Elder Howe rides an elephant

 Holman was looking forward to this P-day adventure. He asked the elephant owner if he could be the one that rides on the elephant's neck he asked in Thai so the guy was very excited and gladly obliged! 

1st day of school!

 
Adrian is a Freshman at Sabino!! How did this Sahuaro mom have three Sabino kids?! Adrian is doing swim team, drama, art and student council. She is a busy girl who wants to be a farmer when she grows up.

Parkin is a senior!! He drives, does swim team, works party time at a dental lab, he is also in drama and AP art. He finished a trigonometry course in less than 3 weeks. Adrian and Parkin are such good siblings and are always looking out for each other 💓

It's my 6th year in kindergarten. I love little people. I am exhausted! Decision and patience fatigue is a real thing. Pray for me....that being said into the void because I'm the only one who read this 😜

4th of July fun!!

 The Bear Canyon ward pulled out all the stops with providing this amazing slip and slide! Youth plus Benjamin gave it a go, how fun!! They also put on a great French toast breakfast! 

Later we went to Scott and Suzie's for a BBQ, the spread was fantastic. Great company and great food.

The next day we went to Camp Zion with the Webster family. We shot BBQ guns and hung out at the archery range. Another great spread with s'mores, ice cream cones and pulled Beef sandwiches.

Praying for our country as we enter another very tumultuous political election 🙏🙏

Lake baptism

 Our dear friend Elizabeth Rodriguez recently married a couple of years ago and her awesome husband had been taking the church discussions with his young daughter. He made the choice to be baptized and we were so excited to be invited to the event. They love to drive around and they found Parker Canyon lake and so that was his request was to be baptized in the lake that they found when they were exploring one Saturday. This was the first lake baptism I've ever been to it was pretty awesome to be out in nature and your testimonies and talks under the trees. Elizabeth's daughters were at the baptism and it was so good to see them. We raised our kids together back in the Palo Verde ward so we love seeing them all grown up. It was a beautiful day 💖 Elizabeth is a like a sister to me I love to see her happy. They made an awesome lunch afterwards and we tailgated with several missionaries and friends from her ward. It was a perfect day.

Swim Championships!!

The kids have kept up the house swimming legacy they're older siblings would be proud! For the first time in my entire parenting existence I wasn't able to be there at the kids championship meet. I was up at camp but luckily Benjamin was able to go! Did I go to my parents' cabin to get text updates from him throughout the meet yes that's how much I love to watch these kids swim. They both crushed it and did awesome jobs. Perkins two relays got first and he got first in breaststroke which is his favorite stroke. He got second in butterfly and first in freestyle. All those points added up to be high point winner for hourly in his age category! His teammate also tied with him so no wonder their relay is awesome. Adrian got first in butterfly backstroke and freestyle her relay also got two first place finishes. So with the perfect score you guessed it she was high point winner for the league in her age group!! Both parking and Adrian had crazy busy Summers they both went to two camps and still managed to make most 6:00 a.m. practices. Luckily Franklin is also on the team so swimming with your cousin always makes it a better experience. I ran the snack bar again we only had two home meets but it's nice to do something for the community and to meet all the swimmers and families.

 

Camp

 Survived another year of cooking at Girls Camp, phewww. What a blessing that my parents are up there. They have been serving a mission up at camp Zion for 3 summers now. My parents saved my bacon in having additional butter at their cabin a whole box of pancake mix and I even got sodas stocked in the fridge by Mom!! A couple of months ago Dad extended the kitchen island at camp. It now has a hangover counter so you can sit on a stool with your knees under, it's awesome!! Adrian went on the 4th year adventure for the first couple of days of camp. Benjamin was able to go with her they went hiking, canoeing and other outdoorsy fun. She said she forgot how fun camp was 😀 she had a super busy week because she also had swim team championships. So she first went to the fourth year adventure, came into Camp to say hello, then went home to spend the night so she could do the swim championships the next day. She crushed it but more on that later...

High: I was $550 under budget.

Low: We had to have a couple of food delivers to camp ( more butter, cheese, milk). So hard to figure out amounts needed 

High: People loved my Mac n Cheese 

Low: I burnt my hand real good removing the tinfoil cover of one that was in the oven.

High: Pulled pork was voted one of the best meals

Low: I prepared a large batch wrong, oh the tears. I decided to make a whole new batch and just keep the first batch for enchiladas at home. No good deed...

High: Parkin made these awesome aprons!

Low: I'm not sure I got a picture of us wearing them. We wore them a lot so it's frustrating it's not documented.

Civility

 My political party is Civility. "Civility is the practice of good manners in both speech and behavior." After watching the first presidential debate I have felt a sadness for the country that I love. How could these two options be our only options? Why do I feel so hopeless? After a healthy civil discussion with family with varying opinions, I was finally able to pinpoint why I felt so down. By the time Arizona was able to vote in the presidential primaries all candidates (except for two) had left the race from both leading political parties. There is no reason that one state (I'm looking at you Iowa) gets to lead out every year since the early 70's. How about instead of 16 lucky states that get to vote on Super Tuesday we all vote on Super Tuesday?! Candidates can "visit" each state through TV, Radio, and the internet. I need an Elizabeth McCord plot twist on this upcoming election or The Rock to run with "more poise and less noise." I wouldn't even want Arizona to vote first, we all should get to vote on the same day, its only civil.