I remember this day, April 24th. It was the day was dreading blogging about because I had so many pictures. I delayed and delayed until now I'm three months behind. Oh well. It was a gorgeous day, one of our first, and we spent our time during piano at Sioux Park playing in the water with the O. family.
Samuel was into bears that day.
Noah had a track meet.
Piano break time.
Brave girl saving worms.
Abigail helped to construct dams to stop a ball they had found.
The dam worked! Celebrate!
I figured out how to combine all my videos so now it's not so bad to blog. But I'm still behind.
On Sunday September 7th, our church hosted a free family night at Main Street Square like we have just about every year since we've been back, I believe. I found posts from 2013 and 2014 anyway. The church brings in bouncy castles, hot dogs, face painting, bracelet making, and prayer, in addition to the main event, a family movie. There's always a gospel presentation right before the movie, which Terry has given the last couple of years. But this time he had two of his Utah mission trip students, Moses and Tori, stand up to present this year. They did wonderful! Terry was so proud, as were their parents of course!
Evie went along with Terry early to help set up she ended up helping hand out food along with her favorite little buddy Norah.
I brought the boys to hear the presentation with me because I couldn't miss that. I finally found where these angel wings next to the ice cream shop next to Who's.
The following day, Saturday the 8th, we drove over a few block to the Pierre Street garage sale. We've gone nearly every year since coming back in 2012. In fact, Terry and his dad even bought our trusty rusty Malibu right there before we got married in 2004. We found another sweet car, this time for Evie, there this year. Just kidding. This electric kid's car was ridiculous!
But we did find Evie a new desk chair for her room! Terry will never let me live it down either. Right before we found the chair I complained that he was leading us to a "walk by" sale since there wasn't much sitting out at this particular place. He insisted we try and then we found the chair right away! Sorry honey, you were right. 😏
Later that night I heard some scratching behind me and when I went to investigate I found Trouncer had made a little nest for himself in the shoe bin. 😂
The following day I vacuumed and washed Evie's new chair.
From the side.
And behind. It was many years old but it in good shape for the most part.
After church the next day Evie couldn't wait anymore and we put the chair back in her room.
This replaced her original chair we gave her for her 8th birthday two years ago. The papasan chair was the best we could find but I always hoped for something more substantial, not to mention comfortable. She always had to sit on a pillow since the bar dug into her legs. She spends quite a lot of time reading right there.
It works so great for her. It's the exact height to swivel under her desk, plus she can prop her feet there easily. She cuddles in it perfectly.
Later that afternoon Jerry and Alice came by. I thought it was cute how Jerry was helping Ezra to play this Wii game.
A very chill day.
That evening just when we were starting to watch America's Funniest Videos some Mormon missionaries happened to stop by our house! Terry was so excited! He sat outside with them for an hour and would've stayed longer but he had promised to take us out to ice cream. He had a very cordial meeting with them and made plans to meet them in a week. When they cancelled his plans, he was super bummed out. He figured they'd heard through the Mormon grape vine not to waste their time talking to Terry. So when he ran into them on the same day that they cancelled, he was elated! You can't run from God's appointments! He ended up talking to them for nearly two hours before they got tired of him. He's pretty sure he's been black listed now.
Earlier in the day he had accidentally dumped the littles out of the big swing and roughed them up pretty good. Ezra dropped right on his face and his nose got a little scratched up. This was our last visit to Armadillos of the season. 💙
Luna was cracking me up a few days later with how bored she looked like we were doing school. Poor girl.
Sarah and Prae have organized a Youth Band for this year and it's going great! They first performed this night, September 12th, and will continue to once or twice a month.
Friday September 13th began with a visit to the littles' favorite park, the "long three in one park" that's downtown.
Bouncing.
Evie made a friend down there. Typical Evie. From there we went to Custer to see some land and watch Noah at his Cross Country meet.
Oh, also, I forgot about a few videos. Can't remember exactly when they're from, but it was later summer, early school year.
Evie was so proud when she finally learned how to flip on the trampoline.
Her friend Elle, who has taken gymnastics, gave her the tip to tuck her knees in. It only took a day for her to master the flip after that.
By "old girl" I mean our 1977 Chrysler New Yorker. Back in December we had parked it next to the garage for the winter. On April 29, after the kids' piano recital, Terry brought the car out for the spring and summer. She started right up!
I am the one who likes the car most of the two of us. Terry's always thinking about selling it. I guess we really don't drive it much, but it's such fun!
Rawr
Gotta love the hood ornament.
Shiny chrome.
The dash.
It doesn't smell as bad as it did last year! That's progress.
That night we took the old girl out for a date, a birthday party for Brent. It was also prom that evening so I totally felt like we should be going too in our sweet ride.
The next day, after church, it was such a gorgeous spring day that we drove the Chrysler down to Canyon Lake park.
Luna always enjoys drives.
We took a walk out onto the little jetty and Luna enjoyed eating the goose poop.
It was a perfect day.
We ended up down by the biggest playground and then played frisbee. It seemed just about everyone was out that day. It might have been the first really fine day that spring.
Oh, and as an add-on, when Terry went to church the following day, he discovered Steven and Prae had left him a little surprise.
Taking just one cup out made it crumble. Slow motion video is fun for stuff like this.
Terry really appreciated their gesture as he'd been feeling a bit discouraged. So sweet of them. 💙
Beautiful rainbow a few days later.
With the warmer weather, the kids were spending copious amounts of time outside. Yay, mommy loves that! One day I looked out there to discover Ezra climbing up the outside of the slide for the first time.
It's pretty high off the ground...
They were obsessed with it for a couple days. Too bad I deleted the fun stop motion video of them going up and down. I had just read that boys need risk in their lives so I let them go for it.
Irises coming up! They'd grown a lot in the two weeks since they first appeared.
I originally started this blog at the dawn of social media, in 2008, after we moved away from home and the second of four children were born. I wanted to share and keep track of our lives. I wanted a record and I loved it. I lost hope, ten years later, of ever recovering from a mountain of puppy pictures and I gave up writing. But now, in 2026, we have moved to Taiwan to be missionaries and I have resurrected my blog. I have always been an archivist and now endeavor to keep another record...and perhaps share my Eva-thoughts, here too.
