These are the facts

 #1 A friend brought a flower bouquet to our Christmas in July party.

#2 Thing Two has gone through at least 7 tissues this morning.

#3 He did not take allergy meds yesterday.

Conclusion, in his own words: 

One of these days I'm gonna sneeze out my esophagus. 

Great idea. Throw a party then leave for the beach!

We threw a Chaos Party Father's Day weekend. Thing Three had turned 15, Dada had turned 50, and I was (mostly) done with cancer treatment, so we figured it was a good time to celebrate!. 

That would be a skeleton on the stairs under the streamers.

There was pie.

And people everywhere!

It rained until about noon on Saturday, but cleared out and dried out so we even managed to use the deck! We'd been a little worried because we weren't sure how many to expect and if they'd all fit in the house if everyone came at once...

Cadaver was in charge of making sure everyone got a name tag and signed the guest book. You show up at one of our parties and we will put you to work!

Thing One and I were upstairs and stopped what we were doing to listen for a minute. 

"Are they playing Twister?!"

"Right foot green."

"They ARE playing Twister!!"

 Thank you to everyone who squished a visit to our house in admist all the weddings, showers, grad parties, and Father's Day bashes that weekend! We loved having you!

Next year there will be a Christmas in July/50.5 party so save the weekend of July 24/25, 2026!

Last day of school, last day of school, oh boy oh boy, last day of school

I want to apologize right here and now for the chaotic blogging and lack thereof. New laptop + different photo processing tools + me = frustration + procrastination. It'd be different if I could upload the info straight to my brain like in the Matrix movies; instead it is a lesson in aggravation every time as I'm using limited storage and often have to stop the whole blogging process to open other programs to delete other space-hogging items. I'm thinking about scrapping the whole thing and starting over, but in the meantime you'll just have to either be patient with me or suffer alongside. Cheers!

So, this is the lovely porch swing which some of you have shared a bedroom with these past 10 months with as it resided on the floor of our guest room. Pap made it for us and brought it out before the Christmas in July party. Sweet Dada put it up for Mother's Day. The reason it took so ridiculously long is there are no studs in the actual front porch roof so he had to figure out how to install it and make the time to actually do it when there are so many other homeowner issues and karate and krav and school and Stuff which really are more important. But, thanks to Pap for making it and to Dada for the install, it's up it's up it's up! Come sit a spell!

Last day of middle school for this Thing:

Last day of elementary school for Thing2 and last day of first grade for Thing3:

Cheers to summer vacation!

Christmas in July 2016

I'd like to thank the 77 of you who showed up for our Christmas in July shindig. We were so blessed by your friendship and fun fellowship and food!

Just look at all those cars in the yard! 

We had a lunch rush about noon, some downtime around 2:30, then at 4:00 I looked up to see my entire downstairs packed full of people. I had a moment of panic as I realized that it wasn't even dinner and we were pretty crowded, but then folks meandered outside and it looked more like this

Of course the tree was up and decorated by the kids:

That cracked some people up, but how could you possibly have Christmas in July with no tree? I'm stymied.

"And there was far too much food!"

There were some activities for kids:

And some for grownups, like reading in the library:

There was even green eggs and ham for breakfast for our out-of-town-and-overnight guests, especially to ones who brought along their own holiday cheer:

77 people (not counting us) was a lot, but we're sure there would have been more had it not been ridiculously hot with even more ridiculous humidity. Thanks to all of you who braved it to come check in with us, we missed those of you who couldn't make it (and there were quite a few of you, so don't feel like you were alone in missing out), and we'll see you next time! Merry Christmas!

Meanwhile

To tide you over, there's a quote board up on the Telling It Like It Is site. (Just click on that underlined title)

 I'm swamped with Christmas in July party prep and the big post I'm working on has stuckified in the photo department. I may or may not get to it before the party, so head on over to catch up on (also behind and also old) quotes to make you smile. Have a super week and be careful in the heat and see you all on Saturday! ;)