Youth Conference
In years past the Blandings have hosted an annual LDS Homeschooled Youth Conference and so they did it again. This time they held it in a friend's barn and did some service on his property. It worked so well they will try to do it again! Matt was on the planning committee and he planned a great conference. The theme was U R GR8! It was about how pop culture influences us and how to stay pure in an ever increasingly wicked world. Steve gave a great presentation (he should give it to every youth) and the other speaker was great too.
The activities were fun. They built castles out of small paper cups and played some team building games and then helped the Heywoods clean up a piece of their farm as their service project.
Of course no youth conference is complete without food and dancing. Families were invited to join for the food and dancing. It was a great night and of course next year we will do it all over again.
Great people make a great conference.
Show us Jessie how to use those hedge trimmers.
The best kind of leaders get their hands dirty and sweat a little.
Graduation
It is so nice to report that the third child, Mike, has graduated from high school. Doreen signed his diploma and now he just has to finish his AA with Bellevue College. Mike's plans are to finish his AA in June of 2014 and then go on a mission. When he isn't studying he is working hard to earn money to pay for his mission.
We finally got around to getting his Senior pictures done.
Mike, Class of 2013
Jessie's New Love
I FINALLY put Jessie into a dance class and Jessie fell in love. She started with Ballet and added a Jazz class once soccer was over. The end of the year recital was this month and Jessie was in prime form. She was beautiful and it was delightful to see her be so graceful and having fun.
She especially loved getting her hair in the tight ballet bun (she had to do it because I has no hair skills) and putting on stage make-up!
She invited a couple of friends and we took them out for milkshakes after the recital.
Her Jazz class. She is the tall one in back.
Her favorite was ballet.
A Personal Record
It has been a long time since Doreen had a personal record in her athletic pursuits but this month she did. She ran the Duvall Half and had a great race. The race was a flat out and back and she busted her butt and ran the whole thing and PR'd by 3 minutes and she finally has a finish line photo that she likes. Of course it helps when you yell to the photographer, "3, 2, 1" and then jump!
Celebrating!
Jackson gets Hitched
Well in truth my nephew got hitched last month, but his party was in June and I couldn't pass up a chance to go see my favorite nephew (he earned that title by sending photos of Jason from the MTC) and his new bride. I took some photos and actually I got a good one.
