August in Review

Good

• Ben had a pretty good break in between summer school and the fall semester starting. We were planning on just doing a small trip to visit some friends but as so often happens (at least when one is married to Ben), we changed plans and headed north to visit family. It’s always nice to see everyone and it didn’t hurt that we had some extra fun outings-like going to Alpaca Day with Ben’s family and kayaking the Provo River with my family.
• My sis-in-law cut my hair! It’s shorter than I usually do and I love it! You can *kind of* see it in the pic above.
• August is birthday month for me and Ben! After visiting family, we used our birthdays as excuses to still do a couple of fun outings before school started and we have no regrets!
• One of the fun outings we did was go to this wildlife park about an hour south of Flagstaff called Out of Africa. Admission is free during your birthday month so we thought we’d give it a shot and we were so impressed we went back a week later! The park has a good number of animals and we were so impressed with how natural their living spaces seemed. The animals seem totally healthy and happy. Part of admission is going on an open bus tour through an area where the animals are just kind of free range. The bus drove right up to a giraffe who we were able to feed celery sticks right out of our hands! We also got to see their Tiger Splash show which included 2 of their tigers and a handful of trainers playing around and doing tricks that involve water (because apparently tigers love to swim!). It was seriously so awesome. I highly recommend it if you’re in the area!
• Last month I said that Flagstaff was gorgeous and I just have to jump in here and say that this month our little town has been breathtaking! If you have a hankering to visit Flagstaff, come in August. There are wildflowers everywhere!!!

Blah

• Wendy and I both got a cold after visiting family, and we’re both still working on getting over it. Ugh.
• For the most part, I like sharing a birthday month with Ben. We are actually both used to sharing a birthday (he has the same birthday as his dad, and I’ve got a twin), so it works pretty well. But his birthday comes first and I kind of hate that. I feel like I have to set the stage for how the birthdays are going to go but I can’t do anything about it if he one ups me, you know? Like this year, I gave Ben some good stuff but when it was my turn, he spoiled the crap out of me! What am I supposed to do about that aside from turning back time? I guess I’ll just have to start figuring out how I can get even with him next year…

On My Brain

• This summer has been really great. Ben’s been more free than we were expecting him to be which has meant lots of time for all of us hanging out together. This month I’ve been really worried about school starting because it means going from majority of the day with Ben to majority of the day without Ben. Which, being more transparent, means more parenting duties for myself once school’s going. We were in a nice rhythm when Ben was super busy last year and I know we’ll get back into a good rhythm this year too…but it has still made me a little nervous!
• It’s become very obvious to me that I am a lot less productive when Ben’s around (looooove you!) so I’ve also been thinking about what I want to get back in the swing of now he’s gone most of the day. Sewing and reading have been my major slacking points so they’re at the top of my to do list!