Summer Recap

Last week as I was mentally preparing myself to send my baby to kindergarten, I laid in bed and thought over our summer.  When I set out last May, I had a PLAN for how our 3 months of intense togetherness would look.  In my semi-emotional state all I could see was the ways that I'd failed to provide a fun, educational, exciting or social summer.  And so I have forced myself to review our summer through pictures to get a realistic picture of how we spent our time - and to give myself a bit of credit and peace of mind.

First things first: we took THREE week-long vacations this year.  I mean, who does that?  In a way, I felt like I was constantly packing, executing or unpacking from a trip.  They were totally worth it though. 

Let's start back in May, when the kids and I attended an "end of the school year party" at Wonderwild.  Tons of kids, Chick-Fil-A, Pizza and Cookies.  It was awesome.

We also started swimming all the way back in May.  Hard to believe the water that currently feels like a bath tub was frigid back then.  I was proud when my son instinctively laid on the red bricks to warm up - just like I used to do at the "old pool."  Now we can't step on those bricks...

We finally caught some puddles (new neighborhood drains much more efficiently than the old one) for stomping.  These were actually pool overflow puddles, so this was the cleanest stomping ever.

Annabelle graduated to her big girl bed and she and I spent lots of time cuddling post nap.  We loved not having to wake her up to get Sam from school!

We completed our annual blueberry picking trip.  This year's picking was AMAZING and we scored 11.4 pounds in record time.

Sam spent a week at soccer camp - well, 1.5 hours for 5 days.  He enjoyed himself.

We played in the sprinkler a few times when we were bored with the pool.

We repeated our favorite outing: a morning at the Children's Museum followed by a picnic at "the mountain" (Hermann Park) and soccer at the top.

I put them to work a couple of times, washing the car and the jogging stroller.  They thought both were awesome.  "I get my OWN SPONGE?!"

We did our best to connect with friends who don't live near us anymore.  It was harder than I anticipated to fit our playdates in this year, and that's part of what was getting me down.  But we got a few in, and the outings were both fun and exhausting.

The kids also got to attend a few "Terrific Tuesdays" (like a one day Mother's Day Out) and Sam went to one Parents Day Out at Westwood Gymnastics. 

At the beginning of the summer we were still playing outside, but by the end we were just sick of being hot.  We started staying inside more and getting a bit more sick of being on top of each other.  These hard days at the end seemed to be all that I can remember.  I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it was a long summer, and I got quite fed up with breaking up the bickering between my two littles.  It didn't help that Sam finally quit napping in the last few months.  But we DID have fun.  We did color and read and do a few crafts.

And I do miss Sam.  Day 2.

But I also love the quiet...