My Joy

6/27/22

We haven’t gone bowling in a while so we decided to go to a fun activity for Family Home Evening:

Dad started off slow but quickly improved!

And the winner was . . .

6/19/22

Happy Father’s Day Dad we made you some cards and have some presents for you too:

Dad was multi-tasking reading his card and playing with Shadow the cat:

Lizzy always makes very nice cards!

Present time:

Rachel’s turn:

Starbursts are one of his favorite candies:

Mom’s turn:

Happy Father’s Day Dad we love you so much!

6/16/22

This year girls camp was at O’Leno State Park. And this year both Lizzy and Rachel and Mom were able to go! Mom is the ward camp director. We had a nice welcome ceremony and all the introductions were made:

Each age group were separated into cabins:

We made up individualized cheers:

The next day we made up dances and performed them in front of everyone:

Lizzy had some sort of power over everyone:

Everyone went down at her command!

Rachel’s cabin did an entire dance to Rihanna’s song “Umbrella”.

They were awesome!

The last day they did their cheers and were sad it was ending so soon:

Camp was awesome despite the fact that it was a record heat wave and the cabins were not air conditioned! Next year we are planning to go back to the camp that has air conditioned cabins!

6/11/22

We were painting the new fence panels in the driveway so mom and dad had parked their cars on the street. It was time to move them back so mom thought perhaps Lizzy could park it in the driveway. Dad thought that maybe Rachel could try it too. Dad said that because Lizzy is taller she would park the truck and Rachel would park the car. Lizzy went first:

Unfortunately Lizzy wasn’t taught that the brake has to be held down until you have it in drive. She tapped the brake while moving the stick but released it and she plowed backwards almost into the cross street. Luckily dad was able to scream instructions for her to hold down the brake. Let’s try this again shall we:

She’s off:

She drove practically without giving it any gas so it took a while, but she did it!

Rachel’s turn to park the car:

Whew, no cars, people, or objects were injured or destroyed! Good job girls!

5/30/22

We are going to be going on vacation in a couple of months so we decided it would be good to start doing some hiking to prepare for the longer hikes we plan to take while on vacation. We invited Patricia to join us since she will be coming on vacation with us again this year. We drove back to the location that mom and dad hiked on their anniversary since they had to leave the trail early and had not completed half of the trail. We found the other trailhead to the Pioneer Trail in Jennings State Forest:

Luna was very happy to be on a hike with all of us!

For Florida this hike has some surprising elevation changes:

We came across a small cemetery:

Water access along the way:

Lizzy found a friend:

This one wanted to be friends with Luna:

Luna was not so sure about this friendship:

A tiny waterfall to cool off in:

It even had a name!

We found another waterfall:

We couldn’t go up to this one (had to stay on trail at this state park):

It was still a nice place to relax and enjoy:

Another falls:

Even smaller:

Fish!

Lots of relaxing on this hike:

It was a hot day so cooling off in the water was nice:

Everyone found a place to relax:

This was an easy hike on a hot day. Perhaps we need a more challenging hike before we go on vacation!

It was hot so we decided to stop for ice cream. No one complained:

Their ice cream was delicious!

06/02/22

Rachel, Luna and Mom went a a little hike:

Luna loves hiking!

Luna was running now!

6/07/22

Lizzy, Mom and Luna went on a little hike:

Luna is getting much better about going in water!

She doesn’t like to stay in it very long:

What’s that in the swamp?!

It’s not moving. . .

Turtles!

What WAS that!?

Luna is happy!

Notice the beautiful oak on the right side:

5/29/22

Our bathroom needed a serious upgrade! No before pics, but here’s the after (although not quite done because the glass shower door is on backorder so the curtain will be gone eventually and replaced with glass doors):

Very nice job! Thank you Kevin, Mom, and Dad (who did all the work themselves).

5/21/22

For Luna’s birthday, Lizzy made homemade dog treats!

Good job Lizzy they look “yummy!” well to Luna of course:

Luna get’s her birthday treat:

Happy Birthday Luna dog, we love you!

5/08/22

For Mothers’ Day Rachel played and sung a song mom likes on her Ukulele:

Luna loved it too:

Mom started with cards:

Lizzy always spend a lot of time on her cards!

A gift from Rachel:

More foot care ~ pumice stones:

Then we made Mom’s feet super-soft!

And Dad gave mom a head massage while we softened her feet:

Then Dad painted Mom’s nails her favorite color:

Happy Mothers’ Day Mom! We love you!

4/21/22

We were very happy to celebrate Rachel today!

A gift came from Grandpa Ed and Grandma Joyce:

A comforter and a lot of jewelry!

Grandma and Grandpa always send the nicest cards!

Rachel also received a card and gift from Grandpa and Grandma Beck:

And also a card and gift from Mom and Dad:

Aunt Barbrina and Uncle Chuck were visiting from Long Island so we got to celebrate Rachel’s’ birthday with them later that evening. First we all went out for an amazing sushi dinner! Then we came home for desert!

Make a wish:

May your birthday wish come true Rachel!

We love you so much Rachel, Happy Birthday!

A few days later Joy came over with some birthday cheer for Rachel:

Thank you Joy!

We all hope you had a wonderful Birthday Rachel!

4/16/22

As tradition has it in our family the Easter baskets arrive on Saturday:

Time to check out the contents of our baskets:

There’s more!

We celebrated the true reason for Easter, the resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ, on Sunday with a beautiful church service. After church Mom made some special devilled eggs for Easter:

We had a very Happy Easter!