This week

A couple of these pictures are older and I just found them on Jer's phone.  I loved this one.  Jer and Judy took Ada to the temple together.  

Sam's blue and gold banquet was a picnic on the floor.  It was awesome.  They even had bigger pickles than Sam could eat and that's saying something.

Tuesday, my niece got home from her mission.  I'm so proud of her and the testimony that she bears.  I can't believe that she's an adult!  All these sweet family members that have gone from kid to adult are fun to see.  I love seeing the lives that Emma, Lizzie, Jacob and made for themselves.  I can't wait to see what Ruth can do!  

We've had some bad storms.   Friday morning, even though he was running a little late for work, Jer was inspired to check our roof through the crawl space.  Lo and behold... He has tried to fix the roof so many times, but the problem was something that he couldn't find.  He called our old neighbor Gonzalo Canos and he came over.  He patched it and is going to put together a bid to replace our roof.  Not something we were planning for this year, but hmmmm.

Sam and Ada

Saturday was an unsanctioned fencing tournament.  The last one we did was fairly hard for both of the kids.  This one was a lot smoother.  Ada made huge strides forward.  She never had to be reminded to stay in the strip.  She has very solid parries. She was able to get hooked up and didn't stress about any of it.  She got hit hard several times and would tear up but then would keep going.  I was very proud of her!  Sam never had a break down until he lost his last bout.  You can tell that he was happy to be winning.  He won every bout until the semi-finals.  He ended up tying for 3rd place.

This is my very favorite picture of Ada ever.  Thanks Jer for that!

Jer was amazing.  He got the kids up and there early to get ready.  He helped them every step of the way.

Julie is pushing really hard for our kids to join the USFA so that they can get points and ratings for competitions.  I was purposefully keeping the kids out of both because of the time and money involved.  After Sam doing so well at this one he might want to push competing.  I'll watch him over the next few weeks and see how motivated he is in practice.  

After the competition, we drove up to Sharon and Brad's house.  They'd taken Emma to the temple to do baptisms for the first time for both her and for Brad.  Brad got to baptize Emma.  What a neat experience. 

Daylight savings time hit our kids hard this time.  Watching Seth petting Sam's hair was the cutest thing.  Ada was completely out.  

Our neighbors, the Clingers, are always thinking of the kids.  They brought Sam the Hardy boy books last week and this week they brought Evelyn the Magic Treehouse books that they had collect for their now older kids.  For 6 hours she carried the box of books around and read.  

Sunday night we had my friend, Elizabeth Cason Stott and her husband and son over for dinner and games.  It was fun to catch up with her.  She was always fun to talk to. Sam really had fun with their son, Isaac.