Summer 2018

So I guess I'm doing seasonal posts now instead of monthly ones... oh well, still better than nothing I guess!  Since it is decidedly Fall, and nearly Winter now... here comes a taste of Summer for you! 

Our summer was jam packed full of excitement, and first up was our trip to the beach!

Lots of wave chasing!

And some wave crashing this year!

breakfast on the deck!

I love our "tradition" of heading to the beach first thing in the morning in our jammies!

Lots of sandcastles!

And we had tons of floaty fun!

And Bruce put his snorkel practice to use!  Charlie and Uncle Frank got some snorkel time in too!

Beach Babe!

heading over to the "big house" - just a few houses down the row!

The flamingo at the big house was so much fun!

beach selfie!

looking for "unicorn horns" - small auger shells were her favorites this year!

walking back from the big house, looking for shells along the way!  (That's Charlie in the distance...)

working on her beach journal

We made a trip to Ft. Pickens and brought some extra cousins with us!

getting their junior ranger badges!

All the ladies went out for lunch one afternoon and Charlie and his brother took the kids to a children's museum in Pensacola!

The Aunt Michelles hosted a glow party!  It might need to be a new tradition!

And then we went crabbing!

And we of course couldn't go to the beach without trying to take some family pictures!  (we MAY have had to bribe them with ice cream at the pier afterwards...)

We love this place!  We'll be back in 2020!

pit stop at the shell shop on our way out of town

Abby's really into puzzles lately and we worked on this souvenir puzzle together! 

July rolled around and we found ourselves buying a boat!

Princey approves!

Every summer during the entire month of July, our network of churches hosts something called "At the Movies" when our head pastor uses current popular movies to illustrate Biblical truths.  It's also fun because each church location transforms its lobby into the set of a famous movie - and this year our church campus chose Jurassic World.  During the months and weeks leading up to July, Charlie and a team of people poured hours into planning, designing, and creating everything that made this event amazing!  It was a lot of work, but so much fun - and it really forged so many new relationships!  

Bruce and Abby helping me zip tie chicken wire to a claw

the finished claw!

our family mainly worked on these pterodactyls!

the gyrosphere!

We happened to be in South Tulsa one weekend, so we checked out their Indiana Jones themed lobby!

We celebrated the Fourth of July with some good friends!

Bruce took swim lessons this summer!

As always, we had a great time attending all the wonderful events at the library for the Summer Reading Program!

And of course we donned our cow attire for Chick-Fil-A appreciation day!  There's a new location opening up in town closer to our house that we've been watching the construction on - I don't know if they'll have any grand opening festivities, but you'd better believe we'll be a part of them!

and we realized after the fact that the off-brand Sam's markers are NOT washable... and we looked like cows for two days...

We participated in the citywide garage sale again this year, and the kids hosted another lemonade stand!

each kid made around $25, so I think it was successful!

It's hard to believe it, but Bruce turned seven years old this summer!

It used to be so easy to write about how much the kids have changed from month to month - but the changes have gotten more subtle these days.  Bruce still loves legos and robots and anything to do with science, and still has an amazing imagination.  There's always a project (or five) laying around the house that he's tinkering with.  He loves to read and is getting so good at it!  Snuggling in with a book is often a favorite choice activity for him.  He loves being outside, and loves being with friends.  And he's such a good friend, too.  He is kind, thoughtful, and generous, and just an all-around interesting person to be around.  Second grade has been a little bit of an adjustment for him because the workload is heavier which leaves less time for him to do his own thing, but he's managing it will with minimal complaining.  

Because his birthday wasn't too long after our Jurassic World church build, he was all for having a Jurassic World themed birthday party!

We went peach-picking for a field trip on his actual birthday, so I made this peach pie that night to celebrate.  The shark is a reference to a section of James and the Giant Peach - one of his favorite books.  

We got to keep one of the pterodactyls from church, and after we took off the paper mache, we installed it in our garden!

Abby turned five at the end of the Summer!  

She is an amazing little girl.  Rough around the edges, no doubt, but amazing.  Abby has been a pretty hard kid to figure out - she and I are like two strong magnets.  Some days, no matter how hard I try to draw near to her, she pushes away.  And then other days, we're stuck together so tightly that nothing could pry us apart.  Those are my favorite kinds of days.  

She is working hard on making friends, but still prefers a lot of alone time.  She loves to look at books, color, play with princess barbie dolls and horses, put puzzles together, build with legos, and whatever else her spunky little creative mind dreams up for the day!  She is doing more "official" school lessons this year as a kindergartener, but still has it pretty light and spends most of her day exploring her world.  She was going to start taking horseback riding lessons this fall, but when she heard she'd have to wear pants, she decided against it.  Abby hasn't worn pants since early February!!!  Have a mentioned she's a stubborn little thing?  Instead, she opted for dance class.  And she's loving it.  

Abby finally gave up her nuk once and for all!  I'm embarrassed to admit it, but up until July she had still been regularly sleeping with it at night.  I had told myself when she turned two that I was done buying pacifiers, and that whenever the last one was lost, we'd be done... I never imagined we'd hang on to one this long...  Finally one night at bedtime it was nowhere to be found, so we had to quit cold turkey.  And let me tell you - it felt like she was detoxing from a drug addition.  It was awful - especially falling asleep the first night.  The panicked crying and writhing and moaning... it was almost too much to bear - which I know sounds ridiculous.  After about two hours of that... she finally fell asleep... and then I found the nuk...  I was tempted to offer it back to her when she woke in the middle of the night, but she didn't even ask for it - so I knew we could be done with it.  The next few nights were still hard, but nothing like that first night thankfully.  And after a week or so we were good to go!  The saddest part of it all, is that she doesn't "hold" my hair anymore - which I'm still mourning over.  When I realized one day that she didn't do it anymore, I asked her about it and she told me that she only like to hold my hair when she had her nuk, and since she doesn't have her nuk anymore, she doesn't need to hold my hair.  It makes sense, but that was such a thing for nearly five years, that I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it.        

Abby realizing her reflection is upside down in a spoon

so Abby decided to give herself a haircut one afternoon... it could have been so much worse

she's still pretty cute - I think we'll keep her

Abby wanted a Winnie-the-Pooh themed birthday party this year, which kind of morphed into a honey-themed birthday party!

making "honey" slime

I hate slime and typically outlaw it in the house - so this was a big treat for Abbs!

I don't know if I say it often enough - but these kids of mine are pretty wonderful!

they have the whole couch to sit on while watching television, but often I find them sitting like this

Bruce and Abby are pretty magnetic too, I guess.  Some days they're polar opposites, but most days they're best buds

they love playing imaginative stories together, and are such goofballs!

and they always make a great explorer team

 

We began the new school year in July, but the charter school we're a part of "officially" started in September and we got to visit Frontier City for free for the Back to School Bash!

As summer wrapped up and we got back into the swing of school, we used our charter school learning fund to sign up for a ton of activities!  Maybe too many... but it's been good so far!  Bruce is enrolled in a PE class for home school kids, and Abby started to take dance lessons.  Bruce also signed up to do another round of art classes at the art center he loved so much last year.  No more baseball for us, for awhile anyway - we opted for something we could all participate in together:  Cub Scouts!  I had mixed feelings about the change in the organization to allow girls to join, but ultimately it's been a great for our family! 

Abby is a Lion this year and Bruce is in a Wolf den.  He just earned the Bobcat badge last month and they both participated in the Rain gutter Regatta a few weeks ago.  We're meeting new people, overlapping circles with acquaintances from other groups, hanging out with old friends, and having a lot of fun together! 

We ended summer with a bang - literally!  We went with several of our besties and had a "flu shot party" at Target!  The kids don't have their well check appointments until the end of January, so when I heard that Target was offering $5 gift cards with each flu shot, and that some friends of ours planned to go there to get them - we tagged along and invited everyone to come with us.  I think we kind of surprised the pharmacy staff there, but the kids oddly had a great time, and didn't protest the shots too much.  We hit up the taco truck beforehand, and hosted a Mary Poppins movie night afterwards, after they all spent their $5 gift cards, of course.  I think we'll be doing this together every year from now on!    

 

Cheers to a great summer!  Now I need to go find my hoodie, because I'm cold (it's Fall now!) and work on our camping packing list for this weekend!