Well June was busy just like the rest of this year has been. Finishing up school, daddy daughter ball, Raelyn's dance show, beach camping, and getting Claire's foot and ankle better and Raelyn's birthday...busy, busy, busy...I better just get to it!
This cat cracks me up! You leave any cupboard or small space open and he will go in to explore. He loves to go in the camper and this day he was in the storage space of the camper.
Gina planned a fun night in the park to play games and eat dinner with our church family. Claire was still in her cast.
This was the day Claire got her cast off! She was nervous to get the pins pulled and was worried it would really hurt. We were going to a new physician assistant, but she turned out to be super nice and really great!
They took the cast off this time before they took the x-rays. These are the x-rays with the pins still in obviously.
This picture the doctor was showing me that her bones were all healing up along with the original pictures of her bones. She explained that her bones just slid along the growth plate, but after 6 weeks new bone was growing and she was ready to start putting weight on it. She had come a long way as far as her bones healing, but still had a long way to go as for healing her scar, her heart, and growing her confidence that she could walk again and trust her leg again.
The cast was off and she came home in walking boot to give her the stability and safety she had felt in the cast, yet be able to start putting weight on it and walk again. The first week she was supposed to just put on about 25% of her weight on her foot. So she was still using crutches and getting used to just putting her foot on the ground again after 6 weeks.
On Friday night we went down to Port Orchard for a going away party for our friends the Days. Meg and Lance were with us in Japan and are sweet friends. They moved away now to Atlanta, Georgia. This was all the ladies that night. It was fun to catch up with all these people from Hans' work, who we don't see often because most of them live down in Port Orchard.
Look at these cute pets!
This was another Wednesday meet up in the park Badminton was played by many and the kids made an amazing fort out of sticks!
And then it was time for the favorite part for the girls! The dance! They had such a good time and Ashia did a great job putting together fun dance stuff this year. Claire sat out because she wasn't able to put full weight one her leg yet so she took pics for me.
Aubrey and Raelyn did some knee boarding!
Overall, it was a good month. It was challenging in many ways for me as I helped Claire through her leg healing process. There was lots of gardening and work I did, we finished up school, it was hard to only have one dancer on stage and many other things, I know I am already forgetting, Many hard things, but even in the HARD, God does bless us immensely and helps us to grow in our faith and dependence on him.
Claire was practicing her badminton even though she needed to sit to play. She was still doing pretty well!
Daddy Daughter Ball 2022 was the second weekend of June and it turned out beautifully. It was another fun night for the dads and daughters of our church. A fun night for dads to pour into their daughters and really show them love and how a man should treat a girl. It is always a busy day for me as I finish up prep, sometimes cook, and then getting the girls ready to go and taking a few pictures before we go.
Here are the pictures of the foyer all set up with a teal and purple theme this year.
Pictures of the girls before I left to finish up preparations.
A proud daddy with his beautiful girls!
And a picture of me and the girls because I forgot to get one of us on Mother's day.
This year I really liked the craft I chose for the girls. It was a pencil holder made from a tin can with wooden sticks around it and washi tape and ribbon. They turned out really cute!
Then the dads and daughters had a devotion time. Here is my sweet family.
Then it was time for dinner and games. This year we did lasagna, caesar salad, and garlic bread. Dessert was ice cream sundaes.
This cutie pie with little Stellie...
On this day we had a retiring from La Leche League party in the park. Te two gals that took over for Ashia and I decided to have this little party for us, which was really sweet. Ashia, Kari and I all retired in late 2020 I believe. It was time to be done. I was feeling old and like my time for leading had passed and frustrated with many things that LLL was starting to do, that coupled with not being able to meet in person, it was just time. I wish I would have gotten some pics of the sweet ladies that came, but I didn't. There were only a few, but it was nice to see the ones that came. Only the younger two girls came and played with the Carlsen girls. It was a fun but chilly afternoon.
On this Monday afternoon the girls had a little rewards ceremony for sound learning. For Olivia it was her last and I was kind of sad. She had two classes which were pretty hard and took some grit to get through. She got an achievement award for both meaning she got higher than a 95% of both classes. The first class she is getting an award for (from Tess) was for Chemistry. The second set of pics was Olivia getting her English/writing and reading (The Lord of the Rings series) awards from Mrs. Pope.
Claire had two classes, but only got an award in one. She took the Narnia English class, but was just barely under the 95% for the award. But she got an award in her Life Science class. She had to hobble down on her crutches to get her award.
That same night we and watched our friends at their Norweigan dance performance. It was very cute and fun to watch. Very different from what my girls do, but very cute!
Not sure where Kinzie is, but they were cute!
Cute shoes heading out to Piper. They are just getting so big....so, so, so fast!
On June 16th, Raelyn had her dress rehearsal for her show that was on June 17th. Since you can't get good pictures (or suppose to take any pictures) at the show, I took these ones the night of her rehearsal. I loved her costume and she looked so pretty and did so well dancing! She is really a natural dance.
These pics were taken with my cell while I was filming...
And here is the video from the rehearsal.
Next was her jazz routine. Again cute outfit! And I loved this dance because she really showed her personality in it and it was fun!
These are from my cell phone....
And here is the jazz video from the rehearsal.
A few pics of us outside after rehearsal.
We have a tradition of doing end of school doughnuts with the Mills at Sluys. So we chose this morning to grab Nordic coffee and then Sluy's doughnuts in the water front park. All these kids! Another year down!!
And my girls...finished up 10th grade, 8th grade, 5th grade, and 3rd grade!
The Friday night was Raelyn's dance show. We were not supposed to record or take pictures but we snuck these videos, and a few shots. She did a great job! The recording isn't the best...sorry about that.
It was hard for me only having one dancer this year. Mostly sad. Sad Aubrey and Olivia weren't dancing. Sad that Claire had broken her leg and was unable to dance. It ws also hard to watch the dances that Claire would have been in and just think back over all the hard we had been through making it so she couldn't be in the dance. It was all hard, but I also love watching Raelyn dance and was so proud of her!
Ballet dance...
Jazz dance
Kelsey got to come with us to watch the show so that was fun! Here are the girls after the show.
At home I did some pictures of her in her beautiful costume! Isn't she just he cutest?!!
Look at this crazy snail we found on our wood pile!
My flowers started blooming! I love roses! I need to work on my roses, as they are not doing well where I have them planted.
And then it was time for our 3rd annual trip to the ocean with the Mills. We had a great 3 days with decent weather and warm enough to even get some sunburns. We got there on Father's day and after dinner (I think) we headed to the ocean because we had to see the water and play in the sand.
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| So Beautiful!! |
Poor Claire was still in her boot so we would wrap it in a plastic bag so it wouldn't get a bunch of sand in it when we were ate the beach.
It was a beautiful night and the ocean is always so pretty and so majestic! It screams of the glory of God our creator!
The next day the sun was so glorious! Our spring had been so so cold, so we soaked up the sun, chatted around the fire and the kids played some games.
Shortly after that, we headed to the beach for some lunch, playing in the sand, flying kites, and corn hole.
The kids loved to dig big holes in the sand till they get to water.
We love flying kites at the beach. The kids had some tangle ups, but overall did pretty good getting them to fly and stay up!
And the kids shot some plastic arrows up in the sky to catch.
Even Ashia and I got in on the corn hole fun. Do you see the guys in the background??
My baby and I!! She was 9 almost 10 in theis picture. Getting so grown up!
After dinner we decided to just do a fire at the campground this night as we were tired and didn't want to head back to the beach for a fire.
While we were at the ocean, my mom was sending me pictures of the Kalispell and my brothers house as they were having major flooding there. My brothers yard and house was in danger of flooding. He had to pump his yard out every 3 or 4 hours to keep it from getting into his basement. I was praying and worried about it. Fortunately neither Josh's or my parent's house did end up flooding. They did have a lot of their crops lost underwater though.
Our second full day at the beach was more of the same. Kite flying, shooting plastic arrows, corn hole and this day was warm enough we even got in the water a bit.
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Claire felt pretty down before this trip, because she felt like she couldn't do all the things she wanted to, like run and ride bike, etc. So, I was glad to see her having fun doing things that she could do.
Had some kite tangles going on! Lol!
It was so pretty there! Look at these kids just playing and having so much fun!
Stelly and Me
We even ventured a little way into the water! It was COLD!!
After that it was time for our traditional venture into town to get ice cream!
Claire was still using her crutches, poor girl. I felt so sad for her, but soon after this she got rid of the crutches and was able to just use the boot for a few more weeks.
Love these girls! They are all getting so grown up these days! It really is unreal!
Claire tried riding her bike with her boot on and it went ok.
We started a new tradition of eating oysters from the grill this year! We picked up oysters on our way home from town and grilled them up. I think everyone tried them. Some liked them, some didn't, but we all tried. It was fun! I think it may be a new tradition each year! Here are some pictures of the kids trying them.
After dinner we had to head back to the beach for a beach fire and ending to our beach trip. We roasted s'mores, played some games, and finished off our trip with a bang and some family and kid photos.
Family picture!
And then the girls!
Mills boys and Tolf girls! I love that these kids are friends!
And then the kids being silly!!
Fire and s'more time! Last night of fun!
Playing catch the arrow!
The next day we packed up and headed home sad to leave the beach, but ready for the next adventure.
We got home and unpacked from our camping trip and packed up Olivia and Aubrey to go to a 3 night camp with our church. I was nervous about sending Aubrey as she seemed so young, but she had her good friend, Ava, to go with her so that was good. Ava was sick right before the trip, so I was thankful she got better and was able to go otherwise I might not have let Aubrey go. Claire decided not to go. She was still in her boot and couldn't do a lot on the beach. She was also still struggling with the appearance of her ankle, scar, and leg. So we decided it was best she stayed home and we continued to work on getting her leg stronger and her skin and scab all cleaned up so it could look more normal. Olivia also decided to go, because her friend Jada decided last minute that she would go and Olivia had said that if Jada went she would.
The girls had a great few days back at the beach again. Here is Aubrey and Ava one night at the ocean! I have no other pictures from their time there which is a bummer.
End of June and my garden was starting to look good. Coming up nicely despite the cooler than normal temps. I did get some of them in much later than normal.
During this time I got more updates from my brother, Josh. HE was relaxing in the yard as he pumped the water out every 4 or 5 hours. And he sent me pictures of his field in the back of my Grandma's house. The kids were swimming in it, it was that deep! 5 to 6 feet deep in some places.
And my spring and summer bouquets begin! This one was super pretty!
While Olivia and Aubrey were away we took the roof off the jeep and and were livin' the jeep life. We had to go out for some ice cream just the 4 of us!
The girls got back and then it was time for my last night with my 9 year old picture! Rae turned 10 the next day! She just seems so grown up these days. The days are speeding by so fast and I just want them to slow down. It seems like just yesterday and eons ago at the same time that they were all little and tiny. I love watching them grow up, but man it is hard sometimes.
This was on our way to the lake for the first time this season on Raelyn's birthday to try out the boat before going to Banks Lake to make sure it was working. It worked while we were out on the lake, but we came to find out when we got to Banks, it wasn't working very well. Reagardless, we had an ok day that day on Kitsap lake ( a smaller lake we don't normally go to) playing on the water a bit, swimming, and getting Claire used to the idea of letting go of her big boot and getting her leg and foot in the water even though she felt self conscience about how skinny her leg looked and her scar on her ankle. We found some ankle braces to give her support and coverage of her scar and that did help to ease her mind.
Olivia was getting up on the wakeboard!
And here is Liv, taking out the jeep without the top! Living the jeep life!
Another month done! I am slowly getting there! Still so far behind though!!
