July Flyin'

Does anybody else feel like July flew by?!  And now we're already nearing mid-August!  Wow.  It has been a great summer and been going way too fast.  We have three weeks and then baby comes, school starts...I'm getting a little anxious.  Maybe that's why I'm not sleeping so good as of late.

Anyway, on with some catching up and a lot of pictures.

Rachel was a little anxious to get back from our trip because she knew she was getting a new bed in her own room.  (At least for a little bit until the baby needs to get out of our room).  It was a little hard for me though.  Rachel and Tommy have been bunking for so long and are such good buddies.  I loved how she would sometimes read to him or how they would talk and giggle in the dark.  It is an end of an era.  Change is always hard.  She has become a little more responsible though and cleans her room and makes her bed, without me asking, and even does her laundry (per her request).  I know it probably won't last.

We had one really HOT and HUMID week in July.  (You can see the humidity was fogging the camera lens).  But, other than that we have had some great weather...almost too good to be true (knock on wood!)

  

For Jake's Christmas present he got a flying lesson that we found on Groupon.  We finally got around to redeeming it.  It was quite an experience!  It was fascinating learning a little more about the aviation world.  Jake was funny when he turned on his Iron Eagle music to practice his skills on the simulator.

The plane he flew

Ready

 

Not so ready.  The trainer actually eased a lot of my anxiety and I really wasn't that nervous.  He could take full control if he needed to.

A little video of him taking off.  We had air traffic control calling in making sure everything was okay


Look at that smile.  He was loving it.  As was I until he did one too many turns right in a row.  That with the lack of air flow on a hot day...and I lost my lunch.  No fun!

Me and Kate keeping ourselves entertained at a baseball game

 Sunday best.  Seriously.  I've got some cute ones :)

I have thoroughly enjoyed having Rachel at home this summer.  I didn't sign up my kids for any summer camps and there is a part of me that feels guilty...that I might be depriving them of something.  But, so far we really haven't needed it.  (We've saved a lot of money too, because out here they are insanely expensive). It has been priceless to see these kids play together.  Rachel has grown a lot this summer.  She has been listening better and has been a whole lot sweeter.

I. am. a. robot.

A little 24th of July (Pioneer Day) fun.  We had to do something.

 We made homemade butter.  The kids loved it.

 An afternoon at the school playground

 One weekend we went to the New Jersey hot air balloon festival.  We got to play inside of a balloon which was pretty fun.

 Unfortunately, the balloons didn't launch that evening.  The 5 mph winds were just enough.  I was so bummed!  They weren't exactly cheap tickets and we wanted to get our moneys worth.  So we decided to wake up at 5am the next morning to make the hour drive back up to see them launch that next morning.

 A little crazy...

 But TOTALLY worth it.

 It was amazing and so fun!!

 From our little photographer.

 A lot of the shaped balloons didn't make it far and the Wicked balloon didn't defy much gravity either.

At the end of the month Jake was out for a week for work in Chicago and Detroit.

 

He told us not to have too much fun without him, but we did have a great movie night!