Day One

Wow—my little ladies started school today!!  Kendell is a 6th grader and Kylie is so happy for a brand new year in 3rd grade with a smiley and friendly teacher!  The summer of late to bed/ late to rise has officially come to an abrupt end…

And wow again--my big boys started football today!!  We all enjoy Lineman Curtis and Coach Paul very much and will miss them every evening for the next 3 1/2 months or so …

Lazy Days of Summer, or whatever…

Miss Morgan camped her little heart out at Girls Camp—she brought home just a few mosquito bites and some sweet mems (whew)…

Gramma Sharlene and Grampa Randy came to see Miss Kendell in her FINAL softball game of the season, the season that was supposed to run from April to the very beginning of June…

Sooooo many of Kendell’s game were rained out that the season went clear into the middle of July, but hey-she got a trophy AND a donut…

We celebrated the cousin birthdays for July and are always glad that Aunt Tera and Uncle Mike bought a house right by such a grand park that is so ideal for celebrating …

We splashed it up with friends…

This works out great for us--we do adore our friends and when they have access to great pools and invite us along, it is so nice—we would totally like them if they didn’t have that special access, but it certainly doesn’t hurt (especially when all we bring to the table is our collective sparkling personalities and possibly some Doritos…)

Aunt Tera showed us the way to this little treasure of a BEACH with sand and everything!  Kylie and Cousin Aspen were so excited when they found a “shell”—hmmm, it was actually a sand-encrusted peach pit, sorry girlies,but super effort there with those keen aquatic eyes!!

We had the 1st annual Goff Summer Swim Party –good stuff and great company!!  Totally fun to get together with all of the Goff and Borg Cousins!!  The dutiful lifeguards only had to blow their whistles 3 times at my dear husband for serious offenses (use of an unauthorized floatie, putting Cael on his shoulders, and something else equally flagrant, but we are all safe, so whew…)  The dazzling display of diving was definitely something amazing, with no physical injuries, at least…

The down part of the night was hours later after the party when we got a very distressed phone call from my little brother, Allen, who was up at Primary Children’s Hospital with his oldest boy, Sam, who is 6.  Sam was getting prepped to undergo  an exploratory procedure to see how much damage had been done to his throat, esophagus, and stomach after accidently drinking some water that had been mixed with alkaline drops (they are supposed to be helpful for kidney stones, long story).  Anyway, after a long and horrific night, and wonderful care by the PICU nurses and doctors, they were able to  bring him out of his medically-induced coma sooner than they thought (they originally said 5 days) and found that the damage was limited to 1st and 2nd degree burns in his mouth, down his throat and his larynx, but did not get to his esophagus.  Definitely uncomfortable, but very recoverable (is that a word?).  He has been a very gracious and compliant patient and very soon after “coming to” wanted to make sure that his mom and dad knew that he “had an x-ray and got to see all of his bones”… 

The silver lining of having a cousin in the hospital is that you get to have the brothers of the patient come stay and play— the classic “bucket on the head” bit works every time…

And then, the ward swim party with orange floats, yummm….

And last but not least, summertime means it’s totally the right time for zebra-striped-twinner-nails!  Nicely done, ladies…

I’m thinking the theme for this new week will be (pretty please) mellow…

Stars, Stripes, Kidney Stones, and Babies…

Don’t you just love the 4th of July?  Don’t you just love living in the land of the free, the home of the brave??  I do!!  And when you are expecting rain on those purple mountains majesties, but then it turns out lovely (not that we don’t appreciate the rain because of course we do!)—bonus!!

  My photo montage skills are sorely lacking…years (yes YEARSSS) ago, my dear sis-in-law, Jessica, brought me this old white window frame with the thought that I could maybe do something cool with it.  It took some time, but now it has new life housing a flag in my kitchen and I like it a lot-hooray!! 

**We tried Bobby Flay’s Triple Blueberry Lemon Ricotta Pancakes (minus the ricotta, because someone forgot to purchase the ricotta, and yes that was me) and they were a tasty addition to a July the 4th morning, tasty enough to be repeated…

**We boldly attempted Pioneer Woman’s flag cake this year and my Gramma Bev would be proud of the attempt, anyway.  I will remember to go with the FRESH and not FROZEN blueberries next year…

**The idea was to go for the fruit-skewered pineapple centerpiece, but when Sam’s Club had NO pineapple to be found, we went for plan B, the watermelon basket…

**Is this really the best family July 4th shot I could come up with??  Um, yes…

**And do you not just love these hamburger and hot dog cupcakes that our fantastic neighbors brought over to celebrate with??!!  BIG HIT, that’s all I’m saying…

Here’s my very sweet and funny nephew, Ben, attempting to stay with Aunt Kirsten (aww—actually I do know that I am not the draw here, but Cael lets me think that I am) after an awesome night of cousin-o-rama fun while his poor daddy was in the hospital for round #2 of attempted laser removal of an embedded kidney stone.  On the plus side, the cousins had mega fun, on the minus side, my poor little bro has to go back for round #3 at the hospital this week (sorry, Allen), where one way or another this stone will be removed.  I’ve decided I’m absolutely anti-kidney stone…

  Oh look!  It’s me, my favorite sis, Kari, Jamie (the favorite sis of one of my favorite sisters-in-law), and Jen, one of my favorite sisters-in-law, herself!  (I think I have all my bases covered…)  This pic is from March, when I got to go up to Seattle to surprise my sis for her b-day—so fun!!  So while this shot features one of my shoes, it does not feature the midsections of either Kari or Jen, both of whom have been with child.  But this big week, both lovely ladies birthed beautiful daughters!!  Hooray!!  So where I am in the shot above, picture a 5 lb, 8 oz , 16 inches long little lovely with dark hair (awesome for growing inside a troubled placenta and coming a month early)!!  And pretend Jamie is an 8 lb, 4 oz, 21 inches long dolly with lots of dark and you get the idea!!  Hooray again!!

Babies are way more fun than kidney stones…