We got back from our trip to Branson to discover that Callie had chewed all the fur off the base of her tail while at our friend's house. She was very happy at the Darnall's, just very itchy. We took her to the vet and it seems sweet Callie is very sensitive to flea bites. We have her on flea and tick medicine but that doesn't mean a flea won't bite her before they die, and they love the lower tummy/tail area.
We wrapped the sensitive area prior to the vet visit and Callie looked a little silly but at least she wasn't digging at raw skin. We got her better flea and tick medicine and gave her anti itch pills twice a day for a while. She absolutely hated those pills, which meant I had to put them in peanut butter so she would take them, so it was a very happy time for Callie.
Some family gaming with a very fancy looking Bradley. I love when he wears his Hawaiian outfit.
Sookie has been following Eleanor around a bunch lately. Eleanor is so so happy about this.
Rewrapping poor Callie's tail. Fortunately she healed up very quickly.
A climbing outing with both my girls! Eleanor enjoys showing off and Juliet has been getting more comfortable with climbing and actually trusts the belay now.
Cute girls!
Eleanor is seriously so impressive and has great moves
Proof that I got up there and climbed for a bit! Juliet is more at my level than Eleanor. Eleanor can't believe how weak I am. The thing is when she first started climbing I would often climb with her and I think she remembers me being close to her level. That is very not true anymore.
Patrick and Nathan had a lovely weekend down in Linn Valley. They spent the night at the skid shed before doing the fishing derby in the morning.
The got to see the community fireworks show the night they were there.
Apparently Patrick caught very tiny fish for the actual fishing derby and then when they moved over to our lot to fish he immediately started catching big fish.
The Fourth of July is hard on Callie. She's lucky she has Bradley to comfort her when she climbs into her crate for safety. I couldn't believe that Bradley could fit himself in there with her.
It was rainy most of the day but cleared up in the evening. We talked Juliet into hanging out in the pool until the fireworks started then she wanted to go instead and she and I watched the fireworks from the master bedroom window. Meanwhile Patrick and Eleanor played volleyball and got to see some amazing fireworks.
Bradley giving sweet Sookie some cuddles.
Patrick's turn! She loves how he'll scratch her in her favorite spot under her chin. She doesn't have a ton of time left, she's barely eating these days and we had to put her on an appetite stimulant so she'll eat anything at all. We're hoping to get another month or two with her and in the meantime we're giving her lots of extra cuddles.
My parents moved back to Washington in July so we were gifted their foosball table. The basement is quite full now but the foosball table has been getting some good use!
This is Sookie's favorite spot before bedtime
Callie is fairly clingy around me at times. She's so sweet but it's a LOT sometimes.
Bradley is much more willing to take on all her loves and cuddles
I forced Bradley into the pool one day to play around with me and Juliet. He actually ended up having a lovely time. Although we discovered that it wasn't good to play Marco Polo when Juliet had to have her eyes closed, she ran into a wall and was very upset about it. Poor girl. Bradley did a good job cheering her up.
Trying to watch tennis. If only my children liked to be close to me. This was not a staged photo, they were sitting like this around me and I had them take a picture.
Sookie snuggles for me too! She sleeps in the crook of my left arm every night and if I wake up at all she'll scratch around at the blankets until I pet her.
Such a sweet kitty. I'm glad we're getting to enjoy all of her cuddles. She has always been more shy than her sisters, it's good to have her be able to get all the loves she wants these days.
Juliet and I had a great time at Girl Scout day camp! It's amazing how easy things are with just seven girls. I'm glad we have a lot of girls who like to be in our troop but it's just so much easier with fewer girls. Twenty kids is a bit of chaos.
Prepping for an archery event that Juliet refused to do.
She preferred to hang out with Addie and Eleanor's friends who were our teenage helpers for the troop.
Human foosball was a hugely popular camp activity. The girls were very skeptical at first and then were immediately really into it.
Taekwondo. Juliet actually participated in most of it this year!
Making bee houses out of cans. Juliet refused this activity but then was delighted when Addie made a bonus house for her.
Tired girls on the bus ride home.
The only picture of me and Juliet at camp together
Juliet decided she loved Raegan on day two.
Fishing was okay, I think Juliet likes it better when we're at Linn Valley
The girls got to do the flag ceremony at the end of the day
And then to my surprise, Juliet's invitation to her buddy Reagan to come over and swim was successful. Bradley thought it was weird that Juliet was hanging out with a girl from his grade, Juliet was beyond delighted.
I had tennis finals the next morning at the plaza. We won, which was very fun! Then I got to change clothes and hop in my car and drive straight out to camp.
I got there in time for the canoeing activity, and much to our surprise they wouldn't allow any adults in any of the canoes. Juliet does just fine in a kayak but canoeing is a bit trickier! So she didn't love the activity but at least she didn't lose her hat in the water and then abandon the canoe at shore and run around crying hysterically, like some of the girls in the troop that joined our group did. It was some chaos!
They had a fire truck come out for the afternoon. At first Juliet didn't want to get wet but then she and Addie thought they might check it out.
They were running around in the far back and the guy operating the house definitely made sure they got wet. Juliet came back and hollered, "They were targeting us!" but at least she was pretty happy about it.
Learning how to play Viking chess before we left. It's like corn hole with a little more strategy, it's actually pretty great.
Group picture of us and the other troop we joined up with for the week!
It was very nice to be at home and be cozy after camp.
I got Juliet an I Love My Mom shirt and it's become one of her favorite shirts. In part because it's so soft and comfy, and in part because when you read the small print it says I love it when my mom lets me play video games. She and Bradley happened to wear these shirts on the same day so I had them take a photo.
Nathan took the two younger kids to Iowa to visit his mom for her birthday. I stayed at home with the older two because of the lack of space in the hotel in Fairfield and because Sookie now requires multiple wet meals throughout the day and both Nathan and I can't be gone at the same time.
They had a lovely time at Colleen's birthday party in her back yard
And got a lot of nice hangout time with her the rest of the weekend
Playing 10's and 2's!
Nathan has some very good friends from high school that still live in Fairfield and I've been encouraging him to let them know when he'll be in town to visit his mom and so he reached out. They had a lovely evening hanging out and they got to spend night #2 at their house instead of the hotel, which was very nice.
Garden time with Colleen
Meanwhile I took Eleanor rock climbing and she got to participate in her first climbing mini competition, which was a lot more fun than she thought it was going to be.
I had to pick up my parents from the airport and so Eleanor ended up getting to stay for an extra couple hours at the event. I walked in to find her climbing this. She was exhausted after 4 and a half hours of climbing but still looked good!
Much nicer to be showered at home with a kitty
We took advantage of it just being a few of us in the house and Eleanor and I went out for ramen at our new favorite place for it - Magic Noodle. Bradley elected to skip the outing.
But then we all watched anime with Sookie that night.
All the Sookie loves!
Juliet and Patrick got back from their trip and promptly enjoyed some pool time with Stella and some of the other neighbor kids. I had to leave the pool area once they started having chicken fights, I left the supervision of that up to Nathan and his friend.
This is what happens when I take Patrick to Walmart after a hot tennis day and tell him he can pick out an ice cream treat while I talk to a friend. Yes, I let him get all of this. He was delighted.
Eleanor had been complaining about boring food options around the house so I branched out and made a chicken pot pie with tater tots instead of a pastry crust so Nathan could eat it. It's pretty yummy!
Tennis celebration pool event at a friend's house. The tennis stuff has been pretty great this year!
I was sorting through things and tried to get rid of blue light glasses, which would have worked a lot better if Juliet hadn't spotted them. It's probably good that she's wearing them though, and she sure looks good in glasses!
Nathan and Patrick got to go to a Royals game through his company and met up with friends
None of our other kids particularly care about baseball so it's nice to be able to have Patrick go at least once or twice per year
Back in time for obligatory Sookie snuggles
Eleanor and I went on a trip to Santa Cruz for just the two of us. I insisted on stretching our legs at LAX and we encountered some therapy dogs while walking around the airport!
It's a program to make people relax and destress while traveling and we are big fans
There were around eight dogs and we said hi to all of them and got their cards. Quite a few golden retrievers, which wasn't too surprising.
We arrived is Santa Cruz and had maybe an hour or two before we had to take Eleanor to her rock climbing class in order to get belay certified. One of Bill and Diana's friends said he would climb with Eleanor while we were there but there's a process to being allowed to belay someone and Eleanor is still too young at her climbing gym in Kansas. But we got it sorted out and dropped her off, Bill went to his music night with friends, and Diana and I got in a nice walk along the ocean and I got to say hi to my surfer buddy.
By the ocean!
The next morning Bill took us to Gayle's bakery
And we got to hang out at Capitola Beach for a bit. Eleanor set most of our agenda for this trip and she did a fabulous job.
We ate a LOT of ice cream on this trip. This was our stop at Polar Bear ice cream by the beach.
Then Eleanor suggested we go to Pizza My Heart a little later. She had decided maybe no more photos at this point.
We played a lot of Skyjo on this trip, it works really well with four players and it has enough strategy to be interesting
We like to take winner loser pictures after games but unfortunately for us, the loser ran away from this opportunity. Diana was impressed by how strong Eleanor was when she tried to keep her from escaping the house.
Meanwhile, the kids enjoyed a trip to Chia-fil-A thanks to a bunch of gift cards my parents left behind for us
We went to the Shakespeare production Much Ado About Nothing which is held by Shakespeare Santa Cruz in the redwoods. It was very cute and I think it was the perfect choice for both the teen and the adults who are not serious enough for a tragedy. We laughed a lot, it was fun.
Poor Eleanor didn't get to sleep in much on this trip, she had to get up early the next morning for her rock climbing time with Jim. There was a bit of concern when we got there because they said they usually had kids her age belay for people closer to the same age as them, but Jim was pretty light and very experienced so they checked on them a few times but they were allowed to belay each other. Eleanor did great but I think it was a lot more tiring to do both climbing and belaying the entire time.
She climbed some really difficult routes and was the youngest person climbing on the main walls the entire time we were there.
It was fun watching her because she really persevered through some difficult sections when I would have given up. She spent a reasonable amount of time trying different holds and figuring out how to make it through. It was impressive to watch!
Climbing buddies! We're definitely going to see if we can go back to Pacific Edge Climbing Gym and meet up with Jim on our next trip to Santa Cruz.
Eleanor insisted that we go to both Bookshop Santa Cruz and It's Sugar. We spent $17 on candy but it was because we're so thoughtful and were bringing things back for siblings. We're so so thoughtful.
Then we found a ramen place that was kind of just okay but we love ramen a lot so we weren't too upset about it. Also it had some great cat pictures. Please note Eleanor's new cool climbing shirt.
And because food was a focus of this trip we stopped by The Penny Ice Creamery after ramen. Eleanor said she was matching my face here.
Honestly - it's definitely better than Polar Bear ice cream but you can't beat the location there. Bill had a little tummy ache and needed a nap after we were through dragging him around to all the food places this afternoon.
After he rested we played more Skyjo. This time Eleanor was the winner and Bill was the loser!
And we played one more round before leaving the next day and Eleanor beat all of us. We were all the losers and she was such a good winner!
We were supposed to meet Thomas at a bakery near the airport but he missed a bus then forgot his keys and we decided that it wasn't worth having him make the trip to just hang out for half an hour. But Eleanor was still desperate to go to the bakery because I had showed her pictures of what they offered. We didn't know that by going there we could skip going to the Louvre because they had a Mona Lisa speaker there playing music and this is definitely a better photo experience with it than we would ever get in France.
It was called Croissante and it was in Santa Clara, just about ten minutes from the airport, and it had a line going out the door for good reason. The food was amazing, we were so proud of ourselves.
Meanwhile, the boys used a gift certificate to go to Cracker Barrel. Not quite the same dining experience but they liked it and got to bring our neighbor Hendrick along.
It's weird to see Juliet without braids. Nathan did well while Eleanor and I were gone but he wasn't quite ready to braid hair.
Happy crew eating dessert!
We had a long layover in Minneapolis on the way home but got to discover a Prince themed store, which wasn't as fun as the therapy dogs on the way out but was still pretty cool.
I got home and things were back to normal. I love that Juliet has had long, lazy summer days. Stella comes over for a bit and they were adorably reading a book together one morning.
Callie rolled in something disgusting in the yard and got to have another shower. So much easier than getting her in the bath!
Juliet took this picture of Sookie for me. The kids are well aware we don't have a lot of time left with her, they're doing a lot to make sure she gets lots of attention these days.
And Patrick has been mowing some neighbor lawns in order to make a buck! He's very proud of himself, as well he should be. My goal is to never mow a lawn, it's going well so far!
