August Happenings 2014

Some August happenings.

1) Daphne started ballet lessons.  She's the youngest in the class (it's a beginner class for ages 4-7, but after a trial lesson Lisa said Daphne had a good enough attention span that she could handle it) and quite a bit shorter than the other girls.  Watching her prance and plie (had to look up the spelling on that) each week is the most precious 30 minutes of my day!  She absolutely loves it, but we're going to take a break for a month until we get settled in with baby sis.

2) I decided I wanted to get to know our neighbors better, so I delivered flyers to all 65 households in our neighborhood and headed up a block party at the park.  Lacie Robinson has become a dear friend and she was such a big encourager and help.  The process of putting this together was actually quite sweet to me as I was able to hand deliver the flyers and see a lot of new faces/hear their reactions.  So many people said they had wanted to do something like that for years, while another said they had lived in the neighborhood for 16 years and still didn't know hardly anyone.  It was a good reminder that there are lonely people all around us and how important it is to reach out with love to everyone we possibly can.  We only had about 35 people show up, but I am determined to make this an annual party and hope more people will come next year.

3) Gardening!  We have had chard, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers and squash coming out our ears!  We were so stinking excited when we saw our first pumpkin and watermelon growing!  Check out a portion of our harvest picked one Saturday morning.

4) Lunch date with this little ham after her trip to the dentist.

5) On a temple trip to St. George, we reconnected with the Gonzalezes (we hadn't seen them in about 8 months!) and Daphne was obsessed with their new kitty, Ginger.  Animal lover for sure.  The next day she wanted me to draw kitty whiskers on her face while she went around meowing all day.

6) This kid loves her Daddy and treats him like a jungle gym, making it nearly impossible to get anything done while she's awake.

7) Burke was called to be the Elder's Quorum President in our ward the week of the scout super activity (he was the Teacher's Quorum adviser at the time) and went with the boys on a ATV trip for one last hurrah.  He had such a good time with them as they rode over 250 miles in 2.5 days and had lots of laughs, but also some great bonding and spiritual highlights as well.  Burke was a little bummed to be released right as he felt he was hitting his stride with the boys.  While he was gone, Daphne and I went down to St. George to play with Cassie and the kids.  Have I mentioned lately how grateful I am that she is within a 45 minute drive of us?  I love having opportunities to spend time with my lovely sis!

8) There have been several times this summer that Burke went to Parowan in the evenings or on a Saturday to help with the haying.  One night, he snapped this picture of the baler right at sunset and this gorgeous image came out - on his phone no less!  This now hangs in our kitchen with the phrase "Hammer Down" underneath it.  Whenever there is a lot of work to be done in a short amount of time, Alan (my father in law) will yell, "HAMMER DOWN!"  And hammer down they do, at all hours of the day and night.  They amaze me.