The Book of Mormon

5 years. It took the girls and I 5 years to read the Book of Mormon together. That is 6,604 verses of scripture with 3,925 mentions of Jesus Christ in 1,825 days. Not a very impressive speed but we did it together! We started reading 5 years ago after I read an article about the incredible promises that prophets and apostles have given us if we read it. And there is no question that we are a better family because of it! I love this tattered cover and these worn pages for all that it taught our little family. I know the Book of Mormon is true and we will start from the beginning again tomorrow. 

We Made It!

We actually made it to summer y’all! This was without a doubt the longest and hardest school year of my life. With everything I was juggling personally with Nana plus everything Covid I am just glad I survived! I literally barely made it to the end and actually left work a little early on the last day of school with a headache. I didn’t even remember to take our traditional last day of school pics! Keagan took hers while getting out of the car that morning and Riley took hers after school when she was all messy. These pics are a good symbol for how I barely limped across the finish line this school year! 

Keagan and Riley on the other hand are sad their 6th grade year is over! Isn’t that awesome? They both just had such a great experience (probably mostly socially) that they are actually sad it’s over. Highlights of 6th grade for them were making a bunch of new school friends. Keagans best school friends: Bailey, Emory, Jimena, Reagan, Cade, Virginia, Myla and Briley. Riley’s best school friends: Lauren, Daniel, Mason, and Keagan says Riley is the most popular girl in 6th grade! 😂 The even bigger highlight was before and after school and hallway walks with the girls church/DPAC friends- their closest friends for sure. Every morning I would drop Keagan off at the bike racks to meet Callie, Marra, Calli, Trent, Carter and Zeke to hang out before school. The sweetest thing was Trent, Carter and Riley’s friend Lauren would meet our car there to tell Riley good morning before I dropped her off to her teachers by the cafeteria! After school was probably Keagans favorite part of the year! After I picked Riley up from her teachers by the cafeteria I would pull around and wait for Keagan at the corner of Ash Valley Drive. She would then walk with her friends, taking her time to maximize the socializing, thru Wunderlich Farms and down Ash Valley to my car. Their fun walking home group was Keagan, Claire, Calli, Owen, Kirk, Eric, Micheal, Junior, Dax, Max, Donovan, Sarah and Lizzie. I wish I had solid pictures of them but I didn’t ever want to be THAT mom. 

Keagan’s favorite teachers were Mrs Bledsoe and Mrs Vu and Riley’s favorite teachers were Mrs Sadeghi, Mrs Bear and Mrs Peej. The last week of school we found out some bad news for Keagan and stressed and struggled to get next years classes figured out for her. The wonderful principal Mrs Land who has been so helpful all year ultimately helped us get it all sorted out so all of us can enjoy our summer and look forward to next year! The other beyond stressful thing that we were forced to do the first week of summer was sell Nana’s car which was very hard and emotional for me. 

On to happier things. On Friday the girls hosted a kick off to summer pool party.  Keagan reached out to the Blackham’s on her own and asked to borrow their pool which they were so welcoming about. We ended up having 19 kids total there and man did they have a blast! The weather actually cooperated (it’s been raining for weeks) and everyone had a great time! I dont mind hosting these kind of things and providing the snacks because I’m super grateful for the great group of friends the girls have! 

 

Otherwise we’ve had dinner with the Reeves, had a fun Memorial Day swim and Cruella watching party with the Whitney’s, spent other late nights at the Whitney’s and other swims there too. We’ve stayed up way too late and slept in, done lots of chores, prepared for girls camp, got all our temple recommends in order to hopefully be able to go back to the temple soon (Riley was SO excited) and Keagan had a few hangouts to go to- I have to stop calling them play dates now! 😂 Oh and Miss Riley was invited to those too but chose to stay joke and do her thing instead. #homebody

I am very thankful for this much needed summer and hoping to do more then just survive it. I am still working thru so much grief and hard logistics of Nana’s passing but I still want to create beautiful and fun memories with the girls this summer! First up is Girls Camp starting tomorrow so hopefully I will have lots of fun memories made to report soon! 

May Madness

For the Kikuchi girls the entire month of May seemed to be spent either on stage or wrestling with grief. Two incredibly different experiences which made for quite the month. May is always crazy, maybe sometimes even more then December, but this May brought its own kind of madness. 

Every weekend there was some kind of show going on at DPAC in May. So you know that means an abundance of fun and a lack of sleep for us. Up first was High School Musical which the performance dates had to be shifted around for because of what else but Covid! We were all three just thrilled to be able to perform it and see what all our hard work created! As the Stage Manager of the show I just lump myself in with the performers because I seriously love everyone of those kids and I’m beyond proud of them. But I definitely had my two favorite performers who absolutely rocked the shows! Keagan and Riley were some of the very youngest in this cast which was a different experience for them. Thankfully so many of the older kids were very sweet and welcoming to them and I think both Keags and Rys loved developing sincere friendships with a great group of high schoolers. That helped with Keagans FOMO (fear of missing out) that a majority of her friends were in a different show. Keagan absolutely killed it as Martha Cox the nights she played her! Even with a smaller role she sure knows how to command the stage! And Riley stole the show one night when she stepped right in between the leads Troy and Gabriella on an important dance part between them. That resulted in Troy who is Brandon one of Riley’s most serious crushes picking up Riley and twirling her around instead much to Riley’s delight! Otherwise both K and R were the cutest cheerleaders I’ve ever seen in my life! The performances were fantastic and all three of us were thrilled at what we had been a part of creating! The middle schoolers cast party at our house closing night and the lunch party between Saturday shows with the big kids was the cherry on top! So pKellie, Justin, Gramas and Reagan coming to see the show must have been the whip cream! Keags even got Justin up dancing out of his seat on the last number and Sa and Todd plus several of the girls family members in Hawaii watched online! This show will always hold a special place in all of hearts and Riley sure made that obvious by insisting on taking her costume in her backpack to school everyday and even sleeping with it like it was a teddy bear! 

The next weekend was the DPAC Showcase which was an opportunity for the performance choirs, the dance classes and the preschoolers to perform. Keagan and Riley both did such a wonderful job performing 3 great songs with Ovation and the opening and closing songs combined with Ovation which is the middle schoolers performance choir and Encore which is the high school one.Keagan also got to be apart of an all girls small group that sang “There’s a Fine Fine Line” and also be in the most incredible number that she has ever been a part of. Mrs Shea put together a band of DPACers of sorts of two cello players, two guitar players , a ukulele, violin and piano player and then Keagan was blessed to do the vocals. They performed “If You Knew My Story” and I may be biased but it was a masterpiece! I had listened to Keagan practice it probably 100 times but when it all came together on stage it was pure magic and I was so thrilled for her! The closing number of the show was “You Will Be Found” from Dear Evan Hansen and the kids sang it so powerfully that lots of audience members and performers alike were in tears. Keagan had a good cry and said afterward said she felt the Spirit and felt like Nana was also with her as well. It was all wonderful and another fun and great show that reminds me how blessed we are to have DPAC in our lives! And of course we ended up with another middle schoolers cast party at our house afterwards! 

The last DPAC shows in May were two weekends in a row of separate cast performances of Descendants. This was the show that a majority of Keagans friends did so she was thrilled when Mrs Shea asked her to help backstage! She of course loved being there for tech week and helping backstage for the first weekends shows. Riley and I attended Thursday and Friday night but unfortunately Riley had a seizure Saturday morning so we stayed home to rest. Then the night before opening night for the second weekends cast, Mrs Shea asked Keagan to learn the choreography and be in the group dance numbers to help the ensemble. Keags was thrilled again with this request and learned all the choreography well in less than 24 hours and the shows were all really great! And to be quite honest it came at a time where she was really stressed and struggling with something school wise so things kind of worked out in a great way for her! Of course we squeezed in big cast Whataburger lunches on Saturdays and cast party nights (at the Newitt’s and Whitney’s this time!) because who needs rest? 






















But we also had two non-DPAC shows where both girls made me SO proud! Keagan played her flute in an awesome Doerre Band concert at Klein High and Riley did so well with the choreography and smiling at the Doerre Choir Pop Show! 

























These awesome girls of mine just love to be on stage and I will never get tired of watching them do what they love and bring their biggest cheerleader!