First Month of Summer!

We're settling into summer mode around here.  Each week has been a little different.  I went all crazy cleaning lady at first and we decluttered for days.        

 We had a family trip to Asheville for lacrosse and got to stay with Cheryl and see my parents and Rick too.

I have worked a ton and done a lot of planning for the next school year.  We are making progress on our summer goals... even Julia and I are getting better at our splits!

 We went through an "every day at the pool" stint for a bit. 

 We welcomed our dear friends the Bakers into town and hosted a welcome party for them.

 This week marked the first of the summer camps, with Joshua doing basketball and Julia painting.  We've had lots of friend time- playdates and sleepovers for all the big kids this week!

And this weekend, the boys are living it up in Virginia Beach for their last tournament. 

We have had our moments of bickering.  Actually more than moments.  Lots of opportunities for counseling and learning to communicate!  But overall, we are loving summer.

Coming up next month...dum, dum, dum.  It's the moment we've been talking about every hour for weeks...(or at least one of us has been talking about it):  Allie's 3rd birthday.  She is so excited about ice cream, cake, and being old enough to have two "big girl vitamins".  And then she adds in a bunch of other expectations for her birthday.  Basically if I say we aren't doing it right now, she say, "I do that on my birthday."  From eating cookies to sitting in the back seat of the car, she has BIG plans for her day.  Let's hope it doesn't disappoint!

She had her first haircut today.  I trimmed just a few tiny hairs that have always been longer than the rest.  She was so proud to sit on the edge of the bathtub like the brother do when I cut their hair.

In July we'll also be doing Allie's baptism and a big family beach trip, plus Gray has his weeklong camp in Asheville and the others have day camp as well.  I know it's going to fly!

Lacrosse, School Activities, REPEAT

That's how our last weeks went.  The boys are now in a travel league, which had a tournament at UNC the weekend before school got out plus practices. and a "play league", which just gathers to play a game and met twice the week school got out.  We were constantly packing up smelling boys and backpacks of stuff to occupy the girls that week.

During the day, there were all sorts of special events to attend and we ended up at one school or another more often than home during the day. Joshua's school does an end of year "Olympics" of all sorts of games (relays, frisbee, escape room, improv contest, American Idol, etc.).  It was complete with an opening ceremonies to rival the real deal--parade of nations (or teams with names such as "Nichol's Pickles" and "That Blue Team"), national anthem, and torch lighting.  Allie and I spent quite a bit of time hanging with Joshua's team and taking it all in.  He just really wanted me to be there...and who can say no to your nearly teenage son wanting to be with you?!

In the art room

Torch lighting

American Idol

Kona Ice truck with Joshua

Cleaning up after lunch.  Allie sat and ate with Joshua and about 8 other boys.  

Somewhere in there, I managed to tackle a project I'd been thinking of doing but dreading for years...painting our dark brown shelves, chair, and ottoman white.  Turned out to be a one afternoon/evening plus next morning project and I love the results!  The kids immediately told me they looked better brown and concurred that I had missed some spots... they clearly don't understand the distressed look.

Thursday was "Gray day".  He had his very official 5th grade graduation ceremony, which I still feel a bit cynical about because really?  He's 10.  It's elementary school.  But whatever.  At least it's not preschool graduation.  That really cracks me up.  After the ceremony they have a big party in the gym.  This year had a much different feel than last year.  I think each group of kids are just different.  These kids did a ton of beach ball playing (more like see who you can hit with the beach balls), which Gray did not tire of, and not a lot of dancing like Joshua's group.  Robyn and I managed to get the boys into the photo booth.  The last one cracks me up because Peter was yelling at Gray, "We're not doing any props!!!!!" while Gray stubbornly pulled on the llama.  So typical.  It was a fun party and a good end to the year.

The last day of school, Matt and I split forces and he attended the elementary school awards ceremonies while Allie and I supported Joshua at his awards ceremony.  By this point, Allie had been drug around to so many events, including the loooong graduation the day before in which she gave me flashbacks to our plane ride home from China, so I pulled out all the stops and let her cover herself and me with tinted sparkly lip gloss she found in my purse.  It kept her busy and quiet, so whatever!

We closed down the school year with trips to the pool and movie nights this weekend.  Sunday we also made some summer goals, which we wrote out and posted.  (I won't share them all, but Julia and I are trying to do a split by the end of summer.  Allie stretches with us and it's hilarious.  We have a LONG way to go.)  We got right to work on our goals Sunday and I was feeling good about our first real day of summer vacation today...until I got finished with work about 8:45 this morning and was thrown a reality check in the form of constantly bickering/yelling children.  I was ready to throw in the towel on summer vacation by 9:30.  Thankfully, some good chore therapy relaxed everyone and the two bickering-est kids are even planning a puppet show together.  My big check off of the day-- Allie's 2 year old photo shoot!  I started this for my mom when Joshua was 2.  I had seen professional black and white pics of the oldest grandchild Abby at 2 and thought I'd try my hand at similar poses.  Now my mom has pics of everyone but Allie so had to get hers done too.  Gosh she's cute.  Here are a few....

Anyway, I'm feeling much better now and I think we're going to make it though summer after all.  Happy Summer!