Miscellaneous Monday

Usually I have my grandkids on Monday, but the schedule has changed for this week and I have today to myself. Well, what I really mean is that I have the day to do laundry, clean house, cook dinner... but it is a change. I thought I'd take time to just ponder the minutiae of life.

When we were in San Diego a few weeks ago I wore my tennis shoes two days in a row while we toured Sea World and San Diego Zoo. My tennis shoes were at least 10 years old. They had been bothering me for a few years and I did pause for a moment to think about the possible damage I would suffer from wearing them for that long. But they were all I had, so I wore them. Boy, am I paying the price. By the end of the 2nd day my left big toe had a huge blister under the toe nail. For the next week it would break open on its own and drench my shoe with whatever liquid is inside of a blister.

When I went for a pedicure a couple of weeks after the injury I got to see the damage when my nail polish was removed. The entire nail bed was black/blue/yellow - completely bruised. Yuck. Oh well, it didn't hurt anymore and at least the blister was gone. I thought I was on the road to recovery.

Until Saturday when I went in for another pedicure. The nail looks the same, but now it has detached from the nail bed 1/3 of the way down from the top. Super yuck. I was praying the whole time that my nail would not come off. It didn't, but it feels really unstable now. I'm so afraid I'm going to lose the nail. The nail tech said, "oh well, if it comes off we'll just apply an acrylic nail". Great. I wonder how much THAT costs?!

In other news, over on my Christmas blog I only have two posts left for Christmas in July. When I decided that I wanted to post each day for the month, I only half thought I would actually do it. To my surprise, I stuck with it and I will have posted for the 31 days of Christmas in July. It was fun, but I'm not sure I will do it again any time soon. It took a lot of time and effort. I have started receiving comments from someone in Brazil who writes in Portuguese. This is a language I'm not familiar with. At all. I wanted to be sure that I didn't have inappropriate comments showing on my blog so I tried to figure out how to figure out what the comments said. Thank goodness MS Word has a translate feature. I copy the comment onto a Word doc, hit the translate key, and get a translation.

We have a Village Inn a couple of miles from our house. We have developed the habit of going there for breakfast about once a week for the past several years. It has the friendliest staff I've ever encountered at a restaurant. The turnover is low, making it easy for the regular diners and wait staff to get to know each other. Two ladies in particular are favorites of ours; Gina and Cassie. They have been our servers for four years now and we know them and they know us. They ask about our family, we ask about theirs. They both had babies in the past year so it's been fun to watch them grow through baby pictures. Gina has asked for prayer support a time or two. I'm not sure if it's allowed or not, but this year at Christmas I want to give them each a token of our appreciation. I'm trying to think what I should do: cash or gift card?

Well, here we are at the end of July. August starts in a few days. Dan and I both have birthdays in August and the free/discount birthday offers have already started pouring it. This is when it pays to have signed up for emails and rewards! Have a great day...

Christmas in July Pinterest Party

I've been posting a Christmas in July entry every day on my Christmas blog. I can't believe that I actually came up with 31 posts for this series! Tomorrow's post will feature today's Christmas in July Pinterest party.
Jessica, Katie, Shelby, and I got together to make crafts that we've pinned. We had a blast and have already planned our next Pinterest party for Nov. 2nd. We were joined via Skype by Janel who had crafts of her own to share with us.

Here's a look at what we made:

My craft

(but really Jessica made it for me!)

Katie's craft

Katie's craft

Jessica's craft

Shelby's craft 

Shelby graciously let Sunny "help" her! 

Shelby, me, Katie, Jessica

Stitching Update: Week 29

I know it's been forever since I've posted a stitching update. It's not because I haven't been stitching. It's because I'm lazy about taking photos of what I've been stitching.

The past few weeks I've been stitching on Jessica's afghan. To learn about the afghan project I'm involved in with Jessica and Janel, read here and here and here. Our official exchange date is the end of August, but I finished early so I mailed Jessica's afghan off to Janel this week. I'm really pleased with the five squares I stitched this time around. I will be receiving Janel's afghan from Jessica in August and I'm guessing we will make the switch again in December. At that time I will have my afghan and I'm hoping to finish all of my squares then.

Red, White, Blue square

Beach square

Tea square

Daisy square

Teaching square

Entire afghan so far

Two Years Old... and growing

Yesterday Thunder turned two! His party was on Sunday and a good time was had by all.

The night before the party the kids slept over at our house.

Gramps and Thunder playing with Sunny's tablet

Two handsome guys!

Papi, Mommy, the Birthday Boy

Sharing new toys with cousin Skye

Gramps evidently loved the Elmo blanket

Happy Birthday to you!

Hope he made a wish!

The joys of our lives...

SSMT #14

It's hot here. Everything is droopy. The flowers seem to wilt within minutes of blossoming. That may give you a clue as to why I chose this verse:

Isaiah 40:8 NIV
"The grass withers and the glowers fall,
   but the word of our God endures forever."

Family Photo

Ashley, Skye, me, Zach

Zach and Ashley came over and took care of our house and pets while we were in San Diego. We ran down to Mesa to see them on July 4th to take them the souvenirs we purchased for them. Skye is growing so tall and she is very verbal. She still has those huge blue eyes and a sweet, sweet smile. She just doesn't like to show it when Gramps is taking a picture! haha

San Diego

Last weekend we drove over to San Diego for a weekend away from the heat. We couldn't have picked a better time to go as the temps here in Phoenix hovered around 120 degrees. It was so funny to us that over in SD they were all complaining about the heat with temps in the low 80s. It was heavenly for us!

JD and Janel celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary on July 3rd. Their celebration of choice this year was to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway to Washington State. They asked all of us to meet them in SD as they started their trip for a fun family weekend.

Dan and I went over on Friday. We headed straight to Ocean Beach upon arriving and spent some time enjoying the ocean. We then headed over to the Embarcadaro and toured the aircraft carrier Midway. That was so awesome. Then we were off to Seaport Village for some shopping before heading to Anthony's for dinner.

Here's an example of the highs and lows of our trip!

First stop: Ocean Beach

Midway

Flight Deck

View of San Diego from flight deck

On Saturday, we went to Sea World with Katie, Gabe, and the kids. I'd never been before. It was such fun.

Waiting for the Dolphin Show

Katie and Thunder

Shamu... of course!

By the time we finished at Sea World, JD and Janel and Jessica and Adam had arrived so we all headed back to Seaport Village for dinner, to ride the carousel, and to enjoy the shops and entertainment. When Katie, Gabe and kids headed back to hotel for bedtime, the rest of us headed back to Ocean Beach. We walked the shore and the kids walked the pier while Dan and I sat and people watched.

Sunday morning we all headed to the San Diego Zoo. Dan and I had not been there since our kids were still small enough for strollers. It is such a great vacation destination. After seven hours at the Zoo, Jessica and Adam headed back to Phoenix while the rest of us headed to Mission Beach for dinner on the beach and sand castle building. I just can't get enough of the sights and sounds of the ocean!

Adam and Jessica

JD and Janel

Dan and Vicki

Dan and Jessica

Thunder and Sunny

Dan, Adam, Jess, Katie, Thunder, Gabe, Sunny, Janel, JD

Janel, Vicki, Katie

JD, Sunny, Janel

Vicki, Katie

Dan, Thunder, Gabe

Dan, Vicki

JD, Janel

Gabe, Katie, Sunny, Thunder

Sunny, Dan, Thunder, Vicki

Sunny

I can't get over how much more relaxed we all look on the beach!

On Monday morning we headed back to Phoenix while JD and Janel headed up the PCH. It was a great weekend and Dan and I are already planning a return trip in September...