I can't believe July is almost over. It has seriously flown by, and we've done a lot of really fun things. It's been a fun summer, but, as usual, much too short. 

This last week was spent in mainly getting ready for starting school with the kids soon. We spent more time at home this week, the kids just playing with each other, the girls reading a bunch, and me researching school curricula and ordering books and things. We went school supplies shopping one day and got almost everything we needed. We'll finish our school shopping this week. 

Tucker had his neutering appointment on Wednesday, and we watched a friend's dog for the weekend (bad timing, with the neutering). Tucker seemed totally fine after his surgery, maybe a little too fine, since we've had to force him to take it easy and not play too hard. 

One night, Pippin, the dog we were watching, was outside when the Smiths started shooting off fireworks in their backyard. He must've been terrified, and we went to bring him inside, like 5 or 10 minutes later, and he was completely gone. The girls and I searched for him for probably half an hour, in the backyard, and then I put them to bed. I kept looking for him and stayed up later, to keep an eye out for him, but he never came back. I said a very fervent prayer for his safety that night, and that we'd find him. And then I went to bed. The next morning, he still wasn't around, so I got dressed for my workout and then walked over to our neighbor's house, to see if he'd gone home, and there he was, on the porch, whining and howling. I was so grateful. I think the Holy Ghost whispered to me to check at their house that morning, probably right at the moment when he was there (Daniel had checked the house much earlier in the morning on his way out to a hike, and Pippin wasn't there). I'm so thankful for the gift of the Holy Ghost! It was quite an adventure. 

Daniel hiked Lone Peak on Saturday. He got up at like 3:30 in the morning and went with a couple of coworkers. He was gone until mid afternoon, and he said he was absolutely beat, that it was a really hard hike. 

The kids and I did our own hike, out to the Bear Canyon Suspension Bridge. There was a lot of whining and complaining on the way up (which annoyed me greatly, and I admit to being somewhat unkind about it), and then they were totally fine after we hit the bridge and started heading down. 2 miles, a little over an hour. It was fun! 

Then we headed home for a little bit of chores, and showering. And then! We had an unbirthday party! It's one of the things we had on our summer bucket list. It was so fun! When we were out shopping this week, we got some supplies for it. We played "don't eat Pete," played keepy uppy with balloons, danced, opened presents that we'd gotten for each other, ate cake, sang "a very merry unbirthday to you," and watched Alice in Wonderland. It was a wonderful unbirthday party! 

Last night we did a fire and tinfoil dinners, which is always a hit at our house. We also did s'mores and roasted marshmallows. I also talked to my dad for an hour yesterday afternoon. 

July has been a good month, a nice little break for my calling. I still did some visits and self reliance stuff. But I liked not having meetings. And yesterday I declared it a real day of rest, even from visits and calling stuff. I took a nap and ate and hung out with my kids and Daniel and read my scriptures. It was lovely. 

I've been playing outside in the evenings with the kids, throwing balls around and pushing Sawyer on the swing. The evenings have been warm, but so nice. 

I went to the temple one day. Finally. I feel like it's been a couple months since I went to the temple. It was very nice to be there. 

We had a movie day with our friends and watched IF. It was cute, but the younger kids were less interested. It was definitely a bigger kid movie. We had fun, though.