Summer recap #2

 

The rest of July shot by in a flash; a hot heat wave, husband in school, beach loving kind of flash!

This pic is blurry but this kid is just too cute.  I think he was made extra cute to help balance out his wild, trouble making ways ;)

 After living in our house almost a year we finally got our clay dirt rough grade done by our builder (we had to wait for that before we could do any landscaping).  As soon as it was done towards the end of July I called up our awesome friend who happens to be a wood shop teacher (and our Bishop) and gave him the green light to build our deck.  He hired one of the YM from church to give him a hand.  The kids were so entertained by the whole thing!

 After the first day of actual construction the frame was up and our friend grabbed a few of the cedar planks before he left and set up a little area for the kids to test out.  They loved it and just moved on in.

 By the end of the next day it was basically done! 

 I woke up at 5am two days in a row (one perk to living so far north is all the day light in the summer).  I was determined to get the cedar stained while kids slept.  My back hurt by the end but having an outdoor space was pretty much the best feeling after a year of dirt.

 We lucked out and got to decorate the deck with my parents gorgeous flowers since they sold their house and were about to move in with us.

 During all the deck construction the huge exhibition came to town.  Im not the most die hard fair goer but my hubby and kids are.  They packed in alot of fun into 8 hrs, I was impressed with how long they lasted.  Even WR loved it.  With in the first 20 mins I think WR said "woah!!!" at least 200 times because he just couldn't believe his eyes.

 He got his first attempt at the rides and we soon realized we had made a mistake in not buying him an unlimited ride pass.  We lucked out when I ran out of tickets for him, I glanced on the ground and found a big booklet of tickets and asked the lady who was standing by them if they were hers.  They were and had fallen out of an unzipped pocket.  She was so touched that I had found them she gave me half as they were leaving soon.

 My kids are little dare devils and went over to the adult side and went on this ride again.

 My Mom decided to have a garage sale before she moved and AL was so thrilled to get to set up a lemonade stand.  Hot weather and a cute girl had a way of sucking money out of every person that came.

 WR kept so busy testing out all the baby toys he hadn't seen in a while.  He spent quite some time in this tiny shopping cart.

 We pretty much lived at the beach and loved having friends join us almost every day.  The nice thing with the beach is that there is always so many people we know there so the kids always have playmates which makes it that much sweeter.

 These $12 costco boggie boards were seriously the best money spent.  They were a bit akward to cart back and forth but the kids seriously played on them non stop.

His happy place.

 

 We love how efficient our house is with its triple pain windows and spray foam insulation BUT we discovered that it sure doesn't let the heat out in the summer (we do enjoy that factor in the winter however).  Our house got HOT and we struggled to cool it down.  I think A/C will be in the plans a yr or two down the road.

 Our mater bedroom gets the direct sun all morning but by the afternoon and evening it cools off.  The kids however are on the opposite side and the sun beats in their rooms all evening making it crazy hot.  After getting woken at 4am by hot miserable kids I went into their room and almost died it was so hot.  I hoped in my car at 5:45am and was the first person in Lowes to buy this last A/C unit they had.  It only cools 500 sq ft but it made such a difference to the kids rooms!  A good temporary fix for now.

 So amidst the heat wave we gained some unfounded appreciation for the Icecream truck.

Most moms probably curse the loud music of the icecream truck as did I until this day.  Our back door and slightly to the side neighbors smoke.  They are pretty rough around the edges too and I surely prejudged them as they have turned out to be so nice and always willing to lend a hand.  Anywho, they built a monster sized deck that stretches out the entire length of their yard and in the process had a lot of scraps and junk piled up.  On this particular day it was so hot once again and my kids asked if we could get icecream.  I told them to grab their own money and they could just this once.  Suddenly I looked out my back window in horror to see huge flames right up against the neighbors deck in the pile of junk.  I could see a lady standing with a garden hose on the fire.  I honestly thought it was my neighbor loosing her mind and trying to do some sort of controlled burn right up against her house.  I ran out there to yell/talk some sense into her but when I turned around I realized it wasn't my neighbor at all.  It was the icecream truck girl (maybe 18yrs ish).  She had seen this huge fire and acted fast and grabbed their hose to extinguish it.  I now know that angels can be disguised as icecream truck drivers.
It was so hot and incredibly windy, all of our  houses are so close together that I know without a doubt the neighbors house at the very least would have been ablaze within a minute, if not the neighborhood.   We bought icecream, gave her a big tip, thanked her a million times over and it still just didn't seem like enough. 
The neighbors came home and admitted they had been throwing their cigarette butts into this junk pile of wood and cardboard for weeks (smart) which was fairly evident but the hundreds of butts on the ground.  Needless to say things have changed there.