July Catch-up

Whew! Time sure flies when there is so much going on. To catch you up on the month of July:

4th of July weekend I was down in Los Angeles for Anime Expo like I am each year. It was a long trip, and our convention was right next door to where Michael Jackson's funeral was to be held just a few days later, so the media hounds were staking out the place all weekend. I flew home just fine on sunday the 5th, but my co-workers flew home the next day and they had a couple of hour delay just because there were so many people coming in for the funeral.

Then, I was home for a few weeks. We tried to make the most of it, and sure enough, the garden and children are both thriving. Its been a lot of fun haning out with Grandma and Grandpa Walker, going for walks with Grandma Hallock, and meeting new friends from across the country. Here are the kids on a sunday afternoon visiting with Grandpa and grandma in our driveway. We are truly blessed to have grandparents in town for the kids to enjoy.

Otherwise, we recently had our Ward activity up at Leaburg park. I forgot to take the camera, sorry, so I don't have pictures of Luke doing the kids races or Anna Mae dripping watermelon. Luke is becoming a little mischevious ringleader, leading his little friends into variouse nefarious activities and pretend games.

Luke has had a great summer. His play group just ended, it met every morning from 9 to 12 over at the local park. Luke's supervisor was his old (and favorite) pre-school teacher from Willamalane a few years ago.

Now we get to watch Maple school as it is torn down and the new school is being rebuilt in it's place. This photo is of the old library. I have so many memories of this place... checking out books, watching videos, and practicing for school plays. Now it's nothing more than dirt waiting for final landscaping (I did snag a brick before it got completely demolished). The new Maple school looks so nice! What a great way to start 1st grade, in a brand-new school.

Then, the last week of July I was off to Orlando for a trade show. It was a long trip. While I was enjoying 90 degrees and 99% humidity, the valley here was suffering through 105 degrees, no humidity. I really don't know which is worse. My show and workshops went great, and I had a chance to visit with many of my online stamping friends. Brian puts up with so much while I'm gone, but the kids truly adore him.

Church is going well. AnnaMae always seems to do well in Nursery and Luke gave a talk in primary about his 7th great grandpa, Jon Telford. It was so cute! He can't read well, so he memorized the story and looked at the little pictures I drew for him next to each paragraph. Then he tried to show the kids in primary the pictures, but they had no clue what he was talking about. I think the adults had more fun with it than he did.

The garden is thriving, though it seems like for everything I plant, the only thing I reallyg et are tomatoes, potatoes, and sunflowers. we'll see how everything else does as the sumemr progresses and how many neighbor kids I can scare away from my plants.