Catching Up July 2025 part 1, though I'll probably lose track because of how long it will take to do all the catching up

The beginning of July saw family members getting sick (I was exhausted from taking care of sick people and getting sick myself), Jeremy going off to a fair in California (he also messed up his back somehow so the night before his trip, he had a Priesthood blessing and went to urgent care so they could help him out and Lucky and I did the heavy lifting of his supplies and I drove him early the next morning to Marcus's because they were driving together), and Jr. Jr. going off to Young Men Camp without Lucky because Lucky got sick and had to stay home. It would have been his first time.

There were also other stresses and Nichole and Jr. took swim lessons. 

Let me explain the corn husk picture. I got up early to clean one day and decided to take the bag of corn husks up to the outside garbage. As I was walking up the stairs, the bottom of the bag broke open and all the corn husk/silk/garbage fell out on the stairs. It was one of those shrug it off and deal with it moments. Did I mention there were stresses?

We observed rainbows for Summer Reading. Some of us saw rainbows in sprinklers and Jet and I made rainbows with a prism. 

We started harvesting vegetables from our garden.

We also celebrated Nichole's birthday.

We celebrated other holidays but I'll write about those in different posts.

We also saw blessings and had some faith building experiences. 

Other Things that Happened in June

We didn't just celebrate holidays in June. Here are some of the other things we did.

There was a neighborhood breakfast with games and food.

Lucky learned a new skill- making roses out of napkins. He made a whole lot, which I didn't mind because we had a huge package of napkins from the store so we weren't running out. And they looked cute.

 

There was lots of chess playing.

Annual Jugglers' Barbecue. It was so good to be around performers again.

Jr. Jr. and another boy got to give a lesson in Young Men. They worked on their lesson in our house. I appreciated seeing the time and effort they put into it.

We went to visit friends we hadn't seen in a few years. The kids had no problem playing with each other again. We, adults, had a great conversations.

 

The boys got some well needed haircuts. He are some before and after shots.

Lucky wanted me to cut off a huge chunk of the front of his hair. So I did. Then he wanted me to leave it that way. So I did. For several days. He wanted to go out in public like that. So we did.

The things I do for my kids.

Eventually I was able to give him a decent haircut.

I think Lucky's going through a grumpy face stage. He's not unhappy, he just wants to look that way for pictures. Sigh.

I took him and Jet to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point while the older kids were at Youth Camp and he looked grumpy again while riding a horse.

Besides riding a real horse, Jet wanted to ride every fake animal he could find. Lucky got involved with that with him.

Later Jet got to milk a real cow and Lucky got a squished penny.

And of course, Jet got to slide on the slide again.

 

I got a picture of all three of the older kids before they went off to Youth Camp but only a picture of Jr. when he got back. They all came back in different vehicles. Two of them got dropped off at home and one I picked up from the church.

Nichole crocheted a cat for her secret sister. She just sat down and crocheted it. No pattern. Just created it. That's talent.

Other things:

Jr. is learning to drive.

We had some fun with balloons. Jeremy had several sculptures to build so I delivered some so he could keep building.

Lucky got to use leftover balloons to make his own creations.

We got some of those balloon perks again. Jeremy brought home Chick-fil-a sandwiches for us after one event.

Another night he "crashed" Marcus's neighborhood barbecue to make balloon animals for the kids. It was a pleasant surprise. His wife sent Jeremy home with hamburgers. Yummmm.

Lots going on but I'm glad I'm finally getting around to catching up.