DC Slay

I honor of our nation's 250th birthday, to prep Brenna for her AP US History class and really because we have never gone to Washington DC as a family, we headed to the capital and surrounding areas for Spring Break.  It was a whirlwind of walking, learning and fun! 

After a really late flight, we woke up the next morning to head down to the National Mall.  Brenna was very excited upon planning this trip that we would be spending so much time at the mall.  I mean, it's not her fault, the malls she knows are quite different, but the excitement diminished a bit when we started mentioning all the museums available.  We rode the metro 

for most of our travel, but this first jaunt was eye opening because it was body to body crowded full of people.  People were there for the cherry blossoms, for spring breaks and interestingly enough, the No King's Rally.  That was a good view of Free Speech in action.   

Our first destination was the Holocaust Museum.  

It is a sobering experience to walk through that building.  It is moving and impactful.  After processing and some heart wrenching explanations and discussions, we walked over to the International Spy Museum.  

I am not sure we would pass as great espionage agents.  We are a little too loud 

and forgetful.  Our strength and stamina needs some improvement as well.  I loved walking around a corner and seeing Dave doing the bar hang with his eyes closed and head resting on his shoulder.  We did excel at disguise though. It was such a fun time there! 

The following day was Sunday, so we found a ward that met near the temple and went for our Sabbath worship.  It was so great.  The music chorister was one of the most elder of elderly ladies you may know.  She had a microphone with her and gave a little message before each song-how she wanted it to be sung, what she liked about the music etc.  Then, she waved those arms with gusto.  I felt bad because we were missing our Easter music program and my little primary kids were singing, but the kids in this sacrament did the same song.  So it was sweet.  The best line was from the beloved music director when she told all of us to sing it "not like we mean it but BECAUSE we mean it," Boom.  Message recieved.  

The most glorious part of that ward is that it met pretty much on the same grounds as the temple.

So we did a walk about the grounds and spent some time in the visitor center before we were off to the Air and Space museum.  

We went to the one off site that has the space shuttle Discovery and I loved it.  We waited way too long for the kids to ride the simulator, but it was good times.  

We had tried going to Mt Vernon, but it had sold out for the day.  Apparently, the Sunday before Easter is the busiest day of the year.  Next time, next time.  

After grabbing dinner, we went back to the mall for all the monuments in the dark.  

We walked and walked and loved the experience.  

To see the Vietnam, Korean, WWII, Jefferson, Lincoln Memorial is awesome- to see them lit up on a cool, clear night, is pretty spectacular.  We love our capital and love our country.  

We had arranged for a tour with our senator for the capitol building.  It was so fabulous.  The intern that took us around knew all the ins and outs but was actually surprised at the comments and questions from our resident historical scholar, Harrison.  

He mentioned a fire most people don't know about and she had to stop and find a couple answers for him.  The best part was her getting us into the Library of Congress from the tunnels and us discovering we were the only people there.  It was closed but from the inside we had access.  Cool memory.  

We made our way down to the mall again and explored the American History Museum and the Natural History Museum, where Harrison made Brenna take a photo of herself.   

I had a goal to just walk and walk and get so many steps in, but shucks, we saw those electric scooters and bikes and our feet were begging us to take advantage.  So we hopped on those and zipped around and it was so fun.  We went through the cherry blossoms and back and forth around the reflection pond.  I can see how they get annoying when people are trying to leisurely meander and a scooter recklessly flies by, but we were responsible and considerate drivers.  

We actually had plans to go to more museums the next morning but the people were worn out.  

Brenna said, "sometimes it's just so hard to learn when you are on break.  I'm doing my best."  all I could get out of them was the Arlington Cemetery.  It turned out perfectly.  

We ran into missionaries and I thought maybe I could get a glimpse of Katelee's friend from high school.  I looked for him, didn't see him, but he saw us! He messaged Katelee and said, "I think I just saw your family in DC."  Honoring the request of Brenna for a museum break, we decided to pivot and do some outside driving to West Virginia since we had plans out of the city anyway.  We went to Harper's Ferry, which turned out to be a lovely drive.  No big museums, but history was sprinkled in as it was a key location in the Civil War.  Harrison continued to be Brenna's (really all of our) historical guide.  We couldn't help but wonder if it was sinking in when she said, "so, there were like 3 countries-America, the North and the South."  She wasn't locked in...as was apparent by the sly nap they took while the boy and I learned about John Brown's raid.  

Brenna perked up for a photo shoot outside by the river and train station and we all had a boost of energy when we went to the Orioles game in Maryland.  

What a fun stadium!!  It is the cutest little alley land with crab themed food all over.  I mean, crab mac and cheese hot dog.  Yes, please!  It was the perfect way to spend our last night! 

We (I) wanted to use the last hours in DC at the Mall.  We went to the African American History Museum, which was cool and then capped it off with the Washington Monument.  

It was a really great trip- lots of learning, lots of laughs and lots of blisters.  So worth it.  

Big Birthdays

It is always a birthday whirlwind starting January 24th (with mine)- we get 4 birthdays in about 7 weeks.  Pretty much it is a non-stop party.  A couple of those celebrations were milestones- Grant turned 21 and Brenna 16.  

Grant is officially an adult!  I mean, 18 is the first adult day, but now we really have to consider that we have a grown up man child.  

He let us sing to him over cinnamon rolls and we were so happy to get to spend some time celebrating him!  Grant is still a tease with a kind heart.  He is first to help me when I need anything, jumps up to do dishes and takes extra special care of his grandparents.  He is skilled at speaking with people-those he knows and those he doesn't.  He is exploring his options with work and future right now and he has lots of things he could excel at.  

The third child of ours, never lets life settle down or get boring.  She had been counting down for her bday for ages, rightfully so, turning 16 is no small matter.  

She had everything planned down to the minute (of course).  She had to go to school and then we picked her up, her and a couple friends grabbed breakfast and then we met up with her pal Morgan so they could get their licenses together.  They saw each other, started squealing and filming and posting on all social media sites.  It was more excitement and decibels the drivers license division has ever experienced.  We have prepping Brenna for the rule of not driving with friends for 6 months (it is a law and boy does this girl need a bit more time behind the wheel before people are distracting her).  This concept is currently a sore subject because she asked to drive her and Morgan immediately after receiving her license.    

Not only that, but the day after her birthday, she asked if she could go on a drive.  We gave permission and Dave peeped her go up the road and pick up her friend Kinley!  What the?  When she came home we coaxed a confession and she is taking a little break from driving.  This is going to be a long 6 months.  Really it is for the benefit of everyone on the road and safety of every teenage friend she has not to be in the car at this time. The funniest thing was when I asked Kinley's mom if she knew about Brenna picking up Kinley.  Lara (the mom) said she heard Kinley tell her Brenna was picking her up.  Lara said that she didn't think I wanted Brenna driving friends and Kinley opened the door to leave and replied, "sounds like a Brenna problem, not mine."   hahaha!  

Brenna really did have a lot of fun shopping and hanging with friends and having a little movie night and mostly getting her license.  She had explained to us all it is her 2nd favorite HOLIDAY.  I told her i wasn't sure it was a holiday, but she insisted and explained it is and why she loves it "A- I rest.  A-it's a cultural thing A-it's personal and A- it's special, you honor it."  Yes, she said A to every reason.  She also had a lot of fun at Sweethearts this month.  

She went with the Dance Co gals and all their dates- tubing, dinner and hanging out at Ninja Kids after.  Just loving life! 

While he is the only McArthur child not honored with personal holiday at this time of year, Harrison is still keeping us busy and getting our attention with all of his fun activities.  Very last Valentine box baby!  

Harrison, the designer, went simple and smart this year.  His Mtn Dew box was a big hit. 

He designed our Superbowl game for our party at our neighbors.  While his team didn't make it to the big game, he didn't let us down with the artwork.  

He wrapped up his Bantam season with his school friends.  They had a good season and then kind of fell short in the end.  Harrison was so sick on the playoff game but he pushed through not being able to swallow at all.  What a champ.  

He was also a winner at Battle of the Books at school.  He read almost all the books this year, enough to make it to the bowling party.  

I have loved reading the books with him at night this year.  We will see how long he lets me keep doing that as he enters junior high.  I am not going to say anything and keep going until he kicks me out!  Here is his team: him, Dodger, Donald, Darrell and Ryler.  We walked to the bowling alley and had a great time.  

After February finished, it was a our little leprechaun's month.  Katelee is our adventurer.  She is always up for trying something outdoorsy and exciting.  She gives me panic attacks when she tells me she unclipped rock climbing to get to the top or shows me flips on her snowboard.

  But we love that about her so much and wouldn't want it any other way.  She really finds every opportunity to explore live it up. 

Her spring break didn't align with ours and instead of missing school and coming with us, she decided to go to Hawaii while she had no classes.  She had a fab time, but it was rainy.  Like unbelievably rainy-floods and power loss kind of rain.  I had contacted her a day or two into the trip and then figured I didn't need to check in every day. She facetimed two days later and was on to me for not caring that they were out of power.  I guess they didn't have any service/water/power for 36-48 hrs and as soon as everyone's phones came on, they were all dinging with people trying to find out their status and they were ok and Katelee...had nothing. Doh! 

 She was feeling like nobody cared and I was just hundreds of miles away clueless that she was in apocalyptic circumstances.  Ha! But they had some sunny days and made memories with the rainy ones- eating chicken in the dark, muddy hikes, all the things. 

 She came home on her bday and had just a window of time to eat, sing and then get back up to Logan to celebrate with her college peeps.   

Love these birthday people of mine! 

"Dear Past, thanks for all the lessons. Dear future, I am ready."

It's always good to start a new year with some goals and perspective.  We each choose a word to focus on and hang those words in our kitchen cabinet.  I love the reminder of each of us individually and all of us collectively trying to get better and face what's ahead.  We had a stressful month with Brenna.  

At the end of our Winter Break, I took Brenna in to have a consultation with an oral surgeon to have her wisdom teeth removed.  When her panoramic x-rays came back, the surgeon requested we stay and do a follow up CT scan because it looked like her roots were growing around something on the bottom right side of her jaw.  After the scan came back, the doctor informed us Brenna had a tumor.  The tumor had been eating away the lower bones of her mandible and there was a hole where bone should be.  She hadn't had any pain and he said that was normal.  He'd had a patient before who had broken their jaw from eating a marshmallow unaware a growth had taken all bone in their jaw.  We needed to schedule a surgery to remove the tumor, test for cancer, do a possible bone graft and maybe remove teeth the tumor cells had corrupted all while getting the wisdom teeth extracted as well.  

That was not how we imagined our routine visit to go.  I left the office thinking what just happened.  We had discussed her recovery time, thankfully it wouldn't be much as long as the surgery would be all the treatment needed (depending on the tumor).  She worried about dance, of course and we knew she'd have to miss some basketball half times.  The doctor said he'd have our back-apparently he had experience with coaches who refused to excuse athletes.  One cheer coach wouldn't be flexible for one of his patients that cheered when she required brain surgery after a stunt in cheer sent her jaw into her brain.  Luckily, Brenna's coach was very understanding, despite the stress of last month.  

Surgery was scary but successful!  She slept with me the night before so I could wake her every 1-2 hrs to hydrate.  Unfortunately, Dave had to be in Mexico for work and I reassured him it would be ok to be gone, there was nothing he could do here. Grant was here very helpful and supportive and we would be alright til he could get home.  

 I sat and sat in the waiting room trying to distract myself from the worry, but that is hard! She was a champ.  The tumor peeled off nicely, I guess in layers and was full of bone bits and gunk.  We are so happy she didn't lose any teeth with it but she did have a painful bone graft...from cadavers of human and cow bone.  Not sure if she realizes that...we will keep that on the down low.  And we were home for recovery! Soft foods for a couple weeks, meds around the clock, and ice packs for this gal who felt like she was wasting her life.  She is not used to sitting around for days.  

She had lots of kind words and support-flowers, treats, legos, meals, all of which brightened her day and lessen the load.  Our follow up appointment for the biopsy hung over our head despite the smooth surgery.  The tumor was benign!  yay!  The doctor admitted he was more concerned than he let on because he didn't want to give us too much anxiety.  However, it is a tumor that has a high chance of regrowth.  So, we will be heading to the office for scans every six months and take it from there.  We are relieved and thankful for the outcome and know she may not be completely done with these procedures or dealing with it, but she can face whatever needs to be done.  Brenna takes things in stride and while she definitely felt a bit down or bored, she bounces up and meets her challenges like few I have seen before.  

We had to remind Harrison of these good life lessons as he watched his precious Rams play.  

He had been crafting to support,  cheering, rooting for them  

 with their fabulous season.  The game that would take them to the Super Bowl did not end how our football fan had wanted and he might have ended up like this...

The emotions of an avid sports fan.  It's a rough life.  Katelee has had the best time cheering on the Aggies- football and basketball.  She is living it up.  

And so we start another year different than expected, but taking who we have become and what we have gone through hoping to build a good reservoir of experiences to draw from to gather strength for what's ahead.  If there is anything I have learned from my now 45 years on the planet- is life doesn't unfold as planned, but we can be better through what is thrown at us and what we choose to focus on.  

Countdowns

Our gal Brenna is known for her countdowns.  Her phone has an app with various events that she clocks to the minute how much time left until they arrive.  

She didn't have a firm deadline on when her dance photos would come back, but we were very excited to see her sophomore year pictures.  

They came four months after they were taken and we love them!

She loved the football games-dancing at halftime and pregame.  The team has done a couple of assembly performances, which has also been great.  They also had to participate in an eating challenge as part of the school's Christmas fundraiser.  It was ELF themed- base of spaghetti with so many different toppings people paid them to eat.  Brenna snarfed it like a hero.  She busted through it like it ain't no thing and then told me the nastiest topping was 'horse cheddar sauce'.  I wasn't sure if she meant horseradish but turns out it was worchestershire.  

While Thanksgiving was not one of the countdowns on Brenna's phone, there was a show countdown that released the day before Thanksgiving- Stranger Things.  These epic episodes hadn't had a new season for years and for nearly a year before the release the countdown was present for her.  She threw a Stranger Things themed watch party with us for the first released episodes.  It was pretty cool.  There were streamers and music when you walked down into the basement (upside down).  Pictures were all over the walls and the vibe was set.  We had Caleb and Adri stay the night to watch with us, since we would be heading to our family Thanksgiving dinner the next day, it worked out perfectly.  

We had a great Petrick family fun year- food, movies and pies...just how we like it.  The next countdown was fast approaching- Christmas.  But, before the holiday arrived, we had fun moments in between.   Brenna went to Winter's Ball with our neighbor Cole.  These two used to be bitter enemies growing up, so it gave us a chuckle seeing them head to a dance together.   For the first time ever, a few people took a glance at this photo and thought it was the other McArthur sister.  Brenna and Katelee have rarely, if ever been described as looking a like, so it was fun to see a brief similarity.  

The lighting contributed since her hair by the tree doesn't look as red.  She had a great time and looked fab! 

We were counting down the days for Katelee to come home and spend time with us!  (even though her plans mostly would include snowboarding when she was visiting).  We didn't want to wait too long and needed to show her siblings her apartment, so we took an evening and did a drop in enjoying the Aggie life.  

Brenna had a fun trip planned with Dave as a countdown item as well!  NEW YORK! 

 Dave took Grant and Katelee when they turned 16 and with Brenna's upcoming birthday, they started chatting about potentially taking the trip a little early so she could experience the city during the holidays and see the Rockettes!  Wahoo! 

 We thought she was able to miss a couple of days of dance a year...nope.  She can have a couple of tardies for dance company, but no absences unless it's a wedding/funeral/pre-arranged reason.  We discovered this when Brenna let her coach know about the trip and how she would miss the last morning before the winter break and Brenna was informed that she could miss, but she would be dropped a full letter grade or be removed from an upcoming dance performance.  Brenna called me devastated.  She could not, would not drop a grade and hated to think of missing one of the half times.  I was kind of floored because the day she'd be missing was a party, but hey, I don't make the calls.  Dave switched their flights and rearranged their whole trip so she didn't miss that morning for the party...which ended up being a kidnapping in the wee hours of the morning.  I was texted before hand and gave the senior dance captain directions for how to get in to our house and where Brenna slept. Well, that girl ended up getting strep and wouldn't be there, so when the girls came at 4am they had to rely on other information....Dave had worked so late at the office to get his business in order before they left for the Big Apple.  Upon coming home at 3 am, he unlocked our front door for the dance co girls, and he decided to sleep in our empty bedroom that Brenna used to sleep in.  She moved to the basement when Katelee left for Utah State.  So, the girls came into our dark home and one of them thinking Brenna's room was upstairs (because it used to be) led the entourage in to the room that held this man on his C-Pap machine.

They quickly realized that was not their dance teammate and proceeded to open every door upstairs- the laundry room, Harrison's bedroom door (which he addressed to me in the morning over breakfast wondering why people were coming into his room in the middle of the night), as well as the master bedroom where I slept with an eye mask and no pajamas, just my holy garments.  The girls were all I am sure traumatized...almost us much as us...before they found Brenna in the basement.  Good thing we didn't let Brenna miss that for NY!  oh boy. 

 

The party was attended and then Dave and Brenna headed out to the east coast where they had a great time. 

Statue of Liberty, Rockettes, 9/11 Memorial, Empire State Building, Times Square all the fun during all the festivities.  

Finally!  Christmas Eve arrived and Harrison was sick.  Boo...  One thing Covid did give us was an awareness of keeping masks on hand.  So, he donned a mask and we forced him to wear it most of the evening.  It was hilarious when we were reading the nativity for the little cousins to act out, we passed it around to him take a verse.  He started to read and everyone died because his voice was so Darth Vader the Chainsmoker-esque we ripped the holy words out of his hand and skipped him.  

Sadly, he didn't get to participate in the play, which was unfortunate since cute Warren and Alan were in town from NY.  But Brenna represented the family well and embraced the idea of all eyes on her when the angel appeared.  

Harrison had felt a bit left out during our Stranger Things watching party at Thanksgiving.  He kept creeping down the stairs to get a peep.  When Stranger Things had originally aired he was a wee child and way too young to watch it.  So, every following season I just told him it was too scary and he couldn't watch it.  We decided to let him catch up to the new season after Thanksgiving so he would be ready Christmas Day to watch the next batch of episodes that would be released at 6pm.  The kid accomplished it and quickly became obsessed.  

I guess at some point I have to realize that my baby is no longer a baby.  We had another year of our traditional Christmas morning...waking up the kids, reading a little scripture message and taking turns opening gifts

after the kids go through their stockings.  

I feel so lucky we had another year with all four. 

We had our special quiche breakfast with donuts and fruit, played a few new games and watched the next few episodes of Stranger Things that evening.  

A Christmas all together- the very best kind. 

The weekend after the holiday Dave and I decided to get away for the night and put our built-in babysitter, Katelee to use.  We went to Park City and being the amazing sister she is, she took Harrison and Brenna sledding.  

The snow thus far has been pretty abysmal this season, but Katelee couldn't be near her mountains and at least not try to get a feel for some powder.  She is an outdoors woman through and through. 

New Years Eve was down to this little crew: 

But we are so super fun.  The countdown for that night wasn't overly loud, but it was still meaningful.  As we went down from 10...9...8...7...6...5...we celebrated the arrival of a new year-2026! I never had it in my phone, I never really thought about it, but countdowns can happen without the anticipation Miss Brenna has.  It is so fun to have something to look forward to and to have in sight, but it is also exciting to have things almost sneak up on you, like a little boy now almost a teenager.  Whether we plan the events and look forward to them or just get surprised by their arrival, I hope in 2026 we can live in each moment and be present.  It is a gift to be here and we will enjoy it!