What I've Been Doing With My Summer Vacation...

I feel like summer just started. After all the rain we had, it's certainly been recently that we've started our summer activities. The fact were nearly a week into July already is something I'm trying to ignore!

My brother's birthday was a couple of weeks ago, so I made a raspberry cheese pie **YUM** and we went over and had grilled steaks and shrimp and pie with my brother, his girlfriend and all his kids. It was a really good time.

Last Wednesday my little brother (see below) and his wife flew in from Australia.

We were lucky enough to have them stay for a couple of days. It was fun, once Cindy found her land legs and Sammy immediately latched on - first to Cindy and then to Dustin since he would sit and play cars and gave him the (creepiest), I mean funniest! action figure ever...

Thursday, Sharon and I met up with bythelbs for lunch. It was a great time and I loved finally meeting her and we both remarked how it felt as though we've always known her. It was just totally comfortable and we all felt we had some solid background to start on. I'm hoping to see her again when we get to the northwest this summer.

That night, to continue the holiday gorge-fest, I had made my second cheese pie in a week as my contribution to taco and rock band night at Sharon's. Both my brothers, my brother's sons, Sharon's family, Dustin and Cindy and my family got together and had a lovely meal of tacos followed by Coke cake, Italian cream cake and cherry cheese pie. Lovely! Then everyone worked it off with a little rock band...

(Isn't he dainty? Funny to learn he's the more sensitive / feminine one in their marriage...)


(Sammy and Simon curling up for a movie after dinner)

Friday felt like our holiday day. We went to Salt Lake with Dustin and Cindy to go shopping. If you ever want to feel better about crappy American pricing, go to a mall with an Australian! Everything was apparently cheap! My favorite part of the day was definitely stepping into Anthropologie for the first time. Can I live there? It was even better than finding out Cindy really can fall asleep anywhere - including standing up on a hot day in a busy mall! Isaac knew I was a goner the second we walked in. That store is just so very me. Holy cow. I browsed for a little while and picked up a game for Sammy (he's very into matching lately and scary good at it). We played it last night as a family and our normally patient, loving, everyone have fun son was so stinking impatient and competitive. He's honed his skill on my iTouch and wanted nothing of these "turns" we kept talking about...

After I picked up the game I found this:

OH MY. I think all four of us (well, 5...Sammy was very into them) spent the next 1/2 hour looking at drawer pulls and doorknobs. We all know how very cool my new door is, so I picked this up to finish it off.


Unfortunately, my trim is now going to have to be repainted a dark blue - the bird is a robin's egg blue - (I'm thinking something like this) instead of the eggplant, but at least it hadn't been redone yet!

On our way back to the car and heading to IKEA, we ran into our friends Shelly and Chris. What a fun surprise to cap off a fun shopping trip!

Friday night was fireworks night. Our town always does them on the 3rd, so we trekked up to the university and settled in to watch the show. Dustin and Cindy weren't feeling well (altitude, too much sun) and came a little later. In all, it was the whole taco / rockband group together again for the fireworks.

(how beautiful a town do I live in?)

Sammy had a great time playing soccer before it got dark. I swallowed a great deal of mommy paranoia and let him run off with his cousins and have fun.


Sammy did great. The fireworks didn't freak him out, but he was so tired that he fell asleep just a few minutes in. After about 10 minutes of holding a sleeping Sammy while sitting on a blanket on the ground,(he would wake up and crawl back onto my lap if I tried to put him down!) I was seriously coveting my brother's foresight to bring a chair...I guess he really IS older and wiser!

(ahhhh...next year!)

A happy, albeit tired, family...


Saturday was filled with errands and napping. And Isaac building my IKEA shoe shrines. Gotta love a hubby who will help fix your (clearly important) shoe crisis! How great is this?



To top off a good week, I was supposed to get together with Diane today for lunch. Clearly, the third time is NOT a charm for us as she had to cancel. I swear, one of these days our plans will actually pan out...