The Temple and a Birthday Boy

Last Saturday we were able to go to the temple for youth baptisms.

Beautiful!

Don't you love Emil's head swing. This is how he gets his hair out of his eyes.

Noah went to Emil's parents and Emil M., Kirstin, Emil and I all headed up to D.C.

The traffic was horrible but the weather was great.

Kirstin

They had the most amazing bronze sculpture display of Christ life. Each sculpture displayed a different story in the gospel. There were about 12 of them. My favorite was this one of Christ raising Lazarus. I loved that you could see both to the outside of the tomb at Christ and one of the sisters and if you looked from the other side you were looking in on Lazarus and his other sister. The picture doesn't do it justice. It was so cool!

In other news, this past Monday was Emil's 39th birthday.

Happy Birthday my Love!

I teased him a bit by telling him he finally caught up to me in age. (I'm less than 2 months older but he loves to remind me that I'm the oldest in our little family) We had a quiet dinner and opened some presents, then headed down to the clubhouse in our neighborhood.

After Kai passed the neighbors wanted to do something in his memory. We decided on doing a bouncy airplane to add to the playground equipment at the clubhouse. It came in and the neighborhood showed up to install it on Monday evening.

Floyd, Noah, Russell

Just how many kids can you fit on that thing? The more the merrier I guess.

Kendal Cahill, Kirstin, Noah

Is there a age limit? Noah's pretending to be the human beatbox.

Brady Cahill, Emil Michael, Kirstin

It was a happy time and it was tender to me to know just how much our neighbors love us. None of them are members of the church yet they each have shown us the love of Christ through their actions over the past year and four months since we lost Kai.

How very blessed we are!

They also got a cake for Emil's birthday and we all sang happy birthday to him. I especially like the Barbie Candle!

The Normal

At the beginning of summer Emil had a dream, a dream of a earthen walkway through our overgrown backyard to the canal.

You remember what our backyard looks like during our monsoon season right?

Just one more for good measure. (You can see why there is a need for canoe storage right? Emil's started collecting canoes like he collects surfboards. We have a kayak too.)

Like all good dreams it had some key players. 3 kids, a Mom and Dad, shovels and wheelbarrows and dirt. Lots and lots of dirt. 3 truckloads of dirt!

Our little project was actually several in one. First was to build canoe racks to store the canoes on the back path. (Next to the water at the end of the dream path.) They were actually pretty easy and done relatively quickly.

The next was to build up the back path. This took 2 of the 3 loads of dirt.

The last part of the mission was to pump out the swamp and fill in a area of the low part of the backyard. Emil put a bilge pump in the swamp in some type of barrel that he feels certain will dry out the swamp, I mean our back yard. It has actually worked quite well in the rainstorms we have had.

To have true water access there is still a great deal of work to be done but the path back is a good start. It's way better than parading through the Corbos backyard (which they were always very nice about!) to get to the water.

So you see it's not just Disney that can make dreams come true!!!

Doing the Can Can

For the past two weeks I've been doing some caning. I've been able to put up 14 quarts of Tomatoes. They are messy but very useful and quite affordable. I'm able to go to the farmers market and get seconds (tomatoes that have imperfections) for about $5 a basket or flat.

Emil got me 5 dozen ears of sweet corn to freeze. We've done several dozen ears on the cob so I decided to do these cut off the cob. I remember my Mom freezing corn this way and having to shuck it and so Noah and Kirstin were enlisted to help me do that. They were soooo excited.

We gave some away but were able to get about 30 cups of corn from 45 ears. I though that was pretty good.

Emil M. has been pet sitting 3 dogs for a family friend but one of the dogs escaped the on Monday and we had to go retrieve her from the pound. In order to do that I had to promise that she would stay the remainder of the time we were pet sitting at our house so we've had a house guest for the week.

Maggie is a Yorkie and full or energy. She loves to be with you and has endless energy. I've discovered that I little dogs require a great deal of attention. She sure is a cutie but her breath could knock part the Red Sea!

We have developed a greater appreciation for Blaze. I had set up a barrier in the kitchen to allow Maggie to walk around but she quickly jumped over it so I had to keep her in her kennel. I went upstairs to do some laundry and came back down about 30 minutes later to discover Blaze still in the kitchen, stuck behind the barrier. Even thought she could have easily jumped it she was waiting patiently for us to give the OK.

Have I mentioned what a God-send she is?

Floyd, Noah, and David

Noah has been spending all summer with Floyd and David. They are 1 house over from ours and are great friends. They play Nerf, swim in the pool, build legos and play on the Wii. Mary their mom is so gracious since Noah's usually over there and it's like she has 3 boys instead of just 2. I have been so thankful for this friendship for Noah. It has really helped him to have that companionship this summer.

Hope you're enjoying summer!

New Favorite

I mean, cause really, isn't this what summer is all about?

(left to right) Noah, Solomon, Christopher

Don't you love the hand in mouth?

So I have a new favorite. After hearing a friend rave about Greek yogurt I decided to give it a try. I'm not a yogurt fan by far, but I had to admit that this new Greek yogurt was thicker that regular yogurt and very good. I tried the blueberry and carmel kinds and like both. The plain was a bit too tart for me but I added some of my homemade strawberry jam and it was great! You'll have to give it a try. I highly recommend it.

OK. So it's Blueberry season here and there is the cutest little blueberry patch just up the road from us, about 15 minutes away.

It's literally in the back of someone's yard. It's the Honor System which is one of the things I love about NC.

Any did you see the sign. $1 a quart!!!!!! I've been there twice since last Thursday.

The berries are soooo good and I usually go at 8am so it's before the heat.

So this morning I did a batch of Blueberry Jam. My other New Favorite

and this afternoon I did some blueberry muffins. A great recipe my sister added to out cookbook that is very healthy. Here it is for your enjoyment.

Blueberry Muffins

Sheila Brown

1 c. blueberries

1 3/4 c. flour

2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

1 t. grated lemon peel

1/2 c. applesauce

1/2 c. sugar

1 egg

1 egg white

2 T. oil

1/4 c. skim milk

Preheat oven to 375. Spray muffin cups w/ Pam or use liners. Toss blueberries in small bowl w/ 1 T. flour, turning to coat. In large bowl combine flour, powder, lemon peel, and salt. In small bowl, combine applesauce, sugar, milk, eggs and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in blueberries. Spoon into muffin tins. Top with a little sugar. Bake for 20 minutes.

A Fair weather Fourth

This past weekend we celebrated the Fourth of July on both Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Saturday we went to Chesapeake Park in Va (just 30 minutes away!) with our good friends and neighbors, the Cahill's to hear the United Fleet Forces Command Band play. It was beautiful weather to be outside. Low humidity and temps! We couldn't have ordered a better night. We got there around 5pm and snacked on some goodies we had packed for dinner.

Of course we still had to get Kettle Corn and Funnel Cake they were selling there. I had the Kettle Corn. Can I just say, YUM!

The kids had fun playing on the lawn and after the band we watched a great fireworks show. Since the pictures are usually all of the kids I thought I'd throw some in of the adults this time.

This is Kari and I. I love that girl!

Jeff Cahill and Emil.

Kendal and Kirstin

Brady and Noah with football mid-flight

Sunday we had a excellent testimony meeting at church and then at 5pm we went to a cookout at our friends home the Longs. Here's Emil with our new Branch President Don Drake atop a swing set.

Emil Michael and Thomas Long. They're rooming together this week at Youth Conference.

Monday Emil went to the beach early for a surf session with some friends and then I came down with Kirstin and Noah later in the morning. The water was nice and refreshing. I love this picture of Noah (in green and black) with Will and Tanner Overby. They are friends from church. They really played well together.

Kirstin hung out with their older sister Rachel. She is a year younger than Kirstin but it was nice for her to have another girl to pal around with.

That was our exciting weekend. Emil M. and Kirstin left yesterday for Youth Conference. She texted me from a borrowed phone last night "Mom, I'm dancing with a lot of cute guys and doing the Cotton Eye Joe" That's a line dance they do a lot here.

She sure has enjoyed the dance aspect of turning 14! Thankfully she's not too boy crazy and all the boys that are "cute" live far away! Which makes me very happy. ;)

This Summers Going to the Dog!

I feel like I finally have begun summer. After having been away from home for what feels like all of June, I'm done with our travels and enjoying some lazy days. Well somewhat.....

Noah decided to dress up Blaze one day. Blaze was good with it. I think she actually liked it. She's such a sweet dog.

This past week was Girls camp for Kirstin and I. It was the hottest week ever!!!!!! With 3 days topping out in the 100's. I know you west coast boys are thinking "100, Ha!" then tack on humidity in the 90's and we felt like we were about to die.

Here are some pictures of us making our leaders flag. We painted our feet to make roots to a tree on the flag and our hands we painted for the leaves.

This is Alyssa, my youth camp leader. She is a great girl with loads of energy and a firecracker personality. She's 17 and was a great motivator and help.

The girls did a great job and we came home without any girls having to go to the hospital from heat exhaustion which made the camp a success in my book. I didn't get any other pictures. It was too stinking hot and I was too busy. :(

This weekend Emil's parents and sister moved from the house they've lived in for the past 30 years.

The movers didn't actually come until Monday but Emil was over at the new house putting in ceiling fans, a cat door and hanging curtain rods on Friday and on Saturday we went over as a family to help move whatever we could which didn't amount to much but it was just fun to see the new place and spend some time with them.

This is their new house. I'm so happy for them. They've been busy getting everything in it's place. It's in a very nice neighborhood and I think they'll love it there. It's not too far from their old house so they're familiar with the area.

This past Monday I drove Kirstin, Taylor Seal (a friend from Nags Head) and Emil M. to Southern Virginia University for EFY. It's a privately owned school in Buena Vista, Virginia. This is the Main Hall. Isn't it just romantic? It reminds me of that hotel from the movie "A Moment in Time" with Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymore. I digress, Anyway....

My brother Mark and my niece Sheila both went to SVU for a year. (not at the same time) I spoke to their recruiter while I was waiting for Kirstin to register for EFY and got some good information about it as a university.

Orson Scott Card, the author of Enders Game is a professor there at present. Enders Game is a book that both Emil and Kirstin read for Battle of the Books so that was enticing from a perspective writers view. It's a very small (750) university that is "committed to providing our students with an excellent liberal arts education in an environment that embraces the values of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." That was enticing from my view. Interestingly enough it borders Lexington, where Emil attended VMI.

After his baptism he attended the Buena Vista Branch. It's a small world

It was about a 4 1/2 hour drive up and another 4 1/2 hours back. That's why I took Emil M.

Is it any wonder they're called the Blue Ridge Mountains?

I never get over how beautiful the mountains are. It was so amazing. I had Emil M. drive some of the way back and that was a nice break for me.

Today is a beach day for the kids and I. Well Noah, his friend Solomon who spent the night and Myself. To quote Emil M. "there's too much sand at the beach" for his liking. I can't really argue with that. There is a good deal of sand at the beach but for you my friends I will send you all the beach without any inconvenience of that pesky sand. (ie. you get pictures ;) Next Post!)