The sunsets have been amazing...lighting up the skies.

I am not a 'fad' kind of person, so when I initially heard about Pokemon Go I rolled my eyes. However, after seeing more of it, I decided to download it and try to get out with the boys more. So far, we have had a lot of fun with it. I still can't fully wrap my head about how the technology works, but the creators have created a gold mine.

Trying out the motorized raft...it works!

JR took the boys to the stock car races one night.

More of the same here...lazy summer days.  Some of the boys will sleep until 10, so have decided to wake them all up when the first one gets up.  The average wake up time is 9:15.  That leaves me about 2.5-3 hours of quiet!!!  I love my early mornings.

Joseph finally lost a top tooth. He was so excited to have lost his third tooth!

We frequented the pond again with some other friends. The other friends had some stand up paddleboards. Of course Jacob took to it quickly.

My rip-sticker. He cracked me up in his blue....I did not get a picture of the knee height bright blue socks with his pictured attire.

We met some friends recently at this pond.  We took the boys' bikes, along with a picnic.  Jacob swam across the pond and back. I was a little nervous, but he did awesome.

Another quiet week, minus hooking up with our friends.  A quiet weekend too.  Jacob is going away to the cabin.  I want to get out with the other 2, but love hanging at home, where it is a little cooler.  I am thankful for our middle unit townhouse on these hot summer days.  It has been in the 90s and we have no air conditioner, yet pretty comfortable, especially inside.

We have about 5 more weeks of summer.  I have already purchased all of our school supplies.  For those without kids, it is amazing what parents supply these days.  They requested 36 pencils for first graders.  That is one pencil a week!  School supplies usually cost me close to 70-80 bucks a year!  Then we have to replenish snacks throughout the school year.  At least it is done...shopping for school supplies causes me such angst because it is a madhouse in the stores just before school starts.

Jacob recently went to the orthodontist for a check up.  His expansion is coming along and hopefully they can put braces on him soon to bring all his teeth into alignment.  He by far was the worst.  Usually when he loses a tooth, the permanent tooth has already started coming in and is behind all the other teeth.

I also talked with the doctor about Benjamin.  He has been seeing his currently ortho (a different one) for 4 years and we are on phase 1!  Jacob's ortho has indicated that the gear in Ben's mouth should have been removed a long time ago and permanent retainers put in while waiting for teeth to come in.  I am considering switching Benjamin to Jacob's ortho.

JR has hired two very part time employees.  We took the plunge and hopefully it will be a good fit.  Both employees are as needed, so that is nice that we don't have to guarantee them a certain amount of hours.  The business is slow and steady in its' growth.

Pictures from our summer days!

We have recently acquired two rafts.  One was bought really cheap from a friend and the other one is a bigger raft with a motor that JR had been eyeing for a while and finally bought.  We took the smaller one out recently.  Perfect size for the boys to handle.

One of JR's clients loves jazz music and particularly a local jazz band.  So, he hired the band to come play at a party and JR and I were invited.  It was nice to meet some of his clients and get out and enjoy some awesome music.  It was a little chilly and we got some cold rain towards the end of the evening.

Not a bad spot to listen to jazz music and eat some great food!

Some Texas friends were in town recently and I drove over on Sunday to meet them.  It was a beautiful day and loved the drive.

More lazy summer days at home this week!.  We are driving over today to meet my friends again and the boys and I will probably set up a tent and spend the night.  The days are low 90s but the nights get into the low 50s!

The other day, the cows in the field behind our house were very close.  Here are some pictures that Jacob took...they were probably 1-2 feet away.  Thankful there was a fence between them and my boys.

Joseph really wanted a bubble bath the other day.  He discovered shampoo works well too!  I don't even want to know how much of the bottle he used to get this many bubbles.

I think I do pretty well embracing the chaos and noise of my boys.  I really struggle with the mess of the boys.  So, I am trying to be more proactive in letting them make messes.  Jacob used my drill to drill some pieces of wood together.  Then I pulled out the paint and let them paint.  Never mind that I forgot to tell Jacob how to clean the paintbrush.  He used the bathroom sink and managed to splatter paint all over the place, and we have not been very successful at getting it off.  Oh well, the bathroom needs to be painted.  I made sure to show this guy the proper way to clean a paintbrush.

Been pretty quiet around here.  We have had cooler weather.  It actually lightly snowed the day we got back to Montana.  The boys have been playing with friends outside.  JR is working hard and staying busy.  I have been getting things back in order!

We are back home.  We drove it in just over 48 hours.  We spent our first night in the Madison, WI area with some friends.  The second night we were hoping to get to Dickinson, ND, but a huge thunderstorm was hitting Bismarck as we approached.  We decided to play it safe and stop there.  No troubles on the way home!!

Lots and lots of pictures from our time in Ohio.  We stayed several nights in a hotel over the wedding weekend.  The boys enjoyed the pool

We spent some time at the community pool down the street from my sister's house.  (The boys in total got about 12 hours in the water on the whole trip)

The high dive was one of the favorites.  Joseph is now tall enough for all the slides too!

The cousins had some noodle wars.

Played lots of ping pong (this is Scott's oldest, Kendall, with Joseph)

All the cousins had the traditional Malley's outing with Granny.

The boys got to try on Uncle Mike's helmet from the Air Force.

The boys loved hanging out in Uncle Mike's man cave.

We attended a local July 4th carnival.  The first ride Joseph got on was this one.  I was somewhat surprised he agreed to ride it.  He rode by himself and it went around in circles.  Once he got off he said he would never ride it again!

Some bumper cars!

Rides (Ben and Kelly's third daughter, Kolby)

Carnival games...he won a basketball.

Carousel

After the wedding, my brother in law's family stayed a few extra days.  They had a mean corn hole tournament (on far left) and hung out on the 4th.

The day after the fireworks we headed to Sandusky, OH.  They had a house a few blocks from Lake Erie.  Here was the view of Cedar Point Amusement Park.

This was the roof top deck of the house.  It was the top floor of a building that was converted into a 'house'.  It was 7500 square feet and the kids loved it.

Rooftop sunset.

Here was the gym and movie room.

The kitchen and living room area.  I loved all of the windows.

One day we headed to the lake and Uncle Mike brought his boat over for tubing.  It was really shallow far out, so we had to walk to the boat.

Everyone was impressed with the deep hole this kid and company dug.

Our shady spot on the beach.

One day we hit the amusement park, Cedar Point.  I don't know why, but none of the boys really got into the rides that day.  It was a lot of walking around hot!

We had crockpot meals on the way back.

Benjamin was a great co-pilot for all 3,812 miles.  This guy loved to clean the windows.

And Jacob was my oil checker.

Another successful road trip!  Time to start saving for summer 2017 ~ no idea where that might take us.