Get your popcorn, your life's gonna change!

August 8th baby! You know where I'll be! Well, besides not in VA but rather, visiting the fam in Provo.

Glued to the TV for the season premiere. It will make you wish the useless degree from byu you got was in dance, not women's studies. Oh, maybe that's just me,

"That's something 'we' would do!"

Every once in awhile we will do something a little crazy--a little spontaneous, "are-we-really-doing-this?", over the top, "it-can't-be-done" sort of thing. When we pull it off, Jack will say, "I feel like my dad. That is something my mom and dad would do!"

Recently he declared, he is changing the quip to, "That is something I would do!" (yes, grammatically it makes little sense, but go with it) It pays homage to his roots, but gives us props for doing impromptu, shake-your-head sort of things in our own crazy life.

We have wanted a bedroom suite, well, since we were married almost 13 years ago. For the past year, Jack has been a little single-minded to that end. We put money aside, but knew we'd have to find a mega-deal because it wasn't much. Then, just as we'd thought we'd found it, with money in hand went to buy it

AND the Southern VA Furniture indicent happened. Oour furniture was literally sold out from under us. We looked around at a few other places again, but with everything just out of our price range, plus still harboring resentment about losing "our" set, and we gave up.

Then one afternoon, Jack's co-worker Sandy asked him to drive a truck to Galax to pick up some furniture from her school. Yay, Sandy!

To shorten a long story, he called me and said, "I found a bedroom set, this place is only open on Fridays. I am here and I have a truck." I talked to Sandy to get her opinion and asked, 1) is it too girly? and 2) does it look like something you could buy at Wal-mart? Upon her two resounding no's, Jack got back on the phone. I asked him the price and when he told me, I said, "Buy it!"
He managed to get it (which involved driving to another town for cash and a slew of other crazy, hair-brained arrangements--again, YAY SANDY!) and it was in our room (thanks Josh) that very night.

Entire Vaughn Bass Bedroom Suite, including head & footboard, dresser, chest of drawers, mirror, and night table: $750.

Next we are saving up for a small flat screen b/c Jack refuses to mount our old clunky tv to the wall.

G saves the universe (& eats cake)!

A 6th birthday brought a superhero party with his school buddies & cousin M.
They saved the world one water balloon, bubble, and punch ball at a time, as they laughed with superhuman strength!

Then they crafted badges, utility belts, and t-shirt uniforms to become superheros of their own creation.

Dinner of his choice tonight, I-HOP.

This year has been such a spectacular year for G. He had a fabulous year of kindergarten where he made great friends and learned to read and write like a pro! He matured a lot since his last b-day, especially in terms of his relationships with his brothers and others. His kindness overflows at times and he is gentle and sweet and loving. He still keeps them on their toes though, which is good, particularly for F. S looks up to him like he's the sun and the moon. Anything G does, S copies. And oh how he makes us laugh. This boy is funny!
G we love you to pieces and I said it first! I remember walking F to kindergarten everyday with G as a newborn in the stroller. Oh how he cried and squealed as a little boy. Nothing made him happy. He helped us understand unconditional love and patience beyond measure. And with his new haircut, I see him as such a grown boy. He is changing & growing before my eyes and it is beautiful.

Grunge-grass? Really, there isn't a better name?

A few weeks ago Jack's brother sent him some mp3's to check out a band, The Avett Brothers. He actually sent the email to me thinking it was Jacks email, so as I passed the note along I took a minute to check out the music. It was good.

Just prior, Jack had seen a poster for a concert in Roanoke, The Avett Brothers. He thought it was a Christian Rock Band and dismissed it almost as quickly as he'd seen it. (In these parts, the odds were in his favor). When he put two and two together, he briefly mentioned there was a concert on the 11th, but since G was having his friend b-day party, we probably couldn't make it.

But, the stars aligned (which mostly means my mom was willing to babysit all the kids for the entire evening) and Jack and I, along with John and Brittany visiting from Ohio, were able to get tickets and go.

Rave reviews!! I cannot get their amazing harmony, mad instrumental skills, and out of control foot moves out of my mind. I am newly obsessed with a genre I didn't even know existed, and quite frankly, sounds a little dirty. Not sleazy dirty, but actually dirty.

"Behold, they ate the fruit and it was-ok-."

Three years ago when we moved in, we planted these 2 peach trees. Apparently, after being transplanted it takes 3 years for them to yield fruit. Well here it is, year 3, and...

we have fruit! Of course, thanks to the hurricane-like storm the other week, tons of green peaches were knocked to the ground.

But when it was all said and done, we got 3 peaches. I picked 2 plump beautiful this morning for my cereal and left one on the tree. Imagine my dismay when I foundsomething else got to it first.

4th of July the Traditional 4 Showers

I have to preface this by saying I am normally pretty good at conserving. I take a quick 7 minute shower each morning, I recycle, I use my own shopping bags, heck, I even just bought my first pair sneaks made of recycled tires and hemp. But on the 4th, I cannot stay clean, alas, the 4 showers.

The first shower is of course as I roll out of bed for the church pancake breakfast, which I was in charge of again. The boys spent the night with gma, so they were going to her wards breakfast and then coming to ours late, so with just myself to get ready this morning, the shower was dreamy. And it was a great breakfast- After the pancake b'fast we walked around Bissett Park to see the booths of crafts, let the boys get lost, I mean 'jump', in the bounce houses, ride the ponies, climb the rock wall, and of course, eat funnel cakes and snow cones. Minus the food, everything was free, which is another reason I love our small town. It was so hot and humid we went straight to the pool after the park. I count diving in the pool as shower two. Shower three happened after the pool to wash off all the sunscreen and chlorine (Jack is going to read this and ask why the pic is of him at the pool and not me--).

Everyone is chillin out now and we will round out the day with a little BBQ here (I even bought slider buns and I am so excited) and fireworks at the Glencoe. I ordered a case of red, white, and blue candy necklaces to pass along to the children at fireworks and I think I am more excited than they are...We will come home (which including the traffic to get out of the museum parking lot will be about 10 minutes), put boys to bed, and start shower #4 to get the evening, hanging- out-in-the-humid-night-for-fireworks-smell off of me, and call it a day.

I have done the same thing the last several years on the 4th and hope to do the same for several more.

**Post-fireworks addition:

parking ourselves at Glencoe Museum hill for the show

the boys spinning their glo-sticks and almost decapitating us
"enjoying" the show from a safe locale (like the greazzy profile pic?)all day and night G kept saying "thank you mom and dad for the best 4th of July ever-I just want to keep saying it over and over again." then in the car on the way to fireworks he said, "Mom, will you take a picture of me and then turn it into a real picture I can hold so I can remember this day forever?" love that boy!
not feeling well, F "endured" the day with a headache