I'm not entirely sure when my old blog broke, but i'm just going to go ahead and say that at the very least, it was before summer. And so! I'm going to just give a brief overview of some of our summer highlights, skipping over the huge trip to Colorado in July and also the Doctor Who party we just had this week, because those both deserve their own posts.
This has been the shortest, fastest summer ever. Also the coldest. It's only gotten truly hot about 5-10 days all summer, and for almost the entire summer, the lake was COLD. Like, 40 degrees. The kids swam in it a bit, but i'm too old to enjoy that kind of freezing water anymore.
For a few year now, the kids have regularly asked me, "WHEN are we going to get to fly in an airplane?" My answer has consistently been, "Um....? When you're old enough to pay for your own flight?" But at the beginning of the summer, a local small airport gave out free airplane rides to kids, so we showed up early to get in line. Turned out, the information i was given on the phone was a little wrong, so we were very early - like, an hour before they were meant to open and a couple of hours before plane rides started, BUT! We were totally first in line. The kids were completely thrilled. They all went up in the plane together, and lo, it was AWESOME. Now they're all asking me, "So when can we go in a big airplane?"
The kids had lots of things they wanted to do at the beginning of the summer, and i think we've managed to do all of the things they requested. We went to a baseball game, ate ice cream, went to lots of parks and lots of library programs, picked strawberries and blueberries, saw fireworks, had adventures, swam, went to the beach, rode bikes, and did all kinds of summery things.
Zane broke out his "Disgusting Science" kit and grew some specimens in petri dishes. I watched the bacteria grow in the four dishes with equally growing disgust, but Zane was utterly thrilled. By the time we washed them out, they were unbelievably nasty.
Katrina and i did the Color Run for the first time this year, along with Beth, Keren, Stephanie, and Beth's sister Elizabeth and her daughter Annika. We all wore tutus and got completely covered in color and it was really fun. Katrina loved it, but when we came home at about 11:00, she showered, put on pajamas, and called her day finished.
My parents got a brand new huge and awesome camper this year, so they took each family out for a turn camping in it this summer. The kids and i went with them for two nights in July, to a little campground about an hour south. It was a pretty tiny campground, and very quiet, so we pretty much had the beach and the lake and the rec room all to ourselves. They had the best raft ever, made out of an inch-thick slab of foam, and the kids spent hours and hours jumping and running and playing on it. We ate s'mores and hobo pies, because that's what you have to do when camping, and they were delicious, of course. And a great time was had by all.
The library had a thing where you could go to get a manicure or get your hair done for free, so Katrina and i got to go and have some girly time one night. It turned out that they weren't very busy, so they totally encouraged to do hair AND makeup AND nails. So we did. Katrina loves girly stuff, and i'm just not a very girly-girl most of the time, so it was fun for her to get to be really girly.
And my little brother Jim and his wife Alisha had their first baby a week and a half ago - Harrison! He's TINY and adorable. The kids each got to hold him in the hospital, and they were So! Thrilled! Juanito was all, "This is the smallest baby i've ever held!" and i was all, "He's seriously 2/3 the size of our babies." Teensy! But he's beautiful and we're all plotting how to get to hold him some more.
And we went to the zoo. This year, there's a new tiger exhibit. There used to be a tiger, years ago, but he was in a teensy little cage and it was really sad, and when he died, they didn't replace him. They've now built a big enclosure for the tigers, and everyone's all excited, because...Tigers! Tigers are cool. So we went to the zoo expecting to be excited about that, but then! There was a teensy baby monkey who was only 3 months old, and she's ADORABLE. We all squealed over how cute she was and spent a long time watching her and her family play. Successful trip to a usually pretty boring zoo! Yay!
And...i think that's the main highlights. Maybe. Except for the things i've forgotten right now.
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