Whirlwind End of July

I'm really tired. It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks and I'm trying to catch up - some highlights (and lowlights) include:

Highlight: Going to Ben's family reunion in Felt, ID (about an hour from Jackson Hole, WY) - we stayed at a cabin his uncle recently purchased. There were 30 of us total, 14 adults, 16 kids. Eight of those kids were under 5, eight were over 5. Not everyone was able to come (we were missing three of Ben's siblings/families) but it was really fun to see those who were there. My boys loved being around so many cousins and getting fishing time with Ben.

Highlight: Seeing two friends super fast before we flew back home. I of course forgot to bring out the camera with the first visit, but we saw friends that we had been great couple friends with back in the day when we were all DINKS (Double Income No Kids). 

And then these friends below just moved last month. Our kids get along so well together and we were excited to get to see them one more time before they move on to California for a new job.

Below: Eli, Charlie and Kai playing in Kai's grandparents' awesome lego room under the basement stairs.

 Being silly outside in their pjs :) Do you see Eli's (Ben's) vintage family reunion t-shirt from 1984? :)

A really awesome self-timer shot :) (our husbands went for a quick hike)

Lowlight: The flight home to O'Hare was delayed (I swear we're delayed almost every time we fly in/out of that airport). 

Highlight: Seeing old friends on the flight back who now live in the western suburbs (not so close to us).

Highlight: Coming home and feeling relieved that our basement didn't flood while we were away (Chicago had 7 inches of rain in one night that weekend that we flew back and tons of people flooded). This is the year of extreme weather here!!

Lowlight: Realizing our roof in the family room has a small leak during one of the many crazy thunderstorms this last week.

Lowlight: Collecting quotes from roofers on fixing the problems from the tree disaster two weeks ago. It's time consuming and a little depressing when they say things like, "You should replace the entire roof over the family room, not patch it." 

Highlight: We heard back from Allstate and we are getting some money to cover the repairs, which help somewhat. But not covering replacing the entire roof.

Highlight: Using a Groupon for a professional organizer to help me get our kitchen in order. We took EVERYTHING out of the kitchen cupboards and I am so happy with the end result. I wish I could hire her for helping with the whole house, but that's not happening. 

Lowlight: Realizing how much JUNK we had in that kitchen that we never use. I threw or gave away quite a few bags of stuff. It does feel good to purge.

Highlight: Photographing a home birth!!!! More to come on that.

Lowlight: Feeling totally behind with my photo sessions from right before our trip and needing to finish them, staying up all night on Monday night to get some things done and feeling like death on Tuesday. Why do I do this to myself??

Highlight: Finally posting some of those recent sessions on my photography blog (I still have three more to finish editing, including the home birth).

Highlight: Listening to my boys play together in a mostly positive way. I love it.

Highlight: Bought a macro lens on craigslist and am SO excited for my next newborn session!!

Highlight: We're off to the pool! I'll try to do a few big posts on our family reunion pictures this weekend. Happy Saturday everyone!