College News...!

The same evening as Camille's party, Kendra raced home after indoor drumline with an important email to open up:

(You don't need to watch the whole thing, just the first fifteen or twenty seconds...)

They say that they'll let people know if they've been accepted on Monday, but after Bentley's experience two years ago, we knew to be watching for the email on Friday (even if Bentley's email never actually came...).  So we'd given Kendra very clear instructions that she was NOT to open that email without us around, and had been waiting with bated breath all evening!  Apparently she'd seen the email in her inbox, and figured whether it was good or bad news, she would be in NO condition to drive home once she'd opened it, so there was no danger of her opening it without us!  😅
 

So, yes, celebrations all around!!!  My little girl is going to BYU in the fall!!!!!!

I love how she'd been wearing her Y sweatshirt all day for luck!

Camille's Birthday!

Camille turned eleven and we celebrated in our usual way by partying it up all week!  On her actual birthday, she wanted breakfast for dinner (this meant eggs, sausage, and hash browns; she'd wanted pancakes and syrup, but I told her she couldn't have a syrupy dinner AND have a big dessert on the same night-- even I have my limits!), and then red velvet s'more brownies for dessert!

Months ago she'd requested trick candles those keep re-lighting themselves, and then she got to see how annoying they are!

She used all kinds of willpower and waited until the evening to open her presents from us and Aunt Natalie:

We realized the night before that we'd thrown away our Happy Birthday banner, so Craig had to whip up a new one!  

Loving on her new sting ray stuffy

An awesome baking book from Natalie!

And then a couple days later we went out to dinner at Mission BBQ (and also got ice cream from Coldstone) with Grandma and Grandpa!  She got a bunch of fun stuff from them, too:

My kids are all obsessed with really fuzzy blankets-- and I can't say that I blame them!

Hoping for a new pet when Kendra leaves for college...!

And then the next day, she had a party with her friends!  Mara came straight home with her on the bus and they made cookies before everyone else arrived.  Then she played with her friends, ate pizza and then cookies, and then they watched Miracle Season, which had all the girls in tears.  Maybe not the best choice for a party?  But Camille seemed thrilled about that, so who knows?  Craig brought the pizza,  but then had to go back to work, but the Huffs stuck around and kept me company, so that was fun!  

And that was a wrap on Camille's birthday!!!  I feel like she was well celebrated!  

Happy 11th birthday to my baby!!!!

Home MTC

We survived Home MTC!  And it did not go as expected!  But, honestly, I kind of loved it anyway.

So beforehand, I figured I'd have a very quiet week and a half where I barely left the house and hung out near Bentley while he did all his Zoom classes.  I was hoping to finally do the paint-by-numbers kits that Camille gave me for Christmas years ago!  I was pretty excited for it!

But then it snowed.  And iced.  And iced some more.  And school was canceled for a week and a half!!!  And even then, they had two hour delays for the rest of that week!

So, basically, I barely left the house and hung out near Bentley while he did his Zoom classes and I tried to keep everyone quiet the entire time!  Which is a TOTALLY different ball of salami!!!  But also, I don't know when I'll get to enjoy having everyone home together again, so I also loved it.  It was like this lovely little cocoon time where I didn't feel bad not leaving the house (but also, there were plenty of other people around if I did need to run to the store, I could do it without abandoning Bentley), and I didn't have a lot of other stuff going on to be stressed about (like, ahem, during Christmas).  It was so great.  Also, the missionary rules aren't quite as strict as they used to be, so we were allowed to watch family-friendly movies at night!  So we had fun with that-- we watched Little Women (1994 version, because I figured my kids would get a kick out of seeing Wynona Ryder before her Stranger Things days and Christian Bale before he became Batman!), Sense & Sensibility, The Best Two Years, Tangled, The Saratov Approach (this was a bad idea, it just freaked everyone out), and The Emperor's New Groove...  And a bunch of episodes of The Chosen, too!  So that was all a lot of fun for me!

Having said that, it was HARD for Bentley.  Nine hours on zoom per day is ROUGH.  He did not enjoy it.  And I don't blame him-- I really can't handle more than an hour on zoom.

It's funny, because when I heard that the church was continuing to do Home MTC after Covid lockdowns had ended, I thought that was pretty stupid.  But Craig just shrugged and said, "I'm sure they figured out that there was something good about it."  And he was so right!  Because, yeah, it was kind of awful, but you know what?  It made going to the actual MTC so great!!!  First of all, Bentley already "knew" his district and his teachers, so getting to meet them in person was actually really exciting and happy.  And while nine hours of class is nothing to sneeze at (and I remember thinking it was pretty hard when I was in the MTC trying to learn Japanese), if you've been doing it all on zoom, moving it into a real classroom with actual people feels pretty great!  

So, yeah, Bentley is in Mexico loving the MTC because it's not zoom.  And I will take that!  Good job, church people, figuring this all out!

But seriously-- he had literally ONE HOUR of that time when his siblings actually went to school.  One.  Hour.  That's insane.

We did have time on Saturday, so we took him to the temple and then to Five Guys (which they do not have in Puerto Rico):

And on Sunday, Bentley got to give his farewell talk (technically it was Fast Sunday, but the stake president said it was fine, which I really appreciated).  It was also Ryder's first time blessing the sacrament, so he had Craig and Bentley up there assisting him, and it all made me so happy.  Also, their ties were in primary colors, and then Colton's tie was green.  We didn't even plan that!!!  Then Kendra sat with us during the meeting, and I looked down the pew and my kids just happened to be lined up in age order.  Seriously, I just about burst.

Wednesday was our last night, so Tom and Donna took us all out to dinner at Mexico Viejo, which was delicious.

And Craig took pictures of Bentley hugging all his siblings goodbye...

Bentley used the basement to pack, so he could spread all his stuff out.  He was so scatter-brained trying to do it, but it was hilarious and we were just joking and having the best time.  And then, because we knew we weren't going to get any sleep anyway, we sat up looking at pictures of him in the hospital when he'd just been born.  Really, we did everything short of singing "Sunrise, Sunset"...  

Bentley got up at 3:30, Craig and I rolled out of bed around 4:20.  He hugged his siblings goodbye once more, and we headed out to Richmond.  Everything went very smoothly, and I stood there sobbing as we watched him go through security.  (Some poor girl was very concerned about this and kept staring at me.  Finally her mom asked me, "Where's he going?" and assured me that he would do great in Puerto Rico.  It was very kind of her.)  It's very weird to say goodbye for two years.  Nothing can really prepare you for that.  And putting your kid on a plane without a cell phone in this day and age is a little scary!!!  (Spoiler-- he got to the MTC without any problems.  Everything went just fine!)  The drive home was very somber.  I got the kids off to school and pretty much stayed in bed for the rest of the afternoon and tried not to cry too much.

It's funny how I can be so happy that Bentley is finally on his mission, and also be so sad and missing him!  Life is hard.  And bittersweet.  And wonderful.