The Beginning of August

It seriously has been one thing after another with me this semester.  I can't seem to catch a break and just feel good long enough to get anything done.  But I'm going to try and catch up on my blog since I'm feeling so crappy today that I'm home from work.  YEAH FOR LESS MONEY! ...NOT!

Here we go!

On the first of August, I decided that it was finally time to start painting our basement the way that I wanted it.  Well...not exactly the way that we want it.  We want to actually sheet rock the basement but I don't know if that is ever going to happen.  So just painting for now.

This is the gorgeous color that we have been living with for 3 years.

As much as I LOVE orange wood color on my walls....I thought that a nice soothing finished looking grey would look better.

This is after about a day of work.  Because of the crappiness of the type of wood and the way that everything is held together, it is VERY SLOW GOINGS.  That's why I planned to give myself almost a month to get it done before I was back working at the preschool.

Because I had a lot of space to cover before the basement would be finished.  This is a picture of half of our basement.  Can you spot Pippen?

Aaron and I finally decided to get our own fire pit back in July and so on the 2nd of August, we decided to have a little date night in our backyard roasting marshmallows.

I know that I'm really lucky to have such a great guy to sit and look at stars with while munching on s'mores.

I'm pretty fun to hang out with by a fire too.  And look at the delicious perfection!!  Talking about the S'more...even though Aaron's leg is pretty yummy too.

August 4th, we decided to finish up some work in our flower beds. We still needed to add some mulch.

See that shrub in the corner?  Yeah...it is already dead.  We had to rip it up and take it back to Lowe's...but not on the 4th.

While I worked on spreading the mulch around the flower beds, Aaron was cementing the top row of stones down onto the second. We were a bit afraid that with the higher flower bed, the weight would one day knock the stones out. So cemented they must be.

I'm so glad that I'm married to Aaron because he always thinks of stuff that would have totally escaped my mind.

This is my contribution! Look how wonderfully spread out that mulch is! Gorgeous!

Look at this classy nonsense! We didn't end up finishing the flower bed when we started because of some pipes. We would have had to turn off the water to three houses in our neighborhood so we decided to wait till fall when it would be turned off anyway. (Spoiler alert: Aaron actually finished it up last weekend.)

But on August 4th, I could only finish mulching part of this side of the flower bed.

Aaron admiring his work, while the dogs cool off in the grass.

On August 6th, I finished this one wall in the basement! Except for the trim work, it was completely done (Until we got wood filler to fill in the spots that were bugging Aaron...then I had to go back and spot paint)!

After I took this picture, I got the phone call from my boss at work saying that one of the other teachers had been hit by a car and they needed me to come in to work for the last two weeks. And that is when nonsense really started going down...and from then on, I have gotten nearly nothing done.

The first day back at work, a boy peed on me in anger...which is a weird reason to wet your pants but I guess when you are four you don't have all the skills to talk about your feelings.

The second day, I told myself that it would be a good day if I didn't get peed on.

And for my optimism, I got rewarded with a bird pooping on me while I walked home.  Don't worry...most of it ended up in my hair...so my clothes were spared....mostly.

Also, on the 7th (first day back at school) I stopped by the hospital on my way home to visit my co-worker in the hospital. She was pretty beat up and needed some smiles. So on the 9th, I made sure to bring her some cheer from the kids at school.

Such great art work!

I want you to appreciate how hard it actually is for a 4-5 year old to draw and heart. This is some good stuff.

That was the first 10 days of August. Home improvements, little dates, and BACK TO WORK! It wasn't how I thought my August would be, but...you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.

The Rest of July:

Proof That My Life This Summer Was Crazy Busy

When we last left our heroes (aka Aaron and I) we had finished Cub Scout Day Camp and had an amazing time!  We had gone to see the new Batman movie with my college family and I was angry that Blogger decided to charge me for picture space all of a sudden.

On the 23rd of July, I got my check for my work in Moab!!!  Walt Disney Film Services!  I'm going to get a W-2 from Walt Disney!!  I have proof that I worked for them!

This is my first food picture with my phone! See, I'm turning into a technology user so quickly!  I took this on the 24th at the Church Pioneer Parade Breakfast!

This is one of my favorite girls from one of my favorite families in our ward!  Instead of going to the parade, I went over to her house to hang out for the day.  It was raining so we figured that the Parade wasn't going to be that amazing.

The next day was our July Pack Meeting. We didn't think that that many boys would show up and so we went on a quick nature hike (with nature Bingo!) and ended at a park with ice chests full of water balloons!

Aaron helping one of the scouts with his Bingo.

This is my little hiking buddy!  Her mom was moving water balloons and she wanted to be with her brothers and sisters so I kept an eye on her....her little legs could only go so fast.

My first picture of a flower with my cell phone!! The learning curve is incredible!

Now the bloodbath!  Water balloons everywhere!!  It was a crazy amount of fun!

At one point I was running toward one of our scouts screaming LEROY JENKINS!!!!  And I threw a water balloon at him and for whatever reason it knocked him down and his 5 year old sister threw one and nailed him too.  It was a great triumph for both of us.

This is the kid that we attacked. He had an entire chest of water balloons to himself....and you know that's not cool.

Aaron was standing a safe distance back trying not to get wet so he had the camera.  But you can see me in actions here!

I am wearing a white shirt (to keep cool on the hike) but I wore a black bathing suit underneath...don't worry...I wasn't going for a creepy white t-shirt contest thing at scouts.

This is a picture of our one causulity. In water balloon and snow ball fights, someone had to get pegged in the ear.

The next day, is Thursday. It was the evening and I remember that the Primary Activity is going to be the next day. And I think to myself, "I should call the Primary President (I said her name in my head....or else I'm weirdly formal in my mind) to see if she needs any help getting stuff ready." 

I call her and she says, "Wow...I just prayed you to me." Apparently she was thinking about waking up at 6am the next morning to blow up water balloons for the activity. Good thing I'm so spiritually in tune! :p 

Aaron and I get the balloons and start working.  This was a picture we took to ask what size she wanted the water balloons. The first picture I won't show you since it was me holding them up to my chest and it said, "Which one do you like?"  Apparently she laughed and laughed.

Since the Primary activity was one a Friday, Aaron couldn't make it so I was working a booth alone. :( I love our callings together so it was a bummer not having him around. Since I was at a booth, not a whole lot of pictures of the day.

My booth was quiz questions about the Gospel and the kids got a sucker at the end. It was fun listening to the answers to the questions and seeing how much is being absorb at home and at church.

And of course, at the end of the day, refreshments!!

For those of you keeping track, this post hasn't even covered a week yet. This was my Monday through Friday....oh wait, Friday isn't over. A family in our ward that was at the Primary activity needed a baby sitter so that they could head to the temple that night. So Aaron and I got 4 kids for the evening!

It was nice to spend an evening with kids. The poor little girl though got so tired but still so excited about how much was going on that she couldn't fall asleep. I felt so bad for her. She was so sad but she wanted to have fun. Finally she fell asleep. Aaron had so much fun with the boys. Watching movies, playing video games, and playing outside with the badminton net that was still up. He is so great with kids. I love seeing him being so parental.

 The next day we are going to visit is SATURDAY! Yup, still not done with this week.

 Aaron wanted a calmer day and so he drove me to Salt Lake so that I could catch a ride to Mapleton, UT to go to a bridal shower for one of the girls I knew in Thailand.

I LOVE weddings for my Thailand family because they always mean Thailand family reunions!!

We got to play fun games and visit and eat tons of yummy food!

Then that was the end of my week, right?

 NOOOOO!!! 

 I got a ride up to Provo so that I could go to my sister-in-laws birthday party to Tucanoes!

This party was so crazy that I ended up in the back of the truck...or maybe it was because of the lack of seats in the car available.

   
Then Clarise and Geoff gave me a ride back up to Salt Lake City to meet up with Aaron to go home and prepare our Primary lesson for Sunday.

Oh, and that was a week in the life of the Reinert's summer.

Sorry I didn't have time to blog.

Smart Phones at Long Last

I've had my phone for 3 years and I love it.  I don't use it to take pictures that often because they are crap and I have far better cameras to take pictures with but it sends texts and makes phone calls and if I forget about it for a week, it isn't that big a deal.

Aaron has had his phone since our 1st anniversary (when he accidentally dropped his old one into a lake while we were jet skiing) so we were both due for new phones.

But I was avoiding getting a new phone for a year because I knew that when we made the jump, it was going to be a smart phone.

My fear was the same as an old woman.  I didn't want to learn new technology.  I didn't want to become dependent on my phone.  I don't like the change.

Here is the reason we finally went for it.   Our GPS needs updating because it is crap.  So....either spend the money updating that OR get phones with GPS.

On Monday we finally sucked it up and went to the Verizon store to see what we could get.



And I got a better camera on my phone than the one I had (still....not going to be the first or second camera that I grab) and I FINALLY have a way of sharing photos that have been on my phone for forever!  I never went to buy whatever I needed to get the pictures off so I've had some photos that have been trapped inside a cell phone of mine for 5 years!

Like these ones from almost 5 years ago at Christmas time when I went to visit my family in Thailand.

Markus grabbed my phone and I didn't see these pictures until I was back a BYU a couple weeks later.

Or pictures of my puppy dogs!

Like when we first got Pippen!

Or when a couple months later, we got Bambi!

One thing is for sure, you wonderful people are going to end up with even MORE photos of my life to look at.  You lucky lucky people.

And so far, I can see what a wonderful and useful tool it can be.

I will try and use my phone powers for good.