4th of July and More

Well, it seems like I’m not getting better at remembering to post weekly. I think it’s because we are completely off our normal schedule. So…here are pictures from 4th of July and the time after that, up until now. We spent 4th of July at home, which was so nice. We just had a relaxing day and then popped fireworks off once it started getting dark. The other pictures I have here are garden updates and pictures from our most recent trip to Six Flags.

This may become an annual 4th of July tradition. I stumbled across this recipe for Rice Krispy treats a few years ago and have decided that it’s the best one. Over the years I’ve tweaked it a bit for different holidays or times of the year, but the original is probably everyone’s favorite.
The pumpkin plant has pretty much taken over the side yard.
When it ran out of room on the ground because of the fence, it simply decided to go…up.
She decided to dress up as Link and then decided to play with her bubble wand from Disneyland. I never know what I’m going to encounter with this one.
Did I mention that on my last trip to Buc-ee’s, I got matching shirts for the family? Well, I did.
Google Photos made this comparison photo and it just about knocked me flat. They were so itty-bitty! Time is a thief.
Having her help him light one of the smaller fireworks.
One of the bigger fireworks.
She was talking to the next door neighbor kids about her sparkler.
I like these sparklers because the handle is really long…and the fuse stops at about the halfway point.
My favorite part of this picture is actually in the background: you can see our neighbor shooting off a Roman candle!
Getting brave enough to dual-wield and move them around a bit. He’s definitely our cautious child.
I sure love this man (and the kid behind us that is soooo excited about the fireworks…I didn’t realize she was in the shot until later).
Paul took a weekday off and we went to Six Flags right as the park opened. It was not very crowded and the weather wasn’t too sweltering in the morning, so that was nice. This was the best shot I could get of the kid who insisted on me taking her picture.
She got to ride on this ride two times in a row, without getting off, because there was nobody waiting in line.
This kid was happy to get to ride some of the bigger rides without having to wait too long.
This picture pretty much sums up how the ride went: Paul and Joseph smiling and me and Abigail looking absolutely terrified. We all had a ton of fun, though…and this was our last ride for the day, so we walked out to the car a lot cooler and ready to go home and change. 🙂
One of our really good friends has a daughter who is now grown. When her daughter was younger, she had a couple American Girl dolls. She has been holding on to them, waiting for the perfect person to pass them along to (along with clothes). Abigail was the lucky recipient and has been playing with them all day. It’s been fun to see her imagination at work.
Here she’s figuring out that putting socks on dolls is hard. I told her it was easier than putting socks on her, since the doll’s foot is holding still, haha.
We have birdseed that attracts songbirds (you can see a cardinal at the feeder) and bird bath that attracts…pompous grackles. I’m sure he is just trying to spread his feathers to cool off, but it sure looks like he’s all pridefully puffed up.
A close up of one of the cardinals. We have a male and a female that are in the yard so frequently that I think they must have a nest in one of our trees.
Different stages of bell peppers ripening: we left them on the vine until they were purple (like the center one on the bottom). Then Paul cut them off (he was afraid if we left them until they were red, critters would be attracted to them) and let them finish changing on the counter. Yesterday we had fajitas for dinner and used them all up. They were so good!
Here’s a short video of just some of the fireworks from the 4th. It still blows my SoCal-raised mind that these types of fireworks are legal for the average person to purchase (assuming they’re outside of city limits, which we are).
 

Well, It’s Been a While

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I kind of fell off the blog post wagon. We haven’t even been all that busy…I think I just got out of my regular routine with it being summer and I didn’t think to upload any pictures I’ve taken. The result is a catch-up post like this which is going to be a brief overview of what we’ve been doing for the last month or so (yeesh…it HAS been a long time)…from garden updates, to swim lessons, to other summer activities, to me just realizing that I do not have a single photo of Joseph in the entire bunch of these. He’s pretty much in teenage-mode (he’s just got two more months before he turns 13) and I feel like I hardly see him during the day. Abigail is still in full-on little kid-mode and wants me to entertain her throughout the day. We’re…finding a happy medium since I think she also needs to be able to find ways to entertain herself at least some of the time. Life is going to get crazy again about the second week of August when I go back to work for that week before school officially starts, so Momma needs a bit of a break!

This was our pumpkin plant about mid-June. I was amazed at how big it had gotten. Well, just wait. 🙂
Tomatoes from one of our plants. Abigail noticed me taking a picture of them and immediately begged to eat them.
A summertime rite of passage: ice cream truck ice cream.
Those lips…
…and teeth! 😀
She went to Primary day camp and got to meet a Book of Mormon hero. She was just a little excited.
She heard a mosquito had gotten into the house.
Our tomatoes and pepper plants. We’re trying the greenhouses to see if we can cut back on rats/mice getting the veggies.
Cherry tomatoes and big tomatoes.
Regular bell peppers and gypsy bell peppers.
Summertime means actually having time to bake!
It also means getting to light a candle and sit with my feet up for a bit.
Swim lessons!
Learning leg kicks.
She complained about the chlorine hurting her eyes, so we got her some goggles. They were a game changer! She started making so much more progress once she was no longer worried about getting water in her eyes.
Just relaxing a bit in the big bed.
Working on gliding and scooping.
Grabbing the edge.
Kick board time!
It’s getting bigger! I should take another picture of it. It’s almost filled up this entire area now and has sent a vine up and trying to get over the fence in the back.
She used some saved-up allowance to buy a stuffed lamb.
She just might have some tomatoes in her mouth. 😀
Pushing off from her teacher to glide to the edge.
Coming up for air.
It looks like a grasshopper, but it’s actually a type of cricket.
I got her this shirt at Buc-ee’s (Joseph and I went while she was at summer school).
She loves that it has a hood.
This stuff is so good!
Practicing her kicks and scoops.
New water bottle means new stickers.
I think the over thinking one is my favorite…or is it? 😉
Abigail said she wanted to sign her name in a fancy way. This is her version of cursive.
Last swim lesson included learning how to get out of the pool if you aren’t near any steps. It’s hard work!
She made it, though!
We have a ton of doves that are always grateful for the little birds who knock bird seed down into the grass.
I finally pulled out my planner for next year…I have a few trainings this month and I don’t want to lose track of the days. I set it on my desk pad and realized I totally have a thing for floral print on a black background. 🙂
 

It’s Officially Summer!

Well, not OFFICIALLY officially since it isn’t June 20th yet, but this past Thursday was the last day of school for the kids and then Friday was my last day. We’re going to soak it all in as best we can. Joseph came down with strep throat on Saturday, so he’s been feeling pretty awful. It wasn’t his idea of the best way to ring in summer vacation, but he’s got antibiotics now, so hopefully he’ll be feeling better pretty soon. Abigail starts summer school on Wednesday for 2.5 weeks (and also swim lessons starting next Monday) which are half day. Once she’s done with that, it will be about time for Joseph to do church camp and band camp. Then they’ll have a couple weeks off while I squeeze in some trainings and then we’re back to school mid-August. It’s all going to keep us quite busy. I’m also going to try to squeeze in some fun things once Joseph gets to feeling better (fingers crossed that the rest of us don’t get it…especially Abigail since it seems like antibiotics hit her hard and she HATES taking them). I just have a few pictures this time around: some of our garden and some of end of school things. I neglected to take a “last day of school” picture of either child (sorry, society), but trust me, they were happy. 🙂

Here we have (left-right): tomatoes (cherry and larger ones; the fencing helps discourage the birds), the solar drip lines that Paul set up (basically the solar panel powers a pump system to pump water from the buckets and into the drip lines; all we have to do is keep the buckets full of water), bell peppers, and more tomatoes.
This is a rogue pumpkin plant that decided to pop up here. We’re…going to see what happens. There isn’t much room.
More tomatoes and some gypsy bell peppers (in the center). We keep getting mice and rats (another reason for the fencing around those other tomatoes) coming into our yard (probably from next door since the people there rarely mow their lawn), so Paul has taken to putting the ripening veggies into plastic bags to ripen a bit more before picking them. You can see one on one of the bell peppers.
The more…mature pumpkin plant and my salvia. Also, a shed that Paul is assembling to house the wooden Christmas trees (you can see one in the picture) that he made quite a few years ago to use as decorations for one of the entrances to our neighborhood. We have quite a few, so Paul is going to store them in that shed.
Our mint!
She’s been asking to go out riding, which has been tough since it’s been stupidly hot. Paul managed to squeeze in some time one evening, though.
Steadying her and giving her some oomph to get going. He’s such a good daddy!
Every year, the graduating students that once attended the elementary school come back and do a senior walk. They got the middle school band kids that also attended the elementary school to come and play “Pomp and Circumstance” for the seniors to walk to . They paraded around the school twice, so I got to see my awesome percussionist several times.
My last day of school shirt. 😀
Wearing these (the bottom three, at least) one last time (well, who knows, maybe I’ll wear them next year as a reminder). The bottom three were made for me by three of my students. I love how much of a relationship I built with those kiddos. It was really hard to give them goodbye hugs on Thursday. The top one was given to me by one of my awesome coworkers. I had such an awesome team this year! There were times of stress and frustration, but I would like to think we came out stronger on the other side.
One last picture of my room. Luckily, since I will be in the same room next year, I didn’t have to pack absolutely everything. I did have to put quite a bit of it away, though…but if you’re wondering where it went…
…I have pretty good stacking skills. I attribute it to all those years of playing Tetris. 😉
We took the kids to Peter Piper Pizza and after we ate, Joseph made a beeline for this game.
Before playing this round, he was happy to see that his record was still on the top of the leaderboard even though we hadn’t been there for several months. As you can see, he made it onto the leaderboard once again. He’s got coordination that I’m never going to have, haha.