August Antics.

Here's what August looked like:

Having all of our toys back allowed us to mix them all--trains, marbles, blocks, Mario...

Lots of games, of course!

A cone-headed dog...he had to get staples in his front legs (scraped them up on barbed wire or something), and then the ONE night we leave him alone he gets his collar off AND eats his staples out!  Oy vey.
I think we need a Frequent Visitors Card for our vet...

Electronics play.

Brooklyn had been asking about her microscope the entire time we were without it, so she was STOKED to get it back and immediately moved it into her room.

More gaming.

This is Brooklyn's closet.  It's very deep and wasn't being used for anything (I refinished Russ's childhood dresser for the kids), so we took the doors off (which we planned on replacing at some point in the future anyway).  Looking at these two big pieces of "wood" the wheels started cranking, and I started Googling and Pinteresting.
And a half hour later, Brooklyn had herself a desk (which was a New House requirement--room for her own desk).

This happened.
Cats.  Yes, that is plural.
We were super sad when Tesla was adamant that she was an outside cat...we have a big population of coyotes around here (we've even seen them trying to dig under our fence!), and unfortunately she only lasted 3 weeks being an outside cat.
Eventually, Brooklyn started lamenting about having a cat that would snuggle with her at night and be only her cat.
I had no idea how we were going to accomplish that, but we decided to set out to the humane society in search of an older cat (who knew where to poop, knew where to sleep, knew not to claw, was familiar with dogs, etc.). 
I can't tell you how (mostly) happy we've been with these cats!!  They haven't once tried to get out, they don't claw anything, they taught Brin that cat butts are not to be sniffed, AND Brooklyn got her cat.
No joke--this cat practically lives in her room...except when she's lounging in the bathtub...
Her name is Whiskers.

And this is S'mores.
Can you tell who "rules the roost"??
Both cats have such distinct personalities--Whiskers is really low-key and loves water, and S'mores is freaking Bipolar.

We love having enough space that we're able to have all of our animals, and love even more that they get along...relatively well.

August also brought trampoline parks--we were waiting for it to be our turn and Brooklyn was being Sam's kitten, he was so sweet to her!
This was also the day that Brooklyn jumped off a big box onto the trampoline and sprained her ankle within the first 3 minutes.  Sigh.

We've spent a lot of time with our friends, the Eddy's.  We're there for many hours every week.
Sam and Noah are BFF's and share a love for everything fruit.

We also went to the archery place to try our hand at bows and arrows, which we all loved, kids included.  Brook, Sam and Noah are all asking for bows for Christmas.
I see targets in the yard in our future.

We also went camping with the Eddy's and a couple of other families.  We all caravaned for the 3-hour trip.  The drive was sooo beautiful at dusk!

On the caravan, we suggested that Noah ride with us and Brook ride with Steph and Robin.  We knew Brook would be frustrated and cranky with us, but she loves to sit and talk with Steph and Robin.  Boy, were we right!  They were amazed at how much she talked.
Meanwhile, there was a lot of testosterone in our car...lots of poop talk and fighting talk and just plain boy stuff.  It was pretty hilarious.

Brook has gotten more into rollerblading, so we went and found a basketball court where we could all skate around.

One day I went downstairs and found Brooklyn watching Titanic (which she used to LOVE learning about), so I curled up and watched with her--I hadn't seen that since high school!  Anyway, it reminded her how much she liked it, so she had been researching it more over the next few days and finally said, "Mom!  There is this cool thing at some museums where you get assigned a passenger of Titanic and you get to see if you lived or died!!!" 
Can you imagine how excited she was when I told her "Yes, our museum has that!"
The following day could not come soon enough, ha.
So we went to the Museum of Natural History the next morning, but had to swing through the volcano for an adventure expedition first...

"Don't touch the lava!!!  I'll show you the way out!"

Aaaand had to swing by the Rover.  You can move the head around, which has a camera attached to it.  It was interesting watching Brooklyn try to do it, who got extremely frustrated and could only seem to look at the ceiling, and then watching Sam hop up and seem to know exactly how to control it.

We finally made it to the Titanic exhibit and were given our tickets--I was a first-class married woman, Sam was an 18-year old 2nd class man, and Brooklyn was literally jumping up and down when she was assigned Eva Miriam Hart, who was 7 years old!
We looked at a few things--the cabins, the differences in dishes for each class, the clothing, and we got to touch an "iceberg" and talk about how it's colder than freezing...but mostly we nearly ran through the entire exhibit.
Brooklyn was SO excited to see if she lived or died!  We spent the vast majority of our time there at the wall of names, listed by class and survivor versus dead.
Poor Sam...18-year old 2nd class passenger, he died.  Sam was distraught.
But all was better in the world when we found the gift shop and an ice cream shop. :)

We finally made it out to Cochiti Lake!
We went with our homeschool group friends and had a blast.
The only downside to it all was that we took Brin (after researching whether dogs were allowed, which all I could find was that they needed to be on a leash and also comments from many others about how they love this beach for playing with their dogs).
Apparently dogs were NOT allowed and I had the sheriff called on me!!  Not only that, but they weren't the most polite of people.  I am still angry, but whatever, lesson learned.

And we'll finish up with experiments, because it's just what we do.  Brooklyn used to be my big experimenter, but now Sam is it.
So.  What happens when you leave a small screwdriver out??  Lots of things...and I'm grateful that he only came and asked if he could "punch holes" in fruit and veggies!!  Hehe.

And magnets.  These guys have been on our coffee table for weeks because someone will come along and fiddle with them at least once a day.

That about sums it up!
Until next time.