July Festivities

We've had a fun July so far.  Three of Phil's high school buddies from Boston came and stayed with us for a few days. They are such nice guys and really fun to be around.  One day we headed down to Galveston to show them the beach.  Their reaction was hilarious.  If you haven't ever seen Galveston, the water is basically brown.  Not very appealing or inviting.  But the water is warm and the sand is nice, so I'll take it. The kids loved playing in the sand and we had a hard time getting them to leave.

The 4th was really fun. It's definitely one of my favorite holidays. We went to the parade in the morning where Phil was randomly a drummer in the Union Army band.  A guy in our ward heads up this "float" every year and kept asking for volunteers to play the drum, he wasn't having any luck so Phi stepped up and said he'd do it.  Even though he's never played the drums before.  He did a fantastic job and they sounded so awesome.  Their group actually got first place for most patriotic!

The kids LOVED the parade.  They waved their little flags and Livi would wave at the people in the floats.  A float loaded with mermaids drove by and she about flipped.  She is a little obsessed with mermaids right now.  

After the parade we went swimming and had a blast.  Livi has been taking swimming lessons and is doing a phenomenal job.  I'll have to write a separate post about that.  Later that night we had a BBQ and I made some red white and blue rice krispy treats, which were a big hit.  Phil was beyond impressed with my dedication to holidays.  A few days earlier I had went and purchased a few of my favorite fire works from when I was a kid. Black snakes, sparklers and smoke bombs.  I thought I remembered Zippers as these awesome things that would "zip" around really fast in a circle so I got a few of those, and a fountain.  Phil was super paranoid about all of the fireworks (technically they are illegal in the Woodlands) and I thought he was being such a stick in the mud.  I mean, they're sparklers and black snakes and smoke bombs?!  Then I lit the Zipper. It shot up into the air, over onto our neighbors roof, (covered in dried pine needles), and almost rolled into their rain gutter, (also full of dried pine needles and leaves.)  My heart dropped into my stomach as I was waiting for their house to catch on fire.  That convinced me not to do the fountain. I think I was remembering a firework called the Flower, not the Zipper.

After that near felony experience, we headed over to the Waterway to watch the real fireworks.  It was insanely packed so Phil dropped us off and we went to find a spot.  Right before the fireworks started Phil miraculously found us ( I had forgot my cell phone) and we watched one of the coolest firework displays ever.  This is the first year that Livi has really liked them, they have always been a little too loud for her, so that was extra fun.  And Jack, of course, got a kick out of them.  After the fire works we got to our car and it only took us an hour to get home.  An hour.  We live about 5 miles from the Waterway. Next year we decided we're riding our bikes.  

Speaking of bikes, I sold my road bike and got a beach cruiser instead!  I love it!  I feel like I'm driving a Cadillac because it's so much bigger than my last one. 

 Pat, Paul and Andrew

 telling me no pictures

I don't think we need a paternity test 

Mom and Maddie Come to Visit!

In June Maddie and my mom flew out and stayed with us for about 10 days.  Maddie is a music therapist at a school so she gets the summers off and decided, what better time to come and visit! Her boyfriend Stan ended up flying in for the weekend because he couldn't take it anymore.  I was really glad he did, it was great getting to know him a little better.

I was really bad at taking pictures, but we had a lot of fun.  We obviously had to hit up Old Town Spring for some fried Twinkies, and we mixed it up a little this time and got fried Nutter Butters as well.  Nothing beats the fried Twinkies for me though.  Now I want one.  We went to a drive in while my mom watched the kids. (Love having free babysitters around!)  We saw, Now You See Me, then snuck over to the other screen for the second feature and watched Fast and Furious 6.  We didn't get home until almost 3 am and I told Phil as much as I love the drive in, I'm glad we only go once in a while because staying up that late kills me.  I'm getting too old I guess.

Other than that we went swimming almost every day and ate at some yummy restaurants.  We took Maddie and Stan to Rudy's so they could experience their brisket baked potato. And my mom requested a visit to Chuy's again.  She loves that place.

Maybe someday my family will move to Texas so we can live by each other!  Nothing beats having family around.

May

Wow, I'm really not very good at this blogging thing.  I love looking back over old posts, so I want to keep doing it.  But it's hard for me to make the time when there are so many other things I could be doing.  Like taking naps!

Let's see...I left off after my mom's first surgery.  The mass and one of her ovaries have since been determined to definitely have been ovarian cancer.  Luckily, stage 1.  She has since had another surgery where they removed her appendix (a lot of ovarian cancer starts in the appendix), 17 lymph nodes and did a whole lots of biopsies of tissue throughout her abdomen.   All the results came back negative, as in no other cancer cells, and she is free to recover!  No radiation or chemo needed.  She will have to go back every few months for check ups, but that's it. Her Dr. stressed how very lucky she is.  He said he rarely sees ovarian cancer earlier than stage 3, because most people have no symptoms until it's almost too late.  Thank goodness for that gnarly mass, it literally saved her life.  Recovery is still slow going, her core is still sore and simple things like sweeping and vacuuming really take their toll. But she is incredibly grateful and is now trying to figure out why God wanted her to stick around.  I said it's because she has 8 kids who still really need her.  Especially me.

We spent nearly a month in Utah and Arizona in May.  We drove to Mesa for Phil's brother Jason's wedding to Alexis.  My Dad and Kathleen drove down for their wedding.  They really adore Jason and were so happy they could come. We stayed in Mesa for a few days and enjoyed all of the festivities, then drove to Vegas where I dropped Phil off at the airport so he could fly home for work.  Little side note, on our way to Vegas Phil and I switched drivers at some dinky little gas station in the middle of no where and Phil starts driving.  After a little while he asks me if we're going the right way.  I ask him if he got on I-90 (not sure if that was the actual name) and he said yes so I said yes we're going the right way.  About 20 minutes later we see a sign that said, "Welcome to California"!!!  Keep in mind, we're supposed to be going to Nevada.  He had got back on the freeway, just going the opposite direction.  And I was supposed to be navigating, but figured he had just got right back on.  It was only about a two hour set back :-(
Anyway, after dropping Phil off in Vegas I continued on to St. George where I stayed with my Dad and Kathleen and one of Kathleen's relatives (her aunt?) for the night.  Then the kids and I woke up the next morning and drove to Loa.  We had Brighton's bridal shower, Julie's baby shower and Michael and Brighton's wedding over a two week period and it was so fun.  Phil flew back into Salt Lake the night before Michael's wedding, then the day after the wedding we made the trek back home. Whew! I was so sick of the car by the time we got home. Michael's wedding was the first time in 7 years, since my wedding actually, that all of us siblings have been together.  It's always fun when we get together, I just wish it could have been for longer.  I never get to see Nate-he had never met Jack-so that was extra nice.  I'm trying to get pictures of the weddings from Michael and Jason, because I didn't bring my camera to either.  Hopefully soon.

 saying bye to Nano and Zeus in Mesa

 Brighton's bridal shower

 trying to find a good spot for the picture... 

 haha! Brighton opened this and Jack went over and grabbed it and said, "oooooo" and brought it to me

  Evie kept trying to tell Livi to lift her pinky, but that girl will not be told what to do

 playing "crack the egg" on the trampoline

As always, it was great to be back in Utah for a little while.  I was really bummed I didn't get to see any friends while I was in town.  I was either in Loa or doing wedding stuff so never really had a chance.  Next time, I refuse to leave without seeing people though.