The Rest of the Summer (July/August 2018)

While We were up with Chris in Alabama, Aly and Lise were on another true road trip for Youth Conference.  It was a church history trip and the kids visited Kirtland, the Susquehanna River, Palmyra, the Sacred Grove, and even got to do baptisms in the Palmyra temple.  Super cool!  (I asked for pictures and this is what I got.  Nothing related to what they were seeing at all, but at least I know they were together and having fun.)

Aly met up with her friend from HEFY, Riley, who lives in North Carolina but happened to be at the Pageant that same week with her family.  Fun reunion and small world!

What a great group of youth!

Summertime also happens to be birthday time for all the O'Gwins except Aly.  Stacy had her birthday on July 29th, complete with presents and Strawberry Shortcake.  She also got a birthday date with Chris and a lunch date with friends.  The perfect way to celebrate a birthday!

  

Kylie had her birthday the following week, on August 4th.  She wanted a pool party with all her friends and brownies and ice cream.  Easy enough!  The kids had a great time swimming and then we had pizza with a show.  It's Kylie's dream day come true!

Kylie is such a good friend, as displayed by the many friends she had at her party.  I love her for her love of people and how she is always so sensitive to their feelings and wants to make people happy.

   Kylie and her good group of church friends had a great last few weeks of summer, spending nearly every day - all day! - together, playing and swimming and playing some more.  It was going to be a rough adjustment when school started back up!

While we were partying it up in Florida, Aly had arranged to take a quick pre-back-to-school trip to visit her Kentucky peeps and see not one, but TWO concerts while she was there.

Love how they recreated this picture from when they were a bunch of deacons and beehives.  Too funny!

First on the list was an outdoor concert with John Bellion in Indiana.  Aly absolutely LOVED this concert.  They road-tripped up from Kentucky and got there super early (as in 4 hours early) to get a good spot on the lawn and brought board games and Subway to keep them entertained and fed.  Super fun!

The next day was the indoor Shawn Mendes concert in Louisville.  It usually takes about 10 people to keep Aly's social calendar going, but that's the way she rolls - 100 miles an hour with her hair on fire!  I love how Aly keeps in touch with the friends she's made all around the country.  It also gives her the opportunity for a lot of fun road trips!

Well, the time had come for the adventures to end.  Chris started school, the girls got back in town, Lise jumped right into Band Camp for Color Guard, Aly jumped back into work, and  I jumped into the task which had been looming ever since the house had flooded in May - getting the carpet replaced in the house.

I know for some people renovating their house and the idea of new carpet is exciting. But for some reason, for me, it just wasn't.  And I know that new carpet is, seriously, like a bare minimum sort of upgrade, but man, this whole thing just stressed me out.  It was the pressure to pick out a carpet that would flow well with the rest of the house, knowing that we would be selling it in the next year or two.  (I do not have the knack for interior design!)  It was living in clutter and chaos and having to practically move without moving - emptying closets and bookshelves and nick-knacks getting ready for the carpet to be installed.  

Despite all the stress though, when it was all said and done, I think it turned out decent.  The carpet color flows well with the house and looks and feels nice.  And once we got all the furniture back in place and everything put away I did feel my stress level go down and actually started liking my house again.  AND, as crazy as it was, I was super grateful that we were able to get this done before school started - the week before!  What a huge blessing.

Sweet Home Alabama (July 2019)

So, one of the big things looming on our plate when we got back to Florida is that we had to move Chris up to Alabama.  WHAT?!?  Well, his next duty assignment was to go to  Air War College in Montgomery Alabama for a year.  This will give him his 3rd, check that 3RD, Master's Degree (how many degrees does this guy need?)  But it's actually a very selective school that you have to attend in order to make it to the next level of command.  So, woot, woot!  Go, Chris!  Also, the army war college is in Pennsylvania, but we asked for Air Force War College instead to keep Aly from moving her Senior year and hopefully keep Lise from having to go to 3 different high schools.  So, as crazy as this whole thing sounds, we actually felt that it was the best move for our family.  Montgomery is about 2 1/2 hour from Niceville, so Chris will get to come home on the weekends - YAY!  Also, I am planning to go up to visit him and do temple trips once a month as well.  😀😁   We got this.

So anywho, two days after arriving home from our road trip, Chris & I were back on the road again, trailer in tow, to go set up Chris' apartment in Prattville, Alabama.   (No rest for the weary, eh?  It has been nothing but a whirlwind since he got back from this deployment!!)  So proud of my guy - they just grow up so fast and before you know it they're off to college!  😆

Chris' apartment is in a great location, 15 minutes from school, and is perfect for his needs.  We set him up with some basic furniture essentials and I think he's got a nice setup.  (It actually gave me a little longing for a simpler life and made me want to throw away 1/2 of everything I owned when I got home. 😏)

I made sure Chris got a queen mattress for when I come to visit 😉

The following week, while Aly and Lise were at Youth Conference, Kate, Kylie, and I went up to stay with Chris during his orientation week and check out his new digs.  During the day we would play games and watch movies, and then when Chris would get home we'd have dinner and go check out the town.  It was a lot of fun!

The first night we went to downtown Prattville to stroll along the Riverwalk on Autauga Creek.  Prattville has all these artesian wells, which is pretty cool, and along the river is an old Cotton Gin factory founded by Daniel Pratt.

There was a dam upstream and you could go wading/swimming downstream.  Also, there were lots of cute shops and restaurants in the historic district.   We couldn't resist the gourmet popsicles.  They were just what we needed to refresh ourselves on a hot, humid, Alabama summer evening.   

We also had to check out the pool at the apartment complex.  We spent a few fun hours splashing around and keeping cool in the pool.  

After playing games we left Chris a message for when he got home. 😁

The second day we took a tour of where Chris would be going to school and looked at all the cool airplanes they had on display.

Chris has fast-roped out of one of these babies.

What a gorgeous sunset!!

After the aircraft tour, we stopped at the local Froyo place - mango sorbet and vanilla yogurt mix?  Yes, please!  We ended the night by watching a show or two with the girls.  Even though it's sad that Dad has to be up in Alabama during the week, it was nice to go spend a few days with him seeing where he'll be doing school.  We'll have to come visit a few more times to see more of what Alabama has to offer.

The Drive Home and Jumping Back in to Real Life (July 2019)

L2R - Top: Laura, Stacy, Bottom: Spencer, Matt

So while we were in Utah it was fun to see Chris' Mom's apartment - she's got a nice setup!  We also got to see my Dad's new house finished.   It was very nice as well.  While I was there I spent a day helping my Dad go through the toys for the grandkids and my Mom and Jess' memory boxes.  It was a good experience to go through their stuff and I found some great pictures as well.

The Jackman Kiddos

Harriet Webb & Aly O'Gwin

So, as much as we didn't want to, the time had come to start heading home.  One fun thing we did on this trip was to play the License plate game.  Seriously, it became a family event and we were scouring the parking lots at all the National Parks trying to find a License Plate from every single state.  The hardest two to find were Hawaii and Rhode Island.  By the time we made it home we found all of them except for RHODE ISLAND!! Don't those people ever go on vacation? 

The other thing that was funny is that we watched movies that related to where we were traveling - Brother Bear while we were in Yellowstone, Spirit while we were crossing the plains, etc.  It really added to the ambiance of the trip. 😏

On our route home, we followed Spencer and Tiff home and got to see their new house.  It's a great home for their family to grow into (and for us to visit again 😉).  They took us on the scenic route and it was beautiful!  We even passed right by the Manti temple.  

We only stayed with Spence and Tiff one night and then we were back on the road.  Of course, there was a night in a hotel with swimming in the pool and all that.  

And finally, after way too many hours in the car - back to Florida!  

We did bring back a couple souvenirs though - some awesome stickers for the water bottle and a ceramic head that your Uncle Spencer made in high school to put your hat on. 😁

Well, of course, we had our real lives just waiting for us to get back.  First stop, running over to the DMV to get Lise her driver's permit.  Can I seriously have 2 drivers?!?

Kylie jumped right back into playdates, especially with a good friend who was about to move.  

We were also in desperate need of haircuts.  Brushing our hair over the trip was a nightmare!  Not sure if we chopped enough off, but time will tell.

We also had to do a little back shopping for birthdays that we didn't have time for before our trip.

And finally, something random that made me smile when I got home.  I found this note posted to Aly's bulletin board.  The thing that cracks me up isn't the fact that "Help Mom" is at the very bottom of the list of "Things to do When Bored", it's that she sees it as laughable that she could even get to that point.  Aly does help me around the house on occasion though.  And yes, I was laughing out loud when I read this note. 😆

Honey, we're home!!!