Other {August} moments...

It was a crazy busy month.  So many milestones.  

Justin moved out.

Arilee got her braces off, turned 16, and had her first half a dozen dates.

Ashlee broke her arm, turned 12, and is the proud owner of a frog. 

The girls have their own rooms now.

More on that last one later. 

In addition...

Ashlee and her dad had their last daddy/daughter date (for activity days).

It was a Hawaiian luau.  Daddy really dressed up for the part. 

They had a hula hooping contest - which daddy won. 

They also blew fire with powdered sugar. 

I'm told they rocked it.

Arilee still doesn't have her drivers license, but we are working on it.  

She is finally getting good at the driving part.  It's everything else she needs to work on.  

Still.  

I drove to St. Anthony to visit an old friend, Rena, at Baubles and Bits.  

She gave the girls free jewelry (because she is AWESOME). 

We found our way to the island at the St. Anthony Sand bar and I got brave

and let Arilee drive us home.  

She only almost killed us once.  

I told you... she's getting better.

I am not a pickle fan, but I have an abundance of cucumbers and the husband wanted to try making pickles, so I went with it.  They are actually kind of tasty.  

Good thing, since I have 14 quarts so far, with another batch waiting to be made.

Our cucumbers are HUGE and plentiful.  

I also canned 25 pints of beans and 8 pints of dilly beans.

My bestest, sweetest friend, Melanie, is turning 40 this week.  

And as a birthday present, she surprised herself with a positive pregnancy test. 

Her baby is 13.  Or was.  Her new baby will soon be born. 

So I made her up a cute little baby quilt to celebrate.  

This was a new pattern I found on pinterest.   

I loved it so much, I decided to make the girls quilts for their beds using the same pattern.  

More to come on that later.  

{July}

The summer is flying by.  One more month left to enjoy sleeping in and I'm trying (though, unsuccessfully) to take advantage of it.  I'm sure by the time school starts, I will be adjusted to waking up later, but for now, my body still wakes at 6:30.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  

The fourth of July came and went.  We lit fireworks off in the inlaws front yard the night before.  

The next night, we were the only ones who wanted to go to the fireworks in town, so we went to Sage Lakes golf course, played nine holes of golf, then watched the fireworks from the 14th hole.  We could barely hear them and we were too far away from the car to hear the music, so Ashlee sang to us and we enjoyed being the ONLY ones there.    

Arilee has been doing tons more driving, but still nowhere ready to get her license.  Her driving is improving immensely, it's her parking, turning, and accelerating that scares me.

Jody came to Idaho to attend his 25 year class reunion (are we really that old?) and he dropped his boys off to hang out with us since there isn't much to do at grandma's house.  Jaxon wore the dogs out completely throwing the balls for them.  The dogs were in heaven, but we were pretty sure they would wind up in heaven before the night was out, it nearly did them in.  They haven't moved that much in a LONG time.  

 Arilee and Jaxon arm wrestled.  He may be 2 1/2 years younger than she is, but, he's a tough kid.  She still beat him.

 Arilee went to Evans Hairstyling college and four hours and $40 later, she was a blonde.   We hardly recognized her for days.

 We've played lots of badminton.  (sorry for the blurry picture, we can only play at dusk when the wind isn't blowing).

 I've eaten two tomatoes and we picked our first hot peppers, too.  I smell fresh salsa in my future soon!

 The cat sits at the door and whines all day long, begging to be let outside.  We usually let her, but lately, this is the first place she goes and we spend forever coaxing her back down.  Spraying water on her is the best way to get her down, we've discovered.

 Cody and his dad spent forever pounding pipes into the ground so we could have a more "permanent" volleyball and badminton court.   This way the net can be pulled in and out of the pipes and moved so it doesn't interfere with the mowing.  It's become our favorite way to spend Sunday evening and it's proving to us that we are not as young as we think we are.

 Ashlee can't serve the ball, (or hit it at any time, really) so she tosses the ball underhand over the net.

 Justin had new student orientation at Boise State at the end of July.  It kind of went like this:  We checked him in, had a big ra-ra-ra meeting where they told us it was a safe campus and not to worry, they'd take care of our student.  Then the students went one direction, the parents went another and we had more lectures that were pretty much the same thing.  *yawn*

So after lunch, we snuck out of the lectures, wandered the campus, went bowling, returned in time for dinner with the students, went to the aquarium, back to the hotel to sleep during the opening ceremony of the Olympics.  The next day, we slept in, went swimming at the hotel, then showed up in time to pick up Justin and head home.

We are more excited and more nervous to send him to Boise.   Four hours is an awful long ways away.

The night before orientation, we wandered around campus a bit.  This is the excellence bell on the main part of campus.  The Student Union building is to the far right (off camera), the football stadium and basketball arena's are in the back, tennis courts to the left, and just off camera to the left is his dorm.

 Being the brilliant (book wise anyway - sometimes we wonder about him) boy that he is - among the top 100 students to apply to BSU this fall - he was accepted into honors college, which meant he could live in honors college housing and enjoy all the perks of living with the smart kids.  It's the first dorm, right across from the tennis courts, just down the sidewalk from everything.  They also get their own "room" in the library - which is reserved for grad and honor students only.

 My friend Crysty hooked me up with a free entrance to the Idaho Aquarium.  It's still fairly new and doesn't have too many attractions yet, but what they do have was a lot of fun.  At least half the tanks were "hands on" tanks where you can touch (but not grab) the fish.  Arilee was giddy to be able to touch "Dory" (from Finding Nemo).  I touched a shark and a stingray.

 And bowling.

Summer. Thus far.

In addition to traveling across the country and taking a picture a day, other things do go on in our lives.

Sort of.

Arilee has no life.  Or so she says on Facebook.  Poor kid.

Toby has no life, either.  She sits at the door, waiting, crying, begging to go outside.  And when we finally let her, she ends up climbing a tree and crying because she can't get down.

We've hit the range a couple of times.  Well, I went once.  Cody gave me a lesson and told me to hold my club a certain way and then re-adjust my grip a little bit, and HOLY COW, why did he not teach me this 15 years ago when I actually liked to golf?  I can hit it straight.  Just not very far.  I still have not developed a love for the game.  Yet.  I will.  Just not today.  The bare feet really help.

Justin spends his days at work trying to tame a rabbit that has moved into the golf cart shed.  The guys at work have come close to being able to pet it, but not quite.  Ashlee was determined to pick it up.  Not quite.

Fathers day.

Cody washed my car.  Ashlee played in the suds.

Cody's uncle passed away.  He lived next door to us and we were asked to take part in the program of his funeral.  I played the piano.  Cody prayed.  Afterward, he had a horse drawn hearse to carry his casket next door to the cemetery.  

It was led by bagpipes and the family walked behind (although we cut through the parking lot and watched the procession come in rather than walk behind).  

It was actually pretty cool.  Uncle Dick would have loved it. 

We put the pool up.  The first day, Ashlee dropped the pool cleaner thingie into the bottom and I made her crawl in the 60 degree water and fetch it out.  This was Thursday.

By Monday, they were swimming away in 80 degree water.  Another ten degrees and I might get in with them.   

We built a fire and roasted marshmallows.  

Justin's girlfriend brought over a turtle she'd picked up in California for Ashlee to see.  She wants one now.  So, I was at the pet store picking up some new rocks for our fish tank (and some more fish, our shark disappeared - we blame the cat) and we checked into turtles.  It turns out these little babies are illegal to sell in Idaho, so unless we feel like driving down to a flea market in California, she's out of luck.   We talked her into a frog instead.  Maybe for her birthday.  

Finally - my oldest sister is visiting from Mississippi for then next ten days or so.  Our first project while she is here was celebrating Ruthie's birthday at Applebees with the rest of the sisters and my sister in law, Kelly (who left before the picture was taken - she is getting ready to move to Missouri next week and was a tad busy).  I won't tell you how old she is, but she's old enough to have been my mother.  She would have been a young mother, but still.  

I can't believe we're 1/3 of the way through summer vacation already.  It doesn't seem like we've done a whole lot, but there is still time.