Surprise photos

    I thought I was going to have no photos from this week. We haven't done much outside of school, home, and work stuff but when I looked at my phone photos I found several surprise photos that Charlie must have taken so here's a glimpse of what she finds photo-worthy. 

 

 

 

 

 

    So that's it. We're still dealing with car issues. We haven't sold either of the Honda Trail bikes but they are listed so hopefully someone wants them. And the kids survived their first full week of school. Oh, and the cougar tail puffs from Built are amazing!

Alpine days and 1st day of school

    Alpine's parade and rodeo were a good time. We have great neighbors/friends that let us crash in front of their house to watch the parade. The rodeo was a good time but only Charlie and her friend joined us, but the 4 youngest kids did spend a good portion of the day at the carnival and loved all the rides. And the fireworks show was spectacular and totally worth sitting in the rain to watch. We even got Tad and his family to join us for the fireworks and I think they would agree that it was a great fireworks display.

 

Greg was sporting a different style for the parade.

Cute baby Harley.

Beau wasn't too sure about the volume of the parade but she was happy about all the candy.

Greg and I splurged on some new bling at one of the booths set up for Alpine days.

Rodeo night.

    And then it was Sunday and ice cream night.

This is a little 'behind the scenes' of what we do to get ready for ice cream.

    And then it was school time!

First day of Carter's senior year.

Brock's first day of 9th grade.

McClane's first day of 6th grade.

Charlie's first day of 4th grade.

Best buds.

    So there you have it, lots of fun things. Now on to our first full week of school.

Charlie’s 9!

    We've got a birthday girl in the house! Charlie has been anticipating her 9th birthday for many months and it's finally here. She's had a great day and was happy about all her gifts and spending the day with her best girl-friend, Kat. 

This was Sunday and Charlie was all ready for church.

    Put this photo below in parentheses because we're still not sure what we're doing with our car but I'm feeling confident our car is fixed and back to being reliable and worth keeping so these two bikes may not be needed for financial help in buying a new car but I wanted to make a note of this little tidbit for future reference.
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These are the bikes a friend gifted us to sell to help purchase a new car.

)

    Now back to the birthday girl and her great day.

Balloons are a must!

Always funner to spend your special day with a good friend.

Gifts galore. 

One of her 'fun' gifts from mom and dad.

Her own personal jello cheesecake.

Really putting some thought into her birthday wish.

    So aside from Charlie's 9th birthday celebration, we've had a pretty simple week. We do have the Alpine Days parade, rodeo, carnival, and fireworks to enjoy tomorrow but we'll save that post for next weekend. 

    Like I mentioned at the top, we got our car back from the mechanics and it's driving great, better than last time, so I'm hopeful we won't have to replace it. The repairs also cost quite a bit less than we were originally quoted and with Greg's 28 hours of overtime on his recent paycheck, we didn't even have to take out the last little bit of our savings, bonus! 

    And only 5 more days until school starts, yuck!

There's a little fun in the mix

    We've had quite a week. Our car is back in the shop and I'm at a loss as to what we should do. We've done a little car shopping, which has been discouraging, to say the least, and the repairs on the Armada are looking to cost $600+ and really no guarantee that the problem will really be fixed. I'm beyond frustrated and stressed and to top it off our friend is gifting us a couple motorbikes for us to sell to help put towards a new vehicle and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I know it's a generous thing and would be a great financial help but I'm not sure my pride will allow it and I'm still not sure I'm ready to take on a car loan. Anyway, I digress, things could be worse!

    So McClane and Brock were so impressed with Carter's bucket hat they just had to get bucket hats of their own. And today we attended Beau's 3rd birthday party, which was great. It was a little tricky getting all of us down to Kayli's house with our current car situation but we managed to make it work. And that's our week in two paragraphs.

 

Cutest 3 year old!

 

    One more full week left of summer break and then off to school the kids go. Pray we get our car issues dealt with soon and may this little 'bump in the road' be over with soon!