July at Home

July was a jam packed month full of big things and little things and summer at its best.  We started the month with the end of swimming lessons.  Brian is a good swimmer now and Timmy is working on it, but loves being in the water and under water.

We played with the goats.

Our air conditioning went out at the end of June into the beginning of July.  We spent time in the basement and the boys made a huge fort.  Mark watched a movie with them and then slept down there with them.  Well, Timmy ended up in his own bed, but Brian slept in the fort all night.

After at least two weeks with no air conditioning, we finally got our friend to come get us a new one.

We played in the backyard park.

The boys made some epic sand lakes with the hose.

The boys had several good evenings full of soccer with Daddy.

We missed the Shakespeare Festival because of sickness and instead I spent the time cleaning my car and Mark sold it right away in order to get. . . 

A much needed truck!  We use it all the time and this picture was the day we bought it full of lumber.  Mark has since done some really nice Mark improvements.  I just don't have a picture of it now.

We got that truck just in time for some major projects at home.  We spent several Saturdays at Home Depot.  Good thing they give out free popcorn to keep the kids happy!

Mark built stairs up to the hay loft in the barn.  Brian and Timmy loved loved loved helping him.

We attended a little celebration for Timmy finishing the UPSTART preschool online program.  He enjoyed getting a few goodies from his hard work through the year.

Mark was asked to run the sound system and music at our old neighborhood party.  The young men there were so happy to have Mark back for an evening!

Mark built a nice barn door for the goat stall.  It is so nice!  I just need to paint it now!

Here he is welding on the barn door hardware.  The skills that man has are impressive!

We went with friends to Lisa Falls.  It was the perfect Sunday afternoon.

I just thought this picture of Timmy and Mark was cute.

One Friday we ended up having my nephew Will's birthday party at our house.  It was so fun to have all my family over to celebrate!  Allison brought all the food and stuff and we ate outside.

We got to see Mandy and baby Connor for the first time!  It was so cool!

I love this time with family.

At the end of July I got this crazy notion that I needed to remodel the mudroom/office before school started because I wanted a place for the kids to do their homework.  Poor Mark got sucked into my project, but was so nice to help with the nasty work of ripping out carpet and jack-hammering out a whole lot of concrete.  We were able to enlist the boys help for some things.

 Mark busted out all that extra stair concrete for me with jackhammer.  It ended up being a late late night of miserable hard work to get it done to return the rented jackhammer to home depot in the morning.  I am so grateful for his willingness to do it.  It is so much better now.  Before and after pictures will come later when I actually have the room all done.  This project is taking way way way longer than I thought it would.

Brian and Timmy helped me fill buckets of concrete and I took them out to the trailer which we then filled with a lot of other garbage to take to the dump.  This place in lots of work, but kind of fun too!

Here it is after concrete removal.  Since then I've sanded the floor and polished the floor and cleaned the floor and stained the floor and sealed the floor and I am in the process of painting the trim, walls and doors now.

I think almost every month I post a picture of the sunset behind my barn.  I'm sure everyone out there thinks it's weird, but it brings me so much joy to be in the backyard with my barn and the pretty sky that I am going to go right on taking pictures of those sunsets and posting them here.

Payson Camping Trip

In July we camped at Payson Lakes with some of the Hsiao family.  It was such a blast!

We got up there on a Friday evening and have a delicious steak and salad dinner.

Then we headed down to the lake for some evening fishing!

The next morning after breakfast we headed down to the lake for some fun!

 
We loaded all our stuff on the boat and made Luke pull it over to our fishing spot on the other side of the lake.

And then we loaded all the kids onto a kayak and made Sunny pull them all over to the other side of the lake.  Poor Sunny probably never wants to kayak again after that, but the kids had fun!

I spent most of the day on the kayaks which I love!  I also love that Timmy and Brian figured out how to row in a short amount of time.  Timmy caught on right away and loved it.

 Brian and Timmy had a race.  Not only were they rowing themselves, but they each had a cousin on the back too.  Timmy was in the lead for a bit and then tired out and Brian passed him at the end.  It was so fun!

Back at camp we cooked up some more fish, kimchi, and hotdogs!  Luke and Sunny cleaned all the fish and helped Mark cook over the fire.

The kids played in the bushes and trees and Mark organized a little scavenger hunt for them.  We went to bed a little earlier this night and Mark and I left first thing the next morning.  It was a super fun camping trip!