Happenings...in July...

I can't believe July is almost over - it just started!

Floating the River:
We have been floating the Spokane River, which is a lot of fun, but the water level drops daily! We'll be walking it soon instead of floating it. We start at the Harvard Centennial trail head and walk up to the 4mile marker, there's a bench there & a trail down to the water, that's the start of the rapids just before the Harvard Bridge. Sometimes we'll get out & ride those rapids a few times before floating to our house. We get out right at Meyers & Buckeye, less than a block  from home. We put Grayson & Marley in a float tube with a mesh bottom, that way they can't fall out.

Swimsuit Shopping:
Let me just say - NIGHTMARE! Jasmyn & I went out a few weeks ago so both of us could get new swim suits. We were out for 12 hours and closed down a few stores (we didn't get home until 2am) and the FIRST place we went and tried on suits is where we ended up buying them! (we put suits on hold & went back the next day to pick them up).

Jasmyn Summer Classes:
She finished her broadcast media classes and is now taking multimedia graphics - which we thought would be more about taking pictures and lighting and angles and stuff, but they spend most of their time on photo shop editing pictures (and watching shows on HULU.com). By the way Jasmyn says Creative Memories Memory Manager is way better and easier than photo shop! Her fave is piknic.com (not sure I spelled it right) to do funky fun stuff to her pictures.

Ethan's Summer Classes:
Ethan gave up on holding "school" for Marley & Grayson. I can't even bribe him to do it...Not even for for fifteen minutes! I guess he had enough in the 2 days he did it!

Ex-husband Status:
Ken and Marley are still living with us. They are staying in Grayson's room. Grayson has a mattress underneath Ethan's bed and I made a "Fort" out of sheets for each of them around their beds. Ken is our "live in Chef", he loves to cook, so we told him he should find a cooking job. He applied for a cook job at The Otis Grill yesterday, they are looking for someone with 3 years experience (being paid to cook), but maybe he'll get it...and they'll be able to find a house.

Marley:
He hasn't said a cuss word in 3 weeks and he's actually doing really well behaviorally. Still working on chewing food with his mouth closed and not crying or pouting for not getting what he wants, when he wants it. Grayson and Marley have been playing really well together, they were so cute yesterday - they were going to take a nap is Grayson's fort...well, i went to check on them and they had little army men spread all over the bedroom floor & we're having all kinds of conversations.

Bake Sale:
Last weekend Ethan wanted to have a Bake sale so Friday night we made cookies & cupcakes & brownies (Ethan lasted until 11pm, Mom lasted until 2am). We also decided to have a garage sale since a few of our neighbors were having them and they had all the signs out. Ethan's bake sale brought in $26 and our impromptu garage sale $112. We took turns floating the river during the day because it was soooo hot! Austin & Ayden were over for the day and went floating with us too. Ayden went twice! Austin borrowed jasmyn's guitar and put out a tip jar by the bake sale and started playing for tips - he actually made some money! Ethan was doing magic tricks for tips too. Grayson and Marley were digging out all of Grayson's pennies from his piggy bank to buy cupcakes at the bake sale. They left a trail of pennies from the bedroom, down the sidewalk to the bake sale tent.

Today:
I took the boys to the Library for "storytime" though neither one was interested when we got here. Grayson listened to books on the computer, Ethan checked out books and I tried to update our blog...but the boys want to go home NOW. And I need to get ready for our 2 day garage sale and bake sale this weekend. I've been cleaning out every nook and cranny and found stuff (like a tin Passion Perfume lid) that I have had in a "Junk drawer" for 20 YEARS!  And Ken keeps saying as I find more stuff to put in the garage sale "Is that the ...." from before Jasmyn was born?  "You still have that?". Yes, I am a HEREDITARY pack rat...but NO MORE...it all MUST GO!!!!