Recharge

So far I am very intentionally making this summer all about a recharge. I need it so desperately after such an incredibly hard year and so could my sweet girls. This house we thankfully live in and logistics of my moms passing has a to do list a mile long. I am slowly tackling pieces of that but also giving myself a lot of grace and learning how to just let myself be. Just being, either alone, with my amazing girls or even sometimes with friends can be really quite beautiful. And hopefully my tank is slowly recharging bit by bit, piece by piece, day by day. 

The girls and I have stayed up late and slept in a whole bunch. We have all slept alot and obviously needed it. I started therapy for the grief and have absolutely loved it! It’s kinda fun to note that I do it over zoom from my car in the garage so that I am actually totally alone. The three of us have cooked together, binged HSMTMTS-2 together and worked on several house projects together. We have had Sunday dinner at the Whitney’s a bunch, swam over there and had late night chats. We have gone back to driving around to nowhere like we did during quarantine and I even bought a real life book to just read for fun! We’ve done tick tocks, cuddled, pranked eachother, met a baby possum, had the girls friends over, gotten ice cream, and turned ourselves into cartoons. 

The girls went to two birthday parties, I went to a birthday dinner and Kellie finally took Keagan to get her nails done as her birthday gift which she absolutely loved! We had a fun family dinner to celebrate Addie graduating high school (she happened to be visiting)  and Kellie’s birthday. And the girls had some great times at Young Women’s activities not to mention all the socializing they manage to squeeze in during and after church. 

The Thayne’s gave us free passes to Big Rivers Water park one day and we had a total blast in sun! And we had another fantastic day going to the Astros game with the Whitney’s! We even went back to the movies for the first time to see Into The Heights































We had a very humbling experience as so many people from our ward showed up to help move all of the things from my moms storage unit into our garage. We had way more trucks then we even needed and so many hands that the job was done in 30 minutes! It was a beautiful reminder that we are loved and supported. 

And finally,  I got a giant bolt of recharge by being back in the Temple after it being closed for so long during the global pandemic! Oh how I’ve missed that place! Keagan, Riley and I were all able to go last week with other youth in our ward and it was downright glorious! Riley did 10 confirmations, Keagan did 5 baptism and 5 confirmations and I was just SO thrilled to be there with them! I knew my parents were also thrilled their granddaughters were at one of their favorite places on earth and they even sent their light beam in the pictures we took afterwards! Then yesterday I was able to go back with my friend Chelsea to do an endowment session. I had such an incredible experience half way thru realizing without doubt that my parents were both waiting for me in the next room! I could even see them in my minds eye standing there, my mom with her hands clasped and my dad next to her with his arm around her shoulder. Just being there and feeling their love and the love of my Heavenly Father surround me was the giant recharge that filled so much of my tank. 

And after all that I still felt like I spent a significant time on the couch or even in bed, yes even my moms bed where I sleep now, just being and just trying to recharge. So far it’s going well but I sure have a long ways to go. There is definitely no time limit on theses types of things so I’m here for the long recharge. Bit by bit. Piece by piece. Day by day. 

Girls Camp 2021

Everyone wants their kids to have more or have better then what they had. That’s just parenting 101. Well I didn’t have a great experience with church Girls Camp growing up and I wanted it to be so much better for Keagan and Riley! Last year was the first year they could go to girls camp but with Covid lockdown it was mostly virtual. But this summer yall! Girls Camp 2021 for Keagan and Riley exceeded all their expectations and more! All their fun, spiritual, bonding, girls camp dreams came true! 

Because of Covid, our Stake decided to go against their norm and do Ward camp this year. That meant camp was just for the young women in our congregation rather then the 8 congregations combined that usually go together. So instead of going to a large scale camp ground with hundreds of girls, the Klein ward girls camp was at an Air bnb in San Marcos with 24 girls. I am not currently a young women’s leader but I was able to go to camp to make it possible for Riley to go to camp. So all three Kikuchi girls got to go party on the River with a bunch of awesome girls for 4 days. 

The theme was “Oh the places you’ll go” and the committee of girls that planned this camp did a phenomenal job. From the darling matching t-shirts, to the great meals and from the big variety of activities to  the great River front house we stayed in they really did great! Riley and I had our own room with comfy beds and Keagan was just on the other side of the bathroom in a quaint little bunk room with her friends Kaylee, Lilly and Sarah. Since we don’t do sleepovers besides cousins, Keagan was in heaven and didn’t sleep much. Well all of us didn’t really sleep much but Keagan took it to the next level staying up til at least 2am every night and still being up by 7am every morning.

Our days were full of activities including archery, self defense, first aide, family history, pottery painting, seed planting, crown oragami, skits, a spa night, a glow in the dark dance party, a hike, water balloon volleyball, s’mores, camp songs, games, journal making, scripture time, cookie decorating,  ping pong, Buc-cream’s, great meals plus homemade peach cobbler and homemade ice cream from the Bishop, pool table, hot tub and lots of time on the San Marcos River mostly kayaking, tubing and paddle boarding. Yep we packed that all in and more! Oh and don’t forget the devotionals, the prayers and the powerful and memorable testimony meeting on the last night of camp. That testimony meeting will always have a very special place in my heart as I was so thankful to be there around the camp fire for both Keagan and Riley’s sweet but strong individual testimonies that brought both of them and me to tears. 

Even with all those activities I think the highlights of camp for both Keagan and Riley was the bonding and getting closer with other girls. Keagan cherished the one day Claire was able to come up for the day and hanging with her roommates late. But she also really loved getting closer with some of the older girls like Courtney and Rachel spending time in their rooms chatting, doing tic tocks and having time on the River. Riley’s very favorite part of camp was the last night after testimony meeting where Sarah, Lilly and Jacee played hide and seek with her only to let Riley find them and laugh each time. All the girls were SO sweet to Riley and she got lots of love and attention all week.  Grace was especially sweet and helpful! Both girls also absolutely loved giving and receiving their secret sister gifts! 

My favorite parts were watching my girls have such a fantastic time, being with all those girls that I love again, being with the other leaders Sister Smith and Sister Hoff (and Chelsea for one day) who are such incredible women, and Riley and I’s accidental nap after breakfast on day 3! 

Now I’m about to load a ridiculous amount of pictures I took but none of them do girls camp 2021 justice. It was magical and will be cherished forever! “Oh the places you’ll go” is absolutely right and we will take these sweet memories with us!