July- In the Blink of an Eye!

Well, July passed us by in the blink of an eye. It was a super busy month full of lots of activities, summer fun and mostly, getting ready for the big trip to Nationals in Vegas at the end of the month. Lem finished up summer school and had almost a week off before we left. I'm so thankful he had that time off- I don't know how I ever would have gotten all my pre-pageant errands done without him home to help with the girls. Lem also played his last :( softball games for the season. Sycely wrapped up her summer session (Nutcracker Primer) at ballet school. I did a few Mrs. AK appearances (you can read all about those details on my Mrs. AK blog at http://www.mrsak2010.blogspot.com/) and was planning both the girls' birthday parties and finishing up plans for the Governor's Picnic, along with all my prepping for the big trip to Vegas, including trying to get swimsuit ready working out 5-6 days a week. I highly recommend the 30 day shred with Jillian Michaels if you're looking for a gooda t home DVD.

We were able to join Treeline Construction (a family from church owns this business) along with several family friends from church and their kiddos on a float in the Anchorage 4th of July parade. It was nice to get to combine a public appearance with family fun. The girls were decked out in their finest red, white and blue and had lots of fun waving their flags and waving to the crows. Ella was super cute, mostly focused on greeting DOGS with a "Happy 4th of July, Puppy" shout-out as we made our way along the downtown parade route. Lem brought Ella home for her nap and Sycely and I grabbed an on-the-go lunch and hit the highway, heading out to Chugiak for the parade out there. She was pretty stoked to get to ride in a horse-drawn carriage with Mommy and the other princesses :)


That's about the time we found out we'd scheduled our flight to Vegas on the wrong day and had to change our reservations to fly a day earlier, and thus began the list of pre-Vegas hurdles which included my alterations not being able to get done and being sent to a second alterationist and getting my wardrobe finished just 3 days before leaving, my pageant swimsuit being shipped to our old address and having to track that down, Lem's tux not being ready for pick up, not being able to find Ella's birth certificate, not having a ride to the airport, and not being able to find any dang gold earrings in this town to go with my evening gown! By God's unfailing grace we got through all that and evenutally made it to the airport with no loose ends, and boy, did we sigh a HUGE sigh of relief once we were sitting on the plane (it helped that the girls did amazingly well on our flights!)

In the midst of all that we were trying to work in some actual family summer. We made a couple trips to Bouncin' Bears, did some bbqing, birthday parties, some swimming and some biking. In the midst of all that I was putting in extra time at the rink prepping for the Bear Paw competition held in mid-July in Eagle River. Talk about wearing many hats; I did the Bear Paw parade that morning as Mrs. AK then headed straight to the rink to coach at the competition, meanwhile Lem was taking the girls to a birthday party and trying to sort out the great alteration fiasco of 2010 for me.

We were also blessed to receive a FREE piano. A family friend knew someone who was moving out of state and was looking to just give her piano away so she mentioned us. We had to pay to have it moved which wasn't too bad and it'll need to be tuned, but who can beat FREE anything these days?! So the girls have enjoyed plunking away on the keys and like to dance as Mommy plays some good ol' favorites from her gigantic book of Disney hits. It should be fun for the girls to start learning and exploring music even more.

The rest of our July pretty much consisted of our trip to Vegas and Ella's birthday which of course, both deserve their own entry, so...read on :)