6.29.2013

{ Brooke and Erika’s Activity Day Girls Camp }

This is the first year that Brooke and Erika got to go to Activity Day Girls Camp at church together, and they had SO much fun! In the next few years we will have all three little girls going, which is so fun! It makes all those younger years when they were so close in age and getting into messes worth it to see them get to have fun all together in these bigger kid activities.

The theme for this year was “Happily Ever After” based on a talk from President Uchtdorf. They had several days of activities, and then on the last night all of the families came to the church for their program. They served their families pizza and dessert, acted out plays that they made up, and sang for us in front of a miniature temple. It was very sweet to see all of these 8-11 year old girls with so much energy and love for the gospel and to see their budding testimonies of the Savior Jesus Christ.

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This was an extra special day camp because it was one of the last times they got to hang out with some of their best friends the Ence’s before they moved to Utah. Erika and Brantley were in the same school class this last year and became very close-it is going to be a hard move for her to see her best friend leave. They had fun being silly and sharing some last fun times together.

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6.17.2013

{ Austin Boy Scout Camp }

I sure am thankful for iPhones and all the technology that we have these days. If it weren’t for Aaron phone and his emails every few days I feel like I would have completely missed out on this week of his and Austin’s life. Most years Aaron takes some vacation days to get to go with Austin to camp, and being the bishop that responsibility translate into him getting to go have some fun for a week with Austin. I know it bums out Brianna for him to be gone for her birthday each year, but with the beauty of technology again we were able to Facetime with our boys for her birthday too.

The camp that they have gone to the last few years is Camp Rainey Mountain which is a few hours drive away. Here are some of the highlights according to Aaron’s emails and an interview with Austin afterwards.

June 10, 2013

“True to form Rainey MTN has lived up to its name. We arrive in perfect weather had a wonderful cool night sleep and sacrament service with another stake and went for a nice leisurely walk Sunday afternoon. We got poured on...DRENCHED. It continued to rain all day and night and is still raining. The boys are in good spirits. Before they all got soaked I had convinced them all to go for an early swim this morning (actually it would have been a few laps in prep for the 1 mile lake swim). Well we got wet enough last night to last us our whole life so needless to say we did not go swimming in the cold rain this morning.
Everyone is in good spirits. You all have fine optimistic boys you can be proud off.”

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Who were your bunk mates this year? Josh, Taylor, Jonas, Alan, Will, and myself

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June 12, 2013

“After about 4 days of rainy weather, the sun finally peaked out.”

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What was your favorite merit badge at camp? Kayaking

Why? Because we got to play in the lake and annoy the swim class and tip each other over in our kayaks

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Lining up for morning and evening flag ceremony

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What was the best part about camp? The food

What was your favorite food there? Breakfast

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What was the worst part about camp? The rain

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What is one thing that you learned while there? That archery is a lot harder than it looks.

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Aaron trying out skeet shooting

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Kayak race at the end of the week. One of the requirements for the Kayaking merit badge was to be able to row the length of the lake. Austin earned the kayaking, rifle, and archery merit badge while there, as well as part of his communications and geocaching merit badges.

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Campfire with all of the scouts attending there that week

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6.12.2013

{ Brianna’s 15th Birthday }

I don’t know when this girl decided she was going to go and grow up on me. I can’t believe that my little girl is suddenly this beautiful young lady. The time has definitely gone too fast. Only a few more years and she will be gone to college! What!! I don’t know how that can be? I am just going to push that thought to the back of my mind because it makes me too sad to think about. For now, we are just enjoying our spunky 15 year old. Happy Birthday BB!

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Brianna is in love with anything monogram so we added a few “B’s” for her on her gifts. Her birthday book this year was a bit boring-just some summer reading books she had to have for school. Yep, lots of summer reading, note taking, and reports to write at Columbus High-gotta love it. Her love for all things chevron made itself manifest in this cute wrapping paper I found. She was in love with it all. We love that brace-free smile of hers too. I think that that was probably one of her best gifts she got-she is so happy to finally have those things off.

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For the past few years Brianna’s birthday has fallen during the week that the boys are gone for summer camp. This year we used Aaron’s iPad to try and facetime them in to be part of the fun. As typical 15 year olds, the girls were concerned and interested in all those older scouts who were looming around the mess hall where Aaron and Austin were facetiming from-lots of giggles!

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Brianna just wanted a couple of her close friends Ashleigh and Baylee  to come over and be part of the fun and then hang out for a while.

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She really wanted these platform shoes, and was SO happy to get them. She was even more happy I think that she was actually the same height as her best friend Ashleigh in them. Love those two girls! She also got some really cute dresses, a  chevron holder for some of her jewelry in her room, black shoes, fun black and white shirt, a wristlet purse, and some cute orange sandals and necklace to match one of her new dresses. Side note on one of the dresses-I had found this cute navy and white striped knit dress at Target that I knew she would love, (I don’t know how I  managed to miss a picture of that dress. I am sure it will show up another day on the blog when she wears it) and had all of her stuff in my room on the floor to wrap. I went out to the other room, got distracted, and our dog Simon went into our bedroom,(which is a major no-no- for him-I can’t stand dog hair everywhere, so I need at least one “safe” place I can go with no hair) and started messing with all the things in the bags. He had found her dress and chewed a hole in the top of it. I was MAD!!!!Boy, was I mad! After some very “not nice” words to our dog-I hopped in the car to run and see if they still had an XS size dress at Target. Luckily they did, and I keep holding onto that other dress hoping we can salvage some of it for a skirt for Brooke. Sometimes that dog drives me CRAZY!

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An assortment of yummy chocolate goodies from Publix for her cake. They were all really good, but I think the middle chocolate moose cake was her favorite.

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   15 Things We LOVE about Brianna at 15

  • Your fun loving nature. You love to have fun and be with others that want to as well.
  • Your dedication to whatever you set your mind to do-your schoolwork, soccer, a personal goal, a job,etc.
  • Your beautiful smile. It makes me smile when I see you so happy about something.
  • Your need to cuddle. It’s a “curly thing”, but we sure do love that you want to be close to us still. You loves hugs, back rubs, and when we play with your hair.
  • Your testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ. So neat to see that grow and develop.
  • Your need to be around others and how you brings others into your circle to have fun.
  • Still in love with having a phone and texting.
  • Your determination to index for Personal Progress as well as for YW/YM in a little competition they are having. 1000 names is your goal.
  • Your love for Nutella. I think if we let you, you would live on it.
  • How you LOVE me when I make your favorites for dinner. (Chicken and dumplings, Teriyaki chicken, baked potatoes, breakfast burritos)
  • Your excitement for the little and big things. When you were little you would always be so excited for the next best thing. For awhile we would try to teach you to just be happy with what you were doing, but as you have gotten older we have seen what a special gift that you have. You get us all excited for fun things coming up- that forward thinking helps us really appreciate those fun events in our life.
  • How you love to do special things for your friends for their birthdays and on holidays.You really want them to feel loved.
  • You loves listening to music and jamming out to it. LOVES dances and is waiting anxiously for EFY to come around again in a few weeks.
  • Your sense of fashion-and that you love my sense of fashion since you like to borrow my clothes=). You come up with such cute outfits.
  • I love how quick you are to forgive us when we mess up as parents.

We love you so much Brianna! Happy 15th Birthday!