Busy week

The past week has been full. :) 

Last Tuesday, I had brunch with Deanna (yay!) while Nathan met with two different companies to get estimates on replacing all our gutters and repainting the exterior of our house (thanks to the hail storm last month...still working on getting that work actually scheduled but it likely won't happen until October).

After that, all three boys and I had our annual eye appointments (my prescription remains steady but all of the boys' increased a bit). Since our optometrist is also our neighbor, we also did some catching up and he pitched me the idea of buying one of his extra vehicles.

That evening, our neighborhood had a block party which actually turned out to be pretty fun...with cornhole and food & margaritas and lots of conversations...

Micah and Asher had to leave early, though, for an extra demo team practice. 

Wednesday was busy with errands. Also, Asher & Micah went to a going away party for a friend on demo team. She's off to Germany for a year as an exchange student! 

Thursday was the first day of school for Asher & Micah. It went pretty well according to them. :) Meanwhile. Remember that pitch my neighbor/optometrist made about buying a third vehicle? Yeah. We got to thinking about that. We've played with the idea but were really, really trying to hold off and manage with just two vehicles. But. The low price and benefits he reminded us of (he has three sons also) got us thinking. So. We looked into his vehicle (which needed some work and is a bit rough) and started poking around online for similar vehicles in that price range. Somehow...somehow...we ended up with me heading to the bank and Nathan and Noah going down to Longmont to look at a vehicle and take it to my brother's mechanic down there...and then driving it home.

This was the listing photo. It's really in very good condition, though is older and has more miles than either of our other vehicles. So far, we're pretty happy with it...him. His name, btw, is Reg. He's a Pathfinder, you see. And my geekly lot immediately associated that with the Pathfinder mission on Star Trek Voyager headed up by Reginald Endicott Barclay, III. So, Reg. 

(For the record, our minivan is named Vincent Willem Van Go. And the Audi is named Audrey. She doesn't have a longer name. We feel a little bad about that.)

Meanwhile, Asher went to parkour and Micah and I went rock climbing...where I got belay certified for top rope climbing. (Micah got certified on Monday. I had to have a lesson and then come back on a different day to prove that I remembered the lesson.) Climbing on ropes is a different beast than bouldering, lol. But. I definitely enjoy belay climbing with a partner much better than using an auto belay device. Looking forward to more practice...

Friday, then, I ended up spending much of the day dealing with the new to us vehicle...back and forth (and back and forth) with insurance, getting the emissions checked, and waiting in a very long queue for registration and plates. (The boys' second day of school also went fine, and they had karate and demo team practice that night.)

Saturday I met Lynne at the gym and the boys had demo team practice. After lunch, we headed up to New West Fest for the boys' annual performances with the Karate West demo team. They got started a bit late due to the group in front of them and also some rain, but then had a great performance with a large crowd. I took a lot of pictures but here are three:

(They were missing a few members because summer is always tricky like that.)

(Asher's the upside down one on the left. If you look closely, you can see their friend mirroring Asher further back and to the right.)

They all did a fabulous job and were thankful that it was overcast and not too hot. :) After the performances, we grabbed a snack and headed home for weekend chores and such.

Sunday, Asher, Micah and I went to a birthday party for one of the other demo team members (and I stayed to visit with the mom). The demo team gang ate and swam and flipped and played frisbee and had a great time. After all that, we picked up some missing school supplies and reorganized backpacks and finished homework.

Today, I crossed a bunch of little things off my to do list (scheduling things, laundry, calls, tracking down a package that got lost, etc). Also, Micah and I managed to talk to his advisor before classes and make a slight change to his schedule that Micah was then able to get implemented during school today. I'll go update the class list on the left shortly. 

Okay. That's it for now. There's more coming but that was the past week. :) Just wanted to record it somewhere.