Week in Review...

Monday Rick took Haley and Ashlyn out kayaking. They had a great time!

Ashlyn decided to use the kayak as a paddleboard!

Jacob had pinewood derby on Saturday and actually did pretty good! He got 5th out of 15 boys! He named his car the Freedom Fighter!

We bought some lights from Costco about 6 months ago and finally had our neighbor install them this week. They really brighten up the front of our house, which I love! Now I just need to find a matching light that will hang from the ceiling in our porch area. The light that we have in our porch right now always gets hit by the screen door. So we are going to close that up and install one from the ceiling that won't touch the screen door. If you see one, let me know:) Here's the Before:

After with our pretty lights! We also got a new address plaque and getting the old one off was quite the chore. We had to patch it up and then decided to place this flower on top. We are not professional patcher uppers! haha!

Saturday morning I took a hike up a little hill, off in the distance you can just barely see the Superstition Mountains. Usually there is a clear view, but it was a little hazy. Not sure if that's smoke from all of the fires up north, or if it was something else....

Looking towards our home...

I'm finding more clues about my Hahn ancestors. Sometimes I feel like things are coming together really well and then other times I wonder if I've messed everything up. Right now I'm thinking that Christian Hahn and Elizabeth Stoller may have died young because we keep finding their children with other families at young ages. One daughter Elizabeth was 16 and working as a servant for a family, her brother Jacob was 28 and working on a farm as a laborer, my ancestor William was living with a family named Prochoff at 10 years old. So I'm trying to piece these clues together and see what happened. I also think that Christian may have remarried because Elizabeth died young and he married another Elizabeth with the last name of Stufer which matches the last name found in an ancestor Florence Hahn's journal. So I'm trying to figure all of this stuff out so we can have them correct in family search. This is why it's so important to keep a journal!

Week in Review...

It was a big week for my baby girl! She had her first day of preschool!! I was a nervous wreck and so worried for her! She started out the day by saying that her belly hurt, which means that she's nervous. That made me worry even more! She clung to me when I was dropping her off, but her teacher grabbed her from me and they walked into the door. Her teacher texted me later that she was doing great! Prayers are answered! She fully participated and even answered "all about me" questions which was a huge thing for her! When her teacher asked her where her favorite place is, she answered, with my mom! Oh my goodness!

We sold the bunny!! Hallelujah!! It was the happiest day of the year for me! Not that I don't love bunnies, they will forever hold a special place in my heart. I just never want to own one again, they stink, they eat my garden and they dig holes all over my yard! haha! Just not my idea of a good pet:) He's going to a family that already had a few bunnies and was so excited for him to join them.  We know Thumper will be loved!

This is a painting of our family that I bought, I think it turned out cute. I wish I had had Emily paint it though, but I ordered this at the beginning of the summer before I knew she could do this kind of art!

Jacobs birthday was on Tuesday, the big 10! He took Oreo's to school for his birthday treat, because they're his favorite. He had a fun day of talking on the marco polo app with his cousins and grandma hahn and aunts, then he opened his presents. He got walkie talkies from g and g Hahn and that made his year! He takes them everywhere he goes and talks to us all of the time on them:) He also got a remote control car, a paper airplane kit and a pocket knife. He was happy!

Abby's covering up her necklace that she made at her second day of preschool, but it was so cute! She actually colored it and cut it out, we are making huge strides in preschool with this girl and she's only gone 2 days!! yay!!!

Our Stake Relief Society is doing this 21 day quest where we are focusing on Family History and Temple Work. My goal for the quest was to find my fathers ancestors past his great grandparents. We have been stuck for several years, not being able to find any ancestors. My dad and I both believed that once we found his great grandparents parents, that it would open up a huge line of ancestors in Germany. I have really struggled with this, searching and searching everyday for the past 2 weeks. I was finally able to sit down with my family history specialist in our ward today and I found them!! And my dad was right, once I found the parents I was able to pick up the line all the way back to 1705 and I'm not stuck yet, I'm sure the line will continue to go back even further. I was crying throughout Relief Society today just knowing that these ancestors have been found!! I have felt like they've been calling out to me to find them, they wanted to be found. It was interesting to me to find that my fathers great, great grandpa was named Christian Hahn and he named one of his sons Jacob. I felt strongly that I should name my son Jacob, but I never knew why. Now I'm excited to learn more about this Jacob Hahn and teach my son about his ancestor with the same name! Prayers are answered!!

Week in Review...

It was my birthday on Friday and Abby and I stayed home all day and watched the new Beauty and the Beast, I made a cake and talked to family:) It was perfect! I got spoiled!

After having cake and opening up presents Ashlyn and I went to a stake Activity days T-Party. Abby didn't go, but she had to match Ashlyn of course!

This was a few weeks ago, getting new shoes for Ashlyn at KMart means riding on the carousel first!

Ashlyn performed with the other girls in our ward in the Talent show, they did the dance, Runaway from Love while wearing glowsticks and the lights were off. It was really cute!

Evie Claire was the special guest, she used to live in our stake but now lives in Florence. She's a contestant on America's Got Talent right now, so I can't post any videos until Sept. 24th:) She is such a sweetheart though, and just wants to share the gospel through her music. Her father is fighting for survival in a hospital right now, stage 4 colon cancer. So her life is pretty hectic, she was so sweet to come!

Week in Review...

My parents at their 50th celebration! They're so cute!!

All of the grand kids after church, except for some of the Whittle who arrived a few minutes later, and me!

The whole family!

I asked Abby if I could take her pic and she said, only if you're in it!

The whole family after church..

Abby loves to smother Lucky whenever she can:)

The whole family..Randy took our pictures and he did a great job!

All of the siblings with mom and dad:)

My little family:)

I took my Arizona Educators Professional Assessment test yesterday and passed! Now, if I successfully finish all of my courses and survive student teaching, I can officially become a teacher! One more hurdle is crossed!

Week in Review...

Here are some more pics of Tahoe, we had so much fun out in the water. Ashlyn had a really hard time with how cold the water is! You can see it on her face in this pic....

 Here are Sarah and I enjoying the icey cold water, it felt so good!!

 My daddy, Sarah and I swimming...

 When we got home Abby hopped right on her jungle gym...

 Rick was able to go kayaking yesterday and saw lots of wild horses...

 Wednesday was the first day of school! Haley is in 10th grade at Red Mountain High School...

 Jacob is in 4th grade with Miss Brown at Zaharis Elementary...

 Ashlyn is in 6th grade with Mrs. Bullard at Zaharis Elementary...

 Abby and I are at home together and we only have 1 daycare child to watch this year and I'll be watching her preschool teachers son while Abby attends preschool. It will be a fun year for us too!

Today we got to attend the Tuscon Temple Dedication....this is the 4th Temple dedication that we've attended since moving to Arizona! Arizona now has 6 temples, right before we moved here we were able to attend the Draper Temple Dedication and so we have been blessed to witness 5 temple dedications in the last 10 years, how cool!! President Uchtdorf presided over the dedication and he has many fond attachments to Arizona. He received weapons training at Luke Air Force Base and while he was there he received his patriarchal blessing and took out his endowments in the Mesa Temple! Then later on he received his first qualification for flying in Tuscon, which he needed with flying for Lufthansa. So he has a strong attachment to Arizona and it was sweet to hear him reminisce and praise the youth that had performed in the cultural celebration the night before. We are so blessed to have so many temples nearby us, Arizona is growing and we are so lucky to be a part of it:)