You May Officially Disregard the Last Post

We have less than 3 weeks of summer break left to go and I don't know if I've accomplished ANYTHING on my list from the last post.  But who cares... it's summer vacation right?  Here's a recap so far:
Week 1:  Girls Camp

It was amazing and exhausting, all at the same time.  I LOVE Girls Camp.  I LOVE doing the 4th year hike... I LOVE doing it with my partner, Danielle.  I LOVED having Megan on the hike this year.  I LOVED my YCL's.  I LOVED how Eric puts up with me all for this amazing 3 days with a bunch of teenage girls.  (He LOVES it too... and I think he loves that going to Girls Camp gets him out of Scout Camp now!)

Week 2:  Recover from Girls Camp (Daily Routine:  Sleep in, decide it's too hot to exercise, sit in chair in my PJ's until close to dinner time, shower, get dressed and make dinner, pretend like I've done something other than watching Robin Hood episodes with the kids all day, hang out with Eric, watch some more TV, wish I was back at Camp, and go to bed.... repeated 5 times!)

Week 3:  Road trip with my besties...
These girls are seriously awesome.  We got invited to go hang out at Karen's house (aka Lambson Lodge) for a couple days without kids or hubbies.  It was sooo much fun... we were the biggest kids up there.  We sat around Karen's house talking, eating caramel corn and chocolate chip cookie dough, while watching Season 2 of Downton Abbey.  We did get out of the house to eat some mediocre mexican food (and I was mad because I forgot my milk pills!), shop for soda and junk food at the local Safeway,  and get ice cream in Greer.  (Again... still no milk pills....)  Most of these photos were taken when we parked to walk along the creek in Greer.  This little tourist trap town has got to be the prettiest mountain town in Arizona I have EVER seen.  Next time I get a Groupon offer for a cabin in Greer, I might just buy it.    Many thanks to Karen and Sheri for making this visit happen.  It was WONDERFUL!

Two days after coming home from the White Mountains, we took Sheri's family out on the boat with us. It was super fun.  All the kids had a great time, including Megan, even though their family has all boys.  Megan is such a good sport.  She puts up with a lot of boys in her life.

Week 4:  Recover from road trip with my besties and an exhausting boat day... I'm not 13 anymore... it was almost like Ragnar all over again... except that Adrienne and I got to share a double bed instead of cramming into a van for middle of the night naps!   Also this week, appointments galore.... Visiting Teaching, Chiro, Ortho, Dermatology and 2 of the kids got physicals.  Whew... I felt like I was LIVING in my car!

Week 5:  Which brings us to today.  The only thing I've accomplished today so far is about 6 loads of laundry... whether or not said laundry will get folded and put away is anyone's guess.  I've also cleaned out my 2 email inboxes and read blogs that I've ignored for the last six weeks.  Luckily, I'm not the only lazy blogger out there... so there weren't too many to sift through.  I do have a "to do" list of things I want to accomplish before wednesday afternoon.  It includes cleaning the fridge, sweeping and vacuuming the house, pulling the weeds in the backyard, and the usual stuff that has to be done all the time.  Wednesday evening we are having friends over for a BBQ/swim party, and Thursday, Eric and I head to Portland for a short but sweet getaway.

Week 6 will involve lots of cleaning and back to school shopping.

Week 7 we will have family come!  Yay!  I always feel bad when the grandparents come in the hottest summer months, but Ian will be turning 12 and getting the priesthood, so it's a big occasion that warrants the presence of both sets of grandparents.

Week 8 will be the first day of school... and summer vacation will officially be over.  Booo.... Hisss.... sad face!  Summer itself will last for 2 more months after school starts, so at least the school routine will help distract us from the heat.  Maybe...

Summer Vacation

We are just 5 days away from summer vacation this year.  Last year, my summer was filled with camps, road trips and boating.  We didn't have 5 minutes to sit and rest.  This summer is going to be quite the opposite.  There will be lots of sitting and vegging.  My kids are all old enough to help me clean up the house and we have a lot of things to do that we never seem to have time for during school.  Here's my list of things I want to accomplish over summer break.

• Study the scriptures EVERY DAY with the kids.  Might seem like an odd thing to some of you, but it's been years since we've been able to have regular scripture study together as a family, due to crazy work/school schedules.  Usually summer is when we slack off, but I'm hoping this summer will be the opposite.  I really enjoy hearing the insights my kids have about the scriptures.  They are so much smarter than I was at their age.
•  Watch at least the first 3 seasons of Monk.  We've seen every Psych episode ever made at least 3 times, so we will have to get our money's worth from Netflix watching something else that's both family friendly and entertaining for adults.  I've heard Monk fills both of those requirements.  There's 125 episodes on Netflix, so we shouldn't run out of fresh material.  And the best part about Netflix is NO COMMERCIALS!
• Splurge on movie theater popcorn at least once a week.  The weekly kids movie at Harkins should take care of that.  :)  Other movies we might splurge on this summer:  Snow White and the Huntsman, Brave, The Dark Knight Rises (can't wait for this one!), and The Bourne Legacy.  Movies I will be avoiding, even though the kids may think they are must see's:  Madagascar 3 and G.I. Joe (the sequel).  
• De-clutter my house.  We have officially lived in this house longer than any other location since getting married... and it shows.  My plan is to break the house down into several "zones" and tackle one zone each week.  
• Exercise 4 times a week.  I've been sporadic in my routine since Ragnar in February, but I'm all healed up and it's time to get back into Triathlon training mode.  Hoping to do the Mesa Sprint Tri again in the fall.  That was a great race last year and I'm looking forward to doing it again!  Any local peeps want to sign up with me?
• Play catch up with the kids church stuff.  Taylor is behind on Duty to God, Megan is behind on Personal Progress, and Ian is just barely going to get his Faith in God done before he turns 12.  Definitely need to spend some time catching up on all this fun stuff!
• Read The Fountainhead.  It's our book club book for August and the audiobook is 30 hours long.  May be the longest book I've ever tried to read.  Definitely not one I should procrastinate starting!
• Do some fun projects with my kids... we might tie dye t-shirts, Megan wants to do some sewing projects, and I've got some half finished projects I really need to finish and clean up.  And if I'm ever bored I can scrapbook.  I can digital scrap or I can work on some half finished paper scrap pages.  There's never a shortage of projects to catch up on!  Maybe I'll scrapbook while we watch Monk.... I love multitasking!

So there you have it... one more week and we'll be officially into summer vacation.  Even though I'm not going to be leaving town too much, I plan on staying super busy!

A Visit From Charlie

Of course, a visit from Charlie means a visit from my parents... but lets face it mom and dad, the dog is the superstar in the family right now!

While they were here, we swam...

and tackled a few painting projects....

and hung out and rested....

and eventually said good-bye.  We had a great visit, which included a trip to the wave pool, for which I don't have any pictures.  Uh-hum... cough... mom...

Until next time....

You Know Autumn is Coming...

... in Phoenix when you walk outside at 7:30 p.m. and there is a wonderful cool breeze. Yeah, you heard me right... a cool breeze (very much like a Delta breeze for my CA contingent....) It was absolutely heaven and I'm already planning to let everyone sleep with their windows open tonight! YIPPEE! This may not occur again for several more weeks, so I am going to try to enjoy EVERY LAST MINUTE of it! And tomorrow's forecasted high? 94 degrees! I just can't tell you how happy this makes me!

Today was so much better than the rest of the week has been... I woke up feeling good, and my dog did too... no accidents last night. It must have been an omen for a good day! I've exercised, read scriptures, colored my hair and watched last night's Project Runway.... and I have a chick flick I'm saving for as soon as the kiddos go to bed!

Adventures in Tie Dye

This week we tie-dyed pajamas. It was a lot of fun! We bought cheap white tee's at Joann's and some white broad cloth which I spent all day Sunday afternoon sewing into pajama shorts for all the kids... well not Taylor (he's too mature for such things as matching pj's), but I had enough fabric to make me a pair, so I did! (I couldn't have buzzed through this project so quickly without my serger and recent experience making pjs for the YW at Enrichment last month!)

We picked up a tie dye kit at Joann's that had three colors - fuchsia, yellow and turquoise. It always amazes me what you can do with just three colors... Brayden's pjs for example - they turned out lime green because we blended the turquoise and the yellow. This is one project that you just can't screw up!

Megan wanted to go for the "Uncle Jon" look. Years ago we did a tie dye birthday party for Ian and Uncle Jon did the craziest pattern with rubber bands and die but it turned out super cool, so Jon, I hope you are impressed... I think Megan's turned out the best and she didn't care one bit about what it looked like because she remembered how cool yours looked after everyone made fun of you for being "different"!

Ian wanted a "Power Ranger" theme... we did our best to create a yellow "V" in the center of his shirt and he is very happy with how it turned out. He was the most particular about how we rubber banded it all, so I was worried that he would be disappointed with the outcome, but he liked it. Whew!

For Brayden's, I wanted a green/blue Ninja Turtle look. I ended up using an old white tee of his that he stained yellow all down the front spilling top ramen on him. You'd never know this shirt was ruined before, would you?

I'm declaring this project a total success - four sets of light weight summer PJ's for under $30 and the kids haven't taken them off in the last two days! They love them! The only bummer was not being able to do this with our good friends who decided to go to San Diego and play in the cool weather and the ocean instead of tie-dying with us! :)

Dirty Little Secret

Yesterday I heard my first cicada for the summer. They are this ugly little bug that sit on the tree branches and "sing"... but for us it's just any annoying buzz. When my father in law first came to visit us (in August), the first thing he said, was "I think the street lamp in your court is broken... it keeps buzzing." It took us a few minutes to convince him it wasn't the streetlamp. It was a bug... it wasn't until I walked over to the tree that was buzzing and shook the branches, that the cicada shut up and my father in law "believed". After 3 full summers, and well into my 4th one, I've discovered that when you hear the cicada's buzzing that means Monsoon is here. It's the part of summer that I love and hate all at the same time! The Monsoon is Arizona's "dirty little secret". When I told people I was moving here, I can't tell you how many times people would say, "well, at least it's a DRY heat." Yes, that's true... in May and June. But July and August (and sometimes even September?!?) Fuhgetaboutit... it's anything but DRY! Until this year, the monsoon was declared after we'd had 3 straight days with a dewpoint of 55 degrees or higher. Honestly, until I moved here for a summer, I'd never even paid attention to what a "dewpoint" was! (Click HERE to read more about "dewpoint" and how it works.) Dewpoint typically begins around July 1st give or take a week or two in either direction. With it come humid days, afternoon thunderstorms, crazy rain (not as often as we would like) and dust storms. I look forward to it because it's a change from the same old thing we've been dealing with for weeks, but I dread it because of the humidity. It's so dang miserable. And it know it's not as humid as living in Florida, but they don't get to 110 on a regular basis either... like last summer when we had 32 straight days over 110 or something like that. Let's just say it gets old after a while! I also don't enjoy getting woken up by a thunderstorm at 3 a.m. That has happened several times since I've lived here. I love thunderstorms, but I want them to be done when it's bed time. It's hard to sleep with lightening flashing through every window and thunder booming every 30 seconds. This year, the weather "gurus" have decided to change the monsoon starting date... it's now June 15 every year. Very early for most years, but they are using hurricane season as an example. Official hurricane season usually starts weeks before any real hurricanes develop, but it still reminds local residents to be "on their guard." I guess that's a good idea with monsoons, too. I was just hoping to get a couple more weeks of dryness before it began! Click HERE for some amazing Monsoon photos... I was going to copy a couple and paste them here, but there are too many good ones to steal them in good conscious! Enjoy!

Frustration

There are certain things I dislike about Summer in Arizona. Yesterday was our first 100 degree day. It was actually a little late in coming, but it ended up way over 100 degrees to make up for it. Summer is officially here. UGH...

• I hate the crickets in the summer time... they invade your home and are so dang loud!


• I hate the cicadas.... they are worse than the crickets.


• I hate that it's "scorpion season".


• I hate the fact that I have to brush my teeth with warm tap water... cold tap water disappears for a few months around here


• I hate running my A/C 24 hours a day.... literally... it NEVER turns off, especially upstairs.....


• I hate the $400-500 electric bill that comes with A/C running (I try to keep mine at 82 degrees, lest you think I'm paying to "refrigerate" my house).


• I hate the continual sound of the ceiling fans in every room.


• I hate my eyes drying out from said ceiling fans...


• I hate baking or turning the oven on for even 10 minutes to warm up chicken nuggets and fries for the kids.


• I hate that my front door handle will burn your hand in the late afternoon on a hot day (it faces west).


• I hate that my garage is a continual "OVEN" for 3 months straight... it's often hotter in the garage than it is outside.


• I hate walking outside at 10:30 p.m., when it's pitch black outside and feeling like I'm in an oven.


• I hate the humidity that comes in July, August and September. Whoever said AZ has a "dry heat" was only talking about June.


• I hate that you can't swim at night in July, August or Sept due to continual lightening (that never brings rain with it....)


• I hate that you have to get out the door by 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning to get a parking spot at our favorite lake before it fills up for the day.


• And today, I really hate how everything in Arizona wears out in less than half the time it should. The heat and high temps just destroy everything. Case in Point: this morning Eric woke up to a flooding garage. Our water softener (another necessity in AZ) has a crack in it somewhere and was spraying a mist of water all over one half of the garage. Now I get to call Sears to find out if our $600 water softener that's less than 3 years old is still under warranty. Not sure why, but I doubt it.....

How's that for a "downer" post?

What do you really hate about summer?