Summer has just been flying by. Thus far we've had times when we're just relaxing at home, which is lovely, and times when we're crazy busy doing fun stuff, which is also excellent.
The kids and i started a tournament at the beginning of the summer - the "Summer Tournament of Games." It was an excellent idea. The problem is that i keep winning all of the games. All but one. It's not even entirely on purpose. I keep accidentally winning the games of chance.
There has been a lot of reading going on - especially on Katrina's part. She's been averaging a book every 3 days this summer. There's also been quite a lot of video gaming - mostly on the part of Houston and Zane. We've taken walks and had adventures and colored and watched movies and just generally hung out. I love days when we get to stay in.
And then there are the days when we're out doing all kinds of fun stuff. This was the last summer that we had my grandparents' beach, so we headed out there a few times to enjoy it while we could. The beach itself was pretty pathetic this year, but it was still a beach that we had all to ourselves, and that is always awesome.
My brother Rick and his family visited for a week, and we saw them nearly every day to play games and hang out and go swimming and just generally have fun. They were here over the Fourth of July, and my brother Jim brought a whole bunch of fireworks to shoot off for our own private little fireworks display. And then on the 7th, we got to go up to Jim's office right downtown to watch the giant fireworks. And it was fantastic.
We went to Pittsburgh for a week. We spent the first 3 nights at our friends Brooke and Travis' house and the next 3 nights with Karen and Amiya. Seeing all of them was SO much fun. We've hardly seen Brooke and Travis for years and years because they've lived in New Zealand, so getting to actually see them for longer than an hour or two was really nice. We've been to Pittsburgh a lot, so we actually got to show them the water steps, which all of the younger kids loved. While they were playing in the water, Juanito, Katrina, Houston, Beth, and i walked down to the Mr. Roger's statue, because Beth had never seen that. We saw the Fredosaurus Rex and a gravestone shaped like Jaws and rode the incline up to see the city from above. And we all went to "Randyland," a house that an artist has decorated in his own special way.
We haven't been to Pittsburgh to spend time with Karen and Amiya in two years, and in that time, Amiya has gone from a sweet tiny baby to an adorable 2-year-old. The kids loved being able to actually play with Amiya rather than just holding her. Zane, especially, was really excited to get to see her. When we were there last, he was 9 and she was 2 months, and he hardly wanted to touch her for fear of breaking her. This time he loved getting to interact with her like crazy. It was just really, really great to get to hang out with Karen and get to know Amiya and just spend time with them.
One of the things we've been doing this summer is visiting churches in town. Back in winter, i promised the kids that when the youth programs were finished for the summer, we'd go around and check out some of the churches we always see but have never visited. So we've gone to some of our favorite churches to see - the beautiful ones that we drive by and say, "I love that church!" The kids aren't as crazy about the Catholic churches, but it really is interesting to get to experience the differences.
And that's the super-abbreviated story of our summer thus far.
