July

It's funny how I think I've only missed a week or two of posting only to find that nearly a month has gone by.

Hence, this will be a catch-up post, heavy on pictures and hopefully not so heavy on text!

We only had a little break for the 4th, as Dan is teaching. So we drove up to Provo Monday night, went to a parade with Sarah, snacked at Chik-fil-a, then had a barbeque in Sarah's yard before driving back to Cedar.

 

 Andrew made a new friend--Dan's cousin Tony's cute daughter Juliette. She loved climbing all over him and he was a pretty good sport about it.

 Evelyn discovered the watercolor pencils.

 She wanted the eye of Sauron. This was my best attempt.

 Tony's oldest, Vince.

That next weekend, Dan took off early Friday morning for the airport in Vegas, where he joined the rest of his family in Dallas to bless Matt and Laurie's new baby. While we wish we could have all gone, we're glad Dan got to go. From all accounts, they had lots of good food and enjoyed themselves immensely.

While he was gone, I took the kids to a man-made lake here in town with some friends. Luckily, our friends were more prepared than we were and had kayaks and other fun gear. Here's Evelyn with her friend Kamri.

 

We stayed for a couple of hours, until thunderclouds rolled in. The nicest part: the kids all went right to sleep that night.

 

Last Sunday, we picked up a (temporary) new addition. Evelyn's friend needed someone to cat sit their kitten, and we said yes. It was an interesting experience. The cat, Merlin, was pretty sweet. He liked to curl up by me and purr when I wrote. But Oliver was kind of leery of him (O. ran into Merlin in the bathroom one night after he'd gone to bed and woken up again, and got so freaked out I had to come running upstairs to find out why he was sobbing). Evelyn was convinced she'd like a cat until we had Merlin--now she's not so sure, and Andrew wants a cat.

 

This week has been busy: Evelyn has had sewing camp two mornings this week (she's making a stuffed fox we picked out the morning of her first lesson--this might be the most expensive stuffed animal in our house). Oliver had swimming lessons, Andrew had track, Andrew and Evelyn had swim team--and somehow we manage to fit play dates around all this. And costuming. Here's Evelyn as the Assassin of Death.

 

We also spent a lot of time this week setting up for the yard sale Andrew has been asking for us to hold since last summer (when I first started sorting through our stored clothes). It was a lot of work--not just getting everything together, but also making two kinds of cookies and Texas sheet cake for the kids (well, Andrew) to sell.

It went pretty well--we had a steady stream of people come by, sold most of the big items, and then took everything remaining to DI. It was hard to let go of some of the baby clothes--it's definitely the end of an era for us. (I managed to give most of the baby clothes to some neighbors, rather than donate them). 

That was pretty much our Saturday: I haven't been so tired in a long time. Glad it's done though.