July Miscellaneous

How bout we do a random post of the photos from July that don’t warrant a post of their own? 

Carly took a little sewing class from Jen Gibbs in July.  The class was about three hours long for four days.  Jen took the girls to the fabric store on the first day of class and let them pick out the fabric they wanted to use for their projects.  

At the end of the class Carly had made a pillowcase, a tote bag, and a felt needle case

Carly really enjoyed the class and would love to signup for the classes Jen is going to have this fall, but I’m not sure we can swing it with our other commitments.  Carly also participated in a weeklong lacrosse camp in July.

Justin and Jason hit up a few more hikes this summer.

Poo Poo Point (yep, seriously that's it's name)

The green turf is where the paragliders take off – gorgeous views!

What parent doesn’t love seeing the love between their children?  A house full of kiddos definitely isn’t always peaceful and loving, but nobody gets mad at the baby.  Drew sure is loved and adored.  Abigail will often want to snap a picture of her and her little buddy.

Justin has signed up to participate in the Seattle Spartan event in October with several other guys in the ward and community.  It’s an 8+ mile run with 25+ intense obstacles.  He’s taking his training seriously and gets up early several days a week to workout.  I’ll save the details for the finish line, but I’ll share a few of his pictures he’s taken recently.  You’d be hard pressed to find a prettier view.

Yep, we’ve even gotten out there and ran together.

As a (now former) counselor in the high priest group, Justin has organized a high priest social the past two summers.  The Syphers are kind enough to host in their wonderful yard.  The food is great and it’s fun to visit with families we don’t socialize much with.  Drew grew tired of all the older folks and kept walking back to the car to let us know he was ready to go.  

I had a friend ask us to join them for a summer $1 movie followed by hitting up Chick-fil-A on Cow Appreciation Day, July 14th.  The deal is that anyone fully dressed in a cow costume gets a free meal.  Some of you might be wondering why the Fletcher’s need anymore free meals when we have 156 free meals to use in the next year – well, by dressing up as a cow  you to pick ANY meal whereas our 156 meals are only good for the original chicken sandwich meal and since I hadn’t tried any other meal EVER, I was excited for the chance to try something new.  It was a tough decision, but I opted for the grilled chicken cool wrap with avocado lime ranch dressing – oh my, yum!  Worth the effort to cut out dozens of black spots for me and the kids.

Figuring out how we were going to make cow ears…

I look uber thrilled don’t I?

So the only plain white shirt that fit Drew was one of Katie’s.  I didn’t realize how the little gathers at the top of the sleeves combined with the pink ears and long hair made Drew look a little feminine.  He got his own free meal though so worth the gender confusion.  Lauren’s youngest was dressed in a chicken costume – so cute.

The kids all got a cow balloon – not sure why Katie chose a green cow ;)

Just a cute picture of Jason and Katie sitting on the back step watching Justin work in the yard.  

Our yard has been thrashed this past spring (cranefly?) and it’s taken all summer to get it looking like a place you might actually want to be in.  This picture was taken back in April when 80% of it was dead and gone.

Now that summer is over our backyard is has mostly filled back in and we could actually hangout back there – just in time for the rain – boo!

A new lamp arrived in a human sized box – perfect for summer fort making. 

July 20th we had what has become our annual Fletcher family night at the pool.  Mike made some food assignments and brought plenty of food for us all to enjoy.  It wasn’t the warmest evening so I ended up staying out of the pool, but the kids couldn’t care less.  Poor Drew was shivering, but loved every minute of it. 

It’s also become the perfect opportunity to celebrate Haden and Jason’s birthdays.

Our summer lunch dates continued throughout the summer.  Each of the kids got a least two lunches with Mom.  I wish I would have taken pictures of all of them – next year.  Abigail’s first was at the Cheesecake Factory – girls knows how to milk it, but like I’d object.

On July 29th, Jason had his make-up lunch date for the lunch date he had an allergic reaction to back in June.  He could chose anywhere he wanted to go and he decided on Burger King – um, okay?

After his lunch he had a well-child checkup and then we redeemed his birthday coupon at Cold Stone.

Drew continues to get into things.  Fully ignoring the “No food outside the kitchen” rule as well as what should be a rule against eating out of the cereal container with your wet slobbery hands.

The kid is adorable though.  Busy, but adorable.  This was my attempt to get a picture of him wearing a new tie.

You get the idea.

Not sure what Justin bribed the kids with to make them run around the outdoor table during a hailstorm, but it looks like they’d have done it for free.  Yep, and that’s Jason squealing.

Drew and I shared a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese on a July evening.  I don’t think I was planning to share with him, but he plopped himself down on the kitchen floor and asked for more.  Who can blame him?  

It’d been ages since I’d prepared a box for myself and I gotta say it was as good as I remember.  As a member of the Macaroni and Cheese Kid’s Club I saved the proof of purchases for each box I ate from childhood until sometime several years into parenthood.  Back in the day you could redeem them for all sorts of cheesy souvenirs.  When I was in college my parents used to give me a case of this stuff as a Christmas present.