And then July happened...

Where is Summer going? We have been so crazy busy it seems like it's flying by! Lets get right down to binness.

The Girls Trip was a complete blast! Oh man, I had the best time. We went to Hollywood, San Diego, we shopped, we ate, we laughed until we cried...it deserves it's own full post, so I'll cover that later. Just know that it was epic.

The Sunday after I came home was my sweet niece's blessing. She is such a darling little girl. Marty gave her a beautiful blessing and the meeting was so awesome. We met over at Marty and Jess' for some lunch and mingling.

How sweet is her blessing dress? That bonnet...

Such a delish spread, I think I ate about 40 of those strawberries.

This also happened to be the weekend of the 4th which always seems jam packed with goodness. My sister and her family were in town so we had lots of fun with cousins and hanging out at my parents house. Cody had to work over the Holiday, so I woke up the boys early and we raced down to meet the Patches and the Sumsions for the Grand Parade!

Here's Cache with his cousins Luke, Graham, Sadie (best face award) and Elliet.

Storm Troopers! Totally radical, I geeked out.

While I love the parade, I really don't know if we'll go next year. My kids get bored after 45 minutes and while it was wicked awesome when I was growing up (our house was on Center Street so we used to sleep on the lawn with friends the night before), I'm kind of over it. Is that horribly un-American?

That night was the PGFD Firework show which never disappoints! Plus we get to sit superclose - turns out sleeping with a fire captain has it's benefits. Before the show started the boys were busy with their glow sticks.

Then BOOM!

They put the best show on every year. You may know that they have legalized a bunch of new fireworks this year, so the whole valley was booming all night with huge fireworks... so cool. Our 4th was full and fun! Phew!

The next evening Cody and I went down to Lake Powell with our friends, Marc and Jessica. We've never been down there with them and we had the best time!
We've known them for years. Marc is the Fire Chief and they live just down the street from us. I honestly took about 7 pictures - that's it! Although I did manage to snap this pic of a duck eating out of Marc's hand.
We were only there for 3 days, but it was so relaxing and so great. We had huge thunderstorms every afternoon (I LOVE the storms there), we went into town for dinner on Cody's Birthday!, and Marc and Cody hiked the famous dune while Jess and I (the smarties) waited in the boat.
Our friends Drew and Dana were down there and we go to spend a lot of time with them. So excited that Cody and I get to go back with my family in just two weeks!...wait, almost one week now. Woot!

Since we've been home things have been going 100 miles an hour. We wanted to do all kinds of fun stuff with the boys and work on the house, but that hasn't really worked out. Cody has been working constantly and I'm SO not lying about that. Just take a look! Here's what his past week has been:

Sunday: PGFD

Monday: PGFD

Tuesday: Trained all day at Viking CrossFit, took an overtime shift at PGFD that night.

Wednesday: Taught a class til 5:30, meeting at 6:30.

Thursday: Saratoga Fire

Friday: Saratoga Fire (was able to come home at 9:30pm).

Saturday: PGFD

Sunday: PGFD

Monday: Saratoga Fire

Gah. It's been rough having him gone so much. I have been trying to get caught up. Our internet was down so I spent some time over at the cable company and lots of time on the phone trying to figure that out. I've been the grocery store what feels like 4 times a day, our yard was a disaster and after I exhausted myself trying to do it alone, I hired some neighborhood lads to come take care of it. Worth every penny!! Cody was able to come home the Friday night and we had a yummy, Summer dinner: homemade hamburgers, corn on the cob, potato chips and homemade apple pie.

The boys helping with the corn.

Seriously? Probably the best pie I've made to date. YUM.

Saturday I took the boys to see the new Winnie the Pooh movie - have you seen it yet? It was good! I liked it quite the much and the boys were totally captivated. I must get the soundtrack, all the songs were super catchy. I loves days out with my boys. They are so patient running all kinds of errands with me, which feels like all I've done the past 7 days.

Today has been a real day of rest and goodness knows we need it. It just feels like we've been going and going non-stop all week long. Cody is working again tomorrow (but it's the last shift in a 5 day run!!) and will be home Tuesday, our 8th wedding anniversary. How will we celebrate? Probably with a nap.