Let the Activities Begin

Our first full week of summer vacation and we hit the ground running. Lydia has baseball Monday through Thursday in the morning and games will be Thursday nights starting in a couple weeks. Audrey has tee ball every Wednesday night. Lydia and Audrey have swim lessons every day before lunch. Lydia has violin on Thursday mornings. Charlie comes along for the ride because by the third child we figured out that paying $75 to go in a pool with your kid and sing, "Look Who Came to Swim Today," isn't worth it when you can just go swimming by your dang self and toss her in the water.

I LOVE keeping the girls busy. They are occupied, they fight less, they don't get out every single toy we own and leave it in the front yard, and they are EXHAUSTED by bed time. Like, their head hits the pillow and they're out.

A few things that have happened this week:

• Lydia has Coach Nick for baseball again. Lydia LOOOOOOVES Coach Nick and Coach Nick has a soft spot for Lydia too. It's a good situation.
• Jayson and I have been taking turns biking to baseball with Lydia and then going on a ride while she has her practice. Biking with a child is not easy. Unless the road is completely flat. If it's uphill, her legs hurt. If it's downhill, she's scared. But, she's getting the hang of it. I'm amazed at how far she has come this spring.
• Audrey passed Lydia in swim lessons on the second day. When it happened, Lydia was OK with it and figured she would just pass to the next level the next day. She didn't. Audrey was in the deep end learning the freaking front crawl while Lydia was bobbing with her kick board. It was humbling for her. And heartbreaking for me. I wanted to tell Audrey how amazing it was that she passed a 7 year-old and was already in level 4, but it was hard to do when the 7 year-old was Lydia. It was a good opportunity for me to talk to Lydia about many things, including: Staying positive, not worrying about others, staying focused when she's supposed to be listening, and emphasizing her strengths. She asked me in tears, "Tell me again all the things I'm better at than Audrey."
• Audrey is a fish. She would wear her swim cap and goggles all day long if we let her.
• We have a playdate tomorrow with one of Audrey's friends. His mom told me that she thinks he would die if he had to go the whole summer without seeing Audrey. We can't let that happen. This kid is awesome and I can't wait to have him over. When Audrey had her birthday party, he was super into the water, so we're planning on a lot of water play again. Audrey wants to have a lot of playdates this summer, so I'm going to try to do one every week or so. 

Summer Vacation!

The girls and I had our last day of school last week Wednesday. Jayson and I are very, very fortunate to have jobs that allow us to be home with our girls all summer. We were so excited for this summer because the girls are finally at an age where we can plan activities with very few restrictions. No diapers, no nap times, no strollers. I have a whole list of things to do stored on my computer. Here is what we have done so far.

Wednesday: After school, I went out for a beer with my coworkers. We do it every last day of school and it's a nice kick-off to the summer. When I got home, the whole family went to Orange Leaf for a fundraiser for The Scenic Shore 150.

Thursday: I had to clean the house. I have a good dose of OCD and ADD in me and I simply cannot live in a good head space when my house is messy. Once I was able to finish cleaning, I felt like summer actually started. I ended the day with a meeting for the cross country team to kick-off our summer training.

Friday: Jayson had a doctors appointment in the morning, then we made a family run to Target. We took the girls out to lunch at one of their favorite pizza places.

Saturday: Audrey had a birthday party to go to, and then we went to a party at a friend's house. They do yard olympics. I had to miss it last year with my emergency appendectomy, but this year Jayson and I won! I also ran into a former student, who was a senior my first year teaching, and is now 24, out of college, and a real person, which is weird. The girls had so much fun at the party playing with the other kids, and again, Jayson and I were reminded of how nice it was for them to be old enough to go off on their own.

Sunday: Father's Day! The art museum had free admission and the girls' favorite band, Fox and Branch was playing. They had a lot of activities for kids and we had a blast. Then we went to the Third Ward to have lunch at the Ale House. The service was terrible and the kitchen was backed up. We waited forever. Luckily, the girls were still going strong and we didn't have any meltdowns.

And today... We began Lydia's baseball season. She got her favorite coach from last year, Coach Nick, and was absolutely ecstatic. Then we began a two-week swim lesson session for Lydia and Audrey. They are the only ones in their class! So, they got a lot of attention and had a blast. They can't wait to go back tomorrow. We had planned on using a Groupon that expired today for pizza and bowling, but the place was closed. A bit of a bummer, but we were close enough to Uncle Kyle's shop to stop by for a visit, then came home to play and mow the lawn.

The girls already are slightly bronzed and exhausted every night, which is how summer is supposed to be! After weeks of getting up at 6:00am, Charlie slept past 8:00 today.

There's 104 Days of Summer Vacation (I wish)...

Today was the first official day of summer vacation. It. Was. Awesome. Not so much because of what we did, but because I got to wake up with my girls (Jayson too!), eat breakfast, lay down in the afternoon, and just BE.  Here are some highlights from the day:

It was Lydia's first day of baseball! She is not all that athletic or coordinated, so we were a bit worried, but she did great! She totally grounded some balls and threw them in the general vicinity of where she was supposed to! She did get lapped running bases. I'll take responsibility for the lack of speed. Those are my genes.

Charlie has moved up to the big-girl swings.

This was a new experiment. We are having a rummage sale in two weeks. I dumped all their toys on the futon and the took turns picking one toy to sell and one toy to keep. We got through about half of them and will continue tomorrow. I was surprised at how willing they were to get rid of some thing. In fact, there were a couple things they picked to sell that I rescued.

No, Charlie did not just run laps outside. She just woke up from her nap. It was 85 degrees outside and her bedroom is upstairs where it gets the hottest. She refuses to let us turn on a fan and insists on using a blanket. She wakes up a hot mess.

I gave the girls frozen Gogurts for their afternoon snack to hep them cool off. Audrey is a little mommy and helped Charlie by feeding her when she got to the bottom. Then she wiped Charlie's face.