The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

July is such an epic month. I love it. It's better than Christmas. You have holidays and parties and fun, but without all the stress and expense and cold weather.

Josh went to baseball camp for 3 days. He liked it enough to go without complaint, but didn't love it. Eh. He's on a golf kick right now and wants to go golfing. Which kinda stinks cuz that's a sport we all hate, but whatever.

The weather and our schedules finally cooperated so that we could do some boating this month. We've had a faulty battery, a blown trailer tire, and Sean rebuilt the carburetor and made some minor adjustments to it; I'm hoping that's it for repairs and we can just play with it now. I'm ready for a trip to Bear Lake. I think that sounds fun.








Our family Pineview trip went well. I had a good time; hopefully everyone else did, too. The weather was just about perfect and the wave runners were a blast. Our tube popped a huge hole, so that was a bummer, but it was pretty freaking hilarious when Sean, Max, and Curtis tried to get one more ride out of it. I was pulling them around, but they were a sinking ship. Wish I'd had my camara.



















Going to the Pioneer Day parade in Bountiful and fireworks afterward is a really fun tradition in Sean's family. Then we did fireworks and homemade ice cream at Cami's house the next night. So, starting with the big camping trip and ending with the fireworks, and everything in between, pretty much the whole week of the 24th ends up being one big party for the Chamberlains.





Courtney and I went together to get tattoos for our birthdays. Mine went through several incarnations and different drawings before the artist and I came up with the final design. I really love it. It's a tribal butterfly and heart on my ankle. I have 2 more tattoos that I want, maybe 3, but as I was getting this one I thought, "Ya know, maybe one's enough." It hurt! You know, like it does when someone pokes you with a needle thousands of times. But now I'm back to considering a few more. I'm not one that would want a ton of ink all over myself, although I can appreciate the art of it on other people, so we'll see. Courtney got stars on her shoulder, and they are really cute.

If I were into getting something bigger, I would totally get this one on my bicep. I love it.



Heather is here visiting, and it is so good to see her. So happy to get to hang out and annoy her in person instead of just over the phone. We had a little family party Sunday night. David was cracking me up.





Sean and I went to the Bee's game last night. I love baseball. The weather was cool, and it rained, but our seats were under the little overhang, so it was just about perfect. Not too hot, and we didn't get wet.

Summer is speeding by so quickly and I still have lots to do. The big project is the upstairs flooring. I think that we are doing wood laminate, like miles of it, and doing it ourselves. So that could be cool, or it could be a hot mess disaster. We'll see which, I guess. I have to start on all the prep work, though. Blarg. It will be worth it when it's done. Unless it's a hot mess disaster, in which case I'll cry.

Playing Catch Up

I really have not been in the blogging mood for a while. I think it's because I've been so lazy. I had to walk all the way downstairs, and I had to think, and stuff like that. Too much effort. So now I have to catch up.

Hmmm... Let's see. So Josh played some baseball.



Lexi watched some baseball.



Father's Day was pretty low-key. Dennis came over for dinner and we just relaxed pretty much.

We went to Disneyland. We found out the DVD player was broken at the start of the trip. It was the longest drive of my life. Josh and Lexi slept a little while on the way down. I think on the way back all they did was bug each other and say, "Are we there yet?"







I feel like I should record stuff about it so I can look back on the memories fondly someday, but it seems like so long ago and so much effort. Let's see if I can do a short version. We stayed at the Stratosphere the first night so we went up the tower and checked out the incredible view. You couldn't pay me to ride that roller coaster thinger up on top.





We went to the beach and ate at Knott's Berry Farm.



We did Disney. We loved the rides, hated the crowds, stood in line for everything, including food and restrooms, ate way too much, walked a million miles, Lexi cried a ridiculous amount. We started with Pirates of the Carribean as our very first ride, which she hated, so she refused to ride anything willingly for like the whole day after that. Josh was super brave and rode scary rides, but only wanted to do them once. His least favorite ride was Small World; he thought it was so boring. Lexi refused to have her picture taken with any characters, which was fine with me because then I didn't have to stand in line to meet any of them. My favorite part of Disneyland was ice cream time every afternoon. I'm worse than the kids, that's for sure. I'm the junk food instigator.











The kids loved the hotel we stayed at in Las Vegas the last night, the South Point, and probably would have been OK to just have gone there. Yeah, my family likes Las Vegas just as much as Disneyland. Not quite sure what that says about us, but whatever.

The day we got home, Courtney took a shower, threw her clothes in the washer, packed them back up, and took off to go camping with Curtis and his family for 3 days or so.

I went on a field trip with Josh to Dinosaur Park. As usual, didn't take any pictures. It was fun to see the rocks in the museum donated by Grandpa and Grandma Chamberlain.

Sean and I went to garage sales for the first time in forever last Saturday, and we had such a great bargain day! I love days like that. We bought the following treasures: the frame for a go-cart that Sean is going to build for Josh (at least that's his plan... he may end up building it for some future grandchild) $5. Six DVD's, mostly new in package, for $10. Some tools/widgets/whatsits that only Sean knows what they are, a couple bucks for all of it. Some assorted t-shirts for Lexi and an orange deer hunting jacket for Josh, all cheap. Ten or so VHS movies, 6 paperbook romance novels, and a duffle bag, free. The lady said to load anything we wanted up and take it because she was hot and wanted to be done with it all. I tried to pay her something but she wouldn't take it. She was choosing the best novels for me to take, and she's like, all whispery, now those have some sex in them. And like the dork that I am, I said... That's OK, I like sex. Ha! Nothing ever quite comes out of my mouth the way it's supposed to. I hate people who think their crap is worth so much money, and it's 12:30 and mother freaking hot, no one is buying their stuff, and they act like you are trying to swindle them when you offer to pay a reasonable price for something. Like, this lady had a brown skirt she wanted $3 for and I was like, $1, and she acted all put out but then took it. Lady, ain't no one paying $3 for that stupid brown skirt. Only reason I did is that I have some weird weakness for brown skirts, so I buy them and then never wear them. Seriously, I have 3. Used to have 4, but I finally took one to the DI after it sat in my closet for 3 years. So, the big garage sale trauma, though, was that a lady had this primo slow cooker and a set of really cute Mikasa bowls that I wanted. She wanted $40 for both. I offered $25 for both. She wouldn't take it. So bummer. I know she didn't sell them for that price, so I wish she had sold them to meeeeee. So Sean had to hear me lament about it all day, and then during the week... Gee I sure wish I had that serving bowl from the garage sale. Heh. Ima hit the sales again tomorrow morning and see what I can dig up this week. Wow I had a lot to say about garage sales, I guess.

Went shopping for trailers. Found one I want. It's nicer than my house.

Courtney had her 19th birthday. Curtis took her to breakfast and then they went car shopping and played around. Courtney, Brittney, and I got pedicures. Tried to talk Curtis into one, but he said, "No thanks, pedicures are for girls." I even told him he could choose whatever toe polish color he wanted, but no sale. We had Navajo tacos for dinner and chocolate pie for dessert. I love my Courtney. She is super fun, always happy, is always up for anything, and will do anything I ask. She and Brittney are my bestest buds.

I finished reading Steven Tyler's memoir Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? last week. I had to skim some parts of it because I just don't care about the technical aspects of the music or his sexcapades, and his rambling crazy thought process was exhausting at times. It was an interesting read for sure, but it made me like him less, I think. It's interesting to me to read artist biographies and memoirs because of that touch of the crazy that makes them able to do what they do.

We put up the pool in the backyard, got the boat ready to take out, planted a bunch more flowers (they were 50% off and I couldn't resist). My potato plants are giant, tomatoes are looking good, we've had some peas but we just eat them as soon as we see them, apples on the apple tree... Can't think of anything else.

June goal review:
Major fail on all counts.
*I have done only one of the deep cleaning projects I have in mind. I have been very, very lazy.
*The only exercise I've done is walking in Anaheim, which was totally cancelled out by all the crap I ate.
*I most definitely am not on a good schedule.

July goals:
*Enjoy my summer while it lasts

Looking so forward to the rest of the month! Pineview extravaganza coming up, and Heather and Peter coming to visit! Yay! July is made of so much win.