September little things

The beginning of September found us situating these girls here in Hawaii.

Yes, it was a tough job, but SOMEONE has to do it!

Loved watching Elle take that little sis of hers under her wing. Their relationship has grown so much over there as college girls, and I love watching it.

Our last night getting coconut shrimp at Seven Brothers:

All about getting Grace home and then dropping her and Elle off on that little island HERE and all about that adventure over HERE.

So sad to leave those big girls so far away, but came home on the red-eye and was so excited to snuggle my little girls back at home:

(Bo is giving me the evil eye up there on the left since I was gone so long.)

And it was fun to get back to volleyball!

All about the first half of the volleyball season back HERE.

I was home long enough to bike with Lucy to and from school a few times, and see all these beautiful pink ribbons that made me tear up. A little girl from our area passed away and these ribbons were everywhere to honor that family who was suffering such a loss:

First day of school for college kids:

…minus Abby who we didn’t get a picture of, dang it! But she started too and yowzas it’s crazy I have four college kids!

And then I headed up to Utah to help my mom who just got a full knee replacement.

I wrote about that trip back HERE.

Lucy adores these dried bananas from Trader Joe’s. So I really loaded up one day and she was pretty pleased about that!

Went on an early-morning walk with some neighbors and watched the sun rise as we walked. There is something beautiful about waking up before the sun. Ok, not beautiful enough to do it on a regular basis in the summer, and somehow it loses it’s charm in the winter when it’s pitch dark when you wake up and you’re too busy with the day by the time the sun comes up to soak in it’s grandeur. But this day, it filled me up. I loved the way the little gravel pieces on the sidewalk cast it’s shadows:

My neighbor and I held another “bike night” to invite all sorts of neighbors over to get to know them better…desserts and games on the lawn that you can’t really see from this picture but we felt so lucky to be surrounded by and get to meet so many good people.

The “adult lake days” continued:

As did Activity Days…yes it’s still hot as blazes in September here in the desert.

I spoke at this little online conference:

…all about how we do our “dream books” in our family. I am going to see if I can post that here on the blog too since I had so many requests…

More about that little tutorial on “organizing dreams and goals” back HERE.

Dave got to go to a little golf tournament in Utah that turned into some pickleball…

Gosh those guys sure love that sport! And I love that they do.

Lucy started singing in the Millenial Choir and I have a lot more to say about that so I’m going to wait for Monday. But for today, here’s a little shot I got of practice one day when I was trying to help Lucy with her music which she couldn’t see. This is such a fabulous organization (Grace and Claire did it a few years ago…it’s pretty impressive).

I was fully engrossed in my “finding Grace” class I will do a post on some time. So much good information. But I specifically loved this part:

Such a beautiful study of how to put Christ and God first and everything else falls into place.

Grace was pretty much hating it over in Hawaii:

HA!

That girl says she knew she’d like it, but had no idea how much she’d love it.

Goes to show that parents don’t know everything…Dave and I weren’t so hip on her heading over there…

But do you think she’s enjoying it?

Yep, I think she is in the right place. 🙂

We went out to dinner with Dave’s old business partners who happen to be his brother and brother-in-law. Love these guys so much!

Lucy gave her first talk in front of our whole congregation at church. We weren’t quite sure how that puppy would come out because that girl doesn’t like to have a lot of help (ANY help is a better way to put it), but she came through with flying colors. Love that Dave’s parents could be here to listen:

Gatherings at Nana & Papa’s:

Love all these “next generation” cousins who are growing up so fast!

More “sunset picnics” with Lucy taking advantage of our togetherness and all that beauty:

Can you tell from Lucy’s face that she is her mother’s daughter? I think that is how I look when I see the magnitude of beauty sometimes. It is holy. This is what we were looking at:

And I don’t know that she could see it that well but she could feel it, that’s for sure.

The bike riding to and from school on our “impossible” sidewalk continued:

And one day Bo was so tired I stuck her in the basket much to Lucy’s delight. Do you think she needed a wash? Yeah, I think so.

Bo also accompanied us to take Claire to volleyball whenever she could…see her hair sticking up behind Claire’s?

Actually I didn’t take Claire to volleyball that much because she has driving friends which is awesome but I know to soak up that car time when I get it!

This is not a great picture (on the right), but this salad is one of my favorites:

(you can use fresh corn if you want …cut off of the cob or sweet frozen…it is so good!)

We tried to watch Stranger Things when we had a minute…and I love a rare night when we are all home and Claire comes and hangs with us in our bedroom. See her homework plunked down in between us there on the right? Love being with that girl especially when she was gone so much in September.

A temple trip:

Lunch to celebrate for a friend’s birthday:

A blurry FactTime picture trying to reach our girl:

Different groups of kids come over quite often to jump on the trampoline (we have a fun one). So this is often how our front porch looks:

A picture from Claire:

(She’s having a pretty fun sophomore year so far…)

I followed Lucy through airports here and in Wisconsin:

“A day in the life” of Wisconsin doctor visits back HERE.

Within hours from when we got back we had another “memorization night” at my neighbor’s house…the girls and I memorized this one:

(wrote about that back HERE)

More volleyball:

I feel like this post isn’t nearly as volleyball-heavy as it should be to make it accurate, because really, I felt like we were “breathing” volleyball in September (and October too), but remember there are approx. 4,298 volleyball shots back in this post back HERE, so that’s where to find them if you want to get inundated by that sport like we were in September.

Another birthday celebration:

Activity Days birthday celebration for a few of the girls…these girls are the sweetest girls ever and we love them so much!

I read “And There was Light” through tears…

…wrote about that over HERE. And some other September book reads HERE and HERE.

And There Was Light

Sapiens

Before We Were Yours.

Still working on this one that was highly recommended:

It is HERE and it’s pretty good so far!

Bo is our little shadow and makes herself comfortable wherever we are:

This picture doesn’t look like much, but it’s “pay day” for Lucy on a Saturday, trying to figure out her 10-20-70 in her checkbook register and getting her tithing ready to pay at church:

Our beautiful cactus died…

And looked like that all month, poor thing.

Love getting pictures occasionally from these two (Abby is the best), hiking close to where we both were engaged in all that Fall beauty in Provo:

Lunch date with our girls…so strange to only have two kids. Still. But sometimes we look at each other and think, hey, why not do this or that…it’s just so no hassle with just two kids!

Plus we have a good driver to chauffeur us around.

Just an average day in the kitchen cooking dinner:

I tried this one pork recipe I was sure my family would put me up on their shoulders and cheer for it looked and smelled so good. You know when you think you’re going to hit a home-run with new recipe? So I took pictures to share:

But then the potatoes came out soggy and the substitute ingredient I used didn’t do the job too amazingly, the light didn’t get all fuzzy and no one did any cheers after all (ha!), so I guess not worthy of sharing. But hey, I sure love to try new recipes.

Lucy sweet-talked us into a pre-birthday pizookie gathering that worked out so well: