Zoe's birthday weekend

We had a nice weekend. Zoe had her 7th birthday party (Kyle's daughter) She had a luau at her grandparents house.
Trip and I went to the Natasha Bedingfield concert on Friday night. She was fantastic. She has such a powerful voice. It was pretty funny though, that we felt like the oldest couple there.

The picture from my last post of Trip, Lee and I was the day our adoption was finalized here. It was a while ago, I just never posted the picture.

I am working on building a new template for our blog. This is something that requires time and energy to learn (at least for me) so hopefully I can figure something out in the next month or two. ,

I am currently reading the book The Creative Family, by Amanda Blake Soule. It is pretty easy to read and it has given me some great ideas for crafts for the kids. Ellis and Lee are more of the "crafters" in the family, but Eva just started and embroidery project last night she is excited about. I began doing embroidery when I was her age (9) and have always enjoyed it, but I can count on one hand how many projects I have ever done. My grandmother used to do quite a bit. Some she would just do on the edge of a hankie. I love her old hankies with her old handy work.

School will be out next week. The kids are getting antsy. I'm afraid Lee is going to have a very difficult time not being in school this summer. He loves to be kept busy, otherwise he just wants to sit and watch TV. It's a bad habit I notice he has developed in the past few months. He is doing three weeks of summer camp at his school, but aside from that I think that is it.

We just bought a family pass to our local science museum over the weekend, so I imagine we will be spending some time there.

My heart is still aching for my friend, Dianne and her husband, Jeff. I will always grieve the loss for them. I have learned a bit during all of this, most of all what an astounding friend and woman Dianne is. I have also been hit with the reality of how precious our children are...all of them, not just mine and Trip's. I also read the book The Berieved Parent, I highly recommend this for anyone who has been near someone in the midst of this type of tragedy. When I say that , I am saying it as a friend outside of the situation, it has helped me see their grief more clearly. I hope to never know the depths of their pain, I just want to be as good of a friend as I can to them.

I think that's it for now, Trip has the kids at the park and the house is quiet. An easy time for me to do this.