July: Blessed Month

The most exciting part of July was Evelyn's blessing!


It was a really nice blessing that our home teacher Floid Gilbert gave and we had close friends and family attend. It was really sweet. Evelyn wore a dress that Sister Adair made for her out of some of the lace I wore and she made a blanket out of my mom's wedding lace. The booties were tatted by Sue Erie in our ward. It was really nice to see so many different people who were there for me as a child be there for my little girl.


July was also a month of play dates. It was great getting together with the moms of the neighborhood. We had an exciting one that involved shaving cream, food coloring and a pool. My silly little boy wanted nothing to do with any of that messy stuff! He did really enjoy the trampoline though. We also took the kids to the fire station. Indy seemed alot more impressed with that than the messy stuff.


This month we had some really nice family time and some very sad family time. Lewis' Uncle Todd, passed away and we attended his funeral. For over a year now, we expected he might pass on but it still came as a shock to me. Uncle Todd was a surprising mix of generosity and judgement. He was so opinionated but so ready to look out for people and help them. He held a very high rank in the military. How high, I'm not sure but active duty marines in full dress blues came to give his salute at the grave site. It was beautiful and very moving hearing them play Taps. He will be missed.

Lewis and I had the rare opportunity to go on a date night. It was great to spend time with just the two of us. We went on a walk through some lovely gardens and it felt just like we were teenagers again. I almost forgot what it was like to feel that carefree.

Now back to the not so carefree life of goals... Here's how I did:


Completed:

• Have at least 1 out of the house activity per month We took advantage of the summer weather and had a BBQ with Lewis' family at Nunn's Park, took lots of drives up the canyon (mainly to make Indy go to sleep) and spent some time at 7 Peaks Water Park. We also had a fun potluck with our neighborhood night games group. 

Right on Target:

• Host at least 12 game nights (9/12) We threw Lewis' sister, Heidi a birthday party that was supposed to be a game night but we didn't end up playing even one entire game. I'm still counting it though because it was a planned game night! The other game night we hosted this month was for my friend Stefanie Whittaker who was down from Alaska. She doesn't have too many friends that still live around here and most of them were either working or getting married. So it was just us and her brother for the game night. Which I think was just perfect. Plus after her brother left, we forced Lewis to play my favorite game as a child, Pretty Pretty Princess! He was not very pleased with us and refused to wear pretty much any of the jewelry but he still won.
  
• Learn to play "I Love to See the Temple" on the piano I've learned the melody. I didn't realize how hard it would be for me to learn how to play two notes at once. It was pretty easy for me to jump back into reading music after not playing my oboe or flute for years but I've never had to play more than one note at a time before! But I'll get it, slowly but surely. 
•  Go to the temple 12 times (4/12) I made it this month. Yay!

Needs Improvement: 

• Write at least 20 blog posts (11/20) I've obviously, gotten so far behind but I've got a ton of posts in the works. I'm sure I can get them all done by December.... I hope...
• Hold at least 45 Family Home Evenings (23/45) Only two this month! That's an all time low.
• Catch up 2 yrs in family journal I got farther than last month but not very far. I realized all the pictures I printed out to put in the journal look terrible and I need to reprint them. So obviously, I just stopped working on it. 
• Take 4 family hikes (2/4) This goal I just kinda tacked on last minute so I wasn't super invested. I think it did help me go on one more hike than I would have though. So that's good. 

Failed:

• I didn't outright fail any goals but I sure have room for ALOT of improvement.

August Goals

•  Refinish hardwood floors We've decided to put this project off for another year. We need to look over our options again and revitalize our wallets before we start this project. 
• Learn to play the full top hand of "I Love to See the Temple" on the piano
• Repack our 72 hr kits