Moran Family Fun

I'm halfway through a fourteen-week institute class as part of BYU Idaho's Pathway program.  I chose to participate in the Pathway program mostly because it's an affordable way to continue my education. Like many women, I put off my higher education for a time in favor of marriage and children. About ten years ago, I finally started to complete courses and work toward earning a college degree. At that time, my family responsibilities as a mother of five young children and our financial situation meant that I could only take a couple of classes each semester. And I was always hustling for scholarships! After four years of work I earned my associate's degree and decided to take a break from education and, without my meaning it to, that break stretched to five years away from formal education. Pathway is a three-semester program that consists of two classes each semester. The program combines online academic learning and religious education. There are three religion ...

This summer England experienced a heat wave. It was England's hottest recorded summer and it was also largely sunny and dry. We didn't get ANY rain for over a month at one point and we actually had to water our lawn because the grass was so brown and crunchy. As a family, we enjoy and appreciate England's normally cool, grey weather so this summer was tough - especially because air conditioning is not really done here. That wasn't a problem in the summer of 2017, when the temperatures were usually in the mid to upper 70s. But this year, we were sitting in the low to mid 90s for much of the summer and it was a little miserable. Still, we tried to get out and take advantage of the unusually warm and sunny weather. By the end of June we'd used a lot of sunscreen and had a lot of fun.  We live on the edge of Thetford Forest, which is a large forest of mostly pine trees. It was created after the First World War to build up a timber reserve as a lot of trees were use...

I am very lucky to have such a wonderful husband. Sometimes I go way too long without letting him know how absolutely fantastic I think he is and how much I appreciate all he does for me and our girls. The small things (and the big things) he does every day make our family life comfortable, happy, and fun. I feel blessed beyond measure to have such a handsome guy by my side, but he's so much more than just a pretty face!  He supports me and our girls and believes in our dreams. He encourages us to do more and be more. Jared is very motivated and goal oriented. He's a great example of hustle and hard work. He's so good with our girls and is often the more patient and understanding parent. Basically, he's a model girl dad.  He works hard to provide for our family. For the past twenty-two years, he's done whatever it takes to make sure we have what we need. Besides being an awesome airman, he's delivered pizzas and refereed soccer and football games, all aft...

We have six days off school this month and only one week where the girls will be in class on all five school days. Just one more reason why November is one of the best months of the year.  Today we joined some friends at the skating rink for some fun on our first day off during this year's no-school November. Natalie loves roller skating, she has been dropping hints about wanting rollerblades for Christmas this year nonstop, so she was super excited to head out and meet our friends today.  When we got there we found out that there was only one hour left of free skating time so got our rental skates laced up and quickly as we could and headed onto the floor.  About ten minutes before our hour was up Natalie lost control while skating as fast as she could and she fell, bracing herself with her hands to save her face. She came over to Jared and I and let us know that she'd fallen and that her arm was hurting. We checked her out and nothing looked terribly inju...

This weekend I finally received my absentee ballot in the mail. Honestly, I was starting to worry that I'd done something wrong when I filled out my request for the ballot because it took so stinking long to get here. But it's here and thank goodness it is because election day is almost here as well! I borrowed Natalie's trusty pink flamingo six-color pen and got started with my research. I'm not one to just fill in the bubbles for every candidate from one party or the other; I've found that my values don't quite align with either major party so I have to take it candidate by candidate and choose which person in each race will best represent me and my views.  So today I spent  two hours  voting. It took me two hours because I don't actually live in the county where I'm registered to vote and I mostly get my news from the BBC.  I can tell you a lot about Brexit, but I know next to nothing about the candidates from Wyoming or their platforms. Just...

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...