My favorite month of the year!

I love, love, love July! At the beginning of the month there is an awesome holiday. At the end is when we leave on our coveted beach vacation. And the week before that is my birthday! I LOVE JULY, it's such a happy month!

We kicked the 4'th off with swimming lessons. Normally I would have been bugged that she didn't cancel swim lessons for that day but since we go first thing in the morning it was nice to have something to do before all of the festivities. Plus the weather was super awesome. 80 degrees in July?!

My mom has a group picture on her camera that I need to snag but that afternoon we had a big BBQ and swimming at my parents. The best part was that Casey's parents and Melinda and Stephen and some of our nieces and nephews came too! I love joined family parties, you get the best of both worlds:)

At night we went out front where we played with sparklers and visited with the neighbors and watched about 3 different firework shows going on around the city.

Sometimes Rusty doesn't get to catch a nap if we are out and about. If that happens you can find him like this on the floor about 1 minute after getting home.

The boys had their last day of swim lessons on Thursday. It is kind of bittersweet. Nice to not have to drive over and sit in the heat for an hour, 3 times a week. But they absolutely LOVED going and are such good swimmers because of it. Lane is ready for swim team next year!! Miss Carolyn was already teaching him how to do his racing dive and all. He is growing up so fast! This is the cutest video of Rusty having a race on the last day. The whole lesson he kept asking to have a race. One of the moms was nice enough to video it for me on her phone then email it to me.

I wish it would post bigger. Rusty is on the left with the yellow swim suit.

This isn't just a July occurrence... more like a weekly occurrence:) It had to add it because this time I didn't bother to take off their jammies for our traditional Saturday morning donut run. Saggy diapers can wait for donuts!  I guess I can't say every Saturday. For sure on the Saturdays dad is at work and can't make his special waffles.  If you haven't been to Midwestern Meats for their awesome donuts then get your buns over there pronto! Their buttermilk bars and cherry fritters are to die for. But I can't leave out their maple long johns or cinnamon frye's either:/ 

The beginning of July was also a busy month of church activities for both Casey and I.  Casey put together a "Man"richment for the Elders quorum. He made a 9 hole miniature golf course in the cultural hall. It was really cool! And it only took half the day to make. Have I said it was really cool yet?  In the picture it looks like a huge mess but each hole was really detailed. Actually, the next weekend we went miniature golfing at Golfland with Casey's cousin and his wife. The best score for 18 holes was 43 and the best score at Casey's "man"richment was 35 (for 9 holes) so it was a pretty tough course!

He had an award for the best dressed golfer. Which meant he had to follow his own rules. Remember that Casey isn't fond of costumes or wearing pink of any manner. He made an exception just once. For church purposes:)  Goodwill never fails.  He wouldn't even let me take a picture of him.

I was in charge of our annual clothing exchange for relief society the following week. This was my second year in charge (hoping my last). It really was a great activity, just TONS of work. I had great help but if you have ever had a garage sale before, you know what a huge under taking it is. There were so. many. clothes! These were all the clothes that we had set out right at the beginning. People started showing up and before we knew it those piles were double high! It was crazy!

We also had some crafts for them to make like headbands out of old T-shirts and pop tab bracelets. After 2 hours I looked over to all the clothes and it didn't look like anything was dented. People were leaving with garbage bags full of clothes but there was just so many!

We filled the back of Casey's truck plus the back of a Tahoe AND a minivan with all of the left overs.

Goodwill was closed so we found a drop off box in the parking lot of Bashas. That started to fill fast but I was not about to drive around town dumping clothes off in random parking lots all night. Melanie to the rescue ran and pulled out the income tax business flag out of the grass and started shoving the clothes back to make more room!

With a holiday down, church activities done we are only half way through my favorite month! I can't wait for the last half to begin!