Part 2...JULY

I have finally found a moment to sit and recap month #2 of our summer...July.  As always, it was our busiest month, but so much fun.

To start off we had a weekend long of Independence Day celebrating.  We started close to home, watching a parade with family on Saturday morning.  All of the nieces and nephews held up a blanket and caught a TON of candy. I forgot my camera, but got one pretty good picture on my cell phone.

After  the parade we had a little bit of time to spare and the kids and Kevin spent it outside throwing "poppers" on the drive way. This is our way of doing "cheap fireworks".  The kids like it, so we're o.k. with it.   Then we packed up and headed on a day trip to a newphew's baptism in Idaho.  It was fun to be there for that event and the good eats and visiting afterward.  That night we watched a spectacular 4th of July fireworks show in I.F. We drove home the next day and relaxed.  Then Monday morning the 5th, we went to watch another local parade. More hot sun and candy. Yay!

That night we went to some friends' house for sparklers.  What a fun weekend!

The next week, Vance and Breanna started tumbling.  This has been a tradition for them for a while and they both love it.  It keeps us busy for 3 weeks and the kids love the new "tricks" they learn each year.

Later in the month was out little "City Days". We didn't do much this year for the festivities, but we did go to the parade as always and watched the fireworks from our front yard. Kevin was actually gone to Scout Camp, but they were able to come back early because a couple of the boys were in the parade, and Kevin wanted to watch Vance, who was also in the parade this year.  He was helping a friend of mine, by riding on her pre-school's float.  Vance was just excited for the chance to chuck Tootsie Rolls at us.

The next week I took the kids and drove to Twin Falls to meet most of my family and pick up my niece.  She stayed a few days with us. (While in Twin, I got to visit with my b.f. from younger days.  It just makes me remember why I loved her so much...still do.) We brought Lynae home and while she was here we went to the movies, had a fairy party, watched movies, played in the mini-pool and played the Wii. I hope she had fun.  I know my kids did.

We took my niece with us and packed up for the weekend to the Harker Reunion held in Idaho this year.  Absolutely one of my most favorite traditions, I love this family get together.  It was a Mexican theme this year, with lots of good Mexican food, dancing, and even homemade pinatas. I didn't take many pictures, but I did get some of the dancing and pinata smackin'.

Before leaving the reunion, we swapped nieces, and left Lynae to go home with her family and took Kymra back with us for more fun. She was here at the same time as all of Kevin's siblings, which turned out to be great.  We went to Boondocks Fun Center with all the Nelson's and it was nice that Kymmi had some "teen"y friends to hang out with. She had so much fun, I don't think I saw her much.  We did however have quite the event while she was here.  I heard a noise in our air vent downstairs, and as we have had previous experience, I knew we had a BIRD stuck in the vent...again. (This makes bird #3, or is it 4?)  So, I called Kevin at work because I didn't really want it in there all day long.  Then by noon, I couldn't hear it moving anymore.  I called Kevin again, and he came home to get it out.  When he took the pipe off we could see it was stuck in there and was no longer alive.  Now, for those of you with queezy tummys you may want to stop reading at this point.  He got the pipe off and outside and smacked it on the ground.  Only a body came out.  The only thing we can figure is that the bird got so freaked out from being stuck it started going crazy, and got it's head stuck on part of the pipe. It must have wiggled so bad, it popped it's own head off!  Luckily we did get that out, and also luckily there was no mess.  Nasty, but of course I couldn't help taking a picture!

The last week of July, my mom made her way here so she, and Kymra as a helper, could watch our kids. Kevin and I headed to Wyoming to participate in our Stake Trek as Ma and Pa.  It was such an amazing experience.  I have never done that before and we had a fantastic family.  The food, believe it or not, was good, the spirit was so strong, the walking was not terrible, the weather was hot, and I wouldn't trade one single second of the entire trip.  O.K...I may trade some of the 6-hour bus ride, but not the actual Trek.  I did take some pictures there, but it was on a disposable camera, so I have to wait until I get it developed and on a CD before I can post them.  Maybe next time.

One more thing that we did during the month of July was announce to our families that we are expecting baby #4 in January 2011.  We are all excited and I am grateful to be over the majority of the "sickies".  I think it gets worse with each pregnancy.  We had our "big" ultrasound a week and a half ago and things are looking pretty good.  We didn't look tho, when the tech went down to the "lower extremeties", so we don't know gender.  That will be a surprise for all of us on D day.

So, that catches us up on July.  Told ya it was busy. Once again, I'll try to find some time later to end our summer wrap-up session.  Til then...