Day 86

Where there's smoke...




There's a beautiful sunset.

Day 83

Another benefit of a July birthday when it's HOT outside... we have the party at a Spray Park and I don't have to plan games or activities! We have at least 5 spray parks in the area to choose from, and the kids love it.

By the way... the green smoothie popsicles were a HUGE hit with the kids and grown-ups alike.

Day 82

Tomorrow is the big birthday party for Hannah (6) and Sarah (4). Since it's July and HOT, it's hard to plan something that won't melt too fast for their snack. I'm also all about convenience, so I've been doing cupcakes since Sarah's first birthday - this makes our fourth year of that. Last year the icing all melted. Yuck. So this year I'm just doing powdered sugar dusted over the top of the vegan cupcakes I made from scratch. We have a couple of vegan kids that are coming, and others that prefer vegan when possible, and one that we invited is vegan by necessity - he gets really sick if he eats anything that has egg or dairy in it. So, vegan cupcakes it is! All the cake mixes seem to have dairy in them, and 99% of them have red dye in them - we also have someone coming who can't have red dye.

That also brings us to the issue of ice cream. Again, the vegan issue. Popsicles? Sure... but then there's the red dye issue again. And the natural ones are SO expensive! So one of my good friends suggested making my own fruit juice popsicles in dixie cups with popsicle sticks. Hope, you are BRILLIANT! Instead of fruit juice though, we made fruit smoothies. With spinach. Yep, we made green smoothie popsicles! Well, they aren't the COLOR green, because they also have blueberries and blackberries in the mix, and that turns it purple, even with spinach in them. But we still call them green smoothies because they have greens in them. Our girls always insist we not forget the spinach when we make smoothies.

Here's our tray of smoothie cups, ready to add popsicle sticks and toss in the freezer!

Day 81

A better view of the railroad tie section of the retaining wall. We're attempting to hide the view of the utility junction boxes when we are looking out at the yard from the front door. We'll be adding one more railroad tie on the top; we decided it wasn't tall enough!

Day 80

We're making quite a bit of progress on our retaining wall!

Day 77

Our church is planning a camp retreat in a couple of weeks so two other members of the social committee and the kids and I went to check out the facility this afternoon. It's going to be fun, and the lake is absolutely beautiful!

Day 72

Charlie got the ends of the railroad ties trimmed this evening, so he got started on the block section.