Summer, summer, summertime...

WHEW - much has happened since my last update.

ROADTRIP:
We skipped the last day and a half of school to head to Colorado. The kids were bummed they were missing their final school parties, but I decided it was more important to go be with our family. Besides, J wasn't really even having a kinder graduation... just a small deal during classtime - not a big deal - so we didn't miss much. Okay, like 15-16 hours each way... wow, that was a long trip. We broke it up and stayed with Aunt Shauna in Albuquerque on the way there and back, what a great hostess! She pulled out all the stops to make us breakfast. I think it was the first time I'd had fried spam... actually not bad.
We rolled into Highlands Ranch around 6pm or so on Thursday the 23rd for my nephews' (Weston & Mason) graduation party. It was at their friend's house that was AMAZING... apparently was built by Champ Bailey, football player... you should have seen the view... and the theater room...etc etc... I should have taken pictures (no, would have been rude!)  The boys had hundreds of people coming and going... then A got in the pool... then all the big soccer and rugby boys got in the pool too...oh my.

The next morning we headed over to W&M's graduation ceremony, [huge school]  which gave me an inkling of what Mountain View's graduation probably will be like in just seven more years...! We got to hook up with Jordan, N's cousin, and her kids while we were there too, which was fun. I learned that when addicted to Coke Zero I MUST have one every day to be tolerable... ugh, there is NOT a QT on every corner in Colorado, I'm afraid...
Stayed in a great hotel while we were there... best part, the kids went down and swam in the pool and WE didn't have to go too... Aaaah. Call us bad parents, whatever. Teach them correct principles and they can lifeguard themselves, I say.
The twins had turned in their papers and were waiting for their mission calls... which just happened to come in while we were there! They had a big "opening party" which my big bro streamed live online (of course!)  It was SO fun to be there and watch them open their calls. When guessing where they were going to go earlier that morning, I had asked Mase what food he DIDN'T like... he said "lobster" - so we figured he'd probably go somewhere in New England... he's going to be in Boston!  : )  Weston is going to Anaheim. Both are going spanish speaking and report to the Mexico City MTC on October 9th. Pretty cool! Are you tired of all the details yet? This is my new scrapbook! Deal with it!
We also hit a touristy-place called Heritage Square while in Colorado. Went on an Alpine slide for the first time, did a high ropes course, jumped on trampolines, went through mazes, rolled around in hamster balls, rode a train. Totally fun. Learned that Tyler is a freakin' monkey rock climber.  Impressive. I, however, kicked everyone's trash on the spinning wooden barrel-thing. Apparently I have way faster feet than everyone else, ha! Should have videoed that...
Tyler reported in church on Sunday, and then W&M got ordained as elders as well. Can I say what a neat experience it was to share that weekend with them?  Love the Scotts!

SWIMMING:
Started right up with swim lessons, dive lessons and swim team once we got back. I forget every year how miserable Thursday evenings are, sitting out in the heat for two hours to watch one or two 1-minute races. Oopsie, we forgot to sign up for invitationals or divisionals in time, so thankfully I think our swim meet-watching days of this summer are over! lol.  I did get a lot of reading done at those meets though...  A & J have exactly 5 days of lessons left and then we're done. Time to think of school shopping! (Mwahahaha...)

BIRTHDAY:
We had a "soccer" birthday party for J's 6th. Had a dozen little boys running around here. Mostly they just swam, we had a pinata, and cake.  Spent all my time on prep work this year, with the pinata, customized water bottles, decorating the mantle, dipping and piping soccer ball oreos, and cake... even found all the kids green soccer shirts to wear... so didn't have any time for game planning. (Not that 6-year-olds notice).  Somehow I need to find a balance of activities/fluff/time/etc.
After that soiree I told the girls they had to AGREE on a theme for their birthday parties. Took a while, but we've settled on a "SPA" theme for both of them. We're going to have both parties back-to-back so they technically aren't "sharing" the party but we get to use the same decorations, activities, etc. Genius, I say. Saw a big pink rose-covered "A" on pinterest as a party decoration - done and done! Will work for both girls! Planning on doing facials, cucumber slices and all, making turban-style towels for their hair, decorating flip flops, soaking feet, painting nails...  I'd love to hire a couple of ladies to come in to help paint nails too...
any suggestions welcome!

EVCT THEATER:
They were watching entirely too much TV, and I wasn't getting any work done, so I signed the girls up for a 2-week theater camp in June. They performed "Through the Looking Glass". A played the part of "Belle" and M was a Robin Rabbit in the Snow White portion of the play. Super cute. I was pleasantly surprised A sounded so good in her singing solos, and M was just a natural performer - she was great on stage and hit all the dance moves and everything. They both are still singing the songs from the show! Nonnie and Papa came up and were able to see their performance too, which was fun.  Shame on me for not getting ONE PHOTO. I think I'll have to buy the DVD.

CALIFORNIA:
Roadtrip, part II.  I feel like I spent three weeks getting ready for our 6-day vacation. Sheesh!  I was running around buying beach chairs, boogie boards, new swim suits, etc. Got a DVD player installed in Gandalf, renewed Sirius radio (the BEST), sewed a bag so we could turn our pool umbrella into a portable beach umbrella, getting orders ready and shipped out before we left... WHEW. It's always a relief to lock the doors and leave the house for the last time for a trip with everything DONE and packed.  We ended up spending 6 nights at our Anaheim resort. Smoking deal. We love our timeshare! Bonus: we signed up to do an owner's update while we were there (agonizing hour of sales pitch to get free stuff) but they ended up overbooked so we got $100 in Disney dollars anyway and didn't have to listen to the presentation! Score.  Thanks to them we saw a movie and ate lunch the next day for FREE at Downtown Disney.  Man, I need to figure out how to do food cheaper next time we go to Cali though - we spent a fortune at a dozen different restaurants over the course of the week. That is the one part of vacay that blows the budget every time.

KNOTTS:
Chose not to do Disneyland this time to save some $$... so we did Knotts Berry Farm and Knotts Soak City instead. Well, you get what you pay for I guess. First of all, it's NOT HOT ENOUGH in Anaheim to have a water park. I was cold all day at Soak City. J and I only ended up going on 1 slide, twice. The rest of the time I laid on a chair and watched him on this huge spray-tower-climber-thing.  Waste of time. Knotts Berry Farm has some okay rides, I guess, but customer service is SEVERELY lacking at that place. Employees  totally disengaged. And wooden rollercoasters just HURT. Overall, the place is just lame and feels like a ripoff. Nothing themey or cute or surprising, ever. I think we're just too big of Disney fans to ever like another amusement park. LEARNED OUR LESSON.  We didn't even bother with staying for fireworks on the fourth.

ORANGE:
Went over a couple of times to a little city 5 minutes from Anaheim called Orange City and walked around. Darling little college town with dozens of antique shops, ton of old restored Craftsman style houses, and community events all the time. We ended up watching fireworks there on the night of the 3rd. If/when we go again, I will definitely buy the $7 tix to get into the stadium to listen to the musical performances leading up to the fireworks too!  Definitely a place we would look to retire to!

NEWPORT:
Truth:  There's no place like Newport Beach. Best sand, period. Can't beat free parking. We rented bikes the first day and rode for an hour - that's all our butts could handle. Unfortunately we didn't put on sunscreen til we were done riding and heading out to the sand, so N & me were burnt before we even got started!  My face is still peeling.  #won'tforgetmyhatnexttime  Waves were perfect, weather was perfect, I had a couple of great books to read and a Coke Zero in hand. Excellent. J dug and dug and dug for sand crabs and made friends on the beach, as always. The girls boogie boarded for hours. I went out and caught more than my share of waves too, which is remarkable because I usually get frustrated trying to boogie board.  Should have saved our Knotts money and just gone to the beach every day, methinks!  #weneedabeachhouse

Now we're back home, (BOO) laundry is almost all done and we're back to reality!

EXERCISE:
Was going pretty regularly to the gym before vacation, doing BodyCombat and BodyAttack, and every once in a while Step.  Love toning everything up, but I miss the strength stuff of Crossfit. Hmmm, need to find a middle ground. Like maybe running every day in addition to Crossfit? Or maybe if I just counted calories I'd start making progress? Or sign up for some kind of race to be in?  Hard to find motivation to get on the treadmill though...I tend to put it off all morning, and then it's too hot... and then I get busy cleaning or working... maybe I need to get a rowing machine, lol.  And by the way I am FEELING all those doughnuts I ate for breakfast last week at the resort. This week has been HARD at the gym. 

PROJECTS:
Finishing up a ton of little annoying projects around here. Cleaned out my closet. Ordered hinges for my never-installed-cabinet-door in my office.  Ordered new glass globe for my ceiling fan. Ordered last light fixture for bathrooms - four installed - one to go!   Installed a shelf in the garage to hold a bunch of wood and clear some floor space.  Had countertop company come out TODAY and measure to finish counters in my office (FINALLY! IT'S BEEN TWO YEARS IN THE MAKING!)  Paid off all my new tile that's sitting in the garage (Hooray! Now to find some more $$ to get it all installed!!)  Made some scrapbook pages with M this week - made me realize how sad my picture taking has been the last three years.   And now I've done a blog post this week too! Hooray!

And congratulations if you made it all the way through.