Catching up on random stuff--Monster Blog

It's been an action packed summer so far--and not in a good way. Just kidding, I like to add "not in a good way" onto everything I say for some comic relief. I'm usually the only one who gets the joke--except for maybe my sister Amy.

I've missed posting far too many exciting events during my extended trip down depression lane--and so now I'm playing catch-up. Really what I should be doing right now is organizing closets but they're just too messy--and not in a good way.

First, I was going to include more pictures of our fabulous family reunion--since we took so many. Then I read my sister-in-law Jessica's blog and she did all the blogwork for me--so check out the play by play of our week at http://mjfam.blogspot.com/

Here are a few of the portraits that Dave took:

First the 9-year-olds (who I refer to as LEA--Lily,Emma, Aubrey)

Then there's GCA (Gabe, Claire and Abby--also my initials--that just came to me)


Notice how happy Gabe is to be wearing "church clothes"

This is CA--or Clabby

This is just the rest of them--does anyone else notice how the older kids get, the less you take pictures of them?

This is just a bunch of kids wearing orange. I recognize a couple of them.

This is me just bravely posting pictures that have not been edited, cropped, enhanced, altered

When you see this on our Christmas card this year--the visible backdrop will have mysteriously disappeared.

Okay, so while we were in Phoenix, we spent a day and night with our awesome friends, The Allens. We had lunch, went to a Diamondbacks game, and had a great time catching up.

Lauren and Lexi

Justin and Tate

Me and Tami

The Aubreys

Ashlyn and Claire--together again
The whole gang

Moving right along--after our awesome visit with the Allens--Lauren and Lexi talked me into leaving her in Mesa for the week. I'm such a pushover. I also let Claire stay with Ashlyn for a couple days, then she spent the rest of the week with Gabe.
We did a little spur of the moment "cousin swap" --we brought Lily and Daniel home with us for a week and left Claire at the Mannings. I definitely ended up with the better end of that deal. Here are a few highlights of the week: movies, swimming, restaurants, pedicures for the girls, arcade for the boys, night at the drive-in theater, a lemonade stand, ice skating, and of course, late nights playing Wii.
Somehow I talked my brother-in-law Ben into driving all the way to New Mexico to "trade back the kids". Thanks also to Britt for meeting up with him with Claire and Lauren.

Hey, is anyone still there? Just checking.

Next--the day Claire and Lauren got home from Arizona, my sister Jessica and her family came to visit on their way home from Utah. More good times. We wish they could have stayed longer.

The night Claire, Ashlyn and Elena were going to sleep on the tramp--but it only lasted about one hour--while the adults got to enjoy some "Arrested Development" inside.

This is baby Sophie--the human one. Not to be confused with the puppy Sophie who resides in our backyard.

This is little Melanie--who looks far better than me in a swimsuit.

You know when you call someone and you get their answering machine and you leave a ridiculously long message--but you still have more to say--and the machine hangs up on you midsentence. I think that's what is happening here with this blog. I'll have to finish my random stuff later--like Justin's 11th birthday and my house hunting trip to Dallas. Plus, I'm getting pretty tired--and not in a good way.