The Waterstraut Waterspout: Waiting out the Heat

And, we've arrived to August. It's my birthday month, and that's cool- but it's also the worst month in Florida. Sure kids go back to school, and that'd cool. But the heat is so oppressive, the humidity is off the charts, and after weeks and weeks of 100 degree temperatures, you're just so over it. Plus, the pool isn't even refreshing at this point. The water has gotten too warm. Is it that much worse than July? Not so much, but you've been dealing with this for over a month now, so your patience for it is waning. Will it be that much better in September? Eh, the sun gets less intense- but mentally you know 'fall' is coming, and it just makes it SO much better.

Anyway, I think these pictures may be a bit out of order- but, whatever, this was weeks ago at this point, and this is just sort of one of these little 'inbetween' blogs (next up you get my Birthday extravaganza!)

Obviously, we've still been visiting my little God Kitten, Yoda. He's getting so big! FIVE whole pounds now!

We did end up going to see Barbie again- this time with our little Blue Spring family and Hayden, as a reward for Hayden doing a great job with everything while Asa and I were in Atlanta, and as a thank you to Teresa for dropping Calib off at the airport for his summer trip to Ohio (thus why Calib isn't in this picture- he wasn't here).

While we've lacked serious rain this summer (we've been waiting on afternoon summer storms that never materialize!) we do get them every once in awhile. Fire Theresa was out for a walk when she noticed a full rainbow and knocked on our door so we could see it too. If you look close, there was a double rainbow forming.

My birthday rewards starting pouring in my email at the beginning of August, and the first one I used was my free entree at First Watch. Free french toast? Yes, please! I went with the peach, inspired from our recent Georgia trip.

My mom was also going to be visiting for my birthday, and while the house was pretty clean, the garage was a disaster. In all the room swaps, a lot of stuff had just been dumped out there- so I worked my way towards giving away things, and bringing in the things I meant to bring back into the house. I grabbed all my napkins from the table out there and made them into a little valance in the kitchen, and took one of the remaining ledge shelves and hung it up for spices. I've been at a loss what to do with that kitchen wall since home school ended- and this at least makes it into something. I'm not sure it'll stay like this, but it's fine for now.

And, I added a few shelves to the opposite wall as my 'Hall of Presidents', so now it is an actual Hall!

Hayden passed another class, so we did get Taco Bell one night before Chess Club (They've since passed another class too- this kid is on a roll during his first full college term at WGU. He's already made OTP and it's all gravy from here!)

And yes, if you notice, Calib is back. Asa was kind enough to go retrieve him from the airport at 1 am on Monday when Calibs (super delayed) plane got in. He was welcomed back by the little girls at chess club drawing his likeness. Also, thank god he's back. The dogs DO NOT know what to do without him! You've got Ellie taking Phenoms bed, Etta insisting on getting up on ours, and Porkchop trying to burrow under our covers. I don't care that Calib is 23- he can never move out as long as we have these pups (also, I'd like to thank the ridiculous Tampa Bay housing market for ensuring he stays right where he is).

I take this moment to share a mushroom picture. Our neighbor, Marcus is totally into mushrooms and made a discord server about them, and then promptly invited Calib and Asa to it- even though they know nothing (and have very little interest) in mushrooms. And now, to encourage Marcus, we're all out here taking pictures of every mushroom we see. But, I was pretty proud of this one.

Guardians also came out on Disney Plus, so Hayden and I spent one whole day watching all the movies in a row. (I like the third one the best, personally. I could really take or leave the second one).

Asa has, of course, been hard at work. He's loving his new office (aka Olivia's old room), since it's super cold in there, the coldest room in the house, in fact. The dogs love hanging out with him- especially since I put that rug in there. Ellie prefers that rug to almost anywhere else in the house! Speaking of work, Asa has had this one student since almost the begining- and he has STRUGGLED. But, he never, ever gave up. I'm not naming names, because that's probably some sort of privacy thing. But, we've used this guy in our house as inspiration saying if he can pass math, anyone can (not in a bad way- just as in, if you try hard enough you CAN DO IT!) And, after years of setbacks, this guy graduated this week. We were all so excited for him! Usually, Asa has a drink in honor of graduates. But I've always said when this guy graduates, we're going out to eat to celebrate. So, we asked him his favorite food- Mediterranean- and went to Greenland Grill in his honor. Congratulations are certainly in order!

In other eating out news, we also finally tried 4 Rivers BBQ. It's good, but has nothing on the Polite Pig (except for the fact it is WAY closer to home). It does have an awesome dessert section though. We got some to go, and shared them with everyone while we watched football. Because, it's back! (Sort of, ok, pre-season doesn't really count- but whatever).

And then of course, my mom showed up for my birthday! Calib went to pick her up from the airport Thursday as a repayment for Asa getting him earlier in the week. And on Friday, after Asa got out of work, we headed out for our usual grandma Costco trip. It was glorious! She filled us back up on paper products, meat for the freezer and most importantly: BROWNIE MIX! Just in time for football season too.

Later we did go to the Market Elaine at the Groves. I wanted to see if anyone was selling Mickey Ears to see if I could get in on such things. Nothing even similar- and the market was very popular, so I'd love to try it- but I do need to get my hands on a canopy tent first. While we were there, we had to swing by Krate to go to Flipin Fries- because they have the best fries in the whole world (get the Kratewalker- you will not be sorry).

Saturday we had the long-awaited Chess Club tournament at the library. Devon and Asa ran it, while I hung out in the teen room with everyone who was done with their matches.

And, when the four rounds was over and done- Calib was the one who ended up as the winner, which I was slightly bummed about. I went through like three iterations of that medal until I finally settled for this, and Calib is the one who got it. But, it was a great tournament, everyone had lots of fun-and I think it's something the library will do again sometime.

We did swing by Total Wine one evening with mom too, and Calib insisted on buying his own alcohol, even after grandma offered. Turns out (and I had no idea) he was buying the ingredients to make me a banana cabana! If you don't know, it's my favorite Disney alcoholic drink (and the one he bought me for my 40th birthday), and he was buying everything to make it just for me for my birthday this year. He'd hate it if I told you this, but he is just so stinkin thoughtful. I mean, come on. Of course it was amazing, and it paired nicely with the macrons my mom had gotten me at Costco.

She also had gotten all kinds of little bottles of alcohol to make my dreams of a grown up pinata a reality (the bottles are all plastic, so they wouldn't break!).

And she got me a show cone maker, because I had dreams of having one of these at my party too!

A party! I had a birthday party! For real, me! Socially anxious Corinne! Ok, so here's the deal, for years I've wanted a birthday party with one of those giant inflatable slides (a popular thing here in Florida, I have no idea if it is anywhere else). Anyway, I told Dom, Nando, and the Harvison's all about my dream and they said I should totally do it. But, I said there was no way it would fit in our backyard, so Teresa offered up hers. Then when I started looking around for them to rent, I found this giant slip n slide, which I thought might be better than a slide (especially for us older people, who might not want to climb up the slide over and over again). Double lanes? Big pool at the end? SOLD. So, I booked it, partially with the money I made selling my ears. We used 'Bounce Party of Tampa' and I can not tell you how amazing they were. They came and set it up no problem, and Mike texted me it had arrived, so Asa and I went down to check it out (and see Yoda). It was more amazing than I had hoped. I was SO excited. It'd turn out to be an amazing day, but that'll be in the next blog.