Damon Comes Home and so forth

 On July 13th the banners we got from Blue Valley North High School finally came in handy:

To his disappointment, his bags were left in Mexico City, but we didn't care--he'd made it home safe and sound. No Mexican accent, but he often forms his sentences like a Spanish speaker ("the brother of John" instead of "John's brother") and he sometimes struggles to find the right English word. 

And how did he like his basement bedroom? Lots. It reminded him of homes built by the poor in Mexico. If our house weren't so cold (he's finally given up asking us to turn off the air conditioner and wears long-sleeved shirts indoors) it would feel like he'd never left. 

In other news, Julia and her cousin Metta (not pictured) decorated her (Julia's) birthday cake:

This nearly ended in disaster. I went out to do yard work while Julia and Metta put on the finishing touches. Then they decided to make slime out of dish soap and contact solution the exact same color as the cake's modeling chocolate icing. Naturally some ended up on the cake. Fortunately, they realized their mistake before anyone ate it.

The following week we made a whirlwind trip to the mountain ranch

where we've been forbidden to dig up graves, cross the Cascade Bridge, or even put pennies on the train tracks. But not even recent bear sightings stopped Damon, Max, and Jaden (Max's friend) from sleeping out on the mountain. They built a shelter out of branches next to an aspen tree that had been used as a scratching post by something very large, which I wish I had a picture of (the shelter and the claw marks), and by golly, they slept in it all night. [Side bar: I spent too much time re-reading the 6th and 7th Harry Potter books. I wish I'd at least joined the occasional card game. I was just so book-deprived from the bedroom building that I almost couldn't help myself.]

Continuing the whirlwind journey, we then went to Saint George, Utah to have a lovely time with Jake's family and be reminded of the beauty of the red rock. The picture doesn't do it justice.

It was 109 degrees while we were there. My extraordinary 78?-year-old in-laws could sit outside in the shade and visit comfortably but I could not. I thought I was going to die and had to cut our visits short. Sorry, everyone. (Damon had a cold and I had allergies that might have been a cold so we couldn't go in their house.)