My Summer Vacation Report Part 3: July 28 - Now

No time to relax. There is painting to be done. We painted a mural on one wall of the boys bedroom last year. It was supposed to extend onto two walls, but we ran out of time. I was determined that it would finally be completed this summer. My mom does wonderful murals. She does all the landscapes and people and I do the brick walls. I am very good at bri and I am a perfectionist about color. I used about 27 shades of gray, maybe more. She completed the inside, but I didn't finish the stone bricks until today. I told you I'm a perfectionist. I wonder about the color of that volcano, maybe I should tweak it to a more burnt umber lava...

We also celebrated a birthday for Child #2 by going to the best place on earth - Chuck E. Cheese. We invited some good friends of ours to join us, and I used oodles of coupons for pizza and tokens. It was kind of predictable: the kids loved it, I got hoarse from trying to talk and couldn't hear what anyone else was saying, we stayed too long and the kids had a breakdown when it was time to go. We did get a pretty neat souvenier though, only one token and we actually fit six people into the picture! That took some doing.

My sister arrived on Aug. 1 for a whirlwind visit. We went to lots of thrift stores, and we all found some great treasures, especially at Nearly New at Conroe where they were having a fill a bag with clothes for $1 sale. I actually found clothes for me. That's unusual. While she was here, we found out that there was an article in the Miami Herald about her and her husband and other artists. Check it out here: http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/arts/visual-arts/story/626023.html If you look at photo gallery there are more photos of them and their art. Awesome! Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of places that we could go because it was about 100 degrees outside. Then the day before she left we had a mild tropical storm, so it was rainy all day. We all thought it was sort of funny how people were all running to Wal Mart for supplies for a tropical storm. We got dinner at PF Changs. I keep a permanant supply stockpile, so I don't panic anymore. We have a joke in south Florida about how anything less than a catogory 3 isn't worth getting out of bed for.

My husband and I got in a last date before everyone left. We tried to do something nice for our eleventh anniversary, but it turned out that there was a John Mayer concert that was clogging all the streets and restaurants. We went home and tried again the next night. That worked better. We saw the Dark Knight, which honestly, was kind of a waste of money. Total downer. I'm sure the critics thought it was a great movie, and Heath Ledger was such a good actor that you really think he's psychotic. But it was scary, depressing and demoralizing. I don't pay big bucks for a critically acclaimed movie, I pay to have fun. You know what my favorite movies this summer were? Ironman: Really FUN, Wall-E: FUN and Really heart warming. Also, Penelope on DVD, it's uplifting and funny. Okay, that's my tangent. Just wanted you to know that my husband and I wished we had gone to see a mindless, fun popcorn flick instead of Batman. Don't make the same mistake.

Also, I finally got a new crock pot last weekend! The 7 qt went on sale for $20 at Kohls, so after eight months of waiting and watching, I finally have a giant slow cooker. I am now able to cook a whole rack of ribs, a whole pork loin, a giant beef brisket or two whole chickens, not sure that will happen, but still, it's nice to know that I can if I want to. I am finally catching up on laundry and house cleaning, and Child #3 has been teething (molars!). Back to work! I am still not getting enough sleep though because my husband and I are currently reading Breaking Dawn. It's 750 pages long and we're not even halfway through it. I don't mind though, I love Stephenie Meyers books.

July's progress report is coming soon, just a little late :)