School is Out

We just started our summer and boy are we happy to be done with school.  The boys had a party Thursday night with 5 friends to celebrate.  We did pizza and a movie.  It was storming outside with possibilities of tornados so I'm glad we were still able to have it and everyone was safe.

Friday morning, we went down to Kansas City and visited the Federal Reserve Bank museum.  The boys are working on their personal management merit badge so it was a perfect place to tour and learn more about interest rates, money, and all that fun stuff.  I sometimes wish I had gotten a finance degree.  I love that stuff. After the museum, we stopped at Jason's Deli for dinner and then we went to the Kansas City Temple to do baptisms.  This was the boys' fourth time going to the temple and each of those times was in a different state (Florida, Hawaii, Nebraska, and Missouri).  We hope to add Nauvoo and some Utah temples to that list in the near future.

For Memorial Day, we went to the Papillion Ward breakfast.  Now we plan to swim at the Theobald pool and then have the Jones Family over for a bbq and some games.  

We look forward to spending time with Melissa and her family at the lake too.

Eric Goes to Washington DC

The Stake President works as a professor and researcher at UNO where Eric attends school.  President Derrick offered Eric an internship job with him when Eric began his freshman year.  It's been a great job because not only is it good experience but he can mostly choose his hours and he doesn't have to leave campus to go to work.  So I don't have to worry about him driving in the snowstorms.  In fact, since he lives on campus, he leaves his car parked at his dorm most of the time and just walks everywhere.  He asked if he could go on a trip to DC when President Derrick had to select two students.  It is an all expense paid work trip where he will have the opportunity to get some training.  On what?  I'm not sure but he was so excited to go and stay in a hotel

all by himself.  I tried to get him to take me, but of course I'm still in Nebraska.  Mario may get to go to DC next month so I may tag along with him. He was much more receptive to the idea of me going along and Eric agreed to babysit.

We secretly put little Pooh in his suitcase as a stowaway.  He sent us a picture which is so cute.  By little Eric is growing up!  He's going on business trips.  He and Caitlin tell me that since I'm a stay-at-home mom that my business trips are family vacations.  They told me I go on a lot of business trips.  I thought that was funny.   More true than I want to admit.  I got them back by telling them my favorite business trips were alone with Mario and no kids.  

 This is the only other picture he's sent so far:

Planting Pumpkins

Sister Flynn asked the boys if they would like to plant some pumpkins and gourds with her.  She has a great apple orchard and recently started planting some Christmas trees.  She thought it would be fun to grow pumpkins this year. She has never grown them so she did lots of research and bought all the necessary supplies. The boys went over yesterday and planted a few of each of the four different kinds of pumpkins and 2 different kinds of gourds.  She's hoping that they can grow enough of them to have a little business and sell them for Halloween.  She is so good with the boys.  She has a lot of patience and love for our family.  I love that she is teaching them to work hard and it's the perfect project for her to do with them since I don't have a green thumb.  

6th Grade Field Day

It occurred to me this past week that I should be getting really sad.  It's my boys' last couple weeks of elementary school. Maybe it means a little less because I thought last year was their last year since they were going to be in middle school in Spain.  But nonetheless, it started hitting me yesterday as Mario and I sat in the stands and watched our boys compete against other sixth graders around the district.  They set up a track and field day at the high school and had the kids each sign up for 4 events.  Of course Zach was all over this.  He loves competition.  Nate didn't want to go.  But I told him that he should wear Erin's lucky basketball shorts and just go out there and do his best.  Erin would be proud of him no matter how he did as long as he did his best.

He signed up for the 50 meter, 100 meter, the long jump, and the cross country race.  Zach signed up for the 50 meter, 400 meter, long jump, and cross country.  He was also chosen to the A team for a relay race at the end.  He had to try out for the team and was the second fastest. 

Nathan finished first in his 100 meter heat and went on to the semifinals.  We were so proud of him.  He ran hard.  

Zachary made it to the finals in the 50 meter race and came in second place overall.   So that was very impressive.  There were some fast kids out there.  His team took third in the relay so he was slightly disappointed.  The girls A team took first and so did the boys B team.   So their school did very well overall.  

It was so fun to watch these boys hang out all day with these friends they have been with the last four years.  It made me sad to move away again.  One highlight from yesterday was watching the last boy come around the corner in the cross country race.  He was from our school.  A whole crowd of kids from Trumble Park ran out on the field to help him finish the race.  It made me tear up.  These kids love and support each other when it really matters.  They made us proud.

Eric is Home

Eric moved back home for the summer and we couldn't be more thrilled.  We love having him home.  He even pops up to do dishes without being asked after dinner.  He enjoys playing with his little brothers too.  

Mexico Cruise

I won't  go into a lot of details about talking Mario into a cruise to Mexico.  He kept saying no until I asked him for a trip to Hawaii instead.  Then he agreed to the cruise thinking that would be much cheaper than Hawaii.  Little did he know that the prices for Hawaii would come down and he would eventually agree to both trips. The cruise to Mexico was so much fun because it was with friends.  Greg and Lindsey Anderson were going with Deven and Britany Dicus.  They casually mentioned that we should go too.  I jumped on the chance because I needed a break from our cold winter in Nebraska.  I promised Mario that I wouldn't ask to go on any expensive excursions and I held true to my promise.  We did take a cheap bus trip to some Mayan ruins and we actually really enjoyed them.  It was so interesting to hear their history and see how it fit so perfectly with the Book of Mormon.

Little Pooh Bear has made many trips around the world with Mario and I.  We bring him along so we can send pictures back to Nathan.  He loves it.

I looked through my pictures and haven't found any of the women together, but I have a few of the men.  We laughed so hard that I thought my sides were going to burst all week long.  We played hand and foot about a million times.  I thought we would never want to play it again after that week but we even continued to play it in the airport on the way home and have played it many times since.

I can't help but think this water is the Waters of Mormon.  It is exactly how I picture it in my head when I read about it in the Book of Mormon.

Nathan's Broken Arm

I'm having a hard time keeping up with my blog.  So I am having to go back a few months and update it.  One significant 2016 event happened in February while my sister, Melissa, and her two boys were visiting along with my mom and Nonnie.  The boys were all playing outside and Melissa and I were inside making some homemade pizza.  Nathan came in and complained that his arm hurt.  He had fallen off his Ripstick because he was riding downhill very fast while an unknown adult was walking up hill and not moving out of his way.  He swerved to not hit the stranger and ended up falling on his arm. One look at it, and we knew it was broken.  I called Mario who was just leaving the gym and told him to meet me at the emergency room.

The doctor confirmed what we thought and Nate would need surgery the following week to set and cast it.  We had a slight problem with that because Mario and I were flying out Sunday night to go on a cruise out of Texas Monday morning.  We quickly called a friend who is an attorney and had him draw up power of attorneys for my mom and Sister Pat Flynn so they could take care of Nate's medical needs while we were gone.  It was hard to leave him and we thought about canceling, but we believe that the Lord works in mysterious ways.  We think this happened at this time so Nate can prove to himself that he is strong and can do hard things.  It wasn't easy for anyone, but Nate made it thru and was able to get his cast off a few weeks before flying to Hawaii.