July Recap

Whew--since I last wrote, we traveled to Illinois for a very fast weekend trip and then moved into our new house!  I'm impressed with all these blogs I read that have several updates weekly.  I don't think that'll ever happen consistently for me, but I do apologize it's been so long since posting!

Here's our last month (Seriously? Where did July go?) in pictures:

Andrew and a neighbor friend having fun with sparklers on the 4th of July:

Craziness on our flight to Illinois the next morning:

Trip to Atwood Outdoor Rec Center.  The boys got to hang out with all 14 of their cousins!

Night Hike fun:

Lots of walks with cousins during the weekend:

Of course, uncle DJ brought his remote control helicopter and the boys loved the "round round!"

Cute lil' guy throwing some wood chips:

Andrew conquering the balancing part of the rope's course:

Came back to SLC just in time to see workers refinish the wood floors:

Before

After

With the floors done, we were ready to tackle lots of this:

We've also been dealing with our SEVERELY overgrown yard.  This is all mint!  It's everywhere!  Help!!

Andrew's loving the yard work:

Pleasant surprise--our own nectarine tree:

The boys are also hard at work on their new house:

6 days after moving, we got to host our Pittsburgh friends while they were on their way to move out west.  They were with us 2 nights and we were able to get out and hike to Doughnut Falls:

And, of course, we've had a few post-dinner ice cream trips.  Matthew's getting really great at saying "CHEESE" whenever I pull out the camera:

Whew--that's July for ya!  What a whirlwind!  

A CRANE!!

We've started making some changes to the new (old) house and today was a pretty exciting day for the little guys.

In climates without much humidity, you can use something called a swamp cooler, or evaporative cooler, to cool your home.  They are very energy efficient and take the edge off the heat we hear, but the idea of water in a box on top of our roof with a spongy material just kinda grosses us out.  We wanted to make the switch to central AC and had workers at the house the last 2 days getting it done.  Here they are getting the swamp cooler ready to be removed.  It kinda looks like an RV parked on top of the house, doesn't it?

Then, the really AMAZING part happened!  They brought a big crane truck in to lift it off the roof.  Our very own crane!  The boys were a little impatient when it was just parked and getting ready, but man did they think it was cool when it was working!

Brothers and a crane:

See ya swamp cooler!

Nice new central AC!  What an exciting arrival after a week straight of over 100 degrees and sunny!

Andrew the Builder is pretty excited about meeting all sorts of builders.  He stood back and watched them every step of the way, asked lots of questions, and I'm sure provided a useful tip or two.  Next week, he'll get to meet an electrician, movers, and a floor guy!  Oh boy!

Have a wonderful 4th of July everyone!

Roof Repair

You'll be happy to know that the roof of the Cozy Coupe has been successfully repaired by Andrew the Builder.