Times Up...

 Due to my hectic summer schedule, I had postponed my appointment with the dental surgeon as long as I could. On Monday afternoon, Aug. 4th, I went to my dentist so he could remove my bridge in preparation for dental surgery the next day. When I asked about another loose tooth, Dr. Meier wiggled it around a little and to our surprise, it broke off too. A quick call to the surgeon and arrangements were made for him to extract 3 teeth the next day instead of two and do bone grafts in preparation for implants in a few months.  Since I blog from pictures, I had almost forgotten about this not so fun event which leaves me with a Jack-o-lantern smile.  Thank goodness for the flipper front teeth supplied by Dr. Meier.  I feel that I have done really well with only a couple of days of discomfort and very little swelling.
On to happier events.
Friday morning, Steve hung around our loaded pickup while I joined a citizen rally at the State Board of Education mtg to let them know that many parents, grandparents and citizens are against Common Core standards and the federal control of education imposed on the states by federal policies. Unfortunately, our state decision makers have voted to continue to tie themselves to the federal educational pursestrings so we still have lots of work to do.
Steve came along so we could drive directly to CV.  We had a date to meet Heather and the kids for a performance of Les Miserables.  We went to the matinee. A couple of scenes dealing with immoral behavior spoiled the show for some of the kids so Steve took them home during the intermission.  Unfortunately, then they missed out on the redemptive message of this musical masterpiece.  The performance was amazing and I'm sorry they only saw the raunchy parts and not the wonderful parts.

That evening Steve and I and Adam and Hilary were hosted by a fellow real estate associate to attend the same theatre and see the performance of Oklahoma.  It was performed by the same amazing cast.  I don't think we have ever attended two theater performances in the same day before.  I felt like the drama queen.

Meanwhile, the kids were busy with their own dramas of sorts.  They love the dress up clothes which makes for various creative and imaginative performances.

We made crepes the next morning filled with blueberries, strawberries, bananas and whipped cream.  I have to say that four batches were NOT enough for this group.  I should have made more.

 Hilary took Heather out for a "real" bike ride while we feasted on the crepes.

 While we were cleaning up and preparing our picnic lunch, Steve was helping the neighbor pull down his huge, diseased evergreen tree that almost fell on his house during the last severe wind storm.

 Here we watch the action.  They wisely decided to pull it over with the pickup after cutting the roots.

 Then we were off to the canyon with our picnic lunch.  We hiked quite a long time before settling down for lunch and wading in the ice cold stream.  We are really enjoying the fact that this beautiful, pristine canyon is so close to our home.

 Here the cousins pose for a group picture.  After we returned from the canyon, I took the kids swimming at Taylor's condo pool while Heather did some zoning and Jameson took a nap. It was a nice way to cool off from our hike.

Then we ate an early supper so we wouldn't succumb to the numerous fabulous foods offered at the county fair.  Steve loves the fair.  We enjoyed all the displays of homemade items and goodies and we also enjoyed seeing the animals in the barns.  The children loved the commercial booths where they handed out free candies, cookies, balloons, freeze pops, etc. Most of the kids opted to save their money.  That may have been partly due to the long lines for the rides.  Grandpa is not a fan of those rides so he was relieved that we were able to avoid them.

 We enjoyed Sunday morning together and attended Sacrament Meeting as a group, before Heather's family had to leave for home.  Aaron had some dental surgery of his own and was home alone.  They needed to re-group before Monday and the beginning of a very demanding week for some family members.  Thanks for coming.  We loved your visit!

 Steve spent his week in Alaska again doing more equipment training.  I worked at home and not only spent a lot of time organizing my office (finally) but also took an afternoon viewing the parade of homes houses with my brother, Steve and my sister, Cathy.  It was fun for us to spend that time together.  The next day, I spent a couple of hours weeding in one of my clients' yards with my brother, Steve.  He is usually willing to help my clients with clean up projects as they prepare their homes for sale.  Thanks so much, Steve.

After two red eye flights in one week, Steve P. arrived home from Alaska.  What a tiring week for him.  After a brief nap, he mowed the lawn and we packed up and headed to CV.  We wanted to arrive in time to participate in the stake high priests' social.  We were served Costa Vida salad inside the cultural hall.  Then we went outside for donuts and Fat Boy ice cream bars while we were entertained by a local "rock and roll" band.  It was the most "energetic" high priests' social we have ever attended.  Not one high priest fell asleep.

 It was a beautiful night for sitting under the trees and socializing with friends.  The band played a lot of songs from the past so we felt like the good old times.

Saturday we took some time to check out the farmers' market in the morning and then spent the afternoon adding soil and plants to our front flower bed.  We had to have most of our sprinklers re-done before we could get serious about doing anything with the front bed.  We have literally added a ton of soil to that bed and now we have a few plants.  We love a nice yard so we were excited to improve the landscaping.  We were happily tired when we turned in for the night.