Picture of the Week - 6/30/2022

 What a fun summer week happening 'round here!

We spent the last week doing "normal" summer stuff - pool and watermelon have been involved.  And gearing up for more fun!

What's going on?

- Zane and Beck had a wrestling camp this week in the mornings - then heading to a football camp in the evening.  Keeping them busy and tired has always been our goal!  LOL  Picture of Zane leaving weight training this morning.  Coach has them there at 7AM - he shares my "keep them tired" philosophy!

- Spencer has been working and has been filling in as a construction supervisor somewhere south of the city.  He's really getting the best experience!  He likes what he's doing too and has lots of plans for what he wants to learn next year.  

- Quinn is pretty much living his best life and has been out and at parties and having fun pretty much every day.  My thoughts on this, while I wish he were being a bit more productive, I also know you only get the summer after your senior year once.  So we pretty much go with the flow.

- Yesterday my parents got a contract on their house - yay!

- Today Beckett left with Berber and Pappy on his 10 year old trip.  I can't wait to hear all about it.  Here's a picture of Beck on the plane taking him out West.  They will spend the night in Jackson Wyoming.  Beck is actually taking the same trip that started all the 10 year old trips that Spencer took.  It's a nice way to bookend the grandparent trips!

- Zane has his woodlands camp next week and Bob and I are taking the opportunity with ZnB outta the house to head to Greenville, SC for a couple of night - just for fun!  Quinn's on puppy duty while we are gone. 

- Speaking of puppy, Gable is awesome.  He's actually really good - I think fewer accidents than we have had with our last couple of puppies.  He's SO cute and so sweet.  He's heading for his last round of shots today.  He's currently 14.5 weeks old and at least double the size he was when we brought him home 3 weeks ago.  

Hope you all have a great, relaxing, and fun 4th of July!  

Picture of the Week - 6/24/2022

 The kitchen is done!

We have worked our butts off this week between work, kids, puppy, camp laundry, and kitchen stuff.  A late POTW with some "after" pictures of the kitchen is all I can muster.  We have a weekend planned of "not much" other than a date to watch the new Top Gun and a trip to refill our empty fridge and pantry.

PS - puppy is amazing and at least double the size he was when we brought him home.  Crazy cute!

Picture of the Week - 6/17/2022

 I can't believe it's mid-June already.  Where in the world has this year gone???

All good here!  Just busy busy busy!

(Work is crazy for both Bob and I right now, which has added an unexpected layer of stress.  That's what they pay us for and I'm sure things will stabilize again soon...)

Bob left this morning with Zane and Beck to drive to St. Louis to check the boys into Purler wrestling camp.  We have heard amazing things about these camps.  I can't wait to hear how they like it - and see the results!  

This week we finally got the tile done on the backsplash in the Kitchen Reno 2022 project.  That's a story in itself that includes very crappy craftsmanship, a 10 year old casing our house, and Bob raising his voice at many people.  (If you know him at all, you know this is very rare.)  It's all going to be fine...  we have the doors and drawer-fronts off the cabinets at the moment and the lady painting them should be done with changing the brown to white next Wednesday.  I'm so excited for that part!!!  (Bob is less so, because it's probably going to make me want a non-black microwave and oven...  and maybe new lighting over the kitchen table...  and while we are at it, the kitchen table may need a new look too.   Woot!)

Also this week the dogs have become playmates - although it's still kinda awkward to watch.  Brutus is sooooo patient with Gable.  He wants to play hard, but the little guy (who is like twice as big as he was when we got him already) is just too little.  It's resulted in some funny situations.  But every day those 2 doggos become better friends - and we fall a little more in love with our new buddy.

Stay cool everyone!  I'm planning a lot of AC time this weekend!!!

Picture of the Week - 6/9/2022

 I love chaos.  I really do.  I love a lot of things going on - especially when they are fun!  My mind works better when it's busy.  Really!

So this week, I've been IN MY GLORY!

We got home from the beach on Saturday.  The trip was so so so awesome.  Maybe the best weather we've ever had for a week on the beach.  It's early in the season, so it wasn't too hot.  We only had one evening of rain - and it was the last night and it waited until after we had packed up all the beach stuff.  The house was amazing.  It was on the marsh, so it had a private dock and the most spectacular sunset views.  It was really just a great week!  We were all sad that it was over, but...

The very next day we picked up our new puppy - a Golden Retriever named Gable.  He's been the best!  He's pretty laid back (for a puppy) and has us all enamored already.  He is so cute!  The boys (who are home) take turns puppy-sitting so Bob and I can get some work done.  Even Brutus has accepted him already - although it may be because the puppy came with a plethora of new toys that Brutus gets to steal and play with!  He's going to be an awesome addition to the family!

Then the day after puppy pick-up, we took Beckett up to Woodlands for his week at camp.  He chose to do the Xtreme version of camp this year - which has all the same wonderful content as every other year he's gone with the addition of a couple of field trips (horseback riding and rock climbing) and they sleep in a shelter in hammocks instead of the super nice cabins.  I can't wait to hear about his week.  (Funny story - I over-funded his camp account because last year he ended up buying snacks for all his friends and ran out.  I put more than enough in there...  and when I checked it this morning he had 50 cents left.  LOL  He's apparently quite fond of something called a Milky Way Mocha and I think he's purchased wristbands for everyone in his group.  Love him!)

At the same time Bob was heading north with Beck, I was heading south with Quinn for Georgia Southern orientation.  I kinda fell in love with that university.  It was my first trip and it's honestly a perfect place for Quinn.  There are around 5 thousand freshmen, which is big enough to feel different than high school, but not so big that you can't walk the whole campus in 10 minutes.  It's all red brick and beautiful.  I love that he picked that place - love where his dorm is - and can't wait to see him thrive there.

We got home on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning the tile guys came to do our backsplash.  We were told it was a 1 day job.  I kept saying "but our kitchen is bigger than the average kitchen, are they sure?"  Sure enough, they did not finish.  We have a new and exciting variety of kitchen mess at the moment - and don't expect them to return until Monday to finish up.  It's OK though because the lady who is painting our cabinets is coming tomorrow to show us how to take off the doors so she can come get them and start the cabinet painting next week.  She says it'll be perfect timing.  I'm just like - place is already a mess and half the kitchen is already in the dining room, so BRING IT.  

This coming week promises more chaos - the puppy playtime, rug scrubbing, cabinet dismantling, car-pooling to football/wrestling practice with the dogs in tow - kind of chaos.  And I wouldn't want it any other way.  

(Although, I admit that there are *multiple* times a day I have to do a mental inventory to make sure I know where everyone is...  and we only forgot to pick up Zane once this week.)

Picture of the Week - 6/3/2022

 We are, sadly, on the tail end of an amazing week at the beach.  

We did a LOT of nothing - while enjoying the boys, their friends and Berber & Pappy.  We also enjoyed a few adult beverages.  :)

The return to Garden City after a long absence was a super pleasant surprise - as the beach was gorgeous and uncrowded, the early June weather was ideal, and the traffic wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered it.  I think we benefitted by being so early in the season thanks to Georgia's earlier-than-the-North end of school timeline.  

This was just the recharge our batteries needed!

Heading home tomorrow - picking up the new puppy on Sunday.  Prepare for puppy picture overload!