June 2025

 Richard rented a car to drive with some coworkers to a conference. It was a big Escalade that had all the fancy extras so before he returned it, he took us for a spin. We blasted the music and opened the sunroof and danced our little hearts out. Everyone had been a little grumpy earlier in the day and this really turned it around and we had so much fun!

Brooklyn's friend was doing a summer camp and they had a day where they could bring a friend so she invited Brooklyn! They were gone all day long and had a competition with a bunch of different activities. She had the best day and came home with a medal!

Richard was heavily involved in planning Youth Conference this year and it was a ton of work but it turned out pretty great. They had an opening fireside and then spent the entire next day at Zoombezi Bay. Their last day they volunteered for the Special Olympics- Richard helped with tennis and Kaylee and Kenna had fun helping with bowling. That night they came back to the church for pizza, games, and dancing. Overall it was a success!

When we got together with the Crossley's for Christmas Eve, Richard had made a story with AI that included all of us in saving Christmas. So for Father's Day, Jared returned the favor and made a book about him and Richard as fathers. It was so funny and cute!

Brooklyn's friend had a big party with a huge group of friends from the Arrow program. The mom had planned a bunch of activities and the girls all had so much fun together.

Richard joined Kaylee and McKenna at girl's camp this year. Which worked out well for Brooklyn because I won two front row tickets to go see Wicked in Indianapolis! The front row wasn't the best seat in the house but it was really amazing to see the actors up close and watch their expressions and all the details of the costumes that you normally don't see from far away. Brooklyn had seen the movie, which covered the first half of the Wicked play, and so she thought it was very cool to know what happens in the second half before the other movie came out. It was an amazing mommy-daughter date!

At the end of June, Richard and Kaylee went with a group of people from the ward to a Cleveland Guardians game. They were chosen out of the crowd to hold up the letters for Ohio and were put on the big screen to dance with the letters which the OSU Sloopy song played. 

May 2025

 We started out May by going to see a few of the kids in my Sunday School class in the school play- Descendants. They did such a great job! It was fun to know so many of them.

Megan Blake took me out to brunch for my bday but other than that it was a pretty normal day. I decided what I wanted to do was go to a new museum called Otherworld so we decided to do that on Saturday to celebrate both my birthday and our anniversary. It wasn't quite as cool as we were hoping but it was something different and new we had never done so we didn't regret going. And it's been a long time since we've gone on a real date! 

May started all of the end of the year events. Kenna had a piece in the school's art show, Kaylee had her orchestra concert, and we went to watch our neighbor in the 2nd grade play at the kids old school. Kaylee and McKenna did a LOT of babysitting, Richard participated in seminary graduation, and Kaylee started her training to be a Volunteen at the library again over the summer. 

On Memorial Day, we went with the Crossley's to a metro park where they were having a canoe/kayak event. It was the most beautiful, perfect weather and we spent more time out on the lake than we expected. 

That night, I was feeling up to it but Richard took the rest of the family to a goodbye dinner they were hosting for all the families that were moving out of our ward. We lost so many great families this year! It was very sad to say goodbye. 

April 2025

Kaylee finished out her track season with some injuries. She did a great job keeping up with her training but started to have pain in her legs and felt a little sluggish. She seems to be having a lot of the same symptoms that I started with on my thyroid journey so we'll have to take her into a doctor but I was proud of how hard she pushed herself to finish the season even when she wasn't feeling her best.

Our ward scheduled a youth trip to Kirtland and so Kaylee got up early and went with them on a day they had off of school. As they sat down for lunch, she looked over and saw the Shurtz family, our friends from our first Ohio ward! They live in Indiana now and it was so crazy that they happened to be there on the same day. Kaylee had a great experience with the youth and when she got back, Grandma and Grandpa had flown in to spend a few days with us!

I had heard about a Tulip Festival at a place about an hour away from us and we decided to check it out. I'm not sure I would call it a Festival, but it was still fun! They had little goats you could feed, some farm-themed activities, and rows and rows of beautiful tulips and daffodils. 

Since it was also Easter weekend, we made sure to dye eggs with Grandma. 

Since we only had sacrament meeting on Easter, our Primary had done a special Primary lesson about the Atonement the week before and made this incredible tomb in the Primary room! It was really impressive and they did a great job setting the tone for the upcoming holiday.

After church on Easter, we had tickets to see the Lamb of God. Our stake decided to put on this musical and we had some extremely talented people singing in it! We also had the Crossley's come join us for dinner and it was a very enjoyable Easter.  They shared a tradition with us that I thought was such a cool idea! They made this little garden tomb with wheatgrass. They filled a container with dirt and sprinkled the wheatgrass on it over the course of about two weeks and watched as it grew. On the Friday before Easter, they pick a smooth rock and cover the opening of the tomb and then on Easter Sunday, they removed the rock and put a little statue of Christ there instead. I love that it gets you ready for the coming holiday and focusing on what really matters.

The next day, we tried a new place in Columbus called Activate. You get an electronic wristband that you scan to get in and out of the different rooms and it keeps track of your points and progress. All the rooms have different games to play inside them, it feels like you jump into a real life video game! It was super fun and definitely a place we would go back to. 

The timing was really sad because Grandma and Grandpa had to get back to their temple but the day they left was also the day that Richard got honored for winning the Distinguished Staff Award. They had a big lunch honoring all the award winners, as well as a cash prize and in the fall they will get a shout out at one of the OSU football games. We met some of the women who work with Richard and who nominated him and it was great to see him be appreciated for how hard he works. 

March 2025

Brooklyn finished off her basketball season with a bang! They hadn't won very many games throughout the season and we had no expectations going into the final tournament. Her team fought hard though and won the first game by 2 points in the Silver Tournament, which meant they got a silver medal and moved onto the final game. They were already really tired and when the next game started, they struggled a bit and got way behind. I don't know what happened at halftime but they came back and won by one point in the last minute! It was a very exciting game to watch, especially because they were up by 1 and there were only 30 seconds or so left. One girl went up to shoot and was blocked by Brooklyn so we told her she won the whole game! They got another medal for winning the whole tournament too. It was a fun, exciting end to a great season.

We had an FHE talking about the importance of the temple in our lives. The girls decided they wanted to go walk around the temple and just feel the Spirit on the grounds. I was impressed by their desire and loved that they recognized even being near the temple can be beneficial for us. 

Richard somehow convinced me to do the same tour of the Blue Jackets stadium that he had done with Jared in exchange for going to a game. We had a miscommunication about the time we were supposed to arrive so we got there an hour early and walked around outside. So by the time we had done that, plus the tour, I was pretty tired and we left during the 3rd period. It was fun to go on a date with him and it's been a long time since I've been to any sports game like that so it was still worth it.

For the last few years, our ward has hosted a Eid dinner for a local mosque here. They asked the youth to serve the food and invited their families to come. I wasn't super excited about going but Kaylee really wanted to and I felt bad sending her alone so I went with her and I am SO glad I did. I met the most amazing, kind people and had a fantastic night. We got into a really good discussion at our table about some of the things we believe and it was just an incredibly uplifting, inspiring evening. 

Kaylee was really busy so we didn't get to do much for her birthday. In fact, she was so busy that we couldn't even go out to dinner so I picked her up from school and took her to lunch! I told her she could still have a bday party in a few weeks but I think between her busy schedule and not having the best experience last year, she just didn't have one.

The next day we went to the school to watch her at the honors assembly. She has maintained a straight 4.0, seemingly really easily. School seems much harder here than it did when I was in high school and she balances it all so well. We are very proud of her!

Wicked was coming out on Peacock and the Crossley's hadn't watched it yet so we decided to have a big Wicked party. We made a huge spread of pink and green food and decorated with pink and green. I'm not sure if they loved it quite as much as we do but it was fun anyway! And we loved it just as much the second time, they did a really good job with it! 

Brooklyn wanted to invite a lot of friends from her old and new school and so she decided to do a movie night since that is a LOT of kids. Unfortunately, most of the kids weren't super interested in watching the movie and were CRAZY. I was surprised by their lack of respect as they ran all over our house and into every room. I wasn't super happy with how it went but Brooklyn had fun and they did calm down after a while. 

Stake Conference weekend is always a little stressful and tiring for Richard. We had a family in the stake (who used to be in our ward but moved two years ago) reach out to us and invite us for Sunday dinner to relieve some of that stress. I thought that was so nice of them! It was fun to chat with them since we hadn't seen them in so long. It made me want to be more thoughtful of leaders and others who give up so much time and figure out ways that I can help.