Man alive, summer is slipping like sand through my fingers.
I'm trying to hold it tight, but then the wind blows and the sand keeps blowing behind me.
I look forward trying to soak in the beauty of how the wind tousles us all around, and makes us better.
The day after school got out we packed up and headed to the mountains to Dave's sister's cabin. Elle Instagrammed the journey:
(Is "Instagrammed" a word?? If not, I'm making it up...she's an Instagram queen these days.)
The day after that my big kids and I sewed like crazy and packed up to head out on our Pioneer Trek:
(More Instagramming...)
It was one of my favorite experiences I've ever had. Much more coming about that.
Right when we got home my sis-in-law arrived to stay with us with her family with six kids.
During this Max was in California with his volleyball team getting burned to a crisp in the sun, learning a lot and having a great time. They got to watch the Olympic volleyball team play. Now that's pretty darn cool.
Then we packed up again and headed to the mountains once again with friends:
To watch a bunch of slides like these:
All these "big things" deserve a post of their own when I can get to it, but in the meantime there are so many "little things" filling in the nooks and crannies that I must stop and write down before they slip away.
First off, a very, very kind lady and her conscientious blog-reading-daughter send me this beautiful box:
With this very beautiful necklace enclosed.
I had an old lady with some serious freckled skin pose with it on so I could show it off. Oh wait, that's me. What the heck is up with my skin?
Anyway, I digress, it's the necklace we're looking at right now and isn't that a beauty? If you're interested in seeing the other gems made at the Scarlet Robin, click here.
Thank you soooooo much Jenifer and Daren!
Grace got serious about getting the word out about her babysitting skills.
Let's go ahead and look at that a tad-bit closer:
A gift from my girls on Mother's Day:
Oh they are sweet.
Lucy has been quite conscientious with her "little sister" Ariel.
Claire came home from her "activity days" activity (from church) with this:
...which expanded to this:
Yeah, that's an apron she's wearing too...I am convinced that there are supermoms in charge of these activities.
Elle and her tennis coaches.
Without asking or consulting her mother, Elle went ahead and put Kool-Aid in her hair (along with the rest of the teenage girls here in the desert).
This is how she feels about that bright red streak:
Too bad I don't have a picture of how I feel about that little addition. It wouldn't be such a pretty picture :). She figured since I let Grace do it with dark hair that doesn't hardly show, I'd be pleased as punch (excuse the pun) that she turned herself into a punk rocker.
I do kid a little bit because although I know that sucker will never, ever come out as she claims it will, there's always bleach and also a lot of worse things in the world. And it's kind of growing on us.
Speaking of hair, Elle and her friend think it is hilarious that they roll their hair up in the window on the way home from tennis.
Like, the kind of hilarious where you can't even talk cause you're laughing so hard.
My phone sometimes is a great record of Elle's life.
We sent in pictures for passports for a trip we're taking Max and Elle on later this summer.
(more on that later...)
We went to the library to try to pick up some books for our "summer-of-reading" thing we're doing and found that everyone else must have had the same idea:
Luckily we did manage to finagle a good stack to bring home:
And so far, the kids really have been doing a good job curling up reading every day.
We've spent a gazillion hours trying to figure out stone and measurements for our new house.
Although Elle's still going strong, tennis is winding down a little bit for Claire for the summer...
Lucy lost her two bottom front teeth.
It would be exciting except that it was a little weird how it happened...I'll have to tell the story later.
She is pretty excited about that gap in her mouth though, talks with a little bit of a new tooth-gap-lisp and doesn't seem to mind one lick that after a month the tooth fairy still hasn't shown up. Seriously, we got the raw end of the deal on the toot fairy in this family:)
I got to catch up with some friends I hadn't had a chance to even talk to in ages at lunch.
Love those girls so, so much.
The girls don't seem to mind the heat and enjoy summer evenings on the trampoline.
And I really like Lucy's eyelashes:
Last but certainly not least, this friend of Claire's (on the right below) came over one Saturday morning and handed over a fistful of bills which equaled out to be $10. She said she had earned it walking dogs to give to Lucy and the Foundation Fighting Blindness. My heart melted at that.
Then the next Saturday another friend came and this time they handed over $20. Seriously. Talk about the nicest, sweetest thing in the world.
Dave and I doubled that money with money from our "I Love Lucy" fund, and turned it in to the Foundation Fighting Blindness where they are tripling donations until the end of July. So the $30 from those sweet girls turned into $270 to help us fight blindness and help Lu keep her vision.
Wow, there are some kind people in the world. Thank you girls!!