quick little girls cabin trip

Monday of Labor Day I filled my car with Avery and these cute girlies and went up north to join Sally and Ella at the Johnson cabin.  The cabin belongs to Mike Johnson's parents.  We got to visit as a family twice but this time it was just a bunch of girls. 

Avery has a really good group of friends.  They played card games, jackbox tv/phone games, laughed, went on walks, went on soda trips to the gas station, and stay up way too late.  They packed a lot in to 24 hours.  Sally prepared the meals (I helped) and I brought snacks.

The first year Sally and I coached together Avery and Ella were both on our team as 8th graders.  We had people say they thought Ella was my daughter and Avery was Sally's.

Today we still have people thinking Avery looks like Sally's daughter.  Avery is besties with Ella and jokes that Sally is her mom so she sometimes goes along with it. :)

Avery picked these little blue flowers and we all wore them.  

Thankfully the weather was good enough that the hotline said we could have a fire.

S'mores are the perfect camping treat and activity.  

I hope Avery knows how blessed she is to have this amazing core friend group.  These are the good days for her.  I never had this exactly.  There were no issues are drama at all with these girls.  I would do a girls trip with them again.

I'm just realizing this is Avery's second girl trip this year.  We took Ella to San Diego with Kristy, Lizzy, and Lizzy's friend.  So much fun.
 

Elliot’s mission call

Two weeks ago Elliot got his mission call!  It came so quickly, only 8 days after Pres. Wheeler submitted them after meeting with Elliot.

Elliot also kept his mission papers on the down low so he can surprise people when his call arrived.  That ended up not being the only surprise.  Where he was called surprised us all.  We ordered this map and cool arrow stickers on amazon to use just for this purpose.  Everyone made their guesses and I was the closest!  I guessed Serbia in honor of Darko Butorac my NAU orchestra director.  I felt like England or Guatemala were obvious choices and wanted to guess somewhere no one else would pick.

Elliot ended up getting called to the Ukraine, Kyiv/Moldova mission, Ukrainian speaking.

We were all so shocked!  In fact I didn't sleep too well the next couple days, it just didn't feel real and it felt really big.

Elliot had 10 weeks until at home MTC starts, now we're already down to 8.  Time is just flying by and there is so much to do!

We have been learning a lot about Elliot's mission.  Learning about the current political climate in Ukraine (war) and learning about Moldova and some of the history of both countries.

He will be serving in Moldova the whole time since Ukraine is not safe.  Moldova is land locked between Ukraine and Romania and is a little bit bigger in size than the state of Maryland.  The main language in Moldova is Romanian.

There are currently 13 missionaries in Elliot's mission, 4 sisters who are Russian speaking, 4 elders who are Ukrainian speaking, and 5 elders who are Romanian speaking.  I'm excited for Elliot to serve and see what that looks like.

Elliot's mission president is Pres. Aaron Shepherd who was living in Utah but is from Mesa!  I went to Westwood with his sisters Hope and Charity.  They were in orchestra with me.  It's a small world in the church.

We still need to buy a lot of things for Elliot and he needs to take temple prep among other things.  Looking forward to going to the temple with Elliot.
 

Life lately

Andrew and I have been going on regular dates for years. I stopped by the Opie’s Friday afternoon to pick something up and Ammon and Ruth were having Lunch from Haven Burger just around the corner from mom and dad by the temple. It looked so good we ended up doing take out from there for dinner. :)

Yum!

These umbrella are a new outdoor installation at Tempe Marketplace. I went to H & M to do some clothing shopping and this is outside the store.

They are adorable. Bea’s leg and Rupert with his pillow.

I love seeing Bea with grandpa. She really wanted to wear that dress.
It’s so dramatic!

I don’t take as many sleeping Bea pics as I used to. She’s beautiful.

 This is our first full week of school including Heritage, Franklin, me coaching and watching CJ and who just started preschool. Big week!

Sunsplash

With our pogo pass we go to sunsplash every year. We really ought to have planned an earlier summer date to go but didn’t so it was a mixed bag this time.

This mini golf was an added fun pogo pass activity. It just needed to be used the same day as sunsplash. So glad we did it but just wished we got wet first since it was hot.

Ella came along and used Elliot’s pass. Elliot and Berlin went earlier in the summer using last year’s pass of Elliot’s and Andrew’s if that makes sense. We renew mid summer every year.

Zara and Andrew will go another time on a date.

Rupert took his own score for mini golf, Beatrix did her own thing and I took score for Ella, Avery and me.

Avery got 61, Ella 63, and me 57 so a pretty good day for me. This was out of 18 holes. I’m sure Andrew would have crushed my score. ;)

We were there until after dark and even after bedtime since we went after Rupert and Bea’s first day of school. Not ideal but glad we went. First time not getting iceberg ice cream in a few years but we didn’t have as much time. It was a good time though.

 

Sedona Slide Rock

Slide rock is so fun! Only a 30 minute drive from Flagstaff, this was the perfect time to go.

Look how beautiful it is there!

Beatrix took this photo:)

We had a slow start since we woke up a bit cold in Flagstaff, we arrived at Slide Rock at 8:30am and it was overcast.  Zara started reading and Rupert kept asking when we were going to leave.

Before long we were all having fun with Beatrix in the lead! She was the bravest of us all, although she and Rupert but got all the way wet together.

We had been wanting to come back for a while. The last time we came here Andrew and Elliot were on a super activity in Utah and Bea was a baby. We need to come back again soon!