July 13 - July 19

Sunday, July 13: After church I met my study group up in Denton. Jamie and Tyler spent the evening in costume, Tyler as the Hulk, then Thor, and finally Iron Man. Jamie kept it simple:

This was the moment she stopped being okay with the papparazzi.

Tuesday, July 15: McKay’s day home was most unfortunately spent uniform shopping across Dallas. Eleven stops! Or so Tyler tells me. Poor little guy was dragging by the end. We took pity on the kids and stopped in the middle of our errand running to check out Monster Yogurt. It was a fun little frozen yogurt place with a playplace inside! Turns out this place is one of the best places to eat dessert in Dallas, according to D Magazine!

Wednesday, July 16: Abby watched the kids while I was at class. They had such a fun time playing at the Hatch’s house.  

Thursday, July 17: Thursday morning was the start of several very rainy days. The temperatures dipped down into the 70s, and it was gorgeous. I got a little taste of running in the cool weather that night, and oh man it was glorious. Come on October!

Sleepy in the stormy morning.

Fall semester is closing in; it’s time to start doing all the things I’ve put off all summer. Number one on that list: the last Hep B shot for me up in Plano (OUCH), a trip to Costco, and a stop at Grandma’s house to wish her happy birthday. We lingered there long enough to break out our new pack of uncooked tortillas from Costco and made yummy fajitas and red rice for everyone there.

Friday, July 18: More uniform shopping. Ughhh. It’s like throwing money into the wind everyday, and the kids are so done with all this shopping, but we still need to locate the right navy blue “modesty” shorts to go under Jamie’s jumper, and a new supply of socks for the school year. I have no idea where literally half of last year’s socks went. At bedtime, Jamie got really into brushing her hair. It got bigger and bigger:

Saturday, July 19: I promised the kids we would make up for missing donut day on Thursday. We went to check out this hipster place on the other side of White Rock Lake called Hypnotic Donuts. Supposedly 90% of Dallas’s donut shops get frozen donut dough from the same supplier, and that’s why they all taste the same. A handful of donuts make their own yeast donuts from scratch each morning, and this place is one of them. They were so yummy! Appropriately, there was a 25 minute wait to order. The line snaked out the door and down the sidewalk. All the artwork looked like that episode of Portlandia, and the menus were paperclipped to the backs of vintage vinyls. It was interesting for sure, but I’m still not clear on if I’m cool enough to eat there again J

We brought a dozen donut holes to Clarice and Carter’s house to play for a good chunk of the afternoon. I love looking around their house. It’s the same blueprint as our house, but Clarice has done so much work on hers; it looks amazing! It’s what our house wishes it could be J Back at home, I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning out the disgusting garage. We broke out some sparklers for the kids after dark.

Jamie got scared of the sparklers when she found out they sort of pop and flash at the end. She would only hold another one if she could stay inside while the sparkler stayed outside, and Daddy kept a close eye on the whole situation :)

Funny Things:

• Tyler was building a Lego tower, and Jamie was being mischievous and knocking off pieces. Tyler got frustrated and shouted, “You’re making me fail!”
• McKay convinced Tyler to try BBQ sauce for the first time. His eyes widened, and he shouted, “I LOVE IT! I love BBQ sauce!!” It was pretty funny.
• Grandma Hinckley gave Jamie a doggie purse for her birthday. It has not left her arm in days. She carries a little purple cat named Glamour around in the dog purse, and these two toys keep her busy for hours.
• At bedtime, Jamie has a silly game she likes to play: Jamie sticks her tongue out when I try to give her a kiss. I say “Hey!” and pull back. She laughs and says, “And another?” and sticks her tongue back out.
• Tyler and Jamie were fighting on the way home from a family dinner. I was pretty tired of the constant bickering, and I asked them both to think of something nice to say about the other person. Tyler had a really hard time coming up with something nice to say about Jamie. In frustration/alarm, he wailed, “Oh no! I will never think again!”

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.

-

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?' "