Merry Christmas 2013

Merry Christmas!

This is our Christmas card this year.
Someone asked us when they opened up our card, Is Keagan going to have a goofy face.. like usual? He does have other cute faces.. I guess it is me that loves his goofy faces. It is hard to narrow down our pictures of the year for one card.
And here is our Christmas letter below.

December 2013

The novel, “A Tale of Two Cities” opens with the line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” This is how I have felt about this past year.  This year has probably been one of the hardest years we have had.  Ray was unemployed most of it.  BUT I do NOT want to complain! I want to tell you that it was hard, but we have been blessed so much! I can’t even tell you all of the blessings we have had this year! 

Ray got a temporary state job in late August at Labor and Industries.  Happily, it turned into permanent in November.  We are so excited for benefits!! 

Ray had to have surgery on his eye last week.  We are grateful for insurance! He had a detached retina.  He had the same thing when he was 18.  The doctor said they don’t know what causes it.  Some people just have that happen. His vision started getting blurry in his left eye. His vision was down to 20/400 in that eye... practically blind.  It should be to 20/100 when it is all healed. Yah for sick leave!  He had over 500 hours of sick leave when he left the state a couple of years ago.  Luckily the sick leave will carry over if you get a state job within 5 years.

In March we got to go to Eastern WA to watch Melissa & her dance team perform at state. They did a great job & it was so exciting to watch. Sadly, Melissa decided that dance team wasn’t for her this year.  It was a hard decision, we all loved watching her perform & she loved it, too.  It just took too much time.  She got a job (two for a while). She worked at an ice cream shop and a state job she got thru her school.  She is still working for the state. 

It is hard to believe that this is her Senior year in high school!  We are enjoying everything we can with her! She is such a fun girl (woman) to be around! This has been a hard year for her because most of her friends were Seniors last year.  She has so many friends that are on missions for our church and lots have gone off to college.  She is hoping to go to BYU-I next year.

Keagan is in 8^th grade this year. He played soccer again this year.  It is fun watching him play.  He wants to play basketball again in January. He got glasses this year. I was asking him why he wasn’t reading very much this summer. He told me because he couldn’t see very well.  Really?! Geez, parent of the year... He has problems with his eyes tracking.  He has to go to eye therapy every week for 3-6 months. No wonder he had problems reading! Sometimes he couldn’t even focus on the letters! He is growing up so much and getting taller all the time.  He turned 14 this summer and is now going to church dances.  He loves them! J

I am still teaching preschool with my friend Marie. We have 10 kids in one morning class.  As always it is a lot of fun.  I am also watching a little girl after school and most days, my niece, Aurora too. We joke around that we have the perfect all American family of 2.5 kids because we have Aurora part time. We love having her! She is part of our family!

Next year will be big changes for our family.  Everyone goes to a new school! Aurora to middle school, Keagan to High school, and Melissa off to College.  I try to not think about it too much, it makes me a little sad.  It is hard for me to believe that we are old enough to be in this stage of life!

This spring we also got to go visit Ray’s Aunt Darlene in Salt Lake City while she was serving her church mission there.  What a great experience! We also got to go to our first General Conference. (Our church has semi-annual meetings in Salt Lake where all the church membership gathers together and listens to our prophet & other church leaders.)

We also got to go to several weddings this year.  My little brother, Adam got married.  We love his new family, his wife Heather and her 3 children. New cousins! Yah!  

            The pictures on our Christmas card; Keagan being goofy as always at Adam’s wedding, Ray & I at Melissa’s state dance competition, One of Melissa’s Senior pics, and Keagan & Melissa in Utah.  There is a cute little story behind this one... They were giving me goofy faces, not cooperating to smile for me.  I told them, ok that is going to be the Christmas card picture.  That is their reaction when I said that.  J 

            We are so blessed! We have such wonderful family and friends who love and support each other. I try to look for ways that we are blessed every day. It is amazing to find so many little things to be thankful for when you look!

            We wish you a very Merry Christmas and hope we all can remember the true meaning of this Holiday season!                                  

Love, Ray, Donna, Melissa, & Keagan

Random facts about me

Facebook had a thing where you post random facts about yourself and I thought it would be a good thing to blog, too.
1.  I am short (no new news there). Our bed is tall.  I have a stool on my side.
2.  I'm an awful speller.  I love spell check and google.  Luckily I can tell if I have misspelled the word, I just can't spell it.  I love it when google "says" Do you mean?  Sometimes I misspell the word so badly I have to try again, google doesn't even know. Sometimes I change what I am going to write if I don't know how to spell the word.
3.  I have had Shoop twice as long as any other last name in my life. My mom changed our last names whenever she did.  I was born with Mattson.  When my mom got re-married when I was 7 or 8, it changed to Blakley. Then she got divorced and went to her maiden name and so did we.. Bilow. Then when I was 10 she got re-married and her husband adopted us and my name went to Richardson.  I've been married and happily been a Shoop for over 21 years.
4.  I like to re arrange my living room.  The problem is there is only so many ways it can go.
5.  I can't stand to have my hair the same way for very long. I like to try different things.  Some are better than others..
6.  I didn't see my dad from the time I was 7 until I found him when I was 22.  It is one of my best memories of when I was reunited with him and the rest of his family.
7.  I met Ray when I was at college.  I went to college with a boyfriend... Ray lived a couple of doors down from my boyfriend. Ray was a stalker.  :) He waited patiently.  After we broke up, he would say Hi to me all of the time.  I felt bad that I didn't know his name and had to ask around to find out.
8.  The first time Ray asked me out, he baked me chocolate chip cookies.  He put word strips in them to ask me.  We went bowling with a group of people.  He still makes excellent choc. chip cookies and likes to go bowling.

Melissa's Senior Pictures, Fall 2013, Nisqually Wildlife Refuge

Click here to view this photo book larger

Turn your favorite photos into a photo book at Shutterfly.com.

I took all of Melissa's Senior Pictures and put them in a photo book.  We ordered one for home.

Picture were taken by Kylee Ann Photography, check out her blog!

                                    She does a great job!

Donna Birth to 3, redhead?

I was talking to some friends tonight who have a red head and mentioned that I was a redhead when I was born and a little girl.  Well, this is what I have always been told. I tried to find baby pictures and all I could find was several pictures like this first one, exposed film pictures that you can't really tell and Black & white pictures.  Man, I'm old to have so many black & white pictures.  It would of been nice to have some where I could tell what my hair color was... but really I'm just grateful to have so many pictures.  Yes, I was the first child..  Photography has come a long way!!

Up above, Donna Kay at 3 months

These 3 black & white ones say on the back 20 months.

These 3 in the red & blue dress say 2 years old on the back. Hmm, I just noticed, I bet these are from different setting. I'm wearing different shoes and the bottom one I don't think I can see the scratch on my nose.

 This one is with my mom, she was pregnant with my Brother Eric. (You can see my mom's arm in the other picture, trying to get me to sit still).  I'm around 2 1/2.

One of my first pictures with my brother, Eric.

Here I am at age 3. 

Waiting

We're still waiting and it feels like waiting and waiting for Ray to get a job.  

I wasn't going to write about this because I am one who usually likes to write about the trial after it is done and I have learned from it and now know it is a blessing. But we have had so many blessings from this trial and although some days it seems hard, I just have to think a few minutes and know that I have been blessed & I shouldn't complain.  I see others' problems and I'm grateful for my own.  We have a happy family life.  We have our health.  We have the gospel in ou life.  We have very good friends.  We have food on the table and a roof over our heads.  And so many other things that we may not realize we have.

I know you're probably wondering what this picture has to do with our unemployment woes.  This was taken at one of our fun church youth activities.  A few leaders dressed up so you wouldn't recognize them as easily and hid in the store (Fred Meyer).  The youth had to go around and find them & have them sign a piece of paper saying that they found them.  A Where's Waldo? game.  It was a lot of fun, we had some great disguises.  This was in March of 2012.

The next day, I was at Walmart shopping & I got a terrible phone call from Ray saying that he was being laid off. This was extremely difficult for us.  Ray had been working there for 16 years, most of our marriage & we didn't really know what we were going to do & what other jobs even looked like.  

Luckily he had been going to college online & was close to finishing his degree (mid -August).  The Capitol (where he worked) was good to him and gave him time to look.  They didn't really give him a end date.

He found a new job at Orange Commercial and started June 1st.  It was hard for him to get used to.  He left behind a lot of close co-workers.  We also had taken a $500 pay cut. We still felt blessed.  The hours were great, he worked M-F, 7-4:30.  After a while, the job wasn't really what we thought it would be.  After working their for 9 months, he was let go. We found out the day before my birthday.

This was really hard.  We had no idea what to expect and what to do.

Ray is really good about being on the ball and calling and finding out the best options for any given situation.  We are blessed by having his unemployment count on his previous state job salary so it is not much less than his Orange Commercial job. 

 We have had so many blessing, & I won't share them all, but I know that we are loved! Heavenly Father loves us and we have wonderful people surrounding us!  I know when you pay your tithing things work out.  I can't tell you how many times I have added things on paper and been so stressed about how it was going to work out, but it does.  I try not to write it on paper much anymore because it really stresses me out.  I have also felt so many prayers on our behalf.  It is interesting when people say things like, "I will pray for you or you've been in my prayers", I feel it.  I don't know how to describe it.. except saying that I feel love and I can physically feel the prayers of loved ones for us.  It is a wonderful feeling!

We have had a few good leads lately and we feel like Ray will be getting a job soon! We are hopeful and trying to remain positive. I know sometimes our ideas don't match what the Lord wants for us.  I'm learning that his are usually better or we couldn't even imagine anyways.

So keep the prayers coming our way & I'm sure soon I will have a mass message to send out about our happy news!

The talk "I hope you know we had a hard time" by Elder Quinten L. Cook has really touched me.  Here is the video of  it, they made it into a short mormon message.

A few new things on the frugal side.

Ray decided to build a picnic table!  We have had lots of spare wood in storage, so he decided to put it to good use.  I'm so proud of him! He's becoming quite handy! 

I remember when we first got married he didn't know how to do much.  In his house growing up, you called someone to come do something.  In my house growing up, it was the opposite.  I didn't even know that you could call people to come do things for you.

He got the directions from the Internet.  (What did we do before the Internet...?!?!) It was fun watching him measure more than twice, cut the wood, and place it all together.  He even carried over some wood to our neighbors house in the wagon to use his miter saw.

 I love our back yard! Especially in the summer time.  We set up our canopy and have the swing (that we got for free on craigslist a couple of years ago)  We got a new couch, so we brought out our "old" couch to make more room to sit and lounge. Now I think we need a party with all of our seating capacity! The couch will go downstairs when/before it starts to rain.

 Here is our new couch.  $5 at a garage sale!!! I've been wanting a different couch.  I was tired of chaise lounge part of the old couch.  When we first got it, it seemed cool, but then it wasn't really being sat on much and it was big and bulky in the living room.  Also the couch cushions come off easily and get misshapen easily.
So we were out in between activities looking at a few garage sales.  (BTW, Ray & I love garage sales!) There was 3 on one street, which is a bonus.  I saw this couch and it had a sticker for $10 on it.  We sat on it & I kept saying to Ray, I think we should get, really, I think we should!!  He wasn't to sold on it.  The owner of the garage sale said, $5 and 25 cents for every 15 minutes you sit on it!  We got up and walked to the other 2 garage sales.  The whole time I am saying to Ray, I think we should buy it, I think we should buy it! I was thinking for $5, even if it doesn't work out, we could re-sell it on craigslist.  So obviously, I talked him into it. :)  And we love it... At least for now.

Our first 2 apartments in PA

We have now lived in our home for 8 years.  It's kind of sad that we have been married almost 21 years and this is the longest we have lived in one place.  Before this house, we moved around a lot.  Although we lived mostly in the same area, we lived in a lot of different areas. I was going to blog all the different places we lived, but I think I will just start with our 2 apartments in PA.

Our first little apartment was so cute!  It was tiny! Our bedroom didn't have a closet, it was in the living room.  We could only fit one of those little 2 people round tables in the dining room.  BUT we did have a very cute porch with a swing out in front.  You can't see the swing, it was on the far right. It was an old house that was converted into 4 apartments.  We didn't live there very long because it wasn't very convenient to our jobs.  Can you believe that we only paid $290 a month!!  Ours was the bottom floor on the right.  This was in Mechanicsburg, PA.  I babysat my nephew Jesse in this apartment, we only lived a couple of streets over from Ray's sister. Jesse & I did a lot of swinging in that swing and singing preschool songs.

We then moved to New Cumberland, PA and lived in our large 1 bedroom apt for almost a year.  I think this apartment was only $345 or something like that, but that was A LOT more than our first place! It was nice, considering the time in our lives.  It had a huge closet in the bedroom, huge living room, it fit 2 full size couches, and a chair.  We had a big picture window that looked out over the to river.  

One of the bad things about the apartment was it very steep (bright green) stairs!! We lived on the top floor.  The other bad thing was that there was no laundry there, we had to go to the laundry mat! Yuk!! (There was a really great pizzeria right next to the laundry mat that had wonderful east coast Stromboli that I loved!) 

There was an old "white" house that was next to our apartment building. They tore it down & now it is a Rite Aid.  Sometimes we parked at that house and brought our laundry or groceries up the stairs.  That eliminated one set of stairs.  When we lived at this apartment, there was a major heat wave in the summer, major snow storm, and then when it melted, there was a flood!  The bridge that we crossed over every day was closed. If we wanted to go anywhere we had to travel a long ways to around it.

Our apartment was in the white section, the top window on the farthest right. It was off of a main road and the parking lot was by the tree in the first picture. Where the cement fence is, is where we would climb up and go to our apartment.  They didn't have the other fence on top of it.  It seems like there was an easier place to get into our apartment from there.  I got these pictures from Google.  Back then we didn't take very many pictures!

One funny little story about this apartment that wasn't very funny then...

It had snowed recently and was melting.  It was slushy outside.  Sometimes we would go start our car, leave it running to warm up and lock it, and use the other set of keys to unlock it.  Well, that is what we did, BUT my keys were locked in the glove box!  I had to walk to work while Ray waited for the locksmith to come unlock our running car.  

We didn't live very far from my work.  That is one of the reasons why we got this apartment.  But as I said it was slushy outside.  I got sprayed with slushy snow mess on the way to work.  I was NOT in a very good mood when I got there!  

I worked in a daycare.  When I got there, there wasn't enough teachers and I was over in my allowed # of children.  My boss then came in and I yelled at him. Whoops!!  At lunch time, he called me into the office.  Before he could say anything, I told him I was sorry for yelling at him and explained that I had a "rough" morning.  Luckily he didn't say much and said  something to the likes of OK, you can go back to your lunch.  

Mariner's Game(s)

Our family loves to go to Mariner's Games.  We don't go that often and wish we could go more!
We have some fun memories from Mariner's games.

When I was in middle school the Mariners were doing really badly!  They would give a set of 2 tickets if you got good grades.  I got 3 sets of them.  I think we went 2 times.  (I can't really remember)  I know my mom wasn't too happy with me because I fell asleep during the game... Our last set of tickets we didn't go and we couldn't even give them away!

Ray & I got to go last year, someone from work gave us some amazing tickets.  You could see everything without being on the monitor.  Even I was glued to the game. (I like to people watch sometimes more than the game..)

This is the pictures from last time we went as a family.  It was sunny that day & Keagan was tired! (And I didn't get upset with him that he fell asleep.:)  We got to see one of our favorites.. Ken Griffey Jr. I think this was the last year he played. Melissa even had on her pink Mariner's jacket.

Melissa has been raised to love the Mariners and baseball.  She makes her dad proud and really does love it!!  Ray & Melissa are comparing stats and players quite often.  I like baseball.  But I guess I am a fair-weathered fan.  I would also like it if it were only once a week or so.. not every day from March to September or October is you're lucky!

We took Melissa on a special mommy & daddy date when she was little and left Keagan with a babysitter.  I love how you can see her sitting on the edge in her flowered jacket watching the game, even when she was little.

 When Aunt Laura and Uncle John came we went to a Mariner's game with her.  She almost looks like a boy dressed in her Mariner's gear!

We even took her to a game when she was very little, 5 months I think.  This game was in the kingdome.  My sister, Cindy, was nice enough to leave early with me because it scared me to death and I had nightmares about it for the next few days.  Ray & I got cheap tickets in the 300 level and happened to get the first row.  Melissa was at a stage where she moved around a lot.  I could just see her wiggling free and falling down, the long long way down to the field.  It really freaked me out!!  My mom, Cindy, and Adam had good seats.  Cindy didn't really care too much about baseball, so she gave Ray her seat and came home early with me.

For Father's Day this year (2013) Melissa had just gotten her first paycheck and wanted to get Ray something special.  She found Mariner tickets for a pretty good deal and it was LDS night.  We would get free t-shirts with our tickets!  She bought them and was prob. more excited than Ray to give them to him.  She said that she would buy them for all of us and call it a Mother's day/Father's Day gift.  And then Keagan paid for our parking!  What a nice gift!  We had such a wonderful time.  We sat in the 300 level & they lost, but it didn't matter!  Luckily at Safeco field, there really isn't a bad seat and it isn't scary sitting way up high like it was in the kingdome! It was fun to see all the LDS people there and a few we knew.

 Before the game started.. The Stringfellows were sitting a few rows in front of us.

Kimmie, Melissa, & Katie with their free LDS Mariner shirts.

 One of Melissa's favorite (current) players is Felix.

Troubles sleeping

Luckily, I fall asleep pretty easily.  But most nights (mornings) I wake up between 2 and 4 a.m. to have to go to the bathroom.  A few times a week  I have trouble going back to sleep.  When this happens, I'm usually awake for a couple of hours.  I lay there tossing and turning, squeezing my eyes shut tight and trying to go back to sleep.  I think of all the things I need to do the next day and whatever problems I am having.  Sometimes I keep my ipod handy and write myself notes or emails, so hopefully I can get to sleep faster.

 I usually give myself an hour to try to get to sleep myself because most nights I can, but when I can't, I find my headphones & ipod and listen to a story, General Conference talks or Stories from General Conference.  There are lots of good choices!

As I was pondering this the other night in one of my sleepless states, I had this thought.. I think sometimes we laugh as we say things like,  reading scriptures & General Conference talks puts us to sleep.. but then I thought, maybe it is a good thing that they put me to sleep, because when I listen to those things they bring me peace and put my mind to rest.. no wonder they can help put me to sleep!  I like the idea that reading/listening to scriptures & General conference calms me down and helps me relax.. even enough to fall asleep when I am having troubles falling asleep.  Another blessing of reading/listening!  :)  (For the record, I usually hear at least one conference talk all the way through and then the 2nd one, I can't stay awake)

Here is a link to one of my favorite things to listen to. Mormon channel (I have the app. on my ipod)  Also another one of my favorite things to listen to is another app on my ipod -podcasts -Stories from General Conference, History of the Hymns, and Conversations.  Stories from General Conference you can get on the Mormon Channel, too. It is one of my favorites!!

First "real" day of Summer Break

We weren't even planning on doing anything.. but it was suppose to be sunny and the rest of the week rainy so we decided to skip chores (they can be done on a rainy day!) and go to one of our favorite beaches.  We love going to Owen beach in Tacoma.  It is the beach by Pt. Defiance.  It is so beautiful & peaceful.  We let the kids rent kayaks.  They had a great time.  They said they saw a lot of jellyfish. The ferry going by is the going to Vashon Island.

The only "downer" of the trip was seeing a woman who had taken her shirt off, going around the beach in her bra... REALLY?!!  It wasn't even that hot.. 75ish.  I guess hot for WA!

I hope we can go back a few more times this summer!