InstaFriday - Life As Usual

While family was here last week, it kinda felt like we were on vacation too!  So with the return of everyone to their homes, we returned to life as usual or as normal as possible anyway!

 Before life went back to normal though, we did get a few more days with the family!  Chad took the day off on Friday and we headed to the water park at my parents place (the kids spent the night Thursday night and just about every other night they could)!  Lola conquered the water slide and grandpa held on to both Ava and Kyan as the big dipper splashed down!  We enjoyed dinner on the golf course together.  The kids favorite part, as always, is to play on the green (no one is golfing usually - it is the driving range/putting green section).  They were very into playing freeze tag at one point and I was able to snap a picture of all four of them frozen, before the music (me) started up again!  It was a perfect day!

 Saturday morning I headed back up to my parents to hang out with my brother and his family for a few hours before they headed to in-laws for the night.  When I got there, Lola was playing with the Barbie and horse again.  She had been glued to that thing the entire trip!  It was a very emotional goodbye when it came time to say goodbye to Joel.  Lots and lots of tears were shed and promises this time were made to stay in touch.  Miss them lots already!  To take our minds off the goodbye, we headed back into the pool, where grandpa became a mermaid, after Lola taught him just how mermaids are!  She was Ariel, he became Jeriel!  It was adorable and my dad has the most patience in the world when it comes to his grandbabies!  He would seriously do anything for them!  After our swim, it was time to get the house in order and drive my parents to the airport.  Lola went with, as Kyan and daddy headed to the Diamondbacks game together.  Lola always wants to go to the airport and every time we pull away, she starts sobbing.  It is so sad.  Usually it takes her until we are half way home to get her to stop and this time it took just about as long.  Poor thing.  When we got home, we headed out for our walk in her new jogging stroller, courtesy of grandpa!  After our walk I asked Lola what she wanted for dinner and she begged for Ah-So!  That's my girl!  Her favorite thing to do is dip the shrimp into their soup!  And she isn't bad with chop sticks either!  We snuggled on the couch until the boys got home!

 Sunday was a day of rest, with Kyan sleeping in until almost 10am!  He was catching up on all of the late nights from the week before!  We hung out by the pool and I even got some alone time out there and enjoyed my book (Have you read the Divergent Series?  I finished book two this week- there are three and the next one doesn't come out until next year, boo...but they are so good!  If you liked Hunger Games, you should read them)!  Went for a walk with one of my former students that lives in the neighborhood!  It was very nice to catch up with Emily and she hung with me the entire time and got in some online PE hours!  I got a knock-off brand Camelbak and it seemed to do the trick pretty well, but had some issues with it staying cold!  With quite a few suggestions, I think I have it figured out!

 Monday began my crafting week!  I have a lot of stuff I want to get done for my classroom, so I started on a bunch of projects, including my pencil sundail welcome wreath!  I had a few visitors run errands with me before I walked (they swore next time to bring their walking shoes and not TOMS and flip-flops)!  It was hooooooooot out, and I felt all 111 degrees.  Ewwwwwww.  When I came home, Kyan was teaching Lola how to play Crazy 8's!  It was the sweetest thing ever!

 Tuesday I was feeling the effects of the cold I got from my daughter and I skipped walking.  I probably should have tried to sweat some of it out, but I just couldn't do it.  Instead, I cooked, well, I threw some yummy stuff in the crock pot and it did it's thing, while I crafted some more!  After eating some Hawaiian BBQ Pulled Chicken (click here if you want the recipe, and trust me you want to try this, so delicious)!  Lola wanted to go for a little dip in the pool before bed, so I took it as a perfect opportunity to sneak in a few pages of reading while she swam!

 Stayed up way too late reading and got up way to early to read, but I'm telling you I got sucked in to the book.  Finished my wreath for the classroom and can't wait to put it up next week!  I got the idea from here, but put my own little touches on it (birds, leopard print ribbon, flowery thumbtack)!  I will be able to pin new messages when I want to on it, as the circle part is made of cork!  Love to watch her sleep.  She fights it almost every day, and every day she zonks out almost immediately once she stops protesting her case!  The sky was beautiful on my walk Wednesday night.  I am at 28.8/45 miles for July.  

 We spent our day on the couch Thursday, something that I haven't done at all this summer.  Sure, I lay down and take naps with Lola on occasion, but we literally were couch potatoes all day!  The kids and I watched cartoons and I painted Lola's toes (she requested flowers, polka dots, and sparkles) and my nails!  Something I will probably not have the patience for myself ever again, but I love how they turned out!  Plus, I am trying to wait to get a mani/pedi right before school starts, so going to just stick to painting my own for a little while longer!  When we finally got off the couch, we headed to Panda for dinner before we went to watch our girl Alyssa swim at her final meet of the summer!  The kids did their best to cheer loud for her, but only lasted two out of her five races!

That's our week and now we are counting down the days until I have to go back to school for training before school actually starts!  Can't believe how fast this summer has gone.  I get my keys back to my classroom on Monday and I am sure a lot of my week will be spent there getting things ready!

Linking up with Jeannett this week over at Life Rearranged, who happened to just have a baby!  Congrats on the new addition to your family!  

Do you link up your life in phone pictures each week?  Friday is my favorite day of the week, love to look back and see what we did without having to drag out the big camera anymore!

Happy Weekend!