Where Have We Been?

That is a good question; I took a brake from the blog because I was mad at blogger. I don’t know if any of you tried to view the videos on the blog, but they won’t work, except for a few minutes after I load them. So after many attempts and reloading them several times I gave up and walked away. I am back now, but probably won’t try to post a video for a while yet. Besides I don’t think people actually read this blog, so we were not missed much anyway. But for our family’s journal sake I will update this blog and let all who read know what we have been doing since the last post.

June

- I sent my Young Women off to Girls camp; they had a lot of fun. Before they left we designed a ward camp T-shirt with a pirate theme and a flag to go with the shirts. Sadly I did not take a picture of the shirts or the flag, but they were awesome. I got to go up one day and visit the YW while they were at camp. I think they had a great time, and so did I.

- Stewart, Sophie and I went to the Columbus temple (that is our temple district and a 4 hours drive for us). We worked it out so that we could meet up with my cousin Mitch and his family. It was great to see them; we did a child swap so that both couples could go through a session together. It was good to see Mitch and Cassie and catch up with them. After the sessions we were going to go out to eat but Stewart was feeling sick so we decided to get on the road and head home before he got worse. I ended up having to drive his car which is a standard and has no cruse control; something I told him I would never do if he bought that car. I ate my words and did okay getting us home. It was a nice trip however and I am glad we did it. 

- We took a fieldtrip one Sunday afternoon to a friend’s small farm. We had a friend from church invite us to come out to there farm so Sophie could see the baby goats, bunnies, chickens, and puppies. We had a great time out there; they live in the backwoods of West Virginia in a town named Odd. We actually followed the family to their home otherwise we would have never found it on our own. Sophie loved the baby animals and has asked about them a lot since our field-trip. 

- We made a water trampoline! I saw this neat idea on Pinterest and thought it would looked doable so I found some painters plastic and our duct tape and went to work. Sophie loved jumping on it once she got used to it. It was a perfect fun activity for an extra warm sunny afternoon. Here is the link to the website where I found the idea:clumsycrafter.com

- On June 29 a derecho (fancy word for a type of fast-moving thunder storm) ripped trees and power lines down from Illinois to the East coast, sometimes cutting a swath 500 miles wide!  We were sitting at home on a Friday evening chatting with some guests we’d invited over for dinner.  The weather went from calm and sunny to the fiercest winds and rain I’ve ever seen in about 30 minutes.  Our power went out in the middle of the storm, but we didn’t think much of it, we expected things would be back to normal by morning.  The next morning I was out running some errands and I noticed that nobody had power.  Several miles away I found a few gas stations with power, but there were sometimes up to 20 cars waiting in line for each pump.  I was able to catch some news broadcasts on the radio and learned just how wide-spread the damage was.  Luckily our power was back on in just under 24 hours.  But we have friends who still don’t have power.  It has been 9 days of near record-breaking heat.  It’s been a trial for many people in the area.  Stewart and I have been pleased to be able to loan out our fridge space, the use of our washer/dryer, our electric plug-ins, and our cool basement to friends in need.

July Thus Far

- We had a great low key 4^th of July. In the morning we decided to go to a near by lake (Lake Stephens) to play on beach and in the water before it got to crowded. Sophie loves playing in the sand and sitting on the waters edge where the tide from the boats washes up on her. I did not want to get wet so I worked on my tan while Stewart and Sophie played in the water and had fun. We came home around noon and had lunch, and then we took a nap. Later that evening we set off a few fireworks of our own and then we watched the firework show put on by the City of Beckley. Our house is not to far from where they set the fireworks off so we just sat on our lawn and enjoyed the show. This was Sophie’s first year she got to stay up and see the fireworks, she loved them! She thought they looked like flowers and would yell pretty flowers after each one lit the sky.