10 Things to Mention, In No Particular Order

Seriously, this post is in no order whatsoever. Total stream of consciousness. Bear with me.

1. We sold our boat yesterday. It was up on Craigslist for one whole day, so chances are we underpriced it a bit. (So hard to know!) Still, we feel good about what we got for it. It was a great boat and we made lots of wonderful memories, but we haven't been using it as much as we could . . . and I want to finish our basement. The kids want us to finish our basement too. So goodbye boat! Hello the blessed sound of kids downstairs--the muffled shouting, the barely-audible thrum of video game playing, the deep reverberations of adolescent males who actually require a finished basement so they can hang out without enduring the gaze of somebody's mother. We're still in the middle of selling a bunch of our boat's accoutrements (I like saying that with a French accent -- although I wonder how many French people have two different tubes and three pairs of waterskis, not to mention a veritable plethora of shorty wetsuits? Maybe more than I think, I suppose. I know very little about the French.) I'm also doing this on Craigslist and it's weird to have "Dan" and "Susan" asking for my address. But when they give me $75 for an old pair of skis it's okay.

We took this photo for the Craigslist post. Forrest ducked down beneath the steering wheel.

Anyway: So long, boat of ours. It's been a nice nine years. Here are some farewell photos from our last ever family boat ride a little over a week ago.

Jonas taking out his contacts in the water. (They were due to be thrown away anyhow. Or so he tells me.)

Forrest and Ethan were attempting to catch the frisbee while wakeboarding. This was one of many failed attempts. :-)

Sniff. All these photos make me sad. But really--basement, guys! We want a basement, right?

2. Wonder how much shock I'll be in when the guy named Randy who came over to give me an estimate on framing and wiring the basement hands over the final number?

3. Wyatt has now lost his two lower front teeth. My baby! I do love pulling them out. Is that weird? Wyatt's a pretty brave kid, though. So far he's the only kid of mine who hasn't run away from me when I insist the tooth is ready for a good yank.

Me and Wyatt right after I yanked out tooth #2

Wyatt showing it off

4. I took both of those pictures with my new Kindle. This is Kindle #3. Lest you think I'm one of those tech obsessed people who has to have the latest of everything, my first Kindle was the old-school black and white type. Left that one on an airplane. Then we got Kindle #2, a Kindle Fire, for Christmas 2011. But guess what? It broke. The charger connecter went kablooie, and wouldn't you know it, the 1 year warranty was up. But Amazon gave us $100 towards a new Kindle, so a got a new one, and it's cool. And as you can see, it also takes (kind of grainy) photos, so if you happen to yank your child's tooth out and find the Kindle sitting beside you, you can snap a quick pic to commemorate the event.

5. I had a birthday! Shout hooray. I spent 23/24ths of the birthday in Utah and 1/24th in Minnesota (the flight got in at 11:00), but more about the Utah trip in a sec. Here's my favorite thing about my birthday: the note Wyatt wrote me.  In two parts:

I've been known to raise a little hell . . . but this is better. :-)

I also loved the beautiful birthday display my Mom made for me:

There were more peach rings on the lower plate, but Ethan ate them all.

Forrest also had a few surprises up his sleeve when I came home, so overall 41 was very good to me.

5. But to backtrack a little: I went to Utah with Ethan! It was so fabulous. Not only did we get to see family, but Ethan and I got to hang out together (always fun to be one-on-one with a kid) and toured both Utah State and BYU campuses. Since college campuses are some of my favorite places in the world, I didn't mind. Ethan liked both, but as of right now he's leaning the BYU direction. We shall see what time will tell. Here are some great pictures from our trip:

Ethan, the oldest cousin on both sides, with the youngest cousins on both sides. Both boys (with glorious curly hair), both two years old, both crazy cute.

Ethan and Calvin:

Ethan and Enzo:

Ethan isn't a big fan of getting his picture taken, so I appreciate him being a good sport and letting Grandma Sweat and me snap both of those. Perhaps he's suspicious of his mother taking his picture because I do things like this:

Ethan at the Utah State barber shop. There were two cute missionaries right beside us on their p-day getting hair cuts as well. I didn't think Ethan would notice when I nonchalantly lifted my iPhone and snapped away, but obviously he was on to me.  Also, the woman cutting his hair is named Angela. Just thought I'd mention that. See the name plate?

Not only did we tour campuses and see nephews, but we hung out with other family members as well. We  got to attend Brandon's ordination in Heber, Utah (where our people are from, you know) and it was fun to see all of Andrea's family there too.

We had an excellent KFC picnic in the rain with Andrew and Tony's families, and also enjoyed a brisk game of frisbee dodgeball. The frisbees are foam and it's super fun. All of us played: even Grandma. Here is Ethan with the rest of the cousins, looking tall and also like he doesn't want his picture taken:

Three more great pictures of people I love:

6. Don't Mindy and Peter have a beautiful backsplash? I want one.

7. Now to backtrack even more. (Does this blog post feel like a Christopher Nolan movie? Ah, yes. It's all on purpose. Artistic, you see.)  The 4th of July occurred. We had fun. Here are some pictures.

Forrest made a patriotic banana cake. Classic.

We had a bbq at the Harrises. Gotta love neighbors like the Harrises!

Elise and Somer

Ethan and Barkly (or Mr. Waffles, depending on which family member you ask), the Harrises' completely crazy adolescent dog.

Picnicking. Josh has the best hair.

Sparklers!

More sparklers!

Hooray for 'Merica!

8. Elise, my daughter who is growing up way too fast, recently went to her second Animinniapolis (an anime convention). This year she went as Rainbow Dash -- you know, the pony. It's a thing.  She looks very striking when dressed up like a rainbow-colored pony.

She also went to Girls Camp. Here she is before embarking with her good friend Cassie:

I joined the group for the last two days of camp since I'm now a member of the Stake YW presidency. It was actually really fun. I had absolutely no responsibilities (my favorite!) and got to wander around and talk to people. The only picture I took was of our ward playing Big Bootie after I taught it to them (a game passed down to us by the Amezcuas, who are moving, curse them!!)

The pair of feet off to the left is our bishop. I also taught the bishop Big Bootie, but he's the kind of bishop who's okay with a game with such a title. He's also really bad at Big Bootie, which was a little hilarious.

Elise had a great time at camp; she's a much better girls camper than I ever was.

9. Forrest and Ethan wrapped up their baseball season.  Ethan missed lots of games because he went to 1. England 2. Nebraska 3. Utah. But he came back in time for the final tournament and did well. The team did well too. Forrest had a lot of fun coaching the boys and I think he'll actually miss it. Here are a few action shots and a group shot of the team:

Ethan has a lot more to update about England, Nebraska, and his new job: eight hours a day of manual labor. He has a BUNCH of stories. I'm trying to talk him into doing a guest post, so we'll see if he has the energy after coming home covered in fertilizer dust.  Perhaps a good Sunday activity?

10. Finally, Jonas. He went to Scout Camp and had a blast. He discovered three ticks attached to his body and had a few dozen mosquito bites when he came home, but no complaints from him.  First week-long? Success!

His soccer team wrapped things up too. They lost their first tournament game, which was kinda sad because it meant they couldn't move on, but kinda a relief since the next game was supposed to be played on a Sunday and Jonas and James are key to the team's defense. Sabbath Day Holy + Sports = So Stressful Outside of Utah! Here's a better picture of his team:

And I can't help it. I need 11 things.

11. Nature

The archery range at Lake Elmo at dusk. Isn't Minnesota beautiful?

Soccer Boy

These team pictures aren't the best: taken with my iPhone at dusk with the sun behind the team. They are sporting the 2nd place medals they won at their latest tournament though. (Lost 1st place--barely!--to our arch rivals, Woodbury.) Keep reading, though, and the photos will get better, I promise!

Jonas has had a busy, fun spring and summer with his soccer team. He's on the traveling team this year, which means we've had a few games that necessitated a nice long drive across Wisconsin, but he's enjoyed it a lot. I enjoy it too--soccer has many plusses. For example:

1-A soccer game is timed, which means none of this extra-inning or overtime business. The game is over when it's over. Hallelujah!

2-Soccer is exciting. Once kids hit Jonas's level, there's always some kind of action on the field. Even (or especially?) when the score is 0-0, it's an action packed game.

3-There is very little of the excruciating "everyone is watching while I strike out and/or walk batter after batter" that makes baseball difficult for me to watch sometimes. Although it's always great if a baseball player does something good when everyone is watching, I really dislike the slow, painful descent into frustration and/or humiliation when some poor kid (not just my kid, but any kid, but it's worse when it's my kid of course) is struggling at the plate or stranded at the pitcher's mound. This probably means I am emotionally weak in some fundamental way, but there you have it. Your kid might miss a goal in soccer, but everything is happening so dang fast nobody has time to linger on it. This, to me, is very refreshing.*

4-Jonas's friend from our ward, James, is on the same team, so I get to spend lots of good chatting time with his mom, Brooke. She's an excellent chatter. Not to mention the fact that we've been able to help each other out with car pooling, which has been a lifesaver many times over this season. (I realize this is not an observation about soccer in general but a specific aspect of soccer this season and could apply to any organized sport, really, but I'm still including it.)

*This is not to say I haven't had fun at some of Ethan's baseball games this season too. I have. (And I'll even do a post about it when their season is finished.) But they stress me out more; can't help it.

So here, without further ado, are some nice action shots I snapped of Jonas in action, using my much more effective camera.

Ready to play

This is my favorite action shot because it shows what Jonas does best. Getting it outta there! He's a defender and does an excellent job keeping that ball from getting into the net.

Dribble master!

And for good measure, here are a few other pictures I took, just because I like them. Jonas isn't in them, but they're still good.

Jonas's friend James, kicking it out of there as goalie. (His good friend and our neighbor Trynton is right behind him. He plays defender with Jonas and they're a great defensive team.)

A goal scored by our side. Hooray!

Jonas's teammate Femi celebrating after a goal.

A bunch of kids grappling for the ball. Intense!

Jonas has a few more games to qualify for the State tournament before soccer is over for this season. It's been a fun run!