Harmon's Haven

Meet amazing dad Robbie, mother-in-training Jesika, 7 year old best big sister Bree, 5 year old boy in every way Gabe, 3 year old who thinks he's 10 years old who makes us all laugh McKay,
and 9 month old sweetest Quinn Marie...the Harmon Family!

Monday, August 30, 2010

PLEASE VOTE!!

So as some of you know I participated in and have stayed involved with the Distinguished Young Women program (formerly America’s Junior Miss...it was that thing I won my senior year). Since the city and county in Mobile, AL have had to cut their funding, this very important event for the Gulf Coast area is in jeopardy. This event has an economic impact of more than $2.5 million for the Gulf Coast area each year! This month Pepsi is giving away $250,000 grants to programs in the gulf and we are in the running! All we have to do is get the most votes! We have gone from 10th place earlier in the month to now 4th place!! The voting ends August 31st...so would you please vote? We are two spots away from winning! You must be my friend if you are reading this on my blog :) and I would be especially grateful if you could vote and forward this message to your friends as well (you can count it as my Christmas gift!). Just click: http://gulf.refresheverything.com/distinguishedyw
Be sure to click vote for this idea AFTER you log in for your vote to count.
THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Our first visitors!

We love our new house. Plenty of room for the kids to run, a back yard to play in, and best of all, a guest room! And we had our first guests this month!! First came our dear friend the Lopez family. They lived downstairs in our building back at Baity Hill (grad-school days...oh so long ago :) and I loved Nicole from the second we hung out. She is just an amazing mom and just a real woman. Amazing. We were SO honored to have them in our home! Bree talked about Maddox every day from the time we heard they were coming. We had a blast at the pool, the train park, and just hanging out at the house. It was going to be Nicole's birthday the following week, so one night we got the kids in bed and made home-made Cafe Rio and celebrated early! I had been working on her birthday gift for the previous month and was so grateful she loved it (she made me feel like she loved it so much...it made me feel so good :) especially since it took a lot more work than I thought! (Thank you for the help Heather!) We really had such a great time and are so grateful they took time out of their San Diego vacation to come visit us!! We love you guys!!
THEN, last weekend one of my friends from Dancers' Company at BYU got married (Horray Alisa!). Oh she was such a beautiful bride. So two other friends also from company came down and stayed with me! Lisa and Amy were an instant hit with Bree. Bree had to wear her pink dress to the temple to match Amy, and she wanted Amy to "babysit" instead of me :) These girls are both amazing dancers and amazing women. I loved getting to talk with them and learn from them. We had such a wonderful time and I was blessed to get to spend time with these beautiful women!
So, now our guest room is available for anyone else who wants! (Hint hint family!!) You even get your own bathroom!

4th of July!!

It seems like the 4th of July was ages ago, but I have to do a little recap because it was simply the best week of the year so far! The most special part about it was that my sweet 92 year old Grandpa Ralph was chosen with his three brothers and one brother-in-law to be honored as one of the Freedom Award Recipients. Every year they choose three or four people who have "Demonstrated unusual or extraordinary devotion to the cause of freedom and America’s traditional values" and honor them all through the week. They hold a beautiful awards gala where the recipients get their awards, give a little speech and they show a video recaping the reason they were chosen for the award. We got to go last year and this year too and it has been one of the most inspiring events I have ever attended. Then they get to ride in the parade (he's the one on the left), and they honor them at the Stadium of Fire (he got to meet Carrie Underwood...but after he shook her hand he leaned over to my dad and said, "Who is she?"). He was SO excited about everything, SO cute in his tux, and I was SO proud to be his granddaughter. I was priviledged to help him put his WWII journal into a book (with lots of historical context, maps, etc...) as my Honors Thesis in college so I have spent a lot of time with him talking about his WWII years. I have an amazing grandpa. And Carrie Underwood was amazing by the way. Probably my favorite perfomer! During "Jesus Take the Wheel" she broke out in "How Great Thou Art"... I get chills again just thinking about it. And since my grandpa was being honored we had lots of cousins in town whom I haven't seen forever! We had a breakfast at the park and a big game of baseball. As we were finishing my grandpa came over and said, "Well I want to hit!" Robbie was pitching and was so relieved when grandpa hit it after like 10 swings :) He didn't want to be the grandson-in-law who struck out the 92 year old grandpa!!
Also that weekend we had our first ever Henderson Family Reunion, with just my siblings and parents. We stayed together in a cabin at Sundance and oh how gorgeous. One morning the guys went golfing and us girls went for a run and then did yoga/toning exercises on the patio...it was so fun :) We had a family "talent show" which was hilarious, did family pictures, played games (Ya Big Booty!), and of course had delicious food. My parents put so much time and effort into making it a memorable weekend and boy was it. We all just can't wait to be together again for Thanksgiving when my brother Kurt will be home from serving in Finland! The first time our family will all be together in EIGHT years!! (All of our missions have overlapped!) I love my siblings (and their spouses) so much and can't believe how blessed we are to have eachother! It was truly a wonderful weekend. Thank you mom and dad!