July

July is always a fun month for us because it has Emma's birthday and our anniversary. I know lately I have just been posting a ton of pics with no captions, so I'll try to narrate these for you.

For our 8th anniversary, Ian planned a super fun surprise day for us. He just told me to be ready at 7am when he got back from seminary. We got in the car and headed south. On the way, we stopped at Dairy Queen...just because it was a special day. So, here's my double PB cup Blizzard at 9:27am:


First we went to a rock climbing place in Tucson only to find out that they were closed until noon. No worries, Ian just bumped up our massages. After a very nice relaxing massage, we went to a super yummy and cute little restaurant for lunch, Tohono Chul Park Tea Room. It was absolutely delicious, with fresh ingredients and yummy prickly pear lemonade.After that we headed down to Kartchner Caverns - a limestone cave where they have living formations made of calcite - for a little spelunking. It was SOOO awesome. They are very into preserving the living stalactites, stalagmites, "soda straws", "bacon", and other really cool things, so you take a guided tour in and they walk you through the caves. On the way down we stopped by this raptor...and any of you who remember our college years will appreciate this pic:



Here's us on our little tram ride to the cave entrance:


They don't let you take pictures inside the caverns, so here's Ian once we came out...pretending to eat a prickly pear. We had lots of prickly pear candy that day, but apparently not enough for him.


After the caverns we walked around the museum part of Kartchner Caverns.








These are very bad representations of what you can see in the caves. For a better idea, go here, here, or here. They have a 58 ft tall(5 stories high) column made from stalactites and stalagmites called Kubla Khan which is absolutely breathtaking.





After Kartchner Caverns we drove back to Tucson for dinner. Ian had researched and planned to go to a specific restaurant, but it was closed on Mondays. We drove a bit further up the road and parked, thinking we'd walk around and find a place. We just happened to park in a lot behind a Greek restaurant. We usually like Greek food, but aren't usually lusting after it, so we walked around a while to see if we could find anything else. We stopped on the way and got a little shopping done and also picked up a little desert for later. After not finding anywhere else to eat, we headed back to Athens on 4th, and OH MY WORD. I have NEVER in my life been to a restaurant with better food or better service. I am definitely going back, even if I have to drive the 2 hours by myself. When we walked in, the owner greeted us and showed us to our table, offering to put our desserts in the fridge, and also telling us we wouldn't need them because he was going to give us his best dessert on the house(which he did and it was divine).
We were brought bread and there was olive oil on the table, but no balsamic vinegar, so I requested some. He hesitated a few seconds and asked how much I like balsamic. When I told him I loved it, he said he'd just got some new balsamic that I was going to love. He wasn't kidding. I could have drank the whole bottle. Throughout the rest of the night I was dipping everything in it. We also ordered an appetizer that was basically cheese and butter on pita bread. Drool worthy. I could go on and on...basically everything in this restaurant was prepared perfectly and I have never loved a restaurant more. Plus, Giorgios told us to come back with our new baby boy and the rest of the family(extended too!) and he'd give us a meal on the house. What could be better than free food? Oh wait...AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS free food. :)


We had a fantastic anniversary! Here's a random silly pic of David. Ian's been taking him to the "Itty Bitty Sports" program at the YMCA. So cute.


Planting flowers:







(Yes I know her shirt is on backwards...she says her tags don't bother her when she wears her clothes backwards. I think she just likes looking like Willie off the Pickle Boat.)



One day in July Ian brought home 20 pounds of cherries...


Which we had a lot of fun canning! Here's D inspecting them:


And Emma stemming them...


Yum! We got 9 quarts, plus a few full bellies.


Pioneer day bike parade:








Emma's 7th Hawaiian birthday party...Painting hibiscus piggy banks:








Cupcakes...I got the idea from my friend Tina's blog and they turned out so cute!








My cute chef hubby


Digging for sea shells


blowing out candles(you've probably seen the hilarious video by now)


I thought this pic of Katelyn and Emma was cute. Looks like a pretty deep convo.


My adorable little man


My bro-in-law Jed and sister Shannon came just for Emma!


All the girls!


After presents they all went upstairs to play. I asked Ian to check on them because I was a little worried about the lack of supervision. Here is what he found:


A puppet show! Complete with audience:


At some point Tami and I got in a pillow fight. I thought this deserved some blog-time. lol!


We still love each other. :)



We have loved having the girls home for the summer, but I'm so excited for the routine of the school year! My sister's coming to watch the kids when we go to Ethiopia, so we'll miss the girls' first day of school and then as soon as we got back, life is going to be insane! Hopefully I'll get on here to blog about our trip! Ciao until then!