2014 Calendar

As most of my close friends know, every year I put together a calendar for our extended family Christmas gifts.  We (I) started this many years ago & they have come a long way! It is about the only time I scrapbook.. and if you call it that.  It is all digital from smile box.com.  Sometimes I think, we haven't done very much, then I look back at our pictures for the year & realize how blessed I am! I'm glad I insist on taking a lot of pictures, even though sometimes my family dreads it.  It makes for good memories.  Sometimes I'm not sure which comes first.. the memory or the picture?! 

Our family talked about our favorite memories of the year & almost all of these pictures were included.  One we didn't a get a picture of though.. Our family temple trip.  With my kids all over 12 now, we can all go to the temple together.  We went this summer & spent a day there.  I love that! And love that was one of their favorite memories! (If you want to see the picture bigger, you can click on it.)

Here is the cover of our calendar.  I love how my kids love each other! I've been blessed that they have always had a special relationship; arguing has always been few and far between!  

 January - Keagan earning awards in scouting.  

February - My kids didn't like this page! Ha!  For the month of Love - Ray & Donna :)

March - The year of 2013 we did a lot of dance team watching.  It was a lot of fun! The dance team went to state in March.  What  fun adventures!

April - There was sunshine! We went to Tolmie state park! Kelli Redding was living with us for a few months while she worked at the Capitol for session. I love Keagan & his friend Mathew holding up their shorts to go wading.

May- We all agreed that this was one of our favorite memories of the year! We got to go to Utah and see Aunt Darlene while she was on her mission and we got to go to General Conference for our fist time!

June- Melissa spoiled us with tickets to the Mariner's game for a Father's day gift to Ray.  It was LDS night! How cool is that! And we got free t-shirts! The Stringfellows (and a few other families we knew) were there, too.

                                    

July - (Was actually June, but I had to separate the pages some how..)  We took the kids to the park by Pt. Defiance in Tacoma & rented kayaks for them.  This is one of my favorite places to go.  It is so beautiful! And relaxing!

August - My "little" brother, Adam got married to Heather! (He hasn't been my little brother for a long time, but he is 11 years younger than me and has been & prob. always will be the "little" brother).  Heather has 3 kids. They are great kids! So much fun to have more cousins! I'm very happy for them!

 September - We went camping with some friends the weekend of the stake dance - beach dance near Ocean Shores.  Most of the summer was dry... that night it poured!  We stayed mostly dry.. When I got up in the morning, I stepped out of the tent into a huge puddle.  I'm not really a camper. I much prefer a hotel, but I guess I can "suffer" through it once a year or so.

October - My kids don't dress up like they used to.. But both dressed up for Halloween night.  Melissa makes a cute Clark Kent & Keagan a cute nerd.  We went to the Pumpkin Patch 10 minutes before it closed!  We went around and took our necessary pictures and left.  We didn't even carve pumpkins this year.  Really that is okay with me, I don't like that part.  But I did use the pumpkins we bought and cooked them down for pumpkin muffins.  I still have some pumpkin in the freezer.

November - We love to have people at our house.  We have a ton of dress up & just like to be goofy.  We have had the missionaries over a lot this year & it has been so fun!  Melissa & Aurora have spent a few days being crazy (crazier than normal) putting their feet in the arms of the hoodies and "walking" around. (Middle picture of Melissa in black) Soo funny!  We were dying laughing!  Also for Melissa to get her hair in that tall bun (at the bottom rt. corner) she put a water bottle in it.

December - These pictures are from Dec. of 2012 (Dec of 2013 hadn't happened yet when I made the calendar) They are at my mom's house for Christmas eve.  I love Melissa in her sparkly dress & the big picture of her & Aurora together.

Now on to making some more fun family memories for next year - 2014.  I'm sure there will be lots of Melissa's graduation!

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.