Nathan stayed in Provo for the summer, working full time with his campus job (cybersecurity). He really enjoys his job and being around a lot of college students. He still has a couple of roommates there for the summer, although his good friend Devan isn't there for the summer. Nathan sees my sister Alison and her family occasionally since they live about an hour away. My niece Hailey, daughter of my sister Ashley, came out for a visit one week in June. Nathan did a campus tour with Hailey and one of the campus tour guides. They were chatting and found out that the tour guide served her mission in Paraguay with Jared for a little bit. Sister Dalling (in the blue shirt) said she loved Elder Simms! 😊 We were joking with Nathan that he should have got her phone number.
Weston has been doing summer running with the cross country team. I don't have a picture of him running, but I have pics with both Owen and Savannah who ran with me a few times while Weston was running with the team. We've done some 4-5 mile jogs. I'm still amazed that the kids come back to running. Neither Owen nor Savannah really enjoyed our early morning runs back when they were in elementary school, but now both of them ask me to wake them up some mornings to run with me. I think maybe it's just the social part of it they like, and it's an easy jog for them. I'm running about 9.5-10 minute miles now, so it's just an easy pace.
I've been playing volleyball on Tuesday nights at church with Owen for the past year. It's been really fun. However, the third week of June, I broke my finger while playing. It wasn't even a hard hit that did it. I was the setter at the time, and the ball just hit off my finger completely wrong. I instantly felt some pain but thought I jammed it. I even played nearly one more game until sitting it out for the night. The next few days, it didn't get any better, looked a little off, and caused pain in even trying to pull socks on. By Friday, I got it checked out and the x-ray showed that I had broken a little bone in that last joint of my finger. The next Monday, I went in to figure out the treatment plan. Luckily I didn't need surgery, but I did have to wear a splint for 2 months. The splint looks a little cheap to me. Alex said it looks like stuff he'd find in the recycle bin... I hope the splint works. It's a little daunting to me that my recovery relies on my ability to replace and wear this splint every day. I've gotten used to replacing the tape every day on my own with one hand. It's been a little frustrating not being able to do everything that I used to be able to do with 2 normally functioning hands. I didn't realize how much I needed all my fingers and joints for grip.
It didn't stop me from painting Savannah's room and my bedroom. Savannah wanted a different color in her room. The ceiling in my bedroom was peeling and needed re-painted. It had been 14 years since we had painted my bedroom, so I decided to refresh the whole room. I went from a light cream to a darker color (sage green) for my walls. Savannah went from bright turquoise to a light gray. Both of them turned out nice. We painted Savannah's room the day after she got back from girls camp. Savannah did most of the main painting while I did all the cutting in / trim work. We painted my bedroom after our San Diego trip. Savannah also did quite a bit of moving the furniture and things in and out of the room. We did this all while Alex was gone (and didn't tell him what we were doing), so it was a surprise for him when he got back. He doesn't care though - just happy that he didn't have to do any of the work!
I didn't quite finish getting everything back together in my room but I took a picture of one side of it. I did end up doing some extra work that I didn't plan on. I had planned on putting up some pictures that Alex and I had found a little while back once we got a headboard for our bed in place. However, once I painted the room a different color, the paintings didn't look as good with the new green paint color. It did look great with the yellow walls in the dining room. I decided to take down our England pictures (from 8 years ago). It wasn't an easy switch. The paint behind the pictures had faded and I could see the outline of where each frame had been. It couldn't be wiped down - it needed a paint touch-up. I headed to the garage to see if I had that paint. The can was there, with some paint in it, but it had rusted through and was completely unusable. So then I had to make a trip to Home Depot to see if they still had that same paint color. They did, and I came home with a little bit of paint to touch up that wall.
It was a lot of work, but we like the results. In between the projects, I watched a lot of World Cup soccer. The first game I watched was USA vs Paraguay. I recorded some of the pre-game ceremony for Jared. That game was 4-1, which was disappointing for Paraguay. I did root for Paraguay in this tournament, as I knew Jared would be as well. He ended up getting to watch 2 Paraguay games, with an exciting win against Germany that went to penalty kicks. I really enjoyed watching as many games as I could - some great games were played! Alex and the kids didn't enjoy giving up the TV for all the soccer games... but they allowed me to watch.
