Random April pictures

Once again I find myself sharing all the random little pictures I find on my phone which I think are somewhat "share worthy" however not "gets it's own blog post worthy".  For some reason most of these are about Maddie.  Which just means I need to figure out how to spend more time with my boys.

Relief Society Conference day.  

My mom is letting me borrow her car for the foreseeable future. 

Dani came home from college for the summer and came to visit me at work with her mama. 

We saw smoke in the sky and jumped in the car to investigate.  Cause why not?

It was the craziest fire. An entire apartment complex that was still under construction was destroyed.  Fire departments from all over the valley were fighting it.  They ended up evacuating this whole neighborhood.  I'd heard from a firefighter that the fire should have destroyed the whole neighborhood. It was that bad.  But miraculously, no homes were destroyed, and no lives were lost. 

Watching movies.  In my bed. Judging by the ears, I'm fairly certain they were watching Star Wars.

Maddie got to go to a Thespian Festival at NAU.   She LOVED it. Except it was "really flippin cold."  I can see my little girl moving away and loving college. The other school she's considering is BYI-Idaho.  "If I can't handle the cold in Flagstaff, how the heck am I gonna survive in Idaho?!?!?"

Maddie and the ward split

Chances are, that if you're Mormon, you've lived through many ward splits in your lifetime.  And if you live in an ever growing area, changes can be quite common.

A year ago our ward split.  It was hard.  Devastating even.  Friends we've grown to know and love, and get to see each other every week, just won't be there any more.  It's hard.  Frankly, it sucks. But you know, that's life when you belong to this church.  Most other denominations allow you to pick and choose the time and place of your worship, and if it doesn't feel like the right fit, well, then you go find somewhere else to worship.

Anyways, my point is, that's not the way we roll.  And sometimes it sucks.  In the beginning anyway.  And then you get to know all the new people, and you serve with them, and grow with them, and really learn to love them.  And then you realize that sometimes change is good.  It's not necessarily easy, but sometimes it's really, really good.

And so it was with Maddie.  A year ago she was cut off from all her friends.  She was one of the only ones she new to go to "the new ward."  She missed her old friends, and thought the new girls were weird.  "Mom, you just don't understand. They're just so weird."   I reminded her that she was weird, but I just got an eye roll in return.  Maddie could win in an eye roll contest.  It's impressive.

And then she grew to love them.  Like in a kindred spirits kind of way.

And then as fate would happen, more changes came, and she was split off from all her new friends.  Reunited with many of her old friends, but heartbroken at the loss of her new friends.

Ok, so a good friend will always be your friend even if you don't get to see them on a regular basis, but it's the "not seeing them on a regular basis" part that sucks.  I just remind her that she only has two short years and then she and all her friends will be going off in all sorts of directions anyway so there's no point in really getting too upset.

But in the meantime, before they split the ward (actually it was the Stake as well, with us going to a completely different Stake, thereby making it that much harder to see our old friends) Maddie had a good time with her old friends winning the volleyball championship.

Which pretty much makes them undefeated forever, because the Spectrum ward is no longer in that Stake anymore.

So there's that silver lining.

Plus we get the chance to meet new people and make new friends and learn to love people we may never have known before, and be grateful for the opportunity.

School Disney Trip - Zach

I didn't get quite as many pictures or texts from Zach. His phone isn't nearly as nice or easy to use as Maddie's - it's one of those cheap slider phones (he did take his ipod to take pictures and listen to music with ) and the fact that he's a boy.  In junior high. Who never texts anyone.  Unless he absolutely has to. And taking a bunch of pictures/selfies for his mom isn't high on his priority list.

However, he was forgiven, because he was pretty busy having fun. It's been a few years since he's been to a Disney Park, and he wasn't going to let his anxiety get in his way of having fun anymore.  He went on all the rides.  And LOVED them.  I had forced him to go on Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain when he was little, and he hated them.  I think he went on each of those twice this time.  (Excuse me, it's Hyper-Space Mountain these days)

However, he had never been on the Matterhorn, or Splash Mountain, and that was his goal this trip to go on all the mountain rides.  And he was able to adequately explain the whole story of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox to his friends.

And he got to participate in Disney's clinic where they go back stage and get to play and record parts of soundtracks to various Disney movies.  It's a pretty cool experience for the kids.

School Disney Trip - Maddie

Thanks to generous grandparents, both my Disney-bound children got to go on their school Disney trips with their respective music classes.  (And even have some extra spending money as well!) Sadly, I have this new thing called "work" which does not allow me to drop everything and run off to California and pretend I am 17 again.  Sigh. It was a lot of fun while it lasted.

However, I gave my kids explicit instructions to "text me lots!"  "take lots of pictures!"   Maddie was happy to comply.  (She's my girl.)  It was almost like I was there with her.

Oh, and they also listened to the LA Philharmonic at the Disney Music Hall, and did the usual competition/clinic things.  Her chamber group won silver, a fact which they aren't too thrilled about.  But clearly she appears to not be too broken up.  Especially since Disney added a Star Wars theme to Space Mountain, currently Hyper-Space Mountain.  She said it was "Freakin' Awesome!"

Pinewood Derby #8 (out of 9)

Christopher had his second Pinewood Derby the other night.  This time he wanted a Minecraft car, so between John and Maddie, they made it happen.  He was happy with how it looked, even if he wasn't happy with how it performed.  For my boys, these kinds of things are usually an exercise in learning to lose gracefully.  It's an important skill.  One we get the opportunity to practice on a regular basis.

However, it's still hard to not cry when your the wheels off your car before the race even starts.

Thankfully dad was on hand to fix it.

I thought I had the perfect spot on the front row to take good pictures (even if I did leave my good camera at home) but "nose boy" forced me to move.  I call him that because he was having serious issues with his nose and a crazy need for tissues. And then he felt the need to tell his father about his "nose issues"  (his words) very loudly from across the room, in front of everyone.   I have a dozen pictures of some random kid in various stages of wiping his nose or examining his tissues after wiping his nose.

But I think in any case, that was a good thing, because I think this was a better perspective.   Or at least a different one which tells more of the story.

And then as a perfect end to the evening (in Christopher's eyes anyway), we got ice-cream cones at the McDonald's drive-thru. 

Twelfth Night

Maddie loves to tech.  She loves to build stuff. She frequently comes home covered in paint, and I've almost stopped being annoyed.  Almost. "Why do you have paint on your clothes? Why didn't you paint in your shop clothes? You know, the ones you are supposed to change into anytime you might be doing anything that might ruin whatever clothes you actually wore to school?"

Her answers vary, but at the end of the day, that usually just means another article of clothing with a new paint splotch on it. Thankfully she doesn't wear expensive or trendy clothes, and the presence of a paint splotch is just annoying, not a death sentence to that particular article of clothing.

And apparently she's a rock star when it comes to stage management.  She's good at bossing people around (this I knew) and she stays cool under pressure.  During times of stress where most high schoolers crack, she manages beautifully.  (According to her drama teacher.)

But because she seems bound and determined to not let her high school years pass her up without experiencing everything, when the drama department decided to put on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, she decided that this time she wanted to act.  Her opportunities to "do Shakespeare" might not be many, so she jumped at it while she could.

Given that there are way more girls than boys in the drama department, and this particular play only has three roles for girls, she went for one of those.  But, she didn't want too many lines, memorizing modern English is hard enough, so she tried out for Maria.  Maria is a pretty main character with like 90 lines and a monologue or two, but not as many as the lead.

And so guess what role she got?  (And nailed, btw)

Maria :)

Maria was pretty much the villain.  But you still liked her.  She was a trouble maker, but not necessarily a bad person.

I personally think she stole the show.  It was so fun to watch her.

Now she has to make some decisions. Acting?  Or stage management?  Rumor has it she may even be directing a show next year.

Maddie after the show.  Clearly she's still buzzing from the high of performing. 

I got to help out a bit too.  In addition to selling the tickets at the door,  Dr K, the drama teacher, asked me to wear this for a bit and open the doors when someone on the headset said it was time to do so. I texted this selfie to Maddie as I knew she would appreciate seeing her mom wearing a techie headset.  I was right.  Her response- "This makes me so happy."