Ella's Last JSB

Junior/Senior Banquet (JSB) is our school's version of prom.  It is hosted by the juniors as a gift for the seniors.  Last year, Ella's class decided the theme and set it up and organized the food and entertainment.  This year, she and her classmates sat back and enjoyed what the class behind them came up with.  It's a fun night for the seniors!  They get to go for free and some of the entertainment is about them with class and individual senior trivia!

These girls have my heart.  What an answer to prayer they have been!  One of the reasons Ella is so amazing is because she's been shepherded for years by this outstanding group of godly, talented, brilliant, young women leaders.  As they all head in different directions now, our prayer changes.  I do pray they can stay in each others' lives through more seasons of life.  

First the glamorous pictures...

Now the goofball pictures!

Ella made this super fun GlamShot video of everyone!  Many of these girls chose to do something cool-- repurpose, re-wear, or borrow their dress!  Ella was excited to give this favorite from sophomore year a second wear. 

The friend group is large and we love them all.  But over the past 2 years, this core group has kind of developed.  Ansley, Anna, Ella, Maya and Ruth share AP classes, a drama stage, and other deeper connections.  They love studying the Bible, cooking, creating, and hiking together and they are the ones who will be responsible for most of Ella's homesickness next year. ;)  We can't wait to watch their future plans unfold.  They will run tech companies and restaurant kitchens, build prosthetics, engineer medical devices, and deliver babies and they'll serve their Lord while doing it all!   

That's a wrap on yet another Last.  So end the days of dressing up with these dear friends...until maybe they're all bridesmaids in each others' weddings!

Super Bloom

Our very very wet winter not only led our state out of official drought status for the first time in a decade, it also gave us the most splendid spring with a phenomena they are calling the "Super Bloom."  Well-watered wildflowers are covering all our wild spaces as far as the eye can see.  We got a taste of it as we drove down south for Robotics.  The one thing on my Spring Break list was a Super Bloom Outing to hike in some wildflower-covered hills.  But, instead of wildflowers, I got a nasty, week-long virus over Spring Break.  This Sunday the girls and I finally got out and took a hike around our favorite local spot to enjoy those bursts of purple and orange covering the grounds.

 

Exploring CO with our Cousin!

One of the first places Heather took us was to see their new plot of land where in the next few years they will build their dream home, complete with a gorgeous view of the mountains.  So fun to think about Annabelle growing up with lots of acreage and animals to run around and play with! 

Heather also found this crazy buffalo farm that drives you deep out into their pasture on this rickety, homemade train.  They stop, open all the doors and windows and let you handfeed the buffalo! This may sound alarming, but where we live this kind of fun is par for the course.  We joked that we could picture several people from our church running an operation like this one! ;)  It was a one-of-a-kind experience to get up close to these gentle giants and have them wrap their long tongues around the homemade biscuits we held out for them.

We explored their lovely downtown area another afternoon, lunching, shopping and playing the decorative pianos.

And for our most spectacular outing, we spent a day at the Red Rocks Amphitheater!  This was a surprising amount of work.  The elevation and the hundreds of steps had our  hearts really racing.  I was thankful to be hiking with a doctor and a nurse!  Delia, never a fan of hiking or work, was promised the reward of a world famous stage to look at and it did not disappoint!

The Red Rocks museum was super cool!  So neat to see all the musicians and bands who had iconic performances at this venue.

All around the amphitheater are trails through the rocks that you can hike and this was just gorgeous!

Annabelle was a happy little hiker, all snug in her carrier.  We did not expect this new family in transition to show us such a grand time, but we're not complaining that they did!  Also, fully in awe that while we panted and thought we were gonna die, Heather hiked it all with another person strapped to her!

We made a few other little scenic stops over our weekend to take in the Colorado scenery and the colorful changing leaves.  It was still hot by us, so the taste of fall was yet another beautiful part of this trip.

My good friend Amy moved nearby Heather a few years ago!  It worked out great to drive a few minutes and spend the afternoon with their family too!  We loved catching up and seeing their new home and comparing Senior Stories.  We've missed them and were blessed to see them thriving.

I'm usually so quick to record things on the blog.  It feels a little funny to be writing about things we did 6 months ago!  But, we wanted to be careful and respect  Annabelle's adoption rules.  We just praise and thank the Lord for the gift that she is to our family, that her birth mama chose life, and that her whole adoption process was completely by the book with no drama or surprises.  We're so proud of the parents we've watched Heather and Andrew become and we were so glad to get a little time with our newest family member this year!

Meet Annabelle!

I got a pretty sweet present for my birthday this year-- a beautiful new niece, born the day after my birthday!  Her adoption by Heather and Andrew was finalized a few weeks ago, so it is finally okay to share her with you.  Her adoption story is a pretty crazy one.  Heather and Andrew learned they were picked to be her parents 2 days before she was born!  They were at the hospital for her birth, and became a family of 3 in 1 whirlwind week!  This fall, we girls used a long weekend to visit our newest cousin about a month after she was born and we had a wonderful time.

It was the actually the first time just us girls flew somewhere together.  We missed Dave, of course, but had a ton of fun on this little adventure to meet Annabelle.

The Colorado School of Mines, a STEM school, has been recruiting Ella pretty heavily.  Almost to the point of being obnoxious.  We had to laugh when the FIRST THING we saw after stepping off our airplane in Denver was this big sign!

Meeting Annabelle was one of the best parts of our year!  She is the most content baby, just starting to smile when we were there.  We held hands and read stories and had dance parties and oohed and aahed over her sweet little newborn outfits and rocked her to sleep and tried to help in any way we could.  Heather is an amazing hostess and mom and juggled it all with ease!

The girls just love having their first girl cousin.  Ella held her almost nonstop while Delia gave the pups lots of love and attention.  Though the public didn't see pictures of posts of Annabelle for the first 6 months of her life due to strict foster parent/adoption rules, we were just thrilled to meet her right away and have been enjoying regular facetime calls and updates.   

We would have been perfectly content if this long weekend had nothing but baby snuggles in it.  But, of course, Heather planned lots of cool outings so it felt like a lovely vacation too!