summer happenings

This summer has gone so fast. I can't believe it! We have been busy with travelling, swimming in the pool, doing the estate sale, and moving our stuff into the house.

Elsie was doing really well in the pool this summer and really seemed to be liking it. We'd put her in a little floatie ring and push her around the pool. When she got sick of that, we would put her in a big floatie that would kind of fill up with water and let her play around in that. She had a bit more freedom to move that way. Well, it all went downhill when we decided to see what she would do if we got her face underwater. It was both of our faults...ever since then, she has really disliked being in the pool. She loves to walk around the pool and watch other people in it, but she just gets super grumpy when we take her in. I'm hoping she'll forget about it by next summer. Until then, we'll have to keep her busy doing something else.These were the days when she was still happy in the pool. Now those days are gone. So sad!

As I posted earlier (and then posted a video), Elsie is a walking machine. She has been so happy and adventurous now that she is walking. Just over the last few days, she's getting a lot more daring and climbing up onto things. Now, keep in mind these are not real tall objects...have you seen her short, little legs?! When she walks, she looks like a little munchkin. I can hardly stand how cute it is!
No, Elsie did not go to Mardi Gras! A few weeks ago I bought these bead necklaces at the drug store because I noticed she loved the beads at Grandma Wise's house. Well, these were the best purchase I've ever made. She can play with them for hours! We play all sorts of games with them. She loves to take them on and off and carry them around the house. The other day we played this game where I would sing "pretty beads, pretty beads..." (keep in mind, I can't sing and it was some made up tune) and would drop the beads on the floor as she laughed and laughed. Then she would bring each one to me (she concentrated so hard to bend down and pick them up) and we'd start all over. Good times! The highlight of our last month was a little trip over to Bellevue/Seattle that the three of us just took this past weekend. The weather was perfect (in the 70's), we ate tons of good food (don't get much variety here in ML), shopped (all we bought were sunglasses...but that was exciting for us), and did a little touristy stop at the Pike Place Market and the Seattle waterfront (Aaron had never been down there before). Elsie's favorite part was when we let her out of the stroller to explore. She loved being outside, like usual, and was fascinated the birds. We kept trying to feed them to get them to come closer to her, but she wasn't really wanting them to get too close. She would just step away.
Poses like this make me realize that she's really growing up. She just looks like a little girl to me...not my baby!
We spent most of the afternoon in Seattle, so Elsie missed her nap. She fell asleep within seconds of getting in the car for the drive home. What a great face to look at!

Well, the estate sale went really well. It was a ton of work, but we managed to get it done and sold most of the things we were wanting to. The worst part of the weekend was that we had to then move our stuff out of the basement of David's office building and into the house. Aaron and Jared worked their butts off getting it all done. I felt so bad for them! Well, mostly Jared...I tried to get Aaron to get more help, but that didn't happen. We still have all sorts of boxes around the house that need to get organized and put away. I went really strong for the first few days, but my enthusiasm has dwindled. We got the dishes out, and that's all that was extremely important.

It's hard to think that we'll be doing this all again in just a couple of months, but we are going to have to. We made a decision to move back to Nampa since our house hasn't sold. It was a tough decision to have to come to, but we had to make up our minds and just do something about it. We've been waiting and waiting for months, and nothing is happening. When we drove through our neighborhood on a trip back from UT, we realized that the market is even worse then we thought and they are still building in our subdivision. None of the existing homes are selling at all. We feel good about our decision. Things have definetely changed over the last couple months and our view of where we need to be and want to be doing have changed! We don't see Nampa as being our final stopping point in life. Aaron really wants to go back to UT, and I finally feel like I'm finally in a place where I can support that and go for it. We'll see how it all plays out and what the timing of it all is...as for now, we'll be heading back to Nampa sometime in October.

I have been having a lot of trouble the last while getting my mind and self to a happy place. I feel like I've worked through some things that have been causing me a lot of stress and anxiety, but I miss feeling happy. I know I'm the only one that can make that happen, it's just hard. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has ever felt this way. I just wanted to explain where I've been.