230: School Shopping: Phase One

I took the boys school shopping today–which mainly meant getting some shoes. (We also made one more stop for a couple pairs of pants and t-shirts since neither of the boys has been school shopping for a couple years, but that wasn't nearly as interesting as shoes and it was torture trying to get them to try anything on.) So mostly the first part of the afternoon was like this picture: Lex a bit crazy and completely indecisive about the 15 pairs of red shoes he was trying on while Zoran was exasperated by Lex's slow pace and lack of civility. (Lex is the most particular person I know when it come to clothes.)  Then we took a break and went to a movie. Afterwards, Zoran had a breakdown because I wouldn't buy him basketball cards and he'd forgotten his money and couldn't buy them himself. So he made us miserable the last hour or so since his life was clearly awful. But, they're both ready to go and school doesn't even start for a few more weeks!

229: harvest time

Azia shredded & froze five giant zucchinis from Gwen, Zayda and I hate broccoli from Mom's garden for lunch, and the boys picked five gallons of huckleberries. One of these days we'll actually plant something of our own, but we get by pretty well on the generosity of others for now.

228: First sign of fall!

The boys started football practice on Friday. Just a few more weeks till my favorite time of year.

227: a perfect summer storm

Our picnic in Caras park got interrupted by a giant rainstorm.

The kids took full advantage of the situation.

226: Crusin'

Zoran was showing Zayda the capabilities of her new princess-mobile Yaya got her for her birthday.

225: weathering the storm

Who lets a little summer storm interrupt a perfectly good game of dodge ball?

224: a bunch of my favorite 7th graders

A few of Azia's friends won't be in Mission for school this fall, so they all wanted to hang out a little before people started settling in to their new places for the new school year. She has such a great group of friends–hopefully some of them end up back in her class again.

223: early morning on the river

The ambulance was called in the middle of the night for a possible bear attack. There didn't ever seem to actually be a bear attack, but it took a good five hours or so to sort that all out. The lack of bear attack was definitely a good thing, but if I'm going to be up all night driving around Dixon and exploring along the river, I wish I would have at least had my camera. Sunrise on the river was beautiful and the moon was huge all night and morning.

222: Moonrise

I almost had a plan to take some pictures of the moon rising tonight. (It was supposedly another supermoon.) Of course I began to formulating this plan as I saw it starting to rise. I walked to the end of the driveway and took this one blurry picture and my ambulance radio went off. It was almost a good plan.

221: homecoming

Our favorite missionary just returned from his Mission in Texas. They had a welcome home picnic for Nick out at Mikkelsens this evening, and I think they have the only yard in Mission that rivals Mom and Dad's. It's beautiful--acres of beautiful.  (And they even have a tree house with a twisty slide; they definitely get a few bonus points for that.)

220: post party

Walking back to the car after Monte's birthday party... I can't believe all these babies from last year are turning one! We're almost through all the first birthdays. Kind of sad how fast the time goes.

219: 12 Month Check Up

The one-year-old checkup is a rough one: six shots!

And the poor girl is still a midget:

17 lbs 14 oz (15%)
28 inches (10%)

But, she's a tough midget. She yelled at the nurse when she poked her (repeatedly) but then stopped crying after she left the room. The shots didn't seem to bother her at all. We stopped at Target on the way home and she ripped off all the band-aids, tasted each one to make sure it wasn't something she wanted to eat, and then threw each on on the ground. Then she was done with shots and we didn't have to think about them again.

218: Zoran's good mail day

Both his Sports Illustrated and ESPN magazines plus the information for this year's Michael Cooper basketball camp! (And the signup sheet even included his name for being one of the MVPs of last year's camp.)

217: Paul McCartney!

216: The "Librarian" look

She claims it's a good look for cleaning. So far, I've seen no proof of this.

215: Sunday Afternoon

Some lunch, some visiting with cousins, some art in Yaya & Papa's yard...

214: Second place at the 3 on 3!

Zoran, Bryce, their friend Carmine (and Lex as their sub!) were the runners up at the Ronan basketball tournament this weekend. Their other friends were out of town,  so second place was not too shabby for having a 6-year-old fill in!

213: Rough Day

Everyone else went camping and she had to stay home with me and clean and do paperwork. And someone put that ridiculous Yankee outfit on her. Sometimes life is so hard.

212: Swimming Sisters

211: another summer sunset