One Year

I know it feels like it's been a year since I've updated this blog. But really, this post is just a little milestone reminder...

One year ago today our little Bishop family boarded the plane and said goodbye to London. This is our Welcome Back to the USA anniversary day. Hard to believe it's been a whole year, in some ways. In other ways, it feels almost like a dream that we even lived there and had that nearly-four years in lovely England. Do I miss it? Yes. Do I want to go back? Sometimes. Am I glad we moved back home? Yes. Is it what I expected? No and yes. Has this year been what I thought it would be? Not sure, but I'm pretty content and "settled" for right now.

I feel like I should wax philosophical and nostalgic about this. Yet, I'm not really in that kind of mood right now. Just waking up, remembering this day. Things are good, the sun is shining and it's going to be a hot one today.

If I get motivated, I'll do some back-blogging of all the hundreds of photos we've taken over the last few weeks. Stay tuned for updates on the following:

-- Father's Day camp trip with my parents

-- Alicia's visit to the great Gem State

-- Sam and Spencer's first REAL camping experience

-- Phelps family reunion in Grantsville

-- Lavendar Fields Festival, complete with lavendar lemonade and lavendar ice cream

Yes, I plan to blog again sometime. Just trying to make time, I guess?

Things that are done

So, we've been busy finishing lots of projects around here. And I'm happy to report most of them have turned out quite nicely. Here's the list, with some fun pictures of the finished products...

The Shave Ice Stand

Brian and his brothers spent a lot of time building their own shave ice stand to sell the goooood kind of shave ice (and yes, it's shave without a "d" on the end, authentic from Hawaii. And no, it's not a snow cone, which is an inferior product, as any shave ice fan will tell you!).
A few shots from the construction phase...

It's now FINISHED, and they've got someone running it noon to 7 every day. yay! So come on up for your own taste of Hawaiian ice... pina-colada is great with sweet cream on top. mmm....

The Quilt

I posted earlier about my first quilting project. It only took a week working here and there in the evenings, which was a surprise for me as I was not sure what I was doing at first. But I'm happy with the way it turned out.
So is Sammie...
We're tying the backs to the quilts as a group next Thursday, so you may get one more picture when it's all tied up, before it's shipped off to the Humanitarian dept for some poor cold person who will be happy to have such a fun quilt to keep them warm (I hope!).

The Painting

I've mentioned I've been painting lately. Well, I think I'm done, at least for now. I painted a wall in two different bathrooms, as well as painting Spencer's room. Here's a shot of one of the bathrooms, hard to capture such a small space, but it looks pretty good when you close the door...
Spencer's stripes...
None of the colors looks right in the pictures, (especially the blue in Spencer's room which is NOT neon!) but I'm pleased with the end result and feel like our place is getting more homey all the time.

A little side note on the stripey stripes in Spencer's room... They were a P-A-I-N! But I am THRILLED with the final result. His room is also our guest room when we have people come to stay, so just imagine the lovely room you'll have if you plan a visit to the Bishop B&B. (Oh, and don't worry, Spencer sleeps in the hobby room when we have guests.)

The Talk

Samantha gave her first talk in Primary last Sunday. She was soooo very excited about it. I read her the note from the Primary presidency, telling her the talk would be on June 14. Every day she asked if it was June 14, and how long until her talk, etc. She talked about prayer and held up different pictures with each thing she talked about.
Here's what she said...

Heavenly Father wants us to pray so he can bless us. [pict: girl praying]

Prayer helps me and my family to be strong. [our family pict]

I like to say the prayer when we eat food. [pict: a dinner plate]

At bedtime, I say my nighttime prayers. [girl sleeping]

Sometimes we pray to help people feel better when they are sick. [a sick girl]

Right now I'm praying for my Uncle Trent to feel better because he was in the hospital. [picture of Trent]

Sometimes we pray to help people be safe. [boy in a car seat]

Right now I'm praying for my Uncle Mark and Aunt Dalana's family to be safe on a big long trip. [picture of a minivan]

Sometimes I pray to help me cheer up when I am sad. [Little girl smiling happily]

Heavenly Father hears our prayers and answers them.

It was so fun to watch her get ready for her talk, and to hear her talk about praying so much.

Middle East Presentation

A few months ago, Brian's mom asked him to put together a presentation about the Middle East that he could share with a group of his parents' friends that meet for a monthly FHE group. Brian went above and beyond, and had a very thorough, interesting powerpoint presentation that he gave to a group of about 20.
It was really well done, and he put a lot of time into it. So did Susan (his mom)! She made several different dishes from the region, including hummus and amazingly delicious baklava. mmmm! Sadly, Susan wasn't able to attend. We'll have to give her a private showing sometime soon!) Here's Spencer, watching Daddy from the BIG BOY chair, after the presentation was over...

And the "display table" of all Brian's (and my) fun treasures from the Middle East. My contribution was gathering these items and positioning them nicely at the back of the room for people to look at afterward...

I think that brings us up to date for the moment. We of course have other projects that are still NOT done (like those dresses I was trying to do yesterday. Still can't figure out the last hem. arrrg!). But they're all works in progress and it's nice to feel busy, right?

A Day

This has been a day, and it's not over yet. I hit the ground running this morning. Literally. A friend and I decided to start running together (okay, so it's more like slowly jogging), and today was our first day. We planned to meet at 6:30 a.m. but my alarm didn't go off (okay, so I sort of shut it off prematurely in a state of delirious sleepiness). So I was awakened by my friend knocking at our door at 6:40 a.m. Not so good, as I went to sleep close to 1 a.m. because I'm trying to finish painting Spencer's room (which I can only do at night, which is another story for another day). Anyway, we ran around the neighborhood until 7:30 and then I decided to do my way-overdue grocery trip while the kids were still asleep.

Unshowered, I went to the store and took my sweet time spending our weekly budget and an extra $50 I've been meaning to spend for several weeks now. ha! I came home, put groceries away, helped get the kids dressed and fed, then , by 10 a.m. we went to pick up Samantha's play date friends , Maddy and Zachary (i.e. my "babysitting opportunity" of the day). While the kids played, I helped Brian with some "shack" business for a bit, got Spencer a REAL breakfast, and wondered if I would be unshowered alllll day long?!? It took a couple of hours, but I finally eventually got to clean myself up, even with all four kids standing at the bathroom door crying, screaming or doing whatever they could to get my attention for the three minutes it took me to shower. (At least now I know it's not JUST my kids that do that!)

At noon, they have "Lunch in the Park" -- an awesome city program where they feed kids of all ages a sack lunch EVERY SINGLE weekday of the summer. (What a perk!) We had plans to take all four kids to the park and meet up with Maddy and Zach's mom there. Well, Brian had the car and got tied up for a bit so I told the kids we could just walk. Nope -- Maddy and Zach are NOT walkers and claimed they'd be "too tired" to do that. Hmmm. It was a hectic little while there, with Spencer screaming to leave, Maddy pouting because she wanted to ride Sam's Dora bike instead of go to the park, Zach crying because ... I don't really know why?, and Sammie whining about Maddy riding her bike, and on, and on... you get the picture. With much arm-twisting, bribing and threatening, we made it to the park. (To their credit, it IS about a half a mile's walk, which is a bit far for kids. But what else were we to do?)

The kids ate lunch, then Samantha threw a 20-minute tantrum because some other kid was on the swing and she wanted a turn. Brian showed up with the car, thank goodness, and we dragged Sam home and promised her we would NOT go to the park tomorrow because of the way she acted today. (More screaming and crying, of course.)

Next item of business, car shopping. We've decided it's time to get a second car (just think, we've been here almost a whole YEAR as a one car family. That's an accomplishment, for a suburban Idaho family, I think!) With a very cranky Spencer and a devastated Samantha (because of the "no park" thing), we decided to call a babysitter for a few hours and get a bit of a respite. So Brian and I went car shopping, Sam played with her favorite sitter, and Spencer slept. We came home to both kids and the sitter sitting on the front porch -- they got locked out somehow, without Sam's shoes. oops!

By 4p.m. we took ouur babysitter home so she could go to a special service project; Sam and I went along, too, from 4 to 8 p.m. Sam played in the gym at the church, while we sewed dresses for little girls, as a humanitarian aid project. They're cute little reversible sundresses -- only, I think I sewed mine together wrong. If I get it put together the right way (and it looks halfway decent) I'll have Sam model it and post a picture here. I brought home an extra one to sew by next Wednesday when we'll meet again to sew some more. The young women have a goal to sew 100 dresses by the time they go to girls camp this summer. It will be a lot of work!

While I was gone with Sam, Brian and Spencer stayed here. I came home to a baby in bed, a clean kitchen, living room, and bedroom. Wow! I guess I know what Brian did while I was gone, because our house had been deteriorating for the past few days. Looks great now, what a guy!

And now, I continue to paint in Spencer's room. Stripes. Tiny blue ones. Tricky. Very tricky. But hopefully it will look really cool when I'm done. And hopefully I WILL be done by midnight tonight. And we can start all over again tomorrow, because my friend and I plan to run again! Votes on whether it will really happen?? ha!

Bye for now, just wanted to get an updated on here. I have more picts to load... sometime....

Cute! Cute! Cute!

I've been meaning to post a welcome message to our new little niece, Aftyn Kay. She was born just before Memorial Day, and is soooo very cute and sweet! We all converged on the new parents and baby at the hospital the day after she was born. Those are the only pictures I've been able to take of her, though I'm sure if you check Reed and Alysa's blog you'll see many more samples of how adorable this girl is. 

She has sooo much dark hair, and those cheeks are not quite so full now (you know how the day-old pictures look a little different?). She's a very alert little girl when she's awake, and a very peaceful sleeper -- at least most of the times I've been around her so far! I love that the proud new parents let everyone pass their hours-old baby around (as long as we all washed our hands, of course!)
I took pictures of each kid having his/her turn. Below, Samantha and Aftyn, with help from Aunt Dalana...
Seth and Aftyn...
Ella and Aftyn (don't you just love Ella's cute headband?!)
John and Aftyn, John got the longest turn, no fair! ha! ...
Cooper and Aftyn (Coop asked to see his picture, to make sure his smile was okay... he's getting old enough to start caring about these things!)
All of us, converging at once... 
Poor Brian didn't get to go in because he had a bad cold. So he held OUR baby (who is NOT a BABY at ALL after holding that tiny newborn) in the waiting room.
Spence was just too rowdy and really didn't care to much about seeing that baby right then anyway. (Check out those nice molars in the back!)
One more picture of the cute new little family! We're very excited to finally meet little Aftyn!

Life's going on, as expected

Thought I'd post a few fun pictures and tell some of our happenings, while I've got a few minutes. We're doing good, just enjoying the weather and the family time.

Brian and his brothers are doing a fun little side business this summer -- Hawaiian Shave Ice stand! Yum!! They've been working really hard in their spare time, BUILDING their own shack and getting everything ready to open...
Once there are "finished" photos, I'll be sure to add them (hopefully later this week), but these few are from the in-progress photo shoot from last week. For those interested in a tasty treat, come on up for a visit and we'll throw in a shaved ice or two!
Since Brian and his bros are working at their parents' house, we've been able to spend a lot of fun time over at Grandma and Grandpa's house lately. Always a party, for sure! Some shots of the kids on the swings at Grandma's...

We've also had lots of fun times with the cousins, as we've all been part of the "construction" project these past couple of weeks. Sam can't get enough of Ella and Seth! She cries when we have to go home, and is THRILLED when we tell her we'll probably see them again at Grandma's tomorrow.In other news, Spencer is definitely walking. He has been for a few weeks now, and it's WONDERFUL! I'm not one of those moms who doesn't want my baby to walk. He's toooo HEAVY, man! I've been just WAITING for him to take off. And he finally has. I've been trying to load some of the cute videos of him walking (tried several different times of the past weeks), but something must be wrong with our "upload" capacity or something. No dice. So, here's the best you get....
And, here's the proud little man, giving us his pleased-as-punch smile after walking across the room...
Not to be outdone by Spencer's new tricks, Samantha has taken up painting, coloring and drawing with a serious passion for it! She LOVES to have paper and pencil/crayon/paintbrush/marker in hand. Here's her latest portrait. "It's you, Mom! See. Can't you see your hair? In a ponytail?" Pretty good, eh?
As for me, well, I mopped my kitchen floor tonight. Kudos to me for that (it's a BIG job, hands-and-knees, etc.) Also, I'm going to sew my first quilt. As soon as I get off the computer. Seriously, our humanitarian specialist at church asked me if I have a sewing machine and can sew. Yes and yes. She then handed me a bag with 80+ quilt squares and asked me to put them together by June 14. Wow. I've never quilted before. Ever. But I'm going to give it a shot! I laid out the squares in the pattern I made up on Sunday night. If it looks this good when I'm done, I'll be thrilled.All for tonight, I think. Bye for now!

Last stop in Victoria -- Butterfly Gardens

Very close to the Butchart Gardens is the less famous Butterfly Gardens -- which was still very impressive, though not quite as impressive as Butchart, of course. Over 3000 live specimens of butterflies are kept in a tropical conservatory, just flying around, showing off their butterfly-ness. We took so very many pictures of all different kinds of butterflies. But I will only add a few...






This guy, below, was literally as big as my whole hand! I can't remember what its name was, but apparently it can live in its cocoon (sp?) for up to 5 years for protection. Then, when it hatches, it only lives 3-4 days. It's nocturnal. (All this info is according to the sign sitting beside it as it slept.)

Samantha especially loved the flamingos in the pool, but we didn't get a very good picture with them. I thought it was funny she was so fascinated with them, when we brought her to see the butterflies. They're way in the background, behind us in this picture...
And Spencer was really enthused, as you can tell. But who can blame him, when he'd just cruised around Butchart Gardens for several hours?
That's all I'm going to write about our trip. It was lovely, we had a great time, I wish we were still there because things here are a little... dull? right now. Oh well. We'll have more pictures of ... something? sometime? We're looking for a second car right now, so maybe I can put up pictures of our search --- like Spencer eating the THOUSANDS of pebbles at the dealership yesterday. Or Sammie with her Fanta orange mustache from the free soda? (Sigh.) On second thought, maybe not. Bye for now!

A closer look at Butchart Gardens

Thanks for all the comments about Victoria! Since I got so many rave reviews of Butchart Gardens, I thought I'd share some of our collection of close-up flower pictures, of which there are many, many, many...












Ah, lovely blossoms! Brian remarked that one of the possible downsides of having digital camera at a place  like Butchart Gardens is that you may spend more time looking through the lense to capture the perfect specimen, and might actually miss some of the splendor of really being there. True, to some extent. But the camera helps us appreciate the splendor long after the blossoms are gone, right? Well, spring was there, at least for the moment.

The Butchart Gardens

The Butchart Gardens are simply amazing! The tulips were at full bloom while we were there, and so fragrant and colorful. The history behind the garden is that the Butchart family started this private garden back around 1900. It is now Canada's most seen private attraction (according to a sign we read.) The famous sunken garden was originally an old limestone quarry that they dug out and filled with premium top soil, etc. It really was fabulous to see it all. I'm mostly going to let the pictures speak for themselves...

Sam, in the Japanese garden...
The family's private cove, where water planes still land today.
Zoom in below, to see Spencer trying to escape to take a dip in the pool...

Samantha doing her "princess" pose, in her own little gazebo...

Samantha and Spencer played on this little set of steps for probably half an hour. It was fun just watching them while enjoying the calm and lovely surroundings. 

Samantha, practicing her "yoga exercises" ....

The famous sunken garden, from the top...





We couldn't stop taking pictures, as you can tell. It was just so beautiful!