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Me: What do all these buttons do?
Manufacturer: Here’s a helpful diagram to explain.

This just came in the mail…

Any time an envelope says Important Information, I know it must really be important. Because they wouldn’t be allowed to put that on the envelope if it wasn’t true, right?

After a few months living at home, Alex is heading back to BYU for the summer semester. He (wisely) decided that staying in Longmont wasn’t helping him “move forward” with his college and career goals, so he registered for three classes and will be starting next week.

Now that he has a car, it’s much easier for all of us– we don’t have to plan a couple of days to drive out to Utah and back. This morning he loaded everything into his car. I remember the days when everything I owned in the world fit into a single car…

He even had enough room for a passenger. And this is a Honda Civic coupe!

After everything was settled and Laralee had double-checked every last detail, he was ready to head out.

And he’s off! (He even learned to drive stick shift in the last week, so he’s rolling smoothly along without killing the clutch.)

We’ll miss having him around, of course, but I know he’ll have a good time during the summer.

Fifteen hours of daylight today! I thought the summer solstice would be an apropos time to take a few sunset photos. I biked a few miles to McIntosh Lake and waited for the sun to dip to the horizon. It was pretty cloudy, so unfortunately I couldn’t actually see much of the sun, but I managed to get a few decent shots.

I’m always a little sad to know the days will be getting shorter now, but there’s still a lot of summer ahead…

This… speaks to me. Maybe I’ll do it.

Alex and I headed out to play some ultimate today. When we arrived at the field, there were overcast skies and it was sprinkling lightly. No big deal, although sometimes it’s a little tricky playing with a slippery disc. We started our game.

Then the rain started coming down a bit harder. Still not a big deal; by that time all fifteen of us were pretty wet, but when you’re already wet it doesn’t matter if you get a little wetter, right? We played on.

Then the lightning started coming closer. We paused to count the time between the flash and the bang, to approximate the distance, and decided it was okay. Over the next few minutes, though, it became not okay. The flash-bang dropped suddenly to just a few seconds, and the skies were lighting up all around us. We called off the game and started picking up the cones. A huge bolt of lightning hit right across the street with a deafening crack of thunder. Yep, time to clear the field!

Then the hail started. While driving home, the skies opened up and the rain was coming down in sheets. Hail mixed in with it, and there were roughly quarter-size chunks of ice everywhere. It was coming down hard, too. My car was rattling and banging with the impacts. The roads were covered in ice.

With all the rain that had come down, there were rivers of water running across the roads and along the gutters. People were hitting them at full speed and splashing water 10-15 feet in the air. (People! Slow down!)

When we arrived back home, Alex and I changed out of our absolutely soaked clothes and decided to head out for some pizza. This is the view as we walked through the neighborhood to our local pizza parlor:

Yeah. That’s less than thirty minutes after the pouring hail. Crazy.

For Father’s Day, Zaque had a mug custom made for me. It says “My son kicks my butt in Munchkin”.

It’s pretty clever, and of course it only invites retaliation. On his birthday I’ll have to come up with something good.

On the afternoon of Father’s Day, he and Alex and I played some Munchkin. I trounced them both. Twice. Take that!

Occasionally I’ll find a spider in my basement office. They’re usually fairly small wolf spiders– very common around here, and completely harmless. I just squish them with a tissue and go on with my work.

A couple of nights ago, Laralee went down to my office to get something, and came screaming back upstairs. “There are so many spiders in your office!” I went down and, indeed, there were maybe four sitting quietly in various spots. Maybe the cool evening air made them come out of hiding, or maybe they come out of hiding every evening and I just don’t notice because I’m not in the basement. In any case, I squished them as usual.

Then Laralee got a spray bottle and added some essential oils to it: lavender and peppermint, I believe. She proceeded to spray the heck out of my office, hitting all of the baseboards and corners and spider hidey-holes. For good measure, she doused the rest of the basement. Imagine a bomb exploding, but instead of throwing shrapnel it throws lavender smells. It was something like that.

Now, two days later, I’m back in my office. There are no spiders. And it smells like a flowery garden. Yay lavender!

I sure do love my favorite daughter. Apparently she thinks I’m okay too, although I question that little dig at the end.

Alex is getting the hang of his new car but today he decided he might like a McLaren instead.

I’m not sure what model this is, but it’s almost certainly worth somewhere north of $200,000.

Yeah, that’s a sweet, sweet ride.