A fun variety

    From a night watching bands in the park to a new set of gel nails, it's been a fun week.

With good friends watching one of our favorite young men and his band. Fun night!

    These two made a double decker hammock haven.

 

    And we love a chance to hang out with these three 'crazies'!

Stunts with Aunt Charlie for the win.

This girl never stops eating and cereal, marshmallows and strawberry milk is a fan-favorite.

Last, but not least, my newest set of gel-nails. Love them!

        The last week of August has been nice and the weather has been great! Now we get to look forward to a three-day weekend.

Quiet

    It's been a quiet week. A full week of school for the three youngest and work for the older kids and, of course, Greg. And, miracles do happen, Brock has been hired to work at Little Caesars. Their hiring technique is a bit unorthodox but we're not complaining. Lets just say Brock turned in a paper application Tuesday afternoon and was then sent links shortly after that asking for all his details, the kind of details that put you on payroll, then two days later he got a text message telling him to come in Saturday to start his training. No interview, no clear hiring communication but it'll work! And now he can start working and saving money for his first car. Yay!

    And now, just so this post isn't completely lacking photos, here's a couple of the two 'jerks' that live here and bark when they don't have to but have everyone fooled by their cute faces.

 

 

    And bonus, Charlie got to celebrate her birthday with her new 6th grade classmates this week and her teacher sent this photo of all the kind things they had to say about Charlie.

 

    Good days ahead!

Alpine days, birthdays and school days!

    We had a great time celebrating Alpine days. Between the parade, hanging out with friends, the many fun activities at the park and the spectacular fireworks show, it was a great time. I failed to get a lot of photos but a few friends took some and shared with me.

This was the only photo I took at the park. It's exhausting being one!

I got my first henna tattoos.

Ready for fireworks.

    Then we celebrated Beau's 5th birthday. She was pretty excited to get a pedal bike that looks a lot like her aunt Charlie's.

She was riding like a pro in just a few short minutes.

How cute is that!?

    Then it was Charlie's turn to be celebrated. She's officially 11! She had a pretty great day. Gifts, lunch with friends and her own jello-cheesecake.

All her Shein and Temu wish items made it in time for her birthday.

Lunch at Pizza Pie Cafe.

Yummy jello-cheesecake.

These girls showed up to wish Charlie a happy birthday.

Kayli hooked her up with some great bling!

    And, despite my protests, the first day of school has arrived. Oh well, back to the 4 a.m. schedule for me.

Junior year!

Eighth grade!

Sixth grade! 

    The last day of 6th grade/elementary school can't come soon enough, in my opinion! Last year of having a kid in elementary school, I can't wait to be done with that school! 

    Anyway, quite an eventful week! Let the quiet days of being home alone for several hours begin.

Creeps, car show, a surprise or two and rodeo fun!

    This Sunday this creepy spider tried to crash our ice cream party! Yikes!

I think he was chilling in the bag of salt.

    Another great set of gel-nails!

 

    A fun night at the Alpine car show. This was the only car worth photographing.

Cute little Triumph TR3A 1959.

    My friend and I thought it would be fun to make this poster for a friend. It's a bit of an inside joke and I won't go into the details here, but I definitely wanted to at least document the photos for memories sake. Lets just say our friend didn't find our 'poster-humor' nearly as funny as we did. Good times!

The first install before the wind tore it down. 

Attempt #2

Our hiding spot so we could see/hear our friends reaction. (It wasn't what we expected.)

    Then Carter showed up with a 'big-boy' bike! He traded in his Honda Grom for this Yamaha. 

I don't know about this!

Showing his dad his new 'toy'.

    Then it was rodeo night. It was actually Rio and Makayla's first rodeo. 

A selfie before the crowd arrived.

Lets go!

Cash cow and a line of cowboys.

And Charlie can't miss a photo with the best rodeo clown.

    Such a great week and we still have the Alpine parade and fireworks to look forward to. And we're still not talking about school starting in 6 sleeps. First we need to celebrate a couple birthdays!

Family, friends and 'fur' roommates

    Had a grand time at the Kmetzsch family gathering. Lots of visiting, yummy food and photo opts.

Greg with his dad and uncles.

A good portion of the cousins

Great grandkids 

Silly Elliot!

And a good imitation by uncle Dale, "Fight, fight!"

A fun little playground near the family gathering.

Uncle Carter testing out his helmet on Elliot.

    And a fun night with friends at a fun little bar and grill.

Got to love the garlic burger at the Cotton Bottom, 

This cat is really something. What a whacko!

       So that's a decent amount of photos documenting the fun we've had this week. You may have noticed Isaac and Morgan in our friend group photo. They made it safely back from Hawaii and now they can officially start the wedding planning. But don't worry, they're in no rush.  And I'm in no rush for summer to end!