July -- oh and we are moving

Yes, you read the title of the blog right:

We are moving to Alabama.

You may recall a few months ago I posted about a trip we got to take to Alabama.  Yeah, it was for a job interview, and (spoiler alert) -- we got the job.  So we are headed down south, y'all!

Our month has been a little crazy with getting the house up for sale, de-cluttering the last of the stuff in the house, packing up Nathan's office, selling things we don't need to take with us, etc.

Besides trying to prep for a move, we did try to have some normalcy happen during the month.


Swimming

Hannah finished her swim lessons.  She was so bummed about this.  She loved going to the pool. 

To help soften the blow, we told her we were moving to an area that has a pool and she got super excited.  So much so that she has used her money she has been saving up to buy goggles, and a flotation device for the pool.

She also got to go play in her friends pool up the street.  Emily (centered in the picture) and Hannah have been best pals since we moved here.  This is one of the saddest things for me knowing that these two don't get to pal around anymore.

Optometrist

Hannah had her last check up here with her optometrist.  Her left eye has improved, but she still needs to wear her eye patch and glasses each day for a few hours.  She loves going to doctors offices for check ups.  I wonder when that will die down.

Independence Day

We had a cloudy, slightly chilly, and eventually rainy 4th of July.

We spent the first half of the day working on the house.  Then we headed to a friends house for some swimming.  The water in the pool was cold, but that didn't bother Hannah one bit.  She and Nathan were so tired that they napped in the car as we headed to another house for a party.

The next day, our neighbors invited us over for their own fireworks that were taking place in the street.  They had lots of sparklers which Hannah enjoyed.  She really liked the big, bright sparklers.

Youth Conference

Nathan and I were asked by our stake to be counselors at a multi-stake youth conference in Pittsburgh. Normally, multi-stake youth conferences involve 4 to 5 stakes.  This one was

12 STAKES!

Yep, 12! There were stakes from Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, West Virginia, and a small sliver of Kentucky that came.

It was held at Robert Morris University, which is a smaller and compact school.  So the size of the university was perfect for our youth conference group, but there were so many steep hills, and stairs. Oh man, those stairs.  Our first full day there we took 23,773 steps, climbed 49 flights, and walked 10.43 miles.

Despite the physical exhaustion we all had, we had a great time.  Nathan and I got to be in charge of a "company."  We had 22 total in our company: 10 boys and 12 girls.  We'd split up at night: Nathan had to go sleep in the dorms with the boys, and I had to go with the girls.  That bummed Nathan out. I'm glad that both Nathan and I had awesome roommates, and neither of them snored!

Kenneth Cope came and stayed the entire week.  He is such a neat guy, and he really connected with the youth.  They loved him.  His workshops were well attended by the young men and young women.

Sister Carol F. McConkie came to our youth conference too.  It was so neat to hear her speak and the youth were really impressed by her as well. Especially the young women.

I got to talk with Sister McConkie some as I was turning in our companies dorm room keys.  I found out that her husband is a stake president back in Utah right now.  Wow.  Can you imagine trying to juggle those schedules?  She also mentioned that she has never been to a youth conference this large, and that this was one of the best experiences she has ever had.  Hopefully she'll talk about it some at the next general conference (if she speaks).

We also had lots of fun things to do too.  We got to participate in company games.

There were also 2 dances.  Nathan and I danced mainly on the slow songs.  We were so tired we didn't have any energy.  We had one girl come up to us during a slow song that said "make sure you keep Jesus between you two."  We laughed.

One of our favorite things to do was to sit down and watch the youth dance.  We were so entertained and we kept saying "did we dance like that when we were that age?"

While we were at youth conference, Hannah stayed with some friends of ours.  She enjoyed every minute it!  In fact, I think she enjoyed herself a little too much based on the pictures I got throughout the week:

My favorite is the last picture.  Even the cat was out.

That was our busy month.  And I'm sure that August will be just as busy for us as well, if not busier.

Journey's in June

Lots of travel in June!


Hannah gets to visit family

Hannah got to go and visit family while Nathan and I did some church service for a week (girls camp, see section below).  She loves going to see Uncle Dale and family.

Throughout the week, we'd get photos of her exercising, playing with instruments, lounging around in the hammock, snuggling with the cat, picking blueberries, seeing the movie Finding Dory, etc.  She loved it!

In fact, when we picked Hannah up and we were traveling on our way home she was so sad.  I looked in the back seat and asked if she was ok.  Her response: "I miss my Uncle Dale."

Thank you family for watching her while we were at girls camp!


Girls camp

I was on the stake girls camp committee this year, which means I went to girls camp for the entire week!  And Nathan got to come for the entire week too.  I'm so glad he did because he was VERY helpful.

The weather was great.  We had a few periods of hot and muggy temperatures, but compared to the last few years the weather was ideal in many cases.

The girls had fun doing their individual skits the first night that were very entertaining.

We got to do a vertical adventures course.

We had an awesome spiritual night that was all coordinated by the YCLs (youth camp leaders, ages 16-18).

We had a fantastic testimony meeting too!  In the 4 years I've been to camp I cannot remember a better meeting.

The older YCL girls pulled a prank on me.  They posted this awesome picture of me in the lodge:

They even used it in their skit:

It started with one photo on the first day full day of camp, but as each day progressed the pictures multiplied all throughout the camp.  On the last day, they posted a very large poster sized picture of me in the lodge (which I didn't get a pictures of.  Oh well).

The story behind the picture is that I was substituting a Young Women class in May, and there were two girls that started texting during the class (both of which I have good relationships with).  So, I decided to play their game and I texted them the picture above.  Soon after they had received the photo, they had agreed to utilize it during girls camp.  Honestly, it made me feel loved.


Swim lessons

Hannah started swim lessons this month.  She LOVES it!  She has been asking for weeks "how many sleeps till swim lessons?"

This is the first time she has ever been in a pool, or has had any swim lessons.  I was a little nervous that she would hate it and would never want to learn the important life skill lesson of learning how to swim. Luckily, I was wrong and she went all in (quite literally).

Miscellaneous

We did some work outside our home at the beginning of the month.  Nathan power washed the front of the house while Hannah played in her little pool.

She also decided that she was going to scrub the driveway.  She is always willing to help.

At times, we get some winds around our home.  Sometimes we like the winds, sometimes we don't. Hannah was excited about the winds and wanted to fly her Elsa kite.  She bought the kite with her own money (it was only $1) so it didn't too so great, but she enjoyed it!

There was one night that Nathan went to be really late and fell asleep in the guest-room.  When Hannah got up, she went in to snuggle with Daddy.

While Nathan was weed whacking he chipped some of the siding off of the house (oops).  So we had to order a replacement part and pick it up.  The piece was so big that we had it hanging outside our passenger window.  Poor Nathan had to hang on really hard to ensure we didn't loose it.  It was kind of funny.

Nathan and I got to go to the temple again in June.  We set a goal to attend the temple 3 times in the year 2016 -- and we did it! (FYI -- we live about 4 hours from a temple so this is not an easy goal when you have a little one at home).

On Father's Day, the primary chorister recruited several of the guys to come into primary.  She had them change into some old ties that her hubby no longer uses (the kids didn't know about it). Throughout the singing time she cut up the ties and the kids LOVED it.  It was really fun to watch.  The louder they sang the higher up the tie she cut.  When they sang Nathan's favorite primary song, they sang quietly so his tie didn't get cut much.

Well, that was our June.  Busy with journeys.