August

First of all, I want to thank all of you wise women who responded to my post last week asking for advice.  As a result of your words of wisdom, I learned about the blogger app (thanks, Lacey!) and used it to upload a photo quickly from my phone in my post about my Aunt Jackie--so convenient!!  I also got great advice about simplifying, lowering expectations, giving myself deadlines, mothering, and prioritizing.  This is another reason why I love blogging and don't want to give it up: I love reading the responses and advice of my friends regarding the ups and downs of life.  The comments on my post really helped me, and it's made me more committed to leaving comments on other people's blogs when I have a thought or reaction to what they've written.  (This is another thing I've noticed about a change in blogging these past few years--we rarely comment anymore!  Why is that?  I am going to start commenting again!)

Well, before we get too far into the month of October, I thought I should blog about our month of August. :) Better late than never!

We started the month of August with Noah's second birthday celebration (see full report here), and Grandma took him home with her after the party and babysat him for the weekend.  Ryan and I went to my cousin's fancy smancy wedding in Malibu, California and had a great time.  It was so fun to get all dressed up, spend time with my sisters and crazy extended family, and dance the night away under the twinkle lights.

Meanwhile, back in Idaho, Noah had a blast with his grandparents. They went swimming, lounged at the pool eating french fries, played at the park, hunted lady bugs, and stayed up late reading storybooks.  Doesn't get much better than that.  Noah didn't even miss his parents.

When we picked Noah up from Pocatello on Monday, Sally hosted a small family picnic in the backyard to celebrate Ryan's thirty-first birthday.  Thank goodness someone made Ryan a cake!  (You can always count on Sal.)  Noah helped him blow out the candles.

The next night, as Ryan's birthday date, I took him twilight golfing at a course down in the Twin Falls canyon.  I didn't golf, but I sat in the cart, kept score, and cat-called my cute hubby as he putted (that's not distracting or anything).   Twin Falls is really beautiful in the summer, and the weather was perfect for an evening golf game.  Funnest.

For his birthday gift, I got Ryan a hammock.  We are thoroughly enjoying having a backyard, and for the first few weeks that we lived in Twin, Ryan was taking a lawn chair out there every evening to enjoy the sunset--I thought a hammock would be even more relaxing.  I was right. Noah likes it too...it's his favorite place for bedtime stories.

A few weeks later, we went down to Pocatello again for Ryan's little brother's missionary farewell.  Tanner is serving a two-year mission for our church in San Fernando, California.  We went to hear him speak in church and celebrate with family and friends at a going-away party.  After the party, we got together for some impromptu family photos, and most of them turned out great.  Others didn't turn out too great because Derek was harassing Tanner and grabbing his butt, which Tanner wasn't too fond of (so hilarious).  We love Tanner and will miss him these next few years.  His niece and nephew are going to be so big when he gets home...and there will likely be several more nieces and nephews for him to meet (definitely the two that are due this November, at least!).

Cute uncle

The fam minus Cole and Sara, who are in Missouri...we missed them.

Love the expressions

That's more like it.
Those Nielsons are good looking!

Between our trips and events, we found some adventures right here in Twin Falls.  A highlight was taking Noah to the drive-in movie for the first time.  We borrowed the Nielsons' pick-up truck and went to see Planes.  Noah loved the movie, and we loved snuggling him.

And as if all of that's not enough fun for one month, my dad came to visit over Labor Day weekend.  It had been six weeks since he had seen Noah, and he was missing him.  It was so fun to have my dad in town.  We took him swimming and hiking at Dierkes Lake, showed him Shoshone Falls, went to the county fair, and of course enjoyed some relaxation time in the backyard and hammock.  Noah loves his Bapa, and we miss living close to him.

Sleeping?

Not likely! 

In the midst of all that fun, I was getting some work done too. :)  As I mentioned in a previous post, I got a bit consumed with unpacking, organizing, and decorating our house.  I'll include a couple of photos of the living room area, for those who have been asking (and for those of you who don't care, enjoy the little model in the photos).  I'm so glad this job is almost over, and I'm sure my sisters and mother-in-law are too, since they've been bombarded with texts and photos asking for input for the past two months. :) Decorating is not my forte, but with their help, I do love the way it all turned out.  

One of the big jobs I tackled while I was unpacking was organizing my journals.  I have always been a fairly obsessive journaler, and I've had boxes of journals in my dad's basement for the past eight years since I got married.  When we moved, I took the boxes with me, and now I need to get it all organized.  I went through my boxes of journals and sorted them into categories: childhood, high school, college (pre-Ryan), college (with Ryan), and Buffalo to present.  I hope to organize the journals a bit more from here, but at least I have a starting place now!  Will my children ever read these thousands of pages of journals?  Probably not, but I hope so!

Outrageous, huh?  All journals!

A close-up

My very first journal

My spelling abilities improved over the years;
my drawing abilities did not
(which is probably why I stopped illustrating my journals).

So that's it.  That's August--the highlights, anyway.  It was a big month and a fun month!  Life is good, and we are blessed.