A Summer of Firsts

This has been an amazing summer for me, full of many firsts.  

1.  It was our first experience with flooding in our basement.  Due to a broken sprinkler pipe in our neighbor's yard, one of our window wells filled up with water and leaked through the window sill, down the wall, and onto the carpet.  Luckily, Alan happened to be sleeping in that basement bedroom that night (he was feeling nauseous and didn't want to get me sick since I seem to catch everything.)  It happened again during the day while Alan was at work and I frantically called some neighbors.  My 7-month-pregnant neighbor Summer came to the rescue for me.  She knew of people on the street that had sump pumps, and she spent a couple hours vacuuming up the water in the carpet.  We spent the next 5 days airing out our carpet and carpet padding with fans before we were able to tack the carpet back down.

2. Alan and I ate at the Roof Restaurant for the first time.  For my parents' anniversary, they treated all of their children and spouses to dinner at the Roof to sort of thank us for the anniversary party that we surprised them with last summer.  I don't think I'll ever be able to afford to eat there again, but I swear my life will never be the same after eating there.  A-MAZING food. 

3. I had my first allergic reaction to a prescription: amoxicillin.  Who knew I was allergic to it?  I used to have it all the time as a kid.  I was prescribed it to take care of a sinus infection and broke out in a horrible rash that lasted about 5 days.  I seriously looked like I had the measles or something.  It was crazy.

4. Last night, Alan and I went with six other members of my family to see this for the first time:

Wow, it was amazing.  Now I understand what all the big hype is about it.  I couldn't fall asleep because I was re-playing it in my mind for forever.  We bought our tickets last December, so it's been fun to look forward to this for eight months.  Now I'm dying to see it again!

Cowabunga

Maggie is a little parrot lately.  Jared taught her to say "Cowabunga" last week.

Aviary

Jared by the pelican pond

We are totally loving our Pass of All Passes.  Last week Alan and I went to a free play of Fiddler on the Roof, and I also took the kids to the Aviary.  I didn't think I would like it because I'm not really into birds, but I was surprised at how much there was to see.  We will definitely go again sometime in a couple months or so.

Jared in front of two macaws

Feeding ducks

Oh, yeah.  Maggie came, too.

A beautiful peacock

It's hard to see, but there's an owl kind of just to the right of the middle of the picture

Flamingos.  Maggie loves to say "flamingo!"

Friend Get-togethers

These past couple of weeks I  got to see my amazing friend Kalee.  She and I were in the Math Education program together in college, but I hadn't seen her for seven years! She seriously was one of the reasons I survived all those ridiculously difficult math classes.  We signed up for probably 10 or so classes together and did our homework together pretty much everyday.  Anyway, I got to see her TWICE while she was visiting around these parts (she lives out of state), and it was so fun to see how we could just pick right up where we left off.  Our kids got along pretty well together, and my Jared and her little girl Ava even held hands when we were browsing around IKEA.  I'm so glad she squeezed me into her schedule!  I miss her so much.

I also recently hung out with two of my dear friends from high school, Andrea and Heather.  I haven't seen either of them for a year.  It was so fun to see them and catch up.  Andrea was so nice to host at her house and to plan fun activities for our big crew of kids.  They are both amazing.  

It is so fun to see friends and catch up!