The end of summer vacation 2016

Last week was boring.  Very, very boring.  It was the perfect way to end summer vacation.  

We never left the house on Monday and I never took a single picture.  I'm pretty sure I did a ton of laundry.

On Tuesday Spencer had a friend over and I spent the whole day contemplating jumping off a cliff to get away from the fighting.  Brother-brother fighting, friend-brother fighting and friend-friend fighting, although they both deny it.  

I did get a picture of Ginger.  At least she was happy. 

On Wednesday I baked cookies for meet the teacher night.

On Thursday Spencer and I went into Kirkland's to just casually look around and I ended up buying this bench that I was absolutely not planning on buying. 

It was such a good price.

I got two cushions to go on it. 

Thursday evening was Meet the Teacher night.  We had to go to two different schools and had to park on the street and walk at both. It was the kind of crazy hot that gives you shivers and I thought we were going to die.

Elliott is doing his second year of preschool with the same teacher as last year.

It's our fourth year total with her and I feel like we're best friends at this point. 

Spencer is in third grade.  What?  That's like real school. 

I went back to work on Friday.  My office is being moved, actually into the room that used to be my office.  It's a downgrade compared to where I've been for the last two years, but at least I already know how to make it work.  This was mid-arranging. 

While I was at work Michael assembled the new bench.

Bye bye old bench that was left by the previous home owners. 

Hello pretty new bench.

I was talking to my brother Nick on Friday evening and he mentioned he was making spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.

WHAT????  Are you kidding?  Is what I said to that information, because I was making spaghetti and meat sauce for dinner.   It's July in Arizona and blazing hot.  What are the chances we'd both make the same unseasonable dinner?

We texted pictures to each other.  

Real spaghetti for my family,

and spaghetti squash for me.

Another picture of Ginger on Saturday.

On Saturday night Nick mentioned he was having hot dogs and hamburgers.  Well, isn't that just insane since we had grass-fed beef hot dogs from Costco that are quite pricey and dang tasty.

Sunday was the very last day of break.  

Ginger. Again. 

She was very much looking forward to these crazies going back to school so she can get a little peace and quiet. 

We specifically woke the kids up early to prep them for back-to-school bedtimes that night.

We also took them in the pool for a long time.  The sun was scorching hot so we put the umbrella in the pool for a little relief. 

Oh, and shockingly, more pictures of Ginger.

See, I told you it was an awfully uneventful week.  The next post will have all the back to school festivities though, so rest easy knowing that is coming soon. 

Flag suit extravaganza

Anybody who knows me knows that I keep an insane schedule of taking monthly and yearly photos.  July is always reserved for the annual flag suit pictures.  What's nice about the flag suit pictures is that there is some wiggle room in when they can be taken.  Unlike all the other pictures, these can be taken anytime in the first two weeks of July.  I made this rule because we are often gone from home on the 4th and the flag suit picture have to be taken in front of our couch.  Yes, I really need help.

It's Spencer only until 2012 and then Spencer will be on top with Elliott below.

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

Nine years of Spencer

Five years of Elliott

Some side notes:

2009 of Spencer is finally successfully photo shopped.

These are the two pictures I had to combine.

And this is the crude attempt I made using sub-par software years ago. 

I edited Michael's arm out of this picture, but Elliott looks weird because you can tell he's too young to be standing on his own (he was almost 7 months), so I think I'll just stick with the arm. 

A jam packed weekend

Last week was my last full week off for the summer.  I go back to work on Friday, but, obviously, for just one day.  Starting next week the kids are back in school and I'm back to my regular two-day-a-week work schedule.  In case I didn't mention it already, I'm switching my Thursday/Friday schedule to Tuesday/Thursday.  I'm hopeful that this upcoming weekend is slow and unbusy so we can mentally prepare for the school year.  In stark contrast, this past weekend was jam packed. 

Michael and I were invited to a Mormon wedding reception on Friday evening.  The son of my speech therapy aid, Sandra, got married.  I have never been invited to a Mormon wedding reception before, which is weird because I am friends with many Mormon people, so I did some searching as to why we, as non-Mormons, were not allowed to go to the ceremony.  

I'll let Slate explain it if you are so inclined to know.  Click HERE

We gave the happy couple some cash and a cute picture frame Christmas ornament with their engagement picture inside.

I got ready for the wedding before going to physical therapy and then rushed home to change before we left.

My lovely aid, Sandra.  She looks more like she should be the bride than the mother of the groom.

They had a nacho bar and a dessert bar.

And obviously a secret cake in the back since cake was available before the actual cutting of the cake.  Hmm.

We knew exactly two people at this wedding- Sandra and Sandra's daughter, Madison, who has baby-sat for us. I had never actually met Dallin before this night, although I have met Sandra's two other sons and her husband. 

First dance

Mother-son dance.  

Sandra said she'll come and watch me dance with Spencer at his wedding in 10 years.  I reminded her that he'll be 18 in 10 years and will need a few more years before he's allowed to marry. 

The bride's nieces and nephews did a choreographed dance. 

The little guy on the end was darling.  He tried really hard but didn't notice (for quite some time) that he was dancing backwards. 

Oh hey!  There are lots of people over on this side.

After the reception we headed to a restaurant specifically picked so we could see our friend Blaine perform.  It was conveniently like a 5 minute drive away. 

I like to take pictures with Blaine and text them to my friend Joni (his wife) whenever I see him.  Which is, you know, like twice ever.

After dinner Michael and I went to a 10:00 showing of Independence Day.  It was almost 1:00 am by the time we went to bed.

That made my 5:30 wake up time on Saturday quite painful.  Spencer had to be to his swim meet by 6:30 to warm-up, hence the very early morning. 

One of his coaches wrote his schedule on his arm with a sharpie.  Um, excuse me, was this really necessary?  I'm still trying to get that sharpie off. 

Spencer swam breast stroke first.  He came in 11th out of 28 kids.

The pool had opened at 5:30 that day and even getting there at 6:30 left very little space to find a spot on the deck.  We ended up setting up in this little strip of shade that actually lasted the entire time. 

It was already 100 degrees by about 8:30 am, but the shade helped. 

Freestyle was up next.  

Spencer came in 1st place in his heat and 8th place out of 32 kids overall. 

His last race was the individual medley.  He came in third out of three kids.  The kid who came in second beat him, seriously, by a fraction of a second. 2:22.09 for second place and 2:22.66 for third. 

I was just proud that he even did it.  I mean, only three kids attempted it. 

High- fiving coach Jake.

Spencer insisted that we stick around for the coaches race.  There were four teams competing in this meet so the coaches from all the teams raced each other.  Our coaches won!

And they won because of coach Jake swimming the butterfly.  He was like a speeding bullet in the water.

After the meet we went to Walmart to buy ingredients for our contribution to the swim team party dessert buffet.  There was a competition for most creative. 

After I made the cake I took a shower and then passed out in bed for a few hours.  I seriously cannot even remember the last time I took an actual nap during the day.

The party was at the same pool where the meet had been.  It's not exactly close to our house so it was a delight (sarcasm!) to drive there twice in the same day. 

We took Elliott's four year seven month pictures there.

Official

Some of the competition that we LOST to, since we found out on Monday that we got an honorable mention.  

This one came in second.

I don't know about this one since the winners were listed by name, not picture.

On Sunday we went to IKEA and the mall and then watched Pete's Dragon.  I insisted that the kids see the original before the new one comes out next month.

It's not as wonderful as I remember.  It's actually pretty inappropriate for children. 

And these children weren't all that impressed either. 

I do have pretty high hopes for the new one though.  Mostly because they still kept the dragon as Elliott. It would have been unforgivable if they had changed his name to Dave or something.