Ryan & Erinn's Family: June

The week after school got out, Elise had a palate expander put in at the orthodontist's office. She had sore teeth and a hard time talking for a couple days, but was fine after that. I had to turn the key every other day or so, which brought back weird memories of doing the exact same thing to myself when I was a teenager!

Connor helped babysit the youngest Kenny kids while their mom went to a graduation program at the middle school. They spent a lot of time looking at Large Marge from the PeeWee movie.

Elise had her birthday party at Armstrong Climbing Gym down in Los Angeles. I was amazed at how fast and high she could climb! Not sure where she learned to do that.

Corinne, Celeste, Sarah, Vivian, Eleni, Meili, Elise, Lydia, Ava, Evan

We were running late to a barbecue with the Walches when we discovered a flat tire on our van. Hopefully the kids learned something about cars, but at any rate, we did make it to the barbecue. The Walches were yet another family planning to move out of state that summer.

Ryan and Connor spent a week doing Scout Camp, both at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and in Zion National Park. They had a great time despite a lot of hiking (Connor felt a lot of pressure to do the 20-mile hike, but ended up with two very respectable 10-milers.) They saw some beautiful places, earned a bunch of merit badges, goofed off, and caught tadpoles! Connor's best friend Daniel Kenny was able to go, which was fun but bittersweet, since we'd be dropping him off at his new house in Alpine at the end of it all.

In the meantime, I supervised the installation of our new TuffShed, and watched deer set up camp under our apricot tree. They seemed to be there at all hours of the day and night.

The kids got their final report cards from the school year. Everyone did an amazing job! I love that Corinne got "outstanding" in every subject, but basically failed Lunch for being too messy.

As Scout Camp was nearing its end, I packed up the other kids and drove to meet Ryan and Connor. We had to wait an extra day for my parents to return from a dog show, so we stayed at an Air BnB in Lehi, went to church, and played with cousins! Then we spent about a week at my mom's house just enjoying summertime.

Driving is Boring

Cousins!

I waited in the van with Celeste while the others played at Yuba Lake. As predicted, someone got hurt on the inner tube.

Each year, my mom's neighbors raise show lambs for the Fair.

We spent an afternoon at the "Museum of Curiosity" with the Kennys

I finally bought some new church clothes!

Grandma Cloe's Special Baby Song

Sprinklers

Grandma's New Screened Tent

When we got home from Utah, the apricots were going crazy! We filled bags and bags, and ended up making freezer jam. I'm glad the tree recovered from its traumatic pruning a few years back.

Our friends the Palmers came down to play with us for a few days! On the morning after they arrived, the kids were showing me a giant beetle near our cedar tree when I spied this bat on the trunk. We carefully showed everyone, then left it alone, expecting it to fly away at nightfall. When I went to check it that evening, it got spooked by the flashlight and flopped down onto the ground, hissing and baring its teeth, but it didn't seem able to fly away. I wasn't sure what to do, but I ended up killing it with a shovel. I felt bad about that, until I looked online and saw that the La Crescenta area had been having a spike in rabid bats over the previous few months.

Despite the rabies, we had a great week with the Palmers, including a smoked-brisket picnic in the Universal Studios parking lot (sorry I didn't get any pictures.)