The Month That Shall Live In Infamy

Hey y'all -

August 2013 been the busiest month of my life, no joke.

For the first week of the month, your dad was gone to Oregon for a Hydrology conference. Steve and Barb and Sarah came to visit. I did a bunch of photography stuff, including a baby session with the sweetest little 6 month-old, Willa:

...and then I shot a wedding on the weekend your dad was serving with the Naval Reserve. If I had paved a highway in Alabama all damn day, I would not have been as tired as I was after that wedding. Learned a lot, though.

Your dad and his softball team fought valiantly, but they ended up losing in the playoffs. Never fear - you dad has already signed himself back up for "Fall Ball," so we're still playing like it never happened.

 

We put together the Splash Bash.

When we found out that your school's summer program was short a field trip, your dad and I whipped up a "Dino Dig" in the park. We made homemade plain sand-colored play-doh for kids to make their own prehistoric landscape, traced 3ft-long T-Rex footprints on the sidewalk so kids could compare the size of their feet to the dinosaur's, and we buried 30 tiny plastic dinosaurs in the sand so kids could practice digging them up and brushing them off.

Right about now, the astute reader is realizing that we bring our stress on ourselves by overcommitting to - and volunteering for - crazy things. And you're right. An intervention is in order.

Then, Grandpops and Grandma CC came to visit. I think I've mentioned this before, but Grandpops' idea of vacation is only working 79 hours a week instead of 80. When he ran out of stuff to do inside my house, he detailed my car. I don't understand this behavior, but I sure applaud it in other people.

He and your dad got to work building a (very impressive, may I say) treehouse for Laney's birthday, including a swing from Ikea called the "Ekorre."

Your dad and Grandpops made lots of jokes about the Scandinavians while trying to decipher that instruction manual. Apparently, we're all a bunch of blonde, crazy drunks who like to cook up ways to drive Americans crazy with an allen wrench while we drink our aquavit. 

Grandma CC was brave enough to ask Laney to perform her stage show, not knowing that she'd bring a whole new intense level of devotion to her craft for a command performance:

The of course, there was the birthday party (The Other Brooke just shared these cute pictures with us) -

And she has no idea. 

So. Much. Shrieking.

The cupcake thief

Getting a temporary tattoo

Lovin' this party, man

Tag! You're it!

Brooke's Temporary Tattoo Parlor

There's a monkey at every fairy party. 

The latest news around these parts is that your dad has been in and out of town for the past week, helping to fight the wildfires that are raging across Montana.

I borrowed that photo from the newspaper - your dad isn't actually in that helicopter. Instead, with his background in aviation, he's been assigned to the technical crew that's getting aircraft ready to drop water on the fires. It's hard to get mad at him for missing fairy party birthday set-up when he says stuff like, "Because our crew was there, we got two extra aircraft up there fighting the fire." 

We have four more days in August, and I can't imagine what else we could pack in, but now I know better than to tell God, "I can't possibly take on one more thing."

Love,

Mom