I was looking through my photos from the summer and was reminded of a few other happenings from this summer that I want to document, in no particular order. That's mostly because this summer has been such a blur that I don't exactly remember in what order any of this happened.
* Right as summer kicked off, our old college favorite (and Troy's pal) Peter Breinholt and friends put on a live show out at Sandy amphitheater. There's something so special about live music, especially in a setting as beautiful as that. Luckily the horrible heat hadn't set in just yet, and we enjoyed a fantastic night of music. We got to go with our dear friends the Tuckfields, and also had the pleasure of bumping into several other friends as well, like my friend Annie who is Peter's little sister, Troy's classmate and my Brighton Sister Edie, and our old neighborhood pals the Merrills. Edie and I of course met up in the aisles to dance along to She Wore Flowers which is now our tradition, no matter how silly I feel. Best moment of the night was Peter picking out Troy in the audience and calling out to him. "Troy! Hi Troy!" That made me happy. Super fun smiley night.
* Our church planned several summer events in the hopes of building more bonds of neighborly friendship in the area, with both church members and non members alike. Someone decided that our experience in building a chicken coop would make a good community event and we got put on the calendar. I was guessing that we would have either 2 or 50 people there. Neither of those prospects was very exciting to me, so luckily it was right in between. On a Saturday morning we had about 24 people show up to hear our chicken tales. Here are cute pictures of the missionaries who were serving in our area at the time holding our chickens, who got rather more man-handled that day than they prefer. I thought the event went quite well, especially considering that really Troy and I are total amateurs and are just learning through trial and error. I know there are many more knowledgeable chickeners out there, but you can't say we don't enjoy chicken ownership.
* After the summer and fall of 2020 when we got to spend basically three weeks (not in a row) with our dear Seattle friends, it was slightly disappointing to be able to see them for just one afternoon and evening this year. I say disappointing only because we adore them so much and were so spoiled last year to have the week on the river plus the week in SLC plus the week in September in Washington that one day just didn't feel like enough. Kathleen and I took the kids swimming in the afternoon, and she and I had a good chance to sit and talk for a while before we headed back to our house. The kids hung around eating pizza and watching a show (while Chase caught up on sleep between weeks at Aspen Grove) and the adults got takeout and enjoyed a long evening of talking with friends Allison, Kenton and Molly. I wish we lived closer and had more chances to spend time together. I was glad that as soon as all the kids got in the pool they immediately circled up just like they always do. What a blessing these friends are.
* Troy has had a project hanging over his head for quite some time. Our sweet little front door has this cool transom window over it that has needed repair and it's been in the garage for years. In its place over the door has been a square of drywall and that's been just fine. It was going to be a tedious job to get it all fixed and I didn't feel impatient for it to happen. There's always stuff needing attention around here and that's just how it is. I love our house and Troy does great work on whatever he touches. He really does. I'm not just writing that because I know he's going to read this. He is so skilled and takes the time to do things right. This summer that window hanging out in the garage finally got its turn for his attention and he, along with a very little help from me and the girls, got it all fixed and in place. I just love it so much. I doubt many people have even noticed the change, but it means a lot to me. I love every little thing we do for this old granny of a house.
* I got a mosquito bite on my eyelid. I hate mosquitoes.
* Our chickens keep finding new weird places to lay eggs. We have been letting them roam free during the day which is great except for the part where we think we are collecting all the eggs and then discovering hidden nests where they have clearly been laying on the sly for days on end. The hardest one to find so far has been the one in the bush in the apartment parking lot behind our house. Turns out there was a gap in the bars of the fence. Our biggest chicken was disappearing for a while each day and hiding there to lay almost 2 dozen eggs. There was one day I thought for sure she was dead because I was hunting high and low for her and she was nowhere to be found in our yard. Turns out, she wasn't in our yard! For the record it was Judy who was pulling the Houdini move. The stinker.
* My girls and I got to go see a couple of shows! In true us-fashion we saw them on back-to-back evenings. On a Monday night we drove far far away to the land of Herriman to an outdoor pavillion-type thing to watch a community theater production of Newsies. It wasn't the most professional of venues but the show was amazing. We went because the son of some good friends of ours was playing the lead role of Jack Kelly. He was absolutely amazing and can sing as well as any professional I've ever heard. The whole cast was so talented. We really enjoyed that a lot. And funny enough I bumped into him at a shop in SLC like two days later so I could congratulate him so hardily that we both felt awkward. I'm cool like that.
It was the very next night that we had tickets for Guys and Dolls at Hale Center. This was a play that was part of my mom's repertoire of faves. There is a lot of music in it that I'm familiar with and have always enjoyed, but it wasn't one of my own very favorites. It actually helps when going to watch a play to have lower expectations. I mean, I was really excited to take my girls to it. We had tickets because we weren't able to go see Tarzan over Christmas due to Covid-hell and this is how we spent our ticket credits. But I don't normally listen to the music and I couldn't even remember the plot very well. But I ended up enjoying it so much. They did a fantastic job - all the character roles were my favorites, especially Adelaide. What a great (and colorful) show!
* A not-cool thing: someone swiped the back of our car, breaking a tail-light and just leaving without a note or anything. To quote my sister-in-law, sometimes people's choices suck. It's not actually a huge deal - it doesn't affect the car's functioning at all, and we certainly aren't going to get it fixed. But we were still annoyed. And we felt that we deserved Indian food after being so wounded. So that's what we did. A trip to Bombay House for Troy and Rachel. I shouldn't be a jerk in return and feel glad that the front of their car is likely all scraped up too, but I can't help it.
* Best date night ever! I have been a fan of the comedian Tom Papa for a very long time. He's so funny. He's a little irreverent and occasionally walks the line between inappropriate and tame, but really he's pretty clean for a comic of these times. And I adore him. He's a guest on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me somewhat regularly. He has a couple of albums on Spotify and I turn to them all the time when I need a pick-me-up or a good chuckle. When we found out he was coming to SLC we were so excited to get tickets and spend the evening with our friends the Marshes. As has happened in the past, the show opened with a warm-up comic and he was just not that funny. He was actually kind of cringy for me. But as soon as Tom graced the stage I began a full hour of solid belly laughing. Oh it was so funny. I wish I had a recording of it. And when you follow that up with gelato...well, that's just the icing on top.
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