A Day in the Life

I could go back and update you all on our life, but I think I'll just start where I am and move forward. Or maybe I'll do a quick rundown of the past few months? 

We spent the majority of July in Utah visiting family. It was super fun and I think what we all needed. I'm glad we went even though when Jared first floated the idea I was a little hesitant. 

August was busy. It kicked off with Abigail and Samantha spending a week in Nottingham for FSY. They were home for a week before all three girls headed to girl's camp. Then we had another week at home together to do all the things and have all the summer fun we could before school started again. 

September means back to school! Things have been basically nonstop since the first day of school. Abigail and Samantha are both busy with their classes, sports, and student council. Natalie is killing it in middle school but the poor thing is the least busy Moran child right now and that means we've really relied on her to pick up the slack with chores around the house. Her sisters owe her a HUGE thank you for doing their jobs most days. 

I thought I'd just share a day in the life of the Moran's because who doesn't want a peek behind the curtain occasionally? Today was the last tennis match of the season. We dropped Samantha off at the school early and then headed back home to take care of some things. She is player six for the girls tennis team, so five games would have to happen before she took the court. Yet somehow when we came back an hour and a half later she had already played! I can't believe we totally missed her final game this year because they played out of order for the first time ever. There was a good reason for it - they had some players who had homecoming responsibilities during the football game and that threw off the schedule. So yeah, we missed her final game but she won 8-0 so that's pretty awesome! 

Natalie and I had a great discussion this evening as we were talking about what we'd learned from our personal scripture study. She's such a silly, sweet kid and it's cool to see her perspective on things. She was reading in Alma where Helaman, Gid, and Teomner were wanting to retake Manti from the Lamanites. They did this by drawing the Lamanites out of the city. The Lamanites chased after the Nephites and when night came, the Lamanites stopped and rested but the Nephites didn't rest at night. They circled back to Manti during the night and were all inside the city in the morning. I don't remember exactly and Natalie was not clear, but for some reason, the Lamanites were afraid and didn't want to fight anymore after that super smart move. I asked her what that meant for her life - surely she wasn't going to have to take back a city from her enemies or learn battlefield strategy. So we talked about how in our life our enemy is Satan. A lot of the time we're fighting a battle with him, but sometimes things feel safe like maybe Satan is resting for the night. But just because it seems like we can take a break doesn't mean we should rest. We always need to be fighting - reading scriptures, praying, serving others, and doing all we can to develop our own spiritual strength and protection. So yeah, it was really cool tonight that it was just Natalie and me at home so we could have that little chat.

The reason it was just the two of us is that Samantha was at the homecoming dance and Jared and Abby were traveling home from Abby's cross country European championship in Germany. I'll give you a quick update on those two events, okay? 

European championships first - Abby called me a little bit before the race this morning just to talk. She said that it didn't feel like a race day. She wasn't super nervous but she did feel ready to run. We talked again after the race and she was still feeling good. We don't have an official time yet, but it was somewhere around 26 minutes. Mostly, she's feeling a little sad that her cross country "career" is over. It's been a good sport for her and this season has been especially good. Lakenheath has a good coach this year who knows what she's doing, Abby gets along with basically everyone on the team, and it's been rewarding for her to be a captain and leader on the team. She's mostly sad and is going to miss her team. We've talked about how the school year is not over and her teammates will still be around, but it's not the same and running together every day after school and traveling across Europe every weekend to run races. I continue to remind her that she can always invite these people that she loves so much over to our place to hang out. I'm not sure why our kids don't take me up on that offer. Actually, I'd love any insight you have on that. What can we do to make our home a place where our girls will want to bring their friends over?

I think Samantha's first homecoming dance was a success! She went over to a friend's house (see, they're comfortable hanging out with friends at other places!) and got ready there with a couple of other girls. Her dress has a deep V neckline in the front and back. Like a super deep V that goes down to about belly button level. I actually sewed her a lace camisole yesterday after looking and not finding something to buy. You know how you get a picture in your mind of what you need and then you can't find it anywhere? Yeah. I found a stretch lace, fully lined shirt yesterday that I immediately knew I could use to make the camisole we were both seeing in our minds. It just barely fit her when she tried in on today because I didn't take into account the difference in stretchiness between her cotton camisole that I used as a pattern and the shirt I bought yesterday. So it wasn't as stretchy as it probably needed to be, but it did work and looked good under her dress. After Sam and her friend were ready they met five other friends on base and went to dinner at the pizza place before heading to the dance. I was excited to talk with Sam at the end of the night and hear all about the dance. She had a good time and she looked so very pretty. Her friend's mom took photos but I don't have them yet so no pictures today.  She did have fun at the dance. There were the normal complaints about the music being too loud and not enough slow songs, but overall she had a great time with her friends. I'm so glad she was able to go and that her freshman year has been such a positive experience so far. 

Okay, that's our Saturday for you. Between driving Samantha here, there, and everywhere and having a discussion about applying scriptures with Natalie, I spent some time in the kitchen. Man, I love making delicious things. Sadly, not everything I made today was delicious. I tried a new banana bread recipe and it was gross. I was worried as soon as I tasted the batter that it wouldn't be good because it just tasted wrong. But I pressed forward and baked those loaves. Once it had cooled a little I cut a slice and took a bite and it was so, so bad. Those two loaves of banana bread went straight into the trash can. But the regular sandwich bread I made turned out really well and I think will make some great cinnamon toast for breakfast! And it's starting to get cooler at night so I made Russian tea. It's sitting in the big pot on the stove simmering away and smelling good. I also planned to make homemade oatmeal cream pies (like Little Debbies!) but I kind of ran out of steam so those will probably happen tomorrow.  

That was kind of a lot in one day. Thanks for sticking with me to the very end!