Playing in the pool

On the 9th, it was pretty hot out and we were trying to stay in the shade, so we decided to try out the new pool that I had bought a couple of weeks before that. The kids had a blast and are really excited to have their own pool to swim in the backyard, at least until they saw a bee. Then they couldn't get out of the pool and away from the bee fast enough. 

BBQ

On July 8, we had a BBQ and board games day at our house. It had been a while since we had this group of friends over, so it was good to see everyone. Chad made half of his pork butt into pulled pork. You can see the "before" picture below. 

Here is a photo of some of the food. This was after a lot of it had been eaten. We had pulled pork with spicy mustard sauce, coleslaw, honeydew, grilled veggies, chicken thighs with sriracha and sweet Thai chili,  veggie "burgers", artichoke dip with bread, brats, hot dogs, haloumi (a cheese) with balsamic vinegar and strawberries, various types of crackers and cheese, vanilla pudding with bananas, chocolate chip cookies, beer, lemonade, pop, iced tea, and probably some other things that I am forgetting about.

Some photos of some of the games being played

A trip to the mall

On June 7th, we had to go to the mall to do some errands. I had my annual eye exam and Chad has been having some problems with his glasses and wanted them to be fixed. So while I was getting my checkup, Chad took the kids to the Lego store and then to the little play space that they have.

I was done with my exam in about an hour, but they told us that Chad's glasses would take 2-3 hours, so we had some time to kill. We let the kids play in the play area for a while and then went to get some lunch at the food court. 

After lunch, Chad wanted to get some Legos for himself from the Lego Store. He ended up getting 2 sets from the "Creator Series".

http://www.lego.com/en-us/creator/products/3in1models/31017

http://www.lego.com/en-us/creator/products/3in1models/31014

When we got back to Lens Crafters, the lady that was helping Chad ran ALL OVER the store looking for his glasses. Apparently she assumed that when he said he was there to pick up his glasses that he meant new glasses. She probably ran around like crazy for about 15 minutes before finally asking him about his glasses and discovering that they were there to be fixed. Unfortunately, while they had fixed one side of his glasses, the other was now not right. One of the lenses was pointing up, while the other was pointing down. So they had to send them back to the lab again, and said it would be another 2-3 hours. At this point, the kids were melting down, so we just left the glasses (Chad had his older glasses) and headed home. The kids both fell asleep in the car, which made it a challenge to transfer them to their beds for nap/rest time.