Jam-Packed July

When I was trying to remember what exactly we did in July I initially thought that we hadn't done much of anything. But then I keep thinking and I remembered that even though July wasn't as fun as June it was definitely filled so full that there wasn't much time to breathe.  

We started out the month with a evening at the National's ballpark in DC. We love sporting events mostly because of the food. As you can see Natalie enjoyed a special Nationals pretzel. Not pictured - the cotton candy and ice cream that we ate before we spotted the pretzel guy walking up the stairs of our section.

On the Fourth of July we rolled out of bed super early and headed to the squadron to make a pancake breakfast for the guys who had to work on the holiday. It was way too early and we made way too many pancakes but it was fun and I'm glad Jared had the idea to do this. The ongoing refrain of the airmen that morning, "Are these free?"

This has been a summer of running for our family. Abigail has been increasing her mileage to prepare   for cross country this fall and Jared and I have been running together as we train for a half marathon in September. We're lucky enough to live near an old rail trail that has been converted to a paved walking/running/biking/not driving path that is perfect for running. It's mostly shady, nice and wide, and best of all it's flat! Abigail and I were stupid and took a run in the middle of a typically hot and muggy Maryland July day.

The biggest event in July was getting our house ready to sell and on the market. Before anyone asks, no it is not sold yet but we haven't given up hope entirely and we have people who are interested in renting if that's the path we have to take. Maybe I should have uploaded this message from our kids and had it added to our MLS listing?

Besides decluttering the biggest task we needed to accomplish to get the house ready was painting almost the entire upstairs. We had previously painted the bathroom and one of the bedrooms but the rest of the upstairs really needed the benefit of new colors and fresh paint. We also pulled all the ugly brown wooden doors off the hinges and gave them two coats of bright white paint and new door hardware. I think the doors actually took more time to complete than any of the other painting projects. Samantha was instrumental in getting those doors finished up.

Room by room we deconstructed the upstairs, pushing furniture to the center of the room to have room to maneuver and paint. The living room was a work space for almost the entire month first while we painted all the doors and finally when we painted the walls. The sad thing is that the place looks so good now. Why didn't we do this sooner? When we moved in I wasn't in love with the wall colors but I didn't hate any of it either so we just sort of lived with it. Now we can see how much better it looks and all it took was time and hard work.

I basically spent the entire month of July taping, patching, sanding, painting, and peeling tape. If I wasn't working, running, or sleeping I was painting. This sticky ball of used painter's tape was the last tape I peeled after I finished up painting the living room, hallway, and stairwell. 

Last big thing in July was Jared's reenlistment. In order to accept the assignment to England he needed to sign up for a little more time in the Air Force. They don't want to send us all the way there just to have him choose to retire a year later. So in a quick ceremony Jared took the oath of enlistment and promised to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. The last time the girls and I were present when Jared reenlisted was sixteen years ago in Hawaii and Madison and Emily were sitting in their double stroller for the ceremony! A lot has changed since then but we're still proud of Jared and his love for our country.