This past week flew by. My 3 day work conference wasn't so bad. I got to hang out with my teacher friends for 3 days AND I got a stipend for attending. Heck yes! On Thursday I made treats to take to Arco for the Beal reunion and we headed out in the late afternoon. For the first time and who knows if it will be the last time, my sister Kelsey actually prepared all of the meals for all of us. Her meals were amazing and it was so fun and easy for us to just all eat together. In the past different families would be trying to make their own food and the meals we tried to eat together were more chaotic. Her efforts made it SOOO great. The cousins this time also played together the entire time. All ages were playing some sort of tag game for hours, even in the dark. Friday morning we went and hiked Lower Cedar Creek Falls. I thought I hadn't done it for years but we literally did it 2 summers ago. I was able to force Piper to go and she survived so that was a win. John did not enjoy the hike, it's not his thing. He also fell at one point and grabbed stinging nettle to catch his fall, not great. The hike was my favorite part. After the hike some people played water baseball for a long time. We actually had a little skit/talent show that night for a minute and people actually participated. I did not see this coming. It was short and sweet and actually a fun part of the night. My sister in law Rachel is BIG into running and she decided to do the 5K race on Saturday morning so I decided to do the 10K. I've only gone running a couple of times this summer but I've been working out a lot. I was able to run the entire time which was great. Last summer when I tried to run I couldn't run more than a mile without stopping for a bit. I think it was taking my body longer to recover post baby in my 40s. I'm happy that my body can handle running better this year. After the parade we had lunch and headed back to Boise. John likes having a day before going back to work. It's been nice to be back home. Arco made me tired. I took a fat nap today! With kid arrangements I will have my kids for basically the rest of July and then I won't have them for a few weeks in August. I'm glad my last weeks of summer I can hang out with them. 

Being in the hammock with my boys!

Corbin participating in a skit.

Rachel and her son Hudson got 1st in the 5K! I got 3rd in the 10K, there might have only been 3 girls... but I didn't stop and that's all that mattered to me.

Waiting for the parade.

John's Happy Hike Face!

The hiking crew.

Corbin-pitcher, Ryan-batter, Gabby-1st base

Kelsey's baby Harper fell asleep in my lap. She's a cutie.

Piper touching the water fall.

We played some lightning. John verses Colin at one point. 

Cousins! Missing quite a few. Haha.

Playing Skyjo, I need to get this game.

Baddies.

So many people.

Kelsey and Justin! ALL THE GOLD STARS!

Jory brought a craft.

More hammock time!

 

Summer feels almost over which is sad, I'm not ready to go back to work. I have a local CTE 3 day conference this week that I'm not looking forward to, maybe it will be better than I think. It was just John and me for the 4th. We did our festivities on Friday, the 3rd. I figured it would be way less crowded to go paddleboarding on Friday the 3rd rather than on Saturday the 4th. That evening we also had a BBQ with friends which felt 4th as well. On the 4th we didn't do much. John bought a bike so we could go on some bike rides together. We've gone on a couple so that's been fun. He crashed on the first one, he's so tall and big I think balance is not his strong suit. There was no crashing on the second outing. Woot! That evening we used our grill for dinner, watched a movie, and watched some fireworks in our backyard. We live on a hill and you can see a lot of big neighborhood fireworks from there. 

This past week I had the kids and we went to Roaring Springs  several times. John joined us today, it was his first time ever, we had a good time. I've been baking and cooking a lot since I have more time. Some for practice for work and some because I just like homemade things. When I was a stay at home mom I only made homemade bread and I stopped doing that when I started working. I've made it a few times this summer and yum, yum, yum. I practiced making croissants again and had more success than last time. There were so many flaky layers. They take so much time and method and the batch only makes 6! I use every discarded piece of dough and have a few not perfect looking ones, I'm not wasting one bit! I also made homemade pretzels. We made those for a FCCLA fundraiser last year but they were kind of gross out of the freezer. The salt got absorbed and it wasn't appetizing looking. We still sold out though! This time I baked the pretzel without the salt and froze them. I then took the frozen pretzels and got them wet and sprinkled salt and baked them again. They were good! We will try that method this year. Nothing is as good as fresh from the oven but it's impossible to have 200 fresh pretzels ready to go when I have classes right before the fundraiser, these are pretty good! 

That's all for now, I'm just really enjoying this downtime and I hope I will be ready to get back to work soon because....winter is coming.

My pretzel makers.

Yum!

Tomatoes from our garden.

Because she's cute.

We had tin foil dinners for dinner and ate them at home. Boise is too hot to take them to a park or something.Woof.

Chickpea veggie hash. It was pretty good, I also try to experiment with healthy recipes, it's all about the balance. Haha.

Ryan and John on avalanche. No thanks, this ride is too scary for me.

There are 6 croissants that are more evenly made, the rest are leftover dough bits, that would be a lot of sad waste! 

A fresh homemade croissant is pretty incredible. Look at my beautiful layers!

Paddleboarding!