Mother's Day 2026!

For the last couple Mother's Days I've been really intentional about what I want to do that day. I've found that me being verbal about how I want to spend the day has helped the day not be disappointing. I know that might sound very selfish of me, but I'm the same way with my birthday. I plan everything out and then I know it's going to be a great day. There have been mother's days and birthdays where I haven't done that and then the day doesn't go very well and I'm bummed. So this is what works best for me. 

This year though...I had no clue at all what I wanted to do! I wasn't even very hungry. The only thing I did know was that I wanted an ice cream cone from Baskin Robbins. They have my favorite flavor which is Galactic Brownie. It's so yummy! 

After talking about what to do while we were at church, I decided that I didn't want to go out to eat immediately. Restaurants are always so crowded on Mother's Day so you end up waiting for over an hour and that did not sound like fun at all. So right after church we came home to watch Cobra Kai. We've been watching that show for a couple months and we were right at the end of it so I knew I wanted to finish it on Mother's Day. We watched 2 episodes and only had one left to go by the time we left to go out to eat. 

We ended up going to Red Robin. It's one of our favorites and it's a place where we can all find something we love. 

Look at these sweet guys! 

The kids were so sweet all day. They were mindful of hugging me more and also getting me something or doing something for me. It was great! 

I love to take individual pictures with each of the kids on Mother's day! 

The sky was SO SO gorgeous outside! 

These kids are so much fun and I really do love hanging out with them! 

Right after eating we headed over to The Commons to get ice cream cone at Baskin Robbins. Zeke wanted a plain vanilla cone and then he licked it in such a fun way it looked almost like the Statue of Liberty's torch. 

After we got home I opened my presents. One of the things I asked the kids for was words. I love getting notes, cards or letters with them using their own words. Jack and Zeke made me a comic strip and Ella wrote me a nice letter. 

The gifts from the kids were in an Amazon box and it was packed with this never ending packing paper. I started pulling it out and it just kept coming and coming. It was hilarious! 

I wanted a bunch of little stuff for the kitchen. These little metal spatulas come in handy. I had two from Pampered Chef one metal and one plastic, but the metal one went missing so now I have two metal ones. 

Our pizza cutter is awful. I've wanted a new one that doesn't have a handle. I just used it today to cut my pizza and it worked so well! I love it! The kids also got me another pizza pan. 

I have one of those pancake batter dispensers, but last summer I accidentally left it in the trailer when it got winterized. I've really missed it since I use it for more than pancakes. I use it for waffles and also for cupcake batter. Now I have another one and the one that's in the trailer can just stay there year round. 

After I opened presents we watched the final episode of Cobra Kai and then we watched Karate Kid Legends. 

 

Around 8:30 we took Justine home and that's when he gave me his gift. It had been delivered from Amazon, but his cousin thought it was his package so he put it in his room, locked the door and left before Justine noticed so he couldn't get it before he left for church. Justine wrote me a letter and it was super sweet! 

A couple days before he had asked me what I wanted and I didn't really know, but then I told him he could get me my favorite Ghirardelli salted caramel chocolates, but by the time he read the text he had already decided to get me something else. He got me a this super cute picture frame that says...

To my bonus mom...

You may not have given me the gift of life, but you life has given me the gift of you. 

It's not DNA or blood, but love, caring and sharing that makes us family. Thank you for everything you do for me and and for loving me as your own. Your endless support and love means the world to me. I'm blessed to have you in my life. 

It was the sweetest thing and now I need to print a picture of Justine and I together and put it in my new picture frame. This Mother's Day was a great day...not all planned out just more simple and relaxed and it was perfect! These kids are one of my greatest accomplishments in this life and I love them very much!  

Riverview Women's Tea!

On May 2nd, our church had our annual Women's Tea. 

I hosted a table and used my Royal Albert Old Country Rose China that Ellen gave me. At first I wasn't going to bring my chargers, but then I thought why not. Chargers are more fancy for dinner and this was a luncheon, but still I figured why not do all the fancy things. I even brought along the pretty accent tablecloth that goes in the center of the table. 

We were only supposed to have seating for 6 people, but that wasn't enough so I had seating for 7. There were a couple other ladies that had tables with 7 ladies as well. They just needed one open spot for the tiered tray that had all the scones and goodies on it. The ladies at my table starting at the front left and going clockwise is...me, Mary, Sue, Ga-Ga, Debra, Miss Ruth and Ella. 

Afterwards Ga-Ga had to rush off which was a bummer since she missed out on the group picture. If I had realized that I would have gotten pictures with her before the event started. Miss Ruth, Ella and I were all on the same page when it came to denim and dresses!

The tea was lovely....the food, the conversation, the music, the speaker....we even had a time of prayer and I was able to pray for a couple people. I love that our women's ministry team puts on such beautiful events for us ladies. 

Random Stuff From April 2026

Here's the random stuff for April. 

Jack has decided he wants to try to get a scholarship to the ROTC program at the University of Washington so he has to take his SAT's. In order to get signed up for the test he had to have a photo on file. This was the photo we used.

 

During the weekend of April 11th our church celebrated our 25th Anniversary. They had this fun backdrop up for photo ops. 

On Saturday night our original pastor, Pastor Brett Hollis came back to perform a comedy show for us. He's the one in the blue shirt with his arm bent. The person holding on to his arm is Pastor Dennis Sawyer. He is the pastor that married Michael and I at CBSR back in 1999! The man behind Brett is Pastor Proctor...he is still pastoring at CBSR and he's the pastor that dedicated Jack and Ella. The pastor in front of Pastor Proctor is Pastor Brooks he told us a bit of the backstory in regards to the church and the property. To the right of Pastor Sawyer is Pastor Jenny Smith she was a pastor at Riverview for a time years ago before we started attending. She spoke at our Women's Retreat a couple years ago and was wonderful. Next to Jenny is Pastor Tim our current pastor at Riverview and then to his right is Pastor Brian. He was our worship pastor for years until he moved on a few years ago. When I look at this picture all I can think of is...What a legacy! 

The Storer's got a new kitty. His name is Percy. 

On April 14th we went over and visited him. He's a Siberian so he's gonna be a big boy one day! His coloring is so beautiful and he has blue eyes! 

 

After playing with him for a while he was tuckered out so he needed to take a nap. I told Caitlynn he needed something to cuddle with so she went and got this little bear. Isn't he the cutest!!! 

On Wednesday, April 15th, at youth group we played a game involving solo cups. One team was supposed to make sure all the cups stayed upright while the other team was supposed to put the cups upside down. Towards the end it basically turned into a lets tackle and wrestle Michael game. Justine doesn't even weigh as much as Michael does, but he used to wrestle so he knows what he's doing. It was so hilarious! 

On Saturday, April 18th, we went out for a date day with Ella and Justine to celebrate their upcoming anniversary. To celebrate we had their pictures taken at JCPenney's. I'll upload those in a separate post. 

After pictures we went over to Potato Corner formerly known as Undercover Fries at Southcenter. We've been wanting to introduce Michael to these fries for quite a while now. They are honestly the best fries ever!

Trust me...get the Loopy fries with Sour Cream & Onion and BBQ seasoning. They are SO good. Michael is a fry connoisseur and he loves them and has been saying that we need to go back. 

After eating fries we headed over to the Kent Valley Ice Centre so Ella and Justine could go on their first alone date. Although they didn't know it was going to be an alone date. I had no desire to go ice skating since my back was still recovering from herniating my disc in February. I also hate the cold so there was no way I was going to sit around freezing waiting for them to be finished. So we drove up and told them we'd be back to pick them up when the skating session was over. I wish I had been filming Justine's face. He was like..."Wait, what....you're not coming in?" It was like he almost didn't know what to do with himself. In fact he even said, "I don't know what to do!" I told him he'd figure it out. They had a good time and it was fun letting them go do something on their own. 

While they were skating Michael and I went over to the Kent Golf Course and ate that the restaurant there. We weren't starving because we had just had some fries, but shared that one basket between 4 people. So we got two appetizers. We got Birria Nachoes...which I now know I don't like the birria.

 

We also got street tacos....those were yummy! 

It was a nice little alone date for us too! 

 

On Sunday, April 19th, Jackson did his last speech and officially graduated from high school. He was a part-time student this year since he only had to get 3 credits so he's had a pretty low-key year. So proud of this guy and looking forward to what the future holds for him. 

Michael and I left for his Water Conference on Monday, April 20th. It was down in Tri-Cities this time. They have a pub down there called The Proof! We love it! We had dinner there that first night and I got a yummy Huckleberry Lemon Drop....so pretty! 

On Tuesday, April 21st, Justine and Ella celebrated their 2 year anniversary. They were just babies when they started dating! Since Michael and I were out of town they hung out together at Ga-Ga & Pa's and got to go down the to beach to celebrate. 

On Wednesday night the engineering firm that Michael uses...PACE...honors all their clients with a dinner. It was at a winery and everything was so yummy! This was all the folks from Michael's Water District that came along and their significant others. 

On April 28th, I went to Costco with Ella and Zeke to do our monthly shopping. The kids were helping me unload the van and Ella decided she wanted to make as few trips as possible. :) 

On Wednesday, April 29th, it was so nice outside we held our youth group game out on the field. I'm so ready for warm weather! 

Bye Bye Wisdom....Teeth!

Back in December when Ella went to her dentist appt she complained about her jaw hurting. She's felt like she couldn't fully open is for a while now. The dentist recommended we go to Pacific Northwest Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons and have her checked out. Her first appt with them in January had to be rescheduled since we have the flu, but we were able to go in on February 2nd. The first thing they did was take extensive x-rays and then we went and met with Dr. Kevin. He was amazing and seriously made Ella feel so at ease. He's both a medical doctor and a dentist and he even used to perform surgeries to put in shunts just like Ella's. He was able to see that her wisdom teeth were likely what was causing her issues so after he got clearance from all her other doctors we were able to get her on the schedule for surgery. 

I decided to wait until after her choir performance since she would not feel up to opening her mouth and singing for a while after surgery. Another reason was because that was our spring break so she'd have a few days to recover before jumping back into school work. Her appt was on April 24th at 8:10 in the morning. 

Ella really wanted Justine to be there for support. 

He doesn't have school on Friday's so he was able to spent the night at Ga-Ga & Pa's the night before and then Pa dropped him off at our house bright and early on Friday morning. Ella was a little nervous, but not terribly so. 

When they called her back I went with her. The nurse got her situated in the chair and all hooked up to the monitors. She also got oxygen and an IV placed. When Owen had his wisdom teeth out it was at our dentist office, but that dentist has since retired. Owen only had laughing gas, but Ella wanted to be sedated. 

 

They had her x-rays on the screen so we could see exactly where her wisdom teeth were. 

The dreaded tool tray. The nurse had those covered with a cloth until Ella was laying down and couldn't see them. 

I did get a chance to pray for Ella and then once Dr. Kevin came in I went out to the waiting room and waited with Justine. It really wasn't that long at all and then the nurse called me back to give me a little goodie bag for Ella with all her instructions. She told me I needed to pull the van over to the side entrance and waited for the nurse to walk her out. 

When Ella came out she was so silly and high on drugs! It was hilarious. I asked her if I could post the video and she said yes. 

It was so funny how she got mad at us for laughing at her and then she started laughing at herself. Justine got an even longer video of her. Her emotions were all over the place like a rollercoaster. 

The rest of the day she spent on the couch resting. Michael only worked a half day so once he got home, Jack and I ran up to Fred Meyer's to pick up her RX meds and get some softer foods she could eat. She had to take meds every 3 hours alternating between Tylenol and Ibuprofen for 3 days. She did take her RX meds a couple times, but mostly stuck with the over the counter stuff. I did set a bunch of alarms on her phone so she'd wake up in the middle of the night and take her meds. I didn't want her pain to get out of control. Thankfully she managed it really well. She did get some swelling...even though she iced a bunch...and she did get some bruising, but nothing too awful. Overall though it went really well! 

Cantate Homeschool Choir Spring Performance 2026!

A year ago when Ella was a part of the Cantate Homeschool Choir she was getting ready to perform at the Spring Concert, but then she ended up having a migraine and wasn't able to go. It was so sad. Fast forward to the Fall Session and she wasn't able to join the choir because of her Driver's Ed schedule. Starting in January she joined back up and was thankfully able to perform at the Spring Concert this year! Yay!!! 

The concert was held at the Federal Way Performing Arts Center. They actually had the concert for two nights to accommodate more people. Michael and I were away at his water conference so we couldn't attend the first night. Ga-Ga & Pa and Christina, Anna & Addison came though.  

They sat right down front so they got an awesome view of the stage! 

The second night of the concert she had a bigger crowd...Katie & Ernie and Papa & Miss Ruth. 

And our whole family including Justine were there to listen to the choir sing. 

I didn't even try to find seats on the main floor I went right to the balcony. With as many people as we had I knew it would be hard to find enough seats together. I'm thinking next year I will try though since it would be nice to be closer to the stage. 

This is the whole choir! They are all homeschool kids that range in age from 4 - 19. There are over 200 kids up there! It's crazy how much the choir has grown since Ella first joined.

My sweet girl is right in the middle and on one side of her is Caitlynn and on the other side is June. 

I wanted to get pictures at the Performing Arts Center, but Ella's head was killing her from all the music and singing so we just dashed out of there. Thankfully once there wasn't constant noise around her she wasn't in pain anymore. 

It was so great to hear the choir sing, but it's also nice that we are on break from choir now until it starts back up again in September! 

If you do per chance want to listen to the choir here's the concert link.