Things have been quite exciting at the Carpenter's. In no particular order, here are the highlights from the past week or so.

Most importantly, the Barnet family was in town for the 4th of July weekend. They stopped by for a bit last Saturday. The past few times they've been in Reno we've been dealing with one conflict or another (usually our kids are sick), so it was particularly nice to see them.

We had a BBQ with Mike and my parents at my parent's house for the 4th of July. My contribution to the festivities was ice cream made with the new ice cream maker that Emilie recently acquired at Target. I've never made ice cream before and due to a misunderstanding between Emilie and I the process became complicated. I tried using the recipe that came with the maker, but this involved ingredients we didn't have. It also involved cooking up some kind of concoction and cooling it for several hours before finally churning and freezing it. Ultimately, the ice cream turned out okay and was completed right on time. I'll be looking for an easier way for next time...

We took the kids to see the fireworks over in Sparks. Rather than fight with traffic and crowds we ended up watching the show from the Baldini's parking lot. It actually worked out perfectly. The view was good, we listened to the audio on the radio and the babies slept in their seats. Chase was very interested for the first half of the show but then began to lose interest. At one point he tripped and skinned his knee, causing it to bleed. We cleaned it up and put a bandage on it and from then on he was far more interested in the bandage than the fireworks. Mason woke up and seemed to enjoy watching the show for a little bit. Jaxon also woke up but was so tired that he kept falling asleep while I was holding him. Chase declared that the fireworks were both "awesome" and "pretty".

I rode my bike to work a couple of days last week. I rode on Wednesday the 2nd and also on Thursday the 3rd. In addition to riding to work I also made a trip to my dad's shop, which is about another 3.7 miles. All in all I rode about 14 miles on Thursday, which may not seem like a big deal, but imagine doing it when your gut is full of an Ancho Chile BBQ Burrito from Qdoba right in the middle of the riding. I am happy to report that I lived through the experience.

My cranks have been making an obnoxious noise for the past year or two. I've never been able to pinpoint the source so on the 4th I took my bike over to High Sierra Cycling to have them check it out. It turns out my bottom bracket was loose. They fixed it up and now a major source of annoyance has been eliminated. Sadly I haven't had a good chance to ride my bike since it was fixed. Between the heat and the smoke I've abstained from riding to work.

Stay tuned to hear our tales of bird feeders! squirrels! new homes! and so much more! (not necessarily in that order)!