The water heater still needs to be replaced but animals haven't gotten into our trash or garden as much so that's a relief. Samuel and Makenna went to a musical camp (the free classes at school 8-2) and really enjoyed it. My favorite day was hiking with Talea for her birthday mommy date.
Monday: Anderson with the zucchini he grew. For some reason this one got huge and the rest didn't.
His zucchini garden box. He's in charge of keeping it weeded and picking the fruit.
Eating dinner outside because we have too many projects on the table. :) And it was gorgeous weather.
The 4 girls sat at the picnic table.
Tuesday: I took these two on a mommy date for Tilly's birthday. First we stopped at the park and then went hiking at Pilot Mountain. They were perfect the whole day and were adorable together.
Pilot Mountain here we come.
Hiking the knob trail. The knob looks huge or they look small.
After the Knob Trail we went on the Fiddlehead Trail, found a shady spot by the creek and parked ourselves there for a few hours. It was delightful.
We sketched.
We played in the creek.
We did an impromptu sock puppet show when putting our shoes and socks back on.
Made rock mountains.
Then we went to the visitor center. We want one of these boot scrapers!
When we got home Talea wanted to open her presents even though her birthday wasn't until the next day. It was such a perfect day so far why not make it more perfect with presents. :)
Dress up shoes she's been asking for for 2 years.
She also got this purple caddy and we filled it with our art supplies. She's always doing art so this will be more efficient than opening pencil boxes that we used to have the stuff in.
After presents everyone hung around outside. I loved it. Thomas was staining some wood thing he made; never did find out what it was. I think he said it was a surprise.
He got a funny dot rash from climbing a pecan tree.
I checked on the garden. It was a dry June (2.5" of rain) so I had to hand water with buckets most days. Last year I didn't water at all. But I prefer watering for 20 minutes over mowing hours. It was nice our grass didn't grow too fast.
Andy and Samuel having a snack.
Kait, Kenna, and Tilly painting sets for their dolls to put on Wizard of Oz.
Our neighbors stopped over to sit on the front porch and talk, which I always enjoy. Kaitlyn asked if she could ride in their truck to the end of our driveway so the other kids jumped in too. The neighbor kids are Kaylee and Colton and the other 5 are mine.
They were all screaming, "Whee!" And seeing if they could stand without holding on.
They were dropped at the end of the driveway and walked 1/4 mile home like this. :)
It was a perfect day.
Wednesday: Talea's real birthday. She opened her present from Mama- pajamas--and put them on. Then she made pink cupcakes. She's 5 so she used a 4 and a 1 candle.
Elder and Sister Holladay (aka Spencer and Madalyn) got to call for Tilly's birthday! It was sooo fun to talk to them. It was their first week in the field. Spencer is in Pleasanton, CA but his comp got covid so they were stuck inside for 5 days. Maddie is working the family living center (where they dip candles, spin wool, etc) and pioneer games which is outside stick pull and such. They trade off every hour so they're not outside too long. She's loving it! Except she hadn't had a p-day yet so she didn't have any food the first week (got there Saturday, p-day was next Friday) and members don't feed them there.
Thursday: Andy and Tilly coloring pictures.
Friday: I took this to send to my sister Trish who gave us these mini flags. Every first of the month Tilly makes me put the new one out. She loves them and I do too.
It was Kait's doll's birthday and she did way more for it than she did for Tilly's birthday, haha. Here she was having a baking contest with Andy, Sam and Makenna having to make the best cookie dough.
Then she put all 3 cookie doughs into a cookie dough cake for her doll. They're funny kids but at least they had fun all day.
Saturday: Off to Grandma's! Alexis found an fsy by Grandma's house in Orlando she wanted to go to last minute. Our stake has never gotten to do it and she got an email saying seniors could attend anywhere they wanted to if their stake weren't going. So she found this one near Orlando and I said she could go if she took all the kids. :) I don't see any other chance in the near future for them to go down without me as Thomas won't get his license for another year and a half. So it worked perfectly! Alexis gets to attend FSY that she's always wanted, the kids get to spend a week with Grandma and Peepaw, and I get the house to myself to get caught up on things, do lesson plans, etc.
It felt surreal that they were actually leaving and I'd be home by myself for a week with nowhere to go. Always been a dream of mine but never thought it would happen.
The 10 hour drive took them 12 with holiday traffic/accidents and rain. But they only stopped once for 11 minutes. Way to go! Alexis is a terrific road trip driver at only 16.
When they left I went to check on the garden. I found this bag and lettuce container I had sent someone to dump in the compost pile. It was by the blackberries, meaning they stopped and got a snack here. I love it.
Yum! I love our blackberries. Our plums were tinsy and sour, our grapes have seeds, our cherries were tiny, but the blackberries are huge and delicious.
Japanese beetles have eaten all the kiwi leaves. We try to get them off the grapes daily since they're low and by the house but we couldn't get them off the cherry tree since it's so tall and the kiwis are far from the house so we missed them a few days and they did a lot of damage.
All the kiwi are dying and the skeleton leaves are falling off. Bummer! No kiwi again this year.
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