After a lovely morning outside digging in the dirt, swinging, building a trellis for the peas, hanging laundry, weeding the blackberry patch (which is hard work!) and just generally enjoying the sunshine we had nice naps and quiet time then packed up and headed to the Balloon Festival. We have been now three (maybe four) years in a row and only once have we seen the balloons launch. Today was hot and sunny, with a nice gentle breeze. Apparently not good launching weather :/ We stayed for several hours. The kids played, we had dinner (if you can call it that!) and ice cream, and more playing. The balloons were supposed to launch at 6pm, but by 6:30 when they hadn’t even started setting up we decided it was time to go. Overall a nice day. We’ll try again next year to see the launch.

Eve climbing in the Kid Zone. The kids begged us to pay $5 each to play in this Kid Zone. Lex was super excited about this thing. We waited in line and finally when it was our turn he decided it was too overwhelming for him. Eve loved it and Lex opted for the free playground instead.

More climbing!

Our only balloon exposure was when we paid $1 per person to go inside a half inflated balloon. The kids loved it, once we got past the loud fan that almost kept Lex out.

This picture cracks me up.

Tomorrow Alan and I are running our first road race. Four miles! Wish me luck! :) We decided to get a babysitter for the kids so at least it won’t be four miles with a double jogger!

I wrote up a very nice summer schedule this morning. Basically just what we do every day anyway, but I want to fit in daily cleaning (these days I’m lucky to manage weekly cleaning!) and I thought it would be helpful to me and the kids to see it all in writing. Fancy, huh?

Guess what we did just after hanging up this fancy new schedule? Got dressed and headed to the playground, Home Depot, ice cream for lunch, swimming at the hotel, no naps, to heck with quiet time… basically we completely ignored the fancy new schedule. Sigh. Today was our last day with Michelle and her family, so tomorrow will be a fine day to look at the schedule. Seriously though, we had a great day. We met new friends at the playground (a woman from the Good Beginnings Board and her two daughters, almost 3yr and just 1yr). The kids immediately took to each other, walking around holding hands. It was sweet. After she left we went to HD and then I was hungry and the ice cream stand looked good… sooo….

Then we got lunch at Panera and brought it to the hotel. I was the only one who ate. The kids did this for awhile… (that’s a girl from Dylan’s class)

then we went swimming. We drug ourselves away around 3pm so Michelle could get ready for a fancy farewell dinner the hospital is holding for Carl. I didn’t have my camera handy, but the kids all gave each other such adorable hugs (Dylan even picked Eve up and swung her around) and they made plans to get together again next summer. So sweet. We are going to miss them very, very much. Someday I hope we can make our way down south to visit so many of our friends and family.

We had an interesting day today. Michelle was going to bring her kids over here for the morning while she supervised the movers and did some cleaning, but you know what they say about the best laid plans… or something like that :) Anyway, nothing went as planned. We ended up hanging out at her hotel all day, swimming in the pool, “dining” (tex-mex in take out containers) in front of the TV, making forts and playing monsters. Everyone had a blast! One of the reasons we went there is because Dylan was having so much fun he didn’t want to leave the hotel, and by the end of the afternoon my kids didn’t want to either! The last thing Lex said to me tonight is that he can’t wait to go back to the hotel tomorrow :) Michelle is closing on her house tomorrow and driving away first thing Saturday morning. We’ll go have lunch and play some more tomorrow (naps be damned when friends are moving away!) and then say our good-byes. Sob.

Fun in the pool

Fun in the fort

We had a very nice day today. The kids played together all day, super nicely, all alone. I did some organizing in the storage room and they “helped” for a few minutes, then came up with their own games. I did some cleaning upstairs while they played, then went downstairs and they kept playing. After awhile they came down and headed right into the office to start a new game. After lunch and naps (he napped today, for the first time in about two weeks!) they were right back in the office for more playing. They had some pretty complex games going on. When I eventually called them for dinner (after I snuck out for a 4+ mile run!) they said “Just a minute, we need to clean up!” Ha! They cleaned for awhile, then ate dinner, and cleaned for awhile more. Unfortunately they were sllloooooowww cleaners and it was a big mess. Check out Lex’s block cleaning strategy.

Very, very organized block clean up.

Anyway, dinner, baths and bedtime went smoothly and then Lex read bedtime stories to Eve. He read her pages from The Encyclopedia of The Human Body. He was definitely more interested than she was! As I read her a final story I watched Lex making weird faces and sticking out his tongue. He was reading a page about facial muscles :) Rosy, I think he likes the book!

Look what I found in storage today. I did some organizing in there. The funny thing is I started a wish list awhile back (so I had an answer when people ask about birthday and Christmas ideas) and last week I put “cake plate/stand” on the list. Today I removed it! This was a wedding gift and I apologize that I can’t remember who it was from. If it was you, let me know! The only problem is… it looks so sad and empty. I think it needs a cake!