On June 5th we started the day with a brunch with an organization that awarded Jamie a $1,000 scholarship. Then we rushed over to the church for a morning piano recital. After that we had an open house at our house for Marc, Penny, and Jaxon so they could visit with family and friends without traveling all over the place. It was great to see cousins I haven't seen in a while. We celebrated Jim, Penny, and Jaxon's birthdays with a dinner out at the Red Lobster on Monday June 7th. I haven't been there in a long time and I don't think we will go back anytime soon. The service was pretty bad and they messed up several of the orders and didn't want to bring Jamie any food. We had fun anyway.
Marc, Penny, and Jaxon did a day of service so they could go to Disneyland while they were here. They ended up taking Grandma, Grandpa and Amelia with them and had a great time. They borrowed our van so they could all fit in one car. Jim ended up getting two free park hopper tickets from a guy he works with so only one person had to purchase a ticket. They even got free parking. Grandpa Rich has always said he would not buy a cell phone, but after getting lost at Disneyland and having to borrow someone else's cell phone to find the group, he decided to buy one just in case.
Then it was on to graduation on the 10th. How did Jamie grow up so fast? Now she is ready to be an adult and move on to college and real life. We had a delicious dinner from Red's BBQ before the ceremony with both sets of Grandparents and Jessica Blackmer's family. It was nice visiting and the food was great. A couple of us went to the graduation with the girls so we could save seats for everyone else. Julia and Alyson went off to buy poppers and stuff to make noise when Jamie's name was called. They also made signs and decorated her car. I never understand why they have so many speakers at graduations when all the audience wants to hear is their student's name called. It was a pretty long ceremony because they let all 6 valedictorians say something in addition to the assigned speakers. Julia wanted to be a rebel so she brought a couple of beach balls to throw and she wanted to bring an air horn but it exploded in her car so they only screamed and shot off those confetti poppers. After, we waited around a while for Jamie to return with her diploma, so all the pictures were taken in the dark, but some turned out okay. I love the one of Jamie, Lauryn, Jessica, Jessica, and Marie. These girls have been friends for a really long time and it is nice to see they have grown up to be beautiful young women. Grandma Lois and Grandpa Chuck weren't able to stay the night because they had to be off to the 4th graduation in Oregon in a few days. They had already been to Hawaii and Utah for the other two. Thanks for taking the time to come to Jamie's.
The next morning we went to Amelia's Awards Assembly at school and then got ready to go to Palm Springs for the weekend. My mom rented a house for us to stay in that had a beautiful pool in the center of the backyard. We spent a lot of time relaxing in the pool, but the weather wasn't too great at first. The wind was blowing (it even blew Grandma Sharon's bathing suit coverup into the water with her cell phone in the pocket). It ended up being in the 90's the rest of the time so the sun was bearable. We played card games, watched World Cup soccer, played ping pong, and Jaxon discovered a foot stool in the living room with wheels on it that Uncle Jim would roll him around the room on. We also took a trip to the 99 cent store so the girls could get Secret Sister gifts for Girls camp the next week.
We got home on Sunday evening because Jamie, Jim and I had meetings to prepare for the Pioneer Trek and we needed to get the girls packed for Girls Camp the next morning (the 14th). They had to be at the church at 5:30 am to leave for Yosemite. While they were gone we had fun with Marc, Penny, and Jaxon. We spent one day at the Santa Barbara Zoo and Carpenteria beach. The weather was beautiful and the zoo has some nice new (since I have been there last) exhibits. We ate lunch overlooking the elephants. Jaxon was dying to go in the water at the beach, but his dad didn't really want to so Julia got out there with him and helped him try to body surf. Marc ended up joining them and Penny enjoyed the sun. We were sad to see them have to head back to Indiana, but had a GREAT visit with them.
After the girls returned home (it was Amelia's first trip to camp) there was enough time to do laundry, celebrate Julia's 21st birthday (sort of), finish sewing pioneer clothes and pack all our stuff in 5 gallon buckets to go on the Stake Youth Conference Pioneer Trek. Jim and I were asked to help chaperone and Amelia got to spend some time at Grandma's house. We met on Wednesday the 23rd in the evening for a few activities and then left early Thursday morning to go up in the mountains above Ridgecrest. It was about a 3 hour drive. The kids pushed handcarts for about 15 miles over the next three days. You can see some pictures from the trek if you click on the link to the Newberry Family of Five blog. We weren't supposed to help push just be parents of the family, but we helped out if needed. The kids were so good and worked hard getting the handcarts over some tough terrain. We slept in tents at night and cooked in dutch ovens and over propane stoves. It was a lot of hard work, but a neat experience. I wasn't looking forward to it, but had a great time during the trip. We got home about 9:30 pm on Saturday the 26th. The next day we celebrated Julia's birthday with dinner and a cake. Monday morning the 28th we had Alyson packed up to go to Especially for Youth in Santa Barbara. She was meeting some cousins there and spending the week. She should be home in a few hours. We spent the week cleaning out Jamie's closet and organizing her stuff and cleaning out Amelia's room (still in progress). Whew! Maybe now you can understand why I haven't updated this with all our happenings. Now we get to celebrate the 4th of July.
1 comment:
Wow! and I thought that my month was busy, no wonder I haven't seen you much lately.
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