Another Escape Room

Nate and Zach really wanted to go to an escape room with us since they didn't get to go to the one we did for Eric's birthday.  So I decided we would celebrate the end of the first week of school with a trip to the new escape room here in Omaha.  We invited Lindsey and Greg Anderson to join us.  The theme was saving Lincoln.  We had to unlock the safe that held Boothe's gun before the hour ran out.  We made it out with about 27 minutes to spare.  We were going so fast that the owners thought we were going to be out in about 15 minutes but a large safe and morse code delayed us a little.  It was a lot of fun and boys are  already asking for more.  Thanks to Melissa for introducing our family to these fun activities.

Camping with Cousins

Melissa and her boys came up the weekend before Eric's birthday.  On my bucket list before leaving Omaha again (one day) was to camp in the cabooses at Two River's State Park near us.  The cabooses have been converted to cabins and I thought the boys would love staying in one.  Fortunately there were two nights available the week Melissa was coming.  The boys had fun riding bikes and swimming.  Zach had fun fishing, fishing, and more fishing.  Melissa and I enjoyed playing games with Mario, Eric and Caitlin when they came up to visit us.

Below is a picture of the frog Zach accidentally caught.

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In the above picture, the boys are riding their bikes as fast as they can back to the caboose because the tornado sirens were going off. Zach had been fishing at a lake near the caboose when he heard them go off and he immediately ran back to get me so we could go find the boys at the swimming lake.  He was very concerned about their safety.  Fortunately, they didn't ignore the siren and they were already riding back when we found them.

After checking out of the cabooses, we went bowling and had some shaved ice.

We love that the cousins only live 6 1/2 hours away.  Actually it would be better if they lived in same town. But who can complain, we get to see them several times a year and that's much better than it was when they lived in Florida.

Back To School

Today the boys start 7th grade, middle school. I laughed when they each came down this morning because they look a little like twins with those colors they each chose for the first day of school. 

Happy 19th Birthday Eric!

Eric is officially an adult in Nebraska now!  I no longer have to take him to the doctor or dentist.  That makes me sad though.  I like doing those things with him.

We began his birthday celebration with a trip to an escape room here in Omaha.  Melissa and her boys were in town so we dragged her along to help us solve the clues.  Unfortunately, we got stuck and weren't able to break out.  It was such a disappointment especially considering how close we were.  The final clue had the letters B L O D Y.  It was so easy but so difficult for us. All we had to do was rearrange them to spell Dolby and that would have unlocked the final lock.  But we didn't even know if we had the correct letters to unscramble. Hopefully we will do better next week when we do another one with the twins.

We had ugly cake Saturday night so we could celebrate his birthday before Missy left the next morning. 

On Eric's real birthday on Monday, we took him to a Japanese Steakhouse called Genji here in Omaha.  He had been to Kobe several times recently so we wanted to try something new.  It was good.  Some things we like better at Kobe but that was ok.  The kids enjoyed catching the flying food with their mouths.

We went home with plenty of leftovers. After dinner, we all sat on the couch to watch the Olympics and tried to recover from all that food.  When we felt a little better, we dug into Eric's ice cream

cake.

I feel very blessed to be Eric's mom.  He is wise beyond his years and he brings our family much joy and happiness.  I am so sad that he will be moving back into his dorm in about 10 days.  Boy will I cry again.

Happy Birthday Ericson!

Happy Birthday Erin

Today is Erin's 17th birthday.  I kind of dreaded this day because July was so hard. I started to wish her birthday was in July too so maybe I could do most of my crying in one month.  But August hasn't been as hard as I thought.  So that is good.

How to celebrate her birthday now was a  question I had for the last couple weeks. Last year we were driving from Florida to Nebraska on her birthday so we visited her grave and ate Oreos and chocolate brownies I think.  We attempted to sing Happy Birthday to her in the hotel room that night.  That was an epic fail and just resulted in a lot of crying.  So I knew that wasn't going to happen again.

This year, I decided just to honor her by doing her favorite things.  I started the morning with a run/walk at Walnut Creek.  She loved running that lake. 

Then the boys and I headed up to The Open Dooor Mission which serves lunch and dinner to the homeless.  The boys and I helped bag lots of sack lunches for them to deliver to the homeless on the streets. That was so rewarding.  We loved our time serving.  That was Erin's favorite place to volunteer so I thought that would be appropriate.  

After our service project, we headed to Jason's Deli and Zach ordered one of Erin's favorite meals there, a huge baked potato.

Then we went swimming at Melody Theobald's pool because Erin loved swimming with friends there.

We went home and had one of Erin's favorite meals, homemade chicken pot pie.  Then we headed to Orange Leaf for some dessert.  Erin always begged me to take her to Orange Leaf.  

The boys left for a temple trip after dessert and I dropped Eric off at home so he could do his homework.  I came to Halleck Park to swing on Erin's favorite swings.  She rode her bike to this park often to just swing and climb trees.  I didn't attempt the climbing trees.  

After swinging for a few minutes, I drove over to the duck pond and sat on Erin's bench and reflected on all the love of her friends who purchased this bench in her memory.  She is blessed with many wonderful people who love her. 

We miss you Erin!  We hope we made you proud today.  We love you and look forward to a joyous reunion one day!

Happy Birthday Erin

Today is Erin's 17th birthday.  I kind of dreaded this day because July was so hard. I started to wish her birthday was in July too so maybe I could do most of my crying in one month.  But August hasn't been as hard as I thought.  So that is good.

How to celebrate her birthday now was a  question I had for the last couple weeks. Last year we were driving from Florida to Nebraska on her birthday so we visited her grave and ate Oreos and chocolate brownies I think.  We attempted to sing Happy Birthday to her in the hotel room that night.  That was an epic fail and just resulted in a lot of crying.  So I knew that wasn't going to happen again.

This year, I decided just to honor her by doing her favorite things.  I started the morning with a run/walk at Walnut Creek.  She loved running that lake. 

Then the boys and I headed up to The Open Dooor Mission which serves lunch and dinner to the homeless.  The boys and I helped bag lots of sack lunches for them to deliver to the homeless on the streets. That was so rewarding.  We loved our time serving.  That was Erin's favorite place to volunteer so I thought that would be appropriate.  

After our service project, we headed to Jason's Deli and Zach ordered one of Erin's favorite meals there, a huge baked potato.

Then we went swimming at Melody Theobald's pool because Erin loved swimming with friends there.

We went home and had one of Erin's favorite meals, homemade chicken pot pie.  Then we headed to Orange Leaf for some dessert.  Erin always begged me to take her to Orange Leaf.  

The boys left for a temple trip after dessert and I dropped Eric off at home so he could do his homework.  I came to Halleck Park to swing on Erin's favorite swings.  She rode her bike to this park often to just swing and climb trees.  I didn't attempt the climbing trees.  

After swinging for a few minutes, I drove over to the duck pond and sat on Erin's bench and reflected on all the love of her friends who purchased this bench in her memory.  She is blessed with many wonderful people who love her. 

We miss you Erin!  We hope we made you proud today.  We love you and look forward to a joyous reunion one day!

Washington DC

I was looking through Mario's phone today to get pictures of scout camp.  I came across our DC pictures and realized I never blogged about our trip to Washington DC in June.

Mario got a work email sent to my phone for some reason.  I opened it up and saw that the military was looking for few people to go TDY to DC for a few days to attend a seminar. I got really excited and asked Mario to apply so that I could go too.  He didn't want to apply because it had a lot of prep work before the seminar and he was busy applying for an ROTC command job.  I begged him to apply anyway.  He finally called and asked for the info to apply but never sent in his application.  A couple weeks later, he received an email saying he had been selected to attend the seminar.  He called me from work one day and said, "Heavenly Father must really want you to go to DC because I was selected without even applying."  

I was so excited.  We had been sealed in the DC temple 22 years ago and have only been back once and the temple was closed for cleaning that week.  So this was my chance to go back to that temple.  Eric was available to watch the boys Friday thru Sunday morning but was leaving Sunday morning for Kansas City.  So we hired Savana Moore to come watch the boys Sunday morning thru Monday afternoon when Eric would be back.  Then I flew home Tuesday morning and Mario stayed until his class was done on Wednesday.

Mario's old Bishop from Miami lives there now and so he offed to let us stay at his home.  So we stayed with his family Friday and Saturday night until we could move into a military paid hotel on Sunday night.  What a wonderful family.  I loved the Carleton's.  I had only briefly met them twice before, but I feel like I must have known them in the pre-existence.  There was something that was so familiar about them.  I felt like I had known them my whole life.  They had such a huge impact on Mario in his youth.  I think it is very possible that I knew them before coming to earth.  I don't know if I have ever felt that way before about anyone.

They loaned us their nice bikes and car and set us loose on the city.  That was the perfect way to see the sites.  They just happened to have a temple trip set up for the singles ward that he's the Bishop of right now on Saturday morning.  So we attended the temple with them.  What a wonderful experience to be back in that temple.  I was nervous because the temple lost power that morning and was running on generator. But they didn't cancel our session, thank goodness.

Some highlights from our trip were going to the temple, eating at a Cuban restaurant with the Carletons, my 35+ mile (beautiful) bike ride to Mount Vernon by myself while Mario was in class, seeing pandas at the National Zoo, and eating at a Brazilian steakhouse in downtown DC.

I can't express enough gratitude for the Carleton family.  They were instrumental in keeping Mario on the straight and narrow path.  Sister Carleton was pregnant and on bed rest with her sixth child I think when Mario went to live with their family as a teenager. She could have easily told him that he couldn't stay but she took him in and showed him a wonderful example of a good LDS family.  I am forever thankful.  I told her that I think they changed the whole trajectory of his life with their selfless act.