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We have several fun traditions on New Years Eve, but my favorite moment of the day/evening is taking time to evaluate the goals I set for the current year, read my patriarchal blessing, and set new goals for the upcoming year. Last year, I had a pretty simple goal for 2020:  survive and thrive.  It is crazy for me to think of this exact time last year, remembering that we were unemployed, uninsured, and unsure of our future.  I had to keep the goal simple.  Stay calm through the unknown, but when the unknown became the known, make the best of it all. I will say that I have been successful.  Yes, it became easy once John got a job, we bought a house, and I could relax again, but it all came at a price.  The price of following the commandments and staying true to my covenants.  The year preceding was a test for John and me.  Could we stay true to all that we had professed "knowing" our entire lives through the fire of affliction?  It wasn't easy to continue paying tithing w

 So it's a short story, but there was something kinda funny I did back in high school that I'm not sure anybody in the family knows about... It's also fitting, because it has to do with Rubiks, who, after a long and hard life of 17 years, was officially "put out to pasture" just a few weeks ago for a big ole' insurance payout. Like all the other Kennedy kids, I drove Rubiks back and forth and all over State College to the high school. We had all iterations of the Kennedy kids driving together, and I think at some point, all us kids were the designated Rubiks driver. He was a good solid car, with 4-wheel drive, and a reliability that is unique to Toyotas and Hondas, which was always helpful in the winter months when the snow would come down pretty hard.  Now, this might be a little hard for my family to agree with me on, but I feel like I'm a pretty safe driver. Sure, I brake usually pretty suddenly, and I like to speed, but for the record, I have NEVER had

Merry Christmas, Mama! It’s funny, but we actually had a conversation about the very topic I’m going to write about a couple of days ago: kids’ cavities. Annie has a small one right now, and I don’t know that we’re going to get it filled. Maybe we should, because she’s pretty young and her molars are way back there, but I remember that at one point, I got a cavity in my teeth as a child. It was my first cavity, and honestly, it was pretty devastating. It was always such a good feeling to come out of the dentist being like: “yep, no cavities!” And I wasn’t able to do that after this particular dentist appointment. I had an appointment to get my cavity filled a little while later, and I remember you dropped me off or went in with me to have it done, and I went in,. The dentist says it’s not really going to hurt, but I guess that pain idea is relative for dentists, because I was shocked when it hurt SUPER bad!! Like I almost started crying because it was hurting so bad. I got the cavity f

This memory also takes place the summer of 2017, but it is later in the summer, and I'm at Interlochen. Since I had graduated highschool, I was in the cabin in HSG with the oldest girls. I'm not gonna lie, it was a strange dynamic. We were all still high school students but we all knew what colleges we were going to but we were like all still super insecure and the large majority of us were musicians meaning we were all judging each other about not being in WYSO. I was in WYSO the majority of that summer so it was fine :) Another interesting wrench thrown into the Cabin 12 mix was our HORRIBLE counselor. She was a wash out Musical Theater person who now professionally welded as a living (but I don't think she was very good at it), she liked to drench her pizza in ranch dressing *barf*, and looked like a lumberjack with her constant flannel and HUGE boots.  What made this counselor especially despicable? Well, July 4th is one of the biggest days on Interlochen campus as it s

 I first started playing a strong instrument at the age of 8. I started on violin, and my teacher was Frau Hiller. She had a studio in Trier in Germany, and she was just about the most energetic and happy German I think I ever met. She was made to teach music to little kids, and while I'm sure I wasn't always happy to go to my lessons when I was younger, I do remember enjoying the lessons. She picked such fun music for me to learn, and almost all of it was traditional German music printed on sheets of paper with what looked like drawings she had drawn herself. She would use green ink to designate the number finger I was supposed to use on the E string, and red ink for the A string to help me learn how to play music, even when I wasn't reading actual notes. The first lesson, we created a foot mat for me, which I would use for each lesson to help me know how to stand when playing and when at rest. If I remember correctly, mine was yellow. She would use fun magnetized animals

A big  deal on my mission was when we received portable DVD players. We were able to do all this missionary training that we weren’t receiving before, and we could watch church videos to prep for sharing them with investigators. My second Christmas, Mama sent me a series of “Advent DVDs,” with Mormon messages. It was four DVDs, with the first for December 1-6, the second 7-12, etc. I loved these DVDs, and watched them several times during that Christmas season. My two favorites? “In the Spirit of Thanksgiving” and the New Years “Look Not Behind Thee.” That’s pretty funny, given that those two focused on Thanksgiving and New Years instead of Christmas. 😉 I’ve attached them below:   I really treasured the first DVD, because it not only had those two videos, but the opening screen had a Christmas Carol that I didn’t know well, but that I thought was beautiful! It had a haunting melody, and I would play it on repeat so that I could listen to it over and over again. I distinctly remember p

 Well.... since I don't have any memories from Germany.. I have to pull from mine from good old backwoods Pennsylvania. Other than a few flashes of the German country side, the Swiss Alps and some old buildings in Rome, I don't have much SO, I'll be reciting a regaling tale from the hottest spot in State College - good ol' College 9 theater. Seriously what the heck did people DO before College 9? They had to drive all the way out to where the MALL was and admittedly that was a better theater but College 9 didn't have to be better, just THERE. College 9 was the site of many a Kennedy family outing. It is where we watched the last two Harry Potter movies, The Hunger Games, and MANY other movies - some bad, some good, all in the midst of pop soaked and popcorn covered floor. Anyway, it was the summer of 2017 - meaning we were moving to Michigan in a few weeks (if not a couple days) and there were 2 things I was going to miss when we left:  1. The Pennsylvania location

  The Scooter Squad When I entered first grade at Grundschule St. Cäcilia Preist, I was very nervous. I had only ever known the Kindergarten I attended, where I had my fellow military brat friend, Patrick, and my sweet teacher, Rita. Going to elementary school was nerve-wracking, but it was made easier by the fact that Mark would be there to help me. Before school began, I remember that Mark and I were gifted two Razor scooters. Mine was green and Mark’s was red. I also remember that we thought we were the coolest kids on the block because we got to ride scooters to school every day. I can still remember the ride.  We would turn right out of our home in Preist, and go down a curved, and rather steep hill around to the road that led to school. We would pass Regina’s fish pond(where we would sometimes stop to see the fish), the bushes where we would later hide instead of doing our running(more on that in a second), and a really random bubblegum machine attached to someone’s house. It onl

     For anybody who’s ever lived in a foreign country, you know how oftentimes, communication is ALL in the details. Sure, you can understand when someone says take a left on this street or take this number bus, but what if they describe where you should turn based on a significant city landmark instead? Or if they mention you get off at stop X, but you don’t exactly know that stop’s name, and so you think it’s a landmark? Or, on the offchance you’re REALLY disorganized, and you don’t even REALIZE that you’ve been given instructions to do X (which breaks your everyday norm), but you didn’t understand any of the instructions given, and so you show up on what SEEMS to be a regular day for you, and your regular classroom is locked, and none of the other students are anywhere to be found?                I feel like combined with Germany’s school system of sink or swim, even in middle school, and that makes for some panic filled days trying to remember where you’re supposed to be, and wh

 Merry Christmas, Mama!!! We kids know that you love blog posts, and learning things about our lives, even when you’ve been a significant part of it all. ;-) So here are some memories of our childhoods/growing up that you may not remember or know, but that we think of as significant memories. Merry Christmas!   The toy store on Nagelstrasse will always hold a special place in my heart. I thought that place was amazing, with all of the Warhammer figures that it had, the floor dedicated to stuffed animals, and the incredible assortment of board games and Playmobil figures. It certainly could blow Toys-R-Us out of the water, even with much more limited store space.  It was always fun to go there, and as I would often go on my own after school. So one night before bed, I told you I was going to go the next day. But that night, as I was thinking about it, I just got this sick feeling in my stomach. It wasn’t a sick feeling as more discomfort. And I spent quite a while that night wondering i