All Little More Randomness

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a little behind.  I've been trying to not mention it since it happens so often.  But I'm getting closer and one reason why is these longer posts with several random things in them.  If I were on top of things I could do short and sweet posts about these little events, but until then I'm going to have to lump them all together.  I will still try and make them short and sweet.

 Jaaromy's job sent him to California again.  At least this time it was for a good reason and he was able to accomplish a lot.  On the way home he had to fly in this little plane with propellers and everything.  It made him a little nervous.  Turns out he doesn't like flying and this experience didn't help.  He flew in this plane to the San Fransisco airport which is right by the water and he couldn't see the runway or even solid ground.  The plane just kept getting closer and closer to the water and he had to trust that the pilot knew what he was doing and that they weren't all about to die.  We're all glad that he landed safely.

 Back in May we had an interesting celestial event when three planets were grouped close together in the sky.  They were actually a little closer the next night but I knew it would be too cloudy by then.  It was already pretty cloudy when I took this one.  Thankfully, it cleared up enough to get a great picture of them.  Far left is Jupiter on it's way down.  Far right is Mercury.  I had no idea that Mercury even got that high in the sky.  I always kind of assumed it was too low to see with mountains and stuff in the way.  I'm happy to be wrong on that one.  The bottom one is Venus.  It's on it's way up in the sky and you will be able to see it big and bright for the next little while.  I don't know why, but I always feel better when Venus is in the evening sky.

 Here is Brigham with his teacher Miss B.  She was a fabulous teacher and I'm sad that he won't be in her class anymore.  I came to the school for the awards assembly and was happy to hear that Brigham was on the Honor Roll for 1st grade.  Good job, Brigham!

 Jonathan also got an award but I didn't hear about it until he got home.  He got one for Most Improved Student and also a class room award for being a great speller.  Good job, Jonathan!

 Birthday Sunday for June was at our house.  I didn't take a ton of pictures like I did last time but I did grab this one of Scott blowing out his candle.  It was so fun to have everyone over even though there were many who couldn't make it.  I had the brilliant(seriously, brilliant) idea to do ice cream cones.  I didn't have to buy plates or utensils, it was all cones and ice cream.  Scott was a little disappointed that he didn't have a cupcake or something to put his candle in.  I tried to make him feel better by getting waffle bowls but when I opened the box every single one was broken.  Bummer.  I hope he had a nice birthday anyway.

 With school out I put the boys right to work on our Super Fun Summer Schedule which includes reading.  It thought it was so cute that the boys were reading just before they ate their lunch.

 We had some fun changes in the home early in the summer.  I finally got new bookshelves.  We were running out of room on the old ones and they were also looking pretty sad.  One of them was leaning so much we bought a big clamp and clamped it to the one next to it.  These look much nicer and we have room to grow.

 We also got new couches.  Our old ones were also looking pretty sad.  We picked them out in April and because I decided on different pillows than what was on display it took eight weeks to get them.  Our couches got so much worse while we waited.  I was so happy when they finally came.

 We had a love seat before but I think I like having them as separate chairs.

 Just a picture of me and Brigham, because Brigham is cute.

For the entire month of June, Jaaromy and I attended a training class to become foster parents.  It was fairly intense.  Four hours, two nights a week, for four weeks.  It was very eye opening and tough emotionally.  Thankfully, we had many neighbors who helped with the boys while we attended.  The biggest help was my wonderful mother-in-law.  I'm so glad we were able to do this.  We still aren't licensed yet, but the class was a big hurdle and we made it!

Memorial Day

Memorial Day was great, it usually is.  Last year only my family and Rachelle and Don were able to make it to the cemetery together.  So it was good to celebrate Memorial Day with everyone.

For us, Memorial Day started the day before when we stopped at Redwood Estates to visit Grandma Zierse.

 We brought our traditional Memorial Day pinwheels, of course.

 Every year I see Omah and Opah's headstone and I wonder why I don't bring something for them.  This year I finally did it.

 The boys like to look around while we're there.

 I don't know if it was just a coincidence or if something else is going on, but the cemetery was very busy.

 Brigham especially likes to run up and down the rows of flowers and flags.

There were so many pretty flowers, too.

We headed for Provo on Monday to visit the Provo City Cemetery along with the rest of my family.  Everyone was able to come, although Darrin and Kim didn't catch up with us until the park.  I still think that's pretty impressive.

 Brigham started running out on his own almost immediately.

 We finally got to meet Whitney's friend Zack.

 We all made our way to our family section.

 Grandpa Harding's headstone.

 This is why I love bringing pinwheels.  The kids love them.

 Sara is notorious for photo bombing.

 Grandma Nash's headstone.

 Group picture!  My camera's boundaries must be very generous because I thought I was a lot closer than I was when I looked through the viewfinder.

 I got a lot of pictures of everyone but not very many of my own kids.  At least there's this one.

 Rachelle's family

 Jared's family

 Kevin's family

 The ladies.  Unfortunately, Stephanie was visiting her brother's grave so she wasn't in the picture.

 After all the fun in the sun, Bodie was DONE.

 After the the cemetery we went to the park and passed the new Provo City Center Temple which is coming along.

 This is a great park.  Because it's so old, the trees are huge and it was cool and shady.  A new feature at the park is a splash pad.  I didn't know it was open or we might have brought towels.  Maybe it wouldn't have mattered, my boys were more interested in the playground.

We caught up with Darrin's family at the park, now everyone was officially there.

Another great Memorial Day.  My favorite holiday tradition.

Tracy Aviary with Brigham

Brigham's class went on a field trip to Tracy Aviary and they asked me if I wanted to come.  I, of course, said yes.  I haven't been to the aviary in years, possibly a couple of decades.  So it was neat to see how it's changed over the years.

 This was also a fun opportunity to try out my new lens.

 Brigham loves having me on the bus with him and I don't mind it either.

 At first we started with the rest of the group but Brigham wanted to go at his own pace, so we did.

 So many cool birds.

 Most of the birds were behind fences which made it hard to get pictures of them, but this one turned out okay.

 The flamingos were fun to watch and so pretty.

 The best photographic opportunities were flowers, but I caught this bright orange bird in the background.  So pretty.

 They had a fun little play area where the owls were.  Although I only remember seeing one owl.

 We made it through the whole aviary and so we hung out waiting for everyone else to finish.

 Turns out his class had stopped for snacks in the amphitheater.  It was nice to sit in the shade for a while.

When we got back to the school Brigham played on the playground for a little bit.  It was so fun to watch him.  I'm so glad I could spend this time with him, just the two of us.