Family Photos

Finally I am getting around to looking at and printing the family pictures that my niece, Amanda, shot for us a few months back. Here are some of them:

And some of us goofing around:

Coping with Loss

    Moving away from my friends has been especially hard. I miss them all like crazy. One of my dearest friends, Kristina, moved away the week after we did. They moved to South Korea for three years. Honestly, it is killing me. I miss their whole family. We used to get together a couple times a week. They were kind of our family away from our family.

 

 

Liam, me, Kristina, & Eun Chai

    My children are missing them something fierce, too. I am coming to realize that loss is a part of life, though. I think it is even an important part of life.

I was thinking about that as I was driving to school yesterday. I was feeling the weight of this loss of friendship as I was driving and pondering on the idea of loss in general. A family that used to be in our ward lost their baby to a fire and the dad was mentioning how they would have been celebrating their child's first birthday this week. Another friend shared how they just lost their sister to cancer this week. Each and every one of us experiences loss many times throughout our lives, whether it be big or small. I know it is natural, but I also feel there is some greater purpose behind it. I believe it is important for our development. 

    I am not good at loss. Not at all. So, though often people blog about things they know a lot about, I am blogging today about something I know nothing about. My coping techniques are awful when it comes to loss. It is a such a deep pain that I often ignore it, but I know this is terribly unhealthy. 

    I am sure there are other people out there who struggle with knowing how to deal with loss, so I thought I would pose a question out to my readers in search of a way for us to all help each other. I love to learn from other people. Each person has a unique way of dealing with the experiences that come their way, and we all have so much to gain from each other. Though my losses that I am dealing with right now are comparatively small, they are still mine. They still hurt. And I know there are others out there with even bigger losses that are looking for ways to cope, as well, so I figured it would be helpful to ask how people cope with loss on here so others can benefit from it, too.

I would love if you would be willing to leave comments on one or both of these questions.

1) How do you cope with loss?

2) Have you or anyone you know ever had an situation with loss where you have gained or grown from the experience?

If you want to share in private instead, here is my email: jillflythe@gmail.com

Thank you in advance for your courage in sharing!

Assateague Revisited

Crikey! Life is crazy sometimes, isn't it? I don't know if I should play catch up since I haven't blogged in awhile, or just move forward. Hmm... maybe quick recap and move forward. I like that.

We camped yet more in July. Assateagued two weekends in a row with two different families that we love.

We went with the Maglebys the first weekend. I was out swimming and saw a dorsel fin go by. My first thought was - shark. But it felt friendly for some reason and was swimming by so I just stayed out there. Then Will came out by me and we saw that they were dolphins! There was a pod of about 15 or so swimming right by us. It was incredible. Like some enchanted feeling. The kids saw jellyfish and we saw many sting rays. It was wildlife weekend. We boogey boarded. We went bike riding and laughed around the campfire at night when the kids went to bed. Our friends just moved to Korea for the next three years so it was nice to have this last hurrah with them.

The following weekend we went with the Gordons. My friend, Karen, had never been boogey boarding, so that was a fun new venture. We walked on the beach collecting shells. This year we didn't get attacked by wild horses, so that was a plus. We went into Ocean City and saw some sand art and some kind of kite flying thinger jigger. Good times. It is now officially a yearly tradition for us to go to Assateague with them.

Ocean City. I dug the Jesus sand art.

We realized that this summer we camped six weekends in a row!! It was so crazy, but seriously one of the best summers I have ever had. Unfortunately, though, we were completely exhausted by the following week when we had to pack up and move. Because of our constant camping, we didn't have much of a chance to pack before the moving week. We packed our whole house in three days! Thank goodness for friends who helped with kids or feeding us or loading the truck. We moved on a Thursday. We finished moving Kari and Doug into their place (along with many Goodwill and dump runs). The next day we moved Amanda and Brenna into their apartment. My dad and stepmom came in to visit that night. Saturday Valarie (my stepmom) and I cooked all day long for Tommy's missionary farewell luncheon the next day. The following week we cleaned out and painted our house. Then we cleaned out Kari and Doug's old house. Tommy left that week on his mission. Then we tried unpacking, too. It was the most exhausting two weeks ever!! I am sooo glad to be through that time. We are adjusting to our new life now. It is still a big transition, but I feel so good about it, and it is going better than I even pictured.

Fourth of July Follies

My favorite holiday is Independence Day. By far my favorite holiday. Most people miss their families when they are away at Christmas. Not me. During the Fourth of July is when I get weepy. All day long I think about what the family is probably doing right now. This year I didn't want it to be like that. I decided to pull off a week of Independence Day fun to distract me and keep me from wishing I was there. It was a great success. We had a blast. Every day that week we did something themed around the Fourth.

We had many Fourth of July themed meals and snacks. 

Those pinwheel cookies were a challenge to make, but so rewarding when they came out.

For Family Home Evening Evee was in charge of the snack, so she dipped and decorated those strawberries.

And that magical striped drink was pretty cool. Just make sure you fill the cup with ice before pouring. 

We lit off fireworks with our neighbors. The little neighbor boy, Adam, kept shouting, "Do it again!" after each one. Liam ran in the house and hid once the bigger ones came out.

We pulled together a last minute Fourth of July camping trip. Everywhere to camp was booked up, so we just left in hopes of something working out. Sure enough, every time we decide to throw caution to the wind and go, something works out. And it tends to be more of an adventure than if we had been able to do it the regular old dependable way.
We are doing Park Quest again this year. Maryland offers a certain number of families access to state parks to be able to do quests at each one. Twelve of the twenty-four quests must be completed by Labor Day to go to the big family picnic/activity at the end of summer. So our Park Quest passport brought us to yet another state park. On the fourth we went to Rocky Gap State Park. Will took the kids camping there last summer, but it was my first time. I loved it. With our pass we were able to rent two canoes for free (only three people can go in a canoe). Liam sure didn't like it, but the rest of us had fun. The wind was so strong, and because Will and I each had only small children in the canoes with us, we both weighed down the back of the canoes making the wind push up under the front of the canoes. We discovered that by canoeing backwards when the winds came we were able to go against the wind without any problem because the back end sunk into the water due to our large hineys. I'm sure we looked pretty weird out there rowing backwards, but hey, if it works...

 On Lake Habeeb. You gotta say that name out loud. Too fun, right?

After canoeing we swam at the beach and played on the playground. We searched around a few places, and finally found some super cheap camping at Paw Paw Tunnel, which is a mile long tunnel on the C&O Canal Trail. So of course we had to hike to the other end of the tunnel, too. Cool thing was some random drunk guys came and shot off big ol' fireworks near where we were camping. Maybe not legal or so safe, but we dragged our sleeping bags over and watched. Belle said that was her favorite part of the trip.

Since Belle and Will's backpacking trip, when we go camping they sleep in their hammocks and the younger two and I sleep in our smaller tent.

The next day we hit up another quest at the Washington Monument.

This monument is right off the Appalachian Trail where Will and Tommy hiked for a few days, so we hiked along some of the trail just to check out a bit of what they had hiked.

After the Monument we went to South Mountain Creamery where you can watch (and smell) the cows while you eat delicious ice cream.

Upon seeing the cows Liam plugged his nose and said, "Ew, gross." Even later when he saw this picture of the cows all he said was, "Poop." 

Then we watched fireworks that night at the Antietam National Battlefield. It was incredible, I tell ya. First they had a concert by the Maryland Symphony, which was quite marvelous. Immediately following were the fireworks. It was by far the longest firework show I had ever witnessed. The finale was so intense I said to Will while it was going, "I can't handle the stimulus overload!" All the while they were blasting off cannons. It was amazing. Definitely worth a repeat.

We toured pretty much all of Maryland in those two days. We were all over the place, but it was so fun. It ended up being one of my happiest Independence Days ever.

Loads of Camping

We have been camping so much lately that I have not had a chance to blog...or do much of anything else. Literally I get a couple loads of laundry done and we pack them up to go again. Luckily camping is at the top of my favorites list. Will has been out of work for a bit while waiting for his license to come in (Which it did yesterday. Yay! Will is officially a therapist! Doesn't feel real though, yet.), so we have decided to take that open time and play hard. It has been lovely. I feel happy and blessed. Today I am prepping for another camping trip tomorrow.

Here's from some of our latest adventures:

We have been on many day hikes in addition to these camping trips. I tell you what - party on!

Just wondering when all this is going to catch up to us....

Belle's First Backpacking Adventure

A couple weeks ago Will took Belle on her first backpacking adventure. They hiked seven miles along the C&O Canal and then slept in the hammocks that Will made that night. In the morning they hiked another three miles. I am thrilled that my little lady could do all that and have such fun doing it.

Evee, Liam, and I had our own adventure. We hiked along our river. We also had a great time.

The Rose Ball

I went dancing last night with this cool dude:

Every year our church puts on a dance called the Rose Ball. It's a formal-ish dance for the adults. They hire a local jazz band to play for us and have entertainment laced in amongst the dancing throughout the night. This year they hired a Polynesian performance group to show dances from various Polynesian Island countries while dressed in full costume. So fun. They also had two professional Samba dancers perform and then they had two couples dance with them while being judged like Dancing with the Stars. The cultural hall is decorated like a wedding with white lights and paper lanterns. This year they also had the pathway to the cultural hall lit up with an archway to the entrance. There is always a nice spread of food, too. We had a fabulous time. Will had me giggling like a school girl with all of his silly dance moves. I love that after ten years he can still make me laugh like that.

Rose Ball past