FAMILY PICTURE WITH DISCLAIMER

Can you believe we were able to get everyone together, in front of the camera, and all eyes open with NO BUNNY EARS?  So, this was last weekend ... our GLORIOUS weekend all together.Disclaimer:  Brooke is not fat - just VERY pregnant :)

(unfortunately, there is no disclaimer for the rest of us!)
 

CHARMEDI

Have I mentioned this before?

I have a charmed life.

sweet ... amazing ... exciting ... precious ... tender

things happen to me

We've had Trevor, Caci & Jace visiting the past few days.

JOY

What could be nicer?

Add a dear friend we haven't seen in 20 years and my heart becomes very full!

Mine & Brad's relationship with Yayoi Swapp goes back to the first time-period the two of us met at the MTC... Yayoi (Japanese) was a tester at the Missionary Training Center.

Brad was my teacher (*wink*wink*)

I left for Japan, Brad & Yayoi and a great group of guys became close friends.

Yayoi went on her mission and we visited together at an All-Japan-Conference during the Tokyo Temple Dedication ...

... and we continued to develop our friendship through letters

(archaic, but it worked!)

Yayoi was instrumental in getting Brad to propose to me (thank you Yayoi!)

Yayoi was part of our family during the first few years of our marriage.  That's why it took her a while to get married - we kept her busy hanging with us.  HOWEVER, I think she had about 50 marriage proposals during that time.

After 20 years, we picked up where we left off ... past/present/future ...

it all feels the same

I love Yayoi.

....... so, what could be better than that? .......

add the biggest surprise that's ever happened to me

we were sitting around at nearly midnight, not wanting the night to end

the boys playing guitars, the girls singing along and visiting together

when

knock, knock, knock

my first thought:

Ed must be dying next door

then the door swung open

and in a magical, surreal way, there stood

Brookie and Steven

 

my heart was then so full it was bursting

(Brooke is now very pregnant, and most of the family hasn't seen her since she started *growing*)

CHARMED

that's my life!

  

Brooke had just hung up after our phone conversation when Steven said,

"should we just get in the car and go?"

SO THEY DID!

Do we have an incredible son-in-law

or what!?!

  

Apparently Trevor & Caci knew all about it.

I would have never thought Caci could keep a surprise quiet ...

GOOD JOB CACI!

  

... so to put things in perspective ...

money comes & goes (ok - it doesn't always come)

health is a rollercoaster

urgent mortal things pop up daily

but, trite as this phrase has become, it rings true:

 

FAMILIES ARE FOREVER

"Unca-Bry"

Jace and his parents have been visiting for the past few days (yay for us!) and we're all having a blast.  Thankfully Caci loves to bake - but alas! - no pictures of her this time around.  Trevor loves to tease, and we've got a good picture of that.  And Jace loves his Aunts & Uncle.  

When we planned to go out for errands, we asked Jace, "Do you want to go with the girls or stay with the boys?"  Actually - first the question was, "do you want to be with the guys or the gals?" and his response was "gals".  Then I asked "What do gals do?" His response:  "Mooooo".  It took a few minutes till we realized he thought "gals" sounded like "cows" :)  But then when we changed the wording to "boys" and "girls" he immediately chose boys!!!  I asked him, "Why, what do boys do?"  He said, "They make guns, and play balls, and use tools."  So, he's Bryan's little shadow when Bryan is working on a project.  And Bryan is great with him.  He always finds him a tool and a something to call a project.

Why I LOVE My Life

Usually I say I don't like having church start at 1:00 ... by the time we get home from church, the day is gone.  But now that we're half way through the year and making a routine of our Sunday mornings, I'm starting to really enjoy.  Once we were all ready for church, here's how we spent our Sunday morning:

Bryan beat me almost every game we played on this AMAZING chess board he built

The girls played game after game

Even though Bryan's way better than I am, I'm the one having the most fun!

Brad worked on uploading pictures and videos for his blog ... FINALLY! time for Brad to be on the computer!

I LOVE MY LIFE!

Jewelry

The kids and I had a great day today.  The last day of school was Thursday, and I told the kids that Thursday, Friday and Saturday are FREE days for them.  Once Monday gets here, we'll be hopping into summer routine - everyone will have a daily job, and although we'll spend a whole lot of time playing, we need to implement some structure for my sanity's sake.  

So today we drove out to the flea market which is much like a 3rd world country.  Once you enter through the double doors, it's a whole different world!  Bryan took us right to the knife shops.  One was liquidating everything, so he got a very cool butterfly knife for $4!  (Yes - all my kids are sensible shoppers!)  He's now doing all kinds of tricks with it and only has 1 bandaid on from injuries.  

Now's the part where you'll hear about my jewelry experience.  My friend and neighbor, Erika, is my "go to" source of jewelry, clothing, and all-things-fashion.  She pretty much dresses me whenever I really need to look trendy or classy or plain old good.  So, she's amazing, not only because she has a great sense of fashion, but also because she has SO MUCH STUFF!  And it's all great stuff!  At the flea market we happened upon another store that was getting rid of all their stuff before closing their doors.  EVERYTHING was $1.  Among other things, we picked up a few necklaces.  They're cute.  Then tonight I went to a Lia Sophia jewelry party and saw some similar necklaces.  Obviously higher quality, but from a distance, or through a camera, I don't think one would be able to tell which was the $1 necklace and which was the $398 one.  I felt badly that I attended a party without buying a single thing, but I just couldn't do it!  I couldn't even bring myself to book a party because I wouldn't want any of my friends to think that I'd expect them to buy something so high priced.  

So now you know.  I'm cheap.  BUT ... and that's a BIG BUT!  there are some things for which I won't sacrifice quality for price.  I can't think of what right now - so I guess that will have to be another blog.  

And so now I'm really curious:  What do you think of expensive jewelry?  I really do wish I had the talent and know-how to make gorgeous pieces of jewelry like some of my friends do..... maybe someday ....

Life is Good

I just want to say this about blogging:  Because I know others will read it (at least I THINK others read this ...) although I'm sharing events and some feelings, it's a whole lot different than writing in a journal.  But because I'm not a faithful journal writer, I have to be very GRATEFUL for technology and blogging.  My posterity will at least be able to read what I wrote for my family and friends to read while I was alive.  So HERE'S TO TECHNOLOGY!!!

It's been a great month ... here are some highlights:

My Dancing Princesses after their recital

Grandpa & Jace really know how to bond.

We have some awesome friends in our ward who have offered a standing swimming invitation.  Over Memorial Day weekend when they were out of town, Az was hired to water their plants and we were all invited to use their pool.  Sierra and I spent a couple of hours alone together reading and swimming.  SO nice! (Thanks Nancy & Tyler!)

Late in the month we taped two promo demos for new shows to be aired on the visitor's channel in about 80,000 hotel rooms.  It was way fun work!  You can read about the first one called "This Week In Vegas" which is an entertainment show - what's going on each week with new artists coming to town, etc, on my son's and daughter-in-law's blog:  http://jtrevorchapman.com

The second one is called "Shopping the Strip"  - obviously a shopping show for the visitor's channel.  We taped the demo at Town Square - here are a couple of pics from it:

(Big thanks to Erika for her fashion help!)

Highlight of the month was a quick weekend trip to Idaho to be with Brookie & Steven.

Our next grandson:

Thanks for a GREAT weekend kiddies!

Poignant Thoughts

My daugher's sister-in-law, Lindsey, is an incredible advocate for adoption.  She has an amazing blog: http://www.therhouse.blogspot.com/ - something new every day.  Anyway, she's going to feature our son, Bryan, as a guest blogger sometime in the next week.  We adopted Bryan as an infant, and he recently wrote a page and a half on adoption from his perspective (Bryan is now 16).  So with Lindsey offering to feature Bryan, I wanted to put in my 2cents and write about his adoption from my perspective.  It's very deep, emotional thinking and writing and I needed a little break.  So I started reading everyone else's blogs and came upon Brooke & Steven's latest political post. http://www.therhouse.blogspot.com/  Well - there was no emotional break for me as I read their Memorial Day thoughts.  If you don't mind a tear or two, go to their site now and if you're like me, you'll be glad there's someone who can put into words what's in your heart.

That's it for now ... more when I finish writing about adoption ... and buy a new box of kleenex!