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.
(

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!

We don't know

    We don't know what we're doing this week. We had a sick 'princess', which is rare, she never stays home all day for days on end but that's what she had to do this week. We had a fun visit from the grandkids and I caught one being naughty, or so I thought. (I found out later Beau was the real culprit for the toilet paper mess.) And Brock and McClane are currently at young men's camp in Cokeville, Wyoming and so far we've received one photo that will definitely rival Carter's campout back in June. (Not really!)

Sick but still smiling and wearing a crown.

She looked guilty but she was actually innocent.

The boys and their fellow deacon and teacher campers.

Brock will definitely win a prize for this 'monster' fish he caught. 

This is probably the perfect example of what a 'little' money can do for a priest campout versus the
'ward- budget' money for the teachers & deacons. I'm pretty sure both boys had fun fishing either way.

    So there you have it! A weird week but worth mentioning. Now on to August!

A rainbow to finish it up.

    We've had a nice week. Another great ice cream gathering, cute visits from the grandkids, and a drive up the canyon in the rain.

Harley Rose

Beau Rae

Charlie had the best time.

Our neighbor, Gina, knows how to get a snuggle from Harley

Such a pretty drive up the canyon.

    It's another holiday weekend (Utah's birthday/Days of '47) and I'm sure we'll see a few great firework displays in the neighborhood. Mostly we're just realizing how close to the end we're getting with summer break! I'm not looking forward to the chaos of getting back to the school schedule but I know the kids are a little excited to start a new school year. We still have Alpine days to look forward to though so we won't start the school count down quite yet.

Mostly girls camp

    It's been an interesting week. We had a great crowd for ice cream. I spent the majority of the week at girl's camp and Greg and the kids managed to keep the house standing while I was gone. They may not have done much else, like laundry or basic chores, but they at least didn't have it a complete wreck when I got home. We also got our Armada back from the shop and although it cost a grand total of $6,000 we're happy to have a working vehicle back in the garage.

Another successful ice cream gathering.

What a pretty place to be with these beautiful girls.

Memories were made.

The spirit was strong.

The girls were a pleasure. (Mostly)

And there was definitely hard work involved.

    I had a great time at girl's camp mixed in with some major stress and anxiety. Above are just a few random photos that were shared with me. I literally only took the one photo of the girls by the lake and let everyone else be the photographers. We had several nice cameras available for the girls and leaders to use throughout the week and I'm sure I'll be getting a large file of photos shared with me in the near future from our hiking leader and resident photographer so I don't feel guilty at all for keeping my phone/camera in my pocket all week. 

    I love working with the young women and girls camp is always a favorite part of the summer. I'm glad I went even if it wasn't all fun and games, I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. We have some special girls in our ward and I feel lucky to know them!