I LOVE July. I LIVE for July. I look forward to July in the same way that people look forward to Christmas. I love the sun, I love the heat, and I love the smells. There is not a single thing about July that I don't like. I love it all. I live for the heat of summer. July is my all time favorite month of the year!!
Let me describe the way I see July. Hopefully I can paint a picture in your mind of the joys of July. The sun seems to shine more brightly, possibly because it is directly overhead and not angled away like in winter. The world just seems to be brighter and happier. The flowers in all of their multitudes of colors, shapes, and smells seem to just sing out joy and happiness. There's always a hint of flower smell in the air. The trees are all green and when a breeze blows through, you can hear the leaves rustling as if they are cheering at you and telling you how awesome you are. The sky even seems to be more blue and cheerful. I love how the heat bakes the grasses and you can catch the scent of it in the air. I love to hear the sounds of lawn mowers and the smell of fresh cut grass. And I especially love the smell right after a summer rain storm. More people are out and about, neighbors going on evening walks, children playing in the park, and the smells and sounds of people having summer BBQ's. And the heat, oh, there is nothing in the world better than a sweltering hot summer day. Eating cold foods, putting on the sprinklers for the kids to run in, and going to the pool. Then there are the buzzing of the bees, evenings with the crickets chirping, and birds singing in the trees. The whole world is alive and buzzing with sounds......happy sounds. July is for t-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops.
The perfect temperature, for me, is between 85 to 90 degrees. Believe it or not, I do get hot during the summer, especially when it reaches those dog days of summer when the temperatures soar into the 100's. But you will never hear me complain about the heat. Simply for the fact that I'd rather have the 100 degree weather than the bitter, cold, freezing, temperatures of winter. So, when the days get hot I count my blessings and am thankful that at least it's not winter. I don't mind sweating my brains out. I love walking out my door and feeling like I've stepped into an oven. I love going to Raging Waters on a 100 degree day and playing in the cool water. I love going to Lagoon and enjoying the crowds of happy people, hearing the happy screams of roller coaster rides, and the smells of the food. July is for parades, fireworks, summer parties, BBQ's, picnics, camping, back yard marshmallow roasts, and trips up the canyon. July is a time to be outside in nature, enjoying all of the many wonders that our Heavenly Father has made for us. July is alive and full of life. The days are longer and full of sunshine. I love how it will be 9 at night and the sun will still be shining, giving you more time to soak in the wonderful rays of light.
Recently, we went to the zoo to see the zoo lights. It was bitter cold. I much prefer going to the zoo in summer. To give you my logic on why summer rocks, let me explain the difference between summer and winter. In the summer, if I want to take my seven kids to the zoo there isn't much to do to get ready to go. Grab some water bottles, throw on our flip-flops and out the door we go. In order to get ready to go to the zoo in the winter, that was a production to behold. We had to find good warm socks to keep our toes from freezing (and even then, our toes still froze). We had to have our winter boots, gloves, hats, scarves, something to protect our faces from the biting cold, coats, jackets, and anything else to keep us warm. It took us forever to find it all. Then, when we got in the car and turned on the heat, everyone wanted to take off all their layers. And getting ready to go out into the cold takes forever. Then there is the cost of winter.....especially for a family of our size. There are nine of us total in our family. That's nine winter coats, nine pairs of boots, nine pairs of gloves, nine hats, nine scarves, nine pairs of good warm socks......that's EXPENSIVE. What do you need for summer? Flip-flops, t-shirts, and shorts. See!! Summer RULES!! Just to give you an idea, $15.00 for a pair of boots compared to $0.99 for a pair of flip-flops!! Summer RULES!! To put it another way, I'd rather be bitten twenty times by mosquito's than have to scrape frost off the windows of my car.
July is like a month long party. Kicking off July is the 4th of July where we celebrate our freedoms. There are parades, cotton candy, carnivals, and fireworks. Then on the 24th of July, Utah celebrates the day the pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley and Brigham Young declared, "This is the place." More parades, cotton candy, carnivals, and fireworks. July is a time for families to get together for picnics, BBQ's, and family reunions. Oddly enough, the 4th July is only my second favorite holiday. The 24th of July is my fourth favorite holiday.
So, what did July 2013 hold for our family? Well, it was a very stressful month. We had a month old baby and after eight years since I had a baby, it was a time of getting back into the swing of that stage of child rearing. On July 2nd, we closed on our house. We were renting a lovely home, but the lease had only been for one year. We had spent the past seven months searching for our next residence. We were so tired of moving from place to place and we knew that our family needed stability. We were greatly blessed by our Heavenly Father to find this home. And blessed that we had the finances to be able to get into it. The timing was perfect. And what we loved was that this home was still in the same neighborhood as the home we were renting. It meant that we didn't have to move wards. We had been lead to believe that we also would not have to move schools. This house is only two houses into a different school boundary. We had talked at length with the school principal and had been told that since our children were already established in the school that it shouldn't be a problem to get the variances to stay. So, with that, we were so thrilled to think that not only would we not have to move wards, but the kids wouldn't have to move schools either.
We didn't have to be out of our rental home until the middle of August. Usually, when you move, you pack all your stuff up, move it all in one or two days, clean up the old place, and spend the rest of the time unpacking and moving into the new place. Well, we decided to break from tradition. We had six weeks to be completely out of our rental home. We decided to move slowly and take advantage of that six week window. Friends, I will NEVER do that again!! Moving is stressful no matter how you slice it, but that was the most stressful move I have ever made. There were a few reasons that we decided to do it that way. First was simply because I had a baby in June. I wasn't up to packing at all during June. Second, having a new baby means that you have to take a lot of breaks to take care of the baby. Plus I was still only a month out from having the baby and I didn't want to over do it. Then, Nathan still had his job to go to, which only left weekends and evenings where he would be available to help.
In the morning, I would get up and go to the old house. Lion Heart, Firecracker, and Tiger Lily were lifesavers for me. They would help with the baby so I could focus on the tasks ahead. I came up with a detailed list of everything that needed to be done. I also figured that I would do one room per day, with the bigger rooms taking up a couple of days. The goal was to pack up the particular room, move everything out of it, clean the room from top to bottom, load up what I could in the car, go to the new house, unload the car, and unpack those boxes. It was a really great system that worked really well, but very stressful at the same time. The problem with taking the six weeks to move was that neither home really felt like home. I felt lost. If I needed something at the new house that was at the old house, I'd have to run over and get it. And I didn't like the feeling of having my things in two different houses. I never want to move like that again. The one thing I did like about having six weeks to move is that I was able to take the time needed to really clean up the house we were renting. I wanted to leave it as nice and clean as possible and having that six weeks. allowed me to do that. I am so grateful that this new home is going to be our long term home.
We began our move on the 4th of July. That was a crazy day to start our move. We began the morning by going to the ward 4th of July breakfast. Then spent the rest of the day moving beds, dressers, clothes, and kitchen supplies. I didn't take as many pictures of the house as I would have liked to before all of our stuff got dumped everywhere. But I did get some. We managed to get the majority of the big stuff moved over and I got the kitchen unpacked. We went to a family BBQ for dinner and then hit the fireworks in the evening.
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| This is our new home. And there's my Moby truck. Now that winter is here, I really really miss that truck. |
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| This is the Front Room |
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| We moved this desk downstairs and turned this room into the Master Bedroom |
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| This is the middle floor bathroom |
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| This is the Living Room. As you can tell, we've already starting piling stuff to unpack in here. |
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| The kitchen |
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| View of the dining area from the kitchen. |
We bought the house from some people in our ward, the Evans. They left us these flowers, card, and outfit for the baby. It was so nice to walk into our new home and see this waiting for us. The card Sister Evans wrote was beautiful and brought me to tears. I'm not going to share what was said, as it is very personal. But I have put the card in a special place to keep. I hope to get as much joy from living in this home as the Evans did. I feel so blessed that we were able to move here. What is truly ironic is that months before this, when the house first went on the market, Nathan had talked to Brother Evans about the possibility of renting it. They politely declined as they really just wanted to sell. At that time, the price was too high for us to buy and we weren't sure if we wanted to buy or rent again. It's funny how everything all works out in the end. We needed to be in this home, but the timing wasn't right at that time. The timing became right when it was the right time. If that makes any sense to anyone. I do know one thing for fact, Heavenly Father's hand was in our lives guiding us the whole time.
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| I will cherish the words written in this card forever. |
July wasn't all about moving for our family, I did make a drastic change to my hair. All in all, I love the cut. I loved going blonde. The blonde was probably too blonde for me. I've come to the conclusion that I like a darker blonde or a Strawberry Blonde.
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| Before haircut and color. |
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| After hair cut and color. |
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| I just love this picture of Live Wire asleep with her little brother. |
