Happy Birthday Melissa!
This is her on her birthday at the park with the young women, it was ward YW activity day.She loves to go to the park with her friends &
to be silly & goofy.
This is also on her birthday!Thanks to the Olivers for saran wrapping our house and her room!
They got us pretty good!
It was HILARIOUS!!!
This year she has the awesome experience of going on trek. Trek is where the youth 14 to 18 years old dress up in pioneer clothes, pull handcarts for a few days and re-enact our pioneer heritage. They get to cook, sleep in a tent and pull the handcarts several miles a day with their gear loaded in it. Melissa was the only causality of trek, and one of the tires ran over her big toe and bruised the bone(we learned that after she came home and went to the Dr.) She came home dirty and tired and spiritually fed. She was such a trooper and had a terrific time! Even with her injury she says she would do it all again.
Here she is riding in the cart after she got her toe ran over with her good friend Katie.
Here is her trek family.Everyone is divided into families, a ma/pa and several children
They even have a "baby" that they have to take care of.
Here she is modeling one of her trek dresses we found at DI(a thrift store), she was so excited because it had butt ruffles! Silly girl!!!! She made her own aprons and bonnets. She was very excited to make the aprons and bonnets, so she could use fun material. She used dinosaur & zebra print for the aprons & star & Polk-a-dots for the bonnets. (Notice how clean it is before trek!)
She even cleaned a fish!
Here she is riding a horse after she injured her toe.I think she looks more like a hippy than a pioneer, here.
:)
Here she is at our cousin reunion riding the go cart&
Getting muddy!!!!
It was pouring that day!
But she loved it!
Melissa has been in a clogging/tap class for the past 6 years.She has gotten pretty good at it.
Here she is performing one of her favorite dances
to the Napoleon Dynamite song.
She's right in the middle.. hands on hips
Her 2010 dance picture
We love to tease her.
about many things.
One of them being.. around the house she will wear things that don't match and we fondly call her
Grandma Stambaugh.
That was Ray's grandma who would walk around the house not matching.
Melissa also loves fuzzy socks and to wear mismatched ones on purpose.
Here she is helping paint the bathroom. She is a very good helper and I miss her when she is busy.
She loves any kind of party or spirit day, anything to get dressed up. She dresses up for all of the holidays and spirit days at school. Here she is on St. Patricks day & below Valentine's Day.
She is a good friend. Very loyal and true. She has been blessed with many good friends & many good friends that she has known since she was born or known she was too little to know any different.
She also loves her ward family and especially her youth group. I love her youth group, too! They are all kind and nice to one another. Love that! Here they are at the Vancouver BC temple open house.
Some more of her good friends & Aurora.
She loves to make silly faces, she had just got her new camera this day &
was playing with it.
Playing with her camera &her little cousin Aurora.
She is such a good cousin to her!
Here is a short (11 seconds) video of her creation from Keagan's Christmas present.
She worked on this for a few days!
Making silly faces AGAIN!!
She is a really good big sister, too!!
In Seattle,on the phone,
I'm not sure if she is taking a picture or
TEXTING!
I love having Melissa as a daughter! She is funny, kind, sweet, hard worker, etc., etc. She is a good babysitter, too. We love having her in our family, when she is gone is it quiet. Which unfortunately is more and more. I can't believe she is 15 already! I don't think I'm ready for next year... good thing I have another year to prepare for it!
