Independence Day

Happy 4th of July!!!  We had a great week out here.  Look how festive Brooke was!  And she's even standing up sometimes!

Over last weekend I think we ate some form of BBQ almost every dinner.  We went through that whole big tupperware of potato salad in a single weekend.  It just went with everything we were eating, like ribs!

On Monday morning we went for a run as a family, and then went to our ward 4th of July pancake breakfast.  While we were there Brooke got to try out the swings and she loved it!  Unfortunately she seems to be able to recognize cameras for what they are and does her best to stop smiling and laughing whenever she feels a camera is out, but she loved it!

We also played a few rounds of Water Works.  This game was so close! But Monica beat me in the end... again.

We also made some strawberry lemonade over the weekend and had extra that we froze into popsicles.  Brooke really likes popsicles.  We have to be careful that she doesn't bite off a big piece, but it's probably one of her favorite things to eat.

Then we had a camp fire to roast up some dinner.  How else do you make dinner on the 4th of July?  I really like having fires in our back yard.  We decided to try to do it at lease once a month.

And here we are!  Oh yeah, for those of you who don't recognize me I got a hair cut.  Funny story about that.  Monica cut my hair while Brooke was taking a nap.  I got enough hair cut off that Brooke didn't recognize me when she woke up and she cried when I came and picked her up!

Well, that brings us up to this work week.  The week was good, and we made good progress on testing out our flight hardware.  We're a little bottle necked because there are many things we only have one of so we all have to share them.  I think we got through all our needed milestones this past week though.

Saturday was super chore day!  I spent a lot of time out in the yard trying to get things cleaned up.  Last week I sprayed some weed killer on the rocks that surround our back lawn, and this week all the grass is dead!  It looks so much better.  Also, our front patch of lawn where the bushes used to be is almost ready to be mowed.  It didn't grow in quite as thick as I had hoped, but possibly I under-seeded it.  There are a lot of weeds sharing the space as well.  The grass is almost long enough that I can start doing something about the weeds, and then I'll reseed it and keep getting the grass thicker and thicker!

I also spent time in our garden area.  We never quite got around to planting our garden this year, but plenty of things were growing anyway.  Here's a before picture of the garden.  As I was pulling weeds that thing jumped out at me!

Ok, ok, I still haven't mastered the before and after picture process.  I've got the after down pretty well, but I struggle with the before.  So in place of an actual before picture I went online and found this picture which is a pretty good representation of what it looked like before I started.

And here's that same area when I was done!  I think the hardest part of the whole clean up part was chipping that house down into a fence!

After all that I was quite tired.  It was a very hot day, and I was tired and sunburned!  I ended up taking Brooke for a walk around the block while Monica was grocery shopping.  Brooke went down for a nap as Monica was leaving, but she woke up a cool 30 minutes later and wouldn't go back to sleep.  I eventually took her for a walk and she enjoyed that, but my sunburns did not!

Last night Monica and I watched Wall-E.  It had been a while since either of us had seen it and it was really good, although, Monica only made it through the first half of the movie (which is typical) even though we started it at 7:30(which is an hour earlier than usual)!  We had a lot of fun and decided we probably need to watch movies a little more often.

Monica and I have started a tradition of making Sunday morning brunch while Brooke takes her first nap in the morning!  Unfortunately her first nap wasn't very long, but her second one is still going.  At least we got one good nap this morning.  Anyway, Monica and I made... pastries for brunch today.  They were very good!

And dessert!

Well, that brings you up to the present.  We're currently waiting for Brooke to wake up so we can head to church.  I hope everyone had a great weekend and a wonderful Independence day!