It's been a crazy few weeks. Here's a recap... (I know that you may not have time to read all of it so the italicized part will give you the just of it)

Grandpa & Grandma P came to visit. We went to Schnepf Farms for the first time. Everyone had a blast. There was a petting zoo so they got to get up close and personal with some billy goats. Luckily Daddy and Grandma P don't mind getting dirty and went in with them. (There's no way you would catch mommy in there with those dirty, stinky animals. Yuck!) We then ventured over to the peach orchards to pick us some peaches. As we were walking we forgot that Sammy's little legs don't walk quite as quickly as ours do. After we noticing we were a man down, we turned around and saw him way in the distance. He was walking along with no care in the world. Poor punky doodles.

Summer has arrived! We survived our first 110 degree day for this year. We broke record highs 2 days in a row, and then it dropped down to the mid-70's. It was nice to see it cool off so I could catch a picture of our cactus flowers. We got lots of rain the next 2 days. I let the boys play and ride their bikes in the rain and Daddy, being the good Daddy that he is, taught them how to jump and splash in the gutter water. (Again, something that you won't find mommy encouraging) Gabriel, Sam, and Daddy built a rock dam and raced leaves to see whose leaf was faster. Nathaniel opted to cry at the top of his lungs because, "everyone is using my river rocks and that makes me very sad!"

Nathaniel turned 5 yesterday. He is very excited because that means that he only has to wait 2 more months before school starts. (Previously the requirements were waiting until July AND having to be 5 years old. "I'm 5 now so that means I'm almost in school!") Which reminds me about his kindergarten testing. For those who have already heard this story, skip the next 2 paragraphs.

Nathaniel completed his kindergarten testing. The school tests each kid to get an idea of where each child is. When we got there, 1 kid was already testing. A teacher immediately took Nate back while the other 3 boys and I waited. A few more kids arrived after us. One by one the kids would come out with their testing teacher having completed their test. The teacher held their hand and walked them over to their parent. The teacher would ask them, "what do you tell them?" Every kid was hesitant and would keep their head down and say, "umm, ahh, umm... I don't know." The teacher would ask them again and after the same response, the teacher would say, "(so-n-so) is ready for kindergarten!" The teacher would advise each parent of what the student needed to work on over the summer.... "she doesn't know all her colors and shapes", "he needs some work on recognizing his numbers and letters", etc. Meanwhile, Nate still hadn't come out and people who came in after us were already leaving. I started to get a bit worried.

A minute later I see the door fly open. Nate was running out, stopped to turn around to say, "Bye. Thank you!" He came over with a big smile and says, "Mom, that teacher told me that I'm really smart and that I'm coming to kindergarten." I smiled. (like they didn't tell the other kids that, right?) The teacher then came out and said that he did a really good job. I asked what he struggled with and what we needed to work with him on. She paused, thought for a little while, and then said, "well..... he sometimes grips his pencil the wrong way. So I guess you could work with him on that." Despite his occasional improper pencil holding, my big boy will be starting school.

Our good friends put their house up for sale. They moved to Utah in 2006 and have since decided to stay up there and sell their house here. I have offered my services to make sure that even though they aren't here, somebody will make sure everything gets taken care of.

I got my first ticket. I thought I was off the hook until I went to check our mail and SURPRISE! Here's a ticket and your pretty little picture the camera at the intersection snapped of the incident. Had the front tires been 6 inches further into the intersection I would have been fine, but that wasn't the case.

E started riding his bike to work. We purposely bought our house in the area that we're at, knowing that if something ever happened, we wouldn't be that far from his work. A few days before Mother's Day, I was on my way home from shopping and noticed and strange noise coming from the car. E drove it and heard the same thing. Our neighbor owns his own auto shop so we talked to him and he said that he would have to take it out to his shop to determine exactly what it was. No big deal- his work is 3.5 miles away, gas is a million dollars a gallon, and he has been wanting to be more physically active. What better opportunity? Which is cool until...

E's bike chain broke. He was on his way home, in the middle of a busy intersection, he was peddling but not moving. He was 20 minutes later than usual when (the boys and are were outside playing and) I see him turn the corner pushing his bike. I couldn't help but laugh because (1) I'm a mean wife like that and find stuff such as this amusing, (2) a guy E's size pushing a bike is already funny, and (3) I thought that he was kidding at first.

Our van sucks! I know, not a big surprise. After the bike chain broke and we didn't have the right tool to fix it that night, I went and dropped E off at work. When the boys and I got home, they really wanted to ride bikes and play in the front. I decided to multi-task and clean the van out while they were playing. Once I got everything out, I couldn't help but to complete the job by vacuuming it out. I moved the drivers seat forward to vacuum behind and underneath it, went to go move it back and nothing. The seat will recline, lift and lower, go forward, but not backward. This may be convenient if we were small people with short legs but we're the exact opposite. I tried to maneuver my way into the seat without success. I would have personally drove that piece of junk to the dump had I'd been able to drive it. (Heavenly Father was definitely looking out for me!) Our friends down the street came over to look at it. (Him: Is E at work? Me: Yes, he's gone until late tonight. Him: Why is his car still out front? Me: The guy hasn't had a chance to fix it yet. Him: Oh, that's right, he's riding his bike now. Why didn't he ride his bike today? Me: {trying desperately to not break down crying in front of him while pointing to the corner where the pathetic bike laid, chain dangling still dangling} Did I mention that's broke too? Him: Are you going to pick him up tonight? Me: Did I mention the seat is broken and I can't drive it?) He was gracious enough to educate E on how to uninstall/reinstall a seat from a van so it's all better. It no longer goes forward or backward but that's ok, at least we can drive it again.

We have things to break. After our fiasco, our eyes have been opened to realize that at least we have things that can break. There was a time when we only had 1 car. There was a time when we didn't live 3.5 miles from work. There was a time when we were broke and couldn't afford to get things fixed. We have been very blessed and fortunate to be able to have the "nice things" that can break on us, as well as the means to be able to repair them. Of course this realization came during God's joke when I wasn't so happy that he was getting a good laugh but I can now be grateful.

I let the boys go wild with fingerpaints. Not a big deal to you, but a huge step in me overcoming my OCD tendencies. Things have to be a certain way and messy hands are definitely not within the parameters of those certain ways. So long as they didn't have clothes on while painting, they could do whatever they wanted so long as they headed straight for the tub immediately following. Nate decided to put his hand prints all over his body. Gabriel wanted to smear paint wherever he could reach. Sammy couldn't figure out why the paint would transfer to whatever he touched. He scratched his ear, it smeared off, he wiped his face, it smeared off. He drove him crazy. In the end, they had lots of fun.