August 2018

The month of August was jam packed with all sorts of exciting things. Here's a glimpse into all the goings-on at the Casa de Melton.

While celebrating Laura's birthday; we introduced Aylin to the fun, spunky town of Eureka. We enjoyed poking around in shops and I thoroughly embarrassed Aylin by putting on a purple yarn wig. It was so fun, I really think I ought to go back and purchase it. We tried on all sorts of festive headgear... Aylin also enjoyed entertaining her sweet little cousin Eliza at the restaurant.


Aylin started FOURTH GRADE!!! She's Big Girl on Campus this year, and they start getting a taste for Middle School next year with having a Homeroom Teacher and a separate teacher for Literacy. She is loving it so far. 


I bought myself a paper planner for the first time since owning a smart phone. It has helped tremendously in ordering all the things that swirl around in my head. Plus it has lots of fun stickers, one can't go wrong with stickers. 


We decided to head over to Jenks, OK and visit the aquarium. We hadn't been there since Aylin was 3 or 4, so it was fun to go back and see things with our Big Kid. We saw all kinds of incredible things; a giant sea tortious, river otters, a beaver, sting rays, a giant octopus, pregnant sea horses, sharks, glowy coral, there was a super cool exhibit with electric eels where it had a speaker so you could hear the electric charges as well as a meter so you could see the voltage!



Jeff and I have both had scale victories this month; and both of us able to fit into smaller clothes that we hadn't worn in a while. Further proof that sticking to meal planning and healthy eating and exercise is finally working for both of us at the same time. It's not an easy journey, but it is so worth it. 


Little Brother decided to move to Charlotte and say Au Revoir to Bentonville, so Little Sis came to help him with driving. I had a little farewell dinner before they drove out.


Another family fun weekend was a trip over to Blanchard Springs Cavern near Mountain View, AR. I did not take an photos because it would have been hard for me to do so in the low light of the caves and o figured the website had better photos than I could take any way. So do click over and see a bit of what we went through. We went on two cave tours; the Dripstone Trail and the Discovery Trail. Both were truly magnificent. The Dripstone Trail was an easier stroll with decently lit walkways and handicap accessible. The Discovery Trail, however, was a fast paced tour up and down wet stairs with metal handrails slick with bat dung. There were a few places I had a little trouble with my vision, but between a cane* that we purchased in the gift shop, and following behind Jeff and Aylin so I could watch where they were and how they stepped I managed alright. We started out with the more easy Dripstone Trail, then headed into Mountain View for a bite of lunch and found a little BBQ joint, then headed back to Blanchard Springs Caverns to do the harder Discovery Trail. Even though it was a challenging tour I was really glad we did it. It truly is amazing to see the awesome things that happen below the surface of the earth. A few thoughts from Jeff on our trip to the caves. Once we were done with our tours of the caves we matched up with Papa Joe and Grandma Linda in Yellville for more BBQ. One can never have too much BBQ. 

*It seems to be that we've started a tradition of sorts where I intend to bring my cane somewhere and then forget it, or think "Bah, I'll be fine. I don't need it" and then realize that I'd do better with one. So at this point I now have 4 canes. My white tip blind guide cane, a wood hiking stick, and 2 metal adjustable hiking sticks. This now begs the question as to whether or not I should get an umbrella rest to store all my various canes in. Maybe even find a way to creatively label them. "Blanchard Springs Cavern Cane", "Chimney Rock, Colorado Cane", etc. 

And a few random  snippets from the month:



And so ends the exciting journeys of the Melton Clan for August!

July 2018

Here's a quick fly-by of the month of July at Casa de Melton


We had some people over on the 4th, we ate lots of food and had lots of fun catching the fireworks over the trees and lighting a few ourselves. Kids got wet, bellies got filled, and lots of words and laughs were loosed.


We had a rather exciting weekend where our landlord had new flooring installed. Of course nothing went according to plan, and so we had to be flexible. Initially it was only supposed to take 5 hours, and the flooring company was going to show up between 10-11. So that gave Jeff and I time to get up and about and have coffee then start moving as much furniture out of carpeted areas as possible. Well the flooring company showed up at 9, so we scurried about to try and get a few more things done before getting out of the way. To pass some time we decided to visit Lake Atalanta and Jeff went for a walk around the lake while I hung out with the Monkey while she played. She had a blast until she encountered a bee, which she managed to swat onto her belly and get stung. From there we got smoothies for lunch and killed some time. Then we had some cats who we were cat sitting for so we decided to head over there and give some attention to the felines. After that we headed back to the house since we were past the 5 hour mark. We came back to a lot of work still needing to be done and we were seriously doubting whether we would be able to sleep in our own beds that night. I messaged with the friend whose cats we were watching and asked if we could be weird and take showers at their house so we could go to church that evening and hope hope hope that when we came home from church they would be done with floors. Thankfully, they were done when we got home, and we were able to sleep in our own beds and the new floors look great.


We decided to check out the new Skylight theater downtown (food served at your seat in the theater!) and we watched The Incredibles 2. Great follow up to the original. And yay for boozy-milkshakes! 

Aylin and I went through my hopechest while it was temporarily not in use as the TV stand, and got out my wedding dress, along with a dress I wore to a friend's wedding, and my prom dress. Aylin had a blast trying on all the pretty dresses!


For the month of July we had both usually hot weather - and then at the end of the month had unusually cool weather. When it was hot, it was melt-yo-face hot. It's not my favorite thing. I loved the unseasonably cool weather we got briefly.


Jeff got brave and let Aylin and I style his beard. Aylin dubbed him Pippy Beard-stalkings. That one'll go down in the history books.


Aylin and I spent the day with a neighbor friend down at The Beyond exhibit at Crystal Bridges (Georgia O'Keeffe, and artists inspired by her works), it was pretty amazing although there were some interesting nudes that I had to steer the Ginger Girl away from. The few that she did catch she was rather incredulous that anyone would want to paint someone naked. It was a bit comical, actually. Aylin was drawn to the skull with antlers and decided that Papa Joe and Grandma Linda needed to see it, so we bought them a postcard of it. We also enjoyed this other one, and abstract by Kim Keever. I dubbed it The Emotional Storm. Because we've had a few of those at our house this month... 


Lastly a quick update on my weightloss journey - I ended the month at 29 pounds lost in total since January, as well as a few other fun stats. The inches lost stats are just since April, because like a goofball I didn't start with measurements like I should have. But I'll take these wins, regardless! It was also pretty fun that when we did go to the museum it was one of those cooler days I'd mentioned so I decided to go with jeans for the day. I put on a pair of skinny jeans I hadn't been able to wear all last year and ended up with skinny jeans that were a bit saggy and falling down on me some. It was a fun problem to have!


And that’s a wrap!