Sunday Photos

We managed to get some decent pictures in before church on Sunday. These were all the people that were squished into the house.  

Three generations of Fox ladies. 

Adam and Mom hamming it up with "Bad Prom" poses. 

And Adam going with "Blue Steel". 

Selfie with my mommy. 

Mom with her youngest grand baby.  So cute!

Chillin' after church.

Selfie with Deborah before she left. 

Selfie with Miranda before she left.

It was a wonderful weekend.  I feel so blessed to have the family I have and to have siblings that I genuinely love and enjoy spending time with.  Somehow it is never long enough when we get together.

Saturday fun with the Family

 How crazy was the weekend?!!  Pretty crazy.  10 children, 11 adults, 5 bedrooms, 1 tent, 2 hammocks, and 2 bathrooms.  And it was amazing.  I love my family.

I wanted a picture of all the cars parked out front.  There are 4 parked on this side.

 And 6 parked on this side.  Although, to be fair, the sweet Model A is usually in the garage.

This kids played really well together.  Yes, there were skirmishes and some quarreling, but there was a lot of good play time between cousins.   

Mom sat in her "Throne" and we revolved around her. 

When the chaos level got too high, we went out to see the new fire trucks at the fire station.  Someone discovered that they were offering free lunch that day and we took advantage of it! The kids had a blast checking out the equipment.

And we were able to get all these people lunched.... for free.  It was great.

Deborah took a lot of photos. 

 Miranda was the winner with the youngest kid in the house.  

 And Mom's amazing friend Tanya made this amazing cake.  3 layers of decadent chocolate cake.  And it was two 9x13 cakes side by side.  It was actually enough to feed the masses!

Dad may have been very excited about it.  Heck, everyone was!

Going Home

 I have not posted about my Mom's health, but I guess I ought to, since this is a journal for our family.  Mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer 2 months ago. We planned to be out to visit this summer, but Miranda called me and mentioned that all my siblings were going to try to get together for Mom's birthday, which fell on Mother's Day this year.  After a bit of thought, I decided I did not want to be the only kid missing from this epic celebration.  I did not tell Mom I was coming out and I bought tickets to fly into Springfield. I coordinated with Jonathan and Kristy (since they live closest to the airport).  Kristy picked me up at 8pm Thursday and on Friday, Jonathan an I drove down to Mom and Dad's house.  Miranda and her family was already there.  Deborah and Andy and their families arrived Friday night, and Adam flew in from Oregon late-late Friday night and surprised Mom on Saturday.  It was awesome and amazing and so worth the trip!

I had a 4 hour layover in Narita after the 3 hour fright from Okinawa.  I worked on getting my steps in and did some laps around the airport before the long leg of the trip.

I'm on the plane and ready to be bored out of my mind for the next 11.5 hours.  Whoopeee!! 

I had a layover in Dallas and then it was only 1.5 hours to Springfield.

Mom was at the doctor's when I arrived.  When she got home, the little kids lured her to check out this sweet tent we'd just put up.  She went inside and I snuck down so when she came out of the tent, I was there.  It was fantastic.

Totally made it worth the long flight and travel!

Of course I went to Walmart on Friday!!!

And I drooled over the quantity and variety of fruit and was bitterly jealous of the low prices. 

And Adam surprised Mom on Saturday morning and it was the best thing ever.

5th Grade Field Trip

 Delaney is unhappy that she doesn't have any great field trips this year.  But she did have one very little one and she really wanted me to go on last week.  It was a very exciting trip to...... the middle school.

I got to hang out with a bunch of excited and rowdy 5th graders as we took the bus to the middle school and got to tour it.  The 6th graders giving the tour did a most excellent job and were pretty thorough.  Delaney is not happy to be moving into middle school next year.

Trying out the cool chair in the library.  She may or may not have rocked it too far and fallen backwards and gotten stuck.

Checking out the hallways and feeling amused by her silly classmates. 

Learning about Seminar class.

Good Grades

 I got to go to the Elementary School Award ceremony. I love that it is short and sweet!  Just the 5th grade classes.  Apparently Delaney got all A's this last quarter.