It  is just three days away from becoming September and here I am just now posting July!

We started the month off with the 4th of July celebration at our house with a BBQ. After that we went to Jessi's place for fireworks. 

I always love how kids line up the fireworks getting ready for the big show. This year it was up to Josiah to light them off now that Josh is off to the Marines for the second year in a row.

The next weekend was Mom and Dad's 67th anniversary. We celebrated with them at Salty's.

John put in a few weeks putting in one side of the Veras fence. The kids helped along the way, staining and putting it up

We officially became home owners again. (the main reason my July post is so late getting posted)

Lina loves doing cartwheels. The more she does them, the better she gets.

We went to Salem and had dinner and a walk with John and Rachel.

My jade plant, otherwise known as Jade, started out 42 years ago as a leaf that I started from a plant from Fullerton California. John's Mom brought the leaf from Uncle John's place. I got it to take root and it has grown so well over the years. As it got bigger, it was harder and harder to get inside for the winter.  She has fallen over and I thought she was dead, but then she took root again. She has gotten sunburnt and lost most of her leaves, she somehow always finds a way to pull back through. She even bloomed around Christmas. Well, we moved her to Salem to John's place when we sold the Sandy house. Their house was too dark for her, she wanted light. So they moved her to Rachel's classroom at school where she perked back up. Once we moved back, they brought her back to our place. I put her in the garage with my other plants for the winter. She was doing just fine until I put her outside for the summer. But summer was so late in coming...it rained and rained. I thought maybe too much water on her was not going to be good. Finally I put her back out. She wasn't looking too good. One day I noticed she was leaning over. I pushed her back up and she came right off. I was so sad. When I looked at the stump, I noticed it was total mush. The soil was like a swamp. It had not dried out at all from all the pre-summer rain. So I did surgery on her. I cut off two main branches and put them in new soil. I scrapped out all the mush in the stump and put it in a pot. Her leaves are beginning to plump up again. I don't know if she is growing new roots, but for now , there is still hope that she is going to make it...along with two more new plants.

We finally were able to get up to the lake and try out our new kayaks. The kids went with us and showed us all about it.

Here are a few shots of the other family that they sent me. Josh spent 8 weeks in Hawaii with the Marines. Alexis had to stay at their place in California while he was gone.

Emily and Matthew and Baby on the 4th of July.

John and Rachel went to Washington state.

Gabe, Daniel, Dennis and Abby. Gabe has been in a few concerts with his violin and a play.

and now to work on the August post!