July 6 - July 12

July 6 – July 12

Sunday, July 6: As part of sharing time, Jamie got to dress up as a detective in Primary: 

After church, I finally wrote up our summer bucket list:

 ...with only three weeks of summer to go, how did that happen??

Monday, July 7: We watched Ruby and Jack in the morning while McKenzie went to her Zumba class. Jack is nine months old, and I have completely forgotten how hard it is to take care of a baby! I caught myself saying to this little infant, "Use your words Jack, what's wrong?" Clearly, I am not fit to return to mothering babies :)

Tuesday, July 8: The plan was to go pick blueberries in Edom, but I checked the website that morning and found awful news. A late spring frost made blueberries scarce this year, and then all the remaining blueberries were picked over the holiday weekend! Those townies blew through the rest of the crop! Sadly, there will be no blueberries this year L McKay and I had an angry meme-off.

Instead, I took the kids to Chick-fila for lunch and to play. I picked up Richard later, and we all went to the Rangers game with my Dad. We rode the red trolley again! Dad and Richard got the Boom Stick, a 2 foot long hot dog piled sky high with chili, cheese, jalepenoes, and all manner of abomination. We also had lots and lots of soda because it was HOT. 

The trolley driver filled up the bus to standing room only, and then invited about 25 more people on. It was insane in there! We lost sight of Richard for most of the ride who most unwisely chose to sit in the back. McKay and I shared a two person bench with a few strangers, and the kids huddled on their own bench with Grandpa and a random lady.

No chairs! The kids ate pretty much like animals on the ground under the table, and I was so hot and tired I let that happen.

Tyler and Jamie batted over ownership of this cup. How many times did I say, "You'll have to wait your turn, it's _____'s turn." I lost count. So many.

Still grumbling over soda, or playing on Dad's iPhone, choose your own adventure.

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Trying to take a nice family picture, and the Ranger's, down by two, chose this moment to score a run. A huuuuuge cheer rang out. Jamie covered her ears, refused to removed them for the picture. Here, she is shouting at everyone in the stadium to be quiet. Many bystanders were laughing during the making of this picture.

 

Riding back!

Tyler tickling me in the car, and pretending it wasn't him. Photographic evidence!

Wednesday, July 9: First day of my EKG class! I saw all my friends from last semester, and it was pretty great. We've all been avoiding each other this summer, maybe because we remind each other of a very stressful time, or maybe because we all saw each other cry too many times. Either way, it was nice to see everyone! McKenzie watched Tyler and Jamie while I was at school. When I picked the kids up, McKenzie let me in on the best secret of the week: Trader Joe’s is HERE in DALLAS! I immediately dragged the kids over found:

Be still my California soul!

I picked up this little number, and have plans to return for more. They have such cute reusable bags, and they are JUTE and I feel so white girl carrying it around :)

 This store had a fun game to keep kids busy while shopping (TJs knows what's up). A little stuffed dog named Devon is hidden in a different place inside the store everyday. If the kids can spot him and report at the register where Devon is, they get a prize like stickers or a lollipop (guave, no doubt). Tyler and Jamie were thrilled, and have asked to return every day since. Me too, my young proteges :) I had Young Women’s that night, and we worked on our fundraiser: cake balls! We sold about 300 of these bad boys:

Lucky our YW president has a full time assistant to create logos for a one time YW cake ball fundraiser, huh? :)

Thursday, July 10: We met up with McKenzie and her kids to ride the trolley down to Klyde-Warren. The kids ran around in the water park for almost three hours, and then we grabbed lunch from one of the food trucks. It was hard to choose, since there were so many!

We polished off lunch with snow cones. The small snow cone turned out to be the size of Jamie's head.

This Blue Coconut was the best. Om nom nom.

Jamie and Ruby had SOOO much fun running hand in hand, but they liked to stop and inspect everything on the ground. Every rock, every grate, every flower.

Tyler was so annoyed at how slow we were moving, haha.

That night was the long awaited Queen concert! The worst thing ever happened though, even worse than the Mumfords concert being postponed: I couldn’t find a babsitter, despite an intense all out, all day hunt. Seventeen calls later, I had to admit defeat. I stayed home and McKay went stag.

Boo hoo. Here's McKay's review:

"Queen + Adam Lambert was… amazing. It was the original members of Queen but with Adam Lambert stepping in for Freddy Mercury. He didn’t try to be Freddy necessarily, but he definitely owned the show in sensational fashion. They played about a 2 hour set. They took a break in which each of the original members did their own solo. Brian May did a 10 minute improvised guitar solo, which ranged from psychedelic to shredding to some Yellow Rose of Texas. We also got a drum-off between drummer Roger Taylor and his son. The did some great tributes to Freddy Mercury. Before doing Love of my Life by himself, Brian says “Freddy used to stand right over here and do this one with me,” and Freddy did end up joining him for a verse on screen while Brian continued to accompany. Adam Lambert went through some flamboyant costume changes, finally coming out for the encore in a leopard skin suit and a glittering queen crown for We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions."

Friday, July 11: I made everyone clean up all morning, and as a reward, I took them to the Original Cupcakery in Uptown: 

They were so pretty, I couldn't help but take a bunch of pictures :)

That night, I drove up to Denton to meet with a bunch of friends from school to hang out, a condolence prize from McKay for the night before. It was a fun night!

Saturday, July 12: I dragged the kids all around for errands: Kohls, Trader Joe’s, and lastly the library.

These hopped into our shopping cart :)

Funny Things:

• We were watching a musical number on the Yo Gabba Gabba Christmas Special (yes it's July) 
• Tyler: "Mom, who is this singer?"
• Me: "They're called My Chemical Romance. I saw them once."
• Tyler: "Really?? When you saw them, did they sing 'Every Snowflake is Different'?" (the song they are currently singing on the TV)
• Me: "...No. No, they did not.

• The kids were watching Phineas and Ferb while I did dishes, and the evil scientist is talking about being upside down in his home loan: "Just because I'm evil doesn't mean I don't care about my credit rating." (can you tell its boiling here?? So much TV this week!)

• A text from McKay while he was at work: "It's official- I really don't need to go reading through gay guys' emails: 'Yes i am hairy, Are you also hairy? Do you text?' "