August 2014 Wrap Up - The Rest of the Month

The rest of our month was event-filled as is typical.

While we were camping I had taken a

box of neat cupcake mix

with the intent to bake them there,

in our little toaster oven.

Thought it would be a nice treat.

It was a "half" box,

that only makes 12.

And these had a filling that came with them.

Oh yum!!!

We didn't make them while camping,

so I, well the kids,

made them when we got home.

And I didn't feel like using icing...

so we turned them into S'Mores cupcakes!

After they were cooked,

I took them out,

placed a marshmallow on top of each.

Put them back in the oven,

Turned the broil on,

waited for the marshmallows to start puffing up

and getting brown on top.

Then pulled them out,

and

used a measuring cup, 

sprayed on the outside!,

to gently press them down!

VIOLA!

They were SCRUMPTIOUS!!!!!

 Daddy and I celebrated our 

14th Anniversary!

By staying in.

It is a little easier on the wallet

just to send the kids up to the 3rd floor

to watch a movie,

and us stay in.

So we picked up a few things:

sushi 

pink champagne (our honeymoon reminder)

some delish soup from a local bakery

and dessert!

Then we made some 

bacon wrapped cream cheese stuffed jalapenos.

Nothing fancy here!

Just things we like!

A few days later,

we participated in Daddy's department

"Family Day".

And when you are director

and in charge

and things need fixing...

you climb up the blown up waterslide...

Then hoist your 10yo...

to fix it.

Then when you are done with that...

you get dressed in your bright orange "work" shirt,

bright orange bathing suit

and awful orange and red tie....

and you hop into the

Dunking Booth

for your turn.

And yes,

that water is so discolored you cannot see his legs here!

The Family Day was a success,

and they had a pork BBQ cook off.

That is one of my favorites,

so I 

HAPPILY 

volunteered to be a judge!

I took it very seriously!

And enjoyed every minute!

While we were enjoying our day,

I was nervously waiting for the arrival of our new tenants

for our rental house an hour away.

They were driving in from Arizona!

They were due to arrive that day.

I finally got in touch with them.

They said they had arrived safe and sound.

Phew!

However,

there was a problem at the house that we needed to address.

(The old tenants had just moved out a few weeks before,

so I couldn't image what had happened!)

Come to find out the old basketball goal

that was beside the driveway had rusted through

and fallen over!!!

We are SOOOO

thankful that it happened while the house was unoccupied

and that there were no cars,

nor people

in the driveway when it DID happen!

So we gathered what tools we could from home

and hit the road.

We went to assess the situation.

Then off we went to Home Depot.

We had to get something to cover this sweet little 

project car that they had pulled with them.

And a sledge hammer.

Daddy was quite excited about that.

My main concern was making sure that we removed

as much as we could so that there was nothing left to damage anything

or hurt anyone.

The people who installed it had made sure it wasn't going anywhere.

The concrete foot they made was atleast 2' in wide

and he quit digging when he got about 2' down

and there was STILL a ton of concrete!

So he decided to start pounding away at it,

trying to break it up into pieces,

because we couldn't lift it out. 

And pounding

and pounding

and pounding...

After a LONG time of that...

he finally had enough.

He decided just to cut it off.

We burned up atleast 2 blades

on the SawZaw.

We couldn't figure out why or what in the world was going on.

We finally got through enough so that we could 

bend it the rest of the way over

and discovered that the pipe

was full of concrete too!!!

That entire piece you see laying down...

FULL OF CONCRETE!

After a few bags of rocks and top soil,

we managed to cover what was left.

That was WAY more than we had bargained for.

While we were there,

I did some cleaning up on the inside too.

Then the highlight of our August

was the beginning of

Wolfpack Football Season!!!

We always go to as many games as we can.

And as the kids have gotten older

those games we CAN make,

have gotten fewer.

But we always have a blast when we go!

This is one of my favorite pictures of 

ALL.TIME!!!

The big boys decided to paint their faces.

Rico had sweat so much that his washed off.

Jackson's was all smeared from sweat.

It was quite interesting.

But they loved it!

And our obligatory family picture

at the Wolfpack stadium!