May 5: (The date of my last blog post) Robyn ate her first solid foods. I skipped the grains to start with and went straight to sweet potatoes. She loved them. We soon added homemade carrots, mashed bananas, and applesauce (that I canned last fall) to her pallet. She's a good eater.
May 6: We had some major boundary changes at church. I mean major -- an entire ward was dissolved! As a result of these changes, we suddenly had a youth program about three times the size of what we had before -- wahoo!!!!
May 20: I was released as the Young Women President in my ward, after serving for a little over two-and-a-half years. I was told right before church started, so I was a complete and total mess that day, because it was completely unexpected (despite the recent changes). I'm over it by now, but that day was a really really hard day.
May 26: Ben took a sledgehammer to my kitchen counters. We're in remodel mode, and after researching many options, Ben decided to DIY the countertops in our "new" kitchen -- with concrete. It's definitely been a learning curve, and things are not done yet (grumble), but he got an initial chunk of work some while I was out of town.
May 26- June 3: The girls and I went to Connecticut to visit my family. My brother Clayton was leaving soon for his mission, and is (by now) out in the field already. He and my sister Candice were both going to the temple for the first time, which is a really special thing in the LDS Church. It was important to me that I could be there with them and my parents. It was a long drive -- 10 hours. Add to that the complications of a pretty much non-functional air conditioner in the car, as well as a completely non-functional stereo console (which we later fixed by simply replacing a fuse...d'oh!). I managed the drive (each way) surprisingly well on my own, though.
May 30: I joined Instagram and got a whole lot cooler. I think that's how it works, right?
June 4-8: Julie went to her first-ever Summer "camp." Earlier in the year, I saw a LivingSocial deal for a week-long gymnastics camp half off. Julie has always been a great climber, and naturally flexible, so I thought she would enjoy it. The class incorporated gymnastics, rock climbing, dance, and a couple other things. She LOVED it. I'm so glad I signed her up for it -- she really had a lot of fun.
June 6-8: Ben went to Utah for the wedding of a dear friend of his. It was kind-of a lightning trip, and expensive, but worth it to him. I'm glad he got to go.
June 9: Ben went white-water rafting with some friends. They got up early and drove three-and-a-half hours to a place that Ben had gone rafting with the Scouts in the past. They spent all day on the water, and headed home around 5:00pm. By the time Ben pulled into the driveway at 8:45, I had the car halfway loaded for a week away. I sent him up to take a shower, and then we piled in the car and left.
June 9-16: The girls and I were in Indiana, while Ben continued on to Tennessee. By this time, the air conditioning was completely gone, so we drove at night. We arrived at Ben's parents' house around 3am or so, and completely crashed. We didn't bother getting up to go to church, because we were so completely out of it. Ben had a conference in Nashville that week, at which he presented a coding package he'd written. Since the kitchen at home wasn't very usable yet, the girls and I stayed with Ben's parents. A few weeks before, I found out that the week we were to be there was the same week as Cub Scout camp for Brandon (my nephew who lives with my in-laws). Brandon's family lives in Alabama, and they were coming up for the week, which meant four other kids in the house as well. All the adults were staffing at Cub Camp in some capacity or another, the older kids were helping out as well, and Julie's cousin Sam (only a month older than her) was attending "pixie camp" with the kids of the staff. So we signed Julie up for Pixie Camp as well (under her grandma), and I drove her to and from camp every day, since everyone else actually camped there. Robyn and I stayed at my in-laws' big empty house and fed cats all week. We drove home overnight, and once again stumbled our way through the next day.
Things got a little bit back to normal for a couple of weeks, but not really.
July 4: Darcy (Ben's mom) and Eli (Ben's 12-year-old brother) came up so that Eli could go with Ben to Scout Camp the following week. They stayed with us for a couple of days, all of which were busy.
July 5: Major milestone: Julie got her first haircut.
July 6: Another major milestone: Robyn started pulling herself around on her tummy, and has been happily scooting along ever since.
July 7-13: Darcy went back to Indiana...and the girls and I went with her. We got to spend some real time with Gma and Grumpa this time, without Cub camp, without other cousins, and without major activity going on.
July 14: I had a newborn photo shoot for Square Root Photography. I'm still working on editing the images, but you can see a sneak preview here.
During all this, Ben has been working on new countertops in the kitchen, as well as digging up/cleaning/leveling/replacing the pavers in our driveway for a cleaner look and an even seal.
So yeah, life has been a little crazy, but we're starting to get back to normal a little bit. I plan to do a few individual blog posts about some of the above events, but wanted to at least get this down. In the meantime, here is me and my beautiful girls playing in the kiddie pool on my parents' deck last month:
1 comment:
Holy moly! BEEN BUSY for you guys! LOTS of travel and going back and forth. :)
I can't wait to see those countertops! :)
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