Taya's 14th Birthday

Happy 14th Birthday to Taya!!!

How is my baby girl already 14?!?!?

We celebrated as a family the day before her birthday because of Homecoming, but then had a super fun "game themed" birthday party the first weekend in October.

For her birthday breakfast she requested cinnamon roll pancakes, bacon, pears, & a birthday cupcake.

We had fun opening presents early in the morning.

My friend Nancy always sends really fun clothes & shoes to my kids for their birthdays.  She spoils them rotten.

Opa & Oma gave her a Harry Potter sweatshirt & slippers.

Mimi & Baba, Justin & Cari, & Trek & I gave her money to go toward the digital drawing tablet she's been saving up for for a while now.  After her birthday she had all the money she needed & now she's happily drawing on her tablet every day.  She's quite the little artist.

For her birthday dinner I took her to her favorite restaurant SPUDZ.   (It's my favorite too).

Baked potatoes for the win!

We ate some ice cream cake as a family at the end of the day to celebrate as well.

It was a fun family celebration together.  She was definitely looking forward to her big party with all her friends, but this was a fun day just being together.

 

September Happenings

We kept busy in September with school back in session & other responsibilities happening.  I spent the month teaching an early morning religious class to some teens in our area.  Trek's been busy flying to OH for 2 weeks for a cyber certification class.

The first week of September Trek rode his bike to France & back (about 50 miles).  He loves riding long distances.

We had a really hot week in September & Trek left a bag of happy colas in his car.  We were able to see science in action as all of them melted into a giant block of gummy.  Gross.

While in OH for two weeks, Trek rented a bike instead of a car to get around.  One Sunday he was there, some guys drove past him in a car & "egged" him while he was riding his bike.  Some people are so immature.  It made for a funny story though.

We had some friends from CA come visit us in Germany while Trek was gone.  He was sad to miss them, but it was fun to catch up & have them over for dinner.  It's always nice seeing old friends.

I didn't get to paint as much as I would have liked this month because I've been so busy, but I did get a couple of paintings in.

Taya had her 14th birthday on September 25th.  I can't believe how old she's getting.  I'm not ready for these girls of mine to be all grown up.

Lorien went to Homecoming at the High School on Taya's birthday.  She ordered a really pretty purple dress for the occasion for the dance.  She looked beautiful.

And the boys are just really good at being cute.

I also had the opportunity to teach 200 kids how to make homemade butter at a pioneer activity our church put on.  It was fun putting on my old pioneer costume & teach again.

 September came & went faster than I ever imagined.  Time just passes way too fast.

Afghan Humanitarian Aide - Feeding Thousands

So along with assisting the flood victims & cleaning up the base chapels, a HUGE service opportunity happened in August for our entire base.  When the US pulled all our people out of Afghanistan, the Taliban gave us only a short amount of days to get everyone & everything out of the country, including thousands of Afghan refugees.  30,000 refugees were sent to our base here in Germany & it was incredible to see how quickly the entire base worked together to make this happen.

They set up tents, showers/bathrooms, clothing distribution, food, & more in every spare nook & corner they could find on base.  Thousands of tents lined the runway & over 30,000 people made this their home for a week as they went on their way to the US & other nations.  It truly was a sight to behold.

All hands were on deck.  Every office on the base stopped usual operations as we took care of our 30,000 guests.  Active Duty spent time helping on the flightline while spouses & families found other ways to serve.  An entire clothing donation building was set up where we could shop, donate, sort, & collect different clothing items for each of our guests.  Hours upon hours upon hours were spent making sure it worked well.

Another station was set up just to make tea & baby bottles for the thousands of mothers & children we had staying here.  Here we are one month later & we still are operating this station as several thousand refugees are still here awaiting flights to the states.

That's my sweetheart handing out water to our guests.

At other areas on the base, people were on call 24/7 making food for our new guests.  Can you imagine serving 30,000 people 2 meals a day?  Yeah, I couldn't either until we helped do it.  It was INCREDIBLE.

Our church setup a system in one of the buildings & the base supplied us with food.  We worked week after week after week, day after day after day, preparing lunches for our guests.  Our assembly line was amazing & we had adults, youth, & children all pitching in to make as many meals as we could.

Each meal got 2-4 pieces of fresh bread/rolls, jam, butter, honey, & nutella, 2 pieces of fruit, 2 sources of protein, & anything else we had on hand.  These snack-like meals were given to the refugees as they got off the planes onto our base, as well as were given to them as they boarded their flights to the US.  We were making about 3,000-11,000 of these a day.  I still remember one saturday spending over 10 hours making 11,000 of them.  It was hard, but really really fun.

Teamwork is amazing.  We accomplished some pretty amazing things through teamwork.

 We have been so blessed this month for many opportunities to serve.  I am SO grateful for those opportunities.

BYU Apartment Life

On the first day of school for the rest of my kids, Cadence moved into her apartment at BYU.  This is her first experience living away from home & though it kills me to be SO far away from her, I'm really really excited for this new adventure in her life.

Her best friend from CA showed up to help her move in since I couldn't be there.  My parents also helped which was wonderful.  I'm so glad she has a support system close to her there.  It makes my mommy heart a little less worried.

Her apartment has 4 girls in it (2 bedrooms with 2 girls each).  Her roommate is a friend from CA who she hasn't seen in years, but is so excited to be with.  Cadence had a blast organizing all her groceries, bedding, & other necessities she's been acquiring over the last few years.  She is SO ready to be on her own.

She loved freshman orientation & is really really excited to get her college education started.  Computer Science, here she comes.  She's going to do AMAZING things.