July Ends

As July winds down, I decided to contact a piano repair company I saw an advertisement for on a van in the Aldi parking lot weeks ago. The piano we were given by Adam and Eve was still giving us trouble with the pedal, even though we'd had it "repaired" (more of a band-aid fix than a real repair though). So I called this guy, Uriel's piano repair, and he came right out. I was surprised because of all the covid stuff and pepole not wanting to go into other people's homes. But he came and he found that he needed to take the whole box containing the pedal system to his shop to rebuild it. So he did and returned it a week later and we finally have working pedals! Yay! 

Travis got creative and came up with his own cookie recipe: cinnamon chocolate chocolate chip cookies. He puts in cocoa and cinnamon and worked up his own recipe for chocolate chip cookies underneath all that. They are so good, but very rich. 

And a deal came into my email for cheap bowling for Tuesdays, so I decided why not?  And I took whatever kids were home and wanted to go to the bowling alley to break up the mundane.  Of course, we had to wear our masks while we there *insert eye roll*.

 

July Fun

On Jonah's day to cook, he made a fabulous fancy dessert by using fresh berries, whipped cream and chocolate syrup.  And we went swimming again with Maggie and Paige's kids at Aaron and Kaori's pool.  Also, somebody heart-attacked us.  It was the Rigbys, but they don't know that we saw them.

 

Swimming at Home

Before we left on our trip, our pool had not opened for the summer because of Covid19. One of the reasons we went on our trip was to spend a lot of time in Arizona swimming at Grandma and Grandpa's pool.  But the HOA board had met and opened it up the very week we left for Arizona.  That's okay, we still  had a great time in Arizona.  Since we've been back, we've been trying to go to the pool every day.  We just really love to swim.  And we have only one child left to still learn how to do it on  his own.  Won't that be nice when they are all swimming independently?

 

Senior Photos

One of the reasons we had to hurry back to Texas was because July 10th was the absolute last day for senior yearbook photos to be taken.  This is Westley in the graduation cap and gown.  I didn't end up purchasing the pictures from this company, since the senior pictures were four times as expensive as normal yearbook photos are only they really aren't that different other than wearing a tux.  So I'm going to get some done at JC Penney's for my wall and to send to family members.  But I was amazed at how much Westley looks like my dad in the proof by the company.  He has the same facial structure, I guess.  I can't believe my child is a graduating senior!  The years have flown!

Back to Arizona

After picking up Westley in Utah, we drove back to Arizona because Westley wanted to spend a day at Grandpa and Grandma's.  At least it broke up our drive into more manageable portions.  If we had gone straight home from Utah, we would have had to stay at a hotel somewhere.  This way, we got to stay with my parents in Mesa again.  We took the drive home all in one day, just like on the drive out. Mostly because due to covid19, hotels weren't serving the usual breakfast buffets and it just wasn't cost effective to stop somewhere.  That last day of the drive was brutal though and we didn't get back to Wylie until about 11:30 pm, having left Mesa at 4 am. 

We also did a recreation of a photo of the boys from when we lived in Arizona more than a decade ago:

May 2009 to July 2020.  They sure have become such tall, handsome young men!

Fun in Utah, Part III

We drove down to Mt. Pleasant while we were in Utah.  We stopped in at the Fairview Cemetery to see my grandparents' graves and then we stopped at the old homestead to see the house.  We also stopped in on Clell and Debi unannounced (I don't have any contact info for them) and they let us visit with them.  Their older daughters, Sarah and Gabby, were both there with their husbands and babies, so that was fun to meet them all.  And Clell gave Westley his old bugle, which Westley was thrilled with.

We celebrated Independence Day in Utah with our Fowles cousins.  John and Peter got a game of Axis & Allies going that Caleb and Travis joined.  Danny played too and Westley played a little as well, although he worked on the 4th.  We had cheesy potato soup instead of a traditional BBQ because Westley requested it since he'd been gone for two months and missed having it.  We watched fireworks from John and Allison's neighborhood up on the hillside looking over the valley.  I thought I had gotten some pictures of it, but apparently I didn't because they were not there.  It was a pretty nice holiday.

Fun in Utah, Part II

We were able to meet up with Andrea and her kids, who were in Utah visiting her parents,  for a hike.  Matthew and the twins were actually staying with John and Allison for a little bit and Peter had been living there like Westley for the summer.  We went to Battle Creek Falls in Pleasant Grove.  It was a comfortable hike and the kids enjoyed it.  I enjoyed getting out in the beautiful Utah mountains. 

We went swimming a few times at John and Allison's community pool. It was interesting that their pool was open during covid19, with fairly no restrictions.  Ours had all these restrictions when it opened, like 50% capacity (although, I've never seen more than about 20% capacity at our pool!).  But I was glad the kids were able to swim with their cousins while we were in Utah.  Travis, Matthew, Katie and Annmarie made a totem pole with Travis being the base.  I guess he does take after Corey a little after all!

Here is a picture of Jonah standing beside Watson to show how big Watson is. 

We enjoyed Japanese food that Allison prepared from scratch, with the help of some of the kids, and Nathan even ate some of the pot stickers and the pork!