Other Summer Happenings

On voting day, I waited until Billy came home before I headed to the polls.  I wanted to make a quick trip, but as I headed out the door, 4 of my dear ones wanted to come with me.  Voting is important, so I brought them along.  It made my trip longer and more stressful, but they liked their stickers.  when we got back to the car, grace was sad that we didn't get on a "boat."  

Sorry Grace, voting not boating.

Spinach, a summer treat:

Juliet and friends were watching something on her tablet. = )

It's a shame they all have to share a single computer...

Emily bought a bag of gumballs, so we made our own dispenser. = )

Started on some crafts, and worked on them day after day, but the inspiration has passed and I haven't quite finished the final two. It'll come back around.

I made myself another purse, since my second Dr. Who one started to look roughed up. = (  I was sad to retire it, so I cut out my aldi quarter holder and installed it in my new bag.

We had a garage sale so that Emily could have a lemonade stand.  She really enjoyed it, and made for a good helper. I think it will be a while before I'm willing to do it again.  After the sale it felt so good to get the stuff out of my house though!

It might not look like much, but this was my mom's birthday present.

I took apart her worn chair cushion, wrapped it in some new foam and hand sewed the seam back together.  My hands were so sore the next day, but she said that it did the trick!

We conducted an experiment with a lemon and forks.  It was pretty cool that a lemon could power a clock!

The summer reading program wrapped up yesterday.  We had fun participating, and enjoyed going in to collect prizes and goodies.

I'm not the biggest fan of posting unresolved things in my blog (just in case I forget to type up the resolution) but I wanted to post our tire shop pictures which require a little bit of back story.

Two Thursdays ago, we dropped of my car.  The mechanic called us Friday morning to let us know that it was a broken coil causing the misfire.  He was going to replace the spark plug and coil, but wanted to know if we would like him to take care of the other 7 while he was in there.  We decided to go for it.  He called late in the day Friday with bad news.

The coil was part of the problem, but the engine was still misfiring.  He has to go deeper into the engine to diagnose the problem (which we still don't know, since he had to borrow the tool before he could start the job.)  = O

Anyhow, since I would be driving billy's car until mine is repaired, and Billy was going to be in Chicago for the beginning of the week, I asked him to put some air in his tires.  While we were inspecting them, we found that one of the tires was in poor disrepair, like metal peeking out of the tread. I have no idea when we last put tires on his car (other than our Missouri mishap) so it became priority number 1, after we dropped him off at work Monday morning.

And that's how we found ourselves in a very nice waiting lounge at a tire shop first thing on a Monday morning.

When the car was finished, the kids didn't want to leave!  I had to cut them off at the end of the pinkalicous episode, so that we could go do other things. = )

At least it was something minor on Billy's car, at least for now.  I miss my car, and I'm dreading the price tag of this repair, since it's been in the shop almost two weeks now.  Hopefully I remember to update with the rest of this story. = )

This month slipped through my fingers...it was over halfway before I mailed off my monthly pictures to my grandma!  But this month's selection sure was colorful!

Now that it is season end, we were able to find a riding mower so that I can take over the task of mowing the lawn!

My sister came during her lunch break with her truck, but we had to go grab some boards to use in lieu of a ramp.  Emily and Alice were just a bit inconvenienced, but we made it work. = )

Alice and William both had some summer academics that they needed to tend to.  I decided that Alice needed some subtraction practice, and her goal was 95% on a 25 question test.  One day, she missed 3, and took a nap in between attempts.  It did the trick, her next one she scored 100%!

Look at that concentration:

William is going to rock kindergarten!

While their siblings attended school work, Emily and the twins were either coloring, creating stories or reading. = )

later days