Marissa leaves for college

It is always a sad morning when the family has to say good-bye to the kids leaving for college.

Today, we left for our traditional breakfast at McDonalds at 7:30.  We had a fun time together before taking Robert up to NOHS for his day at school.

He had to say good-bye to her there - it was very hard and sad.

She also got the chance to say good-bye to Meg O'Brien - her best friend.

Then Mark and Betsy drove her to the airport!  Mark was very emotional saying good-bye to his precious daughter!  It was so hard to walk away.

For me, it's a bit easier - I go with her and get her settled into college!

3rd game - Mustang Classic vs Ballard

Tonight at 6:00 pm Robert's NOHS soccer team played against Ballard High School.

Robert started as the Left Wing as he has for the past two games.  Tonight the coach moved Mason to forward and Keyon to mid - this proved to be a good move for the team (both Mark and I were excited to see the position change).

Varsity starters

Look how hard he is playing

my favorite photo

Not 10 minutes into the game Kaleb Patterson crossed the ball over to the middle.  After a few touches, it came directly to Robert who took one touch and nailed it for the first goal of the game!  WAY TO GO ROBERT!!!  1-0 NOHS

Robert played the whole half going back to help on defense and sprinting up to be there on offense.  He has really stepped up his attack!  He plays aggressive and challenges the ball  constantly.  He had a foul in the first half.

Around the 20 minute mark Robert had an amazing shot that just missed the goal by an inch or two.  It was a perfect shot under pressure from two defenders.  GREAT JOB!!!

Ballard scored on a defense mistake, making the score 1-1 at halftime.  Robert played the whole first half.

Robert didn't start the second half, but did come in after 15 minutes.  Almost immediately after Robert came in, the defense broke down again (Nathan didn't move to protect the goal) and Ballard scored 2-1.  UGH!!!

Now there is a lot of pressure to get another goal, but with this young team - that converts to long balls instead of working it up the field.  Robert went back to help on defense and then sprinted to mid and forward.  He had a great game.

At the end of the game, the coach awarded Robert the "Iron Sharpens Iron" award.  This is his second time getting the award.

Alex and Bic are here

Mark's best friends from HAWAII came for a visit this weekend.

It was Robert Bickmore (Bic) - whom has been friends with Mark since they were both 3 years old.  Mark moved to Hawaii when he was three and they have been the best of friends ever since.  Rob and Mark played basketball and tennis together.  They were both on the high school tennis team!  Rob or more affectionately know as BIC have stayed in touch even after graduation from HS, missions and graduating BYU!

The other to come was Alex Mattheus (Matt) - whom moved to Hawaii when he was 16/17 years old.  Mark and Bic befriended him, and shortly thereafter he joined the church.  Mark had the opportunity to baptize him.  What a special connection.  Alex was our best man, and Mark was his!

Anyway, the special occasion is the US Open in Cincinnati is this weekend.  Rob and Alex came in on Wednesday.  We enjoyed playing tennis after their flight and a lovely dinner at Longhorn their first night here.

Thursday, they were in Cincinnati the whole day, that is until 6:00 pm and then rushed home so Mark could see Robert play in the Mustang Classic Soccer Tournament.  It was exciting for Bic and Alex to see Robert play.

Friday they played more and more tennis!  They love it!  Mark somehow sprained his ankle but he continued to play.  During their "rest" time, Mark taught them how to play 5 CROWNS.  Friday night we treated everyone to a Mexican dinner at Qdoba and dessert at 32 degrees!  After dinner the boys played basketball for over an hour!  What great times together again!

What a fun visit!

2nd Game vs Manual

The second game of the mustang classic was at North at 8:00 pm.  All the guys think they are going to lose.  I wish they understood the concept of a positive attitude.

Robert starts on the outside left wing.  He is hardly ever passed the ball.  It's as if they are playing 10 v 11.  He takes a few runs on goal but doesn't even get a shot off.  He played 25 minutes and then subbed out.  The half ends 0-0.

pre-game huddle (almost)

on the attack

The second half we don't look as sharp; again our midfield doesn't look to the wing (ugh).  Manual scores on two defense plays.  The game ends 0-2.

NOHS Boys 1st Soccer Game vs Fern Creek - VICTORY!!!

It's that time of year again for FALL SOCCER!!!  I'm so excited and a bit nervous for this season.  Robert will be playing VARSITY ONLY!  The Varsity team is comprised of 2 seniors, a bunch of Juniors and the rest are sophomores with one or two freshman... yikes ... we are young!

The beginning of each season the NOHS soccer teams host the Mustang Classic.  Our first game is Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 8:00 pm on the North field!  (Last year our fields were destroyed so we had to host the tournament at Collins).  It was so nice to have it at NORTH.

Robert started on the wing.  It was so fun to hear his name be announced.  #20 Robert Lowe!!!

The game was very exciting - the ball went back and forth, but the other team just didn't have a good shot, whereas we did.  Our first goal was off a FREE KICK.  Matthew Morris took the kick with his left foot and hit the top right corner - beautiful shot.   1-0

Our second goal was off a long play where we passed the ball around a lot, then Grey Kinnison took a shot, but the goalie blocked it, but didn't catch it so Robert ran up on the ball and booted it in with his left foot!!!  2-0

Our third goal was a very quick goal.  Kaleb Patterson passed the ball to Keyon while Robert was making a run.  Keyon passed it long and Robert ran up on it with no hesitation.  Goalie and Robert both went for the ball, it popped up and Grey Kinnison followed it with a shot into the goal!!!  3-0

At half time we were 3-0.

Robert started the second half.  We didn't score but we had a few opportunities.  The coach subbed the starters out a little faster (considering we have a 3-0 lead) but then we got scored on 3-1 ... 10 minutes later 3-2.  YIKES!!!

Luckily the game ended.  3-2.  WE WON!!!

Devon - Week 61 Veronica Got Baptized

Veronica got baptized and confirmed this week.  I forgot to tell you but veronica asked me to baptize her. I GOT TO PHYSICALLY BAPTIZE VERONICA!!! 

 I am always happy to hear about and witness a baptism.  I have been a part of the teaching process for a couple people that got baptism but I was never there for the entire teaching process.  I have been part of the finding, the teaching, and the baptizing but I have never done it all with any one person.  Veronica was the first person that I have found, taught, and baptized.  There was a lot of preparation that went into the baptism to make sure that everything stayed good.  I also realized that when she goes into the temple next year I won’t be there :( because my mission will be over that makes me really sad.  I will tell you more about the baptism later.

Zone Conference was really good.  I didn't really pray for it but I thought about some things that I should study and get better at and it was so surprising that all the talks had something that I desired. 

I wish that I was not cursed with slow hands that type slow and that we had to leave earlier then you are aloud. 

Devon - week 60 TRUST

This week has been a stressful week but everything worked out in the end.  First we taught the three commandments that most people have a problem with to Veronica, which are Word of wisdom, Law of Chasity, and the Law of Tithing.  So i was stressed about it because if she had a problem with one of those then we would have had to push the baptism date back.  Everything went great and now we just have to do the finishing touches on the baptism program.  

We were trying to teach Noen more often so we sent a text to his farther.  Sadly his farther texted us that Noen will not be taking the lessons anymore at the time being.  That was really depressing but I believe that missionaries will be able to teach him in the future.

This week and these next weeks we are going to put extra time in making our teaching pool bigger.  If we want more people to teach then we need to talk to more people and that's what we are going to do.  We have been having better ward council after President Winder's Training.  We have gone the extra mile to get members in the ward council more involved in the missionary work. Whenever the Ward council wants us to visit someone most missionaries contact the people that week and most of those contacts happen early in the week.  We now have been informing the ward council member/s the day of when we contacted the person.  It’s a small thing but it makes a difference. It shows the Bishop and the ward council that we will do what they ask, we do it fast, and that we are focus and work hard. There has been great blessing from this.  

The funny thing is that we go to try and meet the people that the ward council tell us to and they don’t live there anymore.  However, we have had great talks with the people that now live there and hopefully they can become investigators.  We hope that we will get some more new investigators from it.

We were so happy to see Veronica at church this week.  I get a little stressed when it’s an investigators first time at church because I really want them to have a great first experience at church. On this Sunday we had to go to two ward councils.  The second ward council happened during the second block of church or during gospel principles class.  So we couldn't be there in that class with her.  I want to make sure that Veronica made it to gospel principles.  Elder Belden said we should have a member take her so that we make it to ward council on time and Veronica could meet some ward members.  He said it would be killing two birds with one stone.  His logic mad scene so we went with it.  We ask Br Nguyen (Wind) to take her since his wife teaches that class and because he is an awesome member.  After we and the ward council talked about missionary work we were allowed to leave so we went to gospel principles class to be with Veronica.  We found out that an older sister of the ward intervened and told Br Nguyen that she would take her.  Well she took her to Gospel Doctrine!!!   What make it worse is that I already knew what gospel principles lesson was, it was about baptism!!!   We didn't change the scheduled it just happen that that was the lesson that week.  So I was excited about it because it would be a perfect lesson for Veronica that is about to be baptized. However, she learned about Stephen and how he was martyred. So my plans for church failed.  If any of you know me you know that I don’t like my plans to fail especially ones that I can control.  The lesson in this is not to not trust others and do everything yourself but, it is do your best with the circumstances and to Trust in the Lord.  My stress did not leave me until I turned my thoughts to the Lord and thought maybe this was the Lords will and I also remembered that the Lord is always there to help us especially when things don’t go the right way.

She enjoyed Church. 

New York, New York (need to finish and photos)

Mark arrived in New York Thursday night.  Betsy got them a hotel room right in Time Square!!!

Mark, Robert and Marissa checked into the hotel and then went down to the square to bask in all the excitement.  They were able to get their faces up on the big screen!  How exciting!!!

I feel so left out.  I didn't get to do any of the fun things in Philadelphia and now I'm missing out on New York.  I'm the one that arranged all the sites and hotels, but I don't get to enjoy any of it.  I'm glad they are having such a great time, though!!!!

Perfect day in Philadelphia

Robert, Marissa and Mark left on Wednesday around 12:00 pm for the long drive of their "Last trip before college" for Marissa.

Mark has always wanted to take the family to New York and Philadelphia, Palmyra, etc. ... but we just haven't had the time to get away.  This year Mark decided to just take the time since Marissa quit at Tinseltown on 8/1.

Wednesday they made it to Harrisburg and spent the night there.  The next morning they made it into Philadelphia and had a wonderful day.  Mark and the kids took a bike tour of the city.  They got to see all the sites!!!

Robert enjoying a Philly Cheesesteak

biking together - sister and brother

this is soooo cool

at the contemporary art musuem

What a great way to get around.

They also enjoyed Philly Cheese Steaks - yum!!!

Next stop is to see Gumby (Brian Monson) in Wilmington, PA and then head up to New York.

Devon - week 59 - Leadership, Great week, new people

LEADERSHIP EXCHANGES were this last Wednesday and I was With Elder Bowler.  HE is a stud.  He reminds me a lot of Elder Bodine. We killed it that day and taught 7 lessons.  This leader ship exchange is different from the ones in the past because I am a senior companion so I got to attend a meeting that day taught by President Winder about how to work better with Member and help them do missionary work.  My focus is to use members and inform them more in the missionary work.  This week we work a lot with members and help them get involved like bring the RSP to meet Veronica and the YWP to a less active house.

We had 8 referrals this week and did our best to contact them.  While we were contacting we started talking to Cortani.  She was downstairs smoking when we meet her as we were talking she stopped smoking and we had a really good conversation with her.  We went from strangers to acquaintance to friend and we were just being missionaries teaching and talking. We taught about the Ten Commandments, the importance of reading the Book of Mormon and how it will bless your life, the importance and sanity of Marriage.  We also committed her to read the Book of Mormon and to stop smoking.  She awesome. She is keeping her commitments and she’s not even an investigator (no specific appointment).    

Veronica baptism is scheduled for the Aug 15 at 4.  For now hopefully it won’t change :). 

Say Goodbye to Jessica's child room - Say Hello to the "Guest room"

Saying goodbye to the cheerful fun loving turquoise ...

Say hello to the neutral, comforting soft color of gray ...

New Guest Room

This was Jessica's bedroom for the past 10 years, but it was time to change it into an appropriate GUEST room for visitors.  Considering that we don't get visitors very often, it will most likely be Jessica and Tate's room, when they come to visit so I wanted to do something super fun with it.  I had a few different ideas but the one that stood out was ENGLAND.  When I talked to Jessica and Tate about a Theme - they suggested PARIS, so I knew I was on the right track!  

Welcome to ENGLAND in KENTUCKY

We painted the walls a soft gray to accent the royal/navy blue and red tones!  I'm so excited to finish decorating this room!

HARROD's Bear with BUILD-A-BEAR