Last Half Of July



I turned 29 (insert mid life crisis). I told Casey that for my thirtieth I will  need to be in a "happy" place, literally, or else I might just be on the floor all day long. I said Hawaii might do the trick.

I did have a great birthday! The boys surprised me with a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake from Pets n Robins. Which really is Baskin Robins. That's what Lane calls it for some reason. Then they were off to play with cousins all day while Casey and I spent some quality quiet, NO KIDS time together.

We went to Oceanside CA! It's funny how we go to the same place every year but each trip brings different fun, new things.

My mom, the social bug that she is, meet this older couple at church and started to chat and the next thing we know we were invited over to their beach mansion for waffles with some of their married kids. It was a hoot. I don't have any pictures (didn't want to seem like tourists) but it was amazing. I think our parents are life long friends now, ha!

Harbor Fish n chips

Many, many hours on the beach! Lane is a pro boogie boarder.

Jefferson's friend Ryker came with us as well as Griffen, Craigs friend.

This is probably our 20th trip to Sea World...and it never gets old!

However, I do not do the rides. Because you get soaked. I hate being wet and damp all day. Worst feeling in the world. So I take the pictures. I love how Stephanie has no idea what's about to hit them. She is waving happily at the camera while my dad spots Casey at the water gun machine with a pocket full of quarters. Yep that's right Jefferson, you know exactly what's about to go down.

SOAK CITY! I love that Griffen thinks the wet-er the better.

until the ride ends.

and the sun starts to go down and in California it is chilly at night.

but our little family stayed dry and warm.

More beach time!

the second Rusty would get wet he would strip naked until his suit dried out then he would put it back on. That was his constant cycle all week. Needless to say his bum line isn't so contrast anymore:)

Pizza on the beach for the last night.

Farewell meal at Phil's before the drive home.

It was a great trip as always!

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!

"Camping" day-cation!

This is what happens when:

You do 6 hours of yard work in flip flops. Lesson learned.

(do you like my pinterest inspired toes?)

You have long hair and it wont stop falling out in what seems like clumps!

Now I know why we have drain-o in stock.

It took me an hour to detach the whole vacuum and 30 min to put it back together again.

I think I am ready for brain surgery.

And sorry that picture is way gross.

You take pictures on aunt Valerie's phone.

Glad I didn't partake in that activity.
Or procreate with Buzz from Home Alone.

Backyard Soakin

A special thank you to the man who helped me shove this beast

 of pool into the back of my car at Walmart.

It was quite comical.



LOL!

One of my least favorite things to do ever is teach, especially in relief society. I don't mind being in the presidency and being in charge of activities and having meetings and going on visits. That is all peachy. Preaching to the choir is what I don't enjoy. There are so many suitable women other than me who would be perfect for the job.  I have get to teach once every three months. When my month is drawing near so are my nerves, hives and anxiety levels. The week of my lesson is ridiculous. I can't even drive by the darn church building and not go into a seizure thinking about what is soon to come on Sunday. The only perk to 8am church is that I don't have to wait around all day to give the lesson that I prepared for hours but knows nobody will like it or they didn't relate or feel the spirit and that it was a complete waste for them to have had to sit and listen to my mumbling for 30 minutes. Am I being to hard on myself?

Anyway, after putting myself through this torture I finally came up with a solution. Back in the day when I was completing beauty school I was getting ready to take my state boards. One of my instructors told us that if you dressed and looked professional and like you know what you are doing then they will pay less attention to you while taking your practicals. Instead they will focus on the rag a muffins. So pretty much fake it til you make it. Genius. And I am here to tell you that it totally worked!

So, how was I going to apply that to a relief society lesson? We all know the quirky reputation that use LDS women have... dect out lesson tables! If I had a cute table scape then they won't pay a ton of attention to me but on my decorations! And if anything else it would make me look like I knew what I was talking about. So I put my plan to the test today.

No it wasn't over the top with an ice sculpture of the temple but a step up from the usual dry silk flowers that have been in the closet for years. I still put in lots of preparation time but I felt more relieved knowing that if my lesson was bombing they would at least have something pretty to look at. And it gave me an excuse to buy pretty flowers:) FYI, Trader Joes is the way to go for good, fresh, cheap flowers!

If you are wondering why I am sharing this with you well, it's because I found the best blog ever and I want to share it with you! When I am preparing my lessons I have to discipline myself to sit at the computer for at least 2 hrs with no interruptions (meaning no FB, email checks. yes I am that lame). Once I do my required length of time I reward myself with some pinterest and blog stalking! Last night I had just finished up my lesson, printed it off and sat down to look at some blogs. Who cares if it was midnight, I needed my reward!

Some how, some way I happened onto this ladies blog called Beehive and Birds Nest. Oh. My. Hysterical! This lady is something else. She is a mother of 6 and her blog is witty, sarcastic and humorous when she is talking about her every day life as being a mom. I'm pretty sure I read her blog for about an hour and the whole time I had to keep myself from busting up laughing and waking up the whole house.

I love how she loves being a mom but isn't afraid to point out the downside of having and raising  children. That every day isn't going to be perfect and that she wished kids came with an on/off button. Because if they did she is pretty sure they would only be on for 20 minutes a day!

She had this great post called So you're stuck at home with a baby/toddler/preschooler, huh? It's about  how you get to have lots of shopping trips at Target with the red limousine:

And a few things she's learned is that the sooner you give a kid a band-aid, the sooner he'll shut up. Or that there is no need for babies to read. But if someone could figure out how to get babies to scrub the bathroom floor then we might get on board.

And another one of my favorites:

Telling kids you can’t afford something is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s going to teach them that they can’t have whatever they want. It’s also the ultimate argument-ender:

Child: “Mommy, please can I get this [insert name of weird plastic animal with oversized head]. Please, please, pleeeeease???”

Mom: “No. If we buy it we won’t have money for bread. Although I’m sure zhu-zhu pets taste very good covered in peanut butter.”
Child: “oh.”

See, this lady is classic! Maybe her blog was pulling on my heart strings a little this past week due to my uber sensitivity and stress level from my lesson and having whinny kids on top of it was not an option for me.

It didn't make me feel so bad that the only way I could get the boys to stop fighting and yelling at each other was to tell them that the neighbors can hear all that noise and they will think its mommy and daddy yelling so they will call the police thinking we are hurting them and will take us to jail. Worked like a charm....sadly.

Or that the only way I could get Rusty to stop screaming in the car was to pretend pull over and tell him that he will have to walk home if he doesn't stop. Also sadly worked like a charm. I really need to figure out a way to discipline my kids without instilling fear!

On top of being ridiculously funny she has some great DIY projects and good recipes. I am making her cinnamon rolls this week! I guess I have to look at my lesson as a win, win. I got to pray and study about being grateful in our everyday lives and I found me a great new blog to read:)

Her blog is here. Only do yourself a favor and read it during the day so you can laugh out loud.

Since we've been gone...

We got a new computer a few weeks ago but we are finally up and running! It's so nice to feel connected to the world again (since we don't have smart phones or ipad thing-ies.Yes, we are still living in the dark ages over here).

A few things to catch you up to speed on us:

We find any way to keep the kids busy and entertained. Rusty was getting whinny while I had a hair client over so I put him outside with a water container and a cup. An hour later he was still washing off the patio

and then decided to wash himself.

Casey and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary! This picture was taken right after Casey proposed. Don't we look so young and in love?! Good news: we are still more in love then ever! Bad news: not so young. Darn it.

But as the years go on it makes me more aware of how happy I am that I get to spend eternity with this guy!

We went to Marcie's graduation from ASU!

It just so happened to be on Cinco De Mayo so there was a Mexican fiesta at my parents to celebrate.

Breanna and Martin came to town for 2 whole weeks! Which also meant we got to meet their new baby Claire! It was fun catching up at a GNO.

Claire is such a sweetie and could smile at you all day:)

We took the boys to a DBacks game and Marcie also came with.

We went to dinner first then decided to get treats for the game at a gas station before heading out to Phoenix. After we left the gas station Casey remembered that oh ya, we were out of gas. He pulled off the freeway and into a QT, filled up then pulled back onto traffic. We were waiting at the light to get back on the freeway and noticed that an undercover cop had pulled over and was talking to a guy. As I was making a snarky comment about uh oh somebody just got busted Marcie screams, HEY THAT'S AUSTIN! Her fiance who is a police officer. Sure enough it was Austin so we start honking the horn to get his attention since his back was to us. He couldn't really turn his back to the guy he pulled over so he pretended to have to get something out of the car and gave us a quick wave. It was too funny. What were the chances?!

I of course whipped out the camera. I have a better picture where homeboy is staring right at me while I was taking his picture but I figured better not risk the chance of  him or his buddies finding me in retaliation. I guess Austin was on gang patrol that night and right when they pulled him over his wife started screaming, no he just got out of jail last week please don't take him back! Nice.

The game was great and they even won!

And I love this pic because the whole night Lane was too into to the game to look at me for a picture. Then all of a sudden while I was taking a picture of Rusty he popped his face into the camera and made this face.

 I had a wonderful mothers day! By far my favorite gift was this "hand" bag Lane made for me. I see a future for him in purse design and I have zero problems with that:)