The First Half of July, Except Tiny's Birthday

Jim had Friday, July 3rd off work. Ever had surf camp that week, so Friday was the last-day contest. I was very pleased that Jim got to go with me. We went early because we knew parking would be a nightmare on 4th-of-July weekend. I actually wrote about this day in my June post. This was Ever's second week of surf camp, and I described the contest and included pics in that previous post. Here are a couple more photos:

I believe on Saturday the 4th I attended a COVID-style baptism for a boy in Primary (abbreviated service attended by only a handful or two of us sitting six feet apart). I think we probably swam in Cikaneks' pool, although I don't remember. Karen Bunnell offered us sparklers because they had a ton and couldn't hold their annual 4th-of-July party because of COVID. We shared a box with Nathan and Noah, and the girls enjoyed the rest.  

Ever put our new outdoor deck furniture to use. 

Jim offered to pay the girls $15 to clean out our strawberry patch, which had been overrun by weeds. I thought that was way too generous until I saw how hard they worked. Ever and Wren spent all their spare time one day working on it and got more than halfway done. Meanwhile Tiny, who had no interest in participating in the project, peed in probably six different pairs of undies. So aggravating.

The biggers finished the strawberry patch the following day. Wrenzy fought the heat by weeding nude.

After they finished, we hit the beach. Tiny looked like the cutest little surfer girl, though I don't believe she actually ended up doing any surfing.

That afternoon we swam next door, and the girls had lots of fun being tossed into the pool by Jim. The top of Ever's swimsuit was rubbing, so she pulled it down around her waist, real modest-like.

Before bed that night, Ever said she wanted to write in her journal and grabbed a notebook. (This was unprecedented. I was never aware of any journaling before.) Wren immediately said she also wanted to write in her journal, so we found her a composition notebook to use. They went to work. 

Wrenzy's entry was really wonderful. I believe the last line, "After that we did church," was written in anticipation of the following morning. 

Here she is reading it:

For a time after that, she was obsessed with her journal. She would write in it all the time and read, reread, and reread it - to herself or anyone else who would listen. She even brought it with us to Oregon (post coming soon) and read it to Max Bennion (son of our friends Chris and Jon) while we stayed with them.