We'll Always Remember the Blue and the White...

It's sort of a weird phenomenon to have our kids growing up in the same place we grew up, going to the same high school that we went to. While each new milestone with our kids is uncharted territory, somehow everything seems vaguely familiar...

Jessie on her way to Bingham Ball with her friend, Danny.

Not a great picture, but this shows the color of her dress better

The guys from the block.
These dudes aren't in high school yet, but their parents went to Bingham too. SoJo has a lot of "repeat customers" - people who grew up here & who have settled back here with their own kids...so we have a lot of shared history.  By the way, I love this picture. It will be a classic one day. 

Noble lettered in Cross Country at Bingham this last week.  (Deja vu.)
Noble with his friend Jacob Haynes and their coach (Coach Arbogast retired two years ago). A  little brag time: Noble was the only freshman boy to letter, and was awarded the freshman mvp plaque. He was born to run. Also, as Mike pointed out, he was recognized for wearing the best tie (Mike is taking credit for the fashion-forward gene).

So I took Noble on a history tour to the trophy case where still hangs the 1990 team cross country photo - my second year on the team and the year of their first state championship.  Good memories. 

Living full circle.

Overdue

The past two months in review (lots of pictures):

Noble's school Capstone project - he and some of his school friends played games and played music with residents at the Herriman Beehive home

Jessie started a job at Fiiz drinks of South Jordan

Noble started his summer job - washing windows in the neighborhood with his business, Bluesky Windows

A visit to the Payson Temple open house

Grace celebrated her 13th birthday with all of her buddies

We said good bye to the Henderson's who moved to Louisiana 

We had the opportunity to go on Trek with Jessie and Noble. Mike and I were a Ma and Pa. We went on Trek once before with our old stake 8 years ago. This was a totally different experience. Part of what made it special was being there with these two - even though we only saw them here and there over the 4 days. Here we are on the morning we left - still fresh and clean. Thanks Mom and Dad for sending the sweet Amish hat for Mike.

Mike and I with our Trek family - 2 from our ward

we did about 30 miles at Deseret Land and Livestock. 

Our kids - last night. 

Post-Trek - only a little worse for wear. 

We finally finished the backyard boulder wall. The kids ripped out the old retaining wall.

Sean and Kim came down to lend a little cat driving expertise.

With the rock wall finished, we sodded the hill at last! Mike put Noble, Jack and a bunch of the neighborhood boys to work.

Jack making breakfast for us his last morning with us. We enjoyed having him visit!

River helping Mike pick up a load of hay cubes. I have often been very frustrated with River over the past months - but he is finally starting to become a pretty good dog.

For Father's Day Tillman composed this tribute. We figured the 3 wishes pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Abner. This kid keeps us all on our toes.

An evening with the Utah Symphony

Sully turned 7!!

We heard the news that our little trailer - so happily situated in Torey, Utah for these past 15 years - burned down last week. So sad.

Noble's ingenuity: He and his friends rigged up this trampoline sprinkler with some sprinkler pipe, duct tape and zip ties.

Mike and Noble started the 4th of July by running the Riverton 5k. They placed 2nd and 3rd in their age groups. We thought this picture of Mike sprinting past these ladies at the finish line was awesome. Mike said it must have been REALLY embarrassing to have him pass you because the mom was saying to her daughter as he passed, "Don't worry. Its ok - we're just doing this for fun."  :)

4th of July festivities - we had about 30-40 people at the house for water games, a BBQ and fireworks. Big crowd. Big fireworks show. With the Bishop's firework connection, the whole neighborhood was alight with spectacular aerials.  It was awesome. I think Roy was the only one who was hit by shrapnel. Sorry Roy.

Baby E's ear protection

Some of the tamer fireworks

Mike arranged to have some of the Melton cousins over for dinner on Sunday night. We had a great time catching up! It was about 11:00 by the time we broke the party up.

For Abner's 4th birthday we spent the day at Seven Peaks, SLC. These two sharks had a great time!

Grace shopping for Abner's birthday presents in style. :)
She had a little incident at 4H this past week when her horse reared, then fell over backwards on her. It broke the saddle but Grace came out unscathed.

Which is more than Sully and I can say. We came away from our Seven Peaks day with a few battle wounds.We flipped the tube on one of the slides and Sully landed under me. After I righted the tube and we got back on, he spent the rest of the ride telling me, "Keep it safe, Mom. Keep it safe." ha ha haha He refuses any pity over these gashes - when I shook my head and said, "poor Sully", he immediately stopped me and said, "NOT poor Sully!" Love this kid.

Post Christmas Post

This has been a tender and memorable Christmas. Some good friends in our neighborhood lost their son to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophe last Sunday, 4 days before Christmas. This past month - as it became apparent that he would be passing soon, and especially this past week, there has been an outpouring of the spirit and fellowship in the neighborhood. We found out about his passing together as a ward when the Bishop stood up at the close of the Christmas choir program during sacrament meeting and announced that he'd just received the news. He then delivered a powerful testimony of the Savior, of Christmas and pronounced a blessing upon all of us. This experience has helped us to focus even more on the very real power of Christ's atonement and resurrection, and to follow Alma's direction "to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and...mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort." (Mosiah 18:8-9) In doing so, we have grown closer to each other and to the Savior. This is the miracle of Christmas. We have seen it in action this Christmas. I will never forget it.

We have also made some wonderful memories:

Making popcorn balls to give away (and eat!) with my Grandma Tiede 

(aka "the Popcorn Lady of Gila, New Mexico").

A miraculous evening out with the youth in our ward, buying sub-for-santa gifts for kids from the Angel Tree. Here we are with our group. (We had 5 other groups just like this one at different stores. Each of us buying for a different child.) I thought there was no way we could get all the things we had picked out within our budget, even though Brother Lassig admonished me to have faith. But when Devin the checker found out what we were doing he hooked us up with every discount in the book (and probably off the book). Like an episode of Extreme Couponing we watched in suspense as the total added up until he entered that final discount. 

We ended up 50 cents under budget, and a loud cheer erupted from check stand 9. Devin said it was the best thing that happened to him all day. I think it was probably the best thing that happened to all of us that day too. 

Doing some good in the world.

Making pomanders with Grandma Jacque. One of my favorite Christmas traditions!

 Christmas Eve dinner with most of the Melton clan (we so missed our Michigan Melton's!). 

Look how far little Paxon has come in just a year! What a miracle he is to us.

Watching Abner yawn his way through his preschool Christmas program.

A little video of the action. I love how Abner starts bellowing after Ms. Sandy's 2nd prompt to sing louder. In his defense, she only said louder, nothing about rhythm or articulation.

Rudolf from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

In the spirit of Christmas, I forgave Abner (after I had a little melt down) for doing this. 

2 days before Christmas (yes, that's sharpie -- and yes, Santa somehow overlooked this giant indiscretion -- among many that day).

Christmas morning magic.

This year I did something different. The kids would get 3 gifts each (besides something from Santa) representing the gold, frankincense and myrrh that the wise men brought to the Christ child. Gold would be a gift of wonder (something they wished for), frankincense - a gift of meaning, and myrrh - a gift of usefulness. This helped me to focus and simplify my gift-giving. It made the giving more personal and love-filled for me, as well as directing our thoughts back to the meaning of Christmas. I'm making this our new tradition.

(Somehow I missed getting a picture of Grace -- sorry Grace.)

 A quiet candlelight dinner on Christmas with our kids.

Christmas Day brought another gift of wonder for us (especially the kids): SNOW!!! It made everything so beautiful. There was a short time on Christmas when Mike and Jessie had taken the dog for a long walk, Abner had fallen asleep, and the other kids were quietly playing in the basement -- and I had the living room to myself, the Christmas tree, Christmas music softly playing, soup simmering in the kitchen and snow coming down out the window. I sat by myself on the sofa and just soaked up that perfect moment.

The next day we struck out with the Melton's for a short sledding excursion to the little hill by our old house...perfect for the little boys. Hot chocolate and conversation at our house after.

We spent a cold - but beautiful - night out at Temple Square with the Las Vegas Melton's and Grandpa Howard. It was so nice to spend this time with them.

Mike arranged for the brothers Melton (and Val and Pax and Grace and Grandpa) to go to a Jazz game together. Tim wore his John Stockton and Karl Malone socks.

Here is a clip from the Sullivan Christmas Eve nativity. To me, this is Christmas. I am so grateful for the gift of Christmas.

DSCN7210 from Angie Melton on Vimeo.