A New Mayor

In June, Keagan got to go on a very cool field trip.  His 6th grade class from Lacey Elementary went to JA Biztown.  It is a small make believe town that has stores, a mayor, most of the things that you can think of to run a town and the students run it for the day.  They are trained at school for a few weeks before they come.  They learn how to write checks, keep a balance in the checking account and apply for jobs.  They get paid according to what jobs they have.  When they have their money, they have to cash their checks, pay their bills, and save a little.  They spend the entire day at biztown.  It was a lot of fun and learning! 

Keagan got the chance to be the mayor of the town.  He dressed up for his job.  He got to give an opening and closing speech and go around and see how things were going around the town.  

 

 

 I got to be a chaparone and go with him.  The store I helped with was Best Buy.

 All of the stores in Biztown are given donations from their stores.  Usually little clearance trinkets.  The kids can use their money they earn at their jobs to buy things.  They can also choose to buy pizza at lunch time.  The Mariners store is one of the favorite places to go. 

Pretty dresses and Proms

In May Melissa got to go to Mormon Prom and the Senior school Prom.

Just like most girls.. she's happy with

the thought of more than one

Pretty Dress!

 They went in a limo for the Mormon Prom!

 

 

Here is their group for Mormon Prom.

Serena Maxwell & Jeff Lowrey; Brooklyn Falter &Wes Gifford; Melissa & Tyler Schmidtke

(Sorry.. I'm sure I prob. spelled someones name wrong....)

 

  

All the girls & Mona (Brooklyn's exchange student)

 

 

The bffs:  Melissa & Brooklyn

 

 At our ward the next day... the majority of the youth came in their modest formal clothes.

They all looked soo lovely!

Josh, Jordan, Shantae, Kimmie, Melissa, Katie, Logan, & Jesse.

 

 

School Prom...

 I actually missed the part of Melissa getting ready and leaving... I was soo sad!  I was with Keagan at the Fun Fair... and her date came a little early.  I only missed her by 10 minutes or so.  Luckily Daneah was there to take tons of pictures and help her get ready.  And then when they went to Tumwater Falls Park, I went over to take pictures.  I told her, "Do NOT leave until I have seen you!"

 Her date was Tim Cox, a senior, he was on the prom court.

 At Tumwater Fall Park, she's so pretty, even Keagan wants a picture with her. ;)

 There was a huge group taking pictures together... I don't know hardly any of them.. most of them were seniors.

 

 

 Melissa is on the phone to her Brooklyn... Where are you?!

 Playing on the playground!

 Brooklyn & Melissa

Beautiful!

 

I Love this! 

A lot of the girls went and spun around in their dresses.

 

 These are the only kids that weren't Seniors in that big group.

Candy... This is how it started

This is how it all started...

The first year that Marie & I taught preschool I would take Celeste with me from their house after preschool to go pick up the kids from school.  After Halloween I had left over candy in my van.  Celeste became a fan!  Since then I have always kept candy in my van.  Luckily for me it doesn't tempt me.  I don't really care for candy.  (Now if it were peanut butter cups or brownies..)  So the last few years I have had many a fan of coming to visit me in my van... (I would like to say to visit with ME... but I know it is mostly for the candy).  Max said it best... Melissa was pretending that the van was going to blow up and Max said, "NO! It can't ... what about the candy.... and Donna."

Changes

This is what our family looked like when Ray

(Melissa said that we both look the same... both with less hair.. haha and Melissa has more hair!)

 started working here, at the Capitol, 16 years ago.

This Thursday, (May 31, 2012) is his last day.

He will start working here, June 1, 2012

at

Orange Commercial Credit.

In March I got an awful call while I was out shopping that Ray was getting laid off.  At first it was  scary and terrible and lots of tears were shed.  He had been there for so long that we didn't know anything else.

But like in all trials and challenges we realized how blessed we are.  He was given a long time (until at least the end of June) to be able to find a job.  He has so much vacation time accrued that we will get a double pay check for the next 3 months.  The timing couldn't of been better, either.  He gets his Bachelor's in Management Science from the University of Arizona on August 7th.  We are feeling very blessed and appreciative to all of our friends and family that have been praying for us, too.  We have felt your prayers!

So with mixed emotions... but mostly excited and happy we are looking forward to this new adventure in our life.  So we're wishing Ray good luck with his new job! 

Now for our next adventure....we can hardly wait until August when he is done with school (and we celebrate our 20 year Wedding anniversary)!

Grandparents Picture

I found this today while I was looking for another picture.

This is one of my favorite pictures!

I miss my grandparents!  This was taken in August of '95.  Melissa was born in July of '95.  We were at a family reunion at Priest Point Park in Olympia.  My Grandma Bilow is holding her.  My grandpa was in his unhealthy days.  That year he turned 80.  My grandparents were so excited to be Great grandparents!

What we've been doing lately

Melissa is on the dance team.  They have been crazy busy lately.  The last few months they have performed at several basketball games & 4 out the last 5 weekends they have been at competitions.  They performed in the kick category.  It has been hard on Melissa, at the last basketball game she pulled her groin muscle and it hadn't quite healed.  But she was quite the trooper!  So almost every Saturday we've been watching her and several other schools perform.  These competitions are long days!  She had to be at the school by usually 8:30 a.m. and usually we weren't home until 7:30ish.  It has been fun watching them perform and get better and better every week!  She wouldn't let me put up her 1st performance video because they had improved so much.

Here is one of the basketball games we went to.  Our bball team was really good!  They made it to regionals.  Melissa is quite the sport enthusiast.  (It makes her dad very happy & proud!)  The dance team had to go out early to get ready to perform.  They are in the upper gym getting ready & waiting.  You can barely see at the top left corner a person up there watching the game.. that is Melissa.

Here's a closer version of her sneaking a peak at the game.

Our team waiting for their turn to perform at one of the competitions.

One of the fun things about going to the competitions is seeing all the other amazing dance routines.  Here is one of them.

At the end of some of the dance competitions they have extra time waiting for the judges so all the different teams come out and dance together.  It is pretty fun to watch.

Getting ready at another dance competition.

Here is the Capital dance competition, everyone getting out on the floor to dance.  I recorded a short video of it.

Melissa doing her splits!  She worked hard at being able to do this!!!

Here is there dance routine at the last dance competition where they missed going to districts by 1 point!  :(