What a Month!

Wow! What a month July has been for us. First of all we celebrated Madi's 9th Birthday on July 1st. Then we had the 4th that started on the 3rd and finally ended on the 5th. The 5th Sami & I went to Mom's to help her out while she had shoulder surgery. Mom had her surgery on Tues the 6th. It went really good and she is healing really fast. I then proceeded to play Farmer. I flooded the pasture, watered the garden & flower beds, fed the cows, waited on mom and took care of a 2 month old. It was wonderful. I loved being outdoors in the comfortable weather getting back to my roots. While Sami & I were gone, Kelly & the big girls hung out at home, went fishing, swimming, and painted the garage floor. I think they were as busy as I was. On Monday the 12th, I headed back home to do laundry and help get Kelly ready for his trip to San Diego. Wednesday the 14th I took Kelly to the airport at 8:30 am, then Sami had her 2 month well child check up at 11:30. She ended up getting 3 shots and an oral vaccination. Not fun!!!!! I then came home and got the rest of the laundry done and repacked me & the kids and headed back up to Idaho to spend the rest of the week. On Friday, I went and got my niece and nephew to come and hang out with the girls for the day. They had such a blast. On Saturday, my sis in law Teresa, mom, me, Sami, Madi, Jesi, & my niece Allie all went for a supposed 3 hour drive to look at a camp site we wanted to check out for next years family reunion. Teresa got directions from Google so we thought this would be a quick trip down and back. NOT!!! Google was totally off. We ended up in the totally wrong place. We asked the locals for directions and found out we were on the wrong side of the mountain. So we headed back out and 2 hours later finally found where we needed to be. We decided the campsite was a bust and started heading home. With the help of some more locals, we found a faster way to get home. YEAH!!! On the drive back home, I looked up the road and saw something big and black run across the road and jump over some railroad tracks. My brain started going through every animal I could think of that was about that size trying to figure out what it was. I was thinking maybe a cow or a large dog. BUT NO!! IT WAS A REAL LIVE WILD BLACK BEAR!!!!! It was so awesome. We stopped on the side of the road where I had seen it cross and found it out in a field. It stopped and looked at us then ran off into the trees back up the mountain. There were about 5 cars that passed us and then stopped and turned around and came back to see what we were looking at. It was so cool. Did I say that already? The kids loved seeing the bear. He was so cute. He was maybe 400 - 500 pounds, so not very big....... After we got back into town, I went over to my Grandpa's and picked Strawberries. My legs and back hurt so bad by the time I was done my legs were shaking and I had to lay down until they stopped. But it was worth it. Tomorrow I'm going to make strawberry jam. Yummy! Then on Sunday we headed home and then to the airport to pick up Kelly. We are all glad to be back home. But we really enjoyed our adventures. I hope the rest of the month is as fun as the first part was......We have an ortho appt this week, then start swimming lessons the next week. And we cant forget my birthday!!! Then my family is coming down here on the 30th to spend the weekend playing. We are then blessing Sami on August 1st. Wow what a month. i think by the 2nd we are all going to pass out and sleep for a week. :) But oh what fun.