And so it begins...: Miscellaneous Photo Dump May-August 2019

I think we tried every flavor of slushee that Taco Bell rolled out

As the school year was wrapping up I was excited. I got to help clean up my classroom and say goodbye to all my students, but then I got to be home with my own kids. It was bittersweet knowing this was going to be Mitch's last portion of the summer that he will be living at home.

It is hard to accept the day to day of our lives has changed, will change, and will never be the same again. Even if we still have three more at home...for now. Soon Brayden will head off to college, and we will have to adjust once again. Ahh! Anyways...

It is also hard to allow your children complete autonomy once they are adults. We tried though. Which resulted in Mitch not necessarily partaking in all of our adventures. Mainly he was working a lot. A lot of the things I miss now are the day to day little things like dinner conversations and daily little check ins.

Part of all this reflectiveness and looking back through pictures reminiscing also led me to the belief I need to take way more selfies with the kids. Looking for pictures of just one of the boys and one of us parents was harder than it should have been. So for the sake of documenting, and the fact I have done like 15 posts in a few days...it should be noted the number of selfies while out and about are a conscious choice I was making. I swear I am not conceded....
Most of the fun pictures I found were ones like that, and I thought to myself it would be nice to have more. It is harder to get Brent to play ball. He doesn't necessarily like taking pictures of himself or of anyone...ever. He's not a camera guy.

So the dump of photos are really out of order and kind of random.

I purchased new henna, as my old stuff had finally dried up to the point of not working. Throughout the summer I doodled on my leg a lot...various patterns, or sometimes just tracing.

A couple of crazy things about where we live...the sunsets and succulents. They both go crazy with the warm weather.

Double rainbow

Towards the end of June Mitchel moved all of his stuff out of his room and was ready to move out.

Of course then Abram moved in, so the room was only empty for a night...Still it was sad to look at.

In late July early August, Jennifer and my Dad went on an eleven day diving trip to Bonaire.

Toward the end of July we swapped out the big pool for a smaller rectangular one.
This was one of the last pictures of the shark, before it died.

While George was in Portland in hospital after his stroke, a couple of his "chickens" turned into "roosters". We have since taken care of them, but at this time we were building a chicken run to his shed to try and contain them and control their movement in the yard.

His goose is super aggressive. It has bit me on several occasions and is really hard to contain. The boys took on the task of feeding them while the in-laws were only going to be gone a week...now it has been a tad longer. Brent may think I'm ridiculous but needless to say, the goose may be the next one to go!

This was a fun project. We used a bunch of scraps that George had collected to build the thing with. We also disassembled an old chicken coop and used some of those parts.

Still the first few nights the birds still were outside at night and wouldn't go in.

Emmett and I embracing the use of sunscreen on our noses.

Couple pics from Bonaire

The deer made a comeback. Of course I have only seen up to five at a time in our yard, so the numbers are a little down.

One was limping like it had been injured, and two were missing antlers on one side like the deer in Open Season cartoon.

August had a ton of play dates and sleepovers at his friends house. One night they built a fort on their front porch for the boys to sleep in.

At the tail end of July we made it to a birthday celebration for Josh and Judy.

This was Judy's little get together at Max's place. Josh's pictures are at the bottom of the post probably.

Super fun. Family, cousins, and ice cream...doesn't get any better.

Emmett took his many many earthworms on a sailboat around the yard...and in the pool. It was great watching and playing with him this summer.

We also found a frog, who let us play with him for about an hour and then we let him go.

Emmett is a dare devil. No fear. He loves to do everything with an "ALL IN" attitude. (that includes fits) Still, he is the sweetest most snuggly and considerate boy too. He cleans up his plate from the table. Still wants to help with everything. He's pretty much amazing.

While Mitch and Abe were both here we played a ton of basketball. It was nice.
They got better at passing to me. Especially since I actually made a higher percentage of my shots than they did.

A lot of the summer looked like this too. We played a ton of games. Cribbage was probably the most frequent.

Fourth of July was mellow low key family affair. We walked around down and visited the firework tent. We bought like $20 worth of sparklers and little things and ordered some dinner and invited everyone over. The neighbors put on quite a show, along with the town. So we were definitely covered on the firework side.

Emmett was very proud of the fireworks he picked out. Shocker! They were two cars.

One of the early walks down to the Tastee Treat. He had the play dough ice cream.

After one of the down pours Emmett ran outside to get all of the worms in his truck.

After his haircut, there was a nice down pour when we were going to be heading out of town.

August would never wear his swim cap, but Emmett would.

Making masks out of tortillas never gets old. Does it?

First sunburn. Shoulders got torched while I was cleaning out the shop.

Hung lights (and laundry) on the back porch. Enjoying the summer nights.

Brent built this amazing sandbox. The girls decided was a perch for them.

Since I am pretty sure I am DONE having babies (I think). I went through all of the compiled baby stuff and organized it to sell or give away.

August's school had their annual end of the year school carnival. It was a blast as usual. The kids loved it and Emmett was a lot more independent this year.

Brayden is an awesome big brother. Let me just say, he is so kind and patient. Love this kid.

Buying stuff to make the sandbox was fun...spending an hour in Home Depot is fun right?

Brent is kind of a perfectionist when HE is doing things. He wanted the boys to help, but was not always appreciative of the help he received. It was quite entertaining to watch.

One of our visits in town we HAD to go get our Honey fix! Spent an afternoon doing puzzles and then took Annett all way to SE Portland to eat at one of our favorite places.