Hard to believe only one more month of summer is left, three weeks for us actually until school starts! Its gone fast and its been relaxing in many ways. Its also just been lots of regular days. I've been able to read more books than any time in the last thirty years, and I've enjoyed that. I'm working on my first mostly applique quilt, and there have been boring, long days of laundry and cleaning and organizing, . . . real life stuff. Still counting our blessings that we're not rebuilding our house after the fire!
The end of June I took my parents and the three kids with me to Victor, about an hour and a half through the mountains, where we went panning for gold. They actually bring a load of dirt from the nearby mine and dump it into this reservoir, which they add a few polished colorful stones to ensure everyone finds something.
My children spent a whole hour here with full attention and focus to finding gold, and they did find a few small shavings. The biggest find, by LittleBuddy, however was a piece of turquoise, still with much rock/earth surrounding it. It was probably as big as a good sized gumball. Everyone was excited. They all had a great time swishing and swirling their pans and hunting for anything. This was the perfect age to do this activity, as I think had they been younger, they wouldn't have had the perseverance to really sift through all the sludge that they went through. After an hour they reported it was rather hard on their backs, and we were glad to continue our gorgeous drive through the tops of the Rockies and then back home.
We picked this day because BigBuddy had started working at Home Depot, and this was one of his days off. The last weekend of June I flew to Utah to spend July 1 with Cowgirl for her birthday. I booked two days at the Westgate Resort and Spa in Park City. It was beautiful. Here you see them setting up for the 4th, but I left the 2nd. . . just enough time for us to visit my dear friend who was in town from Maryland visiting her daughter who had just had daughter #2, shop at the outlets, eat at the best fine dining restaurant in Utah, get a pedicure, eat cupcakes, and see a movie. We squeezed a lot of fun into our three days together, loved our room, loved our amazing meal, and I especially loved celebrating a dear daughter who is so very fun to play with. . . .looking forward to more of that in California soon.
I got home in time for the 4th of July. For some reason, no one wanted to go to the parade this year, and Big Buddy was working for part of it, so we just hung out at home. I shortened the bandana banner and like it better hanging from the mantle here. I got to use my patriotic quilted table runner, but then it got wax on it and now its wrecked. . . that's life sometimes, sadly. Still looking for the best way to get rid of melted candle wax.
We've been playing games throughout the summer, like Electronic Monopoly, Clue, Ticket to Ride, Rook, Rummikub, Farkle, Dalmuti, and Life. . . . a mixture of the classics and our family's favorites.
I taught the boys how to play tennis and they've really enjoyed it. They played three times a week at first, but with Littlebuddy being in Philmont now and BigBuddy working two jobs these days, they just haven't gotten onto the courts at our local high school since Wimbledon. It made it more fun to watch one of the men's matches, however. They now understand the scoring, the difficulty it is to make 90+mph serves and why this game takes lots of practice to excel.
I forgot to show this fun dessert we had for the 4th. I found waffle bowls at our grocery store, dipped them in chocolate and patriotic sprinkles. Then we filled the waffle bowls with the best vanilla ice cream, chocolate covered blueberries and strawberries. We added a flag, then Steven included Ryan's flag, his napkin ring, stamped with "God Bless America," and a sugar cookie, also covered in patriotic sprinkles. MyGirl and I like to have fun sometimes when we're hosting a holiday meal. Mom and Dad came over. Dad brought salmon from his smoker and Mom cut up a fabulously sweet watermelon and we roasted hotdogs and made side dishes and it was all good. I think my favorite was the fresh corn on the cob and the watermelon. That says summer to me.
The next week Littlebuddy went with his Teacher's Quorum to a lake an hour away for three days of wake-boarding and spiritual bonding. My boy loved it, though he came back pretty sunburned. Apparently they kept putting sunscreen on him, and he'd jump back in the water and it'd all come off. His shoulders and back took the brunt of it, but he didn't complain much as long as you didn't touch him. He'd wear his basketball jersey to remind us where specifically not to touch. He's looking older to me these days too. Can't believe my baby is going into high school! Where did the days fly? I miss the kids being younger and I love them being older too.
The middle of July one of my dear college roommates gave me a call. She was traveling through Denver and wanted to meet us at the Botanic Gardens for an afternoon of chatting and meeting her family. Only LittleBuddy was available to come, but we did meet them, and that was so fun. I realized it had been 18 years since we'd seen each other and 28 years since we'd been roommates, and it was like no time had passed. Love that some friendships are just easy and enjoyable and so treasured over the years. She's a hairstylist. I asked her to think of some ways to help overcome my allergy to hair dye. I know I look older than everyone my age, because my friends all color! Sigh. . . .
MyGirl is a major Pinterest addict. I have to admit I love to look at all the ideas found there too, but I don't get caught up feeling sorry for myself that I can't do all those things. I'm just inspired by them, and hope to make some quilts similar to what I've pinned there . . . but I digress. There were some really cute things to do with a watermelon, so MyGirl and LittleBuddy set out to make one. They called this the beach pail. Note in front the crab Littlebuddy cut and the stars and shape of the basket MyGirl made. We enjoyed it one night for dinner. Those are the Brick Oven salt shakers to the left. MyMike won't use any others. They're his all time favorites. (Thanks again, Dennis!) He and I celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary July 17. We couldn't go out that night so instead we went out on the weekend to a good steakhouse in town, and loved it!
The reason we were tied up on the 17th was because Littlebuddy had pack check for his 12 days backpacking trip to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico that night. They left the morning of the 19th. Its about four hours from here. The boys have been planning this trip since last summer. As it turned out, only seven boys and three adults went, and they are from our ward and the ward that just got split off from us, so certainly everyone didn't go. Its a big committment. Its non-refundable, once the final payment was made in March, and its not for the faint of heart. They selected the 58 mile hike, which would include some days of porting their own water and food, and other times being treated at a Mexican cantina, where they'd be served enchiladas and root beer. On Wed. of this week they were hiking 12 miles, ascending and descending 2000 ft each way at the most challenging point, all in one day. I had them in my prayers that day, trust me. The day before they left, LittleBuddy had wanted to go shoot some hoops at our local school and came back seven minutes later telling me he'd twisted his ankle. I immediately put him on rest, with an ice pack and some Advil and hoped he'd be able to still make this trip happen, and fortunately, he wasn't limping the next morning. I also sent him up with more Advil, hoping for the best. My neighbor talked to her husband who is one of the adults there, on Tuesday and she said the report was that Littlebuddy was doing fine, so I was glad to hear that. I've missed him a lot and am excited to hear all about his adventure when he gets back this Wed. This has been the longest I have ever been away from him, and frankly, I miss him!
Bigbuddy fortunately has found the right meds to keep his system working well this summer. We changed doctors when he came home from school and that seems to be a good decision. Now he's helping an older woman who lives on five acres in the trees with fire mitigation, which means he's been doing everything from bagging up fallen pine needles to chopping and hauling felled trees, and moving flag stone. He'll usually do that for five hours and then come home, looking like this, then shower and head to a seven hour shift in the Garden Center at Home Depot, helping customers with railroad ties, bricks, and sand. He took his shirt off the other day, when he forgot something up in the laundry room, and MyGirl exclaimed, "Buddy, you're getting huge!" She was referring to his biceps and chest. All that lifting is building a strong man. He went to the gym with Littlebuddy before he left for Philmont and could do 22 pull ups. Feeling grateful he is strong again and able to work hard. This is the first time in over a year where I can tell by looking at him that he feels good. He's finally not needing naps anymore, even after working this hard. Its been a tough year since his mission, and I'm just grateful he's finally gotten healthy again.
One of our funnest surprises of the summer is the birds nest that was laid in our front door wreath. This is what we see from standing in our house. The shadow you see of the bird on the lower left, is the mother feeding her five babies. We were surprised one day to see the nest, then two eggs, then five, and the mother sitting on it regularly for a couple of weeks. Then, a week ago Saturday, the first egg hatched.
Its very hard for me to get a good photo, but those furry grey/tan blobs are the babies sleeping. The nest is getting kind of grody with the parents both leaving their droppings on the outside of the nest but we still get very excited when we hear the squawking and sometimes see little beaks reaching up for their next meal. This is the size of the babies after nine days. I don't know how long they'll be there, but they've become our babies too, and we're careful about making sure the front door doesn't get slammed when anyone goes in or out.
Overall, with the exception of the week of the fires, this has been a pretty good summer. Not too hot, not too crazy with wild weather. We do get some amazing thunderstorms in the late afternoons sometimes. This photo was taken on Tues. I thought I saw some circular motion of the clouds right next to our house and ran to get the camera and by the time I got back, less than a minute later, it had all turned East and just blew on past us, leaving some pretty good sized rain and smaller sized hail instead. The good news is, we can use all the rain we can get, and we're grateful for it. These storms actually start just over the mountains next to us, and often are the beginning of the storms that the rest of the country East of us gets for the next few days. It fascinates me to just watch it all unfold sometimes. There was a tornado spout spotted at Pike's Peak last Saturday. Bigbuddy had just been hiking up the famous "One-Mile Incline" with his church buddies early that morning before work and the weather changes that invariably come. He's in charge of his young adult ward's family home evening activities and he's had a great time there.
We're off to the annual summer AAA league baseball game tonight, firework show included. Those are always fun, and a little boring too. Guess that's why we go. Like fishing, its another opportunity to relax, to mingle with people we don't see that often and just be together.
Its been kind of an adventure living here the last two and a half years. Lots of changing weather, lots of new things to experience, new people to meet, some hard challenges but some refreshingly peaceful changes as well. We love being closer to all our family out West still and are quite looking forward to the whole Jacobs family being together in Calif. in just a little over a week. That's going to be another adventure. . . more tales to tell I'm sure.
Hope everyone is having a good summer too.
