Happy Birthday Keagan!

Happy Birthday Keagan!
(obviously the date on the camera was wrong)

I can't believe my "baby" is 12!



Keagan & 2 of his good friends, Landon & Riley.

At the star wars exhibit in Seattle

This one I love, it is a typical Keagan thing to do.. help Aurora(his cousin) and be friends with her, but pretending to not like her so much when other people ask.

At his band concert.

At my Cousin Jodie's wedding dancing with his sister & auntie AND loving every second of it!

Keagan & cousin Andrew. Keagan loves playing with Andrew.. or Andrew loves playing with Keagan?!

Keagan loves scouts, here is getting one of his awards.

These are some random pictures of Keagan this year. He is getting where he doesn't like his picture taken as much. This year Keagan decided to grow his hair out long, you can see that in a few of the pictures. He also dyed it black. He got it cut short right before his bday. He is spending his bday at scout camp this year. I am hoping he is having a good time. I sure am missing him!

Keagan is thoughtful, kind, and considerate. He likes to tease & horse around. He is my early bird & likes to be on time. He is always watching the clock and making sure we're not late. When you tell him that you are going to do something you have to stick to it, he won't let you back down. I have to be very careful how I word things with him, we might do that or maybe.. because if I say we are doing something he will hold me to it! He is becoming quite the gentleman, too. Often times he will come and open the car door for me. He's funny, though - I told him earlier this year that he needed to be a gentleman to the girls, and he said, UGH! Mom, that means they have to be ladies, too!

I love you Keagan!

Temple weddings

I got to give the lesson today on Temple Marriage. (click on the link for more information about Temples) I have been gathering pictures of couples that have lived in the ward(Lacey 2nd), or had someone grow up in the ward. It was so fun to do & see. Here is the video:

A Royal wedding? Memories

Who is watching the Royal wedding?! Is anyone really getting up at 4 a.m. to watch it? I'm not.. but I did set my dvr to record it & I'm sure it is all we will see & hear about for the next several weeks. Although I do think it is a little silly.. there is part of me that loves the romance, excitement & fairy tale of a Royal Wedding. If it could only be happily ever after..I do remember getting up @ 4 a.m. with my mom to watch the Royal wedding of Princess Diana. I remember thinking how beautiful she was!
But of course that was before dvr, vcr recordings & all that.

I was dating myself.. again & telling the kids all about when I got up to watch the first royal wedding.

We were very poor. My mom had just gotten married or was going to soon and had been a single mom for a couple of years. We didn't even have a car that worked.

This memory makes me laugh now. We had 2 tvs, no not 2 working tvs, 2 tvs that were broken. We had the huge tv on the bottom(one similar to 2nd tv picture) that had only the sound working, and the tv that sat on top of it that had the picture working. It was complete with knobs to turn, we only got to channel 13, (no remote). Sometimes you had to play with the antenna to get a better picture. We had the antenna on top of the house, too. In a year or two after that we got really fancy and one of those rodor things that you could turn and move the outside antenna that was on the roof from the INSIDE of the house! Fancy!!!

(That almost looks like the ugly brown carpet we had in the living room, too)

Anyone else have any memories of watching Princess Diana's wedding.. oh and Prince Charles.

Faliveroops

Recently some of our good friends, the Olivers moved back to Arizona. Our families have been good friends for a long time! We have been blessed with having some very good friends! A few months ago, Melissa, Brooklyn, and Hayden decided that because our families are so close that they named themselves the Faliveroops after all of the last names (Falter, Oliver, Shoop). It is so nice to know that with our families that will we always be friends no matter how many years go by and how often we see each other. I'm so grateful for them!

Here are a few pictures that have at least part of Faliveroops in them from the past few years...

Daneah, Melissa, Hayden (this is the usual-Hayden in the middle of all the girls), Isabella, & Kimmie getting ready to go to the formal church dance in Elma. (Dec. 2010)

Maleah, Melissa, & Brooklyn going to the Elma formal stake dance the year earlier, Dec. 2009

The next few pictures are of our families all together (missing, Dixon, Kylie, & Lauren) eating dinner at our house the week of helping the Olivers get packed up and ready to move to AZ. I loved having everyone over!
Feb. 2011

One of the fun things about the Faliveroops is besides being the parents being the same ages, we know a lot of the same people from childhood, but didn't know each other until we were adults. Sandy & I have known each other since '93, (when Ray & I moved into the ward) and we barely missed each other in our youth. I moved from Rochester, WA (Centralia -Chehalis stake) in 8th grade & she moved to Chehalis a year or so after I moved away. So we know a lot of the same people.

Leslie & I just barely missed each other, too. I moved again to Lacey just 2 weeks after I graduated from HS and she moved away from Lacey just a week or so after graduation. I met Leslie when she moved into the ward in 98 or 99.

Here are some more random pictures of some of the Faliveroops from the past few years (in no particular order):

Above is Melissa & Brooklyn back in the "clubhouse" days. Meaning when the Falters lived in their tiny house at the Park and the kids played in the clubhouse to that community alot! See Melissa & Brooklyn have always liked to play dress-up! These 2 girls have never not known each other!

Another dress-up picture of some boys.. Keagan, Austin, & Adam.

Brooklyn was with us when the kids got their pictures taken & we had one taken of all 3 of them, we had one taken of just the girls, too. All in their old navy shirts.

Joy school graduation

6.12.2000

Hayden, Andrew, Brett,

Melissa, Maleah, & Brooklyn

Keagan & Landon as babies- I think this at the Thurston Co. fair.

This is one of our favorite joy school pictures!

Maleah, Brett, Brooklyn, Jenna, Melissa, & Hayden

I could add lots more pictures, but you get the idea, we have lots of fun memories of these 3 families & will continue to have more! I love my Faliveroops family!

40th birthday surprise Best EVER!

My 40th bday was this Wed. This is what I woke up to. Signs like these all over my house, there were prob. 15 or so signs all over the house. These are just a few of them. They were lining the hall, on bathroom mirror, in the kitchen, everywhere.

Last week there were a lot of whisperings going on, Ray had pulled Melissa into the garage to talk to her. I was kind of thinking, that was a lot of talking and whispering just for those signs, they were cute & all, but really... that much talking and whispering for that?!

Ray is known for not being able to keep secrets and hiding things. (which prob. is a good thing) He hasn't be able to surprise me with anything.

My friend Sue asked me last week if Ray & I wanted to go out to dinner with them Friday night about a week ago. Nothing out of the normal, we had been talking about it for a while. Thursday night Melissa was asked to babysit, again nothing out of the normal, I asked Melissa about it and she said...ugh... I need to talk to dad first... ok that is a little abnormal. I thought something might be happening, but I didn't want to ask too many questions and ruin any surprises. Friday Ray told me he had to work late again not anything abnormal since he has been working overtime, he said he would meet me at Tea Leaf with Sue & Bradly at 6:45, that is when it was slightly abnormal. Usually I am the one to help decide where we are going to eat, and to have such a precise time was a little unusual.. but again I didn't question anything because if there was a surprise I didn't want to ruin it. Long story - short, I thought there might be something going on, but I thought maybe a couple or two might be joining us for dinner, not 30+ people waiting for us at the restaurant. And Ray had been planning it for a few weeks! AND he had people send in letters to me about special memories & had my friends scrapbook it for me.

I was overwhelmed (in a good way) When I walked in, I couldn't believe how many people were there! And I felt soooooo loved! Of course it made me teary eyed.(Which seems to happen more often the older I get) Then to hear how had Ray had worked to make it happen & the book... what a great evening! The only sad thing, like my friend Jennie said was I couldn't be at each table hearing all the conversations!

Thanks friends and family for the support and love! Ray & I often talk about how we are blessed with such good friends!

Ray & I, best husband EVER!

See I already had "weepy" eyes!

Jeff & Jennie Klumker, Matti, Doug Gough, Bishop Grubbs

Matti & Gay Julkunen

Doug & Diane Gough (above)

Biship Grubbs & Linda

Brandon & Pam Kirkwood

April & Dave Hoeveler

Chad & Beth Hills

Darri Guinto (missed you Pedro) & my sis, Cindy

Sandy Falter & Leslie Oliver(Missed you Daren & Dix)

Barbara & Frank Johnston

Courtland & MaryJane Erickson

Jemma & Jared Williamson

Bradly & Sue Williamson

Brian & Michele Golden

Gay & Jennie

Jeff & Matti

Ray even had the room decorated! He brought all those signs from home & put them up. I didn't even notice they were gone from the house!


Ray had the party at Tea Leaf, the food was yummy, too!

Thanks everyone!

The glass is half full

What a day! But amazingly enough I'm not bothered by it..

Last night we said goodbye to mom & Thom for a year, they were asked to extend their mission in Wy for a year. They came home, brought their RV back stayed for a week and a half and then had to go back out to WY.
We have had a great time the last week and a half visiting with them and enjoying their company.
The last couple of days Keagan has been complaining about a sore throat, so this morning he stayed home from school. I left him home while Darri & I went walking, telling him I wouldn't be gone that long.
In the middle of our walk Ray calls and says mom & thom broke down, they're at exit 99, it's their water pump.
After my walk I came home picked up Keagan and we went over there picked them up and took them to the auto parts store. We got to visit for a couple of hours while Thom fixed the water pump. Luckily the only thing I was going to do today was clean the house, laundry, & get ready for preschool tomorrow. Thom was teasing me that I will do anything to get out of house work as the day went on. I called my sister and she came over and we all had lunch together at the truck stop- subway. We talked about what a blessing it was that if they were going to break down at least it was here close to us and we got to visit more.
Thom got the truck all fixed and I said I'll wait until you leave to leave to make sure everything is ok. They got almost out of the parking lot and I started the van... or tried to start the van.. nothing! Not only that, but because I had rolled the window down (electric) there wasn't even enough juice to roll it up and it had just started to rain. I get out of the van and I'm trying to flag them down, waving putting up my hand in a stop formation (Ok, go ahead and laugh, I was) The battery in the van was dead!!!
Luckily they just went around the parking lot to make sure their problem was fixed, it wasn't - their truck was smoking, luckily it was just smoking because something needed tightened.
Ray to the rescue, with jumper cables, and I got to the school with 2 minutes to spare to pick up Jadyn & Aurora.
So I haven't been home all day, had a broken down car, but I got to have lunch with my mom, thom, Keagan, & sis. And I didn't have to clean my house. :) Hopefully that is all the adventures mom & thom will have before they get to WY!