We've been having a great summer so far. It feels like we've been too busy, though. I still want us to get to the beach more often. It's just a little hard to get there with Charlie being so little yet. The girls have been having a great time playing with all of the neighborhood kids on our street. For a couple weeks, we had nightly baseball games going on in our yard. Now we've got a huge slip-n-slide that has become the new attraction. Natalie enjoyed a couple of churchs' vbs programs, swimming lessons, and in June she learned to ride her bike without training wheels. Our strategy with that was that we kept bending the training wheels up so she had to learn to balance herself. Then we loosened the bolts on the wheels so that eventually they just fell off when she was riding. And now she is zooming all over the place. Ruby still just loves to play with her babies. She is such a little mother to everyone and everything. My niece, Ava, and Ruby are best friends. Ruby's language skills are improving and I'm already starting to miss that Ruby jibberish! Charlie just had his first birthday! He isn't walking yet, just speed crawling everywhere! He has been enjoying the sand box and playing with his sisters. His language is really starting to pick up too. He was singing in the car yesterday!
Jordan and I have been busy.... Jordan was laid off for a week but he's been keeping busy enough with side jobs. He just put in a lot of work in my mom's kitchen. Jordan and 2 of our guy friends went on an 80 mile kayaking trip in the beginning of June. They started in Grayling and worked their way down. It was pretty cold that week (4os and 5os) but they had a good time. It took them 3 days. Jordan and I just did the Holland Hundred bike event for our church. We raised money for wells in Zambia, Africa. We biked for 36 miles which was a little much for me! I was tired but more than that, I just found it hard to breathe. Not sure why.... But I'm glad we did it and maybe next year I'll have to train for it! We also went to the midnight viewing of the very last Harry Potter movie with our friend, Sara. Good movie, interesting crowd....! We're about to be getting into tomatoes so I'll be getting busy with canning soon. Jordan traded his white Dodge Ram for a Pontiac Vibe. It was a good trade. There is more value in the car than in the truck! And 28 miles to the gallon versus 10 mpg with the truck! I had a terrible wisdom tooth extraction experience. I was tortured for about 15 minutes while the dentist tried to yank out and drill the rest of the wisdom tooth that remained after he had cracked the top off. A month later, I can finally yawn without pain. I actually got dry socket from the whole experience. Vicodin didn't even touch the pain. But my awesome husband went out at 11p one night to pick me up some oil of cloves which is the only thing that would touch the pain. It was actually a very nice dentist and he felt really bad that I got the dry socket since it probably happened because of the trauma. So lesson learned (a little late, I might add): get your wisdom teeth out BEFORE they come through! Wisdom is knowledge rightly applied!
As for the rest of the summer, neither Jordan or myself have been running but we hope to start up again soon (we've been saying that all summer!). I just signed up with some friends from church for the Grand Rapids Mud Run at the end of August so I have to get exercising again! This year we also tripled (at least!) the size of our garden! We're happy we did it but it is consuming much more of my time than I wanted it to! I am constantly weeding! Everything is coming up good though. But something I have to make more time for: the beach! Me and the kids just love to go, and I wouldn't mind getting a beach day without the kids too maybe!
Enjoy the rest of August!!
