Ashley's 21st Birthday!!!

We will be celebrating two 21st birthday parties within one week.  I am laaaaazy, so they will both be picture posts with captions!

Before heading to the Legends for Ashley's birthday celebration, I went to Grace Cathedral in Topeka to celebrate Chad's service to the youth of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas over the past 10 years.  This is him and The Mustard Seeds playing music for us.

Kitty Fapp made a t-shirt quilt with the shirts from all of the events he served in the past 10 years.

Dinner at Johnny Carino's...

Dinner at Johnny Carino's...

Dinner at Johnny Carino's...

Dinner at Johnny Carino's... (and then we went to a comedy show at Stanford and Sons)

Ashley and I playing the anti-DDR.

Alan must have said something really funny!

YAY!

Aweeee, Mom with her grown up girls!

Fun at Dave & Busters

They are all posing for a picture for mom.

Ashley is sad?

Ashley could no longer walk and text, she had to stop and lean on the rail.

Wild Bill's is closed, so Ashley didn't get to ride Bodacious the Bull!  Steven stepped in to complete her birthday experience!

Aaaaaand, she got knocked off the bull in less than 5 seconds!  He pitched her over his head, very dramatic.

This is what Squish will look like if it's a girl!

This is what Squish will look like if it's a boy!

This is what Eric and Steven "mutually beneficial arrangement child".

Paul, Steven, and Eric with their "biggest alcohol bang for the buck" girly drink

 The boys playing Guitar Hero

More Guitar Hero 

Deb and I won tons of tickets on the "fun games" while the boys wasted tokens on the "boring games" that don't give tickets! 

Steven kept picking up Batmen, and then Eric would put them back upside down. 

Eric and Batman playing in the pod game 

Steven assisting Batman in flying down the escalator 

Flyyyyy!

What a Weekend!

Saturday morning I dropped Eric off at work and then spent the morning lounging at Mom and Alan's house. In the afternoon, Mom, Eric, and I helped Alison and Zach move into their new apartment.  For once, I was actually careful to rest and not overheat - I'm usually a work until it's done sort of person.  Then I went to church and left after the homily because I was feeling beyond sick.  I've had a cold since Thursday and I just can't breathe.  So I went back to M&A's to sleep, and Eric watched Kill Bill 2.  I define sleep loosely, because I was up ALL NIGHT coughing.

We woke up at 5:50 for the North Face Endurance Challenge.  Mom, Eric, and I headed to the Plaza for our 5k race.  Mom had a plan to run every other song on her phone, and my plan was to have my Runkeeper app prompt Eric and I to run for .2 miles, walk .3 miles, run .1 miles, walk .2 miles.  We kept that pace for the entire race, with the exception of one .2 stretch that we had to cut short because of a hill.  Mom's time was 36 minutes and 45 seconds.  Eric and I both ran it in 42 minutes and 59 seconds - Woo!

When we got home, we rested for a bit, and headed to St. Thomas to lead our first Financial Peace University preview.  However... nobody showed up.  No big deal though, the class doesn't start for three weeks.

So then we went home to make lunch for our game afternoon with Mom, Alan, Paul, and Deb (and then Shannon).  That was to introduce our news that you can hop over to read about on agreenbabyblog.blogspot.com!  Then we spent the evening running around to grandparent houses and making phone calls and Skype calls.  Phew - I was so glad to go home and go to sleep!

 Vicks tissues - best thing ever when you have a cold!

 I moved Zach's bookshelf across the parking lot on a Razor Scooter!

Eric, carried the desk like this.

 Mom and I before the race.

 My sweaty shirt before my free screen printing.

My sweaty shirt after the free screen printing!

Mom, Eric, and I finished the race - woo!

Yea!

 Shannon and Deb playing Apples to Apples.

Paul and Eric.

Eric and Mom.

Alan, Me, and Shannon.

Tech Free Part 2

I've been getting sick of our routine of watching Netflix, while Eric is gaming on his computer and I'm playing on my phone.  Also mildly tired of reading - I just wanted to escape from media for an evening!  So before Steven went home, I went for a jog and he and Eric followed me on bike.  

After Steven went home, Eric and I played a 3 hour game of Monopoly!  The cats were very involved in the game...and Eric kicked my butt. 

Steven got hit by a rogue trash bag. 

I'm running with Pandora running through my phone, and Eric & Steven are playing on the bikes. 

I jumped in our pool when my 3.25 mile run was over, soooo hot! 

Mystic was laying behind Eric with about 3 inches of space, and she kept a paw on his $5 million dollar bills. 

Addy and Eric both looking at me through their eyebrows.

Etc. Stuff

This is mostly a picture:story post - surprisingly enough, the cat focused part of the post lacks pictures!  

In the beginning of July, I had our carpets professionally cleaned because Mystic has a bad habit of not making it to the litter box.  I must not have thought this all the way through, because she was back at peeing on the carpet a few days later.  She is sneaky about it though, and never does it when we're around.  So our new routine is to keep her locked in the bathroom (with food, water, and a separate litter box) when we're not home or asleep.  I'm thrilled to report that we haven't had a carpet accident since!  Hooray for having a house that doesn't smell like cat pee!

Last week we came home and Eric noticed Addy was limping.  I felt so relieved that we have a section of our savings account earmarked for pet expenses.  So the worry of the cost of taking her to the vet didn't overshadow our worry of what was wrong.  We spent the evening trying to make her sit still, and I held an ice pack on her for ten minutes.  Luckily, the following morning the limp was gone.  Who knows what happened, but we're glad she's feeling better!

My summer has been full of working with my nanny kiddo - and he's been working on bowling this summer.  His form has something to be desired, but he's bowling in the 50's or above!

I've also been working on programming his AAC app on his iPod - he doesn't speak well, and he's picked up really quickly how to use it to say his words!

 My nanny kiddo also has this awesome body sock.  It is a nylon bag that provides sensory stimulation, and I caught this really cool picture of him!

Eric's summer has been spent wondering whether or not to buy some new games.  Addy broke him down, and now the are playing Age of Empires I, II, and III, Bioshock 1 and 2, and Unreal Tournament 3.

Eric and I housesat for Papa while he was in Michigan visiting Molly & family.  I used this as an opportunity to further unpack and organize his house.  This is his dining room, starting to look like a dining room!

This is his office, now empty of boxes and fully set up!  There is even a pillow for Frisco to sleep on while Papa works.

The guest room is also empty of extra boxes!  It has a bed, bedside table, lamp, and rug.  Perfect for someone to roll in for a night or weekend to visit.

I've also upgraded my clothesline!  The old one was nylon and flaking off strands on our clothes.  This is pvc, and affixed with L brackets - I used the two screws to secure the brackets to the porch, and then the pvc wire goes through the other two screw holes.  Now I just need to do some laundry!

This massive heat wave (temps over 100 for the past two weeks) has killed off most of the leaves on Grammy's tree :(

Some of the branches appear to be dying...

However there are still some that are holding on for some hope.  We got some rain today and have more in store for the next week.  Hopefully the leaves pop back up...we'll see.

We really let our budget get away from us this summer.  So we're attempting to go all of August without eating out.  Fast food was definitely a weakness for us over the past two months.  This is our last hoorah before that kicks in (this was on July 30th!).

This is Ashley's new room in her apartment.  She has officially moved out to Hays, KS for her first semester of state college, woo!