The Times and Adventures of Winnie P. Winifred

She's a busy bird. 

The boys are back in town

The brothers are together. The Cubs are playing the Royals this weekend and so they have been doing nothing but play golf, eat good food, and watch baseball together. We haven't seen any of them at all. Which means they are just too busy having a great time!

 

She's a beaut

Mark has fixed our old oven at least half a dozen times, replacing the heating element, patching corroded spots in the pipes, lighting the front burner by turning the gas on then using the back burner to spark it. 

It finally just wasn't worth fixing. 

So we began the search for a new oven. We had a few "mishaps". 

1. Mark bought one online and told me it would be delivered by the weekend. I mentioned I was hoping to be a part of picking it out. He felt bad and returned it. 

2. We drove an hour and a half for a Facebook marketplace find that turned out to be NASTY. 

3. We drove to a scratch and dent place, almost bought a gas/electric double oven before we realized that we didn't even have the right outlet to support the electric part. OY!

4. We talked to Andy to see if we could wire in the outlet. He said we could, but it would take some demolition. 

5. I resigned myself to the fact that a double oven wasn't doable. A new oven would still be great. So we drove out to a different scratch and dent place and asked to look at their single gas ovens. He wanted to show us the doubles as well. We explained that we didn't have the right set up for double ovens because of the dual source issue. He explained that there are other double ovens that are single source, both gas!

6. And two weeks after the old oven died, we bought this beautiful double gas oven! Well worth the wait. 

Side Hustle Summer

Megan currently has 3 jobs...MOD pizza, Midwest Alliance and Silas and Maddies ice cream parlor. 

Naturally, we had to go in at the most inconvenient time to see Megan in action!

Les Poison

My coworker, Alex, was in Little Mermaid at the White Theater. He played Chef Louis and a slew of other characters in the chorus. 

It was the best!

 I think I am bringing the average age of this group waaaay up. Aren't they cute kids?

Monster Games

Mark and I volunteered to judge at the Monster Games. Actually, for me, it was a little bit of an accident. I marked that I would be willing to judge, but assumed they would assign me to other tasks. 

That isn't what happened.

I also assumed that we would judge in shifts, reasonable stretches of time. 

That isn't what happened. 

We judged all day, everyday. 

It was exhausting and fun and totally nuts. We both learned a lot and we got to spend 4 days with some of our favorite people. 

We got some great exposure for the gym and made some pretty cool contacts with other gym owners and athletes. I felt out of place, but I learned a lot and I was proud of myself for stepping up and doing something out of my comfort zone. 

It was funny to show up on other people's social media.

We'd definitely do it again next year!

But first, we nap.

AJ goes to FSY

 A few fun facts about AJ's FSY week!

1. I was not at all convinced that she would ever get packed. She stayed up all night before we left. She would not open her door or let me help at all. 

2. She did, in fact, finally get packed and we made it there with just a few minutes to spare. I played it cool and pretended like I haven't dropped off all the other kids at least 3 hours early. I am currently an expert at "rollin with it", a black-belt in emotional chillness.

3. We grabbed some lunch and headed to Warrensburg. She met up with her roommate and we made the bed, unpacked the snacks and I said goodbye!

4. She asked me to come pick her up every morning. That was prime time for homesickness. I was working or busy and couldn't come right away, so by the time I was available, she was over it and chose to stay. I may or may not have made up a few reasons why I could not respond immediately. I just knew in my heart that she would be glad she stayed. 

5. She had the best time. She was learning and taking notes, making friends and having heart-shaping, testimony building experiences. 

6. I'm so glad she decided to go and found the strength to stay! It was an awesome week!

A spot for the whole family

Look what Mark found!

He not only found it, he haggled it down to 1000 dollars and he and Meg managed to get it home in just two trips. 

It was huge. Wall to wall huge. So he put one section upstairs in our room, moved the blue chair to the office and the old furniture is off to Savers. 

Whoever buys that furniture will get lots of extra prizes stuck under the springs! 

SBL: Cousin Time and Sabbath Rockets

Jordan and his family stopped over on their way to Nauvoo. It's been a while since they were last here. In fact, I don't think little Mac or Indie had been born yet!

We loved having little ones in the house again. 

Our train tracks have been sadly neglected.  Mac was happy to dust them off. 

Mark always brings the cool factor with a jam sesh.

We grilled up some pepperjack jalapeno burgers

and Mac enjoyed playing in our "park"

We decided we would do our Rockets and Shakes tradition while the cousins were in town. Andy built a special rocket...a double decker...just for the occasion. Mark and I went to the Hobby Yobby yesterday and picked out two rockets that took zero work. 

The first rockets were launched! The scramble ensued! Andy's rocket fired its first engine!

And then riiiight as it topped off and turned to it's descent, the second engine fired and it launched itself violently into the ground. 

Remember how long that was? It's buried at least a foot. 

We spent a couple hours launching the rockets and letting everyone try to catch one. 

Since it was Sunday, we skipped Freddy's and had everyone bring a favorite ice cream flavor to share.