Circus, Pizza, and Zucchini

August was a little less busy. It’s so beautiful here in California, though.  We spend a lot of time outside, taking walks to the library, and spending hours on the swing. Maggie loves to play with the plastic Easter eggs. Since she discovered that she could take them apart and put them together again, she has enjoyed doing so.  This time was a little different though, she discovered that the egg halves fit perfectly over her toes! Funny girl.  So, you can tell by now that we love Jon and Jenna.  We are with them at least every Wednesday, when we bring our laundry over, make a new delicious dinner usually followed by a fantastic dessert and the boys go play basketball with Jon’s ward.  And we’re often together on the weekends as well.  It’s truly wonderful to have family close by!

So at the beginning of August we turned one of those nights into a late girls night with Tiffany and Becky, two darling girls from Jenna’s ward. Tiffany brought some fabulous cheesecake and sparkling limade for us to enjoy and we experimented with making felt flowers. Lots of fun all around, and Jon was very jealous of our cheesecake. There was a weekend that J and J were in Utah. Luckily we do have other friends! I know, amazing. James had found free tickets to the Circus Vargas and invited us to join their family. Neither James or I had ever been to a circus, so it was a real treat for us!  There were trapeze artists, crazy flexible girls, a man who balanced a shopping cart, a table, and a ladder on his chin, 6 awesome acrobat pirates, a man who defied gravity walking around the twirling pendulum – the Ring of Destiny, and a family, mom, dad, and 9 year old kid that did the crazy motorcycle in a ball cage thing. At one point when the mom and dad where in the top and bottom separated from the cage, leaving them driving horizontally in a 3 foot ring! It was so awesome! It was a surprise for Monica though she guess it on the ride over, Kim’s favorite part was the lemonade we bought because it was so dang hot in that tent and Maggie had such a good time she fell asleep. Yea, still trying to figure out how to make the circus fun for a blind kid. She liked some of the music, and I talked to her about what was happening.  It’s just not the same though. We had a lot of fun. I love the circus!! Thanks James! More fun times with Jon, Jenna and kiddos! There was a Zucchini Festival at the park a half block from our house! Me liking festivals, and Jenna liking zucchini, while the boys like neither, went by ourselves with Katelyn in tow. Plus it was $6 to get in. Lame. They went back to our house and played the Kinect, but not before we got a picture! There were such beautiful things there! A fun dress shop, tons of jewlery. My favorites though, were how popular feathers are now. Earrings, hair clips, even extensions! I really want to do that. Jenna and I ended up buying some sweet beaded belts for super cheap. After we had looked to our hearts content, and purchased none of the ridiculously priced zucchini, we used Jon’s corporate perks coupon and went to Straw Hat Pizza. Each of the kids had a small melt down while we were there, but it all ended in smiles, and the pizza was dang good, though too expensive. And we end the August review with a glance at what Maggie accomplishes around the house. She loves shredding mail, or really any paper she can get her hands on. I think we’ve pretty much established now that she only gets to rip Maggie’s mail, after she tore up an apartment application. Which happened a few hours after I commented that she was going to end up ripping up something important. Sigh. We also have the pleasure cleaning up after a little girl who loves the sound of food hitting the floor. She sits in her high chair and giggling says, “No throw food on the floor!” as she throws food on the floor. I hate sweeping. That’s my life though, and she makes it interesting for sure. I love my little family. We have a lot of fun together.