Tales from June

June is almost over, and it went by in a flurry of large events and visitors from afar and family fun. Here are some of the most memorable moments:

Funny story: Angel's been carrying around in his bag a fake cockroach that my sister gave him a long time ago, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it. It has recently dawned on him that the most perfect use for a fake cockroach is to place it on his son and wait for others, family members or strangers, to notice it and freak out.

Favorite Purchase: MaryGrace and I found blue-and-white striped circle skirts at Uniqlo on clearance, and each bought one. Later, we went back to Uniqlo, and Anna found a black-and-white gingham version of the same skirt, and bought it for herself because she loved it. After seeing all of us in our circle skirts, Mom thought she would give the circle skirt a try, and bought a bright blue one for herself. Not to be outdone, after noticing that all the other ladies had circle skirts, Sarah asked if she could get one, and picked out the bright blue one so that she could match with her mommy. It might have been much more efficient if we had just all decided to buy our skirts together rather than over the course of 4 separate visits to Uniqlo, but hey, I guess that's the power of seeing someone else wearing a gorgeous skirt.

Exercise: A big theme of Anna's visit was encouraging each other in healthy lifestyle choices and exercise! Anna and I did some of the 10 or 15 minute Robin Long Pilates videos on Youtube nearly every day, the family took frequent walks with Cyrus in the stroller, and on some evenings spent nearly an hour dancing to dance cardio videos on Youtube. It's fun to encourage each other to get stronger and build endurance!

New Experience: Living on a small island, we are literally surrounded by beaches and pathways by the water--some are nicer or more accessible than others, but we managed to visit a beach I've never been to before which was completely empty of anyone except my own family and it was so beautiful and peaceful that I irresistibly found myself running around waving my arms and shouting, "I am SO HAPPY! I LOVE THIS PLACE!"

VBS: We were livin' the VBS life for a full week of June over the short June break, quite a big project. I'd originally said that I'd step out of being involved in this VBS because I knew I'd have a 3-month-old baby at the time, but as these things usually go I ended up being put in charge of decorations and being the emcee/on-stage host for the whole week. There were a lot of really special moments throughout the week, and baby did a great job with being passed around from one person to another while I was busy in the mornings.

Favorite New Recipe: Dumplings. And sorry, but we don't really use recipes, but we decided to have a dumpling night and make three types of potsticker-style dumplings. We made one batch of more classic pork/chive/carrot filled dumplings, one batch of dumplings with an apple cinnamon filling, and then, at Angel's suggestion, we made dumplings with a "cheeseburger" filling of ground beef, onion and real cheddar, which actually turned out quite tasty. We really enjoyed dumpling night!

Favorite Photo: Currently my all-time favorite photo of Angel and Cyrus, taken this month. I'm not really sure I could explain why, just merely that it is perfect.

June was a big and busy month, and we managed to squeeze in a good amount of fun with our visiting family members. July will bring in new and big changes for our family! Looking forward to the second half of 2018!