July In Numbers

Hello, hello!  It seems like it's been forever since my last post.  I decided to take a couple weeks off from my blog and just hang out with my family but I'm back and I'm excited to share how my July was.  It was one of those months were we did a lot, but most of it was in single digits so no crazy made-up numbers this month. *wink*  Let's take a look!

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6 - Items crossed off our summer bucket list.  All I have to say is thank goodness there are still technically 44 days left of summer because we didn't do very many things from our bucket list and there is still a lot left on our list.  Although the things we did do required a little more planning so I'll just use that as my excuse.

3 - Summer rainstorms played in.  One of the things my daughter wanted to include on our summer bucket list was 'playing in the rain'.  There really is something about summer rainstorms that I love and I guess my kids do too because any time it started raining, they'd run inside, grab their umbrellas and run back outside to play.

1 - Blogger friend met in real life.  Almost a year ago, I started a series called Fab 5 where I interviewed two different bloggers so you could get to know the person behind the blog.  One of the people I interviewed was Justine from Little Dove.  I loved her posts, her fun sense of humor and we even have some things in common (like meeting our husbands on blind dates).  Since that first post, Justine and I interacted with each other on posts and through Instagram and currently co-host a link party with two other bloggers called A Year of Color.  I'd like to say that we've become friends.  (Isn't it funny you can be friends with someone you've never actually met?)  Well it turns out that she made a last minute trip out here to Utah for a family party and messaged me about getting together since she'd be staying about 20 minutes from where I live.  I told her of course and we met up at the splash pad for a couple of hours and visited and got to know each other.  She is definitely one of those people that I'd choose to hang out with if we didn't live 2 states away from each other.  So now we are friends in real life. *wink*  (Go check out her blog and follow her on Instagram!) 

3 - Books read.  I am slowly getting through the books from my summer reading list.  In July I read, Stardust by Neil Gaiman, Born A Crime by Trevor Noah and The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon.  I'll hopefully be starting Still Alice by Lisa Genova soon but might have to take it back to the library before I finish.

2 - Dance camps completed.  My daughter will be going into her third year of dance this fall and her studio always does a summer dance camp.  She did a jazz camp and loved it.  It's amazing how much she's improved over the last year and I even saw improvement over her 3 day camp.  I have my son signed up for a hip hop class this fall and I wanted to see how he would do so I signed him up for the hip hop dance camp as a trial run.  He's not quite 3 1/2 but he actually did really well and I'm hoping he'll like his class this fall.

1 - Link party started.  I've had the idea in my mind for a while to start a link party for crafts and DIY projects.  (For anyone who may not know, a link party is basically a blog post where you can share links to your past projects that fit within the theme given.)  Last month, I started the Inspire My Creativity link party where myself and 12 other bloggers share our craft and DIY projects.  The theme was thrift store makeover and I was so impressed by the talent and creativity of the other co-hosts!  This month, our theme is chalk paint and we'll be sharing our projects this coming Wednesday so come back and get inspired!

5 - Birthdays celebrated.  Including in-laws, I have a total of 9 sisters.  Out of those 9, 4 of them have birthdays in July.  Plus one of my nephews had his birthday.  (It was a super hero party in case you couldn't guess.)  So it was a full month with lots of cake, ice cream and celebrating.

1 - Movie under the stars.  My parents bought one of those cool inflatable movie screens with a projector for outdoor movies and we'd been trying to plan a date that would work for everyone.  We finally made it happen and we watched the new live-action Beauty and the Beast outside under the stars.  It is one of the few times we've made the exception for our kids to stay up way past their bedtime for an experience.  Everyone had one of those big inflatable loungers to sit on and I got to snuggle with my little buddy for the whole movie.  I definitely hope this becomes a summer family tradition!

12 - Bucking broncos watched at the rodeo.  Something interesting about me is that I grew up going to rodeos almost every weekend for a few years when I was in elementary school.  My uncle and his family are big into rodeos and my grandma used to help out at the concession stand (and sneak us candy).  Oddly enough, I never really got into horseback riding, although I do enjoy it a lot.  But rodeos have always held a special place in my heart and I've been waiting until my kids were old enough to enjoy one.  This year, we got to go on Pioneer Day (a state holiday) and my kids loved it.  Their eyes were glued to the arena and they got most excited to see the bucking broncos.  (A personal favorite of mine as well.)

1 - New nephew born.  One of my sisters, whose birthday is in July and has a son whose birthday is also in July, had her third little boy born at the end of the month.  It was so fun to go see them in the hospital and it brought tears to my eyes to see my kids hold him, give him kisses and just be so sweet and gentle.

And that was July!  Of course we had lots of BBQs, watched a ton of fireworks and had an overall enjoyable month.  Here's to August being another great month!  My kids both start school at the end of the month and I'm feeling torn between being excited to have a little time to myself during a couple days of the week and not wanting them to grow up...

You can check out my other month in numbers posts below:

February Month In Numbers
March Month In Number: Orlando Edition 
April Month In Numbers
May Month In Numbers
June Month In Numbers

Thanks so much to Deena from Shoes to Shiraz for hosting this fun month in numbers link up!