Puzzle, Lessons and Rewards

I have finally found a way to do my 2000-piece puzzle I got for my birthday without it being in the way and I can take my time working on it. After moving my sewing machine and sewing box to the new dresser, that left my sewing table without anything on it, and I realized I could use that table for my puzzle. I would just have to keep it downstairs. I started this puzzle a couple of weeks ago and am slowly making progress. It's definitely a difficult puzzle but I'm still enjoying doing it. I work on it here and there.

Started on July 22nd.

This is what it looks like today (Aug 6th).

The girls did swim lessons a couple of weeks ago at the home of someone in our ward. The Brown's college age daughter, Alyssa, has been teaching lessons at their pool. It's been a lot more expensive than when I took my girls to the Rec Center in Nampa two years ago, but it's worth it. (The prices of swim lessons at the Rec Center have also gone up.) It will not only help my girls to become better swimmers, but it will also help someone we know. They did one week of lessons two weeks ago (7/22-7/26), and just started another week of lessons yesterday. The nice thing is that there's only been 3 people in their classes both times. During the first week, I had Alice in level 2 and Charlotte in level 3. This week Alice advanced to level 3 also, so the girls are doing it together. Alyssa is only teaching up to level 3. The girls love it!

One of Charlotte's best friends happened to be taking lessons that week also. It made it that much better!

Alice had one of her friends in her class also.

Charlotte finished filling her reward jar and had me take her shopping for a prize. She picked out a solar robot to build (and a few other items). Inside the box there was also instructions to build a solar s'mores cooker.

The finished solar robot. It was fun to help her build it. She actually did quite a bit herself. It will only move in the sunlight or a powerful light. It won't work with LED though.

Testing out the solar s'mores cooker with a friend.

Alice and her friend making one in another box. Charlotte made two s'mores cooker boxes.

The top is covered with plastic wrap to help keep the heat inside. And the foil reflects the sun, to create more heat.

A bit messy, but delicious.

Our friends, the Hayes', came to visit Kennewick again and so they made a visit to our house. We invited them over for lunch and swimming. We had some delicious smoked chicken thighs and pork chops along with frog eye salad, grapes, chips, green salad, and juice. It was fun to see them, even if it was only for a couple of hours.

Elie is a little younger than Charlotte but A LOT taller. She gets it from her dad.

Chrystal and me

Sage was naughty and got in trouble. There was a bowl of shredded cheese on the food table. While we were eating, I looked over and she was digging in with her face in the cheese bowl. She likes cheese. I'm surprised that she didn't go for the meat.

After Charlotte filled her reward jar and got her prize, Alice did too! She picked out a big Bluey stuffed animal and a few other toys.

She's a happy girl!

Last week was FSY (For the Strength of Youth) in La Grande, Oregon. It's a program for the youth of our church. This was a year for our ward to be able to go, so most of them were going at this time and location. They would be gone from Monday morning to Saturday morning and stay in a college dorm room on the college campus. They go to lots of classes and activities throughout the week and have lots of spiritual experiences. We knew going into this that it would be tough for Garrett because he gets a lot of anxiety in crowds, but we were hoping it would be good for him. I even had him take his prescription medicine that his doctor gave him last year to take as needed for anxiety. It was a low dose and Garrett never used it until last week at FSY. Unfortunately, they didn't help. It was too much for Garrett to handle and I ended up driving down to get him Tuesday afternoon. We're happy that he tried going and at least stayed one night. Jack stayed the rest of the week though and loved it. His roommate was Porter, his best friend from Nampa.

With summer, comes heat.....and that means ice cream to help cool off! Alice was really enjoying her ice cream cone.

Last week I finally ordered some new bookshelves and an L-shaped desk from walmart.com. The bookshelves went in the family room and the desk in our bedroom. I was so excited to be able to get some boxes out of the garage again. I think I emptied about 10 boxes last Saturday. Curtis built them and I filled them. The shelves were a little smaller than we had thought they would be, but it still looks good and I'm glad I bought two of them. I was able to unbox books and decorations. Unfortunately, my Christus statue wasn't packed well enough, and Jesus broke a few fingers off. I haven't been able to fix it yet. The pieces are so small, it's difficult to hold them without getting glue on my fingers.

I added some decorations on top of the dresser that holds my sewing stuff.

I didn't have anywhere to put our ocean decor, so I put them around our soaker bathtub. I'm not sure if I like them there but that's where they'll go for now.

Our new corner desk in our bedroom, and new purple exercise ball.

Curtis tweaked his knee a couple of weeks ago and has been dealing with pain and swelling. We're hoping he didn't tear anything. On Sunday, Brother Gale, who does physical therapy, had Curtis come over and show him some exercises to do to strengthen his knees. I had to go shopping to find the equipment for him while he was at work yesterday so that he could start as soon as possible. That's why there's a purple ball in our room now. We're hopeful that the exercises will help.