The Morales Family

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Clown Emma

I'm not sure about the story behind this... but I think some serious fun was being had.

It's always a fun time with crazy and cute Emma around!

Adam, Jason, and Noah headed out for another attempt at camping, and this time it was a success! They do look a little worried about the plethora of gnats that were swarming the camp, but they said the trip was an overall success.

And they weren't alone!

Plenty of time for exploring the woods,

traversing bridges, and swinging on the tire swing.

(And let's all be grateful for a quick moment that Jason isn't the sole picture-taker/memory-keeper for our family. That's quite an action shot!)

They said good night to us-

and we said good night to them from the comfort of my bed at home, where the girls were snuggled up and enjoying a late night movie and plenty of giggles.

And then we all slept!

Ah! There is nothing quite like a good night's sleep in the great outdoors!

The Beach??

The day before Laney was spayed we decided to take her to the beach! There is a beautiful lake just 10 minutes from our house that is dotted with park- and picnic spot-filled woods, so we packed up a picnic and our pup and headed out!

Looks just like summer!

Look at these cuties!!

Hey! We've been on this road before!

And we thought we were headed toward this beach-

It's a pretty good one, and we wanted to see Laney's reaction to the sand and the shore.

The road was closed to cars so we just walked down toward the water.

And then stopped. Because there was a lot of water and zero beach. Zero sand. Zero parking lot.

There has been a lot of snow and a LOT of rain in Iowa this year. The lake is so high that the beach is completely covered with just a bit of gravel from from the parking lot still peeking out, but that didn't stop the kids from dipping their toes in (it never does).

Okay, more than just their toes.

It was a beautiful night!

And there were plenty of rocks to toss into the water.

Holy scrubby pup!! She definitely enjoyed the smells and sights of the water.

And as the sun went down we headed back up the road again,

picking flowers along the way,

and feeling grateful for a beautiful world and a fun family night. Maybe we can take take Laney to the beach at the end of the summer.

Proof

Laney's big spay day was scheduled for last week, and I made big plans for the day. We were supposed to drop her off by 9 and pick her up no later than 5. A whole day without worrying about our Laney Bear! Oh, the possibilities!

We made plans to drive to an arboretum close to Daddy's work, have a picnic, and get some ice cream before swinging back around to pick her up. She definitely seemed to know something was up that morning.

And the day went nothing like planned. I dropped her off later than planned, had two piano lessons and ended up having to crank out two podcasts in the morning. It was 1:00 in the afternoon before we could even think about going anywhere, and by that point the kids were happily playing with friends and enjoying themselves at home. And they wanted their Laney Bear back, so we picked her up as soon as possible rather than as late as possible.

Her procedure went fine but she was still pretty heavily sedated when we brought her home.

There was lots of yelping interspersed with lots of napping and lots of puppy dog eyes that clearly said, "What just happened to me??".

So we spent our "one free day" just like any other day- getting things done, mostly at home, thinking about our pup, which is proof that we are definitely happy to have Laney with us for all of these regular old days of our life.

And she's nearly completely back to normal again! Back to sniffing and snacking and snoozing and snuggling and getting spoiled like she does best!

Doing Nothing

We're kicking off this summer by doing a whole lot of nothing. We've got lots of exciting plans in the coming weeks, but for now our days look a lot like this-

We found a beautiful yard on a bike ride- goldfish pond and fairies and a complete miniature train track and town. It was magical!

Summer freebies- everyone loves Chick-fil-a on a Tuesday!

Noah made a Forky!

Lots of hours at the library- they're building a bigger library in our city, which is awesome except for the sad fact that it's too far away to bike to. We love our little library and really wish they would keep this one open!

Noah loves climbing all the trees!

Just another bike ride on another beautiful day.

A blind taste test for Leah, Emma and a friend.

Adam has spent a lot of his summer so far rebuilding LEGO sets. He's had fun seeing them come together again (having to clean up his messy room afterward... not so fun).

And crafts- it makes me happy to see the kids enjoying all of the things that just aren't an option during the busier school months.

There has been popsicles and s'mores and night fires and bike rides and yard work and stack of books read and as many trips to the pool as the weather allows- Emma has a goal of going to the pool 50 times this summer, but my memory tells me we'll be doing good if we hit half that many.