the river party

Uncle Shep invites us to a river party every year.  He plays in the band, there's tons of food, a pool, and the most amazing views.

The only caveat is we have to cross this bridge to get there.  It may not look scary in this picture, but this is the most terrifying bridge I have ever been on.  I start to physically sweat and wonder if we'll make it over every single time.

But once we're there, I can relax.  And this year, we discovered a tree swing in the house next door.  Best.  Invention.  Ever.

Let's just enjoy the pictures this time.

get outside

Coaxing the kids outside when it's hot is hard work.  

We were setting out early one morning to go to the park and beat the heat.  I was the last one out of the house, probably exhausted from trying to get everyone else out.  

I heard some commotion outside, and this is what I saw when I got there:

Apparently, this little lizard had been sunning on our tire.

I love this because Joaquin is normally a little scared of 'nature-y' things.  What would make him take  his shoe off and put the lizard on there?  Maybe he didn't have his shoes on yet.

We all thoroughly enjoyed him, even talked about keeping him, but decided it was best to let him go.

And this is why I keep fighting to get them outside.

**update** 

Diego and I did an internet search, and we believe it is an Eastern Fence lizard.  What do you think?

cool city pictures

We don't venture downtown often.   This always makes it so exciting when we do.  The buildings, streets, and views are always so unique, instead of the cookie cutter grass lawns,  two-story houses, and plastic playgrounds of the suburbs.

Just take this building with two giant milk jugs!

I think they are making this into apartments.

At the beginning of summer, we tried a Richmond event, Broad Appetite.  It's just a BUNCH of people walking around and eating food.  I don't know why we thought this would be fun.  Maybe I was just hungry.

We started off with icees because it was SO HOT.  Isabela just wanted to speed walk through the people to get to where we were going...which was not the point.

We briefly stopped for Carmen to slap some paint on a bus, but again, it was hot and crowded.

A windblown selfie to prove I was there.  You can also see Carmen's boo-boo on her chin from her ER trip after Joaquin whacked her with a golf club on accident.  Two stitches.

Another cool building.  I don't know when I became so interested in architecture!

Oooh and brick walls...I tried to get one of the whole family, but I ended up cropping them out for fighting and pouting. This was all that was left!  Ha!  JP is actually smiling!