Just don't end, July
I've really, really, really liked the month of July. Not because it was perfect or even close to it. There were more flies in my house in the month of July than I can ever remember having, I could not/ did not keep up with the weeds that popped up literally overnight in my garden and flower beds, there were more moments of bad attitudes/ eye rolls/ complaining, etc. at the house than there should have been. Yet... there were no early mornings for the kids, there were most dinners eaten together as a family, there were no tests/papers/projects to cause stress.
July was a simple month. No school. No soccer. No college. Fewer dance classes than normal. Our pace slowed down and that's what I really liked about it. In August, everything will ramp back up. Jacob will move away to start college. Alyssa and Abby will have lots of soccer and dance, respectively after school. College, dance and soccer aren't bad things at all. In fact, they're good. But, Jacob going away to college is pretty much the opposite of simple and the girls' activities ramping up will make us really busy. So, I've appreciated July. Almost every day in the month of July, I've thought about how glad I am that it's July.
I don't have pictures of all of our July events- none from the 4th when we had a cook out with neighbors and none when we got together with some out of town family members but I did get some pictures and I'll let them do some of the July talking.
The garden- The beginning of July was the beginning of the end for the peas. Peas plants don't thrive in the heat (even if they receive plenty of water). I was so glad that I planted seeds early- in March, I believe- to get some peas before the heat enervated the plants.
Speaking of heat, we had plenty of it in July, per summer usual. We had one stretch of a few days where the heat became A Thing- a subject that everyone talked about. The Heat Thing went away as quickly as it came and we had a few really nice, not super hot, low humidity days. The denizens of southwest Ohio had to find something else to complain about 'cause the weather was not something about which one could :). We also had a few days in a row when it rained for about 15 minutes each day. It was perfect- it kept our grass green and plants watered. I took pictures of the rain to send to Donnie at work to let him know it was raining.
We watched a decent amount of The Office during the dog days of summer. But, Jacob as my witness, I did not say my name was "Pam" when asked what my name was at Rapid Fire Pizza when Jacob and I went there one day for lunch. I said, "Maria," and the worker promptly wrote down "Pam." Jacob and I looked at each and tried not to laugh. In the worker's defense, it was kind of loud in the restaurant. And I kind of liked having a fake name for a short time. When my sister and I were kids, we'd sometimes pretend we had other names and tried to use our fake names in public. It never worked as we were too used to referring to each other by our real names :). Anyway, like I said, I enjoyed my brief stint as "Pam."
Went to Kings Island a few days in July. Always fun- we never stay long. We have the dining plan so we always eat when we're there but sometimes only ride a couple of rides.
Kings Island has a new attraction- antique cars- that one can "drive." Alyssa liked this more than she thought she would.
I didn't bake too much in July. My brother John was coming into town for a visit with us. I thought it would be nice to bake him a carrot cake- not entirely out of magnanimity towards him- it sounded really good to me. I texted John and asked him if he liked carrot cake. He responded that it was, "OK." Not exactly a ringing endorsement for liking it but that was good enough for me :). I made a carrot cake and one and a half batches of cream cheese icing for it. It was as good as we remembered it from when I made a carrot cake in April. John also liked it quite a bit (I think better than "OK") which was good since I made it for him. Wink, wink.
Not the best pictures at all. But, it was really good- better than these pictures depict. Making a batch and a half of the icing, rather than a single batch was one of my smarter moves of the entire month!
Speaking of John coming to visit, he did so for his birthday and we did more than just eat carrot cake and the cake that he actually requested, cheesecake, that I procured for the visit. John enjoys getting out in nature and it worked out extraordinarily well that the days he was here were the days of near perfect weather than I mentioned earlier. How often does that happen?? The kids and John and I went to Ceasar's Creek for a short hike.
And.. we likely would have gotten lost without Alyssa noticing the right marker on our way out.
Jacob and Abby didn't want to walk as far out as John, Alyssa and I did to see this water feature. We had to step on rocks in the creek to get here.
The next day, we went to The Miamisburg Mound- thought to be a burial site of the Adena Indians
The girls and I had been here once before when it was freezing out. We vowed to come back when it was warmer and nicer. The day we were here in July fit that bill. We walked to the top, of course.
The next three pictures are from views at the top
Our next destination was the building seen in the middle of this photo- a museum about the Cold War and the role that Mound Laboratories played in it. Mound Labs was an Atomic Energy Commission facility for nuclear weapon research. It was in operation until 1992.
Mound played some (very scientific that I don't understand) role in the moon landing
There were a couple of hands on, er hands in exhibits.
On our way out, the girls discovered the kids' activity table. It had coloring sheet and crayons. Kids, these were not your grandmother's coloring pages. Grammy's collection of coloring pages likely did not contain ones that depicted a nuclear explosion...
...or ones of the breakup of the USSR.
The same day that we visited The Mound, my brother Joe and his girls came to visit us. Family fun! I tried to think of activities that all the girls would enjoy. In the craft cabinet, I found some Christmas ornaments that the girls could paint. Christmas in July, if you will.
They had fun and then began to paint paper plates after they painted ornaments.
Had a nice visit- the girls played outside in the evening and did sparklers and the following day, the girls all went to the pool together.
Throughout the month of July, when I had a spare fifteen minutes or so, I worked on a photo book I'm doing of Abby's past dance season. I'm grateful for the time the unrushed month allowed for indulging my hobby of photography and memory preserving.
I KNOW that the kids enjoyed their last full month of summer vacation. It wasn't perfect like I said before but it didn't contain school so it was about as close to perfect as they're going to get :).
July was a simple month. No school. No soccer. No college. Fewer dance classes than normal. Our pace slowed down and that's what I really liked about it. In August, everything will ramp back up. Jacob will move away to start college. Alyssa and Abby will have lots of soccer and dance, respectively after school. College, dance and soccer aren't bad things at all. In fact, they're good. But, Jacob going away to college is pretty much the opposite of simple and the girls' activities ramping up will make us really busy. So, I've appreciated July. Almost every day in the month of July, I've thought about how glad I am that it's July.
I don't have pictures of all of our July events- none from the 4th when we had a cook out with neighbors and none when we got together with some out of town family members but I did get some pictures and I'll let them do some of the July talking.
The garden- The beginning of July was the beginning of the end for the peas. Peas plants don't thrive in the heat (even if they receive plenty of water). I was so glad that I planted seeds early- in March, I believe- to get some peas before the heat enervated the plants.
Speaking of heat, we had plenty of it in July, per summer usual. We had one stretch of a few days where the heat became A Thing- a subject that everyone talked about. The Heat Thing went away as quickly as it came and we had a few really nice, not super hot, low humidity days. The denizens of southwest Ohio had to find something else to complain about 'cause the weather was not something about which one could :). We also had a few days in a row when it rained for about 15 minutes each day. It was perfect- it kept our grass green and plants watered. I took pictures of the rain to send to Donnie at work to let him know it was raining.
We watched a decent amount of The Office during the dog days of summer. But, Jacob as my witness, I did not say my name was "Pam" when asked what my name was at Rapid Fire Pizza when Jacob and I went there one day for lunch. I said, "Maria," and the worker promptly wrote down "Pam." Jacob and I looked at each and tried not to laugh. In the worker's defense, it was kind of loud in the restaurant. And I kind of liked having a fake name for a short time. When my sister and I were kids, we'd sometimes pretend we had other names and tried to use our fake names in public. It never worked as we were too used to referring to each other by our real names :). Anyway, like I said, I enjoyed my brief stint as "Pam."
Went to Kings Island a few days in July. Always fun- we never stay long. We have the dining plan so we always eat when we're there but sometimes only ride a couple of rides.
Kings Island has a new attraction- antique cars- that one can "drive." Alyssa liked this more than she thought she would.
I didn't bake too much in July. My brother John was coming into town for a visit with us. I thought it would be nice to bake him a carrot cake- not entirely out of magnanimity towards him- it sounded really good to me. I texted John and asked him if he liked carrot cake. He responded that it was, "OK." Not exactly a ringing endorsement for liking it but that was good enough for me :). I made a carrot cake and one and a half batches of cream cheese icing for it. It was as good as we remembered it from when I made a carrot cake in April. John also liked it quite a bit (I think better than "OK") which was good since I made it for him. Wink, wink.
Not the best pictures at all. But, it was really good- better than these pictures depict. Making a batch and a half of the icing, rather than a single batch was one of my smarter moves of the entire month!
Speaking of John coming to visit, he did so for his birthday and we did more than just eat carrot cake and the cake that he actually requested, cheesecake, that I procured for the visit. John enjoys getting out in nature and it worked out extraordinarily well that the days he was here were the days of near perfect weather than I mentioned earlier. How often does that happen?? The kids and John and I went to Ceasar's Creek for a short hike.
And.. we likely would have gotten lost without Alyssa noticing the right marker on our way out.
Jacob and Abby didn't want to walk as far out as John, Alyssa and I did to see this water feature. We had to step on rocks in the creek to get here.
The next day, we went to The Miamisburg Mound- thought to be a burial site of the Adena Indians
The girls and I had been here once before when it was freezing out. We vowed to come back when it was warmer and nicer. The day we were here in July fit that bill. We walked to the top, of course.
The next three pictures are from views at the top
Our next destination was the building seen in the middle of this photo- a museum about the Cold War and the role that Mound Laboratories played in it. Mound Labs was an Atomic Energy Commission facility for nuclear weapon research. It was in operation until 1992.
Here is the building from a ground level view...
It was very small but chock full of interesting information... there was a Soviet spy at the facility!!
Mound played some (very scientific that I don't understand) role in the moon landing
There were a couple of hands on, er hands in exhibits.
On our way out, the girls discovered the kids' activity table. It had coloring sheet and crayons. Kids, these were not your grandmother's coloring pages. Grammy's collection of coloring pages likely did not contain ones that depicted a nuclear explosion...
...or ones of the breakup of the USSR.
Here is a view of the Mound from the parking lot of the museum. I'm glad that John wanted to go to the museum.
The same day that we visited The Mound, my brother Joe and his girls came to visit us. Family fun! I tried to think of activities that all the girls would enjoy. In the craft cabinet, I found some Christmas ornaments that the girls could paint. Christmas in July, if you will.
Had a nice visit- the girls played outside in the evening and did sparklers and the following day, the girls all went to the pool together.
Throughout the month of July, when I had a spare fifteen minutes or so, I worked on a photo book I'm doing of Abby's past dance season. I'm grateful for the time the unrushed month allowed for indulging my hobby of photography and memory preserving.
I KNOW that the kids enjoyed their last full month of summer vacation. It wasn't perfect like I said before but it didn't contain school so it was about as close to perfect as they're going to get :).
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