July Miscellaneous Merriment

July has been calmer than June, mainly because baseball ended. But we've still managed to fill our days with all sorts of activities, like going to the library, swimming, running errands, etc. etc. We spent one afternoon at McDonald's while the van got worked on. The kids were impressed with the mound of fries we bought. (And would have eaten more had I bought them!)

We've been getting a ton of rain lately. Which is weird, because July and August usually seem pretty dry around here. Here's a tree at the edge of our neighborhood that didn't survive a particularly fierce storm.

And here's the little creek that's just north of our neighborhood. Crazy. Also, annoying, because the storms always come in the middle of the night and seem to hover right above our house, with flashes of lightening and the loudest thunder ever. It's hard to sleep for what feels like hours.

Our friends the Souths came to visit for a Saturday. We enjoyed chatting and catching up, and our kids had fun playing. Trying to get all of them to sit still and behave for a picture proved to be a lesson in futility.

We dropped Spencer off at Scout Camp early in the morning last Monday. I took the rest of the kids to Cracker Barrel for breakfast as a treat. Cole was super grouchy because when he gets hungry he gets CRANKY. And Tess and I traded meals because she didn't like hers. And Josh ordered a huge breakfast and ate about a third of it. But no one cried or screamed or caused embarrassment, so success!

My tomatoes are taking forever to ripen, but my flowers are coming along nicely.