At Home in the Mountains

This morning my amazing Aunt Jan went home to be with Jesus. I have been thinking of her often over the last few weeks, and I keep thinking of the verse in Ephesians that says to live wisely and make the most of every opportunity (my paraphrase and cutting some of it out). As I think about her today, these words just keep coming back to me over and over again. I have rarely met someone so purposeful and thoughtful in every action and interaction. I think there were very few things that she did or ideas she had that, if you asked, she couldn't give a well reasoned argument for why she did a certain thing exactly the way she did it or why she thought about a certain subject exactly the way she thought about it.  She was excellent at asking people questions and learning about who they were and what they thought and enjoyed. She studied diet and nutrition and phonics and any subject that interested her. She didn't have a degree in any of those things but I am certain she could ha

 So we had VBS with the Halls at The Hills (ha ha) and Maddy's adaptive dance recital this week, plus Aaron was in San Francisco Monday and Tuesday. So, basically, last Sunday feels like it was a year ago. It is currently 6:56 and I'm wondering how early I can get my kids to go to bed...like maybe in the next 4 minutes? Probably not, but I am tired. It was a great week but very busy. Maddy is also continuing to do golf on Tuesdays so s we had that, a dentist appointment and our usual therapy this week as well. We had dance on Tuesday and Friday to prepare for the recital and then the recital was on Saturday and VBS was W-F in the evenings. VBS did Paul this year. The kids loved it. Kelsay got to go to a class for the first time this year and she really enjoyed it.  For her recital, Maddy did the Merliton from The Nutcracker. She said the dance is about people from France coming to give Clara presents. The presents are cakes I think. She did such a good job.

 On Sunday, June 3rd, Maddy got to perform in the Sleeping Beauty ballet for recital. The recital was at Courtyard Theatre in Plano, TX. These first pictures are pictures of the rehearsal. We did that on Wednesday. I was not a fan of sitting through rehearsal but definitely understand the need for it. I needed a rehearsal on getting Maddy dressed and made up. I did such a terrible job on her bun on rehearsal night. It looked like a birds nest. One of the older ballerinas was able to show me how to do her bun and told me to get a hair net to hold the pieces that were sticking out into a neat bun. They ran each dance through without music and then with music without the instructor on the stage and then everyone had to rehearse the final scene so it too FOR.EV.ER. I did a great job on Maddy's hair on Friday. Make up went a lot better too. She had learned how to do the "mascara face" so we didn't have so many smears and blinks to clean up and redo. Trying to put m

 These first three pictures are from when we first moved into our Carrollton house almost 9 years ago. The backyard was a bare plot, the crepe myrtle our only front yard landscaping aside from the pathetic little bed of holly under the front window.  The house was painted a particularly hideous shade of pale yellow. An artistic eye can be a curse. That paint always made me cringe. I have enjoyed our new paint job so much. The green with brown undertones compliments the brick so much more and really pulls the house together.  We've done tons of landscaping and made the yard really nice. We've added trees! And flower beds! And herb beds! Many of the plants in the front are beautiful as well as edible.  Note that in the first pictures the are behind our house is a nice vacant strip of green hill. Over the past year, a village has grown up behind us. This is the one major bad "improvement" that has happened around here. We used to see coyotes, owls, sk