CIY

 Aubrey and Grant came home from CIY camp tired and scratchy-voiced but oh-so-happy! They both had an encouraging, uplifting time at camp, and God worked mightily. So thankful!

Summer Projects

I've had so many little projects on my to-do list this summer.  Kari helped me sand the deck (she did most of the sanding), and then I re-stained it and the deck furniture. She really wanted to make our backyard look nicer and has worked hard to re-seed the lawn and get things looking better. 

I recovered our dining chairs, something that has been much-needed! I'm so happy to not have to look at the ugly stains anymore! 

I've been propagating house plants, some more successfully than others. Now that I have a classroom with windows, I want to have some real plants at school, but I don't want to pay money for them. 

My wedding ring band broke again, so I drove over to Shane Co., and they replaced the band--good as new! 

I spent quite a bit of time getting our vehicles licensed and registered--multiple trips to the DMV, DEQ, and the WA DMV. Finally got the new-to-us Camry all squared away and licensed in Oregon! Five cars is a lot. 

I have organized closets and drawers, organized shelves in the garage, and thrown out a bunch of things we just don't need but haven't had time to sort through. That's what summer is for! I'm catching up on all the things that I don't have time for during the school year. I got last year's blog posts updated and got my blog books printed. I'm all caught up on the blog now! 

I've been walking every morning, listening to audiobooks, reading, and working on a new-found hobby--paint-by-number. I've done two of them now. My first was a practice (the plants in vases), and then I did one of the kids at Bryce Canyon. It's really fun! 

The last project was not one we planned to do this summer, but here we are! I decided I wanted the trampoline down before Aubrey's grad party next June and want to have a seating area and some new garden boxes. It's turned out to be a much bigger project than I realized. We have been hacking out tree roots, pickaxing, and shoveling--seriously hard work! The plan is to use pavers to build a retaining wall to level out the area where the trampoline used to be. The trees we planted when we moved in, though, came back to haunt us, as the root systems are extensive and our ground is basically hard clay and rock. My garden boxes were full of roots (no wonder I had a hard time growing things the last couple years--didn't even try this year). The whole project may may not be totally completed until next spring, but that retaining wall is getting done before September. 

Paddleboarding with Jen

Jen and I had another paddleboard adventure together. We're good for about one a summer. :-) It was so good to catch up with her and great to be outside on the water. We may have gotten a bit sunburned, but it was worth it. 

Ashlynn's Wedding

We quickly repacked and swapped out beach clothes for wedding clothes, picked up Rebecca who joined us for the wedding weekend, stopped at Chick Fil A for lunch, and made it to Sisters in plenty of time for the rehearsal dinner. We stayed at one of Ryan's friend's house for the weekend with Eric and Leah, too, which was great--saved us money! 

The wedding wasn't until 3pm on Saturday, so we killed time wandering through downtown Sister's. We stopped at Suttle Tea for drinks and then strolled through town for a bit, ending with the Hen's Tooth, where we found some fun stuff and some really tasty mustard, which we purchased to go on our sandwiches for lunch. 

The wedding went well and was God-honoring. It was pretty toasty out in the hot sun during the ceremony. We escaped to the shade as soon as it was done, and it was very pleasant in the shade. We are so very happy for Ashlynn and Aidan. She is officially a Wells now and will be settling in at home in Indiana. 

Kari looked beautiful as a bridesmaid and did a great job helping with all the things during wedding week, including arranging rides for all the Moody students who didn't think about that little detail of how they were getting back to the airport to fly home. It all worked out eventually, thanks to Kari and Maggie figuring it out after the wedding, while we were all cleaning up. Silly young people! 

On the way home we drove right by wildfires smoldering next to the freeway. Thankfully, it didn't impact our travel, and it didn't interfere with the wedding either. It was smoky when Kari drove over on Tuesday, but the wind shifted and took the smoke away from Sisters by the end of the week.