Summer

We started June 1st with getting the house repiped. Wow! What an adventure! Next thing I knew, there were guys in almost every room of the house breaking the walls open. Then, other guys digging ditches in the yard. It lasted for 4 days. Our water pressure is now amazing.

I took the girls on a field trip with our home school friends to a local Buddhist temple in Pasadena. It was neat. We got to do a meditation class and got to meet some of the monks. I forgot to take pictures, so I took this one when we left!

My birthday was on June 7th. I'm at the age where it's not fun to say how old! Craig and I were blessed with a chance to go out to dinner for Thai food. We hadn't planned a thing, but my sister had sent me a gift of $ to go out and at the last second our neighbors watched our kids. It was nice, and we really needed it. Craig was bummed for getting laid off and we were thinking that we were moving which felt very stressful! It was a nice birthday. My sweet friend from church had a cake baked for me by another (professional cake maker) friend from church. It was soooo nice! I felt like the Lord gave me a very nice birthday and I hadn't planned a thing!







I took pictures when we went up to Leona Valley to pick cherries with Grandma Ginny and also when we had a fun summer solstice swim party with a bunch of home school friends, but they got lost with my lost camera! :( I also lost some cute pictures from the day we went to Chinatown. Thankfully, I got this one from Craig's cell phone. We'd been wanting to go to Chinatown ever since Chinese New Year but could never find the time. We finally made it at the end of June and had so much fun!! It is so fun to see all the unique treasures from China. We definitely want to go there next year for the Chinese New Year parade!

In July, we got 3 exchange students from Taiwan! Wow! We did it because we really needed the extra income that it brought. They stayed with us for two weeks and I made them breakfast and dinner and drove them to and from school every day. We had to rearrange our house a bit to accommodate them. We gave my girls my dad's queen bed and gave the exchange students a day bed from the garage and the girl's bunk beds. We put them in our school room. We had a lot of fun with them and they were very cute. They were 13 and 14--Betty, Lucy and Starly were their American nicknames.






I got to help give my dear friend Brieanne a blessingway, which is like a baby shower only more spiritual and supportive of the birth. Brieanne requested home made gifts and so I made her this needle-felted tapestry. I enjoyed making it so much!! I was surprised that I put so many pink roses on it when Brieanne doesn't really care for pink, but by the end of the shower, we all were positive that she was having a girl. (Not by an ultrasound!) I made a salad and deviled eggs. Brieanne got her tummy henna-tattooed and we all got henna tattoos. It was such a beautiful blessingway! I'm so happy for Brieanne! (By the way, she did indeed have a girl which I'll post more of later.)














I let my exchange students have a swim party with all of the friends from their school one night. It was a little crazy, but I survived it!

A few nights later, their time with us ended. This is from their last night that they were here and then from a dinner we got to go to to say goodbye to them. Our girls had fallen so in love with them, it was hard to say goodbye!















We had lots of swim parties, big and small, but I didn't get too many pictures because of the lost camera. Somehow I got this one, when the Nielsen girls came over to play. They are our super-good friends as you will see in more pictures/blog posts to come.












On July 31st, my sweet niece, Arianna, turned eight and was baptized. It was a beautiful baptism! I only got this one picture because we all rushed home to my brother's place. Then, it turned into a total party! We even ended up at the beach at the end!







In the middle, we got to give my youngest sister Cindy a baby shower. She was expecting a baby girl (who was born October 1st!) She got one of the most beautiful showers I've ever been to! My sister-in-law, Sandra, went all out. It was so pretty and the gifts were amazing!! I made her matching pearl and pink crystal bracelets for herself and for the baby and the little outfit she's holding. My gifts paled in comparison to all the other gorgeous outfits she got!!












This was the start of a week with almost all my family visiting. Cindy and Yvonne stayed for the week and Harold came up for a day. We did a lot of cleaning out (lots of my parents books, papers, etc.) We also had a lot of fun. We had a beach day, and we also celebrated Yvonne's birthday. I made her some cupcakes. We also got to go to an awesome Dodger game where they won 9-0!! That was a blast!! :)













While my family was visiting, Craig's cousin also came to visit. I only have this tiny blurry picture that was sent to us from a cell phone!! But we saw cousin Vince, his wife Patti, their kids Andrew and Elizabeth, cousin Richie and Aunt Mary. It was so nice because we don't get to see these cousins very often!!




One of the last things I did with my family was visit my mom and dad's graves. I miss them so much!! It has been a bit hard without them. We sang lots of songs about families and how families can be together forever.




After that, we went to a birthday party for Tristan!!









This last picture was right before the Kleven's drove away. These two love each other so much! Almost as much as they love their thumbs!!