tags for her mission yet....  she said, no, but she hadn't checked the mail, so she checked the mailbox and sure enough... there they were - English and French name tags :)  She was super excited! 

Saturday evening, she and I went to Open Polo - She had run into water polo friends at the temple earlier that day and they were going, so she went too.  She ended up seeing a LOT of friends there, many of whom she hadn't seen for awhile and all of whom she wouldn't see again for a year and a half or more.  After last week with 8 people, it was nice to have the pool packed!  

Today our ward had fast and testimony meeting and it got way too real for me that her time at home is almost over and she will be leaving on her mission soon - it hit me that this was her last fast and testimony meeting before she left.  And I lost it for a bit....  

Easter

We've had a busy week this week leading up to Easter!!

This week leading up to Easter, I've taken charge of the Scripture time, at least on the days when I was home.  We've had some nice discussions and fun time together! 

Tuesday, I got a call from Sunset about coaching the score program there - I hadn't realized that I was still doing that since I had thought it didn't have enough people.  But I was wrong, so I hurried up there and we had fun learning some water polo stuff!  Then I came home and Dan and I spent some time watching a movie.  He had rented Pride and Prejudice and Zombies from the library....  I tried... I really did, and I might have made it through more if Darcy hadn't been so awful....  

Evelyn had her first track meet of the season on Wednesday.  She did both pole vault and hurtles.  She PR'd on the pole vault - she jumped 8'!  She said hurtles didn't go as well, but it's was an exciting first meet.  There was a bit of rain at first, but it had cleared by the time she had to jump!  

Between Evelyn's meet on Wednesday, my work schedule, my swimming and work out and dropping off and picking up David and then coaching in the evening - I was barely home all day and hardly had time to eat - so by the end of my day, I was TOTALLY exhausted! 

Thursday I mostly took it easy.  David had swim lessons after school (I almost forgot) but we got him there and he did great - he is clearly more comfortable in the water than most of the other kids - water polo is making a big difference.  Then in the evening, I went to masters at Sunset - numbers were a bit low, but Laura brought a friend from work who is a goalie and Warren was there, so we had a lot of goalies, so I had some fun playing field too!  

Friday, David had water polo in the evening - the time has changed and is now a bit earlier, so we were done a bit earlier, so Dan and I went out for dinner after, then came back to watch a movie.  We had thought about going to a theater, but there weren't really any good times that we could make.  We waached the new Anaconda movie - it was fun!  Landon B also stayed the night.  David wanted a sleepover with him and it worked out perfectly for him to come over while his family went down to Eugene for the night (he really didn't want to go anyway, so us asking for a sleepover was well timed!) 

Saturday was the beginning of our General Conference weekend.  And Easter weekend!  And all the stuff!  It was kinda crazy busy!  We started with the morning session, then I went with Eileen to the grocery store to get Easter stuff and conference food stuff and weekend stuff.  By the time we got home, it was time for me to get David ready for water polo.  He had fun and did a great job, and we got home just as the second session was ending.  So I finally got myself some food and watched the second session a bit late and got Easter stuff ready...ish.  In the evening, Evelyn had a concert and we went to the Reamer's for dinner.  The food was super good and we had a fun time playing with the kids and chatting with friends!  Then we got home, did scriptures and got David to bed, then I went to Open Polo - numbers have been pretty low lately, we only had 8 people there total and by 10:30, we had 4.....  

Sunday morning, Dan and Anna went to watch the morning session at the church, I stayed home with the other kids, then we all met at the church for a potluck lunch.  We had a great time and Anna even met another person who had served in the Montreal, Canada mission.  Then we went home and started the cooking for the afternoon session snacks.  James came over to watch the afternoon session with us and play games.  We enjoyed the 7-layer dip and monkey bread!  

After, we had an Easter Egg hunt with the kids.  They had fun finding and Dan and James had fun hiding and watching and laughing.  Then we played a game of Dominion before heading to the church for a baptism.  It was wonderful and she's an amazing lady!!  Then after, Mhanita Kunzler had some food for everyone - she had made her amazing spring rolls and curry and rice along with fruit and cookies - it was all amazing.  (Yes, we've eaten way too much today!!!)  

We came home, did scriptures, played more games, and now we are all exhausted from a busy, but incredible weekend.  Conference weekends are the BEST!