The News on Everything In Life

I Know, I know it's been a long time like months and months, and I haven't blogged at all since we've moved, which really is a shame cause so much has happened. So, I guess it's probably about time I gave everyone a little bit of an update on life..

So, anyhow in June we moved! Yay! We now live in Brewster, Washington in Bro. Greg and Sis. JaLea's house on the hill, which probably most of you all already know. We've gotten a lot of work done on the house, which is MUCH smaller than the one we moved from, but I think we're starting to get used to it, a little. We suffered the hot summer with 2 window air conditioners and now winter is on it's way and we've got to get the wood stove hooked up so we can have the house just as hot as it was on those hot days when we used the air conditioners. Hahaha!! Last week we finally had to get the dryer hooked up cause it rained like all week so the clothes were not getting dried on the clothes line at all. Now the towels are all soft and fluffy, which makes me happy. :) At first it seemed hard to drive up the hill and our driveway, but now that I've drove up and down it like 190293848 times (okay maybe not THAT many times, but it sure feels like it..) it seems so easy. And really most days I love living here because there are people and we can do things with other young kids, the only problem with that is the days when there are 12 young kids at church and I am the only one who can drive and then we can't do anything because we can't all fit in our van.

I'm sure you've all heard that on July 12th my brother Tyrel gave his had to be baptized and then on August 3rd MacKenzie was baptized! Tyrel gave his hand to Bro. Marty Evans and MacKenzie gave her hand to Bro. Lionel Wilson. These were both very happy times for our family.

At the end of July I started working at McDonald's. It's I guess a good job, but there are always those days when I just wish it wasn't MY job, normally because you can get a lot of angry customers at a place like McDonald's, but it pays and it's not like that's what I'm gonna be doing for the rest of my life. Yeah, that's the good news that I get to have the best job ever of being a mother and wife :) I think that pays a lot better than any job in the world, but I also think that working at McDonald's has taught me a lot about how to deal with people.

In August when we went down to Brownsville we got me a car! It's a dark blue Outback . I really like it a lot, but since it only has 5 seat belts and I have to drive all the kids to school I don't get to drive it as much anymore.

After my grandma Linda's family reunion in August my grandma, Shay, Amber and Ashley came up for a week and us girls worked very hard and got Zakk's scrapbook finished and gave it to JaLea and the boys before they left. It turned out very wonderfully and they loved it. I wish I would have had a hundred more pictures for it, but as it is the book is way thick so I guess it's fine. We had a lot of fun making it. The funny thing was how we put it all together and everything and took it up to their house and then realized that we had forgot one of the pages.

Amazingly, even with how busy we were trying to get the scrapbook done we still we able to run around and do a lot of things with the young kids while the girls were up here. On Monday we did some running around town for mom and then went out to Conn and Nancy's to get our dog and cats. When we were almost home we realized that I didn't have my phone and so I ended up not having it until Wednesday when we went back to Conn and Nancy's to find it, but it wasn't too much of a problem because the people I talk to we're with me and if my mom needed to talk to me she could just call any one of the girls. So, then we got home and worked the rest of the day and night on the book. Tuesday I had to work, but I left them with lists of things we needed done, like things we needed copies of because they were going to the print shop to get the stories all printed out and get copies of some pictures and things that Chantae had gave us for the book. And I guess they ended up having a lot of problems first finding a place to get it all printed and then getting it printed, but they did get it all done and so that's good. When I got home they had a lot done and we worked on it a little bit more before we all had to head out to the church to have pizza with the young kids and then go to the Grand Coulee Dam to see the light show. The light show was way cool and everyone should go see it (you'll have to wait til summer though). On Wednesday we did some other running around getting some other things copied at the library, dropping our registration paper work off at the school and then going out to Conn and Nancy's to find my phone. By the time we got home it was almost time for dinner, we started organizing the scrapbook pages while we ate our dinner and then we went to church. After church we went with the young kids to McDonald's and hung out, well ate, then hung out in the parking lot until we all decided to get in our cars and go home. I had to work on Thursday so before we went to sleep on Wednesday night I had to make lots of lists for the girls so that they could finish the book cause we were taking the book up to JaLea and the boys when I got off work. I ended up getting off work early, which was a good thing because we still had a lot of things to get done before we could leave to take the book to them. I've already told you about giving them the book so I'll kinda skip over that a little bit, after the boys and JaLea had looked at the book together a few times we went out to Zakk's room to hang out and look at his drums and just give JaLea some time alone. Then Scotty made us haystacks for dinner and we all went to the church cause the young kids were getting together to play some games and hang out. JaLea let us take the book so that the young kids and parents could look at it. We didn't really play a lot of games, but we had fun.

Okay everyone, There's an update on my summer and hopefully I'll get a more resent update for you all soon, but it may take awhile cause it's now been like a month since I started typing this post.. So we'll just see when I have the time.

Quilting

So, in this year i have been teaching myself how to quilt. It's really been a lot of fun. Also a lot of work and hurting fingers. Now I have made and quilted a baby blanket for a girl at my school and a very large quilt for my cousin Shay.

Baby gift for Bailey, from my school
I also gave her a little dress and burp rag.

She had her little girl 2 weeks ago, which was actually a little early.

Name tags I put on the blanket saying that I made it.

And here are 2 pictures of the wildly colored quilt I made for Shay.

Grandma

Grandma and her six sisters taught me about life.

They spent years showing me what love is and how to live the faith.

Brought God into their children's lives, like their parents had done for them, so that me and the other grandchildren could also have Him in our lives.

Always being an example to all of us on how to live our lives with the Lord.

They told us stories of their parents and stories of the faith they learned as little girls and stories of their own families.

Teaching me to care for others.

Her and her sister spent time teaching me to sew, as this was something that all the sisters loved to do.

She gave me songs to sing,

Stories to tell,

And a faith I can teach to my own children and grandchildren, that they might also have the same understanding and want the Lord in their lives.

She was a best friend to talk to when troubles came,

Kind words spoken as she held me in her arms, willing all pain away.

Now she is gone and so is her sister and we know that soon we may also be losing some of the other five sisters.

All sisters, who loved us from the beginning and taught us to love all the people around us.

Life Moving Forward

May 28, 2009(This post was started on May 11, 2009, as the date above reads, but it took me a few weeks to finish because I was busy.)

I'm sure that by now you all know that we are moving, but if not, for those of you who have not heard, we are moving to Brewster when school gets out.

Last spring when my parents had first started talking about moving I didn't want anything to do with it; this is where I have lived for the past 13 years of my life. Then they were talking about moving to Oklahoma and I was really against that; there was no way they were going to move me that far away from the Northwest, where I don't know people and where I would never get to see my friends anymore, I would just move in with my grandma.

But after summer was over and I had to go back to school and everyone was back at home, which meant I didn't see anyone, then I wanted badly to move so badly that I almost wouldn't have minded moving to Oklahoma (except for those gross bugs that I've never seen). My 2 top choices of where I would want to move was Brownsville and Brewster, either one would have been fine with me.

Then they stopped talking about moving to Oklahoma and started telling people that we were going to move to Brownsville, which of course I jumped right on that idea. I love it in Brownsville, I even want to get married in the park there (it's written right there in our plans). I was so happy that I would finally get to go to school with Brandon and Shay and we were going to graduate together. Shay and I were going to do Blue Notes together, which is an advanced jazz choir. It was going to be so cool.

But then on the way over the mountain for Easter dad asked us kids what we thought of Brewster and by the next day he was telling people that we were thinking about moving up there. Not something I had been expecting, but still it was better than Oklahoma, it just wasn't Brownsville.

So, yeah, in less than a month I will be living in Brewster, Washington. Yes, it's still not Brownsville, but I have become very excited about the move, which anyone who has talked to me would know. I won't be graduating with Brandon and Shay, but instead I will graduate with Abe and Emily. I will be able to get to know everyone up there better. Everything will be new to me, which before would have scared me, but now I am so very excited and ready for all of the new changes that await me in Washington.

Track

So, yes I've been in track for the past about 2 months. It's been a lot of fun really except for all of the running. I run long distance, and have ran the 15 hundred and the 8 hundred at all of our meets, which I got last in every time except for the one time when I got second to last, but I don't really care if I get last. In someways it's nice that track is almost over because it has made life so busy and now I will have time for ALL the other things that need to be done, like scrap booking, and packing. Tomorrow we are going to the district meet over in the valley and since I will get last , most likely, and even if I don't I won't be qualifying for the state meet next weekend, which means that track is about to be over for me and today was my last practice. It's really been nice to have something to do because I was so tired of always being bored and not having anything to do.

Another Talent Show

So, yesterday I was in another talent show, but this time it was a high school talent show, in front of the whole high school and it was just me and the piano instead of me and my little sisters. I had planned on playing 'Only Hope' by Mandy Moore, but I only had two weeks to learn it and I was really busy with other things too, so on Monday I had to decided that I just wasn't ready enough to play that song. I ended up deciding that I would play 'When the Saints Go Marching In'. There were about 8 people in the talent show and most of them all sang, some also played guitar. I didn't think that I was too nervous or anything, but then when I got up there to play I was shaking terribly. I hadn't played for a crowd in about 3 or more years and even then usually the only people in the crowd that I even knew was my family, so playing for a crowd that was my whole high school, all people who I know, was a new experience for me. I know that I messed up a few times, but I remembered what my piano teacher used to tell us before recitals and just kept playing because nobody else knows that I messed up, unless I happen to stop because of it. I didn't win, but I didn't care that I didn't win either because I was mostly just doing it for fun and I really think that everyone in the talent show did very good.

Zakk

It seems so hard to believe that such a good friend is now gone; at only 17. Our hearts feel empty knowing that he is not here any more. We all know that he is now up in heaven with the Lord, which is where he belongs, but at the same time that makes us wish we could go too so that we don't have to wait so long to see him again. This is going to make our lives so different and our summers. Summer is when we got to see him the most; at cam pouts and other get togethers. We all have so many memories of Zakk that will never be forgotten and we will keep him forever in our hearts until the day we see him again, up there in the clouds.

Zakk was a great friend and earned his place in the hearts of all those who knew him and spent any amount of time with him. His love for music, constant drumming on everything or air drumming where ever he happened to be, singing whenever he got the chance, all the times he made us laugh, that smile of his that was always there, the beautiful eyes that we all know he hated, the way he was always joking, but yet serious at the same time, playing football, baseball or volleyball at cam pouts, how he never let his size get in the way of his dreams, taking his own trails when we were at silver creek falls, how he had to climb up that opening in the side of the falls and get stuck, always talking about music, the time he showed us the right way to make and eat a marshmallow, when he wasn't afraid of his shoe stinking when we past it around the circle, the big heart he had, how he helped Josh sing that song he started when they were the only ones even singing, looking up in the rafters of the campfire thing and seeing him up there singing with us, teaching us new games, how he helped make everyone be quiet and listen when it was time to decide what game we all wanted to play, what a help he was with all of those 13 year olds who had to be inisated, how he always said "hi" and gave wonderful hugs, a partner in mattress surfing if you were a guy, the one to make a quiet moment loud, always there to help out or just laugh with, all of the crazy times we all got to spend with him; these are just a few of the things that made Zakk so great, special, and different from any other friend we had and exactly why we loved him so much. He was a part of our group and he will be greatly missed in so many ways.

I want to be like Zakk when I grow up. He was the best and greatest and most amazing of all of us. His faith and confidence in the Lord has given us all a new inspiration to have no fear. We should all live such an amazing life and go just like Zakk has gone. We keep wondering why he had to go but now we understand how Zakk was too good for us and truly too good to be down here on earth any longer. He was small, but his heart was so much bigger. We never knew that he would leave us so soon, but now we want to go up there to heaven where we can be with Zakk and our Lord and so many others like Zakk who have left us. He is our hero, an inspiration and example to all of us of how we need to live our lives. He's up there now, I can just see him playing for the Lord, with his crazy purple hair, singing in that choir of angels and making everyone up there laugh, just like how he always made all of us laugh while he was still down here with us. Life won't be the same without him, but we'll live it to the fullest just like Zakk has taught us to and meet him again one day in glory land.

Because the slide show that they had at his memorial didn't have any pictures of Zakk at cam pouts or other get togethers, which was because his family didn't have any, we decided to make a scrapbook for his family with pictures of him with the brethren. We would like to get copies of any pictures anyone might have of Zakk and we are also going to let anyone who wants to write down as many memories and stories that they want to about Zakk, which will also be in the scrapbook for his family to read over and over again. We are going to kind of try to keep this a secret from his parents for as long as we can. We have opened an account at Walmart.com for people to upload any pictures of Zakk. The email address/login ID is crazyandconfused92@hotmail.com and the password is RIPZakk. Thank you to anyone who uploads pictures for this.