Sunday, September 7, 2008

Summer Update Continued

Continuing from where I left off last night brings us to...


JULY


July brought more Monsoon Storms where we had lots of wind and rain.  These storms can be quite dangerous, they are fast moving and pretty wild, filling up normally dry washes in minutes turning them into raging rivers.  Despite their violent nature, they provide some of the most dramatic skies for photographing.







I like the way the sun is shining on the mountains in this picture.  You can also see that the wind is blowing by looking at the palm trees.  The storm hadn't hit our house yet.






Daddy reading to J and S.  S. has a new favorite book he likes to look at and have us read to him, Science, Year by Year.





The Girls and I made BIG chcolate chip cookies. Yum.  A and R are wearing their Keepers aprons. :)


 


July is when our state Homeschool Convention happens.  This year it coincided with my sweet A.'s 9th birthday.  I attended the convention alone on Friday, while hubby and the kids had a hotel room right across the street.  Even though we live in town, we rented the room so I had a place to go rest if I needed to during the day, which I ended up needing by the end!  The kids love to go and swim in the pool and hang out in the hotel room.  The rates are cheap here in the summer, add on the discount from the convention, and it was a pretty good deal. 

Also, since A.'s birthday was the following day, we treated her to a special night spending the night in the hotel w/ just me.  Daddy took the rest of the kids home after dinner and A. and I had the room all to ourselves.  We laid down on the bed and giggled and talked for awhile.  Then, I totally surprised her by whooping her on the head with a pillow.  An all out pillow fight pillow fight ensued, which brought peals of laughter from my gal!  She is such a sweetie.  She knew I wasn't feeling very good that night, so she was content to just hang out in bed together.

The next morning I drove A. home, our babysitter came over and Hubby and I went back for the morning sessions of the convention.  I felt bad leaving A. on her birthday but, she had a great day planned.  Grandma and Grandpa watch my sisters kids so they can go to the convention.  Since it was A.'s birthday, Grandma thought it would be fun to bring all the cousins over to spend the day together while we all were at the convention.  It was perfect.  We don't get to see them very often, so this was an extra special treat.  We came home from the convention around 1:00, watched A open her presents and enjoyed cake and ice cream.  My sister and bil came back from the convention around 6:00 and took the cousins home. 

A. had so much fun w/ her cousins, I think she hopes the convention falls on her birthday every year. :)


E. made this special dalmatian dog for A. for her b-day

Opening presents


My sister has 9 kids.  Four of them are old enough to attend the Teen Tract sessions of the convention.  The five youngest were the ones who came over.  We had 10 kids total ages 11 and younger over.  No wonder she had so much fun!  The ages here were 11 (my nephew), 10 (E), 9 (my niece), 9(A) (A and her cousin are 6 months apart), 7(R), 6 (my niece, she's 4 months younger than R), 5 (S), 3 (my niece), 2 (J) and 2 (my niece, who is 2 weeks younger than J).  Busy, busy house.   The kids all did really well and had fun.

The next pictures show more monsoon weather.  This was a storm that caused a lot of damage on the east side of town.  These clouds were huge, moving fast and full of lightening.







We always have beautiful sunsets during monsoon season.








J. being cute

S. asleep (how do they do this?)


This picture was taken about 10 minutes after I told S. it was quiet time.  He insisted he didn't need a nap.  I told him, just quietly look at books.  10 minutes later, this is how I found him!  My kids have inherited my husbands ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat. 

We also started back to school the beginning of July.  I already posted those first day back photos, even though I neglected to get a "First Day of School" picture this year.   I thought maybe I could take one this week and years from now, we'll never know that it wasn't our first day but rather our 50th day (or something like that)!

That pretty much wraps up our July!  I'll try to hit August highlights later tonight or tomorrow.  I have been challenged to blog about something else this following week, which I'll explain in the next post, so we'll see when August gets added. LOL

 










2 comments:

dustbunniesandbooks said...

Great pictures of the storm clouds. I love taking pictures of clouds too.


It was fun catching up on your summer...where did it go??

Anonymous said...

Really enjoyed this post too! Great pictures! It was fun to hear about your summer months. I love your idea of the hotel and how you and A were able to spend the night alone together. What a special memory for her (and you)!