In the Very Merry Month of May

May, where did you go? This month just zoomed by so fast, I feel like we almost missed it! Without a doubt, we've had a whirlwind first three weeks of the month and we're certainly going to enjoy our vacation this next week-we could use a break from all the hoopla! Lem's softball season has kicked off, and he's sent seniors through their AP Government test, celebrated Senior Fun Day, Baccalaureate and Graduation, and finally, this last Thursday, the last day of school.

We said good-bye to our dear friends, the Bracketts as they started their journey to their new home in Texas :( We were so sad to see them go, Sycely especially had a rough time handling her friend Joslynn's leaving, but we plan on keeping in touch with them and are praying they will be back stationed in Alaska again some day. We had one last gathering with a few other families to bid them farewell as they headed down the Alcan to start their new adventure. It was a fun (final) time of food and fellowship and as always, was such a blessing.

Sycely had a ton of fun end of the year activities at school. They had spirit week, including a Crazy Hair Day and Duct Tape Day. Lem fashioned a smashing duct tape crown out of an old headband and some sequins that turned out simply fabulous. Her class also took a field trip to the zoo and I got to go as a chaperone which was lots of fun for both of us. She was able to visit her future 1st/2nd grade classroom for a little time to get to know her new teacher, too. They also had field day at school and celebrated the last day of school with special treats. We were sure to get some photos of her with her friends and her teacher before we said good-bye for the summer.

I got elected PTA Secretary at our last PTA meeting of the year so that will add to my responsibilities next year, which is actually pretty exciting; I've been waiting years to be active in the PTA and my times has finally come! The school year's over, summer's officially started, and the Aces won the Kelly Cup, all in all, a great end of May for us! The girls are super excited to spend the next week with Nanny and Papa. They're going to get to go on a 5 day camping trip to Homer and will get to see my Dad and Kate while they are there, too. Lem and I, are of course super stoked for our cruise. It's hard to believe it's finally, actually happening, after nearly two years of planning and dreaming, we'll be on our way in less than 24 hours now! I got a fresh, new haircut for the occasion and got myself a facial and took Sycely on a Mommy Date to get our nails done. The sunscreen and sandals are packed and my Kindle is loaded up with ebooks, Bahamas, here we come!

Mother's Day Weekend

Mother's Day weekend ended up including a semi-impromptu camping trip for our family. Nanny and Papa wanted to take the trailed out for a test run before their big camping trip to Homer with the girls while we're gone for our cruise so Lem, the girls and I jumped at the chance to get a little ways out of town and have some family, kicking-off-summer fun.

Lem was emceeing Dimond's Baccalaureate service on Saturday night so we weren't able to leave town until around 9:00 so the girls hit the highway with Nanny and Papa Saturday morning and Lem and I drove down on our own once Baccalaureate wrapped up. We got to Seward around 11:00 (just as it was getting dark!), after everyone else was already settled and sleeping. We snuggled into our little nest in the back of the Explorer, complete with an cozy air mattress and ghetto-style privacy curtains made from whatever we had in the car (blankets, coats, etc.)

We all enjoyed a trailer-made breakfast of sausage, pancakes, muffins and eggs in the morning, then set out for "town" to get some coffee and take a little walk to the harbor. We got to see a giant sea lion trolling for fish in the harbor and, as it started to sprinkle, headed over to the Sealife Center to check out the animals there. The girls had a great time seeing the animals and getting to see the seals and sea lions being fed. Sycely thought the touch tank was super cool (as did Mommy) and we even got to see a hermit crab vacate his shell and move into a new one! Super neat! Ella spent much of the tour looking for sharks, for whatever crazy reason :) I could have spent all day watching Woody and the other sea lions swim.
After we finished our Sealife Center adventure, we had some quick lunch and hit the road home. The girls road with Nanny and Papa and both napped much of the drive home. Lem and I enjoyed having 4 hours of highway time (down and back) to share conversation without being interrupted-what a special treat!

We shared a Mother's Day Family Dinner with Nanny, Papa, Ian and Kathryn once back in town. It was a tasty feast of beer battered halibut, vegetable skewers, corn fritters and special cupcakes for dessert. And, of course, we were showered with gifts from our families. I can't say there's any other better gift than time together with those I love the most!

Sycely's Spring Dance Recital

Sycely had her spring dance recital this month. The theme for the performance this year was Iridescence-all the numbers used songs that had colors in the titles. Sycely's group performed to a very upbeat version of True Colors. As you can see they wore some pretty wild, neon, 80s style outfits to accompany their "funky" number. Miss Theresa introduces some of the jazz moves at the end of the K/1st ballet class and their number included alot of those moves, rather than just the traditional ballet moves. Miss Theresa was a little worried about our little "bun head" (i.e. a dancer whose forte is the classical ballet style) being able to loosen up enough to embrace this "funky" number, but she certainly managed to bring the "funk." Miss Theresa kept coaching them to be "funky" and have "attitude" and Sycely took that to heart and pulled out all the stops.

Hoppy Easter!

Easter involved all the usual fun and celebrating for our family: egg dyeing, baskets of treats, church, hunting eggs, family dinner and the like. We joined forces with the Gibsons to dye eggs this year. Scarlett, Summit, Sycely and Ella had a great time drawing on their eggs and dipping them in the dye, creating all kinds of creative designs. We followed up our egg dipping with a traditional Good Friday chili/cornbread muffin dinner ;)

On Saturday of Easter weekend, we attended the egg hunt at our church. Every year our church hosts a community egg hunt as an outreach to families in our area. Both girls got a paper with letters and symbols on it and they searched for eggs labeled with the letters and symbols until they'd collected on of each. Then they turned in their empty plastic eggs for a bag of candy and other treats. We invited my cousin Danny's girls and the girls were excited to get to see them and have a little time to play together on the playground after collecting their eggs.

Easter morning kicked off with Easter basket treats and pancakes with Easter designs on them. Then we headed off to church which was in itself a special kind of service! The Sunday before Easter one of our pastors had said, "Next Sunday, there's going to be a celebration here! So, bring your noisemakers and foam fingers, cause we're having a party. Jesus is risen!" So, of course, I took him seriously, and after encouragement from some of our friends and church staff, I showed up Easter Sunday with my noisemakers and foam fingers! We sported them with pride as we joined our Church family in celebrating our risen Lord with enthusiasm.

After church we got the girls some lunch and did a little photo shoot with them and our bunnies. Below are some of the photos we took of them in their Easter dresses with Mr. Hopps and Silly Billy:

Then, it was the time everyone's been waiting for: hunting for Easter eggs. Apparently, the Easter Bunny came while the girls were eating lunch and littered our lawn with eggs! The girls were quick to gather them all up and start enjoying the treats that were inside.

Since Nanny and Papa were on vacation in Arizona, hosting Easter family dinner fell to us, and since it was just us and Ian and Kathryn (a smaller crowd) we decided to go with something low maintenance and high taste-homemade pizza! We enjoyed a tasty pizza dinner that didn't take all day to cook, my first attempt at devilled eggs and strawberry shortcake for dessert. All in all, and fantastic Easter!

April

April always begins our end-of-the-school-year-busyness and this year was no exception. The snow eventually stopped falling and started melting. Enough so that we were able to rake and actually hunt for Easter eggs on the front lawn this year! By the end of the month, Ella and I were burning calories and saving gas by riding the bike (with her in the trailer) for some of our errands like grocery shopping.

Lem and Sycely are both winding down their school years with lots of special events. It’s hard to believe our little Boo is almost a first grader! Sycely got into Chinook’s Open Optional program so she’ll be experiencing a new, exciting, student-centered, self-directed educational setting for the rest of her elementary years. She’s learned so much and grown so much academically and socially this year. We are so proud of the little person she’s becoming and are so grateful for her teacher who’s invested in her all year (even if she did recently send her home with an ant farm because “she’s shown an interest in ants lately” and even wrote a report about them!) Lem’s hockey team finished their season by winning the league championship; now on to softball season. And of course, his year is wrapping up with all those other celebrations and occasions like Senior Fun Day, AP tests, Baccalaureate, Prom and Graduation!

We got to visit with both my Dad and Kate this month. Kate came into town for a few days for work training and we got to have her over for dinner and some visiting and fun with the girls. I was able to join her and her colleagues the next night for some shopping and dinner. It was a nice treat to get to spend some one-on-one girl time with her here in the big city.

We also met up with my Dad for a few hours in Soldotna on the weekend. We met up and their newly built, super awesome park and let the girls play for a while then headed to McDonald’s for lunch and the world’s messiest ice cream cones :)

Prom was also a big event for us this month. Nanny and Papa kept the girls overnight while Lem and I had dinner and attended the dance. The planning crew did a pretty great job of transforming the gym into an Arabian oasis, complete with tents, ice sculptures and floor pillows.
Sycely’s such a big girl that she’s been getting to do some pretty cool big girl stuff, like going to a movie with Uncle Ian and Aunti Kathryn. She’s also gearing up for her upcoming dance recital where her group is performing to a very big girl hip hop version of True Colors in some wild and crazy (or funky as Sycely refers to anything related to this number) neon, 80s style outfits. Ella is, well, Ella! She’s a character and is so perceptive that she’s constantly surprising us with her insights. She’s weaned off her “security panties” and is strictly attached to her new elephant lovies. She picked out the fabric and I sewed 5 or 6 for her so we have LOTS of extras in case we need to wash one, misplace one, or who knows what else! It’s so crazy to think of her as an almost-pre-schooler! Despite the fact that she talks like she’s 16, she’s still a tiny, scrappy little thing and she’s just a crack up. She sure does love her big sister though, and has started giving hugs to all her friends at school in the morning when she says good-bye to Sycely. It’s so fun to listen to the two of them playing together and assigning roles and playing out scenes they make up together.

Like, much of the world, I somehow caught the Royal Wedding bug and spent a lot of evenings watching TLC and BBC specials on all sorts of Royal Family subjects. While I didn’t stay up on night watching the live coverage of the wedding, I did host a Royal Wedding Tea Party that afternoon to watch the replay of the wedding with my girlfriends. Bust out the party dresses and oversized hats! Some of us even busted out our wedding dresses for the occasion. It was a fun little party for us girls. I made a sign for the door, decorated with rose petals on the floor, and hanging red and white decorations, and red and white flowers. We enjoyed some delicious cucumber sandwiches, cookies, mini muffins, fruit and of course, tea!
So, that’s April. Now on to May, which will bring the start of softball, Sycely’s dance recital, the end of the school year and the start of summer! And of course, Lem and I get to go on our long-anticipated cruise to the Bahamas!!!

Passing Down the Crown

As my year as Mrs. Alaska came to a close, I had so many thoughts and feelings about my experience-enough for a book (don't worry, I will save most of them for my book and not try to squeeze them all into this blog posting!) First and foremost I am so grateful-to God for giving me this opportunity and growing me into the woman He's designed me to be, to my family and friends for all their support, prayer and love this year and always, to my sponsors and supporters for their generous hearts and for believing in me enough to invest in me. There are so many moments from my reign that I will look back on fondly, and proudly, and I can honestly say I have no regrets-nothing left undone, or unsaid. It was bittersweet saying good-bye to my time as Mrs. Alaska and the opportunities for service it brought, but I know opportunities to show God's love and advocate for children and families will always present themselves in my life. They were plentiful before and during this year and I have no doubt that they will continue to be so in the future. I am so incredibly blessed by all the memories I made this year, and especially by the friendships and partnerships that I formed. I will forever be grateful for the chance to invest in the pageant world, our community, and most importantly people.

The 2011 pageant brought together 6 of Alaska's most motivated women as they competed for the crown. It was such a delight to get to know each of the contestants and to learn about their passions and visions for our state. It was great to build up friendships I already had with some of the contestant I already knew, while making new friends with the ones I didn't. We had such a fun time sharing a meal together and just having a chance to talk with each other, get to know each other more and share the excitement of the pageant experience.

It was special to sit with them during their judge's interview on pageant morning and feel that I could call each of them friend and celebrate the success of this accomplishment with them. I was thrilled that my good friend (and Mrs. AK successor) Renee Scott was MCing the pageant. It was so special to have someone who'd walked this incredible journey with me for two years now be there to share and celebrate my final house as Mrs. Alaska. She got to introduce me for my final farewell video and help my hand tenderly through the whole thing, commenting on some of our shared memories and the sweet photos as they played across the screen.

As always, the competition went so quickly that before I knew it, it was almost over. The ladies all did such an amazing job showcasing their platforms and answering questions about themselves on stage. They all looked spectacular in their swimsuits and so elegant in the evening gown portion. After a brief intermission, my video played, I took my final walk (Lem brought flowers up to me on stage with a hug and a kiss) and it was time for awards and crowning the new Mrs. Alaska. Our new titleholder, Brandy Wendler, has such a knowledge and passion for her platform (Celiac Disease) and I know that she will have an amazing year. She's a fellow woman of God and I'm excited to walk with her through this year as she seeks to put God first and bring Him glory in all things. I'm thrilled to be passing on the crown to someone who knows her beauty (inside and out) is designed by our Creator and her year, like mine, is sure to be guided by that truth. I couldn't have asked (or prayed!) for a better successor. I wish her all the best in her experience as Mrs. Alaska United States 2011 and will certainly be here for whatever support she needs, and if nothing else, as a new friend.

Lem and I joined a large group of friends for dinner and fun after the pageant. It had been such a long couple of weeks that I was exhausted and ready to call it a night, much earlier than I expected. We headed home (without dessert!) and I savored the memory as I took off my crown and sash for the final time.