Random Summer Stuff

This post is a random collection of photos from the past few weeks - our general goings on.

First, after a year of slowly gathering documents I finally got it together and submitted an application for restored German citizenship through Granpa. Here is me and my cover letter and envelope of documents ready to be mailed.

Over the Fourth of July week-end Cecilia and the girls and Mom and Dad visited. We went the Charlotte Symphony's concert in the park. It was all patriotic music followed by a pretty impressive fireworks show. We had a 10 minute downpour before the concert started, but we covered ourselves with blankets and waited it out adn the rest of the evening was perfectly pleasant.

The visit overlapped with the final few games of the Women's World Cup, so the girls joined Miran in game watching and provided plenty of interference. They were pretending to be a full service salon that offered everything from foot and back massages to make overs and hair styling.

We also went to a fun indoor pool with slides and a lazy river (no pictures) as well as checked out the children's library. Here is Maggie posing in a book sculpture in front of the library.

Kico has been a bit lonely as there is much less activity downstairs than normal with Milada and Azra gone for the summer. We've tried to make an effort to watch shows or games downstairs in the evening as well as to take him for walks as often as we can. We've also been buying him toys to entertain himself, which he definitely enjoys, though tends to destroy very quickly.

We've signed a contract to have our house re-painted the first week of September. It desperately needs it. We are going gray, but haven't settled on a shade yet. Here are some paint samples I painted in the back. I am leaning towards the middle gray, but Miran likes the darker shade. We have a while yet to make a decision.

And finally, the garden is in full bloom, and even though he scaled way back this year, it looks like we'll have more peppers and tomatoes than we need. The extreme heat and lack of rain has made it a bigger project as Miran has to go out and really water it every other night. Sometimes I join him and have been slowly weeding around the edges - you can see the half of the front I've managed to clear out.