My first attempt at a blog

Welcome to our new blog! This is my first try at one so if any of you have suggestions let me know. I'm still trying to figure out how everything works. This first post will be redundant for all of our immediate family because I'm going to copy and paste our last newsletter and include some of the same pictures that I sent out a week ago. _________________________________________________ June, 15 2010

Dear Family, Joseph’s sister Emily sent out a family letter this week and invited everyone to do the same. She’ll be doing it weekly, but ours may just be monthly like we used to do, unless I get really ambitious. We don’t have as many kids to report on, so our updates would probably be really boring if we wrote weekly. Dad, you are our main encourager too. I hope you’re not upset when you read this and wonder why it took Emily only one letter for us to take the challenge since you are the one who always consistently sends the letters. We really appreciate your letters! Really though, it’s not just Emily that is getting us going on writing again. The main reason is that I’m finally done with school!! Yippee! I’ve had a big long list of projects and things that I was going to get back into once school was over, that I’m finally able to tackle. Things such as writing our monthly updates have been put on a back burner this year so that I could focus on being a mother and getting through school. I’m feeling so free now! I finished up my finals last week and passed all my classes (one just by a hair), and I got over the hurdle of performing my Senior recital. Mom, Dad, Eli, Wayne, Penny, Brian, Jessica, and their new baby David all came down for my recital and the music department’s graduation. Mom came down two weeks before the recital to help me prepare for my recital hearing. Mom came down again about four days before the recital to put the finishing touches on the dress so I could be nearby to try it on. The dress turned out wonderfully! Mom is so talented. She had to use three different patterns to make it modest. Every picture I have of it is obscured by something I’m holding in front of it, but you can get the idea from the picture I’ve included. The picture does not do it justice. You did an amazing job Mom! Thank you!

Joseph has been keeping very busy. Back in March he signed up to be a volunteer firefighter for the city of Philomath. He has training every Tuesday evening and has also had a couple of trainings that last all weekend. He will be all qualified to respond to emergencies in July. Joseph has also been busy at work. He has been involved in the bidding process of a lot of new jobs and has been helping with the management of a church add-on and the building of their company’s new headquarters. The new headquarters will be finished up this week and they will start moving in. It looks pretty nice! We both have new callings. I got my dream calling of Primary pianist. I love it so far! I’m sure someday I’ll get bored with it, but it has been nice to have a low key calling while I’ve been so busy with school and Kilynn. Joseph was called as the Teacher’s advisor and Varsity Scout Coach—something else to ensure he’s never idle. Joseph has enjoyed getting away from apartment life and having a garage to dink around in and work on projects. His latest project is a huge octagonal picnic table for our back patio. I think he has done a great job designing and building it so far. All he has left to do is a little more sanding, put some weather seal on it, and then have an elders quorum party here so that they can carry the thing around to the back. It’s going to be heavy!

We are having so much fun with Kilynn! Every stage she enters I wish she would stay that way, but the next thing she learns and the more she grows, the more fun and cute she becomes. She is so happy and excited about everything. Life is so fun for this girl that she can hardly stand it. She is constantly on the go and eager to learn and explore this world. She crawls all over the house, pulls up on anything she can get her hands on, and hardly ever cries when she wakes up, but instead gets right to playing. My only complaint is that she is so intent on not missing out on anything, that it can be quite difficult to get her to take naps during the day.

taken June 3, 2010

taken June 9, 2010

taken May 14, 2010

Our garden is doing well. Joseph built some nice raised beds earlier this spring and we also have a block retaining wall lining the back of our yard that we planted things in. We have been eating Spinach, lettuce, broccoli and radishes out of it so far. We are also growing peas, carrots, onions, beets, green beans, zucchini, squash, corn (which probably won’t work out), tomatoes, and peppers. The Frewing family stay with us this weekend and we are excited to see them! They will be coming Saturday night through Monday morning and then continue on their vacation to the Redwoods in California. We hope everyone is doing well! Love, Ivy, Joseph and Kilynn