McKenna Family

We celebrated Russel's 41st birthday this month.  One thing I admire about him is that he fully embraces each one.  I, on the other hand, have heart failure every time I realize how old I am about to turn.  In my head, I'm still 17 :) The last couple of years or so Russel and I have started a little tradition of going to Arizona the weekend of his birthday.  It's the perfect time to get out of the snow and into the sun.  We managed to hit Arizona yet again at a perfect time.  The temperatures were soaring in the high 70s and I couldn't have felt more content.  We took little Mei Mei along and she was just as excited as I was.  She knew there would be some swimming involved.....not to mention she gets pretty excited about the plane ride, although you just can't see the excitement in this picture.   (Just ignore the guy's BEHIND right BEHIND us.....maybe that's why the look of distress on Meili's face.) We mainly just relaxed and did nothing, w...

We had a special night Sunday when Josh was honored at an Eagle Court of Honor where he and three of his best friends all received their Eagle awards.  We are so proud of Josh and his accomplishments as well as the other boys.  If you recall, he held a dinner and raised over $3000.00 for the orphanages in China to purchase much needed supplies such as cleft palate bottles/nipples, vitamins, diapers, bibs, onesies, etc.  He was even able to get a camera donated and many other items that really helped many of the sweet little ones in China.  It pushed him definitely out of his comfort zone as he went door to door selling tickets for the dinner but it was a huge success and he knew what he was doing was helping children just like his little sis.  He had seen first hand those that had done so much for our little angel and knew he could make a difference too. The court of honor turned out so nice.  We were honored to have our local fire department come and post ...

What? I can't possibly be old enough to be the mother of TWO, not one, but TWO teenagers?  Where have I been? I swear just yesterday Abi was running down the street in Gilbert to play with Megan.  How quickly things change.  She was a sweetheart then and is a total sweetheart now.  She is an absolute joy and so very helpful.  I had a little breakdown as I was loading the pictures from her special day onto the laptop.  We had a malfunction and lost over 300 pictures including her birthday pictures, her video, and many from Christmas Eve at Grandma's, and a few others.  I still am very sad but the pain in the front of my skull has subsided somewhat and I'm dealing better with the tragedy.  I was able to realize, through my pain, that we had a few that I had taken on my phone from earlier that day and I guess we will try to recreate a few of the rest.  Of course there will be no cousins recreated in the pictures, no presents, and no cake, but th...

Merry Christmas I'm going to try to recreate this post that I had spent the better part of a night getting just perfect and then BAM, it was deleted somehow.  So now I don't even know where to start.  I guess I can start with saying that this will be a Christmas we won't soon forget.  The memories we created this year started as a small thought back in the Fall.  We gathered the children and told them they could really make a difference in the lives of the children in China, more specifically Meili's little friends, whom we have grown to love more and more.  We let them decide if they thought it would be a good experience if they were to give up their Christmas in order to help these sweet children in China.   Without hesitation they each agreed.  We decided that we would still do the traditional PJs and books on Christmas Eve and also stockings and allow them to ask for a gift that was around $60.  As we got closer to Christmas, I worried that th...