What a wonderful, busy month! July always seems so busy because you are right in the heart of summer and there is so many fun things to do and this year was the same.
The month started with us coming home on July 1st from Poland. It was so good to be home and see Elsie (despite the fact that we had a WONDERFUL time in Poland). We decided to take the next week pretty easy.
Fourth of July we chose to stay home instead of try to go camping somewhere since we had just come back from Poland. The city of Ames was celebrating their 150th Anniversary so they had a parade and big thing downtown so we headed over that way to check it out.
The crew: Dale and Bev, Jack and Marlys, Todd, Brandi, Emma and Olivia, and John, Tanya and Elsie. This seems to be our typical parade crew.
Elsie had fun watching the floats, trying to get candy (there wasn't too much of it which was okay by me :) and waving to all the people in the parade. After the parade we walked downtown to check out what they had to offer in regards to food and activities. There was a lot going on but the lines for food and to do the bounce house were SUPER long and I had one tired, hungry girl so we headed to Pizza Ranch where we knew we would get food quickly :). On the way out the girls hit up the little toy vending machines, Emma and Olivia got mustaches and Elsie got a duck whistle.
After lunch we headed home, put Elsie down for nap and then started working outside. We have wanted to powerwash the deck and side patio but hadn't really had much time to do so until after we got back from our trip. Oh my goodness it made such a big difference.
On the left shows the clean side and on the right you can see the gray/mildew/green/black side of the deck. I am still shocked at how much of a difference it made. Later in the night we ended up walking to the park to see fireworks (Elsie's first time) in town with Dale, Bev, Brandi, Emma, and Olivia. The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out, running errands, playing, and then on Sunday we headed over to the Ames pool where we met up wtih Brandi, Todd and the girls. They have a perfect little kids area. They also have a little bit bigger slide that you have to be 36" to go down and I think Elsie could have gone down it all day long. For most of the time one of her cousins took her down but toward the end she was by herself. It was actually the first time she had experience with standing in a line like that by herself. I ended up having to go stand with her to guide her through the line and help her when it was her turn.
The next weekend we headed up to MN to celebrate Allie's birthday. We stayed at my parent's like always. Some highlights from the weekend:
Sleeping in a toddler bed (the same one my mom slept in and I slept in growing up)
Lawn Mower Rides with Grandpa
Catching Toads
Just some pictures of the Tally Monster who got to go swimming for the first time!
Allie's Birthday
Twillight swimming with Daddy, Grandpa, and Tally
Swimming with Rylin and Cole on Sunday and stopping by Mel and Spanks, and playing with Greta and Wyatt while we visited them at their new home. Whew! It was a fun and busy weekend.
During the week Elsie and I met up with a group of friends at the local beach for some swim time and a picnic.
Later in the week Elsie and I hit up a new park and had another little picnic. I am always amazed at how confident and able she is on these playgrounds!
July Doughnut Dates
On July 17th I went out with some friends downtown Ames for Firefly Country Night.
There were three singers: Danny Grause (went to John's high school), Leah Turner, and Frankie Ballard. None of them too popular but Frankie Ballard is on the radio at least :) We ended up making our way up into the front of the crowd.
On Saturday we hit up another park, this time with John. I wrote all about it in
this post. But here are a couple pics from the day. We biked from Big Creek State Park to Polk City for lunch and ran into TInker Bell and Cinderella.
Then spent some time at the beach in the afternoon.
On Sunday, John and I tried our hand at making pickles. As I write this in September we have triend all three different recipes. The spears are good, the bread and butter pickles are good but the zesty dill are SALTY!
In July we also bought Elsie a little bit bigger swimming pool and she loved to spend her summer afternoons just chillin.
The last two weeks in July we started parent/child swim lessons. Elsie loved the water and loved playing with the diving ring, although she would not put her face in the water to retrieve it. She would use her feet to bring it up to the surface. Also in her class were two other girls from daycare-Aubrey and Charli and her friend Rowan. Tanner helped with Charli during swim lessons so the girls loved having her there.
TT with her girls!
The last weekend in July we packed up and headed down for our annual trip to Lake Rathbun to the cabin. It was a wonderful weekend. Before we left we headed over to our backyard neighbor. They have a WONDERFUL garden were going to be gone for two weeks and told us to help ourselves. Elsie loved picking the green beans. So we picked enough to share with everyone at the cabin.
We got up on Friday night and enjoyed the evening by the fire.
Campfire and four wheeling
On Saturday we headed out on the lake. We parked out at a sandbar and then took turns heading out to ski/tube
Elsie's first time on a tube.
We finally had to upgrade to a child's life jacket vs an infant PFD. She is right on the line at 30 lbs and this one that she picked out fit her perfect :). Of course it has Disney Princesses on it.
We left first thing Sunday morning for home. I ended up coming down with a stomach bug and was down for the count for the rest of the day. But the weekend was a great time!
The last week in July we finished up swim lessons and then on Thrusday July 31st Amber and I loaded up their Suburban with the two of us and three kiddos and our stuff for the weekend and headed up to MN. We had our annual ERHS friends weekend (I'll post about the weekend in our August post). The kids did great on the four hour drive and we dropped them off with the grandparents before making the rest of the trek to the lake. (Marc and John came up the following day).
