Moran Family Fun

June was a big month for our family generally and for Emily specifically because in June Emily graduated from high school AND from seminary. We were so happy that Madison was able to come and visit from Utah so that our entire family could be together for these special occasions. It had been eighteen months since we had all five girls together under one roof! That was entirely too long, but we're learning that as our sweet children get older this is going to start to become the norm. But for a couple of bright, happy weeks we were all together again and the highlight of those weeks were these two big events for Emily.  Our high school here has the unique tradition of holding their commencement ceremony in a local cathedral, which is kind of cool. Construction of the cathedral in Ely began in the 11th century so this is a building which is a thousand years old. Well, parts of the building are that old. There are have been three separate major restoration works since it was firs...

A little more than sixteen years ago our lives were turned upside down a little bit with the arrival of our very own ray of sunshine, Abigail Rose. Right from the start, Abigail was an easy going girl who somehow connected us all and brought a sense of balance to our family life. Abby is just a fantastic child and we are so blessed she's ours. This year, instead of detailing the things we did to celebrate her birthday, I thought it might be nice to just write about our awesome Abby and some of the things that make her so great and easy to love.  Abby is a fiercely loyal friend and the people she chooses to surround herself are lucky to have her in their lives. Maybe this is because, as the middle child, she understands what it feels like to be occasionally overlooked and she doesn't want anyone in her life to experience that? Whatever the reason, she thinks about her friends and worries about their problems and wants them to be successful. She is genuinely happy for them w...

I was listening to 2 Nephi the other day while I was sewing a quilt. In an effort to get through a big block of scriptures quickly, I set the playback at 1.5 which made the verses really start to fly by. I was worried that I'd miss important parts at the faster speed, but my plan was to listen to all the chapters I wanted to study this week (2 Nephi 1-18) at once and then spend time each day doing a deeper study of the individual chapters.  Even at the increased playback speed, a short little verse that I'd never noticed before stood out in a big way. Here's what Nephi wrote: And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness. As soon as I heard that verse I thought, "I've never heard that before but I love it!" One problem with listening  to the scriptures instead of reading  them is that I never really know what chapter or verse is being spoken - and I knew that I wanted to find the verse again and dig a little deeper into this happiness the N...

Mid-October seems like the perfect time to start writing about May, which was one of the busiest months of 2018 for our family. The end of school year mayhem was in full swing and we were hanging on for dear life and hoping to still be sane when the calendar rolled over to June. Perhaps my excuse for writing this so far after the fact is that it took us that long to recover? Whatever the reason, May was a month filled with travel, sports, triumphs, food, and fun.  May started off with an overnight trip to London for me and a group of friends. The capitol was all decked out in advance of the royal wedding so things were looking even more British than usual. I love spending time with my family, they really are wonderful and home is my favorite place to be. But maybe every woman needs a day or two away occasionally as a sort of emotional reset? We ate at Chipotle and Shake Shack, went to two West End musicals ( 42nd Street and Mamma Mia ), stayed up entirely too late talk...

This post could also be titled "Stuff That Happened in April But Didn't Happen in France" but that's kind of a mouthful. We did finally make it back to the land where everyone speaks English and recovered from our adventures just in time for the girls to start back to their regular school routines and for Jared to head back to work. But there were still a few noteworthy events in April that didn't involve baguettes.... Abigail applied and was selected for induction into her high school's National Honor Society chapter. I think she sometimes feels a little bit of pressure to measure up to her older sisters accomplishments academically, socially, and in pretty much every other arena of life. But honestly, Abigail is an amazing person. She's smart, strong, determined, a hard worker, funny, friendly, talented, sensitive, and beautiful. She makes people feel included and loved just by being her friendly, outgoing self. All of that may not have much ...

Correction, our last full day in France was spent at the Chateau at Crevecoeur and the picture perfect village of Beuvron-en-Auge. In my defense, this did all happen five months ago and I'm getting forgetful in my old age. Anyway, our actual  last day in France we kept things closer to where we were staying and explored the Cider Route, which is a circular route about 40 kilometers long that passes from village to village in the beautiful Normandy countryside. The region is known for cider and other apple products so we followed the little signs with apples down narrow country lanes and stopped when we saw anything we wanted to explore more.  We ended up making a detour for the Chateau which is a really well preserved medieval site with a little moat, some beautiful half-timbered buildings, and a museum dedicated to a pair of local inventors. The entrance was pretty cool - a bridge over the moat leading to the gatehouse that has been converted to a lovely little gif...