July update

The summer is flying by.  It has been a very busy and fun-filled month.  Well, mostly fun.  Sophia started her orthodontic treatment.  She has a palate expander in and will be getting partial braces before school starts.  Getting the palate expander in was a painful process.  The spacers hurt.  Taking the impression was horrible.  The expander going in was HARD but once it was in she handled it like a champ.  It took a couple of days to get used to talking and eating with it but other than that it has been easy for her.  The turning of the expander was stressful.  Finding the tiny hole in the expander was difficult.  It took forever and Sophia was patient the entire time.  Thankfully we only had to turn it for three weeks.

We traveled to Connecticut to visit Grandma Barb.  We hit our usual places, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Christmas Tree Shop and Olive Garden.   We went to Friendly's and Sophia ordered an adult sized hamburger and ate the entire thing!   We saw Linda, Chuck, Stephanie and Hollie.  We went to the carnival at OLOV.  Sophia had a blast.  I got to see Maureen, Kathleen and her son and Steven there.  I even saw Susan G who I hadn't seen in years.  We connected on Facebook and planned to meet at the carnival.  The fried dough pizza was even better than I remembered.  It was a great visit.

Sophia loves cleaning at Grandma's

We had a pool party for the Brownies.  It was Sophia's turn to get Daisy Bear.  She will have her all summer and journal about her adventures with Daisy Bear.

We had our China Sister Reunion. All six families made it for at least part of the weekend.  We went to the retreat center again.  The girls all got along so nicely.  They have so much fun together.  We went swimming and on a trail ride.  Sophia wanted to design shirts online and have everyone wear it at the reunion.  We ended up making our own.  She picked out the design and we ironed it on.  The kids then all signed the back of the t-shirt.  We took our annual "red couch" picture in them.  I am amazed with how creative and thoughtful Sophia can be.