Holy smokes, it's the last day of July...time has a very odd tendency to both fly by and drag.  I'm really not sure how that even works.  But today we went shopping with Grandmere in the morning.  We headed to Taipan Trading, where the fabulous bakery/restaurant that USED to be in Quilted Bear has relocated.  I found a hat at Taipan, and we enjoyed lunch with the girls while I was decked out.  I love big hats with just a little bit of 'flop'.

This afternoon we hit Lifetime Fitness for the last time!  Our membership is cancelled as of tomorrow, so it's a last hurrah.  I have actually enjoyed swimming with the girls this year.  Next will be even better because I think Mimi will make great strides.  She's already doing really well, but not nearly like the older two.  Still have to stay right by her.  Just as a bit of a test, I let her go down the slides in the background...there is a lifeguard at the bottom, and me right next to them...yeah.  She's not quite ready.  She just can't maneuver very well in the water, yet.  Totally next year.

See ya later, Lifetime!  You don't get any more of my money!  Luckily school starts in just a few weeks.  The timing actually worked out pretty well.

And so long July!

I got a new phone, today!  Madison is going to be very disgusted, but I'm an Android girl all the way!  I helped myself to the latest Samsung, and I think it's going to be awesome!

So this Invisalign thing is going really well, so far...I've been remembering to keep it in my mouth, and it really only hurts for a day or two after changes.  I have to go to the dentist every two weeks, so that gets interesting, and I imagine it will get even more so.  I'm pretty excited!  I won't see any changes anytime real soon, but I can definitely already feel changes in my mouth.  Spaces between teeth that didn't used to be that big, etc.

This package I'm sending Derek is AWESOME!  I've taken a bunch of junk, really, that he'll totally have to share with his roommates, and made up silly, cheesy sayings for them.  Some of them are pretty clever.  I do have to say that I think the Bazooka gum is the funniest...Your love BLOWS me away!  I chuckle every time.

I totally kept the Bear Naked granola family friendly, too.  I was proud of my restraint.  :)

The whole point is to make him smile, and I am certain he will do so!  The flaps were ransom note collages...lots of LOVE and Derek and Mercedes...it took me a bit of time to track down all the letters, but I like the effect.

It has been rainy today, like rain coming down really hard, rainy.  Mac stood at the front door and just watched.  You can even see the rain through the screen door.  My lawn is looking good!

And my tomato plants just keep delighting me!  I LOVE fresh homegrown tomatoes.  I seriously don't understand why store tomatoes are so inferior, but it's a simple fact.  They are.  These little beauties make me very happy.

This guy makes me very happy, as well.  Here he is ready for his day.  I'm really more concerned about the day being ready for him!  I can't remember if I've ever mentioned, but Afghanistan is 10 and a half hours ahead, so our days and nights are very nearly flipped.  This was actually taken during my last night, and sent along during his night, my day.  It gets pretty confusing, but even the girls understand pretty well the flip.  I'm really not sure why the half hour, but there it is.

Sunday dinner was up in Heber, again...double duty on the long drive this weekend.  We had a nice evening with all the cousins and kids running around.  My mom kept us all entertained with her great desire to eat some coconut cream pie--that was frozen.  She was very frustrated, and eventually just speared the thing.  I love my mom!

Leiden is funny, lately.  She likes to hang out with the grown ups...I remember doing the same thing as I got older.  I wanted to be involved with their conversations.  They always seemed to be having so much more fun--especially when my mom and aunt Leigh were together!  And now that I AM an adult...that's totally true!  We have awesome conversations, and we are hilarious!  I don't blame her at all for wanting in on that.

Baby Girls!

This evening was a trip up to Heber, where we had dinner and met up at Mike and Leigh's house for Britta's baby shower.  Dinner was at a little burger joint, where we all had excellent meals.

The girls brought along their purchases from the Koolaid stand.  They are obsessed with the My Little Pony blind bags, where you buy a bag that has a mystery pony in it.  So you don't know what you're getting.  It's very exciting, and luckily we haven't had any duplicates, even between them all.  Oh, and they are glittery.  :)

I love a good burger and sweet potato fries!

Britta's shower was fun, and very simple.  It was for couples, so there were men and women there, and a s'mores bar!  We have the serious problem of lighting our marshmallows on fire, particularly when the girls hold them, but Leiden wanted to try.

After hers lit on fire, along with mine and Mac's that were there with it, I took over the roasting.

Sticky, messy, chocolatey!

Britta and Brett are having a girl, which is very exciting.  She will be their first child, and they live in Singapore, so it was fun to be able to celebrate with them while they were here.

Late driving home, we saw this beautiful sunset.

We headed to the mall, today.  Mom needed to grab something for a baby shower, and we tagged along with her.  I haven't been in the Fashion Place mall for some time, and there's a Lego store there.  The girls have been watching the Lego movie nonstop for what seems like ages, so this was perfect to keep them occupied while Grandmere got what she needed.  They have this cool spot where all the Lego boxes and packs are loaded digitally into their system, and when you hold a box up to the camera, it shows what's in the box and options in 3D.  Very cool.

In other, exciting news, I found wedding shoes today!  Totally a fluke.  We figured we'd head to Nordstrom and check it out while we were there at the mall...and I found some gorgeous shoes!

I wanted flats, but not just boring ones.  These fit the bill perfectly!  Gold, darling bows with cutouts, pointy toes, and d'orsay styling!  Yay!

This afternoon, the girls were super excited to have a Koolaid stand.

It is a darn hot day, perfect for selling cool glasses of sweet punch!  Leiden made the sign, and I improvised some shade for them.  I think they had high hopes about how much money they would make, and thanks to a few people who spent far more than the 50 cents a cup asked for, they made a respectable amount of money each.  Which they are already planning how to spend as quickly as possible.

They had fun, though.  And that's what really matters.

Happy Pioneer Day!

Happy Pioneer Day!  Love this about living in Utah...it's a holiday!  We headed up to Grandmere and Bapa's house and broke out a new little pool.

Mimi somehow couldn't figure out the coordination needed to perform a somersault into the pool, so Grandmere helped her.

I had just finished running, and it's darn hot.  I figured it would be fun to do my OWN somersault in the pool!  The girls thought it was pretty funny.

Then the drying off on the hot cement.

We grilled our dinner...Dad manning it.  This picture is so cute, somehow.  Little Mimi talking to Bapa on the deck.

We had a short Family Home Evening about the Pioneers, and made our own butter!  Put heavy cream in something tiny and leak proof, add some salt, and shake the heck out of it.  You get real butter!

I was actually surprised that it really worked.

Derek had heard from his sister literally a day or so after I had seen these the first time in the store...so I had to try them.  The picture doesn't really show the scale, but these things are mega!

What a great celebration of an important holiday.  Another added bonus for the day...my mom sees Pioneer Day as the peak of summer, and can now consider us on the downhill slide to fall!  I'm with her this year!

With our cancelled Lifetime membership, we are trying to get some swimming in before we can't come, anymore!  The girls really enjoy it.  Unfortunately, someone stole my flip flops!  Really?!  Generic black Old Navy flip flops...how utterly frustrating.

MN Friends!

Amber!  I was so excited to see Amber tonight!  She is here for a month for a family reunion on her side, and visiting and vacation all around.  They decided to baptize their daughter, Maya while they were here, and she invited us to come up to Wellsville and see the event!  Love this lady.

The kids mostly remembered each other...but had tons of fun running around on the grass playing with sticks like swords, and at one point, playing in the tiny ditch that runs by the church lot.  My goodness.  And all in church dresses.

Maya and the older two

It was a great opportunity to see Amber and Evan!

More Birthday

Yesterday I completely ran out of time to get my dad's present wrapped.  I barely got Joni's wrapped in time for dinner...so today before everyone came to my house for dinner, I made sure it was all ready and wrapped.  Derek laughs and teases that we have birth WEEK as opposed to a birthDAY, because our celebrations stretch out for so long.  It makes perfect sense to me.  You have to celebrate with friends, with family on a Sunday, with family on a non Sunday...it simply takes time to get all that done.  :)

Happy Birthday, Dad!

The girls are with Brad this weekend, and today we headed out to see a movie and go to dinner for Dad's birthday.  We watched Godzilla, which actually ended up being a really good movie.  Surprisingly good.  It's definitely come a long way from the badly dubbed old movies.

We headed out to dinner, all of us, and celebrated Joni and Dad.  Happy Birthday, you guys!

This sight never fails to make me very happy.  I'm growing my tomatoes in the front yard, this year.  There is the best sun, there.  The beauty of this is that tomato plants are growing where tomato plants have never grown.  They say you're not supposed to plant tomatoes where they have previously grown, so this is great!

And then here's some crazy news...my mom and I went shopping this evening.  You know, just a casual jaunt to a bridal shop.  Yeah.  So, I found a dress!  Derek reads this blog occasionally, I don't know how often or how thoroughly, so I can't post anything he would see.  So you get the teaser that he got sent to him.  :)  It's blurry as can be, but it shows just a hint of the blush pink gown that will be mine!  They make you feel really ridiculous when they have you ring a bell really loudly to let everyone know you've found your dress!  It must be some play on wedding bells ringing, or something.