Maria

{phfr} – last week of school

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{pretty}

This rosemary is the first potted plant I’ve been able to keep alive indoors longer than six weeks:

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Me and my sister last week.

My neighborhood was up for the local free junk pickup, and I saw this table in a pile by the side of the road. I instantly ran over to inspect: it was in definite need of some TLC, but was solid wood and nothing was broken.

I immediately knew I wanted to salvage it, and quickly called my sister on the phone. “Maria, come help me get this table! It’s won’t fit in my car!”  She did, and now we both swear by dumpster diving. The two of us must have made a funny sight pushing the table into the back of the truck, where it just fit. I have no experience whatsoever refinishing furniture, but it appears I am going to learn.

 

{happy}

No picture, but finally found a good place to live after graduation!

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Again, no picture. Just use your imagination to envision the state of my desk and room through finals week.

 

Swing Time

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An empty patio at a local ice cream shop, ten empty minutes waiting for our order, and an overhead radio playing thirties swing music – ingredients, as anyone can see, for a spontaneous dance party.

The evening was calm and quiet, as it was only ten minutes till closing. Maria, John and I started the festivities with a Jitterbug step, and it didn’t take long to draw in the younger siblings. Landon, Maria, and I have been ballroom dancing for a years, taking lessons with our homeschool group. Johnathan is much more recent learner, but already is able to hold the rhythm and spin his partner like a pro. The younger children are good imitators and the resulting scene looked like an organized dance floor. We even caught the attention of a few of the other customers-and spied few a trying to imitate our moves.

2015’s Best Unposted

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Maria as Queen of France in the January 2015 homeschool one act play competition:

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Landon in his last one act play competition-his performance won a ‘best actor’ medal.

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I think he’d fail the marshmallow test:

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Apparently we invited a dwarf to Daniel’s birthday party:

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Claire slipped smoothly into her role as big sister. Benjamin is only one week old here!
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Landon assists Maria in making a Galadriel costume.

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Musician in training:

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2015

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2015, have you flown by already? The older I get, I realize that a year really isn’t very long at all. Looking through all the photos the family has taken over the last year, it  does seem that we fit a lot into 2015.

January I began actual nursing classes, after two years of wading through the prerequisite science and psychology classes. The one-month interim course at my school fits a whole semester’s material into three weeks , so bitter January passed quickly. The class finished with a role playing presentation that was fun to work on and present to the class:

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Through February and March, both Mom and the excitement for our newest family member grew steadily:

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April brought the welcome spring, with flowering bulbs, spring sun, and crazy baby chickens in the mail:
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May was filled with celebrations following one after the other. Benjamin arrived safe and sound shocking us with his head of curls.  Landon graduated from homeschool life, and several members of the family received sacraments:

Maria was confirmed:

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as well as Johnathan:

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and Alexander:
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In June Benjamin also received his first sacrament!

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In July I flew with an amazing group to Alaska on a two week mission trip through FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University students). This was my first trip away from home by myself, so it was very new and exciting experience:

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The family spent August enjoying the last warm, school-free days of Summer:

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And this must suffice for September, October, November, and December, as I only narrowly escaped being buried alive in homework this semester. I passed a lot of exciting nursing milestones such as first injection given, first patient cared for, and learning to understand a million different lab values.

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 Now, forward on to 2016!

Watching the Perseids

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Well, the skies were perfect last night, and John, Maria, and I watched the meteors for more than an hour and a half. We were very comfortable, laying with pillows and blankets on the fort of our swing set.  (We were thankful Dad never did put a tarp on the top.) It was the first year I’ve ever been comfortable watching the Perseids. Usually I can only bear to be outside for fifteen minutes before being driven inside by blood-sucking insects, but the drought this year has reduced the mosquito population to zero.

Despite the fact we were on the outskirts of a city, there were close to thirty shooting stars total, including one of the longest and brightest meteors I have ever seen! We also saw two bats fly directly overhead. The first hovered over Maria and John just moments after I had gone inside for a moment, and it scared them so much they grabbed the blankets and ran inside!

Here is the total number of meteors each of us saw last night:

Sarah:16

Maria:14

John: 8

Landon (only watched for fifteen minutes): 3

Mom (only watched for fifteen minutes): 3

I’m very happy we were able to get a good show, since the next few nights look like they might be cloudy.

Wedding Family Tree

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For Mom and Dad’s eighteenth wedding anniversary last week, Landon, Maria, and I put together this family tree as a present. Maria cut the ribbon, Landon did the calligraphy, (Boy, did Landon improve his calligraphy skills. He ended up rewriting the first names at the end, he was so much better) and I drove to Hobby Lobby for the materials (oh, how I lu-uuuve my drivers license).

 

A big thank you to my Grandparents who went through thick photo albums to find all of the photographs!

Pictures From Nutcracker

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Last month Maria, Johnathan and I were in our ballet studio’s production of the Nutcracker this year. We performed it eight times after practicing once a week for three months.  Maria played a flower blossom, Johnathan was a toy soldier, and I was Clara. It was a very fun part to play, and I loved my costume.

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A Walk in the Woods

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Last weekend, Dad decided we should take advantage of the beautiful weather (which will end to quickly) and take a motorcycle ride to a hilly forested area with the rest of the family following behind in the van. It was lovely, with the trees beginning to turn colors, and the whole family enjoyed it immensely. I shot these pictures:

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Garden Tour

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On Wednesday my Grandma took Maria and I on to a Garden Tour. It was a lovely day, cool with a fresh breeze blowing gently. We rode a school bus (for the first time)  to five different gardens around our city. The gardens ranged in size from a normal backyard to a giant estate, and were very fun to look at. I took a lot of pictures of the flowers we saw, and some of them turned out very well:

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This water lily is my favorite.

This water lily is my favorite.

There was a man taking pictures of flowers, and he showed me a couple nice pictures he had taken of bees on flowers.. He asked me if I had any pictures of bees. When I replied I hadn't, he chided me for "Not watching out for those bee pictures." So I stood in front of a patch of coneflowers and waited, hoping to shoot a bee photograph. A few moments later, Maria called my attention to what she thought was a monarch butterfly. I quickly turned my camera in its direction, and as it alighted on a flower, I was able to snap a picture. At the same time, I realized it wasn't a monarch, but a butterfly I had never seen before. Later I found out it was either a Aphrodite Fritillary or a Great Spangled Fritillary. (They are distinguished from each other only by a small marking on the underside of the wings, which I never got to see.)

There was a man taking pictures of flowers, and he showed me a couple nice pictures he had taken of bees on flowers.. He asked me if I had any pictures of bees. When I replied I hadn't, he chided me for "Not watching out for those bee pictures." So I stood in front of a patch of coneflowers and waited, hoping to shoot a bee photograph. A few moments later, Maria called my attention to what she thought was a monarch butterfly. I quickly turned my camera in its direction, and as it alighted on a flower, I was able to snap a picture. At the same time, I realized it wasn't a monarch, but a butterfly I had never seen before. Later I found out it was either a Aphrodite Fritillary or a Great Spangled Fritillary. (They are distinguished from each other only by a small marking on the underside of the wings, which I never got to see.)

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Tea Time

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It’s snowing. Again. Winter was fun at first, especially with the ice skates I got for Christmas, but now it is beginning to drag. I have found, however, that a nice, hot cup of tea really helps to warm up the whole day. Apparently the rest of the family thinks so, too, because no sooner than had I made a cup a few days ago than everyone decided they needed to have some as well. Even Daniel was in on it, saying ‘tea’ in sign language over and over again until we got him his very own cup.

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Daniel signing "Tea".

Daniel signing "Tea".

Mom’s Birthday

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Sunday was both the end of daylight savings time and Mom’s birthday. We went out to Johnny Carinos, my favorite restaurant, where Mom got free tiramisu. The next day she opened a present that Landon, Maria, had I ordered her a birthday present and came a day late.

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We’ve been eying this statue of Our Lady for a long time, plotting to get it for her sometime. Once Mom was paging through the Leaflet Missal Catholic catalog, and she remarked that she had always liked that statue. Landon and Maria were with me, and they both winked and nudged me with their elbows at the same time. Thankfully, Mom didn’t see it.

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Sneaky

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Joseph(proudly holding up a pull-up): I kept my pull-up dry last night.

Maria: You did? Good boy! You get a gummy bear!

Joseph: (with a rather mischievous smile) I wore two pull-ups, see? This one’s wet, and this one’s dry !