Good for a Rainy Day

Braces!

Rose got her braces today, although she's not as excited as she looks. She's going to be doing 18-24 months, but it'll be worth it. The orthodontist also said that she'll need to have four teeth pulled, so that's fun, too. I predict lots of jello, pudding, and ice cream in her future. She's also using the soreness from her braces as an excuse to get out of doing things she doesn't want to do, so it's not all bad.

Mt Trashmore

The city hired a contractor to develop hiking and biking trails on Mount Trashmore and we checked out the progress this morning... they have a lot of work left to do. Hurry up! We are impatient and summer won't last forever. It was scheduled to be finished in late June/early July, but I'm not sure if it'll be open before August unless they pick up the pace. It's just bike trails, come on!

Solstitium

as morning comes
the sun returns
climbing to its spire
it paints its familiar scrawl
upon indifferent dusty walls
i look upon it gratefully
my hopeful upturned gaze
but
today is different from the rest
i can feel it in my bones
today a ship sails across clouds
then all at once is lost
in a spectral landscape
slowly changing then suddenly gone
it leaves me guessing every dawn
perhaps it begins like this each day
and time has worn dirt onto the glass
creating a haze until one day I expect – at last
to be left here in darkness – save a miracle of sorts
and though it shouldn't matter much at all
it marks the passing of the cycles, you see
as if a signal sent for only me
across the vast sea of there and here
that separates the distances in time
my lone hourglass, this companion of mine
my sunshine

Independence Day 2018

We celebrated Independence Day in Independence, where else?? In the morning we went to the parade and saw all the usual floats and antique cars and tractors, but this Mad Max-style car caught my eye. It broke down a couple blocks into the parade route, hence the few close-ups. I expect to see steel spikes welded onto the front of it next year:

We went back to the Conrads to cool off afterwards (it was hotter than blazes all day) and brace ourselves before going back out. There wasn't as much going on that afternoon as usual, probably due to the heat. The airport wasn't doing plane rides this year due to a change in ownership, so hopefully they resume next year. Emily was blowing some pretty rad bubbles while we were cooling off:

For lunch we grilled burgers and dogs and then went back outside. Even though the heat index was 105, it actually felt comfortable once we started playing in the water:

The Pork Tornadoes played their first show in Indy, they were fun to see. It almost didn't happen due to the random rain showers that kept passing through, but then it cleared up and the temperature dropped nearly 20 degrees! 

Waiting for the fireworks show!

Happy Independence Day 2018!

Goodbye, June

June went fast! Rose graduated another level in gymnastics. She has practiced her routines diligently in the backyard almost every day and really pushes herself to improve. We weren't supposed to take pictures, but whatever:

Our camping trip with the Kell's had to be rescheduled thanks to the 101-105 heat index the last weekend of the month, so we went to Happy Joe's instead and the girls all had a sleepover. We'll try again in July.

Album cover poses! Watch out, Emily's ice cream cone will shoot ya:

The network of biking trails around CR are ever growing and I'm excited about the Mt Trashmore trails which will open in July. So far I've put well over 1,000 miles on my bike and it's still going strong. Not bad for a Target bike!

Bike Ridin'