This month has been the "project" month. It all started with a decision to redo Clark and Elliot's bedroom. They had sort of a younger look and Madeleine and I thought it would be fun to do a "sports" bedroom for them. Then Madeleine got the idea that it would be fun to do it as a surprise for them -- kind of like the TV show While You Were Out on TLC. Anyway, we sent them off to the cabin with the Grandparents who were kind enough to take them for a long weekend and we went to work. We had already been collecting things along the way, so it was pretty much a couple days of painting and then we could put the new room together.
So, we spent Monday celebrating the 4th of July up at the cabin with them and then brought them back to see their new room. Boy were they surprised. They knew we were painting, but that was it. It was fun to video the whole thing. We felt like we were a part of the TV show -- all we needed was the music!
The next week Tess and Madeleine went to Girl's Camp and I took a week off from the projects. Then the next week, we were back to work. We moved Madeleine out of her room and painted it so that Loren could move upstairs, making his room available to be painted and decorated for Madeleine who was moving downstairs. Why do we do this to ourselves?
The fact is that Madeleine was ready to be downstairs with Tess, who was down there alone all last year while the boys were at BYU. It will be fun for them to be together this year. After all, Tess reminded her that the TV, the computer and the food storage room were all downstairs, too! What's not to like?
The rest of the month, Tess did a week of volleyball camp and Elliot and Clark started up basketball again. The older kids all got to go to the American Idol Concert at the E Center and Alan and I dejunked the storage room (now that was fun....!) Oh, and I taught Clark how to make chocolate chip cookies.
To finish off the month, my sister Melanie invited the extended family down to her house to celebrate the 24th of July. We had a fun BBQ, water fights, water balloon volleyball and s'mores and fireworks. It was fun to see everyone and to enjoy her spacious new backyard they have been working on so hard.